Deus Ex Story: Introduction

Bob Page contemplates the large grey marble hand that surrounded the hovering Earth globe.

The monument was erected at the center of a vast crimson atrium at the VersaLife lab levels. The hand dominated the spacious lab hallway by 10 meters.

The statue’s fingers were on the verge of grasping the planet like a man snatches an apple from a basket. The artistical perspective hinted enough about the domination vision toward which the Majestic 12 endeavored globally.

Glaringly presented to important visitors and initiates, the monolith subjugated the minds of MJXII staff and scientists so that they remembered what was at stake. A handful of augmented MIB agents and regular Majestic soldiers patrolled the perimeter. There was also a new experimental patrol unit circling around the sculpture.

Page smiled inwardly at the view of this new MJXII commando wonder, a super-soldier conditioned by an exoskeleton fitted with hand-driven rocket launchers and machine guns. This killing machine was originally a brainwashed and devoted MJXII adept. At some point in the initiation, the man gave up his relations to bind completely with the corporation. In return, the man never left the building and was rewarded with the latest military technology. He turned into an armored tank to guard the floor forever.

Versalife took great care of these devout super-warriors and make sure that any nonstandard adept was reformatted or terminated. Logically this was rare because the process to attain such a special level could only attract the best of the protective force and only the most fervent operatives were handpicked based on their service records.

Prototypes of superhumans moving beyond human limits. That remained the final goal. Eternity!

For decades, Page shaped his company to pinpoint the fully-fledged genetic response to fatality and injury. Defense and pharmaceutical sectors were at the junction of Versalife interests. The colossal benefits funded various classified projects to cope with scientific challenges and specific questions at macro and microbiological scales. How to create, animate, reproduce and influence nano cells to regulate beings? This was not only one exceedingly money-spinning interrogation but a critical long-term agenda.

The Universal constructor in the underneath lab level brought a partial answer. The production of nanites to synthesize the virus and the shipment of grey-death viruses worldwide did not provide credible results to control humans. The majority of the population died from the disease as expected. Nanites grew to exponential levels once they were inoculated inside the human body. Then they commenced to replicate the host’s own internal system and replaced the immune components. Reproduction was never a problem. The self-synthetized nano cells simply parasite some internal resources to spread in the body. The real challenges lied in host influence.

Interestingly, Bob preferred direct results to calamities. Human deaths were always an unsurprising contingency but the original prospect made him moody with the passing months. Even after exploiting fieldwork recollections, animal experiments, variants injection and spending billions, his genetic and immunological teams could not isolate even one patient where the nanites did not cause something else than a deadly trauma. The Grey Death stayed a 100% human slaughterer virus.

Except for the two in-house prototypes. Aquinas was also positive about this project.

The prototypes could not only withhold nanites, they both naturally but mysteriously amalgamated their immunology with nanites to expand their physical faculties. The prototype origins had been studied at exorbitant genetic echelons. Two brothers, injected with UC nanocells from their inception, capable of symbiosis between billions of synthetized nano robots and their own genome. And there were no other living beings with even a stitch of similarity on the planet.

No wonder Versalife invested 50 billion credits on each separate brothers. As long as he was not able to unlock the scientific riddle, Bob needed to make sure at least one of the prototypes remained in custody while the other served in the upmost secret operations. Obviously, time and research will expose this mystery although there were no noticeable breakthroughs ahead.

Finally, there was the elder brother, with all his super abilities, who did not live up to his overblown potential. A real source of irritation.

With former experimental units, the problem would have been addressed with a radical approach. However, it would be foolish to lose one’s cool nerves. Initiation required patience. Page spent a lengthy discussion with the Aquinas Protocol, the Versalife IA, so that he knew how to submit the brothers and force them to follow orders. Bob’s upcoming meeting with his direct subordinate will clarify the fate of the first unit should it continue to blunder critical mission opportunities.

All the work done would be wasted without his long-term chessboard strategy, patience and the vast sentience provided by Aquinas. In a contemplative mood, the technophile recalled his old progression memories to the top of supremacy ranking.

Page was the first and only trillion-technocrat executive on the planet. He was at the head of the most powerful corporate interests ever seen. As the CEO of Pages Industries (PI), Bob spearheaded a top-notch conglomerate that influenced billions of lives, generated hundreds of billions of credits worldwide and beyond in space exploration.

Page came to this position by means of hyperactive acuteness and a savvy exercising of ruthless management. He was paramount to scheme all his moves many times in advance before his main competitors could guess anything. And what he could not obtain by negotiation, “Nature” would do it for him.

Indeed, at a time when his company could not subjugate his strongest US contenders, Page managed to provoke a huge earthquake that made Southern California fall into sea with his rival’s headquarters.

This mighty deed was the result of a small geologic discovery made by his conglomerate as it started establishing deep marine base in the Pacific off the coast of California. In the underwater complex, scientists succeed to pinpoint the exact location of an unknown giant fault in the process.

All Bob had to do was to drive a mega bomb in the fault to instigate an apparent typical earth tremor. In consequence, the underground explosion initiated a violent move inside the crust beneath the coastal state. The rest now consisted of macabre statistics. The demise of the other tech business allowed PI to grasp most of the market plus certain valuable shares in alternate fields. The corporation monopoly became next to absolute.

Eventually, the US government called upon the company for support during this precise crisis. Thanks to his involvement, Page could meddle in US intern affairs in a very convenient way through the infiltration of FEMA. Examples like this one were legion. Indeed, this was one piece in the giant puzzle the businessman mogul started to assemble decades ago when he decides to become the next prominent conspirator. After all, why disregarding further opportunities when one could grab the whole pie?

His then Illuminati mentor, Morgan Everett, never accepted the idea of being sidelined by his trainee. The irony was cruel for Morgan as he had also put off his own old tutor, Lucius DeBeers. By now, both felt from complete domination to futile influential positions. Vain men with no trump cards anymore. It bears no importance dealing with them as they posed no immediate threats but at some point, their termination may be necessary.

Page’s past has been devoted to the pursuit of a promise and that prospect had recently come close to his grip as never before.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, a book he kept on his main office here in Hong Kong, the dream of eternal life could be reached by the mortal once this reward was granted by the Gods. The road since the writing of this story had been long and rough for humanity. Today, scientific and technology came together to the point of making this old fiction a reality though.

Bob Page created his fortune following a pyramid scheme, the base of the pyramid was the company, the layers above consist of his influential and paramilitary actions around the globe and the top was VersaLife, the subsidiary of Page Industries and the world leader in nanotechnology.

From a CEO perspective, nanotechnology turned out to be the golden market of the first half of this century. For an overactive and ambitious man like him, nanotech was a means to unravel the Epic fantasy. In Bob’s mind, everything was a commodity anyway: merchandises, belongings, human beings, money. As long as one could not overcome the natural arbitrary condition, humans were just stressed-out oddities debating and squabbling for peanuts.

The man who would transcend these ordinary limits will become the real enlightened one. Ethics and moral constraints had to be put aside because the seats for eternal life and complete domination could not be shared. So was Nature after all. Once the older and made-up immanent order would be overthrown, Page will eventually conceive a new paradigm for the rest of mankind.

A planet filled with submissive beings and well-organized by replicates of himself? Science could already reproduce this at small scale.

Why bothers?

With the spreading of the Grey Death, human population dwindled by 10 % in a few years and the current trend predicts the end of most of mankind for the XXII century. The old human race will be wiped out from the earth surface and leave room to the new all-powerful sentience beings. The ill-fated attempts of former conspirators to curb the earth population and grasp global control were too reliant on contingencies.

In this new scheme, there were no place for eventualities as everything has been supervised and planned by the IA protocol. Aquinas abilities alone surpassed all cumulated human IQs or the combined capabilities of Page’s enemies processing powers. The original distributed network technologies had been secretly centralized and spied on for decades.

Thanks in no small part to the previous ECHELON system. The appearances of freedom of choices, media opinions and economical associations were part of a controlled opposition. Old democracies were turned into zombies. And most of the representatives did not even tackle the global liberty takeover because they were too afraid to lose their seats.

Why bothers when one can become equivalent to a god by profiting of human insignificant ambitions?

VersaLife would turn this scheme possible by means of nanotechnology. One nanite at a time.

At the heart of downtown Hong Kong, situated at the basement level of a major skyscraper, the subsidiary of Pages Industries manufactured the Grey Death, a man-made virus pathological enough to kill a healthy human in 24 hours. The viral infection consisted of nanites, a bulk of tiny robots that contaminated the health system of any subject and provoked irreversible tissues devastations.

A vaccine existed against this plague, but it was distributed in small quantities by VersaLife. As there were no more other competitors, the firm became vital for the governments whose population were more and more plague-ridden. Besides, the company was defying any antitrust policy thanks to its secure political and economic puppets in the US and at the UN.

Opposition to Page domination was not well organized. With the cabal of old sideline Illuminati mentioned previously, one could count in a few defective and idealistic scientists, some low-ranking billionaires, scores of blind American patriotic fanatics and French pamphleteers. In fact, the most dangerous threat came from a pestilence here in Hong Kong. This threat was incarnated by a Chinese man with strong affiliation with the triads. The issue was that he commences to figure out Bob Pages plans.

Adjustments have been made though. If everything went as forecast, this Asian peril will just become the last obstacle on the path to supreme power.

Bob had to bribe all the local authorities so that the Chinese government looks the other way or didn’t take too much interest on VL activities. Unless the rest of the world, China, like the US in some degrees, constitutes one of the remaining sovereign nations.

If there were independent players in the game, whether it was countries or outside money, politic powers, the Majestic 12 plot will be hampered. The MJ12 represented the paramilitary organization that furtively prepared the total takeover of the planet. By design, what the UN was officially supporting, it was the work of MJ12. Simply put, the United Nations served as the official façade of Page paramilitary organization. In the United States, FEMA played the intermediary.

Now, Page found himself in the depth of his pinnacle building, in a secret area primarily accessible from an elevator and which gave access to a vast atrium. This basement level contained the laboratories and well-guarded installations that produced the worldwide widespread virus.

Bob Page is now being approached by his best acolyte near to the marble Statue. Just on time for the weekly face-to-face.

Skilled in gun fighting, ruthless and stolid, Walton Simons was Page’s loyal and cold disciple. Walton’s face was filled with extensive augmentations and tattoos. In comparison, the visage of Page only exhibited discreet front head augs since most of his bio modification was invisible. Indeed, Bob integrated seamless nano implants called nanites, the new technological breakthrough in human augmentation. Simons’ dark trench coat replicated the rigidities of his machinelike ambulatory in the atrium.

Once Walton comes close enough, Page starts the conversation.

“Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week. I’ve already discussed the matter with the senator.”

“I take it he was agreeable?” Simons replied.

“He didn’t really have a choice.”

“Has he been infected?”

“Oh yes, most certainly. When I mention that we could put him on the priority list for the Ambrosia vaccine, he was so willing it was almost pathetic”.

Walton altered and slowed down his tone to verbally voice his concern. “This plague — the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.”

Page answered confidently with a gaze close to insanity.

“Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they will beg us to save them.

“I’ve received reports of armed attacks on shipments. There is not enough vaccine to go around, and the underclasses are starting to get desperate”. Simons hinted.

“Of course, they are desperate. They can smell their death, and the sound they will make rattling their cage will serve as a warning to the rest.”

“Mmh. I hope you’re not underestimating the problem. The others may not go as quietly as you think — intelligence indicates they’re behind the problems in Paris.”

“A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world…But the world left them behind long ago. We are the future.” Page fervently accentuated.

“We have other problems.” Walton interjected in an effort to convey his disquiet.

“UNATCO?”

“Formed by executive order after the terrorist strike on the Statue. I have someone in place, though. I’m more concern about Savage — he’s relocated to Vandenberg.”

“Our biochem corpus is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience. And their…ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider.”

“The augmentation project?” Page’s bureaucratic protegee questioned.

“Among other things. But I must admit that I’ve been somewhat disappointed in the performance of the primary unit.” Bob confessed as the first setback in front of Simons.

But this time, it is Walton’s turn to get big on forthright claims and validate Page plans. “The secondary unit should be online soon. He’s currently undergoing preparation and will be operational within six months. My people will continue to report on his progress. If necessary, the primary unit will be terminated.”

Walton articulated the last sentence with poised and the overt pleasure to announce cast-iron certainty. Just what Bob likes to catch.

Upon Simons’ verdict, Bob Page enhanced red eyes succeeded to induce a ray of intense bliss which verged into madness.

“We’ve had to endure much, you and I, but soon there will be order again, a new age. Aquinas spoke about the mythical City on the Hill. Soon, that city will be a reality, and we will be crown its kings… Or better than kings, Gods.”