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MachineVille wass the Heart and the Head of the world. Everything that happened in the world also happened in MachineVille. There wasn't, as of today, a corner of the world that didn't know of MachineVille.
And, of course, MachineVille knew all about the world.
That is, all within the current reach of human knowledge.
MachineVille might be the Heart and the Head, but it was not the whole world, though. If it had been, there would be no point to MachineVille. After all, MachineVille was created to be in charge of the rest of the world. Of its Body.
Whatever happens in MachineVille changes the face of the world.
Even the smallest events.
Harold and Nathan Ingram could be said to have founded MachineVille.
They were the ones who had discovered the Pit and its power. They were the ones who had made IFT into the most powerful business in the world, bringing all the countries, all the people together – around the wonders of the Pit.
The sheer energy the Pit gave to the world, the technological leaps – or, let's be serious, at this point it was more magic than science, even if scientists did find a logic behind it all – the discoveries about the true nature of humanity, all this had been made possible thanks to IFT.
Thanks to Nathan Ingram and Harold.
But Nathan Ingran was dead – pushed into the Pit – and Harold was just Harold, now.
Even the ones who had known him didn't remember Harold's complete name.
Harold had been Banned by the Council. He didn't officially exist anymore. He didn't even have a last name anymore, and no one could remember what it was, even if they did know he had had one.
It's logical, really. You can't remember something that doesn't exist.
Being Banned meant you didn't exist.
Harold didn't exist anymore, not since he had been Banned. Now, he was just Harold. He still had a first name – but at that point, did it even matter? It wasn't as if there was anyone left to call him by his first name.
A Banned person didn't exist, even if they did continue to live on. No ordinary human could see them, nor hear them, nor sense them. They were present, but that was it. They moved, they lived, they died like everyone else – but no one ever noticed them. People walked around them, their eyes passed over them without seeing them, and their brain didn't register any of the sounds they made.
They were still there, but they weren't.
The Pit had been found thirty years ago, by two young men: Nathan Ingram and Harold. It was a large crater, full of dark silvery liquid, similar to quicksilver in looks, and mysterious. They had found it had all the lineaments of molten metal, except it wasn't hot, but rather like some thick water, running through their fingers without burning.
The Mystery, they called it in a laugh.
The Mystery of the Pit, as it soon became, took all of their attention.
It was incredible. It generated energy on its own, amongst other things. Using it in quantity allowed them to make portals from one point of the world to another, as you'd push open a door. It wasn't quite teleportation, but it was incredible enough anyway.
In less than ten years, Harold and Nathan Ingram were the richest men in the world, and MachineVille was becoming a reality.
At the time, Nathan Ingram was still alive, and Harold still had a last name.
MachineVille wasn't exactly a city, to say the truth. IFT stood in its center, true, but that was about all, with a few neighborhoods, that truly belonged to the city. Everything else came from the portals.
IFT's tower had been built over the Pit, cutting it from external contacts. The Mystery couldn't be left into idle hands, Nathan Ingram and Harold had agreed on that fact. It could even less be left into just anyone's hands.
The rest of MachineVille was a succession of portals, opening onto all of the world's greatest cities. Washington, Beijing, Sydney, Jakarta, Paris, Alger... all the capitals of the world had their portal open in MachineVille, but not only the capitals. Florence, New York, Constantine, Osaka, Rio...
MachineVille was nothing more than the rest of the world overflowing onto a small Island in the Pacific Ocean.
It made sense for the World Council to meet in MachineVille.
Then, five years ago, it had been discovered that fresh Mystery, taken directly into the Pit, could not only be used for technology, but also on biological beings. Especially on the human body.
If – and only on the individuals with a Secret, no exception – If used on a Secretive, the miraculous metal would reveal, revive their lost nature. Not exactly as it had been, but close enough.
It had been known for decades already, that the world this humanity lived in wasn't a First World.
Almost a century ago, a scientist had discovered hidden genetical traits in random individuals, not tied either by family nor by birth place. Their research had surprisingly concluded that this world was a Second World; there was a First World they all came from, a world they had first lived in, as someone else, sometimes as something else, and the Second World they now lived in was a place of second chances for their souls.
The Secretives, as they were now called, were parahuman individuals from the First World, who had been reborn into humans this time around – because there were only humans in this world.
Or, to be exact, there had only been humans in this Second World, until Arthur Claypool accidentally discovered the effects of Mystery on a Secretive individual.
Secretives had been used by the Council long before that, of course. Because the Mystery of the Pit was new and made juggling between science and magic – was there really another way to name it? – much more easier, didn't mean nothing of the sort had been discovered before.
After all, what was the Ban, if not magic? – unexplained science, people like Harold would say; pure magic, people like Nathan Ingram would say.
Before Mystery, nothing could pull out the former attributes of a Secretive, that much was clear. But science had still managed to use them. Secretives could be tested since the very year they had been discovered. A simple DNA test, to see whether or not you were a Secretive – and if you were, a cerebral waves test to determine what category of Secretive you were.
Light – angels, some whispered, even if there wasn't a way to tell for sure. Nature – shifters and elemental users, closer to magic than any other secretives. Allegory – a concept turned human; dangerous in their own way, because completely dedicated. Voice – telepaths, empaths, seers... Night – demons, some hissed, just as they did for Light Secretives.
Not that the categories changed anything, before the discovery of the Pit.
The Tomb was the name people gave to the agency who did all the dirty work for the Council – not for the Council, really, but perhaps, also, behind the Council's back. The Tomb was, in a way, the most secret of the intelligence agencies out there. The top of the food chain.
Of course, the Tomb didn't only deal with assassinations and other distasteful tasks. But the Undertakers certainly didn't shy away from such work, should the need arise.
A Secret test was mandatory to any agent with middle to high clearance, and not only when working for the Tomb. Most agencies asked for it.
It's really important only for Undertakers, though. Because after a few years within the Tomb, a Secretive agent will be offered, if considered reliable and trustworthy, the opportunity to make use of their Secret. It had been so since the First and Second worlds had become common knowledge.
Back then, though, the Pit hadn't been discovered. Attributes from former lives couldn't yet be revived. For all that, a Secretive could still become more than a simple human.
Occult sciences could make them Heartless.
A Heartless was a weapon in itself, even more so than any other Tomb agents – also known as Undertakers. A Heartless was, theoretically, an Undertaker, since the secret to their making was kept within the Tomb – spreading it would be treason, and could only end with a death sentence – but they were also much more than that.
The issue with Banned people, the Tomb had realized later on, was that since no one could see them – no one could pay attention to them, even if they wanted to – the Banned could do pretty much whatever they wanted. They still existed, after all. Even if they had only a first name left. They could still touch, and interfere. They could see each others, too.
What had been meant as a punishment had become a great danger.
Heartless agents weren't like most people, though. The removal of their heart, the change they had undergone made them different – almost inhuman. They kept on living no matter what you did to them, short of utterly destroying their body, for one. The fact that they still felt pain was irrelevant.
They could also see and interact with the Banned.
For each Banned out there, the Tomb had at least one Heartless keeping an eye on them – killing them, should it be done.
Nathan Ingram had revealed the discovery of the effects of fresh Mystery on the human body, especially on a Secretive's nature, as soon as Harold and him had realized what could be done with it. The good as well as the bad.
The Tomb had been particularly interested in what it could mean for its Secretive agents – just as Nathan Ingram had hoped. No more Heartless could only be an improvement in his mind. He had seen enough Heartless Undertakers to say there was something twisted in their nature – even if they could still feel, like anybody else. Emotions really have nothing to do with the heart, as it is.
Except the Tomb had refused to stop making Heartless agents. Nothing proved an Awakened Secretive would be able to see a Banned, and unless Nathan Ingram had a guarantee against that, the Tomb would not stop turning Secretives into Heartless agents.
The Council had backed up the claim – someone needed to keep an eye on the Banned, and only the Heartless could do that.
So IFT and the Tomb made a deal.
Harold and Nathan Ingram made sure that IFT handed over a certain quantity of fresh Mystery, reviewed the candidate to Awaken, and one of their scientists handled the Awakening themselves. They ensured that the Tomb, and possibly other official agencies, would get their Awakened Secretives, and in exchange, no Heartless would be put through an Awakening. They had no idea what kind of monster it might produce, and they didn't want to find out – supposing the Heartless would even survive a second operation.
Someone in the Council hadn't been happy with that decision, and before long a thief was introduced into IFT. A mercenary, hired to smuggle out some fresh Mystery, with which a former IFT scientist would try to make an Awakened Heartless.
Rick Dillinger managed to get three vials of Mystery to the scientist before Nathan Ingram caught him stealing. The scientist and the power-seeking councilman disappeared with their stolen Mystery, and to get away, Rick Dillinger pushed Nathan Ingram into the Pit under Harold's eyes.
Dillinger was shot dead as he tried to cross the portal to Berlin, Germany, by a young Undertaker, Sameen Shaw, Nature Secretive, candidate to the Awakening. That was the only time Sameen Shaw and Harold ever saw each other.
Nathan Ingram's human mind fused with the core of the Mystery, despite him not being a Secretive. Harold watched most of the liquid metal rise from the Pit, shaping itself into a spherical mesh of consciousness – not Nathan anymore, no, but something else...
A machine, he realized. A machine connected to all the power devices it supplied, a machine that worked like a human mind – only, much more powerful. A machine able to predict ill intents and acts of violence.
A machine unlike any other.
The Council asked Harold to hand over the Machine, or, since it couldn't actually be moved, to let the Tomb monitor it. It was too much power for an oganization like the Tomb, Harold knew. Too much power for only one man, even. He refused.
The Machine, as if sensing his decision, shut itself out of any external sights, only communicating, from then on, through a Voice Secretive who had been Awakened to be what would have been, in another time, in another word, a prophet. Numbers, mostly, indicating an individual relevant to worldwide security – people against the Council, people against this, people against that, as well as ordinary people unwittingly key to undoing someone else's ill intents. Sometimes, another set of numbers, different.
Always relevant.
Angered at Harold's refusal to hand over the Machine, blaming him for its shut out, the Council had him Banned, with the sole comfort of not having any Heartless watching him – yet. It could still change. They made sure he knew that.
Harold's and Nathan Ingram's precautions, though, held still. IFT continued working even without the visible presence of its owner – Harold was still there, after all. He could type without a problem. He just couldn't meet anyone face to face anymore.
The Machine never opened itself to anyone.
And the numbers started coming.
Harold was alone, nameless, and invisible. The Machine gave him numbers, too, once he finished mourning his friend and his life. Irrelevant ones.
But while Harold could sneek around without a problem now – no one paid him any attention, it had to be good for something – unless a Heartless Undertaker was around, he still had a hard time preventing deaths. He simply wasn't a field operative.
Also, investigating while being unable to question anyone wasn't exactly easy.
In the lonely desert his life had become – Harold hadn't lost Nathan Ingram only, that day, but Grace Hendricks too, his fiancée, and Will Ingram, Nathan's son – he saved as many lives as he could in MachineVille, relying on anonymous e-mailed tips to the police. From time to time he crossed over to another country, to take care of an irrelevant number.
He could see everything, could go anywhere he wanted – but he didn't live in the world anymore.
Harold could have gone and sought other Banned like him, but most of them were truly unpleasant individuals. A Ban just wasn't used for trivial reasons. Harold considered himself an unfairness in the system, but certainly not an occurrence of an usual injustice.
The system wasn't perfect, he was well aware of that, but what system was?
Besides, seeking out other Banned might get the Tomb after him, more than the agency already was, and he didn't need that.
John Reese was a Heartless Undertaker, specializing in tracking down the most ruthless of the Banned, who used their punishment as a gift to commit more and more crimes unnoticed. Or, you know, the ones who couldn't bear the loneliness and became psychotic.
John Reese and Kara Stanton were a Heartless team, Light and Night categories respectively – not that it changed much of anything – working under Mark Snow, a regular Undertaker without Secret.
One day they were sent after a normal criminal – that is, as ruthless and immoral as usual, just not a Banned one – in China. There wasn't always a Banned to take out, after all, it was rare, in fact, and they had to make themselves useful.
Besides, the guy really deserved what the two Heartless had in mind for him.
John Reese had never appreciated serial killers, and he certainly did have it against a man who thought he could take out Secretives only because they were potentially different.
Things didn't go as planned.
Greer wasn't as power-hungry as some people may think. On the contrary, his goal wasn't to control the world or some meaningless foolishness of the kind. What he wanted was a better world...
And he didn't particularly care how many people he'd have to sacrifice to get there.
He had been tested years ago, and declared an Allegory Secretive. Allegories were a problem in themselves, in that should they be Awakened, they suddenly had only one goal in mind. Everything else was accessory.
The first vial stolen by Rick Dillinger had been used to Awaken Greer.
His Secret was the Allegory of Order. Everything in its place.
His better world was a world without chaos, where everyone would be at their designated place. There would be no doubt, no madness, no danger. No choice, too.
After all, why would you need to choose? You were already who and where you were meant to be.
Greer had spent two decades working for the Council, trying to bring peace and order to the world, and while some of his efforts had been successful, too many had failed. He had watched too many people die, because they weren't where they were supposed to be, because one person went against what the others stood for.
Greer wanted order and peace for his new world. But to get there, he's first need to spread the chaos. He needed soldiers to go against the system in place.
Heartless and Awakened Secretives were the best operatives one could hope for. What would an Awakened Heartless be able to do, he wondered...
Jeremy Lambert wasn't a serial killer, but John Reese and Kara Stanton realized that too late.
Jeremy Lambert was an operative, like them – though not a former Tomb agent, they could tell – who worked with the scientist who had desisted from IFT. Jeremy Lambert was working for the unnamed Council member who had gotten their hands on stolen Mystery, and if he was going after Secretives, it was because they wanted soldiers.
The scientist was trying to replicate the effects of fresh Mystery, which they had in limited quantity, with altered Mystery, more common. He wanted to be able to Awaken a Secretive's true nature.
The dead Secretives the two men had left behind them weren't a serial killer's victims, but experiments gone wrong.
And while John Reese and Kara Stanton were immensely dangerous and efficient, they hadn't exactly expected Jeremy Lambert to be aware of their presence, nor had they expected a scientist to drug them unconscious, and start experimenting on them.
It had all been a trap, they realized too late, to get two Heartless Secretives to experiment on.
To start what IFT had refused to do: Awakening a Heartless Secretive, and turning them into yet another kind of human weapon.
John Reese knew he wouldn't yield, no matter what Lambert's master wanted – even if the Tomb wasn't perfect, and he knew it, the agency was doing good... most of the time. More than that, the work people like him did, Heartless or not, was necessary. He wasn't doing it because he liked it, but because he was good at it, and he'd rather be the one doing it than someone who didn't care.
Kara Stanton knew she wouldn't cede, no matter what was promised to her – because beyond the fact that she loved her work, she also cared that, while she might not know all the reasons behind the secrets behind the pretenses, it was more or less the good fight. She was loyal to the Tomb, as long as the Tomb respected her loyalty.
John Reese broke out of Ordos two days after Kara Stanton's resolution started to waver – two days after Lambert told them that his master had someone in the Tomb, someone who had sent them after him, fully aware of what was awaiting them.
John Reese hadn't broken – but perhaps that was because there was nothing left in him to break to begin with.
He didn't know where to go. The Tomb would probably consider him compromised, after two months in the enemy's hands, and even if he could probably prove them wrong with some time, there was still the matter of the mole. He didn't have a life besides his work as an Undertaker, either, not since a long time. He didn't have a purpose.
He could pass himself off as a normal human, he guessed, as long as no one tried to check his chest for the crimson scar that said he didn't have a heart anymore, but apart from that...?
What was he supposed to do? Who was he supposed to be?
Lambert's master would probably be looking for him, and the Tomb would react if he got back onto the grid. He didn't want to go private – mercenary were rarely hired to do good, and John Reese did what he did to save as many people as possible, not for the fame or the money.
He wasn't even sure he'd survive long, not after the Awakening. No one had ever tried it on a Heartless Secretive, after all.
When in doubt, cross to MachineVille.
Sameen Shaw was given a choice, as she finished her third year working for the Tomb: Heartless, or Awakened?
The promotion meant she had been deemed trustworthy, and efficient. Had she been an Allegory, she'd have only been offered the Heartless promotion; she wasn't. She was a Nature Secretive, a wolf, the test said, and while she could appreciate the almost-invulnerability that came with being Heartless, she was curious as to what it'd be like to be able to turn into a beast at will – no full moon and weird habits even in human form to deal with, either; that was a plus.
Her teammate, Michael Cole, a Voice, had Awakened his true nature two years prior, and she had to say, he seemed way happier than the few Heartless she had met since she had started working for the Tomb. Heartless were... cold, she supposed. Hurting, too, because they did feel the pain from their wounds, even if said wounds couldn't kill them, and no one ever cared. And, more than that, they were completely silent.
Sameen Shaw figured she was bad enough at human interactions as it was. Being Awakened was probably a better option for her.
Besides, she really liked werewolves stories – as long as she didn't have to deal with the moon-induced urges on top of her own womanly cyclic issues, she didn't even care if Nature Secretives weren't immortal or superstrong even in human form, unlike some stories said.
What? A superpower had to be limited, or else there'd be no fun in taking out a bad guy.
Harold was trying to help – losing would be a better word, at this point – yet another irrelevant number, when one of his safety alerts rang on his cellphone.
He stared at the screen for a long minute before really realizing what was going on.
The video feed on the screen wasn't exactly clear, the sound was awful, and the fast motions in the scene displayed were making it all kind of blurry, but Harold recognized the face. The man defending himself against a bunch of lowlives... He looked tired, sick, even, but he was more than enough of a challenge to get the four attackers on the ground nonetheless.
And Harold had already seen that face.
There was a number of things he was certain of, right now, and just as many he wasn't sure of, at all.
What Harold knew wasn't reassuring. First, the man in the subway was John Reese, an Undertaker. Second, John Reese had been declared missing, possibly dead by the Tomb, three months prior. Third, John Reese had been Awakened, and something wasn't going well.
What Harold didn't know wasn't reassuring either. First, he had no idea whether or not John Reese was a Heartless – the fact that he had worked for the Tomb for more than a decade, and that he was a Light Secretive, implied that he was, but it wasn't as if it was written in his digital file. Second, he wasn't sure what had been driving John Reese to do what he did all these years – his psychological evaluation suggested both a psychopathic inclination and a hero complex without favoring one assessment over the other, which wasn't helping at all. Third, he didn't know if he could, or even should help the man – if the Secretive was Heartless and Awakened...
Then again, Harold did need someone to handle the numbers on the field.
MachineVille Detective Joss Carter had been tested a number of years before, when she had been assigned to the island, but as her test had revealed her to be an Allegory, she had just gone on with her life as usual. There was worse than being the Allegory of Law, she surmised, but she didn't want to become completely obsessed with it, over her son, over everything else, either.
Not that anyone would have agreed to Awaken an Allegory, anyway. The only one who had been Awakened, four years ago, had gone from friendly attorney at law to psychotic self-righteous vigilante in two months, and it had been deemed a bad idea to Awaken an Allegory Secretive.
As for becoming Heartless... The MVPD didn't need Heartless agents. Only the Tomb did.
So no, all in all, MVPD Detective Joss Carter was a normal, if good, police detective. Perhaps a bit more law-driven than anyone else, but nothing worrying. It was her job, after all, to enforce the law.
When Joss Carter saw John Reese for the first time, he had beaten up four thugs near the China portal. And he looked sick. And she had no idea who he was – Undertakers didn't exactly have their faces plastered on public walls for everyone to see.
The unknown man looked tired, but that wasn't all there was to it. His hair was completely silver-colored, almost shiny under the glow of the neon light. He was sweating profusely, and had a hard time focusing his eyesight.
One of the uniformed cop had told Joss Carter he had been bleeding from his ears and nose when they had arrived at the scene. The blood had been laced with a silvery liquid that looked a lot like Mystery.
She was really, really interested, now.
Samantha Groves would rather be called Root, but she didn't paticularly mind being called any other name, since she hadn't gone by anything less than two-hundred-and-thirty-eight aliases in the last two decades.
This time, she was Margaret Curie, a very enthusiastic would-be federal agent for the Bureau – long story short, she needed access to the Bureau's training facilities, because reasons, and obviously, the best way to get there was to be send there.
The Bureau, as it was, asked for any potential agent to undergo a Secret test, something Root hadn't ever done. It was curious, when she thought about it, considering all the things she had done in her life. She had figured she'd do a test one day or another, but in the end, it hadn't really interested her.
At least, not until IFT's discovery, the Awakening – the only thing possible to do with a Secret until then had been to become a Heartless, and thank you very much, but she wasn't interested. Besides, the Tomb would never have allowed her to become one.
Root had never really thought about what being a Secretive might mean for her, because she had always been convinced she was just a plain old human – alright, not so plain. A genius, yes, and very good at a lot of things, yes, but not a Secretive.
It turned out she was wrong.
Root stared for a time at her test results, her eyes glued to the printed words: Positive. Voice category, prophet.
Then she started considering getting Awakened, finding herself a Goddess to prophesy about, and starting a whole new life, much more interesting than the one she had now – which was pretty interesting on its own, just to be clear.
It'd ask a lot of work to craft herself an identity that would fool even the Tomb, but...
Samantha Groves, also known as Root, squinted.
John Reese felt like he was going to fall apart anytime – knowing his luck, he'd probably melt down into a puddle of blood and other liquified bodily substances. He had had enough time to study the results of his “illness”, since the Awakening, and as far as he could tell, the spells used to keep his blood running even without his heart were falling apart.
Consequence? The blood was running out, literally.
He guessed Awakening a Heartless Secretive wasn't possible, after all.
He didn't really care, as it was. Dying wasn't something he feared.
He'd just appreciate if it could be faster, and, you know, painless. If possible. He wasn't picky.
John Reese wasn't feeling well, at all. Which explained why he didn't react right away when the door was pushed open by a man with spiky yet very short hair. Which explained why he didn't notice the obvious. Which explained why he didn't catch onto the fact that no one was paying attention to the man who was certainly not a cop and yet was in a police precinct.
The man spoke, calling him by his most used name.
It suddenly jumped at his throat, the knowing feeling, the peculiar tinge of a Banned.
Harold. One of the two founders of IFT. A very private person; even if everyone knew his name – or what was left of it – very few people could tell they had actually met him before the Ban.
There was only one Banned by that name, unless another Harold had been Banned during the last three months, so the Heartless was pretty sure of the Banned's identity.
John Reese wondered idly if the Banned was going to try and murder him, when he was apparently defenseless – not a normal situation for a Heartless Undertaker. Anyone might want to give it a try, just because. Out of curiosity. Not that it mattered, anyway.
Then Harold proposed to help him.
The Pit was a crater that produced Mystery as soon as you took some out, and no one, not even Nathan Ingram and Harold, had a scientific explanation for that.
Harold led John Reese inside IFT's tower, right to the Pit, and no one paid them any attention. The Ban on Harold was strong enough to dissimulate the Heartless too, it seemed – after all, if someone noticed John Reese, they'd have to wonder to whom he was talking, and that... that wasn't possible. You just didn't notice a Banned person in any way, not unless they did something that affected you physically, and even then, it took a lot of reasoning to conclude that a Banned had been present.
Heartless, such as John Reese, could see and interact with Banned people. Following Harold down into the Pit wasn't exactly hard from there.
There was a huge, silver sphere hovering above the pit.
The Machine.
John Reese didn't say a word. Only stared.
Harold talked – to the Machine, directly. Asking if it thought that John Reese might be who he needed, to take care of the irrelevant numbers. If John Reese deserved another chance.
If he could be saved.
Harold received a text on his cellphone, and nodded thoughtfully.
It said there might be a way, but nothing was certain. It might not work. It hadn't been tried before.
MachineVille Detective Lionel Fusco was a plain old human, no Secret, no superpower. He had grown up in MachineVille, his father a worker for IFT. His mother had taught him to do good.
Perhaps he had forgotten a bit about that.
Then again, it wasn't as if there had been anyone else than a bunch of corrupt cops to have his back during the last decade. Corrupt, yes, they were. But they were his friends. And they had been there for him, when no one else had been.
Except this was getting worse by the minute, and Lionel Fusco simply didn't know what to do for it to end. It wasn't as if he could simply quit.
The night it happened, he had crossed over to New York, to take care of whoever needed to be taken care of this time. Or rather, to make sure that the evidence left behind by his friends told exactly the story they wanted it to tell.
That night, everything went sideways.
That night Lionel Fusco met John Reese. Heartless. Awakened. Light. Freaking dangerous.
The former Undertaker was dressed in black and white – grey, silver, whatever, still black and white – but was probably the most grey individual Lionel Fusco had ever met.
For half a second, maybe, Lionel Fusco saw John Reese with his power unleashed.
It scared him straight.
MachineVille was a place unlike any other, that much was certain.
What it'd mean for the world... that much remained to be seen.