CHAPTER 1 – ALL ROADS LEAD TO PERDITION

Dallas, Texas – Upscale Hotel

***

A man of wealth and means sits at an ornate table in a high end luxurious hotel speaking into a cell phone, a malicious glint to his eyes as he closes another million dollar pharmaceutical merger.

He is blissfully unaware of the man behind him, in a black leather trench coat, a hood obscuring his face in deep shadow, a pistol with a suppressor aimed at the back of his head.

Both are frozen within the moment of moments, between a breath and sift of sand, one with the anticipation of a killer, the other, riding high upon the arrogance of wealth.

System Initializing….

***

Gideon Sho had a happy childhood with loving and supportive parents. His Father had been Japanese with a past that was never talked about. His Mother, an American with Celtic mixed heritage, copper hair, and a smile that would warm a room. Most would think it was a strange combination but any that met them, after being in their presence for a moment or two, would, if asked, say it just worked. The love and appreciation they had for each other was a palpable thing, felt, a density to it.

His Mother was Ex-Navy and that was how’d they met when she was stationed in Japan. They married, and when she got out, moved to the US. His Father never taught Gideon Japanese. He always told his son that he was American now and so his son should be raised American and speak English. His Mother worked as an IT Consultant out of the house while his Father owned three Dojos. He didn’t teach martial arts though there was a smattering of that. What he taught was weapon arts, any weapon. His Father was skilled in any weapon his hands made fists around, and made his living teaching such. And with the advent of ACS and LARP, the popularity of it was high.

He once told his son his own Father had made him learn every type of killing instrument imaginable, his philosophy being a true warrior should be able to use any and all weapons on hand. Gideon’s Father didn’t agree and said a warrior should specialize in the few weapons they felt a connection to, ones that their spirits matched the vibrations of. Needles to say, Gideon had one in his small fists by the time he could toddle along his legs and speak.

By the age of six, Gideon, with the help of his Father, had realized he felt most comfortable with a dagger in each hand, and also, to a slightly lesser degree, with the short spear. They connected to his soul as his Father would say. Gideon himself would of said, they just felt the most natural with the way his mind and body flowed. And from then on, that was what his Father focused on teaching. He did make Gideon learn how to utilize throwing knives as well. One should always have a ranged option in combat he’d told his young son, and the throwing knives were close enough skill set wise to his daggers to complement them.

On his tenth birthday, as a gift, his Father presented him with custom made versions. The two daggers were similar in design to historic parrying poignards, a mix between the French and Roman versions. Each had about a 12 inch blade, which made them the equivalent of many short swords, a wide guard to catch and stop longer blades as well as a circular metal at the center of the guard, on one side, above the grip, to stop any blade from sliding down into the user’s hand. They were originally meant to be used in the offhand with some type of long blade in the other, whether a saber, rapier or any other. Gideon though liked the ability to get in close with them. His natural speed and dexterity made it work.

The spear his Father gave him, on the other hand, was a custom made short spear, only five feet in length, discarding the length of the spear head, at least two to three feet shorter then most spears but making up for that with the increase in speed and ability to use it in much closer range comfortably then traditional spears. It was actually more in line to the bo staff in weapon arts then an actual spear.

It had a broad blade boar spear head which was edged on the sides for slashing as well as piercing, with a guard at the base of the head, to keep anything from sliding down the shaft, and to counter the almost 12 inches of metal with the additional weight of the guard, on the shorter hard lacquered wood, heavy steel rings, four of them, were crafted, in addition to the hard steel cap on the end. It also made that end of the weapon highly effective as a concussive blunt damage instrument. It was a bit heavier to shift around then the bo staff but Gideon trained with it every day from that birthday on, along with his daggers, to make it effortless and an extension of his body and spirit. His small wiry frame, green emerald eyes from his Mother, and the straight dark hair from his Father, held a determination only matched by the scary focus instilled by the years of training that only continued to expand.

Life went well for another two years, Gideon going to school and getting high marks, then spending several hours after with his Father at the Dojo, training, then off home to have dinner as a family. It was a happy life, a contented life, until Gideon hit the age of twelve and went to the Dojo to find his Father mysteriously absent, which shocked the boy. Instead, he was met by a Senior Student who solemnly escorted him to of all places, a police station. He was told by an empathetic police officer along with a social worker that there had been a horrible accident that was still being investigated. His home had burned down with both his parents inside. Gideon became a stone effigy, emotionless, not cathartic, his mind active, alert but shifting the pain, the emptiness into a space within himself that kept it a distant thing. His Father once told him there was an etheric quality to Gideon, one of intense calmness. At the time he didn’t quite understand what his Father meant but in that moment, in that place of horror and anger and hurt, the description became clear. At first the social worker thought there was something wrong with him but he assured her there wasn’t.

The next few weeks were a blur. Gideon was placed with a temporary foster family, all his parents assets sold off and the proceeds placed in a trust fund for Gideon when he turned eighteen. At that point the only family he had, was found, his Mother’s younger brother, Marcus. The pivot of eternal change shifted the trajectory of one young Gideon Sho, all things in life extracting cost.

His uncle Marcus wasn’t a bad man nor was he a good one. He worked a forklift at a warehouse during the day, and at night, drank himself into oblivion, then repeated the cycle over and over and over. Gideon and his calm intensity accepted this truth. There was a roof over his head, food in the fridge and as long as Gideon didn’t bother his Uncle over much, peace.

His Parents had been loving, supportive, created an atmosphere of tranquility. That had shifted to a pale existence, sterile, repetitive. Gideon trudged his way through life, the only mementos of memory, his custom weapons and a few photos.

When he turned eighteen, he left his trust fund alone and let it continue to accrue interest. Instead, he did what anyone in his stifled bone dry existence would do, applied, was accepted, and joined the Army. He spent four years within the military, his skill sets he’d never stopped training, even after his Father’s death, a boon that led him to, after two years, to be invited and accepted into the Army Rangers. He spent only two years within that Hallowed organization before his tour was done and he chose to not sign up for another. He was restless and wanted something else, something he had yet to find. There were certainly parts about the military he loved; travel, combat, the few occasions he’d experienced it but ultimately, he knew it wasn’t what he sought. It had made him a physical specimen though, combined with all the training of his youth. He was 6’1’ and a 185lbs of lean muscle, a weapon.

When he turned twenty three and qualified, he joined the FBI. It was different but similar enough to his military experience that he thrived. Within two years he was offered a position with the HRT (Hostage Rescue Team) in their Blue Unit. He was thrilled and for the first time, felt himself fulfilled in his line of work. This lasted another two years until an incident that would, for a second time, change the entire direction of his existence. As always, a cost to shift the paradigm of steps. Hid Father would of said ‘Great destiny requires great forging.’

The case he referenced, the one brought to their team was a heavy one. Some agents assigned to the case had been at it for three years, according to them, an investigation of a trafficking ring that had implications to world wide ties. Underage women; runaways, homeless, prostitutes, kidnapped and sold to the highest bidders around the globe, mostly rich men in third world countries who wanted a piece of the American Pie, literally. Gideon found it disgusting in all ways in which the definition of disgusting could exploit but his time abroad in the army and at home in the FBI, had inured him to a certain degree of how many depraved, need to be put in the dirt, people, there were.

The agents came to the HRT cause they had finally had a breakthrough in the case, a location, a warehouse that the information they had discovered was said to be one of the main staging areas where the women were held and shipped out from. It was what the HRT were made for. They were the special forces for domestic missions, a step above Swat. They were brought in when Swat alone wouldn’t suffice. Gideon felt a call to his spirit, what had drawn him to the HRT to begin with, save those that needed saving when no one else could.

The mission was simple in strategy. Several teams of Swat would secure the warehouse and the women while HRT would infiltrate and secure the main office, and the data in their computer systems which should give the investigating agents the evidence to find and persecute the people running the whole show and everyone involved. Gideon was excited in the sense this would be the first time as the leader of his unit. It had taken him two years to accomplish the feat and his pride was immense. He was the youngest in history to ever been given the honor.

As Gideon’s past should of informed him, nothing would ever be without a price paid. When they’d moved in and secured the office, and the evidence, putting down several mercenary, ex military, in the doing, they’d found one Senator Davis Wells sitting in a chair. Ex Military being involved in it should of given Gideon pause at that reveal. Those type of men wouldn’t work for just anyone. The Senator in question, Gideon was aware of. He was on TV all the time with fire and brimstone speeches and catering to hard liners. He was a right wing War Hawk, a Senator of the State of Texas, who according to rumor, was being groomed to run for the next presidential election.

Gideon was not authorized to look at the secured evidence but with the Senator’s presence he couldn’t keep the blistering anger and violence out of his spirit and mind. The rest of his team had moved the prisoners downstairs to the main warehouse to join the women rescued of which, there was close to fifty. Gideon stayed behind to button up the site while waiting for the higher ups to send and secure the prisoners and evidence.

He shouldn’t of, it was against protocol but couldn’t keep himself from bringing up the files on the computer. The anger and violence escalated. Not only was the Senator hip deep, he was the main backer for the entire operation through a string of shell companies, and had been for almost a decade.

Gideon couldn’t even fathom how many young women had gone through this place, and others like it; the abuse, the degradation. His mind went to thoughts of his Mother, her warm smile, always so full of love.

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His calm intensity did something it rarely did, it opened the box. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself in the warehouse with three of his own team holding onto him like wrestling a bear. Beneath him on the ground was a very bloody and battered Senator. This was the first but not last time Gideon would see what was inside himself, a hunger, a level of violence that only needed the right trigger to break the box.

He’d been reprimanded for his actions but his direct superior, the Assistant Director for the Region, understood, and gave him a light slap on the wrist, suspension for one month. She’d always had his back, from the beginning, Julia Langston, a good woman.

Several weeks after the op, he inquired about the women freed and the pursuit of the case, not something one normally did within the line of work he’d chosen but he’d made a special case on this one. His calm intensity struggled to contain the beast within as he listened to the response. He was told in no uncertain terms, the op never happened and the Senator was never there. He seethed, murderous thoughts the predominant catalyst shifting his head and barely held onto the tethers of the furnace within. Those tethers snapped a few days later, the Senator on camera, announcing his run for the Presidency, not a care in the world.

It would not stand, not on any world in which Gideon Sho still breathed. He went above Julia, to the Director of the Region himself, Julia’s Boss, a weasel of a man, a politician through and through, and raised hell, and was told in no uncertain terms, he was to let it go, and once again, it never happened. Before he knew what he was doing, the chains shattered and he had the man by the throat against his office wall, a small throwing knife in hand at his artery, a thin trickle of blood running down his neck into his pretty white collared dress shirt.

He’d always kept several on his person like his Father had taught him, along with the poignards at his low back in specialized sheaths. It took three other agents rumbling into the office to pull him off the guy and long story short, Gideon was fired and threatened that if he ever released any information to the contrary, that the op never happened or anything about Senator Wells, there would be consequences.

If they had left it at that, Gideon might of moved on, irritated, but moved on and let it drop, no matter how disgusting he found it all. But that was not what transpired. Instead, some higher ups, more then likely in cahoots with numerous wealthy individuals, and others, decided Gideon Sho knew too much to keep breathing.

One week after his termination they sent a military Black Ops unit to permanently put him into the dirt. The end result, five Black Ops specialists in the ground, and one very pissed off and vengeful half Japanese and half American man with a wide array of skills, a calm intensity holding a beast chained, on a very determined mission, to make everyone involved pay, ending with one Presidential hopeful, Senator Davis Wells.

He spent the next six months gathering intel. What tremendously helped was the trust fund he’d never touched that had accrued a couple hundred grand into it. He emptied it into disposable cash and kept moving. He tagged connections he still had in the Military and FBI and a few unsavory connections he was forced to make in other, seedier places. In addition, he kept off the radar and on the move.

What he found through his investigations was a picture of corruption that went far and wide, and for decades. It went high up into the Military, the FBI and the Private Sector. The trafficking had basically funded the Senator’s entire career and there was no way that he and his cadre didn’t also sample the wares. All of it had set a fire inside Gideon Sho that made him happy they’d tried to take his life, happy that they forced him into the hunt he was now committed to.

He would start at the bottom and work his way up. The next year and a half had him killing small time gang leaders who were the foot soldiers who perpetrated the kidnappings, then to the smaller Private Sector wealthy who were investors in the enterprise, then to a few of the FBI and Military higher ups who were a part of the circle that had made it all possible, and were instrumental in protecting the scum bag. This included the weasel Regional Director who’d fired him.

These ops were trickier. He had to take them in their homes while not hurting their families, and yes, these men had families, wives, kids. The ability to be a part of the things that were what had Gideon after them and at the same time come home and be a husband, a father, were beyond his ability to fathom. He simply did not have the DNA to make it possible. He enjoyed killing them if he was being honest with himself. To take out such bottom feeders he was doing the universe a favor.

Now not all of the people complicit were men. His last target was a woman who was the CEO of a Weapon’s Manufacturer. They had hundreds of millions tied up in the Senator’s career with the promise, once he won the presidency, he would covertly mire the US in more manufactured wars, causing their stock prices to sky rocket.

As Gideon moved up the ladder, he realized the Senator wasn’t the mastermind, couldn’t be, it was too vast, he was the face, the puppet being pulled. He would still get what was coming to him, regardless. The presidential race had begun a few months back, and the Senator was wiping the field on the Republican side, leading to an inevitable clash with the current Democratic President who was not well liked by many, including his own. Most pundits said it was a foregone conclusion Senator Davis Wells would be the next president o fthe United States. He would never allow the man to see that day.

There had been a few close calls as Gideon progressed in his mission but he was a planner and meticulous, always with multiple options and strategies and exit points. He’d also had a lifetime of training by his Father and he himself, only reinforced in the Rangers and HRT. The biggest hindrance had been in the last few months, the media picking up the story. At the moment, they didn’t know what to make of him, and either hadn’t connected the dots between the targets or were told how to spin it by people above them in the know.

They painted him as a serial killer, plain and simple. They called him the War Crow, the story of an ex military man who had gone off the rez. They even somehow had his name, which led to the facts, it was the latter of his theories, and they were being strung yanked by those who were afraid they were next on his list. He’d only had a couple more before he went after the main man. After that he would decide if he would pursue whoever was behind it all.

The next target on the ladder was the CEO and Owner of one of the largest Pharmaceutical Companies in the world, and single handily, the biggest financial supporter of the Senator’s Presidential bid, currently in the billions.

He’d been lucky in that the fool loved making six figure checks as a guest speaker at symposiums on business. Currently he was in the town Gideon himself had grown up in, to do one such, staying at a posh hotel in downtown Dallas. Waiting till night, making it to the roof, and rappelling down the few floors to the penthouse and he was in. The simplicity of it was easy, as was sliding in from the bedroom balcony without being heard. He’d left it open. The man had relied on a security team outside of his room to protect him.

And this steps the story into the now,. As Gideon was seconds away from pulling the trigger on his glock 17m into the back of the man’s head, he found himself frozen, immovable, yet still somehow aware. Then the voice in his head.

If his entire life hadn’t been so full of loss, unpredictability and violence, it might of just broken his mind. There was always a cost to everything and this was the incident that for a third time, would change the entire path of his steps. His calm intensity did it’s thing and shifted it to the box, the chains and tethers wrapped tight.

System Initializing…..Initializing……..Initializing………..Complete.

Gideon’s mind flashed, one moment, in the hotel room, finger on the trigger, the next in some gray, empty space. At least he could move but then realized his glock was gone. His hand flashed to the handles of his poignards and sighed when he realized they were still in the sheaths at his back. There was an emptiness to the space he found himself in that made him feel, regardless of which direction he stepped in, he would end up right where he was. A life time of trained senses and battle instincts had him very aware of the space around him. He sensed nothing yet still the voice was everywhere.

Welcome to all the sapient races of the three planets, Earth, Sakar and Elyria. Your three home worlds have been chosen to merge and become a part of the universal spanning entity that is the System. All of your populations have been transported to pockets of dimensional rifts while the merging of the three planets commences. Next, you are required to earn the right to be a part of the System. You will be transported to what is called the Proving. Be ready, for if you are not, your path and life shall be short indeed. Only the worthy are permitted to enjoy the power and prestige that comes within the System.

The voice shifted as if it went from some kind of prerecorded preamble to an actual living being, creature, AI, robot. He had no idea and he was currently compartmentalizing, funneling the trauma this situation should be engendering with most humans who went through it. That was something he learned on the day and weeks that followed the loss of his parents with never any explanation or understanding to what caused the fire, what prevented his parents from getting out of the flames, to in one day, lose everything and everyone that had made him happy and felt loved. To him, this didn’t even compare, wasn’t even close, and the calm intensity once more, showed its teeth, gobbling up all things that would hinder Gideon’s path into a furnace, a weapon.

Welcome Gideon Sho. I am System Assistant 107654 and you are currently one of 12,456 prospective Citizens of the System that fall under my purview. Our time in this initial assessment is short so please bare with me as I give you the basics you will need. And please, no questions. Until you have survived the first step I have zero authority to answer any query put forth. First, choose one weapon in front of you to facilitate your survival in the Proving.

Gideon was about to ask what the voice was referencing when a large stone table appeared in front of him, that had a multitude of weapons laying upon it. All of them looked simple and basic, the edges dulled and the weapons uncared for. There was a mace, a one handed war hammer, a knife, a simple saber, a bow with quiver, a crossbow, a hand axe, a small round shield, followed by a few large weapons on the end. Namely, a greatsword, a staff, a two handed axe, and a huge two handed spiked mace. He also noticed some small items he’d skipped which, well, if one played video games, which he certainly did in his downtime, looked like wands, each with different coloring. Once again, his fingers reached and felt the grips of his poignards sheathed at his back.

“Appreciate that, uhm, System Assistant, hey do you have an easier name?”

There was a pause as if contemplating not only the question, which it said, there would be none it could answer, and the actual question, which seriously was asking for it’s own name.

You surprise me Gideon Sho. You are taking this much better then I would say 99.9998 percent of the other participants I am currently interacting with. Most are either crying, threatening me or having serious mental breaks from reality. Even though that is a query, it is one that I believe is permissible. I only have the one designation though to be truthful, Frederick I have always found to be a name I resonated with.

Gideon nodded. “Freddie it is.”

Gideon, I believe you misheard me, Frederi…..

“Alright Freddie, let’s keep it moving. This whole system thing interrupted something I was in the middle of, so we ready to do this?”

There was a long pregnant pause as if he was waiting for William Shatner in the Original Star Trek to deliver his lines after staring off into space and posing to make sure the camera had a good profile before letting out each syllable like he was birthing a multitude of Gods in each uttering. Him and his Father used to watch reruns all the time when he was young, loving every second of it.

You are strange Gideon Sho but I will accept your abbreviated version of Freddie if it makes this transition into the All Knowing System, easier. Now if I may, I highly suggest you choose a weapon young sir, unless you have a death wish or are a highly skilled hand to hand combatant. Unfortunately, at this time, beyond your name, your personal records are locked to my perusal until after the Proving, so I can only assume, regardless of your calm demeanor, you are having a traumatic response to the stimuli of the Integration.

To cut time and get back to killing that jack ass he’d been about to put into the dirt, he pulled his poignards from their sheaths, slipping them up and out, then in one smooth motion, sliding them back. He assumed once he got through this Proving he’d be put back where he’d been taken from. He still wasn’t sure about the whole merging of planets thing the other voice had mentioned but he had learned long ago, to improvise, overcome, and he would finish the mission he’d started. Senator Davis Wells had an expiring shelf life. Another Captain Kirk pregnant pause later and the voice finally responded.

Prepare for the Proving Gideon Sho and I wish you well and hope you survive, If not, it was intriguing and memorable conversing with you.

“You got it Freddie, be back in a jiff.”

The stone table and weapons shifted out of reality and the gray empty space stretched for a moment, a breath, then a steel door appeared before him. With no waste of movement or intent, Gideon pulled it open and stepped through, into the dark.