Prelude II

The world slowly began to come back to its once former glory, as auxiliary power cells and grids from all over the world slowly fixed broken pieces and came back to life.

During the time many deaths and accidents were reported and accounted for, multiple accidents on the highways where vehicles of all types felt catastrophic failures at the worst possible times. The damages caused by driverless vehicles were the absolute worst as they often ended up going in the direction they had last been pointing before their systems were completely disabled. Despite the vehicle not being controlled by a computer, perpetual motion played a pivotal role in what happened next, causing many vehicles to drive into other vehicles, buildings, or factories.

Factories and assembly lines that had been in full operation saw minor damages, but most were able to be recovered with minimal activity as redundancies and resilient systems had been implemented in most of the factories, at least that was the case in the developed worlds. Many overseas factories suffered similar activities, but many were unable to accommodate for the problems caused by machinery that often didn’t meet the safety standards of the east, as such production limitations were already noted and being accounted for.

People were growing greedy with the idea of speculating on stocks. As such the world trade commission put a forty-eight hour hold on all stocks and exchanges while records were brought up, re-evaluated, and people prepared for the worst.

Despite this, many already knew the outcome of what would happen to quite a few stocks, as companies that were completely devastated by the actions of the solar flare would be unable to recover in a month, let alone a forty-eight-hour window.

This was why people who could prove they had shorted stocks before the crash were thanking their lucky stars, while others were cursing the day they trusted their investors to go in unstable business ventures.

Throughout it all, multiple accounts seemed to have just enough capital in place, with multiple puts recorded in triplicate that once the market finally opened up, the owners of said money ventures would be rolling in funds.

Oddly enough, there were at least two different profiteers that seemed to be ready to take advantage of the chaos and unreliability of records to take advantage of the chaos.

There were only two, as Elijah Cummings could only identify two people who were still able to move about and operate, creating new transactions trails where none previously existed.

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While Elijah Cummings was impressed with the ability of the second investor who used multiple dummy accounts to create a trail of transaction logs and puts, he couldn’t help but wonder how the person was able to do what they were doing.

From his knowledge, Elijah was the only person capable of doing such finite activities, yet this person was like a ghost. Their movements perfect, had it not been for the fact that Elijah himself had previously checked all the logs, and memorized the facts before they got to this point, that he would almost swear that these were legitimate transactions.

Of course, they weren’t, but if he tried to find proof of the fraudulent transactions then he would likely cause additional attention to be placed on his own shady transactions.

“Well played.” Was all Elijah could say, when he tried to find where the fraud transaction broker first began their activities, but to his surprise they did not in linear fashion. Instead, they just seemed to appear, make changes and then disappear like smoke in the cloud.

Had he not felt a direct competition against this unknown person, Elijah would have wanted to sit down and give said person a beer. But he had other things to worry about at the moment, deeper things. While he had given way to the momentary distraction of putting out puts, he knew a deeper concern loomed, one that would determine what he would do with the rest of his time here.

Pausing for a moment, Elijah mentally reached out for the doomsday weapon he had been constructing, one that would hopefully be able to disable all organo-tech processors. What he had was just a proto-type, but he felt that soon it would be ready for final production and once that happened, he would be able to release the pulsing transmitter, which would simultaneously kill all life that has steadily been infected with Bakshee electronics, and finally deliver justice for the Matriarch.

Pulling out his drawer, he pulled up the long spherical device, and just stared at it, making a final few tweaks, before the internal components of the device sparked to life.

The device itself was small, little more than the size of an egg, but what it represented was peace. Not just peace for the countless creatures of this planet that were all but destined to eventually become infected, but it also meant peace to the spirit of the Matriarch who died protecting the fleet.

While Elijah knew that he was just a bit too late with his design, he knew that at the very least he could stop the cancerous spread of Bakshee corruption on this planet.

Holding up the now completed device, Elijah just stared at it for a moment, then speaking to the device he asked. “Are you ready?”

Silence.

With that Elijah just nodded, realizing that the internal pulsing energy of the device was enough to let him know that the weapon was in fact ready.

Knock, knock.

“Mr. Cummings.” Sylvia, the handler that had been assigned to Elijah came in and without preamble asked. “The boss is wondering if the device is ready?”

Staring at the device, Elijah knew exactly what the device would be used for, it was after all why he was hired to create just such a device.

“It is,” Elijah said, then standing up he proceeded to follow Sylvia to the boss’s office, where his lifetimes worth of work would finally be able to be used effectively.

“Is that it? The mini-nuke?” Sylvia asked, gesturing to the small egg-like device within his hands.

“It is, though calling it a nuke is a bit much.” Elijah replied back.

Then just like that the two arrived at a large set of ornate doors, and Sylvia paused. Confusion, fear, and curiosity warring on her face in equal measures.

“Well, the boss will see you now.” Sylvia said, gesturing for Elijah to enter the ornate doors.

Taking a deep breath, Elijah paused to regain his calm and then entered, ready to continue the war against the Bakshee in another way.