Agent in the Dark (The Agents for Good) Read online

  Agent

  in the

  Dark

  Book Four

  of

  The Agents for Good

  Guy S. Stanton III

  Words of Action

  Copyright © 2013 by Guy S. Stanton, III.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Ordering Information:

  Agent in the Dark is currently available in the eBook format at

  Words of Action, Amazon.com, Barns&Noble.com and Smashwords.com

  Agent in the Dark is available in print from CreateSpace and Amazon.

  www.words-of-action.com my Author Website

  Agent in the Dark/ Guy S. Stanton, III. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-9910565-8-3

  Table of Contents

  Hacker

  Crazy Man

  The Beast

  Time to go a’Viking

  Tough to Swallow

  Captive

  Option B

  Healing Touch

  Jail Break

  Heartbeat

  Giving

  Jump of Faith

  Island Fun

  The Routine

  Action Begun

  The Resistance

  Savanna on Fire

  Mighty Mouse

  Past Revisited

  Blondie

  Finish It!

  Delivery

  Dedicated to all those who,

  when offered a second chance,

  decided to take it and not look back.

  Chapter One

  Hacker

  The world was in chaos. Everything known and accepted was turned on its end and stirred around by an agent of unknown origin. The world order had fallen and in its place was strife and anarchy. The event had happened virtually overnight, but the planning of it had taken years and it was still uncertain who was to blame for it.

  At first religious extremists had been blamed for the collapse of the world’s leading countries, and many smaller ones, but it soon became apparent that they were caught up in the grind like everyone else. They had been but the strings of implementation by a dark natured puppeteer, who had used them in order to wreck a greater harvest of utter destruction.

  Someone or something wished to make the world over on their own terms, to pick winners and losers. The United States was such a loser. It all came about, when a massive global EM pulse took out all of the world’s digital infrastructure. Virtually everything came to a standstill, as man’s reliance on digital technology had dictated that he incorporate it in everything he made and now almost nothing worked.

  Governments of developed nations weren’t completely taken by surprise, as they’d been expecting the occurrence of such a virtual reality attack at some point. Friend and foe relationships were dropped altogether overnight by the world’s powers at be, in one communal massive need to restore order and balance.

  Massive amounts of resources and troop deployments were expended in an effort to preserve the creations of mankind from the deprivations of man’s own moral failures.

  It was a grand effort that stretched across borders, as the world huddled together to repair itself from the mortal blow that had been dealt to it from an unseen hand. Through technological hurdles and acts of heroism on the ground world order was regained, before much lasting damage could occur and more innocent blood was spilled.

  As networks and systems came back online it was only to discover that an unbreakable Code was in control of everything and that whoever had wrote it had their own objectives and glory in mind. The world was wrestled to a standstill, as their systems were taken over by the Code that couldn’t be shut off.

  The Code was everywhere controlling everything, as in part, because during the massive global recovery all the safeguards were removed to speed up the process and the entire world had been linked. The Code took advantage of that linked status and wrote its way into every nook and cranny of the infrastructure still existing upon the face of the Earth.

  Those who resisted and fought back against the Code’s demands were punished ever so severely. The United States was such an entity. The Code controlled whether the lights came on, whether machines performed their duties, whether a million things got done. For its resistance the United States and other rebellious countries like it were plunged into a darkness they could not override or spend their way out of.

  Currency was useless, with the only value left placed in something you could eat or something by which you could use to defend yourself. What factions of the military that managed to hold together in the face of complete lack of communication soon withdrew from the cities, which had become swirling nightmares of chaos, as people bit and clawed with each other to survive on what scraps remained. People fled from the cities to rape the countryside only to be pushed back by those living in the country intent on protecting their own from destruction.

  It was a war to survive and a travesty in the making. A once proud nation torn apart by envy and the lack of charity. It was an example that the world at large heeded by freely capitulating to the Code’s requests.

  A global network was created, by which all could access the Code to receive instruction, even education from the Code’s masters. Some even began to worship the Code. The Code’s grip upon the world seemed unshakable, until two years after its rise to power a new threat to its global control emerged in the form of freelance hackers, who became known to the world and hated by the Code as, Code Breakers.

  The Code had unwittingly exposed itself by installing a global network by which all could communicate with it and be instructed. The hackers moved about upon the Code’s freely accessible network prying for secrets and ways by which to defeat it.

  The masters of the Code declared war against this new threat and went all out in their extermination efforts to destroy these upstart freedom fighters. Thousands died in the effort to protect the heroes of their time. Exorbitant bounties were placed upon their heads so that even the closest of friends betrayed the freedom hackers, as few could turn up the offers of relocation to the ultra-elite resort like communities being constructed for the Code’s most ardent supporters.

  Worldwide hackers were ripped from their communities and foully tortured, as examples to any who might be thinking of following in their steps in challenge-meant of the Code, as the law and dominant force of the new age. Still, some hackers survived and managed to chart their way through the labyrinth of the Code’s digital pathways. Their continued existence poised, as if on the edge of a knife’s blade that could cut them off at any moment. Such was the perilous life of a Code Breaker.

  New York City, (the parts still standing)

  Asia Smith glanced from one screen to the next in the abandoned apartment complex. She was farther into the Code’s network than ever before, but something wasn’t right. A door had just opened, actually a series of doors. It was almost, as if she was being funneled to a picked out destination within the Code’s mainframe.

  Time
for a game change move before she was trapped. Her fingers clicked away bringing up various sub-routine menus and backdoor pathways before her link into the mainframe was fried. The Code was on to her and that was always the challenge, beating the Code at its own game was not easy.

  The Code had an unfair advantage being on its own home turf, but she was human, which meant she could do the unexpected. She saw the gap open and she was through it with her fingers moving unbelievably fast on the dual keyboards with unerrorable accuracy.

  The Code had given her a false pathway to follow, but to do so it had to model itself off of a legit pathway. A pathway that was running parallel and representing a false shadow of itself, which meant there was connection between the two and she had just found it!

  Her screens suddenly filled with streaming data. Oh God! She hoped her devices were according all of this! The Code was fighting her in earnest now, but there was nothing it could do but try to slow her down. She chopped away at the blocks the Code threw up, as her screens continued to fill with encrypted data.

  This was a dream come true and valiantly she rose to the task ignoring the strain on her hands, eyes and brain, as she fought the Code in a desperate attempt to learn the secrets needed to destroy it.

  Something radically changed in a split second’s worth of time. The speed of the flowing data fields increased faster than the eye could see. The code wasn’t trying to block her anymore, but instead it was mass downloading in an effort to burn her devices out from the carry overload and it was working!

  Smoke curled off her screens and computer units, as the smell of burning electronics roiled into the musty air of the room. She had no more time! She yanked her storage devices free; they were so hot they burned into her hands. On an exclamation of pain she prayed that they weren’t fried and now useless.

  She had no time to check, as her screens abruptly exploded, as did her computers in a ball of electric charged fire. She was knocked backwards to the floor, as debris rained down on her. The fire went out in the suddenly dark room except for the glowing embers and wires of her trade.

  Coughing, because of the acrid smoke that filled the room, Asia crawled her way over to a broken window in order to get fresh air. Breathing easier she glanced back into the room. All of her equipment was gone. She glanced down at her burned palms at the five storage devices she’d pulled free just in time. At least she hoped so anyway.

  All the devices held the same information in regards to the Code. Surely one of the five would still work. Better yet, if two worked she could send one to a member of her fellow Code Breaker brethren and the two of them could work at deciphering the data. It was a good plan, if she could find another one of her kind. She’d have to find new equipment somehow, even though it was illegal now to possess any technology that predated the Code.

  She glanced down at the devices again. Could she really even now be holding the key to understanding and thus breaking the Code’s grip on the world? A tinkle of breaking glass echoed from down the hall, which her acute hearing picked up on instantly.

  They’d come for her!

  She wasted no time. She stuffed the devices securely in a bag, which she swung the strap of over her head and shoulder and then she jumped out the broken window, as the smoking room behind her was blown apart by gunfire.

  She fell down the face of the building the distance of one story to land on an old observation deck. She mounted the top of the railing her burned hands closing around the handles of the zip line apparatus above her head and she stifled a cry of pain, as she kicked off with both legs to go plunging downward toward the street on the old electric line that the makeshift zip line apparatus was attached to. This was her back way out of her hideout.

  Bullets zinged by all around her and some intrepid or just plain desperate souls tried to follow her by looping their belts over the old electric line. As Asia’s feet slammed into the sidewalk her hands were already digging through the refuse pulling out a pair of bolt cutters. She spread the jaws wide and jammed them around the heavy line and with a grunting heave of her small frame she snapped the line off.

  The cut line snaked backward across the street under the weight of the following men, who now hurtled down the loose wire to smack deadingly off the street moments later. Asia didn’t stay around for the finale though.

  She ducked into a refuse strewn side alley just as a hand snaked out from the darkness to grip her by the upper arm.

  A tall black man stepped forward with a speculative look in his eye, “Someone wants you bad little girl and I’m ah thinking that they’ll be ah willing to pay for the pleasure of whatever they plan on doing to yah.”

  The man’s other hand came out of the dark clutching at a bat that he clearly intended to bludgeon her unconscious with. Asia, using her captured arm as a fulcrum lever, pivoted so that she swung around and drove her free fist into the man’s throat crushing his Adam’s apple before the swing of the bat could even get started.

  The man dropped the bat and let loose of her to clutch at his throat making every effort to gasp for air. Asia picked up the bat and swung hard shattering the man’s skull. She had no mercy for those who sold others for their own gain. It was an all too common occurrence in the city anymore. Yet one more latent sin of mankind brought further out into the open and laid bare because of the Code.

  Asia hated the Code, which is why she had lived her life in constant peril these last two years. She’d break the Code or die trying, as so many already had. She disappeared down the dark alleyway, becoming nothing but a shadow, as missiles rained down from the sky leveling the entire block behind her. The missiles were too late though.

  Asia made her way silently through the darkened streets. Curiosity got the best of her and she made her way towards Times Square, where the Code Center had been set up. It was one of the only areas of the city that was lit up at night.

  Stepping close enough to see, she watched the big screens continually flash an alert. The screens had a picture of her from college, with her real name emblazoned beneath it. Wanted dead or alive. The reward was what everyone left in the city dreamed of, a ticket out of here to one of the new resort cities being constructed on the African plains.

  Even now, people still gathered on the streets anxious to glean what new directive the Code demanded of them, were searching each other’s faces in hopes of being the first one to spot the enemy of the new world order. Asia Smith, as she now called herself, faded back into the shadows and was gone from the scene of her own sudden notoriety.

  Chapter Two

  Crazy Man

  The cold winds blew the scent of my prey to me. He’d taken the bait and I felt a thrill of adrenaline at the knowing of it. Today, at least, would have some challenge to it.

  I waited a moment longer before standing up from my concealment directly in the path of the adult male Kodiak bear. It reared up on its hind legs with a roar of challenge at my sudden unexpected appearance. I laughed, as the thrill of danger swept through me and I chucked the spear in my hand hard at the bear.

  I could’ve killed it with a well aimed throw, but I didn’t want the excitement to be over so soon. The spear lodged deeply into the bear’s shoulder and its roar turned to a rageful blast, even as a hate filled wrath entered the bear’s eyes.

  “Well come on big boy! Give it your best shot!” I yelled out in defiance at it.

  I ducked off to the side, as the bear lunged forward. I took off down the path running easily letting my stride widen out. I could feel the bear closing in on me from behind. I ducked off to the side of the trail suddenly and the bear, in an effort to halt its rolling bulk and follow down the divergent path I had taken, smashed sideways into a tree and roared at the pain of it. Before the bear could gather itself I claimed a spear I had left along the path and jabbed it deeply into the side of the bear twice.

  With one mighty paw strike it snapped the offending spear in half and I took off running again. It was time to end this fight. I r
an into a group of tightly grown together trees and grabbed up the homemade long sword that I had left there.

  The bear’s speedy pursuit was slowed down by having to dodge in and around the tightly packed trees. There was a small open area within the pack of trees and that was where I waited for the bear, sword in hand.

  Yeah, I was crazy, and what I was about was entirely foolish, but who cared anyway. I didn’t. If they all thought I was crazy, then so be it, I would be crazy in all its glory. At least I was having a moment of fun and a test of challenge to liven up my otherwise boring monotony. It was my island anyway and I could do whatever I wanted, which included fighting bears in single combat.

  The bear reared up snarling and swung at me with either long talon tipped paw and I swung back with my sword, as my screams of war match the bear’s roars for intensity of feeling. It was close a few times, but in the end the bear fell forward ponderously its throat sliced away.

  I approached its fallen bulk and Crusader style I jammed my sword down through the back of the bear’s neck affixing it to the ground. Resting a foot on the bear’s large head I threw my head back and roared my own cry of victory. Make no mistake of it that I, John Kilroy, had killed this day and remained king of my island.

  The bear meat roasting on the fire was a welcome relief from the fish and other small game I typically had to survive on. The bear had swam ashore from a neighboring Aleutian Island two days ago. It had been a fatal decision, but now all the excitement was over. Back to my humdrum existence, I thought to myself, staring sourly into the flames of the fire.

  I didn’t much mind being alone on an island by myself. Having a woman along would have been a relief in some ways, but not so much in other ways. They talked too much. I was here till I died so what did it matter anyway.