Greetings. Ghandaiah, here, and what I'm bringing you now isn't Got Ghand related. It isn't even supposed to be all that funny... well, rather, I should say it isn't meant to be completely comedic. And I know how much a whole damn lot of you dislike fanfic of any kind - because a lot of it sucks, and I'm willing to say that! But hey, give this a shot. What I'm trying to do here is tell the story of Deus Ex from a completely different perspective, with a completely different twist on the storyline. This is not Deus Ex in book form. That would be boring as all sin, because you already know how it plays out. So, considering that - whatever events play out here are my version of them, and are my version of what happens if this certain twist - which you'll catch on to real soon - occurs in the plot. So no, I'm not trying to tell the story of Deus Ex 2, either, because whatever's in there is going to be a hell of a lot different than what you see here. That being said, let's start the gaming goodness, mmkay?
Oh, and don't be afraid to send feedback here. I'm toying with a new idea, and would like to know how the community feels about it.
--- --- --- --- CHAPTER ONE
--- --- --- ---
He brushed from shadow to shadow, as though he were a part of the darkness himself, slipping silently from place to place, evading anything and everything that crossed his path. He was nano-augmented; A born and bred killer, someone had said about him, about all nano-augs. Maybe that was true. Maybe. But he had reason, and he had enough human in him to realize that the certain actions of one Bob Page were not to be taken lightly. He would put an end to it. All of it.
His name was JC Denton - former employee of UNATCO, the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition, now on the other side of the fight. They called the NSF terrorists. If anyone could be called terrorists, it wouldn't be the NSF, they weren't terrorists. It would be UNATCO and their brainless nano-aug thugs.
They had captured him - locked him in a cell deep below UNATCO HQ on Liberty Island, expecting him to sit nice and snug so that they could doubtlessly slaughter him later on. Right. He escaped, of course, by the help of a disembodied voice that persisted in talking to him over his infolink. He didn't know who or what it was. He didn't care at the moment. He just wanted to break out, and so far, he had almost made his way up to the top floor of the compound.
Almost.
Stepping into the light, now, looking blankly up the second last set of stairs he'd have to climb, he saw the last obstacle and potential threat in his way.
Anna Navarre. Nano-aug, UNATCO colonel, colder than steel. There wasn't a bit of heart in the woman. Most of her body was metal, all augmented, whatever skin showed was pale white. Charming when combined with her hateful, violent personality.
He should have killed her when he had the chance.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance," she said, glaring down at him, already willing to rip his heart from his chest and eat it raw. "We are thinking the same thought."
"Move or be moved," JC warned, gun in hand, willing to return that favor.
"You are pathetic. You are weak. You have joined the NSF, and you have become part of the enemy. I will not let you leave this building alive."
For a moment, they both stood silently.
Then JC almost felt a smile come to his face. It was almost amusing, how sure of herself she was. And there was a bit of irony in there - She tells him he should have killed her when he had the chance, yet she makes the mistake of not killing him immediately. Just for the glory of having the last word, too. You could almost say she killed herself with her own terrible personality. "You disobeyed your number one rule, Anna. I'm surprised."
"What?"
"Your rule. Shoot first, ask questions later. Good thing for me though. And here's another tip: 'flatlander woman'."
Her killphrase. He saw it in her eyes the split second she had just before she died. She knew it. She knew he had just killed her, and she couldn't believe it. And there wasn't a single thing she could do before her body twitched convulsively, then fragmented in an ear-piercing explosion. The ground shook, the whole building shook with the force of it - and it wasn't a very pretty sight to see, either.
He almost felt bad for the janitors.
JC pushed himself up, realizing that the force of the blast sent him slamming against the wall, collapsing down on the floor. He had to get out of there, and he had to do it fast - there wouldn't be a man in UNATCO who didn't know something was wrong by then.
So he fled - screw stealth, the sound of an exploding augmented woman wasn't exactly stealthy. He made his way towards the door, tore it open, ran up the stairs, flew through the security door, not even bothering to stop and take down the guard stationed there - He made his way through the reception area, going ahead and shotgunning the soldier there - Ran out the large, main doors, out to the helipad, and--
Stopped. Stopped dead. Literally.
He never felt the bullet tear through his head. He never felt it come out the other end, exploding in a crimson mess. He never even felt his body hit the ground.
JC Denton was dead before he knew it.
And the man that fired the single bullet stood accross the courtyard, on the helipad, gun still pointed, blank expression on his face. Gunther Hermann. Another nano-aug. Another heartless bastard. You'd think that on the killing of another human being you'd feel something. Guilt, maybe, regret, even if that human being was a lifelong enemy. No. The only thing Gunther felt here was an insane kind of satisfaction as he stared blankly at the mangled corpse bleeding across the grass. This was what the government was trying to build. This. Emotionless killers. People who will follow orders and plant bullets in the heads of those ordered to kill. Maybe Gunther knew it. Maybe he just didn't care.
Maybe he just enjoyed it.
--- --- --- ---
"SHIT!"
Dom smashed his forty against the wall, enraged, thinking too quickly, so much going on... He paced back and forth, worried out of his mind, then depressed, then something else... he tried to calm down, but it just couldn't have happened, no, it was impossible... "Son of a... God dammit!"
He fumbled for the correct words.
His friends, his colleagues, all sat silently, probably in shock. Dom could see all of them staring that way, all of them not believing it, either... some of them wore their masks, not wanting to display anything they might be feeling. Closing themselves off. Denial. Welcome to denial. Next stop, heartbreaking reality.
Everything Dominic Bishop ever hoped for, everything he ever tried to make a difference for - all of it. Gone. The NSF was in shambles. In complete breakdown. The one man that killed most of them just died after finally seeing their side of the story and committing himself to it. They lost the shipment of ambrosia, most of their men, supplies...
Any leadership they had. Paul and JC were the only hope the NSF ever had at that point, and now they were both dead.
Completely erased from the picture, a decaying band of soldiers left in their wake.
It was a complete and total mess. Nobody was in charge now. Commanders had been killed or captured, too. There was absolutely nothing they could hope to do.
Dominic couldn't keep up with all of it in his tired state of mind, couldn't contemplate it now. All he could do was accept it. "Jesus." He massaged his forehead with his hand, glancing around at all the other troops in the room. Some of them stared at him. He realized he had been standing there, staring thoughtfully.
"What do we do?" one of them broke out with a shaken voice. "What the hell do we do?"
Dom sighed, not knowing how to answer that question. "What can we do?"
Silence.
This is what their cause had degraded to. Cowering in some abandoned warehouse division like you see in the movies. They really did look like terrorists to most of the world, and that just killed him. They weren't the bad guys. Someone had to pick up the pieces. There had to be some command out there, someone left who knew how to clean up this mess. Maybe it was him, hell, he didn't know.
Dom let the broken bottle still clenched in his fist slide to the ground. He sat down among the rest, doing the same as they, the only thing they knew to do at the moment - silently sitting and thinking, denying it all.
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