Legends and Tales

I, thankfully, was not deployed on the stinger attack. It was quickly determined I was needed at another location as another Justicar had reason to believe that the resistance would hit another location, one much more valuable.

In the city there were four large pyramids, I assume home to each of the Ascended, and the largest one, in the centre of the city, housed The Elder himself, who I assume is the fifth person on my calls, who has yet to speak.

Each of these are considered the most valuable buildings in the city, by a long shot. One of them, the Eastern one, may be subject to an attack in the near future, so I was deployed over there with all haste.

Once I got there... well I had time to burn, the attack wasn't expected for at least a week. Juno had remained at The Recluse, but she could see what I see, so I couldn't do anything overt or dangerous, but I could learn stuff, so I delved into the buildings vast informational databases.

The room was huge, like three stories of pure computing power and storage, easily a hundred meters long and double that wide. I plugged my laptop in and sat down, my "Justiciar" status granting practically unlimited access to the building aside from the top three levels.

I was also granted to everything on these computers, so I, of course, went to some of the most classified files I could find, I browsed through hundreds all regarding operations or task forces, which were short and to the point, but then came one simply called 'WATCHER', which intrigued me, as it was all on its own in a folder, in a folder, so on so forth.

I don't know what exactly I found, but it was interesting, to be sure. It read as such, 'The Watcher is an ancient being, we don't know his origins, nor his history. He should, however, be considered a threat, due to a desire for revenge against our glorious Elder. We expect this revenge to come from one known as "The Hunter", who we have little idea as to who it might be. To counter the everpresent threat that The Watcher presents, we shall form an organisation of three people, known as Justiciars, to secretly combat him and his hunter. That is all we have on and regarding this being.'

The Watcher? Interesting. I wonder what this thing is? I wonder why it wants revenge... it couldn't be... no. Maybe? The being from my dreams, cloaked in shadow. He said something about revenge I think? Or... was it regret? Both? I don't know, the dream is kind of hazy... but that's all that is a dream.

I decided to ignore it for now, and instead think of something else. My mind wandered to Juno... how long had she been at the Recluse? Wait... she has given me two answers. "That bitch lied to me!" Juno had told me she had been at the Recluse two months before my first job, and almost all her adult life after... what else had she lied to me about?

Did she know I was lying? Are we both lying to each other for... reasons not in favour of the regime? I began pondering. Ok, so, she had lied to me, knowing I was a Justiciar, that means she's willing to lie to a high ranking member of the regime, as such breaking one of the laws in place in Requiem.

So, she's willing to break the law for her own gains, good to know. Now the question becomes, why? Could she be after the same thing as me? Chances aren't as slim as you would think, a lot of people are disillusioned with the state of things but are unaware of each other's views, and as such stay quiet.

It's a good tactic. You can do all you want if people think they're the only ones wanting to stand up against it. I learnt about shit like that in the police academy, we... I used to handle media suppression and the... disappearances of vocal individuals.

I regret what I have done, but I believe I have done more good than bad... or at least that is what I tell myself. I'm getting off-topic. Juno, lying to me. What are her motives? If she wanted to bring down the regime she could be using me to gather intelligence... she can see everything I do after all, but she can't do anything that I can, nor does she have access to many of the areas I do.

So, I could use her as the contact to the resistance movement, without implicating myself and 'accidentally' look at patrol paths a little too long, or ask for emails regarding supply routes. Or I could be blatant with her and ask her upfront.

No, I best test her first. "Juno? You there?" I asked into the com in my ear, I can toggle it on and off at will so she didn't hear my little outburst. I was half hoping she would stay quiet, so I couldn't implicate myself any further with this.

"Yeah, what's up?" I heard the familiar voice in my ear. I sighed and clicked out of the WATCHER file, instead, heading to supply routes and the such, helping her if she was an insurgent, or just making myself look well informed if not.

"Just checking, making sure you hadn't ditched me for another guy or something." I joked. I thought some light humour would make everything easier between us, become actual friends or something.

"No, guys aren't what I'm interested in." I could tell she had leaned back in whatever chair she was sitting in due to the faint sounds and slight change in her voice. But, it was interesting to know she wasn't closed off completely to me.

"What? Girls more your speed or something?" This time I spoke seriously, I was a small bit curious at this point, I mean, how could I not be? Such an interesting topic comes up like that, you gotta follow it, right?

"No, I'm not looking for much of a relationship at all... never have, especially not since I got this job." Ah, that explains it. She just doesn't care for it. "What about you? I know you don't have anyone, or... at least I'm fairly certain you haven't been... Have you been sneaking out the recluse while I sleep?"

I laughed at this and shook my head. "Nope, I'm not sneaking out The Recluse every night to go see my girlfriend down the road to spend the night there. I too, am not romanticly active, never have been." I began browsing through more routes and stuff, seeing if I can find anything good, before coming across a very long supply truck that would be lightly guarded. "That one looks good for bait... but... no, I can't, too much area to cover"

"Unfortunately, couldn't up security on it either without it being suspicious." I nodded, Juno's voice trailed off slightly, breaking her usually professional demeanour, which was replaced with something more akin to curiosity, almost childlike.

Of course, came this didn't last long. Juno soon regained her composure. "Well, at least we are bound to find something in here." Juno mused. She was right... I began scrolling through patrols and convoys, finding a good few that could be used as bait, before stopping and snooping around other things.

I came across a file called 'the history of music' which I opened to find a document and a load of .mp3 files, like hundreds of them. I opened the document, soon enough Juno chimed in. "What are you looking at? What's this music thing?"

"I don't know... not really... which is why I'm looking it up." I retorted. After a brief prologue about how this kind of stuff should be kept from the public. Then we came to the hypothesis of the origin of music. It stated music likely originated when... humans resided within caves and other such areas in Africa. "What is Africa? Any ideas?"

"Aside from it likely being a large area of land... no, nothing. And what does it mean by humans residing in caves? There is no history from before The Elder created Requiem... is there anything of human history on there?" A reasonable question, I backed out of music and looked through almost every folder, my augmentations being of great aid to me, only to find... nothing.

"Nothing, no history of humans outside of this file. I wonder... do you think another of these Pyramids has the answer?" Juno expressed her doubt on that subject but said it remained a possibility. Unfortunately, a bright red light lit up the room, with a loud siren going off in tandem... the Pyramid was under attack