Read Provenance I - Flee The Bonds for Free Online Page B

Storage Facility 12, Antwerp. ‘Continue surveillance. Davout ?’
    ‘MP 14 production is now twenty-four hours.’
    ‘Continue surveillance.’ Francois had plans for MP 14, a Prefect manufacturing plant in the centre of Sector 2. Once guarded by hundreds of Defenders, it now guarded itself. ‘ Suchet .’
    ‘Intelligence on new phase suit frequencies . . .’
    It took ten minutes to receive the reports. Everyone spoke of increased activity and the Resistance’s recruitment drive continued to impress. Francois’s latest artificial variants were children, released that morning into capital cities throughout Sector 2. They would prove a valuable recruiting tool, invoking suppressed emotions and twisting people towards the Resistance. He leant back and smiled. Soon he would have what he needed most. An army.
    ‘You must begin to train with the APR immediately.’ His collaboration with SIS had given the Resistance access to proscribed technology. Their latest acquisition, an Accelerated Projectile Rail gun, would be their Prefect exterminateur . The irony pleased him; the Council were, albeit unknowingly, arming the Resistance.
    His eight Marshals acknowledged. ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘ Bon. I have sent your orders for operation ‘ Danzig’ . Massena , how many?’
    ‘Four-hundred and twenty-seven, sir. Many have CONSEC experience.’
    Francois’s head bobbed, ‘ Excellent. ’ He could not attack Provenance without SIS, nor could he trust them. Numerical supremacy would be his greatest weapon. ‘ Au revoir et bonne chance .’
    The faces within the gilded laurels sank beneath the chandelier’s mirrored reflection. Francois’s ancestors would be proud; his father and mother had been. After many abortive attempts, their laboratories had succeeded in creating a human destined to rule. Not least because Francois would outlive his generation by hundreds of years.
    Favourite memories, and he had many, included those on their sun-baked terrace. Gazing out across the glittering bay of Cannes while listening to his father and the other Marshals plan Resistance operations.
    In 2082, the Council voted for a unified Continuity with English as its official and only language. National identities would not be transferred to Provenance. That was not acceptable to his father or the other industrialists who had joined him and transformed the Resistance from a disparate group of ill-disciplined Drones to a global militarised organisation.
    Wealth had bought Francois more than happiness. He controlled Sector 2, and soon la force majeure . In his new world, the people would not forget their heritage, or those who had fought to preserve it.
    Francois’s back straightened, the Special Investigation Service icon flashed on his MCD. A portrait silhouette spoke. SIS Command were known only to themselves.
    ‘Our interrogations are complete. The trigger is an Advocate named Stephen Arrowsbury and the correction algorithm carrier is a SCITECH doctor, Alexander Shundo. Your task is to protect the trigger and locate the second component of the key, a silver dolphin pendant. We have updated your network records. You are an Advocate Captain transferred to Sector 2 from Sector 1. Has the PSYOPS Evaluator arrived?’
    ‘Yes, she has with her an artificial.’
    ‘Lieutenant Hipparcho is SIS. Lieutenant Merblayn is a spy; you may dispose of her at your leisure. The Resistance have created a vacancy in Quad Alpha-One Sector 2. You will be joining them.’
    Francois swallowed. ‘I understand.’
    ‘SIS will be supplementing the Quads. Are the AH-74 Infiltrators ready?’
    ‘Yes, but I have not received the HPUs.’ Francois’s collaboration had included the creation of an Artificial Human laboratory exclusively for SIS. What he needed now was one of their Human Processing Units to enable him to build a controller. Without control of SIS’s artificials, he could not take command of Provenance.
    ‘We have taken control of production. Thank you