Note: Please do not post in this thread, unless your name is Kommodus. It will be used for information only.

Prologue


The warm air rising from the quai de la Tournelle was thick with the scent of fine food and wine, cigar smoke, and human sweat. On late August evenings this as this, the well-known Paris boulevard bustled with activity, as eager tourists and year-round residents hurried to squeeze the last of the festivities out of the fleeting summer. It was here, just off the banks of the Seine River, that the historic stone tower housing the acclaimed La Tour d’Argent rose out of the earth and concrete.

Most times of the year, every table in this shrine of decadence, wealth, and status was booked months in advance. Yet on this particular night, a curious sight would have greeted anyone privileged enough to enter its inner sanctum. One of the restaurant’s finest private dining areas, normally reserved for the most elite of celebrities and statesmen, was virtually empty. To the casual observer, its only occupant was a single individual – a truly ancient man dressed in an impeccable white tuxedo, seated at the head of the room’s single long and narrow banquet table.

The restaurant patrons in the main dining area may have found it slightly odd that there were two men dressed in sharp black suits standing motionless at the entrance to the private dining area – the men didn’t quite have the appearance of restaurant staff – but they were without exception far too engrossed in their menus and wine lists to take much notice. Meanwhile, the man in white casually sipped his Chateau Lafite, his fork slowly pushing the remnants of his duck off to the side of his plate.

A woman strode through the door of the restaurant and began to consult with the maitre d’. She was young – probably in her early thirties – and her beautiful Asian features were framed by long black hair. After a few moments, she was directed to the private dining area where the man in white awaited. After briefly being stopped by the men in the black suits, she was allowed entrance. The door was shut behind her as she stood motionless just inside it.

The man in white slowly raised his eyes and affixed her with a piercing stare. Despite her brave attempts to hold his gaze, the feeling was so unnerving that she was quickly forced to look to the side. It was nothing to be ashamed of, she’d been told. Despite his obvious age, the legendary leader of the Cosa Nuova was an imposing presence. His eyes, though now quite sunken into the taut skin on his face, still burned with a brilliant white fire that matched his silver hair. Though she herself was a high-ranked officer in the Cosa Nuova – the head of research and development operations in all of Asia – she could not help but feel intimidated. This moment would be permanently etched into her memory.

Without a word, the man in white motioned for her to sit. This she did, careful to take a seat several places removed from the head of the table. She bowed her head and waited for the man to speak.

When he did, his voice was clear, yet slightly brittle. The canyons carved into his face, it seemed, were more than skin-deep.

“What did you observe as you entered this place?” he asked simply.

Taken aback by the question, she paused momentarily before replying. “I saw the elite of society,” she said. “I saw wealth, luxury, and excess. I saw men and women fixated on momentary pleasures, unable or unwilling to see beyond their narrow, meaningless existence.”

After a brief, appraising pause, the leader dropped his gaze. “Indeed,” he said, slightly apathetically. “Thus has our organization always viewed much of the world. A rather plain observation, and no doubt a true one… and yet…” here he paused, searching for words. “It would seem we have overlooked something. It is possible there is value in the unwashed masses that even we failed to see.”

The woman, having no useful response to this, said nothing. The man in white went on.

“The prophets of our time have spoken,” he said. “Yet just as in every age, they are scoffed at and ridiculed. We stand on the precipice of a great development such as humanity has never experienced. At first, technological advancement altered the perception and meaning of space. Now, however, it is time itself that shall be forever altered.”

The ideology of the Cosa Nuova was well circulated within the organization, and none of this was new to the woman.

“Computing technology has, of course, fundamentally changed the world already,” said the man in white. “All know this. However, the most significant changes are yet to come. The exponential growth of computing power is driving advances in all other fields – physics, biology, transportation, medical science, and all others. Problems once thought intractable are being systematically conquered by human reason, and nothing is now beyond our reach.” He developed a gleam in his eye as he continued. “Some have predicted that within a mere hundred years, mortality itself will be only a memory.”

Here the woman sensed the direction the conversation was taking and interjected. “I assure you, our server farms are operating at maximum capacity working on problems in all of these fields,” she said. “Our researchers are years ahead of any government on the planet. Every medical advance we make is available to our members immediately, but what you speak of is still many decades away – if it can be reached at all.”

The leader smiled slightly. “All this I am aware of. And your accomplishments in heading the Asian branch of our research operations are noted and appreciated. However, there are some… developments you are not yet aware of.”

“A network of supercomputers equipped with the latest software is a powerful tool,” he intoned. “Better still are our worldwide grids of ordinary CPUs, collectively possessing the power of hundreds of supercomputers. Yet for all their efficiency, all of these efforts suffer from a significant, and seemingly insurmountable, obstacle.”

Here he leaned forward a bit and spoke more softly. “Despite all advancements made, modern computers still lack the creativity – the true innovative ability – of the human mind. Our best artificial intelligence programs are a best a crude approximation of the human thought process.”

“At least,” said the woman, “they are fully dedicated to their assigned tasks. The potential of the human mind may be vast, yet so few ever come close to tapping into it.”

“And this is a great tragedy,” thundered the leader, shaking his head. “Yet it is one which our researchers in Europe may have found a way to remedy.”

This statement sharply aroused the woman’s interest. She knew her host was finally coming to the point.

“Within each human mind – even yours and mine – lie great untapped reservoirs of intelligence, of creativity, of powerful ideas that are never brought to the surface. Imagine a worldwide grid – an enormous brain trust, if you will – in which these ideas are allowed to flourish, each one receiving due consideration and evaluation. A network not entirely unlike a modern distributed grid, yet thousands of times more powerful.”

To say the woman was impressed would have been an understatement at that moment. “How can such a thing be possible?” she whispered.

“It is very nearly a reality,” rasped the leader. He was beginning to show the strain of the long conversation. “It may be only recently that the world has become aware of the development of a propulsion system suitable for nanites. However, our own nanotechnology is far ahead of that. Our European research team has developed nanite swarms capable of ‘rewiring’ the very neurons within a human brain! Even a simpleton’s mind, correctly altered, can become very useful to us indeed.”

For a normally reserved man, the leader was clearly becoming excited. “Those who survive the procedure do not even notice a difference. They have no notion that the formerly unused parts of their brains are now hard at work for the betterment of mankind. Our researchers, however, see everything. We link all the assimilated minds into a network – wirelessly, of course (one might even say telepathically) – and put them to work on some of the oldest and most difficult conundrums known to man. Initial results are, to put it mildly, quite promising.”

The woman was listening intently with a wide-eyed expression. “This is truly remarkable,” she breathed. “Is it then time to share our knowledge openly with the world? Surely even the most short-sighted would welcome such a promising avenue of research!”

The man shook his head with an expression of mild disgust. “Yes, one would expect that, no?” he asked rhetorically. “However, our technology has one minor imperfection. As it turns out, only a small percentage of the population possesses minds strong enough to survive the transformation. The rest, well…” – here he gave a dismissive wave – “they simply die. We might try the procedure on a thousand individuals and obtain only ten useful nodes. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing which minds are suitable except for trial and error.”

“There is yet another reason why current governments would have reservations about embracing our cause,” he added. “Once we have altered a mind, it can be ‘operated’ remotely. The subject will comply with any command we send it. Modern governments, due to their silly preoccupation with ‘ethics,’ would reject this without a second thought.”


“Of course,” he continued, “any enlightened society would be more than willing to make these sacrifices. The loss of the weak-minded, whether in small or large numbers, is small loss – and an unselfish man would surely sacrifice his freedom for the kind of advancement this research promises. But society as it exists today remains weak and sentimental. No…” he signed slightly, “we must operate as we always have… in secret.”

“Then the work in the laboratories will continue?” the woman asked.

The man shook his head. “We have achieved all we can in such a controlled environment. Kidnapping sufficient subjects for the size of grid we are hoping to create is simply not practical. If we are to achieve our goal of a truly worldwide grid, we have no choice but to venture outside the laboratories. Which brings me to why you are here.”

“Though your current work is research-oriented, you were once one of our highest-rated field agents. Therefore, you will be in charge of assembling and preparing a team of operatives to infiltrate a certain location, blending in with the locals. Once there, they will begin to administer the nanites to individuals – slowly, so that the inevitable deaths appear natural. In this way they will increase our grid gradually… patiently.”

The woman nodded. “I suppose the location has already been selected? Silicon Valley, perhaps – or one of the great western universities?”

The man shook his head. “Westerners believe themselves to be more intelligent than the more primitive cultures of the world, when they are in fact only differently educated. Education helps us not at all – what we require is potential. That can be found far more easily in other places of the world. We would also do well to avoid those places were our operatives are likely to be captured. If this operation fails, all we’ve worked for will be jeopardized.”

He leaned over the table. The woman noticed a map spread out there – how had she missed it before? The leader was pointing to a location on the map. “It is here,” he said, “that we expect to find the most optimal of the necessary conditions.”

He sat back in his chair and took a drink of his wine, clearly tired from their discussion. “You have your orders,” he said. “I urge you, do not fail. Some of us… do not have a hundred years to wait.”

The woman nodded. The leader of the Cosa Nuova suddenly looked very old and gaunt, and she knew that his motivations were mixed. Seeing herself dismissed, she got up and left the room and the restaurant, disappearing into the lights of Paris.