Arcadia: ghost of a chance
 

He glanced at an old piece of paper framed on his wall. The archival quality paper would remain pristine for hundreds of years, long after its owner was gone from memory. He found it humorous that the quaint process of saving data to paper was still used. The supposed "permanence" one attached to such things was meant to have a sentimental value. His sentiments were a product of his memories, and no material object could validate or deny them. This was his mantra, and this thought process was his ritual. He felt comforted, in control of his destiny when he realized such things. He turned his gaze away from his doctorate degree and smiled.

Only the most delusional and paranoid of men would think it possible to lose their memories, to lose what made them who they are. He was neither, yet he worried about these things none the less. For him, this terror was very real. This brief moment of unease always accompanied his meditations on permanence. His smile still remained however, and soon his mind was on more pressing matters. His conscious mind that is, the one which he could access without effort. His other mind was, however, still occupied with its task of archiving a library of case files. Fifty years of neglected data took time, even for him.

His office was a large square room with windows on two sides, the fabled corner office that other men might commit heinous crimes for. He had transferred to this division only 11 months ago, and had occupied this office for ten of those. Not that he spent much time there, a combination of an overloaded work schedule and the hateful glances of those he had passed up the corporate ladder made the ostensibly ideal workspace quite uncomfortable. Today he was visiting after a three week investigation, which he had rapped up yesterday. Embezzlement, a very sophisticated scheme which would have robbed the corporations of billions of credits. Thanks to his intervention however, every misplaced cred had been found and reclaimed. A two year investigation solved in 3 weeks. He could not say that he was particularly proud of this accomplishment however, most of the 21 days were spent physically transitting from data source to data source, once all the information was gathered it was childs play for him to pin point the source of the profit loss. But still, his superiors loved money, and they weren't particularly fond of losing that which they loved. So, in a roundabout way, they loved him for saving their money.

Though he tried not to dwell on the intricacies of the minds of business men, he found it necessary on occasion. He was no psycologist, but he found that many people were as easy to read as a data printout in bold font. Take today for example, he had been summoned to a meeting, but had been given no specifics as to what the meeting was for, or who would be there. He had surmised that it was going to be an advancement board for him, in light of his recent successes, a chance to rub elbows with the influential. He did not particularly relich this opportunity, but he was no fool and would take full advantage of it. He wondered if the branch chief would be in attendance, he could usually be counted on for a worthwhile conversation.

He put on his coat and left for the designated meeting location. It was a bit out of the way, no place he had ever been before.

He walked out of his office in his calm self assured manner. Putting up a good front had always been a personal idology. He wouldn't give the people behind those glares the satifaction of seeing him bothered. That would just validate there actions, something he did not want to do. He was walking towards the elevators, cubicles on is right a wall on his left. All were white washed and plain the standard fare in this type of office. As he passed an opening in the line of cubicles he stepped deflty to his left. The motion allowed him to barely edge past a runaway mail cart. He continued on his way without acknowledgeing the event; it was just one more way to set himself apart from the other workers. Leaving behind the chaos of the mail cart he stepped up to the elevator and hit the call button. The brief contact allowed him to tell that the elevator was on the 2nd floor and full with 5 stops to go. He sighed to himself knowing that he would have to wait at least another minute for the blasted thing. He made a quick inventory of the last few weeks in his head. Determining what might be useful later and what he could do without. He finished as the elevator doors open, the car now half empty. He stepped in and turned around hitting the button for he destination, as he did he cleared the que and instructed the elevator to ignore calls until he reached his destination. The other occupants would wonder what had happened to the elevator but he didn't care.

ooc: Not exactly sure where the meeting is so I left the destination vague for now.

The elevator reached the first parking level, located somewhere above the sprawling city streets. It was said that the highest ranked executives could go months without touching the ground, the city was now an interwoven maze of platforms and towers, quite indecipherable to anyone who hadn't spent a few years living there, or who didn't have the computational power of a supercomputer. Luckily, he fell into one of these categories.

He drew up a map of the city and mapped out the most efficient route to his destination, making allowances for probable traffic density. He punched in his parking space designator on the vehicle locator panel and was rewarded with the clanking of gears and hydraulic pumps, and a few seconds later his car had been retrieved from the vertical storage unit. The vehicle was sleek, plain silver. Classy yet inconspicuous, any one of a billion junior executives might drive the same thing, in fact the number was closer to 12 million world wide, but still.

The driver side door opened with a quiet hydraulic swoosh, and the seat rotatd to facilitate entrance. He jumped in and sped away with the door still closing behind him. The car was very fast for a ground transport, given the correct road conditions it could reach speeds of 250+ mph. He pushed the machine to its limits while hardly paying attention to the road. He sped down the highway at an average velocity of 200 mph, bypassing security drones with a jamming program he constantly transmitted from his position. It was a guilty pleasure he enjoyed, but not at all thrilling. These speeds were insignificant compared to those he reached on foot. If he were to race his trusty car in a quarter mile race, the engine control cpu might have a nervous breakdown. Computers these days were known to be touchy.

He slowed to parking speed and slid into an old fashioned asphalt parking lot. These ancient eye sores were still prominent in the lower class areas of town. Why he had ended up in such an area puzzled him. He exited his car and activated the security system with a touch. The nanomachine ignition system and fuel injection facillitators were dissassembled on a molecular level, it would be impossible to activate the vehicle without some sort of advanced nano reconstruction program, or himself. An obvious precaution given his surroundings.

He pulled his long coat around him and walked towards the entrance to the dilapidated building which was supposed to be his meeting area. "What could be going on here?" he thought. A glint of flashing metal caught his perpheral vision, around an alley some of the locals had noticed his dashing parking skills, and his equally impressive vehicle. They apparently wished to express their appreciation personally.

It was a good thing investigation wasn't his only calling, he was also quite adept at combat operations, a given when your one of the top nexgen assault officers in the corporation.

He almost laughed out loud as he planned his attack. He could easly disable them with a quick dash into their midst. Only problem was that was likely to alert more people to his pressence. That and he wasn't all to confident in the integerity of the near by buildings. Then there was his sidearm which he now remembered he had locked in his car. He still had his Katana strapped to the inside of his coat and debated the merits of it's use. Perhasp they'll simply run away, he thought to himself hopefully. Drawing his sword from inside of his coat he brandished it before him and prepared himself incase they decided to rush. Then just to make sure he switched his sunglasses to infrared mode for a quick scan of the area.

(you cheeky bastard! you never said you had a katana inside your coat, thats going a bit overboard isn't it? oh well, I'll let it go. Thats funny though.)

The group of people waiting in the alley filed out from their hiding spot. They appeared to be gang members at first glance. They all wore hoods over their faces and dirty coats. The frontmost hoodlum removed his hood to reveal a tactical helmet and visor. He made some quick hand gestures and the rest of his team took to the rooftops with alarming speed, alarming to most that is.

Their were 12 attackers, 8 of which were taking up positions on the nearby rooftops, attempting to surround (forgot your name, I'm really bad at that :) ) the lone swordsman. The four remaining on the ground drew pistols from their coats and discarded them. They aimed for **** and fired.

ooc: The Katana is listed in my equipment. It has been modified with tech and made from a special metal so it can cut pretty much everything and pretty much will never break.

Ocius' hope quickly vanished. What he had taken for relatively inexprienced fighters had turned out to be a crack strike force. He concentrated and in the briefest of moments he planned his attack. Making sure to keep his speed just below the sound barrier he rushed at those still on the ground. Closing the gap in what can only be described as instantly he cut the foremost member in half. Twist of his hips and the head of onther was rolling. A final thurst and another man was on the ground desperatly holding the contents of his stomach in. He shifted balance and sped of for the cover of a building knocking the last man off his feet with a well placed armbar at well over 300 mph. The crack in his otherwise imperivous visor evidence of the force of the blow he had recieved. He was in the nearest building and perpairing to storm the roof in less than a second. The entire event had lasted all of 5 seconds, Too slow, he thought ruefully, but stopping does tend to slow one down after all.

A sharp pain arose in Ocius' wrist, the stress of delivering a hyper speed clothesline was apparent. It wasn't broken, but it was definitely hurting.

Concentrated gunfire assailed his position, he was dodging before he knew what had happened. He fell backwards through an old wooden door and stumbled into a vacant room. The lighting was dim and a few boxes were scattered around the room. Whatever their contents had been at first, they now contained a few years worth of refuse and the odd stray animal.

He heard footsteps through the ceiling. The team appeared to be heading towards the end of the building farthest from him. The length of the abandoned warehouse was about 70 yards, its width about 20. The ceiling rose 20 feet from the ground.

The footsteps stopped abruptly. The warehouse was silent. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon.

An ideal suddenly became apparent to Ocius. In the space of about 30 miliseconds he had the entire thing planned and in action. First he used he katana to weaken a wall leading to the outside. He weakened it enough so he could bust through without injury. Then he switched his glasses to X-ray mode which allowed him to pinpoint the locations of the major support beams of the structure. Luckly one wall of this room contained a main support beam. If he took it out the entire building would fall, if it was given a big enough push. He quickly cut the wall in front of the beam away. He then weakened the support behind it till it was on the verge of collaspe. Turning so he faced the section of wall he had weakened he rested is foot against the weakened support. Pushing off the beam with his foot he dashed through the weakened wall; this time he broke the sound barrier. The push off the support and caused it to collaspe and started a chainreaction, the sonic boom speed it up considerably. The building crumbled behind him just as he cleared the wall and rolled to a stop. He quickly scaned for the last four attackers.

The old building collapsed almost immediately. Debri flew all around and the windows of nearby buildings shattered. The pile of rubble seemed quite at home in these surroundings, it was little more than that to begin with.

There were no more footsteps, and the only evidence Ocius could find of his would be assassins was n empty helmet amidst the ruined warehouse.

His head pounded and his sight grew blurry. He almost lost his balance and steadied himself against a trash bin. He was out of practice, as he had spent the better part of a year on loan to investigations department. He hadn't seen action like this in a very long time. He would need some conditioning to get back up to his peak performance level, incredulous as it seemed he had nearly reached his limit with these goons.

As he gathered himself in an alley, he heard faint clapping coming from the street. It grew louder as the source approached his position. It stopped before it entered his sight, and ended abruptly.

"That was excellent, Ocius. Just what we had hoped for. I believe you were scheduled for a meeting today, sorry for the delay."

The voice was smooth, confident, belonging to someone accustomed to giving speeches and orders. Whether friend or enemy remained to be seen.

Ocius was more than a little angry by the implications of what the voice had said. He didn't like playing games and he liked it even less when he was the one being played. The emotion passed quickly as it dawned on him what all this meant. He was going to see action again, and not just a stray human or two but real action. He almost jumped for joy then remembered that this could also be bad for him. It might be another company testing his strengths and attempting to use him as an unwitting pawn. He decided to take the careful path, "Why don't you come out where I can see you and we can talk," he stated flatly to avoid revealing anything of importance.