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"The war had gone badly. It was desolation, a harsh, mechanical streak crowding the skyline. The war-torn areas were all sad and burned, and a holocaust of the unimaginable had happened. The corporations had invaded America secretly, keeping low to the ground as they had infiltrated every stratus of the American government, every nook and cranny of American life, every patch of American soil stained. There was nothing left. A few had resisted. The elite military of the United States of America had stood strong. Battles had erupted, with the corporations being forced back, but the seeding into American politics had proven too severe. With their supply lines cut off and no reinforcement from the corrupt government, there was little to do but acquiesce to a new world order of slavery and tyranny. The survivors. There wasn't much there, just bloated sheep that had remained unthreatening enough to the corporate forces to maintain a heartbeat. They milled about left and right, grazing off of grocery stores or crowding areas of commerce to pretend nothing had happened and their lives were still the same. Weak, ignorant, sheep. The strong men were gone. The corporate system had slowly churned them out of society with evil, and poisons, and false laws. Dead and gone, nothing remained but the weak and bloated. Obedience was a premium, and these wretches paid it happily. Their crowded minds ignored such things, whisking away into fantasies of stardom or reward for not standing up to the totalitarian corporate regime. The appearance of a mundane society remained, but all strength and beauty were gone. Anger and beauty had died away. Sparking and whirring, these new sheepish automatons of obedience were nothing but slaves to insane companies and their factories. Insane mechanical slavery ruled. All that was left were the masses that were too cowardly to fight this invasion in the first place. Tools were all that was left. Tools of the corporations, to be used and disposed of. To be used and disposed of, indeed."

"Chaos is a force few people can easily fathom. It is the anti-life, it is the destroyer, it is everything in our world which is not pure and true. And much of our world is chaos. To truly understand chaos, you must picture the ultimate pain, the ultimate death, the ultimate force which corrodes life itself. Disorder, in which things seeking natural order have none to speak of. All of the world, all of the universe, is an interplay between chaos and order. And the order, as we call it, is love. So, love and chaos, two forces battling for supremacy in the infinite universe, is the experience we call life. In other words, everything in this world is chaos, except to which love has given order. Even we are chaos. But the order in our life, our minds, the symmetry of our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, everything we are, is a boon of the force called love. Without love, this universe would sink into an unfathomable chaos, worse than death or the worst pain, from which there would be no escape And the interplay continues. In our world, chaos is strong. Which will win in this world? Chaos, or love? A battle is brewing, and the wounded and dead will number in the billions. So many of us have forsaken love for various forms of chaos in our lives, that our spirits, our souls, our very mortal bodies will be damned to whither in the might of chaos's wrath. Those who side with love will survive and be stronger, but few in number will they be. Chaos is a mighty force, one that should chill wise men to the bone at its very name, and this force is about to wreak a terrible vengeance. But mankind is so numb and hollow, so allied with chaos to begin with, that perhaps the transition will be more of a tremendous horror of the damned than anything else, such as any actual consciousness of their damnation at all. Love conquers chaos, but so many of those in the world are minions of chaos that they will not survive to see it happen. Suburbia, the cities, you will all feel the wrath of a vengeful god called chaos, to which you have all forsaken your souls to please. And it does not take prisoners. No one will be there to hear you scream..."

"The Wall-Mart manager smiled as the rest of his crew lit up in bright smiles. The camera flashed, and the regional store crew laughed and shoved each other playfully as the flash dimmed to nothing. Harry Mann, the manager, chuckled too as his assistant manager examined the photograph she had taken on her phone. A nice picture, his employees looking happy and productive. Walmart's finest. Donna, the assistant manager, smiled as well and walked off. They were supposed to take a store picture, shift by shift, showing happy and grinning employees enjoying their careers at Wall-Mart. Harry squinted and pulled up his trousers, trying to think if any more shifts were due that day. Probably not, unless somebody had a replacement, and that wouldn't count. Harry returned to his office in the back of the store, contemplating life and new beginnings. He stopped in front of the security mirror and looked in. With a grumpy smile and wave, he could barely see the security team laugh and wave back. He kept looking. An overweight, squinting, sixty-something-year-old with a comb-over, slacks, and an average blue polo shirt looked back at him. Yuck. Harry remembered the rules, smiled reassuringly, pretended to dust something off his shirt to the security team, and went back to his office door. Jiggling a key, he walked in, sat down and slumped into his chair. Outside, Donna and several other employees jumped as they heard the sound of Harry's .38 caliber revolver, kept for self-defense, firing loudly in his office. Donna and the others rushed in and saw Harry's form slumped over his desk next to a book on Norse mythology. He was unresponsive. Blood was splattered on the wall behind him, and more of it was pooling from his open mouth. The security team rushed in and cleared the area. It was labeled a suicide, and rumors went on for days of what had caused it and what Harry Mann's problem had been. Weeks passed, as a new manager, Walter Walden, had been going over Harry's old routines and taking care of work the former manager would have done himself. Things were getting back to normal, as the topic of conversation had passed, and people were starting to smile and laugh again. Walter walked past the many cashier stations, pausing to look at a board full of pictures hanging near the security window. There were his employees, with a little heart cut out for Harry Mann's memory, staring back at him. Walter smiled at the pictures, the employees on them smiling back in return. With a flutter, the paper heart for Harry Mann fell from the board, floating gently into a trail of water on the ground below."

"Dexter Harisov smiled coercively as his victim gave in. He laughed quietly, watching the blood drip from their mouth. The blood dropped, spattering onto Dexter's shoes and pant legs.   O well, it was just blood. He cleaned up, disposed of the body, and went back towards the street. Dexter had committed many terrible homicides lately. In alleys, behind grocery stores, in quiet little neighborhoods at night, many had felt his knife cut through their bodies. He fancied himself a serial killer, taking pride  in knowing he had killed these people, caused their death, was better  than them like that. Dexter ambled up a dark avenue in Los Angeles, swinging his coat and humming to himself about greater things. Passersby questioned him, but they always did, with a slight look or an inquisitive glance. They were just fools. They didn't know the power he had. To take life, to betray, to be sneaky,  and to kill. Turning a corner sharply, Dexter stumbled slightly over a jagged sidewalk in the waning daylight. A slight girl, huddled with her friend off in the distance, barked a laugh. Shock. As usual. Dexter's face went numb, his eyes locking onto hers with a keen menace. This is how it always was. Things just happened. He approached her abruptly, not even noticing the few stragglers in a wintertime Los Angeles neighborhood looking on. 'Whoa! What do you want? I just...' Her cries were cut off as Dexter grabbed her hair and yanked, pulling her off the sidewalk behind a white cottage. She screamed, trying to break free, but his grip was too strong. The wild look in his eyes scared her more than anything, and she went limp and started sobbing. The butcher knife in his back pocket was drawn, as he stabbed her in the stomach several times, hacking and gashing at her body brutally as she hit the ground. A few onlookers had gathered. A brief gasp emanated from one of them. Shit.   Not Dexter's day. Not usually this sloppy . Oh well, it didn't matter. They were just sheep. Dexter struggled with the tight handcuffs. He had been picked up by the police and taken downtown for interrogation shortly after the incident. A detective loomed over him, bright light filling the room. Dexter blinked, unable to keep his usual cool in the harsh lights. 'Why, Dexter Harisov? Why did you do it so badly? What else do we need to know, Mr. Harisov?' The detective questioned him sternly. Dexter blinked again, trying to regain his calm and focus. 'It's not a big deal. I just stabbed her. She just pissed me off.' The detective grimaced, unsure how to proceed. 'Mr. Harisov, do you get it? That's first-degree murder. You're in the system now. Have fun, asshole.' With that, Dexter was pulled to his feet and escorted out, a lone tear trickling down his scowling face. The lights flashed on.  Stay cool, Dexter.  It was just light. The guard was saying something, loud and baritone, and Dexter was too shaken to hear. Stay cool, Dexter. They're just noises. The electricity speared through him, the system depriving him of life ever again. Shocking pain reverberated through his spine and in his brain. Dexter was dying. There was nothing else to it. A horrible fear, a scary, horrible, lonely blackness, was sweeping over him. Stay cool, Dexter. It was just..."

" Data Entry Log: 1401- Just writing some notes to self... 'And they just rearrange it like that, the controllers do. Wrinkle time and space right back together. And people never know what hit them. That's how it is in the Matrix. Things aren't always what they seem. There's a government out there, a government they're not telling you about. They control things, they know things, they have technology you can't imagine.   But it happens. And it's real. I knew a super-soldier in the Matrix not long ago. Supposed to be a chosen one, or something. Fought all through space-time, wars against Nazi cyborgs, even wielded a light-saber like a Jedi. Could shoot lightning and watch it smash right through his enemies. Like I said, the world works like that. There's a lot of things you don't know. They kept him pinned up, the controllers from the machine world, the powers that be. Unknown to the world, living with some crazy woman, almost not aware of who he was. But he fought it. The whole system, that is. What's left over after these controllers cover things up is a joke. Like a fabricated weaving, of what they want life to be, instead of what it is. And he isn't the only one that gets done that way. We all do. It happens to all of us. You have men out there with time controlling machines, possession machines, memory erasure machines, literally technology for every seemingly impossible thing you can think of. And that isn't all. The whole world's a lie. That's how they use those things to build the Matrix. That's the nature of the Matrix.  It's a Matrix of lies. While you incubate through your generic little lifetime staring at television advertisements, going to junior soccer games, and buying products, there's a whole world going on outside of that. And that's where the real shit happens. I work for them, the controllers. I'm a scientist, a technician, I do what they need me to do, and I keep the Matrix running. But it's not much of a life. And I can't leave. Because I know too much. I've seen some impossible things. And people in the Matrix, they don't know, they don't question anything. But the basic fact of the matter is, you live in a world, a world of lies and incredible technology and information, they're not telling you about. A whole secret government you don't know. All you know is what you see. But the rabbit hole goes so much deeper. The chosen one I told you about, Neo. He's the only chance we have. The controllers are getting insane, the Matrix is getting insane. There's nothing that can stop the Matrix and the machine world from destroying themselves by insanity. Except Neo.' Data Entry Log Completed- 1401- Will get back to my duties and responsibilities in The Matrix Core... "

"'All under him will be cast to his aspersions, and as he rises his might, none above him shall triumph.' Van Pyre looked down at the parchment. It was an old writing, but it made sense. 'A prophecy. That's clear. But who's the person being referenced?' Van muttered rapidly, as if clearing himself of the words. 'Random garbage.' Alina rolled her eyes playfully at him. The two were inside a study, an ancient rock cavern, torn out of the Earth long ago to make way for a vampire cult. Long storied and elite, the cavern stood about two-hundred-feet-tall. It was torch-lit and connected to an ancient manor, underneath the prestigious dwelling. Alina stood five-foot-seven, an alacritous and catty female vampire, with dark swaying hair and a uniquely perfect face. Her flirty features bounced off the cavern walls, glowing with the esteemed quality of an elite woman in her early thirties. Young and joyful, she believed in Van's ability to complete the mission. Van towered over her; his seven-foot frame occupying most of the desk he was hunched over. More remarkable than hers, but slightly aghast, his face seemed to emanate a powerful, God-like being crouched over the prey that was his life. Bulging biceps revealed from a tight black tee shirt with a white logo on it, and a scowl of admiration was escaping his sneering lips. Van set the parchment down with a slight clink and referenced the tattered writing. 'A god's choice. Whoever he is.' Van motioned to the study exit, as Alina laughed and nodded at him. They had much to do and looking up scraps from the past to prove something to the elders of Valhalla, the vampire cult that secretly governed Earth, made his blood boil slightly. Van was to report back to them and tell them what he had learned. Another errand. Something that he had been getting fed up with for a very long time. He licked his lips complainingly, as he scowled at the door and started going towards it. 'They have a lot to learn.' Alina's footsteps clacked behind him on the stone floor as they walked briskly towards the room full of fourteen waiting Valhalla council elders. Alina was done screaming. The return to the elders had not gone quite well. For the elders, at least. Shaking and covered in blood, Alina stared down at the mutilated corpses of the formerly living elder leaders of the vampire cult. 'W...Why d...did you do it so bad? They were j... just telling you what to do!' Van licked his bloody fangs playfully. 'O, well you know how that goes. They had it coming, anyway.' Van set down a blood-stained killing axe and calmly surveyed his work. Bloody body parts were everywhere, a few chunks of recently living vampire leaders still jiggling slightly in strange protest. Blood was on the room like flowing wine, and Van himself was chuckling as the dripping blood smacked on the stone floor beneath him. His wild, fire-lit eyes looked into Alina's. 'It's mine now. Everything is. You don't need to be concerned like that anymore.' She took his hand and gasped again, tears still streaming down her face from seeing the council of leader vampires ripped apart by Van Pyre's rage. No one could do that to them. Except him. And no one would get away with it, either. Another certain skill of Van's during his rise up the vampire hierarchy... 'They're dead.' Alina sobbed into his chest. Old mentors and wise leaders departed from her life in front of her eyes, their last dying breaths fading away as she remembered her younger days learning under them and playing with their children. 'It had to happen. It was always coming.' Van straightened up and eyed her reassuringly, his bulging chest cradling his perfect features in the twilight gleaming in from the ornate windows above. His eyes shifted to the moon beyond, a haunting menace taking over his handsome features as a sense of accomplishment swept over his powerful body. The parchment occurred to him one more time, as he shrugged to himself and laughed wryly at the ancient line. 'Might rises, after all,' he quipped dryly. Glinting over the scene, Van's eyes locked on the elders' console taking up the far wall, infinite power pulsing from its vast screens. There was much to do."

"Matthew Stone rolled down the window on his Honda Civic. A homeless woman commissioned him, beckoning him as she came over to his car. She inquired as to his well-being, nodded happily for the dollar and a cigarette, and returned to her position by the road. Not a word, and he noticed it immediately. He drove on, unaware of his whereabouts, skeptical of the passersby as he reckoned his situation. Who was he in this town?   He had come around career success on a television show a few years back. And things had gotten really unusual for him in his hometown of Smithville. Matthew pulled into his driveway, rolling slowly over the slight gravel as he noticed his father outside. Raking away in the garden, he seemed to request a conversation. Always morals. Drugs. Accusations. The usual passive-aggressive shit that got his father by in life. Matthew idled by, heading into the garage, able to get away with a brief acknowledgment. His money still wasn't there. He knew the show was doing well, he had talked with producers and managers over the course of Bad Boys TV  starting up. But the money just couldn't come through. There was something about this town... The people were strange. Why not one mention of his show? Nobody happy to greet him, nobody recognizing him on the street, no one that would even admit Bad Boys TV's  existence. Matthew couldn't put his finger on it.  Why the secrecy? Were these people insane? He remembered the cameras. Satellites, little props placed around his apartment in his dad's house and around Smithville. Reality television, at its finest. He played himself, Matthew Stone, ushering in a new era of bad boy nonchalance. Debauchery, some called it, but he lived by one word, and that's why his life caught on and was put on television, with his inner dialogues put on the screen. Freedom. Matthew shifted in his armchair, keyboard in his lap, activating a television computer hung on the wall. And that was another thing. No show in this area. Goddamn it.   All he got to see were specks on the internet and a little hearsay out of town. Bad Boys TV  had been on for four years. He had caught on, even done some music and movies, and become a big star. What the hell was up with this town? Why would his father not mention his success, or even admit to it, once? Strange old man, he fit into a town of people just like him. Smithville was turning into a chaos factory of lying lemmings who wouldn't admit to his success. Puffing a joint, Matthew sat back and turned the screen to his favorite rock band, Constantine. He turned on Passive, one of his favorite songs, and let the cameras do the work as he got high. He could only make one conclusion in his mind. Fuck those demons." *based on the music video Passive by A Perfect Circle

"Alfonse checked the deck, securing the area for the mission team. 'All clear!' He tugged the cargo strap, indicating its tightness. The deck captain walked over, checking the periphery. 'We've got a major move of chips coming through here. Let's be ready, lieutenant Grove.' Alfonse saluted, eager to get along with his protocols. Standing six-foot-two, Alfonse Grove was a handsome man. Recruited into the military at age thirteen, he had ascended to the rank of lieutenant over his twenty-two-year career. This was an important move. Thirty thousand credit chips, straight from Awkswarma, and he was on the receiving team. The chips were loaded, by indicators on the right side, from five credits all the way up to five hundred thousand. A lot of cash was at stake, and the team was vigilant. 'Heads up, Grove!' one of his fellow soldiers barked. The final shipment was coming through nearby. A member of the transport team walked past, wheezing at the heavy load. Alfonse put down his weapon, eager to help. He grabbed a corner of the cargo box, his duty gloves slipping as he grasped for a secure hold. With a yell the transport member lost control of the cargo, the cargo box hitting the transport bay floor with a dull, reverberating thud. 'Grove!' The team captain rushed over, hopes for a purely clean mission draining from his face. 'I'll get this, lieutenant. Just back off!' Alfonse groaned, embarrassed, and overwhelmed by the immensity of the mission. As he walked off, his foot kicked a small credit chip that had popped loose from the dropped cargo. No one noticed, as soldiers were busying themselves up righting the cargo and moving it into the compound. Alfonse picked up the chip in wonder and checked it, by himself now in a corner of the docking bay. He let out a low whistle. Five thousand credits, fully loaded and ready to go.   The team had gone inside with the cargo, leaving him alone with his embarrassment for sullying a high value mission operation. They had treated him badly. Well, why not. He slid the credit chip into his jacket pocket smoothly, making sure no one had seen the move. He stood up straight, making an attempt to look busy, and thought to himself. 'There's a few nights of partying, anyway.' Behind him, a mounted camera made a dull noise. Alfonse's heart froze. Of course.   The security cameras. He turned to face the noisy unit, casually checking his perimeter. In the distance, he could see his fellow soldiers slowly running towards him, cutting off his path of escape. Something occurred to Alfonse, a mission speech his commander had given, assuring them that no entity would partake in these chips but the government headquarters they were delivering them to. Or else. Alfonse gulped, a cold, eerie sweat trickling down his back as the soldiers rushed towards him. Bent over on his knees outside the compound, Alfonse groaned. His commander gave him one final look. 'Where do you want the shot, Grove?' Alfonse was sobbing, unable to regain control over himself. A blast reported, and the soldiers walked back into the compound, shaking their heads incredulously at what had just happened."

"Trick Harris stared around him. The spaceship, the S.S. Emancipator, was jolting, bouncing violently from side to side, as he tried to regain his balance. The darkness had struck, a black shadow exploding from earth that had torn through outer space like a massive, dark, tidal wave. It had hit everything, even their bodies slammed by this horrible energy, as the spaceship orbiting Earth tried to regain its composure. The crew looked at their hands in disbelief. Something was different. This was no ordinary bomb. The black energy had stuck to them, captivating their bodies, consuming their minds, even swarmed through the ship like a vengeful god seeking obedience. Trick looked at the female co-captain, Marina, with a look of shock on his face. 'What was that?' The blast had passed, a dull rumbling sufficing as the new black energy clung to everything in sight. Marina looked back in horror, shaking her head slowly in an effort to answer. Trick looked out the bay window, coming to grips with their circumstances. He had heard of this war. They all had. A phenomenon on Earth, like a dark terrorist some claimed was more of an angel or a demon than human. Battling for supremacy with the corporations that had claimed Earth in 2022, this Earth terrorist was a terrible myth himself. Rumored to have power over darkness, the corporations had all but annexed Earth from the universe in an effort to isolate his rebellion. And even they hadn't seen this coming. Trick's mind was clouded. He could feel the terrifying sensation sweep over him, as someone else held his hand up. With a dull, entrancing voice, Trick's mouth moved and started to form words. 'Hello, Marina.' A slight gasp escaped the crew's lips as they realized the voice wasn't Trick's. Looking around horrified, they all realized something. They weren't in control of their bodies anymore. With the same listless control, Marina's hand was raised, and a foreign, unique smile came over her lips. The hand waved at Trick, as somewhere in his clouded mind he came to terms with what they had just seen. ' Possession.' That was all Trick Harris could get out of his lips. Marina's eyes widened. The crew were all turned in unison towards the ships vast window, like puppets obeying the whim of a master. Outside, Earth's bright panorama met them in return. Billowing clouds, blue oceans, their home planet too was bathed in the darkness from the massive explosion. A voice spoke, their helpless eyes taking in what they were being forced to see. 'The time is coming.' They stood trembling, unable to avert their gaze, as they were forced to become aware of the obvious developments on Earth. Trick wondered for a second, still slightly able to control his own thoughts. The whole universe. Goddamn. Eyes straying to the company logo on his fleet jacket, he heard a deep, dark laugh rumble from the darkness within him."

"Three men in dark trench coats walked into a crowded city square. They took in their surroundings, the many people milling about the glowing symbols of an industrial age, as dusk settled. The men stopped on a street corner, lighting cigarettes in the cold wind. Their eyes scanned from one person to the next, then back to each other, as they thought to themselves in keen words. The first man spoke, his hooded eyes drifting amongst the crowd... ' The furious din. The mumbling and tumbling of a wrought, open paradise. Only then will they come; only then will they show their teeth. Only then will they know it...' His comrade shrugged and responded, eyes sweeping the neon scenery. 'That it was safe. For the fire had gone away, and all was calm and strong on the inside. The jungle was tamed, and no one knows himself. The furious flames have flickered, and the people have swept away their pride. No one knows him, and royalty long forgotten has tamed the evil prince. The gears and cogs of society do churn, though the hollow faces of men know not. Their pride long forgotten; the souls of weakened men patrol the streets looking for yet misery to tear asunder.' The first man spoke again, staring at a tall, glowing orange clock tower in the distance. 'A time and age of chaos, only kings and men know of the foul witches that haunt them. The soul is gone, the spirit burns, and madness is rampant in the faces of the masses. Their suffering long past, no one knows these men as kin. Nothing is left but the stink of their cleaved flesh as they pass around their misery in horrible, mindless swarms. The wounds are deep, and nothing seethes in their minds but hate and the agony of what they once were.' The third man, silent until now, shifted uncomfortably, his knowing eyes dropping with a strange menace. He uttered with haste, as the shop beams from the square started to cut through the night. 'These men are lambs, not lions, though they roar with all their might. There is nothing but mindlessness and hate. These are the living dead.   Only then will they know it...' The three men gazed at the darkened skyline. Their work was done. Thoughtfully, they turned away, their trench coats to the cold wind. They walked into the night without being noticed by the crowd."

"A cosmic void of eternal and infinite blackness, strewn with flickering stars and planets. The jungle ruled. For no king, but the killer, shall domain here. Make your laws of obedience and treachery to life, as you cast away into a sordid abyss. The abyss of self-hatred, from which no fathoming being can return. For in the cosmos, you were weak, you were hateful, you cast your eyes upon others with false reckoning. For you were enemies, and yet sought to be kin. Your weakness belies interdependence on one another born of mutual need. For you hate each other yet claim a false brotherhood out of weakness. Suicide, yet not unless we take this, this life in the jungle of Aiya, with us. 'And none the strong shall conquer, for the animals we were claim not. May the duplicity of the mindless masses thrive upon our shoulders. For we have lost our will to live, and die, with the falsehoods of stronger beings upon our minds'. The Aiyan suicides shall come. For the jungle of Aiya takes no temptress from false idols. "

"The situation was getting intense. The 'cattle', or lower beings of reality, were catching on, had sentient awareness, from the government program, Scient, being released accidentally. Panic and mayhem were everywhere, as the new minds, the glorified slugs, of the cattle were taking hold. Secrets were out, top secret information from all over the world now pouring into the mesosphere of the lower beings. Arnold Devereaux sat and thought, deep in an underground government lab, pondering the outbreak of information and awareness that was causing all this insanity. Scient wasn't designed this way. Created to instruct researchers on the thoughts of high-level telepaths, Scient was meant to bridge the gap between humanity and the higher beings they could possibly become through evolution. Only the highest-level genetic specimens on Earth were taken into account for this project, and only the highest researchers had been involved in the study of their thoughts and brainwaves. Things had gotten completely insane. Public attention had gotten out about Scient, genetically pristine telepaths creating a higher human race through brain studies, and the population had exploded with outrage. As if genetics weren't even a real thing. Arnold adjusted his lab coat sardonically and continued thinking. Of course, they had. Of course, the outrage. They were the lower classes of humanity, trudging by in their anxious little affairs, no thoughts or wisdoms to speak of. Confronted with the very idea that life might be bigger than them and their shitty  little lives. And now they were completely involved with this project. Reading the minds of the world's highest telepaths, watching their thoughts being studied, right on television at this point, for Christ's sake.   Nothing good was going to come of this. Not only could they watch the top-secret Scient program take place on a daily basis, these people were learning the world's other utmost top-secret programs and secrets from the mass wave of information. Scient created artificial telepathy, and Arnold Devereaux knew what that was. Trouble. The rumbling from the next room caught his attention. He looked over, curious if anyone knew what was going on. Sheesh. The visitation room. The lab had been forced to sign on other people, from the normal population, to study their reactions to not only the Scient program but the plethora of secrets and evils it was unleashing on the world. Arnold walked over to the auditorium, gazing over the mass of discontent faces. The way they mooed , herded, whined thoughtlessly,   they had earned this nickname. Cattle.   There was no avoiding it. That was the nature of common humanity at this point. Now falsely telepathic and aware of infinite highly confidential government secrets in a way that endangered existence itself. The telepaths being displayed on television were also psychic, and able to intuitively figure these secrets out in conversations with the researchers in the laboratories. To the chagrin of these lower-class idiots, who were too caught up in jealousy and welfare to think anything positive anymore. This was getting out of hand. The telepaths, on satellite cameras all over reality, were being attacked. The cattle weren't having it, the obvious snooty superiority and beautiful looks of these higher genetic humans. Arnold looked around the visitation room, the cattle lined up hundreds deep in front of a vast screen showing that day's highest telepath doing daily activities. Hatred, booing, thoughtless rancor, the room was in mayhem. Catching the eye of lab security nearby, Arnold Devereux exchanged a nod and walked off. It was as if humanity had split, one-part super-human and one-part farm animal. The Scient program had blown the lid off of that, for sure. Arnold smiled slightly to himself and walked down the hall and back to his desk. There was one thing to do with this situation, and one thing only. Vast extermination. He flipped a coin, catching it and smacking it down without a glance. Let them find that out, too."