Gunblade - The Rebellion of Cain

Chapter 10 - Interlude: Monitor's Station

Chapter - Interlude: Monitor's Station

The image of the dark figure standing brandishing a gun in one hand and clutching a traditional Japanese sword in the other with a full moon at his back was frightening enough. His breath on the wind made it almost seem like he was breathing fire from his ominous mask. Brandon turned from the terrifying video frame, finding it difficult to look at it for too long without it unsettling him. Small numbers counting off the time index of the display incremented on the bottom right of the video feed display as he streamed a copy of it to the storage farm allocated for tracking Cain's activities.

The last few months had been extremely atypical. The Triumvirate Elders hadn't taken the news that one of their own had rebelled so publicly and blatantly lightly. The pressure and intimidation that the Monitors usually directed at others was now directed at them. Their attitude of ambivalence and superiority had been severely shaken as they were clearly reminded of their own mortality and their tenuous position in the organization. From what Brandon had been able to discern, it seemed that the actions which precipitated Cain's rebellion were placed squarely on the Monitor group since it was the Monitor's failure to kill Cain that caused the aberration in the first place.

He poured through weeks of footage of the man only identified to him as 'Cain'. In the video clips, the man always made sure that his activities were visible and recorded by the Triumvirate's many sources of video surveillance. The random nature of the targets was perplexing to the group of Monitors, despite their sterling reputation for being revered brokers information and analysis. The only palpable effect that the renegade's attacks were having was that they were becoming notorious. To outsiders, it was clear that Triumvirate, despite their feared and ominous reputation, had a significant and very public problem that they were thus far unable to deal with.

The Monitors attempted to apply a reductionist strategy to the situation so that they could cast it as a trivial problem that they had no true concern for. However, the effects, although small, were still materially embarrassing and visceral. Crime families and smaller organizations under the rule of the Triumvirate began to show signs of reluctance when dealing with the Triumvirate. If it wasn't for their centuries-old reputation, behemoth-like size and considerable resources, the organization would otherwise have been besieged with embarrassing doubt from constituents and other groups.

Brandon reflected on these events as he interpreted the results from a recursive algorithm he had written to cascade over all of the video data accumulated on the subject thus far. The program harvested the video's metadata, collecting information like place, geographic coordinates, time and characteristics of the attacks. Conducting some relatively simple clustering and pattern matching routines, the algorithm began to assemble its own interpretations on the activities. While the program he had written had failed to determine the next source of the attacks, it had deduced what they already had known. A campaign of guerrilla warfare was one that the Triumvirate never thought it would face. Brandon slowly realized however, that as the size of an organization grows, inevitably, there will come a time when those that seek power would easily try to destabilize it.

Brandon fed the program a listing of Triumvirate holdings, consisting of buildings, facilities and properties where business, inventory and training were conducted. His program associated the targets with existing profiles with a probability index that indicated where he might strike next. Pushing back from his terminals, he walked down the barren, artificially lit hall to a glass enclosed office. Without bothering to wait for permission to enter, he began speaking. It was a luxury that he had been afforded as one of the most valuable talents the Monitors had in terms of accumulating, cataloging and analyzing the data on the renegade.

"There appears to be an underground gambling and collections house at 35th avenue and 85th street, out in Queens. I believe that's where he'll show up next," Brandon said a bit too enthusiastically, eager to tell the senior Monitors his methodology for discovering this information.

However, as he looked up, his throat dried out.

"You mean this establishment," the shrill voice asked without swiveling his chair around.

The Monitor sat cross legged in front of his sprawling wall-mounted screen. On the enormous display, the familiar video timeframe context spun in the lower right while the Monitor began to tap in commands on his slate computer. Even though the video feed was from a collections house, the upstairs portion of the building served as a night club. Crowded, for a Sunday evening, the patrons swarmed like bees in a hive. The display froze and reversed, as the Monitor overlaid a typical location grid on the screen. The computer vision algorithm overlay was able to identify shapes, faces and objects within each quadrant of the grid. The Monitor zoomed and focused on a specific grid in the upper right and corner of the display.

Brandon froze at the coincidence. He stared directly into a figure wearing the Mask of Indemion. Even though the mask obscured his eyes, he felt Cain looking back at him through the camera. It was a starkly chilling moment for them both, even though he would never get an admission of such from the seated Monitor.

"Is this live," Brandon managed to croak.

The Monitor sat, as if powerless for the first time in recent history.

"We lost this feed 32 seconds after he was spotted," the Monitor said matter-of-factly.

"How, how-", Brandon stammered as he tried to grasp the full force of Cain's appearance.

"Simply put, he is a Sword of the Triumvirate. We bred him for this type of activity and now we are faced with euthanizing this dog that doesn't know that its days are numbered," the Monitor said with pure cold fury in his voice.