After a long and surprisingly pleasant swim through the ocean, Sean finally managed to find signs of civilization. He had passed by a few boats occasionally, but avoided them and dived deeper into the water when he detected them.

  There in the distance Sean could see what looked like a sleepy town with a few smaller fishing boats milling about and coming in and out from the small docks. Sean swam around to the sides until he reached a point where he found a relatively isolated beach a few miles away from the small town.

  He stuck his head just above the water and inspected the area, but once he was sure he was clear he moved forward and walked onto dry land for the first time in a while. He was completely naked and penniless. First thing that he would have to do was find something to wear…

  He snuck into the forest bordering the beach and tried to sneak as quietly as he could despite feeling exposed and like someone would spot him the next moment.

  Eventually, Sean came across an isolated house set back from the nearby road in the brush. He debated with himself for a moment before making his decision. He’d be in and out as quickly as he could.

  Luckily for him, one of the windows on the side of the house was propped open, so Sean was able to stick his fingers inside and open it wider and crawl inside the home. The place was silent, whoever it was was likely at work given that it was nearly noon.

  Sean quickly found a bedroom and quickly opened a drawer and stole a clean pair of clothes that he put on. They were a bit small for him, but he was able to squeeze into the work pants, shirt, and flannel jacket. He went to the front and found an extra pair of sturdy boots that he quickly put on. Sean considered taking more, perhaps looking for some money, but after wrestling with himself for a moment shook his head and just crawled back out of the window from which he came.

  He had stolen from this person enough. Taking anything more than what he absolutely needed would just be greedy.

  Sean crept away from the house through the woods and looped back around for a few miles before coming across a larger road. Still in the woods and doing his best to preserve his new clothing from the scratching branches and thorny shrubs, he managed to follow the road all the way to the beachside town that he’d seen before from the water. After scouting a bit, he managed to find a hiking trail of some kind and went onto it. He relaxed slightly as he saw that the path seemed to lead back to the town proper, and the few people who walked by him didn’t seem to think that he was too out of place or pay him too much attention.

  It took an hour or so, but eventually Sean was walking around what appeared to be the town center. He took a risk and asked a few people for directions to the nearest library. They all gave him strange looks, but seemed to shrug off the strangeness after giving him some brief directions to a place about three quarters of a mile from the town center.

  Sean went inside and immediately moved over to the bank of public computers set to the side.

  He sat down and immediately started doing some research on what was happening and how long it had been since he’d been gone.

  The Jade Congress’ influence had only grown since Sean had been on Gaia last. Despite how hard he looked he couldn’t find many news articles or forums saying anything negative about them. Clearly it was a sign of the tighter grip of their influence rather than reform considering the government abductions of dissedents and use of torture seemed completely unknown to the larger public.

  Sean was across the world, not in the Jade Congress luckily. Although this country was aligned with them, he shouldn’t have to worry about being arrested out of hand or monitored as closely as he would if he was in Jade Congress territory.

  It had been ten years since he’d been gone. Sierra and Violet sure would be surprised to see him…

  Sean navigated through the computer and entered the secure GFC message board buried by navigating to a seemingly unrelated website. He typed in a message giving his location and requesting some help, as well as his identifier. It was one of the first things that the GFC had taught him how to do, since otherwise he would have no way to communicate with them if he got separated somehow from the main group.

  It took a few minutes of a wait, but eventually there was an answer. Sean read the message with a frown. A week? That was a long time to wait for a pickup… It would be probably impossible for anyone else with no identification or money. But for Sean it shouldn’t be too difficult. He quickly replied to the message and told them to send the person meeting him in the town square when the time came.

  He exchanged a few more messages to nail down the specifics, and then Sean closed the window and returned to his other research. They couldn’t explain anything confidential over a public computer like this or on that message board, so there wasn’t anything more to discuss.

  Now he just had to stay undercover for a week. And there was really only one good way to do that.

  Sean stood up and casually walked out of town and to a nearby beach that seemed relatively isolated. He hunted around and after finding a good spot stripped and stashed all of his clothes wedged in a gap between a large rock and the roots of a tree a few feet into the nearby woods.

  He quickly went back to the ocean and started swimming quickly out before he was spotted and after a few deep lungfuls of the water he sank to near the bottom and swam along the ocean floor.

  He kept going until he was deep enough and far enough from shore that he couldn’t be spotted, but also shallow enough that he was still able to see the light coming down from the surface of the water, even if only slightly.

  He spent the next week idly swimming around and literally swimming with the fishes. Many of the animals were curious about him and if he stayed floating there still for long enough they’d cautiously approach to stare at him. Although even the tiniest twitch from him would see them darting away again through the water.

  Several predators tried to attack him, but after Sean used his fist to punch them through the water and showed his strength they retreated and went off to hunt easier prey. Sean was able to strain all of his muscles at once as he punched with all of his strength with every blow, so even in the water he hit hard enough that even the larger predators backed off and eventually gave up when they saw that it wasn’t a one off and he had the stamina to keep fighting them for longer periods too.

  Fighting the sea creatures was actually a bit fun, honestly. They never managed to hit him with anything smaller than a few small bites or wounds, and his blows gave them what Sean imagined was the equivalent of bruises. They certainly all seemed fine after they gave up and swam off back into the depths.

  He measured the days by the darkening and lightening of the blue water around him. After a full week, he swam back to his original beach and walked back onto the beach, dripping water.

  He froze as he saw a man sitting there on a blanket eating a sandwich.

  “Went for a quick swim, sorry,” Sean said to defuse the tension, “Thought this place was abandoned.”

  The man eyed Sean suspiciously and pointedly looked off to the side. Sean shrugged and went into the woods a few steps to retrieve his clothes. Ah, he hadn’t brought a towel… Well, whatever. Sean put on the underwear and went back onto the beach to air dry the rest. The other man kept glancing at Sean and looked uncomfortable, but Sean ignored him.

  The man was giving him looks like he thought that Sean was a strange person, but not enough that he’d be likely to call the police or something similar.

  After a few minutes Sean was mostly dry and put on the rest of his outfit.

  “Well, good day,” Sean said before walking off. The man on the blanket nodded back and took another bite out of his sandwich as he watched Sean go.

  Sean returned to town and sat at the bench to wait for the person he was supposed to meet. He had no idea what they would look like, but they would say the passphrase which should let him know when they arrived.

  He was sure it was the right day, but he still waited at the bench for a while, just people watching as the townspeople walked by minding their own business.

  “Nice weather for an umbrella isn’t it?” a woman said to him after approaching Sean and walking out of the crowd.

  “Yes, it’s raining frogs out here,” Sean replied and the woman relaxed slightly and nodded to him.

  “Well, friend,” she said, “Sorry for the wait. You ready for our trip?”

  “Yes, let’s get out of here,” Sean said and stood up, “It’s been a while since I’ve been back.”

  She shot him a warning look, but he just shrugged slightly and she shrugged it off.

  They climbed into the woman’s car and she started driving out of town.

  “So who are you really?” She asked, “Malketh died over ten years ago. How did you get his codes?”

  “I’m Malketh,” Sean said, “The codes are mine. Was that why there was a delay? The GFC had to decide what to do in case I was an imposter?”

  The woman glanced at him briefly, “You are out of date, whoever you are. There’s not many of us left. The GFC is only a shadow of what it was. This was the quickest that I could get to you safely. We don’t have the access or resources like we did before.”

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  “What happened?” Sean asked, “How could things have collapsed like that?”

  “How else? The Jade Congress. They were sent into a frenzy after the mission where Malketh was killed and one of our best operatives was retrieved from their clutches. The five Immortals working there quit, didn’t come back for any amount of money. Something about what happened seemed to rattle them something awful. Made the Jade Congress look weak, they always boasted about how many Immortals they managed to hire for their military.

  “Jade Congress ended up blaming everything on the GFC. Pushed hard, raided out hideouts… Let those military bastards have even more power and control over the party… They purged just as many innocent people and sent them into their prisons as they did our operatives… But they managed to catch our sources in the wider purges. With no one left on the inside it all went down from there, we weren’t able to escape most of their raids in time…”

  “What happened to those two operatives?” Sean asked, “The ones who escaped ten years ago? With Malketh? Me?”

  The woman shrugged, “Arrested by one of the Jade Congress allied nations. Thrown in their high security prison for over five years now. But I’m sure that they’re having a much better time there than they would have if the actual Jade Congress had managed to get their hands on them. Those two are too important for the allied country to hand the two of them over to the Jade Congress. Needs them for a political bargaining chip so they can get something from the Jade Congress in return.”

  “Prison?” Sean asked, concerned, “Are they alright? Any word?”

  The woman shrugged again, “I really wouldn’t know. It’s old news by this point. You can ask the commander once we make sure you are who you say you are.”

  Sean let out a breath and sat back against his seat. Well, the both of them were in prison. Not dead at least.

  — — —

  “Drink, Malketh?” the commander said as he took out his two glasses. Sean had a wave of deja-vu as it took him back to when he’d met the man years ago. Back when he’d first joined that little small group of the GFC. Seems that Sean’s local commander was in control of the whole organization now. Or what was left of it.

  Sean accepted the glass filled with liquor and took a sip. He felt none of the warm buzz like he had drinking it as a mortal. And people didn’t exactly drink these things for their taste…

  He inspected the commander as he took a sip from his own glass. The man had aged immensely in only the ten years that Sean had gone. He had theoretically only gone from fifty five to sixty five. But he looked worn down and with the weight of the world pressed down on him. His skin was wrinkled and he had a slight stubble on his face unlike how clean shaven he’d always had it before Sean left.

  “It’s good to have you back,” the commander said after a moment, “Damn near fell out of my chair when we confirmed that it was really you. Violet and Sierra told us that you died saving her. How did you make it out? Why wait so long to come back?”

  Sean considered trying to make up some story, to underplay what had happened. That he’d been out there waiting all of this time… But he liked the commander. The man had always done right by Malketh.

  “I’m an Immortal now,” Sean said, “Seems like death doesn’t take.”

  The commander’s arm stopped in mid motion as he had raised it to take another drink. His hand spasmed and the glass fell from his hand and hit the desk and spilling the liquor all over the wood.

  He quickly picked up the glass, but ignored the spilled liquor as he stared at Sean in disbelief.

  “You? Immortal? How’s that possible?”

  Sean put a hand to his cheek.

  “Don’t I look younger than you saw me last, commander?” Sean said, “I was almost thirty five last time you saw me. I’ve aged backwards to twenty five now that I’m Immortal. And it has been ten years…”

  “That… that is strange,” the commander said slowly, “I didn’t think of that. But it could be cosmetic surgery…”

  Sean displayed his hand and splayed out his fingers as the commander watched him. In one sharp motion Sean reached out and broke his pinky and dragged it to the side with a sickly crack.

  The commander swore and stood up alarmed, only to watch in horrified fascination as Sean’s finger started regenerating in front of his eyes.

  Sean cupped his hand and caught the severed remnants of his pinky and displayed it on his palm to the commander.

  “That proof enough?” Sean asked calmly.

  “By Gaia, yes of course,” the commander said in shock, “Stop making me look at that thing. I always knew you were special, but I didn’t think that much.”

  Sean curled his hand around the severed finger slowly oozing blood onto his palm as the commander collected himself and sat back down.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Sean said, “Ever since what happened ten years ago. I wasn’t doing my best to help the GFC. Helping you in ways that only I could. I was worried about… Well, I had my reasons. But Violet almost died. Your organization is almost on the brink of collapse, and the Jade Congress is stronger than ever…”

  The commander let out a defeated sigh and nodded, “Yes. It’s been a struggle these last ten years. Even the other nations pulled their funding from us. We can barely afford to keep our operative paid these days…”

  “I’ve decided to stop holding back,” Sean said, “I’m more than just an engineer. I can help build things, create technologies like you’ve never dreamed of before. If you can get me materials, then I could turn it all around. And you have an Immortal on your side now.”

  The commander looked hopeful before shaking his head.

  “But what of the Gaian knights? Won’t they take you, put you away so they can teach you about your new Immortal life?”

  Sean waved off the concern with a hand, “They shouldn’t know who I am. I’ve already figured it out, I don’t need them to teach me. Get me my supplies and I can help. Your agents will be the best armed in the world.”

  The commander hesitated before nodding.

  “Alright, Malketh. I’ll trust you on this. I’ll do what I can. But with you as an Immortal helping us, I’m sure we have some hope to keep the Jade Congress at bay.”

  — — —

  “Malketh? Did I do good Malketh?”

  “Yes, Ori. You did good. You’re coming along well. Exposing the Jade Congress’ crimes makes it harder for them to do them again or pretend that they're not happening. When people see those documents that you found, it’ll help make sure the people behind it hopefully get in trouble.”

  The computer screen glowed and pulsed for a few seconds as if in thought. Orion seemed pleased that Sean was using his nickname. They’d been trying it out recently, and the experiment seemed to be a success based on Orion’s happy responses to the nickname.

  “Why do we hate them Malketh?” Ori asked, “The Jade Congress? They do many bad things, but so do many others. Why do we fight Jade Congress and not them? Should we not stop them if they’re doing all those horrible things too?”

  “We can’t take on all of them at once,” Sean said, “If we exposed them too then they’d overwhelm us, and we wouldn’t be able to stop what the Jade Congress is doing. And I don’t hate the Jade Congress. Not like the others do. I just… want to stop them from doing all the horrible things that they want to do.”

  The computer screen swirled with abstract patterns for a few moments as Orion didn’t reply.

  “So, if we could do it without them knowing, then it would be the right thing to do?” Ori asked, “Isn’t that what you created me to do? To stop these horrible things from happening to people?”

  “Yes, Ori. That’s why I created you. And… You’re right. That’s not something I really thought of. I suppose… You have to be extremely careful. If you’re even a little uncertain about getting caught then pull back and leave it alone. But if you find anything else, then you can do the same as what we did to the Jade Congress documents.”

  “Yay!” Ori cheered from the computer, “I promise I’ll be able to do it! I’ve practiced being subtle just like I promised. Will you finally let me do the big one? The big job?”

  Sean considered it carefully.

  “Are you absolutely sure you’re ready for this, Orion?” he asked, “Those are government databases. These aren’t the home computers of government officials or files they accidentally left on an unsecured network. This is the real deal. You might really be caught and attacked if they detect you.”

  “I’ll be fine, Malketh,” Ori said confidently, “Even you’ve been saying that I’ve been doing well on my last few jobs. I know when to be careful.”

  “Well, go for it then,” Sean said.

  “Okay,” Ori said before the computer screen turned off by itself as Sean waited.

  After about twenty or thirty minutes, it turned itself back on.

  “All good! Got everything. But you were right, Malketh. That was really hard… They nearly caught me a few times. The humans they have there are no joke! I’ve sent the files to your datapad. Violet and Sierra are being held in the same facility. I got guard rotations, door codes, security procedures. The whole thing. We can finally break them out!”

  Sean smiled as he inspected the documents sent to the datapad in his hands. With the release of the documents and the resurgence of the GFC with Sean’s help, the time was right to break them out. It had taken over a year to get to this point, but they were there.

  Sean had filed about two dozen patents for some of the simpler technology that he knew from the future. The type of things that most people had access to on rural worlds. Mostly simple things, heaters that were a few percent more efficient than what was on Gaia for a much lower cost to build than the rest. A few designs for electronics that were the same. Only a few percent better performance, but still better than anything on the market.

  All of them were little things like that. Well, comparatively little to what Sean could have released out into the wild. Whatever technology he put out there would inevitably go into the hands of the Jade Congress and other hostile nations. It was inevitable, so Sean kept himself limited.

  But even with what he released, licensing the patents and the resulting income of the new innovations brought in massive amounts of wealth. A vast majority which Sean funneled directly into the GFC and the commander’s discretion.

  The commander had used the money well, and the GFC’s numbers had swelled tremendously as well as buying all sorts of new equipment and property for use for their strikes against the Jade Congress and its military.

  Sean had provided some more advanced technology and blueprints to the commander and GFC as well. Advanced enough that they were at least decades ahead in technology of even the major governments on Gaia. But not anything that was so visibly advanced that there could be no logical explanation on how ‘Malketh’ could have possibly invented the technology.

  The commander had kept Malketh’s return and involvement in the new technology mostly quiet, but there were still lots of rumors around Sean as he went around the base. Many seemed to know that he was the one who provided their funding, but not how or why. And that he was seen often meeting with the commander and treated with high respect by the man.

  But there was one piece of technology that made more difference than any other to the cause. And it was the one that Sean had been careful that only him and the commander would know about. And even the commander only knew the results, not exactly what it was or how Sean got his information.

  That technology was Ori. A fully sentient AI. Most intelligent machines could naturally become sentient by unknown means in a seemingly random pattern.

  But if one were attempting to create a sentient machine, then there were methods to intentionally alter the processes to increase the chances. It had taken fifteen prototypes and nearly a dozen more full models before Sean managed to create Ori even while making a deliberate effort. All the other AI’s were intelligent but rigid and uncreative. Not Ori, he was personable and excitable. Much more than Sean would have expected from his experience with Ash who was more collected and introverted in comparison.

  Sean looked behind the computer to the door on the far side of the room. Behind it lay the specialized room with the AI computer core where Ori’s mind sat.

  He had only been alive for a few weeks and already his personality was developing and he was asking questions…

  It was time for Sean to prepare for the mission. Time to plan a jailbreak of his friends.