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LOCATION: ISLE OF LIGHT
CITY: SEYCHELLES
DATE: AUGUST 21, 2026 | TIME: 11:15 PM
Back on the Île de Lumière, Samir had bided his time until the all clear report came back from Grim and Li.
Gideon Blackwell had pushed him to get started with the operation, but Samir insisted he needed to plan the logistics first, as thirty teams hitting that many locations simultaneously required coordination.
Once Samir received Li's final notice the assaults on production facilities had been avoided, he asked Rourke Maddox for a meeting.
He asked Rourke to meet him in the cove near the docks.
The surf rolled in against the rocks, a steady hush beneath the muted chorus of night insects. Moonlight spilled silver across the water, turning the docked boats into dark silhouettes adrift in the sheltered cove.
When Gideon's head of security arrived, Samir simply handed him a tablet.
"What's this?"
"Just read," Samir said.
He let his gaze drift across the moonlit cove while he waited. The weather had been perfect here ever since they'd arrived. One or two squalls came in a day to keep the vegetation well-watered, but other than that, the sun shone and the temperature was exquisite.
"What the fuck is this?" Rourke muttered as he swiped at page after page of documents Samir had preloaded.
"That's really his signature," Rourke said. "On all of these kill orders. For fuck's sake… Me and my entire team? And our families?"
Finally, he finished reading, and his face was red with anger.
Samir could see the veins on his forehead pulsing. If there's one thing Samir recognized, it was a man of action about to explode into a killing spree.
That bloodlust was something you never forget seeing or feeling.
Rourke was quiet for a long moment, staring out at the moonlit water. "Ten years I've kept this bastard alive," he said finally. "Took bullets meant for him in Lagos. Lost two good men protecting his interests in Myanmar." He looked back at the tablet. "And this is how he repays loyalty."
"Razor," Samir said, placing his hand on the Australian man's shoulder. "Before you do what you're about to do, I have a proposal for you."
Maddox looked Samir in the eyes, and finally exhaled after a moment. He hadn't even realized he was holding his breath.
His clenched jaw relaxed, and he nodded.
"Let's hear it."
Samir smiled, letting his hand fall back to his side.
"I've been stalling here while other teams of mine neutralized the hired guns. So nobody is coming for you. But the question remains how to make sure Gideon pays for his poor judgment."
Maddox balled his hands into fists, and the veins on his forearms looked like they might burst.
Samir held his hands up.
"Of course there's always the easy solution," he said, "but let me pose another possibility."
He paused, but could see Rourke was listening. He'd been protecting Gideon for over a decade, and it's not easy to turn on the man who'd been signing your paycheck for that long.
"What I'm about to tell you is more confidential than any information you've ever been privy to before. Can you keep it to yourself?"
"I was in the Commandos for my whole career before I started working for this fucking backstabber, of course I can keep a secret. Imagine the dirt I have on this cunt swirling around my brain right now."
Samir laughed.
"Fair enough. I just want you to understand it's sensitive and I need you to keep it to yourself."
Rourke nodded.
"Alright," Samir continued. "There's a special feature hidden within Rejuvenex that can be triggered. I can target Gideon and his compatriots specifically, and they will find themselves in a prison of their own making."
"What does that even mean?" Maddox asked.
"Have you ever played any role-playing games, Razor?" Samir asked.
"Oh, fuck yeah. In between deployments, my mates and I used to play World of Warcraft and SWTOR all the time."
"Right," Samir said, "imagine the entire planet becoming World of Warcraft, but we are the players."
Rourke raised an eyebrow.
"Okay…"
Samir continued. "Now imagine being the developer and deciding to throw Gideon into a Nightmare difficulty dungeon at level one and letting him die over and over again, but never being able to leave until he clears it."
"Jesus, dude. That's kind of dark…"
Recognition suddenly dawned on the Aussie commando.
"You're fucking serious? You can do that?"
"Remember," Samir said, "it's a secret. He won't know it's happening until he goes to sleep. The others on the island will enter a different simulation where they're told Gideon had to leave on business and will be back."
Rourke started pacing back and forth, and looked around them once again to make sure nobody was listening.
"Why are you telling me this? You could have just triggered it for me too, and I'd never known. You must need my help."
"Smart man," Samir said. "I need to know who you think deserves the idyllic lifestyle version, and who deserves Nightmare Mode. Also, we should probably erase footage of this conversation. Not sure if the mics reach here, but the cameras do."
While Samir had been running around the past two days making a show of preparing to leave on the supply disruption mission from Gideon, he had sent his plan to Grim and Li.
Grim consulted with the Core Council, and they approved it immediately. Ronan and his teams got to work on creating a carbon copy of the Isle of Light, with data provided by Samir's team on the island.
Ronan sent patches to their mobile phones that passively recorded topographical, atmospheric, and physical mapping data and sent it back through System channels in real time.
Ronan fed the details into the System Tutorial configuration protocol, and two scenarios were drawn up.
When Ronan saw the idyllic version, he was a little jealous, but when he saw the Nightmare mode, he was very glad he was nowhere near that place.
Once Maddox confirmed who was naughty and who was nice, the scenarios were set for that night.
When each person on the island hit REM sleep tonight, they would be integrated into the System early, and wake to find themselves right where they started. Except that for them, everything would be different.
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System Message
Samir al-Mansoor
Dune Viper
The System has created two scenarios for your location. These are the final population tallies for each:
Idyllic Isle of Light: 174 people
Nightmare from the Deep: 22 people
The Core Council has given you final approval.
If you approve, these scenarios will commence for those listed above upon achieving REM sleep tonight, and the runtime will continue until expiration at midnight on New Year's Eve, or if you release them first.
Do you wish to proceed? [Y/N]
---
Samir read the message twice, feeling the weight of what he was about to unleash. With a mental command, he selected Yes.
The die was cast. The idyllic scenario included the 24 less implicated men, all the wives and children, and Maddox and his team.
Samir nodded and returned to his cabin for some rest.
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System Broadcast
Vitalyx Recipients: 8,091,255,496
Rejuvenex Recipients: 3,602,323,768
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@NotAnOldMan: Had to buy shampoo for the first time in three decades. Damn you, #Rejuvenex! In other news, I no longer need those blue pills, so I guess I saved money after all.
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