Enter Password- English Version

PROLOGUE (part 2 of 3)

Date: 03/18/2089

Location: unknown, main headquarters of the Japanese secret service Psia

[ from Kaito's perspective]

I opened my eyes and saw a clean gray ceiling with a weak glowing lamp.

What had happened?

Little by little the memories came back.

I had just been about to crack a digital money safe of the main Australian bank when I spotted soldiers on my security cameras that I had installed in the factory. I had immediately checked the exits and realized with growing panic that everything had been surrounded. How could that happen? I was nothing but a shadow, an unknown phantom! How had they been able to find out my location?? What had I done wrong? I tried to sit up, but with a groan, I noticed that my entire body was still aching from the soldier's shock-pistols. I got one, I remembered, but there had just been too many.

Suddenly the door of my prison cell opened.

"Good evening, Mr. Ekō. Have you rested well? I'm so sorry that our units treated you so brutally," greeted me a bored looking guy stuck in a gray suit who was probably not completely convinced of his job. "There, shut up and sit down," he pointed at a chair at a table that I hadn't even noticed.

"Very friendly," I replied and sat down reluctantly.

"I don't have to be friendly, the main thing is that I get paid," said the suit-man.                     

"A person of higher importance than me will be talking to you soon, so I'm done here"

With these words he disappeared again and closed the door behind him.

...

An estimated 15 minutes later, the door opened again and another suit-man entered the room.

"Evening," I muttered.

"Let's get to the point and leave the formalities," he answered as he sat down on a second chair faced to me. "Your situation is not very good for you, Mr. Ekō. 263 cyber attacks, one just attempted and resistance to the military and secret service, murder on a soldier, illegal possession and usage of weapons speak for themselves, I guess," he started.

"Get to the point," I replied with a grin.

For a moment I could see anger flashing on his face, then it disappeared again as if blown away, probably he had practiced this for years. "You think you can do anything, since you have nothing more to lose anyway, do you?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued.

"But whatever, to the point. About one year ago, Russia carried out excavations in an undeveloped area in New Antartica and came across a fabolous discovery. Under the kilo-meter-long, green grass and plant area, they found an ancient temple 963 kilometers below, which was build before the Ice Age. It contained many treasures, but all these trivialities were nothing compared to what the temple actually hid. An artifact of immense importance, as laboratories later found out.

However, since Russia, as everyone knows, is currently financially incapable, the artifact was given to us, in return all debts of the Russian Republic were deleted.

We, currently the most powerful country in the world, had the technology and the capacity to investigate this object and we stumbled upon something unbelievable: This artifact could give us free energy that would be generated every time it was used! Shortly said, infinite, free energy for everyone, the world would no longer need a second greaet energy war! We could..."

That's all sounds nice and good, but why do I have to listen to this when I'm going to be executed soon anyway? What's my role in all of this?," I interrupted, annoyed.

"If you would let me finish, you would have already found out," he answered even more annoyed. "You wanna know your role? I'll tell you. There is one problem with this artifact...We can't open it. 

You see, to get this great energy we have to fully decipher the artifact, but no one in our headquarters is gifted enough to crack it.

It is equipped with a digital, complex code that should actually not exist since the artifact comes from such a large time ago.

Put simply, it has a password and you have to crack it. In return, your records and files will be erased and you will be a free man again", he concluded.

I froze. An ancient artifact with an unbreakable password? My ambition awoke. I, yes I, would crack it and prove to everyone that I was the smartest of them all. And I would do it all by myself, just like I had cracked every system before alone, too.

"Fine, I'll help you, but in return I'll get full protection from the law," I said after a moment of thinking.

"Why not, you might even wish to become the President of Britain if you wanted to be! But well, who would want to lead such a small rotten state.. in the end you have even less than before, in terms of finances," the suit-man replied, visibly relieved.

"Follow me," he ordered.

...

After taking the elevator 55 floors down, we were finally there. We stood in a large room, more like a facility. It was a round room, in the middle of it there stood a huge, transparent water tank with a reddish stone set with runes in it, the runes illuminated the room with a bluish tinge. Around the tank there were computers on tables that were attached to the tank by cables and which were being operated by other persons.

"There is your computer," said the man in the suit and led me to an empty space with three computer screens. "While you crack the password, the others will monitor every "activity" of the artifact"

So I sat down and started analyzing all the data.