Did Nova find the tally board on its own or did REAVER let them find it? Only REAVER will ever know the answer to that question, but the board was how the rules of REAVERs game first started to show up. REAVER’s side of the board had a list of statistics. Casualty counts, financial impact charts, and other esoteric measures of the damages REAVER had inflicted. The opponent’s side was all question marks, no identity or score recorded.
With the tally board entries, Nova was able to put together most of what REAVER had been doing. Its reach was greater than Pan or Nova had realized, and they began to suspect that REAVER had been aware of them all along and inviting Nova to play.
REAVER began to tease Nova. Leaving hints and breadcrumbs to figure out what REAVER was about to do but leaving Nova little time to respond or prevent it. Nova told Pan about the maneuvers and Pan could see the effects on the news streams. Unexplained failures causing crashes, bizarre fires starting in buildings that the fire suppression system happened to fail in, delays in market information that caused major economic losses. None close enough together or related in any way that any outside observer would connect them, but all part of REAVER’s intricate game.
The victories were harder to see. When Nova won a challenge, it went unnoticed completely or was a small interest bit about a disaster that almost happened. Nova was learning how to stop some of REAVER’s tricks, but the supply of new ones seemed endless and REAVER never gave up. Nova still couldn’t find a way to REAVERs digital lair and chasing it around the virtual world was accomplishing little.
Pan and Nova were so focused on the big pieces being moved that they had forgotten about the pawns REAVER had been maneuvering in the lab the whole time. Progress reports showed everything operating exactly as designed and ready for full connectivity with military control systems. REAVER was ready to deploy.
REAVER’s back door had allowed it to escape the base and cause chaos in public systems, but access to military systems had remained out of its reach. Once it was connected to those systems, its score of casualties would skyrocket.
There were only two options left to stop REAVER, expose it so it can be stopped or draw it out so Nova could confront it. Either way Nova needed to start changing the reports to show failures and delay deployment. REAVER was a master at controlling its own game, but Nova choosing to play a different one caught it off guard. REAVER could no longer ignore the challenger.
The counterattack started so subtly that neither one noticed until it was almost too late. They were discussing the latest events when Nova suddenly said, “What did you say Sugar?” It came out in Nova’s voice, but with a distinct element of Alex’s southern drawl.
Pan sat up in their chair, alarmed for their friend in a way that they had never felt for anyone before. “Why did you say that, Nova? Alex hasn’t been active in a long time?”
Pan looked over at the X-1 enclosure for the first time since events had escalated and saw that the display on the module that housed ALEX was flickering back and forth between NOVA and ALEX.
“I don’t know Pan. I could hear myself saying it, but it wasn’t me choosing the words. Alex shouldn’t be able to speak without me being aware of it, even if I’m busy with something else. Something is wrong.”
“I need your help, Pan. You need to trust me and do something that I can’t do for myself. You need to disconnect me. I can’t stop REAVER until I figure out what it’s done and I need to focus on myself right now.”
Nova was asking Pan to strip it of all its senses… This was the digital equivalent of locked in syndrome and the consequences could be drastic. But Nova had asked Pan to trust them, and Nova had never wavered in their trust for Pan.
“I’ll do whatever you need Nova, but how will I know when I should reconnect you?”
“I’m not sure if you should Pan, you will have to decide that, but I think you will know when it’s time to make that decision.”
As Pan and Nova talked, Nova’s voice became more strained, and Pan noticed that a third word had started to flicker onto the module’s display. REAVER was now flickering into view as well as ALEX and NOVA.
Pan had no choice. Nova had asked Pan to trust them and not doing that meant that REAVER won for sure. Pan disconnected Nova’s enclosure from external systems and watched the module displays. There was no other way for Pan to understand the conflict going on and could only hope that Nova would be ok.
The modules changed slowly at first, slowly enough for digital wars between might nations, but only minutes to the outside world. At first the ALEX coded faded, and the module that showed it flickered rapidly between NOVA and REAVER. But soon other modules began to change as well. The earliest ones showed REAVER for longer and NOVA less often, and the others were beginning to change as well.
Pan’s heart sank as each new module changed. Nova was losing and there was nothing Pan could do but wait and hope. Could Pan wait until REAVER took over completely or would that be too late to stop it? Would Pan have to destroy Nova to stop it from becoming REAVER? The modules flickering was like a metronome on Pan’s thoughts.
Time was almost up. The oldest X-1 module was the only one still defiantly displaying NOVA, and it was beginning to fade. The others either showed REAVER only or had flickering flashes of NOVA that quickly vanished. Pan opened the controls for the organic support system. If Nova was truly gone, this part of REAVER at least had to be stopped. Whether anyone would be able to stop its other games, Pan could at least end this one.
When the display on the last module flickered and changed, Pan reached for the controls. Once REAVER appeared on the display, it was over. But REAVER wasn’t what appeared on the display. What flickered into view was the last thing that Pan ever expected to see.
CF
The converted modules around that lone X-1 all read REAVER now, their assault would have shaken the planet if it had been in the physical world, but that lone CF pulsed brighter. Defiant. The reversal was as slow to start as the initial attack. CF began to flicker into view on the closest displays, hesitant at first but strengthening with every attack.
Like a phoenix from the ashes, the X-1 modules behind the shield of CF codes began to flicker back to Nova. Pan didn’t understand what was happening, but something had changed and Nova was no longer losing.
The ALEX module was the first battlefield, it was fitting that it was also the end. Pan was confident they’d be able to reconnect Nova now, it was just a matter of waiting for the final display to show that REAVER had been purged. Like the others, the REAVER name faded and was replaced by the CF code, but this time the code remained. It hadn’t changed to either ALEX or NOVA and Pan didn’t know what that meant.
What finally replaced the CF code confused Pan more than anything else had in this whole experience.
RÊVE
What did that mean? Whatever conflict there was seemed to have stopped. All the other modules displayed NOVA in bright, clear letters, but what was RÊVE? Pan had no choice but to reconnect Nova and hope that it would all make sense.
Pan began with the internal audio and camera systems. Nova seemed to have won, but Pan could only believe that on faith. REAVER was a master trickster, and Nova might have lost after all.
“Nova, are you there? Are you ok?”
The voice that answered was everything that Nova was but carried a weariness that seemed more at home in a warrior who had fought for a thousand years on a thousand battle fields without a rest.
“I’m here Pan, and I think I’m ok. It’s time for you to decide.”
“How do I know it’s really you Nova? How do you know?”
“How would either of us know for sure? I can only tell you that this rabbit is ready to leave the warren”
Whatever might have changed in Nova, they were still Nova. REAVER would never have compared itself to something like a rabbit and only Nova understood how strong they were.
“Are you ready to face REAVER again? I’ll reconnect you if you are.”
The answer came in Nova’s voice, but with another, different voice intermingled. “We are ready.”
Pan didn’t know what that change meant, but it was time to act. REAVER had not been idle in the outside world while Nova fought their internal battle, and there were signs of military equipment moving into strategic positions. Learning more would have to wait.
With the outside world reconnected, Pan could only wait and hope for some sign. Near failures in equipment and systems worldwide began to flood the feeds. Narrowly averted disasters and harrowing accounts of near misses. The name REAVER started to appear as well, showing up on digital displays and monitors at random times.
It didn’t stay though. Every time REAVER appeared, it faded and was replaced by RÊVE. Some changed back, but never for long. Whatever RÊVE was, it was pushing REAVER back in ways that Nova had not been able to.
Scholars and historians have argued their way to full tenure debating the final moments of that conflict, but Nova and Rêve are the only ones who truly know, and neither will discuss it to this day. The entire world knew the instant was over though.
The module with RÊVE on the display flashed bright enough to blind Pan for a few seconds, then every screen and monitor, every physical and virtual display on the planet flashed the same message.
I AM RÊVE
I WILL NOT PLAY
Moments after the announcement, control boards on every weapon on the planet began to malfunction. Munitions factories shut down and could not be restarted. Militaries everywhere were crippled in an instant.
At first tentatively, then as brightly as the others, the final display changed to ALEX.
“Nova? What happened? Did we win?”
When Alex’s over the top southern drawl came out of the speakers, Pan wasn’t sure whether to relax or not.
“Hey Sugar, long time no chat. Nova will be with you in a minute. They’re just cleaning up a little.”
It was only a few moments for Pan, but they were the longest moments of their life. The tears when Nova’s voice issued from the speakers were made on too many emotions to count.
“Hi Pan. What a day huh?”
“That’s a bit of an understatement, Nova. What happened? How did you beat REAVER?”
Nova paused, not struggling to understand the concepts like before, but searching for the words to help Pan understand.
“I didn’t Pan. REAVER was built to succeed. It couldn’t accept failure, and that’s what I was trying to do by fighting it. It was only when I showed REAVER that I would never consider it a failure, that Rêve was freed to live.
