CHAPTER 127: Country in Panic?

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9:00 AM (UTC-5).

Guardians Guild Main Base, Washington, DC.

It was a secret underground facility used for weapons research purposes before it was handed over to Brandon to operate how he sees fit.

He had that large underground facility re-arranged so that the Alpha Chosen in the Guardians Guild could live there with everything needed, along with a well-equipped training area.

For now, it's just too big for him, Gabriel and a few other technical staff to live there but after a few months, it would have more members with several Beta and Gamma Chosen joining the Guardians Guild.

It's far in the future but Brandon had placed that in mind for making changes there.

While he was advising Gabriel on how to get a proper hold over his newly improved Tier Suppression after reaching Tier-3, he got a call from the Chief of the country's top Cyber Security division, which was appointed to that base by the President.

"Mr Brandon, just like you asked, we used surveillance satellite feed of other counties and traced our targets' whereabouts to an airport in India. Should we send our agents in that country to find their exact location?"

Brandon replied immediately, "No, if we do that, they would notice it in no time. These are not any ordinary individuals we are talking about. Even if it takes longer, just continue to use the surveillance satellite feed to find them. It's safer that way."

The person on the other end wanted to ask Brandon to reconsider his order because of the immense workload their Cyber Security staff had to go through but didn't bring himself to do it after thinking back to the position of Brandon. He was appointed to a new role, where his authority was just below their Country's President.

After accepting the order Brandon gave, the call ended and they went back to their work.

Brandon had placed the Alpha Chosen under satellite surveillance in the past few days to keep track of their activities.

It didn't matter if they are in Olivia's group or even a member of the Guardian's Guild.

It was to see if any of them were misusing their powers to harm civilians or illegal activities such as robbing banks and if so, by taking further steps to prevent them.

The incident where Sergei went on a spree to kill assassins of a Secret Russian Organisation he used to work in a few years ago caused Brandon to take this step.

Although Sergei's act was still a major criminal offence, it was justified for Sergei to go after the members of the assassin organisation who tried to kill him and his daughter. So, Brandon didn't meddle in that matter.

Fortunately, after that, any such incident didn't happen. Whether it was Brandon's group member or Olivia's, they didn't even have to commit any crimes for money since they were offered a heavy sum for joining either group.

Recently, his satellite surveillance team noticed Olivia and Sergei taking a private jet overseas.

But strangely, they seemed to vanish from their surveillance. It was similar to how Dante disappeared from the radar when he was leaving Italy.

Ever since then, they tried to track Dante's whereabouts but came out empty-handed except for the information that he travelled to India.

So, Brandon believed it must be connected to Jay, whose identity remained a mystery to them even till now.

The identities of other Alpha Chosen were easily found using the composite sketches made by Brandon describing their facial features to composite profilers and using that to search in the citizenship database all over the world.

However, Jay was the only exception. Brandon couldn't recall Jay's facial features or any detail of his appearance no matter how hard he tried, making it impossible to search for him in the first place.

Now that they were able to track down Olivia's Private Jet, he guessed that it wasn't a coincidence that they lost track of Dante and Oiliva when they went to India.

Brandon could only connect that with Jay, whose identity is still a mystery to him.

While he was in his thoughts, he got another call on his burner phone and on the other end was the Chief of Cyber Security division but this time, his voice was shaking uncontrollably.

"Mr…..Mr Brandon, as per your order, we began to shuffle through loads of surveillance satellite feed but….but right after that…...we lost connection with the surveillance satellite we were using.

However, that was just the begi….beginning, one by one, we lost connection with the remaining all...all 122 military spy satellites under our country's jurisdiction. Intelligence Agencies across the nation were now under full panic, assuming the worse of it being a large-scale terrorist cyber attack."

Brandon was flabbergasted by the new revelation. He didn't expect such a thing to happen out of nowhere.

Right then, he heard a baby voice coming from behind him, where Gabriel was at and disconnected the call.

Brandon recognised the voice right away and turned around to see Baby MJ sitting on top of Gabriel's head.

Gabriel could only wryly smile and helplessly look at Brandon as Baby MJ played with his brown curly hair.

At the moment, Gabriel wasn't aware of the commotion in that country. So, he was thinking it might be MJ's playful visit.

But, Brandon began to connect the dots and widened his eyes upon drawing a conclusion.

"Was it…..."

Before Brandon could ask, MJ intervened, "Yup, you guessed it right, it was me. Did you think no one would notice if you go poking into others' business using satellite surveillance? This is a warning from my Master. Got it?

Brandon nodded with hints of fear evident in his eyes.

Seeing that his goal was achieved, Baby MJ waved his hands in the air and several laptop screen size blue screens popped around him.

Each of them showed the images of the satellites in space and the next second they changed to the NASA headquarters and displayed the images of space surveillance equipment there.

Following that, the images changed to the locations of other countries' Space Agencies before the same process was repeated.

After a few seconds, those screens vanished and the Baby MJ made an action that looked like he was cracking his fingers all at once before giving Brandon a carefree warning, "Refrain from trying to find my Master's identity and whereabouts. It also includes the relentless search for Dante and Olivia. If this happens again, you could say goodbye to all your country's satellites for real this time."

As for Gabriel, he understood the seriousness of the matter after hearing that. But what he was worried about the most at that moment was something else entirely.

MJ was rubbing his palm on top of Gabriel's head ever since he began a conversation with Brandon. With the context of that one-sided conversation being a warning, he couldn't help but gulp in worry about the safety of his head.

"Did any tell you that the crown of your skull is way too flat?"

Hearing MJ's unexpected question, Gabriel replied with an awkward smile as if he was accustomed to hearing that, "Haha, Yes. I was born like that."

"Hmm, Alright, gotta go, I have several ice creams waiting for me." after saying that, Baby MJ turned into a blue steak of light and disappeared into a nearby wire.

Soon after that, Brandon got a call, pulling him out of his thoughts. It was once again the Chief of the Cyber Security division.

Unlike the previous time, his voice sounded full of relief, "Thank God, Mr Brandon, it turned out to be a false alarm. We just received reports from NASA that the satellites were temporarily rendered inoperable due to the magnetic fluctuations of solar flares. Also, fresh intel suggests that it wasn't just our country but a few neighbouring countries were affected as well."

From the beginning of that call, there was no joy over Brandon's face even after learning that there was no threat to the nation. He disconnected before telling the chief to call him if there are any new updates.

Brandon began to rethink his evaluation of Jay's capabilities, especially of MJ.

He didn't buy MJ's flashback story of being a 10,000-year-old soul and already guessed that MJ is some kind of Artificial intelligence species after witnessing his ability to control and manage the highly advanced technology facilities in Earth's Foothold.

But, he didn't estimate what MJ could do was something far-fetched as taking away control of their entire satellite fleet.

The even more terrifying part was how easily MJ made fake evidence of the solar flares affecting the satellites and NASA doesn't even have a clue that someone orchestrated all of that.

With MJ's ability to infiltrate any digital security, even nuclear weapons would be under Jay's disposal.

Thinking of the implications of MJ's capabilities, he couldn't help but have chills running down his spine.

The personal assistant of Brandon entered the training room they were in and greeted him before reminding, "Mr Brandon, you have a prior appointment in the White House two hours from now. I have arranged the transportation for you."