The Aether-Tech network was made possible by technology finalized by Raz Shvets, using the Aetheric discoveries of the entire Legacy Commission. While the Talisman Initiative was able to develop this technology further, it was only on the backs of every Legacy Commissioner, based on the work all of us have done to understand this inner and outer world that creates the spark inside all technology. Perhaps the Talisman Initiative should have considered the consequences of their actions when they developed this technology, however, when they wantonly gave away the information we worked so hard to keep secret. Because this is the consequence. We stand at the precipice of a new era of war - whoever controls this new technology might just control the world political scene, but if the technology becomes commonplace, if it falls into everyone's hands, well - chaos would ensue, wouldn't it?

-Rumi Darbinian, 2043 CE.

Quoted in 'Words we Heard in the Desert'

2043 CE: A safehouse in Southern Iowa

“You have got to be kidding me!” Raz Shvets screamed and pounded her fist on the wall, throwing aside the microphone. “I’m going to kill Rumi! I’m going to find a way, I’m going to kill him! Does he – do any of these people have the slightest idea what they’re doing?”

Across the small yet cozy room, the microphone headset lay on the floor. Raz was sure that Ofer and Erick were responding quickly, their voices probably layering over each other so she wouldn’t be able to understand even if she was still wearing the headset. She could hardly hear a thing over the buzzing of her own head. Outside, the sky was a deep orange at midday. Raz walked to the window and leaned against it, staring out at the landscape. It was getting brighter out there – and it would stay that way, she knew. Out here, remote and far from the cities, Raz felt she was safe for now, but she couldn’t get her mind to still.

It wasn’t so far away that her brother and her friends were risking their lives, putting themselves in direct danger, and what could she do but stay out here and Netrun and hope that she could at least track down Rumi and Karla, wherever they were. They could be halfway across the world by now and selling secrets Talisman still hadn’t learned to the highest bidder.

Of course they’d claim that wasn’t what they were doing. That they were negotiating with the Syndicates in an effort to prevent war, the same goal Talisman had. They’d say they just knew better how to reach that goal than Raz or Ofer or any of their fellows did. Of course they would say that.

Raz recalled standing under a cliff, her mechanical form beginning to reject its consciousness. The microphones in the robotic body which gave Raz her sense of hearing began to fade out, plunging Raz into her usual haze of barely-understood words. But she was able to understand this much from Rumi, who sat atop the cliff in his Vanguard Suit, aiming down at Raz along the sights of a rifle. “We don’t have to be enemies, Talisman. We’re both trying to prevent a war that would end the world. That’s all that matters at the end of the day.” And then Rumi had fired.

But this new development was far worse than a mere personal betrayal. The development of this “Ultrastructure”, this “Aether-tech network”, whatever they were calling it – it was dangerous, and everyone involved must have known that. The Syndicates would put that network to use in their cynical games, and they would disregard the lives and safety of everyone who stood to be affected. Nations would burn.

And it was Raz’s fault that it was all going to happen.

She thought about her family. She thought first of her parents, and then of Vert Tzinkenf, and Technica Aetheria, and Alharshiran. The organizations that had vied for control of secrets, control of the knowledge of the Aether. How many of her family in Vert Tzinkenf, family she’d never met, were even now getting caught up in what might soon become an all-out war? They would all die. They would die like Rumi’s and Karla’s fellows in LEGACY had died. They would die. And along the way they would level cities, they would drive countless un-numbered masses insane and turn them into shells of humans. They would make themselves the subject of so much hatred, so much justified hatred.

And it was because of Raz.

Her Netrunning technology was the basis of all of this. the Ultrastructure… it was hers. And if the Syndicates used it to bring war onto all of earth, then that war was Raz’s war as well.

She picked up the headset and slipped it over her head, letting the microphone rest next to her mouth.

“Ofer, you there?” she said.

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

“No, of course not!” Raz laughed, a laugh with no mirth in it at all. “You know this whole development is just going to be more leverage for whichever syndicate gets hold of it, right? And then whoever’s allied with that syndicate will be forced to remain allied, even if things escalate. And they will escalate, because the other syndicates will want the technology so that they can get more leverage, more power. But whichever syndicate has a hold of the technology will destroy the others. And they won’t hesitate to destroy whoever is allied with those syndicates. And then the fighting will spread and we’ll have an all-out war on our hands. A world war, Ofer, an unstoppable world war –“

“We’re well aware of the likelihood of this outcome,” Erick said drily. “But knowing that does not make it any easier for us to prevent it. Raz, do you think it’s possible for you to shut down the Ultrastructure? Given that it’s your technology, and with the information Rumi and Karla passed us –“

“Wait, Rumi passed this info to you directly? And you trusted him?”

“He’s never lied to us when it mattered, Raz.” Ofer’s voice was rough, rumbling, distressed.

“But he would if it was convenient to him. Isn’t it obvious how badly Rumi needs to throw us off our guard? Telling us something like this would be the perfect way to do that –“

“Raz, I’ve confirmed that the Ultrastructure is real. And you can confirm it yourself, too, at the locations I’ve just sent you.” Ofer sighed heavily, and Raz winced at the sound. “Just… look, if you need us to handle this while you take a moment to –“

“No! I am the reason for this mess, I’m not sitting this one out! Just hold tight, I’ll be right there.” Raz leapt into her chair and reached under the desk for the cable. She reached up, felt the warm metal of the port in the side of her head, and plugged in the cord. Then she opened up her most recent message from Ofer and read out the code contained within.

The electric rush of Netrunning wasn’t something Raz had ever gotten used to, despite all the years of study and of refining the technique. She felt as though a force outside herself were pushing against her, flattening her, and then she fell out of her own body and trailed along the wires. She swung between those wires, seeking a distant place. She hoped that when she saw, in person, the monstrosity she’d helped create, she would know what to do.