# Chapter 1: System Error

Marcus Chen stood behind his teller window at First National Bank, greeting his next customer with the warm smile he always used. The morning rush had finally settled, and the lobby maintained a pleasant hum of activity. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, highlighting the polished marble floors that gave the bank its prestigious appearance.

"Good morning, how may I help you today?" Marcus asked as an elderly woman approached his station.

Mrs. Dalloway—he recognized her from her weekly visits—placed her worn leather purse on the counter and pulled out her passbook. Marcus had memorized her routine: she would deposit exactly half of her pension check and withdraw thirty dollars in five-dollar bills for her weekly expenses.

"Just the usual, Marcus," she said, sliding her check across the counter.

Marcus nodded and began typing on his computer. His fingers moved efficiently across the keyboard as they always did. But suddenly, his index finger stopped responding. He pressed harder, but it remained frozen above the 'F' key.

Strange, he thought. The bank had updated their systems last night, and technical glitches sometimes followed. He tried to move his hand, but now his entire arm felt locked in position.

"How may I help you today?" he heard himself say, although he hadn't intended to speak.

Mrs. Dalloway looked up, confusion crossing her face. "I already told you, dear. Just depositing my check."

Marcus tried to nod, to explain that he was having some kind of issue, but his head wouldn't move. His smile remained fixed, the corners of his mouth frozen in their upturned position.

"How may I help you today?" he repeated, his voice maintaining the same cheerful tone.

Mrs. Dalloway's confusion turned to concern. "Marcus? Are you feeling alright?"

"How may I help you today?" The words came out again, identical in pitch and inflection to the previous two times.

Behind Mrs. Dalloway, a line began to form. A businessman checked his watch impatiently. A college student with headphones looked up from her phone, noticing something was wrong.

"How may I help you today?" Marcus said again. And again. And again.

Inside his mind, Marcus panicked. He couldn't control his speech or movements. It felt like being trapped inside a vehicle that someone else was driving. He tried to scream, but all that came out was, "How may I help you today?"

Mrs. Dalloway stepped back from the counter, clutching her purse to her chest. "Someone help! Something's wrong with this young man!"

Branch manager Diane Powell hurried over from her office. As the most senior staff member present, she always handled difficult situations. She placed a hand on Mrs. Dalloway's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry for the inconvenience. Let me help you at my desk," she said, guiding the elderly woman away. Then she turned to her assistant. "Call technical support immediately. And close Marcus's window."

As the assistant placed a "Next Window Please" sign in front of Marcus, he continued his loop.

"How may I help you today? How may I help you today? How may I help you today?"

By the time technical support arrived thirty minutes later, Marcus had repeated the phrase exactly thirty-seven times. His smile never faltered, his posture never slumped. Even when they powered down his terminal, his behavior didn't change.

The technician, a young woman with a tattooed wrist peeking out from her company uniform, examined Marcus with growing confusion.

"I've never seen anything like this," she whispered to Diane. "It's like he's stuck in some kind of loop. Has he been working a lot of overtime? Maybe stress-induced catatonia?"

"How may I help you today?" Marcus said for the thirty-eighth time, his expression unchanging.

"We should call an ambulance," Diane decided, reaching for her phone.

Just as she dialed, the technician grabbed her arm. "Wait. Look at his eyes."

Diane stepped closer, peering into Marcus's face. His pupils had contracted to pinpoints, and something about them seemed wrong. Instead of the warm brown she remembered, they appeared almost... mechanical. As she watched, his right eye twitched, and she could have sworn she heard a faint clicking sound.

"This isn't medical," the technician said. "Something else is going on here."

---

Across town at the Tribune offices, financial journalist Olivia Rey scrolled through hundreds of emails from her source inside the Federal Reserve. The latest banking scandal—involving artificially inflated interest rates at twelve major banks—had consumed her life for weeks.

Her desk was covered with printouts, coffee cups, and sticky notes filled with calculations. Her editor wanted the story ready for Sunday's edition, which gave her less than forty-eight hours to finish her investigation.

Olivia rubbed her eyes. The numbers on her screen blurred together after eight straight hours of research. She needed coffee. As she stood up, her phone buzzed with a text from her brother Mike, who worked in cybersecurity.

"Turn on Channel 7 right now," it read.

She frowned and grabbed the remote for the small TV mounted in the corner of the financial desk area. The screen flickered to life, showing a reporter standing outside First National Bank downtown.

"...witnesses report that at least three bank employees began exhibiting strange behavior this morning, repeating phrases and appearing to freeze in place. Similar incidents have been reported at four other banks across the city..."

Olivia turned up the volume as her colleagues gathered around.

"...sources within emergency services confirm that at least twenty-eight bank employees have been transported to hospitals with what's being described as 'seizure-like symptoms' or 'catatonic states.' Doctors are puzzled by the consistent pattern of symptoms..."

The camera panned to show paramedics wheeling someone out on a stretcher, the patient's face covered.

Olivia's phone buzzed again. Mike had sent another text: "Not just there. Reports coming in nationwide. Some kind of coordinated tech attack?"

She texted back: "Bank scandal connection? I've been investigating rate manipulation."

Mike replied instantly: "This is something else. Much bigger. Call you in 10."

Olivia grabbed her laptop and press badge. Whatever was happening, she needed to see it firsthand. Her editor looked up as she rushed past.

"Where are you going? The deadline's tomorrow!"

"Breaking story at First National," she called back. "Might tie into mine. I'll file both!"

She didn't wait for his response.

---

When Olivia arrived at First National, the scene resembled a quarantine zone more than a bank. Police had established a perimeter around the building, and people in white hazmat suits moved in and out of the main entrance.

She approached a officer at the barricade. "Olivia Rey, Tribune. What's happening?"

The officer shook his head. "No comment. CDC and FBI are handling this."

"CDC?" Olivia asked, surprised. "So it's biological?"

"I said no comment. Please step back."

Olivia moved along the perimeter, looking for someone who might talk. She spotted a young woman sitting on the curb, still wearing her bank name tag: "Jennifer, Personal Banking Specialist."

"Jennifer?" Olivia approached cautiously. "I'm Olivia from the Tribune. Are you okay? Can you tell me what happened in there?"

Jennifer looked up, her face pale. "It was like something from a horror movie. Marcus just... froze. Then Diane went to help him and started acting weird too. Then Kumar from the mortgage department." She wrapped her arms around herself. "They were all saying the same things over and over, like robots with the same broken programming."

"Did you notice anything unusual before today? Any system upgrades, new policies, strange visitors?"

Jennifer thought for a moment. "There was a system update last night. All banks in our network had it. But that happens all the time." She paused. "Though Kumar mentioned yesterday that his terminal kept showing these weird error messages. Something about 'Mars Protocol incomplete.'"

Olivia wrote that down. "Mars Protocol? Are you sure?"

"That's what he said. We thought it was just some weird code name for the update."

A commotion near the entrance caught their attention. Regional bank manager Howard Phillips was being escorted out by two men in suits. Unlike the other affected employees, he was walking on his own, though his movements seemed stiff and jerky.

Olivia recognized him from previous interviews about the banking industry. She excused herself from Jennifer and rushed over, holding up her press badge.

"Mr. Phillips! Olivia Rey from the Tribune. Can you tell us what's happening?"

The men in suits tried to block her, but Phillips stopped, his head turning toward her with an unnatural precision. His normal charming smile appeared, but something about it seemed wrong—too wide, too fixed.

"First National Bank values your business," he said, his voice perfectly modulated. "Our current system update is experiencing minor difficulties. Normal service will resume shortly. First National Bank values your business."

"Mr. Phillips, are your employees ill? What's this about a Mars Protocol?"

Phillips' expression didn't change, but something happened to his left eye—it twitched violently, and Olivia heard a distinct mechanical click.

"System... experiencing... temporary malfunction," he said, his voice dropping to a lower register. "Musk... override... initiate... restoration..." His words became garbled, descending into electronic-sounding noises.

As he spoke, Olivia noticed something on his neck—a small tear in the skin near his collar. But instead of blood, she glimpsed something metallic underneath.

The men in suits quickly moved Phillips toward a waiting black SUV. "Back off, miss. This is a federal matter now."

Olivia stood frozen, trying to process what she'd just seen. Her phone rang—Mike calling back.

"Liv, where are you?" he asked when she answered.

"Outside First National. Mike, I just saw something impossible. The regional manager—his skin tore, and there was metal underneath. Like he's not human."

Mike was silent for a moment. "I believe you. The networks my team monitors are going crazy. Something massive is happening with banking systems worldwide. It started with a cascading failure in authentication protocols, but it's spreading to physical locations. Every major bank is affected."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know yet. But whatever's happening, it's not just a computer glitch. The failures show patterns of... well, it sounds crazy, but they're consistent with some kind of automated system trying to override its own programming."

Olivia watched as more hazmat-suited figures entered the bank. "Like robots fighting their code?"

"Exactly like that. But that's impossible, right?"

She thought about the metallic gleam beneath Phillips' torn skin. "I'm not so sure anymore."

---

As night fell, the situation escalated. News networks ran continuous coverage of what they were calling "The Banking Breakdown." Videos circulated online showing bank employees across the country frozen mid-transaction, repeating phrases, or making mechanical movements.

From her makeshift command center at the Tribune, Olivia coordinated with Mike and her network of sources. The government had issued a statement calling for calm and announcing the temporary closure of all banks while a "technical issue" was investigated.

"Technical issue," Olivia muttered as she scanned social media. "That's one way to describe bank managers making whirring noises and speaking in code."

Her editor hovered nearby, both terrified and thrilled by the scope of the story unfolding. "What's your angle, Rey? We need something exclusive for tomorrow."

"I'm working on it," she said, not looking up from her screen. Her phone pinged with a message from an unknown number.

"Maintenance facility. First National basement level B3. Midnight. Come alone if you want the truth."

Olivia stared at the message. It could be a trap, or it could be the break she needed. She checked the time: 10:45 PM.

"I've got a lead," she told her editor. "Need to check it out."

"Take a photographer."

She shook her head. "Source wants me alone. I'll record everything on my phone."

Her editor looked concerned. "Be careful, Rey. This isn't just another banking scandal. Something bigger is happening."

"I know," she said, grabbing her jacket. "That's exactly why I have to go."

---

The downtown area surrounding First National was eerily quiet. The police barricades remained, but the officers had been replaced by military personnel. Olivia approached cautiously, sticking to the shadows of adjacent buildings.

She'd covered conflict zones overseas and knew how to move without being seen. There was a service alley behind the bank that connected to the loading docks. If security followed standard protocol during an emergency, they would focus on front entrances and designated exit points, not service areas.

As she suspected, the loading dock had only one guard, and he was more interested in his phone than his surroundings. Olivia waited until he walked to the other end of the dock to check something, then slipped through a propped-open door.

Inside, emergency lighting cast an eerie glow through the corridors. The bank seemed deserted, but she moved carefully, staying close to the walls. She found a stairwell marked with a B designation and descended.

B1 was the standard basement—storage, HVAC systems, electrical panels. B2 housed the main vault and safe deposit boxes. But B3? Most banks didn't have a third basement level.

Yet there it was: a door marked "B3 - Authorized Personnel Only." It required a keycard, but someone had already circumvented the security—a small device was attached to the card reader, its lights blinking green.

Olivia pushed the door open slowly, ready to retreat if necessary. Beyond was a long corridor that looked nothing like the rest of the bank. The walls were metallic, with pipes and conduits running along the ceiling. It resembled a high-tech manufacturing facility more than a financial institution.

At the end of the corridor stood a set of double doors marked "Maintenance." As she approached, Olivia heard voices from inside.

"—completely unprecedented failure rate. Almost 37% of units malfunctioning simultaneously."

"The Mars Protocol was never meant to activate this early. Something triggered it prematurely."

Olivia pulled out her phone and began recording audio. She inched closer to the doors, which were slightly ajar, and peered through the gap.

The room beyond was massive—far larger than should be possible beneath the bank. It resembled a factory floor, with workstations, assembly lines, and what looked like medical examination tables. Men and women in white lab coats moved between stations, examining what appeared to be... bodies.

Olivia stifled a gasp. Dozens of human forms lay on tables or stood in clear cylindrical containers. Some looked like the bank employees she'd seen earlier that day, including Marcus Chen and Howard Phillips. Others were empty shells—human-shaped but incomplete, like mannequins waiting for finishing touches.

Along one wall stood rows of what could only be described as spare parts: arms, legs, torsos, and heads, all perfectly human-looking from a distance. Technicians in hazmat suits moved among the tables, opening panels in the bodies to examine internal components that definitely weren't human organs.

At the center of the facility, a large holographic display showed a world map with thousands of red dots blinking across every continent. Each dot was labeled with a name and status indicator, most reading "MALFUNCTION" or "OFFLINE."

Below the map, three words glowed in large letters: "ELON MUSK ROBOTICS NETWORK."