“There’s gotta be a staircase somewhere around here,” Rez said to himself.
Static came from Daav’s walkie-talkie. “Sir! Sir! We’re sending backup to the executive floors! I repeat, we are sending back up to the executive floors!” an officer said.
I gotta hurry, Rez thought. He ran to the emergency executive staircase, he E-Grapped up to the ninety-fifth floor. The jamming signal seemed to cease. Rez concluded that Daav must’ve been the source of it.
“Xandra, locate the server access control room,” Rez commanded.
“The building’s main server access room is seventy-five feet away. Take the first left at the end of the hallway. It is the third door on the right,” Xandra replied.
Rez found the room. He used his special access keycard to get in. Bingo, he thought. Rez pulled out a codec with the second virus he developed. He plugged the codec into a port in the computer and uploaded the virus. He opened a terminal window and typed in the initiation sequence. A loud sound tore through the room Rez felt a burning sensation in his side; he’d been shot. He instinctively summoned the gunblade and took cover.
“So, we have an intruder in our midst!” a man called out. “Not much for words, eh? No worries. You’ve been giving everyone trouble tonight, intruder. I’ve been watching you on our backup security channels. You’re quite gifted, it seems. But apparently you still bleed!”
Yeah keep talking, Rez thought to himself. He calibrated the NOVO OS to detect sound in conjunction with the layout of the room to triangulate the proximate position of where the sound could be coming from. The NOVO OS was closing in on the location of the voice.
“Target located,” Xandra said.
The man was hidden in the far corner, behind a server rack. Rez snuck over to the other side of the rack.
“I’ll definitely get a promotion for taking you out! Ha! Even tech guys behind a desk can be hero!” the man said, before Rez startled him. In typical intimidating fashion, his silhouette and glowing eyes were all that this person saw before he blacked out by a simple punch from Rez.
Rez bent down to check the man’s building ID. Agent Bloodfall? Hmm, I think I’ve heard rumors about him on CWR. Not much of a shot though, Rez thought, before rushing back up the emergency staircase and toward the rooftop of the building. Rez’s second virus was a nasty one. Using the infiltration nodes he implanted, he issued a command to release the all the data in Zonos’s network as public information on CWR. The data included signed contracts, policies, emails, records, information on the clone farms and COGLIMS, criminal offenses that were swept under the rug, and a host of other damaging documents that the government would’ve want to be kept away from the public.
The virus also served another important purpose. Rez had used a powerful overriding interruption protocol to take over every available open channel and airwave using the power of Zonos’s extensive networks. While he raced to the top of the building, the rest of the city was viewing his video announcement. It was a pre-recording of Rez under his CWR identity, VseR. He was uncharacteristically animated in this recording, mostly to throw enemies off.
“Good evening, fellow Neonians. I go by the name of VseR and this is a public service announcement. As you can tell, I’ve hacked and have taken control of all the broadcasting airwaves of this city and you’re probably wondering why. Well, for starters, I’ve come to you to dispel the myth of fear. These so-called leaders who run this great city-state have been controlling our lives with fear; the fear of economic disparity, the fear of social injustice, the fear of being ostracized and not being accepted, the fear of being too poor to feed your families, and the fear of those whom they deem to be dangerous and violent. You must fear them, they say, unless you buy into their system. For far too long we have bought into their bogus system. For far too long, thousands of innocent people have suffered because of Zonos’s greed.
“This government is not designed to work for the people. It was designed for the people to work for and benefit the system. But what do the people get in return? A government that imposes bogus policies. They want you, the people, the most powerful resource in this city, to continue to be blinded by your ignorance. After all the capital this sovereign nation produces, there should be no poor, hungry, homeless people, or people without the essential necessities required to live comfortably.
“This government thrives off your hatred of one another; your division. For the rich, it is your distaste of the lower class. For the poor, it is your distrust of the rich. The government is the creator of all this. It takes the heat off them! It allows them to do backdoor deals with criminals, like the Chimera Crime Syndicate.
“The corruption has taken its toll on the lower class. It’s time we change that. By now, you will have seen Zonos's dirty laundry and all the things they so desperately tried to hide! I implore you, great citizens of this city, to rise up! Fight back! Take back what is yours, once and for all! You have the right to live happily! The revolution awaits you!”
The announcement was shown on all television channels, and all feeds online, across multiple devices. Rez, atop the building, smiled as he caught the last of his broadcast on a holo-billboard on a neighboring building. He clutched at his side where he was shot, as the high slicing winds almost toppled him over.
If I’m not careful, these winds might fling me off this damn building. Can’t stay here too long, I got work to do, he thought, before he got to work, disarming the
