Black-Coats shoot the van into little pieces without even knowing if anybody was inside.
Viper came into the room. “We got problems, man. Black-Coats have sealed off the district and are scanning people in the street.”
“What?” Ekko almost jumped as he said it. He went to the window and looked into the street. Police vehicles were further up the road. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“There’s no way,” Hornet said. “They’ve blocked off every route, stopped all cars and are processing people methodically. It’s only a matter of time until they knock on your door.”
Rachel hugged her knees towards her chest. What was happening? What would they do to her when they found her?
“Rachel, can I have your chip?” Ekko asked.
“I want to hand it in.”
“They’re likely to kill you first. But I’ve got a plan.”
Hornet asked, “What’s on your mind, Ekko?”
“It depends on how much access Rachel’s chip has… Please, Rachel, we might be able to get out of here.”
Rachel walked to the window, rubbing her cheeks. Vans with Black-Coats surrounding them had parked at the end of the street; they all carried rifles and wore combat armour.
“Please, Rachel; let me see if your wallet can buy us a way out of here.”
She felt herself on the verge of crying but wasn’t sure why. She wanted to hand the chip over but didn’t trust the police. She wanted somebody else to make the decisions. “Okay.” She went through her pockets and found the thin silicon wafer.
Ekko plugged it into the chip reader. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
----- X -----
The police lined up people against the wall, with officers behind holding weapons ready. “Stand there for identification.” They were stopping everybody in the street and lining them up in a checkpoint between two police cars.
The pedestrians all moved along as obediently as sheep. “Yes, Sir,” a few of them mumbled. One of the cops had a hand held thumb scanner and he began walking along the line asking the pedestrians to scan their thumb and reveal their wallet identity.
Everybody was calm.
Everybody was obedient.
Everything was according to plan.
----- X -----
Ekko was looking at the folders in the system. “You see this?” He pointed at the screen. It’s a folder called Goldberg and another one named Grimmleif. They’ve both got program connections to the endocrine routine. What do you want to bet that when people see Grimmleif now they feel calm and happy?”
“Is it really that accurate?” Rachel asked.
Ekko shrugged. “Who knows? But you have to ask why your wallet chip has a special subfolder filled with code labelled by the names of politicians.” He clicked through a few folders. “I mean, look at this. There’s a subroutine called State-Loyalty. What do you think that is? Why does the Grimmleif folder link to State-Loyalty? What has that got to do with electronic money? And this, Black-Coat-Loyalty. What do you want to guess that is how much we fear the police?”
At that moment, the proverbial light bulb went off above Ekko’s head.
There was a folder showing Goldberg linked to State-Loyalty that made people hate him. There was another folder for Black-Coats making people obedient. What if he switched them? What if he could make a quick switch that made people hate the Black-Coats and love Goldberg?
He scanned through the upload and distribution privileges. “Oh, my God. This really is the key to the kingdom.”
“What do you have?” asked Viper.
Ekko’s fingers were flying across the keys. “This has upload and update privileges. I’m going to switch it. I’m going to make people hate the Black-Coats as much as they currently hate Goldberg and see how that distracts the Black-Coats in the street. If it causes them problems then we might be able to slip away.”
Ekko compiled the code.
He uploaded it to the central server.
He executed the update.
Phantom copied the files and then without mentioning it, he uploaded the unencrypted wallet data to The Republic with the simple slogan: ‘Keys to the kingdom, people. Enjoy.’
----- X -----
In the street the pedestrians were slowly marching in a line having their thumbs scanned. The portable unit read differently. It said:
PLEASE WAIT :
BIOMETRIC-WALLET SOFTWARE UPDATING...
UPDATE COMPLETE
“Move along,” the Black-Coat said to the updated citizen.
“Yeah? Why don’t you move along, you jerk?”
The next man was scanned. Updated. And the next man, and the one after that.
“Hey… What’re you doing?” asked one man. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Relax,” replied the officer. “We’re just doing a quick scan of your wallet.”
“For what reason?”
“That’s official concern only; you needn’t worry yourself with it.”
Another man was scanned. Another updated. “But I want to know. Why are you down here harassing ordinary people?”
“Yeah,” another voice. “Why are you pointing guns? You’ve got police harassing people. What the hell, man?”
The officer went to another man and scanned him, but he yanked his thumb away as the reader was updating. “You need to relax, Sir. Place your thumb on the reader and let the scan complete.”
“Would ya quit wastin’ our time, we ain’t done nuffin’ wrong!” said one of the older men.
“Please!” shouted the officer. “Let us do our job! Now stop interfering with our duty or we will have you arrested!”
“No! This is a bloody breach of your authority!” agreed another man. The men behind him fidgeted.
The armed police looked at one another in confusion. Something was wrong.
“We’re warning you,” said the officer. “Quit your insubordination now, or you will be charged!”
“What’re you going to do? Shoot us? I bet that’ll make you look like heroes in the newspaper headlines. I wonder what people will think of your government then.” The man spat at the officer’s feet. “Perhaps when people see this damn outrage, they’ll wake up and realise you’re all a bunch of liars!”
The officer raised his gun but the man jumped forward and grabbed the barrel. “Don’t you point that thing at me!” he yelled as he yanked the rifle out of the officer’s hands. Another Black-Coat saw and aimed to shoot immediately. The man had disarmed an officer; he was turning the gun, no time to think.
BOOM!
A bullet went straight through the man’s skull, splattering his brains on the wall behind him. The officer held his pistol ahead of him, smoke coming from the barrel, his mouth wide open at the shock of what he’d been forced to do.
“No!” came a scream. “You bastards!”
The man on the end of the line charged an officer with a rifle, disarmed him. Two more went for the shooter. Gunshots rang out. They disarmed another rifleman and shot them as Black-Coats further up the street heard. They were having their own problems. The wallet update was spreading fast.
----- X -----
With the sound of the first gunshot Ekko rushed to the window. More shots rang out, coming from different places. “It’s on,” he said. “Let’s see if we can slip out whilst the cops are distracted.”
“How are we getting out?” Pyppi said. “People are shooting out there.”
Ekko smiled and beckoned them to follow. He went to the ground floor, leading the way out of the building and into a lock up. There was another van. “I’ve been keeping this one in reserve just in case.” He slid a crowbar from the inside of his jacket and jerked the door open. He jammed a screwdriver into the ignition lock and smashed it open with the crowbar before twisting the wires to hotwire the vehicle. “Right… let’s get out of here.”
----- X -----
Elegantly dressed women were looking over dresses at a clothes store, holding them up to co
mpare against their bodies. They laughed and threw compliments at one another. Together they walked off to the till and paid for their new clothes.
PLEASE WAIT :
BIOMETRIC-WALLET SOFTWARE UPDATING…
UPDATE COMPLETE
The lady behind the counter packed the clothes into bags and said goodbye to the women.
Police walked through the door of the shop carrying guns. They stopped the women as they were walking out. “Sorry ladies,” said one. “We’re going to have to ask you to stand still for a moment whilst we scan you.”
“Why?” exclaimed one woman. “What for? We haven’t done anything wrong. Let us pass.”
“I’m sorry but we cannot do that, Miss.”
“And why the hell not? You’re abusing your authority, you’ve no right to randomly stop people and interrogate them, as if they’ve done something criminal, you’re just as bad as that new bastard president Grimmleif! Now let us go!” The woman hit the police officer on his chest.
“Right then,” said the officer, as he grabbed the woman by the arm and started slapping cuffs onto her wrist. “You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law.” The woman’s friends started to attack the officers, scratching at his face. The first officer’s partner drew his pistol and fired a warning shot into the ceiling which only enraged them further. Another woman who had been shopping at the store ran at them and knocked the officer down, yet another shopper kicked his weapon to the side. Someone passing by outside the shop ran in and body slammed the other officer, wrestling him to the ground.
A black van swerved into view and a squad of Black-Coat’s came out,