saw the melee, they saw a woman grab the discarded gun. She pointed it at the cops but was too slow to use it. The Black-Coats opened fire first.
----- X -----
Red lights flashed all over cyber command. Errors and intrusion warnings flashed across every screen.
“Dammit!” shouted Smith.
“What is it?” said Ohlin.
“Look at this,” Smith pointed to his terminal. “There’s over two-hundred hackers who’ve intruded almost every biometric-wallet system in the entire city!” The terminal showed the systems being updated using several different variations of the Noir-v-2.0 encryptions.
“So we can’t access the wallet systems?”
“No.”
“What have they done, exactly?”
“Well, first of all they’ve removed the programming that we installed when General Grimmleif assumed control; and they’ve actually altered it so that people start turning on the authorities. Hence all of the reports that we’ve had of violence occurring in the streets.”
----- X -----
Grimmleif puffed on his cigar and took a sip of brandy. The phone rang. “Yes?”
“It's Ohlin, Sir. It appears that some hackers have used Noir's source codes to fault perfectly working wallet chips. At this very moment, people are turning against the police, attacking them. Some units lost control and reacted with gunfire. Currently, we control no one apart from our armed forces. These hackers launched a full scale attack that malfunctioned the entire city's wallet chips, and they're completely untraceable. Listen, we're going to be put down if this continues.”
“I don't care what needs to be done, just fix it. That is your job, Commander. Get everyone at cyber command to work on fixing this problem, got it? This situation is full priority. And secondly, use whatever force necessary to put down these dissenters.”
Ohlin hesitated. “Of course, General.”
----- X -----
Rachel squatted behind Ekko’s seat in the back of the van, holding her hands against her chest. The van jolted about and gunshots rattled off in the distance.
After a few minutes the van came to a halt in the city centre. Rachel looked out the window and watched as Black-Coat vans began to retreat as ordinary citizens started taking the Black-Coats down and using their weapons to fight back against them.
“Shit, Phantom, this is out of hand. It was supposed to be a small melee to cover our escape. Now everyone is taking a swing at the Black-Coats. What's going on?” asked Ekko.
“I posted some codes for our friends in the Republic.”
“You asked the Republic!? That's hundreds of other top hackers who gained access to the source codes! Phantom, dammit, we don't know that many of them personally! We have no idea what their personalities are like, or what their ambitions are! You bastard! You screwed up big time!”
Ekko nodded sheepishly. “I know… I'm sorry.”
“Whatever, now isn't the time to worry about this. Let's just get moving.”
The gunfire stopped. “Hold on, Ekko, something’s happening.” Rachel looked out of the window. “What's going on? Everything's quiet.”
“I don't know. Let's wait and see,” replied Ekko.
The rumbling sound of heavy engines came from the road intersection up ahead. Several military trucks parked themselves in the city square and produced mechanical ramps from the backs of the trailers. Armed police and Black-Coats with riot shields stormed out and formed a shield wall against the rioters. One Black-Coat stepped forward.
“Listen, everyone! I am Captain Espedal, acting under the orders of President General Grimmleif. If you do not put down your arms and give up on this pathetic fight, you will be put down with force. Resistance and terrorism against the authorities will be met with lethal force.”
“Go screw yourself, government scum!” shouted one man who opened fire and killed a soldier with his gun.
The Black-Coats fired back. Rachel watched as a few of the dissenters broke through the Black-Coats' line of defence and brutally stabbed them and beat them. Bullets skimmed the van. “Drive, Ekko! Now!”
Ekko hit the pedal and served away from the firing zone as quick as the van would take them. The bullets smashed the windscreen and flattened the tyres. Ekko’s hands slipped and the van careened into an alleyway, one wheel riding up onto a loading ramp that tilted the vehicle onto its side.
----- X -----
Rachel held her head steady and spat blood in front of her. A hand grabbed her jacket and pulled her out through the broken windshield. She couldn’t see anything past the thick clouds of smoke and tear gas.
“Is that everyone out now?” Ekko asked.
“I think so,” replied Phantom.
“Good. Rachel? Are you okay?”
Rachel clenched her stomach and bent forward to vomit. She looked around her and dusted off glass shards from her shoulders. She watched everyone brandish guns or batons. “Here take these,” said Ekko. He handed her a baton and a gun. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
Rachel walked with everyone into the town square and took cover behind a car. “What are we going to do, Ekko?”
“Try and get out of here. There’s a fire escape to the rooftop just across the city square from here; but we’re going to have to fight our way towards it.”
“This is dangerous,” said Pyppi.
“I know, but we have to, or we’ll be killed. Okay, is everyone ready?” Everyone nodded. “Let’s go.”
Rachel followed Pyppi and Sebastian out into the open holding the gun and baton close to her body. Thump. A police club swung and hit her head. She stumbled back and looked at the Black-Coat who struck her.
He went for another strike; Rachel dodged it and rammed the baton into his leg then stepped back. She dropped the baton and rubbed her temples as her chest heaved rapidly. She pointed the pistol at the Black-Coat. She closed her eyes and pulled the gun’s trigger, shooting the Black-Coat in the back of the head. Upon firing, the weapon slipped out of her hands.
A boot pounded against her ribs as she was kicked to the ground whilst Ekko grappled with a Black-Coat beside her. She turned over onto her back and saw that it was Captain Espedal himself who had kicked her. Espedal turned away from her and shot his gun randomly into the crowd. Bang. Bang. Bang. A kid fell dead. He reloaded his gun and pointed it at Rachel but Ekko broke free and knocked the gun out of the way; the bullet landing a few inches away from Rachel’s head.
Rachel grabbed the gun she dropped and shot at Espedal.
The captain slumped forward, dead.
----- X -----
Rachel grabbed Ekko’s hand and steadied herself. She saw more Black-Coat vans arrive. “Ekko, we have to go. Now!”
“You’re right, there’s going to be more and more showing up, there’s no way we can win this.” Ekko replied. He grabbed Phantom and Pyppi nearby. “You two, get the others, we have to run; head for the fire escape, get to the rooftop.”
Rachel gritted her teeth and started running. Why did this have to happen? She just wanted to live peacefully. Now she was the centre of all this destruction. It was almost impossible to imagine.
“Keep moving, or we're dead!” said Ekko.
Rachel held onto Pyppi as they made it to the alleyway and the fire escape ladder.
“This is it. Come on, everyone up to the roof.” said Ekko.
----- X -----
Ohlin rubbed his forehead. “This is getting out of control. From all around we’re getting reports of hundreds of casualties on our side.”
“What do we propose we do, Sir?” replied Smith. “We have to act quickly.”
“How long does it take to write a new code?”
“We wouldn’t have to write a new code, all the necessary coding is in Noir.”
“See what you can do with it then.”
Smith opened a terminal and accessed a database of IP addresses; he selected one. On another monitor a display showed a picture of an unshaven man and his de
tails, along with the IP address that Smith had selected. He opened another window that showed lines of coding under the heading ‘Noir-V-2.0’. A log window opened and displayed coding changes made within the last twenty-four hours. Several outside IP address showed up next to changes in red text. Smith entered all the addresses in a second terminal on the third monitor and entered a command. The addresses erased from the log. “Sir, I’ve removed the outside connections, we can change the coding and return things to normal.” Smith copied the coding and pasted it into an email and sent it to everyone in Cyber Command.
“Listen up!” Ohlin shouted. “Everyone access the coding Smith sent you and get to work on fixing it!”
Smith ran a section of coding titled ‘loyalty’ through a program that changed the text into encryptions. “Sir, I’ve made the encryptions stronger on the loyalty section much stronger. In a few minutes we should all have finished our work and be ready with a stronger code.”
Ohlin waited.
“Okay, Sir. We’re done,” said one man with glasses.
“Good,” Ohlin replied. He walked over to Smith’s desk and dialled a number on the telephone. “Captain Lucas?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Tell your forces to forcibly scan the rioters. You have to make sure they are scanned, that will update their wallets and pacify them!”
----- X -----
“Get in there and disarm them! We have to scan their thumbs!” Captain Lucas shouted at his men.
“Who said so?” replied one troop.
“Orders from Commander Ohlin, now do it!” Captain Lucas