Vendetta

CYBERDRIVER

Last night was messy, but I got everyone home safe. Wrench asked me, "his mom", if I could sing him a song to bed in his garage. I just made sure everything was locked and left.

However, the morning after? I'm back in the Hacker-space, and for the first time since I've been in San Francisco, I feel like... Like I can breathe. I haven't been able to since I've been here, as long as I've been in this game for, actually.

But now that it's reality that I'm here, a part of DedSec officially, I feel as if I'm finally getting somewhere after so many years leading up to it.

I fidget with my bandanna as I take a slow walk around the space. I move closer to the infamous Follow Wall I'd been briefed on by Sitara sometime last night. The Hacker-space, especially the several screens layered in front of me, is surprisingly larger than I anticipated.

"Hey El, didn't hear you come in." I turn and find Horatio at his desk just behind me.

"Hey." I give him a small smile before turning back to the follower wall to avoid any more small talk. Luckily, Horatio seems completely fine with that as he resumes whatever he was working on.

I continue to take my time walking around, passing an empty desk with two computer screens with a lot of uninterpretable code (for me, anyway). I then move into the designated DedSec wardrobe area.

"Find anything you like and it's yours for the taking!"

I whip my head around to find Sitara still in her corner, printing out a post she designed. Josh is just to her right at the large 3D printer.

I shuffle through the few items of clothing they have. DedSec really need to stock up on some new pieces. "Maybe after we get some more stuff in here, sure."

I hear someone coming downstairs and look over to find Marcus, his gaze wandering around the place in awe. Then, he holds his arms out. "Yo!"

"Finally!" Sitara responds. "So Josh and I spoke, and fucking over Blume has been a long standing project," Sitara says as Horatio heads over to Marcus.

"Alright, you need two things to take down Blume," Horatio says, the two greeting as I give up on my search for something to potentially pull on, closing the closet. "You need to get people to rally behind your cause to separate you from the trolls—"

"—And we need bots, and a lot of them to handle the data ctOS is processing," Josh carries on the sentence as he walks past the two.

"Thank you Josh."

I roll up my sleeves, heading over to Marcus. "These guys spent basically all night modifying our app so we can get followers to download the app, and we can use their processing power for the cause."

"Wait... We?" Marcus asks.

Sitara nods at me. "She's a field girl. Still pretty new to the gig, but she's teachable, has fast reflexes. Knows all the basic shit like lock-picking and the good old fashioned hacking stuff."

"The only reason I'm actually here is because I was their field dog back in Queens."

"When did I ever call you a dog?" Sitara scoffs sarcastically.

Marcus as looks around the Hacker-Space again. "This is happening? It's really happening?"

Sitara nods and smiles as Ratio says, "Yeah man, this is happening! You'd better get to it!"

Then, Wrench pops up from the couch. I didn't even realise he was here yet. "Hell yeah, man! Barbarians are at the gate and ready to bust some Roman heads."

"Yeah, we gonna focus on some high-profile ops and play them for exposure and laughs to get people to download our app," Horatio says passionately.

"Right."