Connected

New Age

RYDER

The sound of my phone woke me with a start, the ringtone slammed into my eardrums as I pulled my ear buds from my ears,tossing them aside.

My phone continued to vibrate on the floor, buzzing ominously in the darkness of my room. What time was it?

I fell back in bed and pulled the sheets over my head.

Just ignore it and go back to sleep...

Unfortunately, I couldn't just ignore it. The device kept buzzing, annoying the shit out of me, and turning it on silent meant I had to reach down and try to find it, and the more I moved, the more my body realised it had to wake up.

Ultimately I couldn't stay away from it forever. I threw my arm out, scouring the cold floorboards below with my fingers until I finally found my cell. I answered,yawning as I did so.

"Hello?"

"Wake up sleepy head."

Demi...

"What is it?"

"We're all waiting on you in the chatroom. Today's the big day! Get up Ryder!"

Big day...

Big day?

Big day!

I leapt out of bed, cursing as I fell to the floor. I reached underneath and grabbed my laptop, pulling it out and booting it up. I went into my browser and found our chatroom, where everyone was already waiting.

"Yo!"

"Hey bunny!"

"Sup man!"

"Hey love!"

"So many voices at once...god can everyone relax?" I pleaded, slamming my head against my pillow.

"Get up bro, we're all waiting on you to get us up and running." Eight said. "Today's the day...we're hacking NCN remember? Broadcasting our message right across Neo City. But not just one station like you did, we're gonna hack all of NCN's brand stations and the other news outlets and broadcast the video live across the entirety of Neo City."

"This plan is fucking legit homie. As soon as this goes on? And we pull this off? We get BIG ups from everybody, and make Mogwai look like shit while doin it."

"They've been working hard on getting things cleaned up after we dropped their whole crew out of the sky. Switch isn't on right now so-"

"So Switch gets to sleep in but I don't? That's fair."

"Switch doesn't run the show man, you do!"

"We do. We're a team. All of us run this."

"Yeah whatever. Either way man,I'm at your door right now so open up."

I groaned and left the chat, dragging myself out of bed. Eight stood outside my door, wearing his red spiked leather jacket and black jeans. His face was covered by a mask, the mouth of his mask moved with LED soundwaves whenever he spoke.

I dreaded how long it took for him to get that right.

"Cool pad bro." He said, and I was only mildly distracted by his LED graphics as he spoke.

"Thanks..."

He plopped himself down on my couch and opened the blinds. Light flooded my apartment causing me to squint in pain.

"So, we exposing Mogwai today?" Eight asked.

"Not really. Even if we expose Mogwai corp for the shit they do, they've got several more backers than Mitroviç did. It'd be a lot more difficult to expose one shady thing that they've done and have that be that."