The Dicer

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I hung up and placed my phone in my pocket. I cautiously opened my office door. The second floor was empty now. The lights were flickering, either because of the protestors or they were backup lights. I plodded past the cubicles to the one closest to the door. It did indeed have a package on the desk. Inside the package were instructions, an ID badge for access to the server room and disposable gloves. I walked back towards the stairs. There were only two flights of them and I managed to run into a security guard halfway down.

"Sir, why have you not evacuated the building?" the security guard inquired. I hid the package behind my back.

"I didn't know we had to," I lied.

"Okay sir, I'm going to escort you out."

"Why? What's happening?"

"Protestors in the wrong," he explained. "We need to take the elevator. They've infested the first floor. The elevator would get us closer to the front door." I blocked his way for some reason. He tipped me backwards and I dropped the package. It slid down the stairs to the first floor. "Was that important?"

"Yes," I stated.

"Wait here." He hurried down the stairs and picked up the package. Then a protestor out of view knocked him over the head with a trophy. Blood spattered over my package as he dropped it. Other protestors joined in on beating the security guard to the ground. One of them noticed I was watching them. He reached down for the package and threw it up to me. Then they let me through to the first floor. I paced to my boss's office, still in horror at that security guard's death. I had to complete the mission though. Once in my boss's office, the door to the server room opened when I touched the ID badge against the control pad. I closed the door behind me which locked automatically and could only be opened from the inside. The lights were flickering in here as well.

This server room contained one computer server, which I knew going in. I wore the disposable gloves so I wouldn't leave fingerprints. This type of computer server was a database server because it provided database services to other computers within the building. Rupert Murdoch and his inner group would have used a computer to log in somewhere along the way at Bechtel. Hacking the database would give us account details for every conglomerate owner that placed their dirty hands on the ownership of Bechtel.

I opened the server up from the front and pulled out the admin laptop, situated on one of the many rack mounts. I plugged the computer monitor into the rack, following the instructions that Barry had printed. Then I realised a key component missing from the package. No USB key. I searched the server racks for one, but couldn't find any. I needed to check my boss's office. I left the server room and tried checking his desk. Nothing. His bag was under his desk. I unzipped the first pouch. Nada. I unzipped the second pouch. A Playboy magazine, but not what I was looking for. The third pouch was where it was. A small USB key my boss would have missed with his fat fingers. Then the door to the office opened.

My boss quickly shut it behind him, huffing and puffing from running.

"Anton!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing in my office?"

"I'm hiding," I made up on the spot.

"I thought everyone evacuated."

"Then what are you doing back here?"

"I went back for my bag," he said. "Which is now in your hands. Why do you have my bag and my USB? And just why is the server room open?"

"I was looking for a weapon," I yapped. "I don't know why the server room is open. I didn't even know there was a server room." He carefully walked to the entrance of the server room.

"Grab my flashlight. Second drawer. There may be someone with us." He waited for me before moving towards the single server. I turned the flashlight on. I played along, knowing that I was the perpetrator. He got to the server with my instructions laid out on the laptop. He was about to read them when I struck him over the head with the flashlight. He fell to the floor and I had to drag his weighty body back to his office. I did not know I had the strength to do that.

I returned to the server with the USB key and stuck it into a slot in the above rack. Wires criss-crossed along my arm as I began to hack. I used logon credentials provided in the instructions. I ran the tools on a thumbdrive provided by Barry to automate the cloning process. The screen displayed "Please attend to the PED". I entered a PIN code on the attached keyboard. Once I completed this final authentication step, the backup process began. Dozens of lines containing the words "Cloned object" scrolled by. These "objects" are the account details being copied to the USB key. After a tense minute, the operation was complete. I disconnected everything and packed up the USB key and thumbdrive.

I left the building with my lug of a boss using me as a support. Paramedics put him on a stretcher. He had no clue who had hit him, but he knew that I had saved him. Barry caught up to me with his helmet off. I handed him the USB key.

"We're all green for the last stage," I confirmed. He smiled in joy and patted me on the shoulder. It was the only source of semblance among the chaos that had arrived in Bechtel's lap.

We went over to my apartment block. Sally, my hedgehog, scratched at her plastic cage as we entered the room. Barry tapped the hedgehog's cage as he passed it. Sally kept on scratching. Barry flipped my wheely chair and sat on it backwards. He opened up my laptop like he had been in this environment before. I had never invited him to my apartment before though.

"Password," he told me to enter. I entered it. Dadicer123. He put the USB key into my laptop. "Get on your computer, I'll need you to type in these passwords as soon as you hear them from me." Ever since he came back, he's been very serious about our work. Too focused. We hacked into Rupert Murdoch's phone conversations, because he didn't have social media. It was all we needed, but Barry pressed on with hacking all of them. It would give us some dirt on them if we needed it. A conversation between Rupert Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, the current CEO of Fox News, revealed where the corrupt political and business figures were meeting next. A conference at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

I took a shower and had a change of clothes. I wore a camo bomber jacket and skinny burgundy jeans. We referred to the group that Rupert Murdoch was meeting with as the "Reichstag Group". Reichstag was the Lower house of the Weimar Republic's Legislature, which we learnt from the Secret Hitler board game. They were not all German by any chance, but unjust leadership can often be associated with Nazis. The Reichstag Group were meeting late in the night. Right now, it was dinner. I ordered halal snack packs from Uber Eats and we ate on the kitchen counter. We had hacked each Reichstag Group member, but Barry still would not relieve his eyes from my laptop. I was still unsure what the plan was.

"When we get there, what are we going to do?" I asked.

"I'm going to hurt every single one of them," he said coldly.

"That's a bit far isn't it?"

"Not for me."

"What are you even going to do with a sword and some homemade projectiles?" I questioned. Those were his weapons that he had used to hurt the tradies the night before. "They have guns. They're probably armed to the teeth."

"You're going to help me," he stated. "You're going to turn off the lights."

10:00. We caught a cab to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The taxi driver issued that it was closed, but we told him we needed to go somewhere near it. I wonder why it was closed. We had printed credentials so we could get into the event. We had to go out on a limb here and think that Rupert Murdoch didn't know all members of the Reichgast Group. I was so nervous and I was shaking my leg.

"There's no need to be unduly worried," Barry calmed me down. "You've got the easy part."

"Well that's because you're a goddamn vigilante now" I whispered with aggression. The driver looked back at us through the rear-view mirror. We hoped he didn't hear us, but we gave him a good tip when we reached our destination just in case.