You've always chased down that silly dream of green pastures and clean air. Luke's words haunted her now. Wrong world, he said. Wrong people, Bao Yi.
She was a hopeful girl then. She dreamed of marrying Luke and sharing a dozen children with him—even when she seemed not to exist to him. Yet, Bao Yi saw the vision of a better world. They would have the world under one rule, but every man would rule themselves…
Those words stirred in her head as she jogged down the street. The brown rain washed the scum and blood from the asphalt. The high-rises glittered as lightning flashed in the dark skies. Bao Yi tugged on her thick hood as she made her way along, averting the gaze of Terracorp Marines jogging down the sidewalk in scores, bolt-rifles in hand. The glow of their visors—red eyes on black slates—watched as they barked commands at the panicked mobs scattering in every direction. Hovercars crashed into each other at intersections as the roar of a Terracorp Starfighter tore through the clouds, chasing another fighter. The enemy craft spiraled downward, tearing a nearby megatower to ruins.
"We've only got till sunset," her sister's voice dripped with anxiety, even over the holophone. "Coalition ground-troopers are gonna touchdown in the center of Los Angeles County. Three Independent Colony Titans have already begun nuclear bombardments of the less important regions within continental USA. Most of rural China has already been wiped off the map. The only hope we've got right now is that they want to keep the urban centers intact for the occupation."
"If there is an occupation," Bao Yi replied grimly. She bore no fantasies about what the coalition forces would demand: the unconditional surrender of Terracorp.
The cries of children, of mothers, of old men, the sick and the homeless, filled the air with thick despair as several men and women shoved past her on the way to the main Terracorp Tower on Hollywood Boulevard. Horns, sirens, and gunshots were drowned out by the racket of an angry mob as hundreds—thousands—poured into Terracorp Industrial Park, tearing down its monuments and statues of President White. Bao Yi turned away, following closely along a wall adjacent to the central block where the park was situated. At least a hundred Terracorp Lifeguards held the entrance to the tower behind sandbag barricades, defending the large set of black marble stairs leading to the main courtyard before the gates to the lobby.
"Disperse at once!" Several Terracorp men threw tear gas canisters into the incoming mob as another line of riot troopers came up behind the Lifeguards, forming a wall of shields.
Bao Yi moved quietly around the block as the armed mob rushed the barricades. None of the Terracorp commands were obeyed, and when the first gunshot rang out, Bao Yi knew the final hours of the corporation, which had once held the entire galaxy in the palm of its hand, had come.
"I'm coming along the southern side of the tower's grounds. Where do I go from here, Mei?"
"There's a trash chute fifty yards north of your location that leads to the garbage disposal chambers. You should be able to climb from there."
Bao Yi crouched behind a ruined hovercar and looked north to find the chute. There it is! Her heart went light. It was now or never. She leapt over and sprinted through the rushing mob armed with Molotov cocktails and clubs. She didn't spare a moment, stepping over bags of garbage gathered at the base of the western wall to the Tower's grounds. The chute stunk as she neared the opening, she covered her nose. "God, what kind of waste are they throwing out this way?"
"It's the safest entrance to the main building," her sister said over the holo. "Just hold your breath?"
Easy for you to say, you're not the one climbing. It barely fit her, but it was large enough. She opened her backpack and pulled out a pair of gloves, pressing her thumbs to activate the magnetic grip.
"Death to corpo scum!" Gunshots and the roar of the mob made her anxious, she looked back, she saw more and more coming down the street. Not one paid her mind all eyes instead turned to the skies. The hum of hover-carriers descending from the clouds made her chest pound, and the crowd turned in horror when their doors opened and soldiers within opened fire.
Heads burst, others fell to their knees holding their chests, others had limbs blown off. The cracks in the asphalt ran red with blood as steel boots crashed into the ground and a horn blared. A voice heavily accented by a robotic undertone called out as the one leading their troop of black armored soldiery blew open the head of a survivor on his knees with his bolt-rifle. "This segment is cleared, reinforcements inbound!"
Bao Yi's voice was tremulous. "I'm going up." She quickly crawled in, hoping to God that those men hadn't seen her in the chaos.
"There'll be guards on the way to the server room," said Mei. "I'll deactivate the CCTV system the moment you get in, but I can only give you a minute max. Their net force will find the breach and fry my brainware if I wait long enough for them to track my IP."
"I don't need a minute." Bao Yi covered her nose, gagging at the smell as she slowly made her way up, her magnetic gloves humming as she pulled her weight along. The climb grew harder and harder as the angle became steeper. "You said the server room was on the same floor, right?"
"Yes, you just have to jack in, download every ounce of data you can handle, and then upload the malware. It'll activate thirty seconds after you disconnect. Once it's active, anyone connected to the Terracorp Network will have their brainware fried."
"Well, just the ones on this network." Bao Yi inched closer and closer to a bend in the trash chute. She climbed over and saw the end of the pipe at last. "Terracorp isn't stupid enough to have all their data running on a single network."
"Don't worry about that. We have multiple net-fighters. We'll find a way to kick these corpo-fascies in the balls. For Luke Mattson," Mei said.
Bao Yi sighed as she finally came to the entry of the chute. "For Luke Mattson," she repeated. She kicked the shaft open and leapt in. Every camera in the room shut down in an instant, and Bao Yi quickly went for the door and peeked out. Panicked voices, sirens, and the noise of soldiery filled every hall. One minute, she thought. She unholstered her silenced smart-pistol and snuck into the marble-walled corridors, following the map displayed in the HUD of her ocular implant.
"Who are you!"She didn't bother to answer, turning back and taking her shot, firing at the Terracorp guard at the end of the hall right between the eyes. Several others took note. One fired in turn, but Bao Yi hid behind a corner. Her two hearts pounded in her chest, her ocular HUD showing every function of her body as she tried to calm herself.
<<0.5 MG OF ADRENALINE ADMINISTERED>>
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You've always chased down that silly dream of green pastures and clean air.Wrong world, wrong people, Bao Yi.Bao Yi took a deep breath and turned out to take her shot.
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Three men. Three shots. Three dead.Thirty seconds. She ran down, following the map display as she neared the server room.
"I'm unlocking the door!" Mei said. "Now!"
She burst through the door into the cavernous server room. She walked to the end, where the main processor was connected to every lane of server hardware. She pressed a spot on the nape of her neck, opening a USB port. She connected herself to the main computer and closed her eyes.
"Don't let her have access to the server!"
She turned back and saw a tetrad of Terracorp guards at the doors.
"I've locked it," Mei said. "Don't worry. Once the malware's deployed, they'll be fried, and you'll be able to walk out of the building."
Bao Yi's consciousness faltered, her eyes rolling back as her head drummed with pain. "Mei," she called her sister's name. "Mei, I can't see."
You've always chased down that silly dream of green pastures and clean air.Wrong world, wrong people, Bao Yi.
"Bao Yi!" her sister's voice called, panicked. "Something's wrong. I don't see you on the Terracorp network!"
Bao Yi was no longer in reality. She stood on a plane of darkness outlined by code and a million algorithms firing all at once. Silhouettes swirled in a hurricane around her.
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There was something there, beyond the network—whatever this cyberspace was. Bao Yi was a ghost in this plane, but here she saw the vast expanse of the galaxy, from the netspace of Terracorp on Earth to the servers of distant Arcadia in the furthest frontiers of human-occupied space. She saw it all. It felt as though she had the entire universe at her fingertips.
What is this?
She turned toward a segment of this space, this plane of code and endlessly solving equations—something she was not supposed to see. There was a darkness in the code, a certainty in the mathematics predicting a coming doom for all mankind.
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"Bao Yi! Bao Yi!" Her sister's voice grew distant. Bao Yi felt light. She felt free.
A part of her consciousness, still in her body, slowly receded. She saw both this plane of cyberspace and the Terracorp soldiers bursting into the server room with batons and rifles in hand. One aimed a gun at her and fired.
There was a moment of pain. Her body in the net felt as though it had taken a punch. Yet the moment passed, and when Bao Yi opened her eyes again, she looked down at her hands and felt as though shackles had been removed from her wrists. She looked back to the dark corner of the code, the one predicting the end of man.
It predicted a million timelines, a million possibilities. Yet in every single one, the same threat lingered—a coming shadow, something beyond the understanding of mankind. Only one hope defied the certainty of destruction.
Under one rule will man stand tall against the void.