could hear hesitation in his voice for the first time. “They
were told to go home, to prevent exactly this kind of thing.”
“'This kind of thing?' This kind of thing is the price of
freedom sometimes, and we pay it gladly, because you know what kind
of reaction this caused. What had been a couple of rioters trying to
get attention, trying to start a second Occupy Wall Street, suddenly
turned into... this.”
The crowd scene faded away and cut to a concrete wall with
graffiti on it, a pair of fists crossed at the forearms, one white,
one black, the forearms two solid red lines. “The Urban Warfare
group started because some cop couldn't keep his shit together when a
girl through a cup at him, and because a bunch of other cops decided
to hold their ground instead of turning over their fellow officers
who fired into an UNARMED crowd. Don't tell me that these people,
these peaceful law-abiding people, were the ones who started it.
They're just going to be the ones who finish it.”
Janus stuffed his uncertainty and replaced it with righteous
anger. “Finish it. Interesting choice of words. Finish the people
who died when the NSA data mining center was blown up? Finish the
people who died in the field because their covers were blown when
some whistleblower thought it was important to reveal millions of
pages of classified material? Finish the people on the army base when
hackers sent a drone slamming back into its own HQ?”
I cocked my head to the side. “I don't condone violence, and if
you knew anything about me at all, you'd know that, but since you're
bringing up the movement, let's talk about that drone slamming back
into the base. You know the hackers responsible posted their side of
the story on about a dozen different sites – that it was supposed
to be an unarmed drone, and apparently the US government was flying
drones with live missiles over its own population, for use ON its own
population. How on earth do you want to justify that?”
“The drone was tasked with stopped terrorism in the US, and the
CIA...”
“The CIA isn't CHARTERED to operate on US soil!” I shouted.
“They don't have any business flying armed drones over people in
their homes. And you know that, but yet, somehow, you don't care.
Because the CIA, the NSA, the US government is bought and paid for,
lock, stock and barrel by corporations, who are STILL given the
constitutional protection as a human being! How insane is THAT? You
know that over two hundred people were arrested last year under the
pretext that criticizing corporations was slander? And no judge has
struck it down, because big business is buying them left and right,
leaving us, the common people, to take back our country, through any
means necessary.”
“Even if that means killing a few hundred people?” Apathe
asked.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Thomas Jefferson, flawed man that he
was, still had some valid points. 'The tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.'
We didn't call ourselves Urban Warfare because we wanted to offer
everyone a hug. You know, for the longest time, I thought the gun
nuts were insane, trying to barricade themselves up mountains, saying
the government was coming to take their guns from them.” I shook me
head. “Now I still think they're insane, but at least they left a
giant stash of weaponry for more sane people to take.”
“Now we're getting somewhere,” Janus said, a bit of resolve
back in his voice once more. “Tell us about the weaponry.”
I shook my head and pointed at the Urban Warfare symbol, still
hanging there on the wall. “You know what we learned from
terrorists? We learned how to be the little guy. We learned how to
fight battles without anyone seeing. We learned how to
compartmentalize and contain, how to make sure that no matter who you
captured, no matter who you tortured, no matter who you tried to peel
open, that no one would have more than a handful of information. You
may think I'm some great prize, the Osama Bin Laden of the hacker
generation, but really, all you've done is capture an icon, and
probably martyr me,” I said with a bitter laugh. “So, you know,
well done with all of that.”
“You won't be martyred – you'll just disappear,” Janus
answered. “No more messages, no more communiques, no more diatribes
posted to the internet. It'll all just go... silent.”
I threw back my head with a wild laugh. “You're kidding, right?”
I turned to look at the two of them, and they were both peering at me
like I was talking in tongues. That only made me laugh even harder.
“Wow. I mean, just, wow. Really?” I paused, my eyes widening as I
grinned at them. “REALLY? Oh man, that's rich.” I waved my hand
and the graffiti disappeared only to be replaced by an image of me
giving a speech to a camera. “You remember this? It got a lot of
press.” The other version of me was talking about how they were
going to pry open the locks on every email, every phone call, and
turn them over to the American people. It was a great speech. I let
the memory play and the camera turned off. Then the version of me
shimmered and transformed into a smaller man, who looked quite
different. Then the real younger version of me walked towards him
clapping, a broad smile on his face. “Well done. I couldn't have
said it better myself.” I snapped my fingers and paused it. “I
showed you this one, because I was there for it. But it wasn't me.
Most of the time you see some footage of me talking, it isn't me.
It's a computer
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