Hi people, sorry for the absence. I was on vacation and did not have my computer with me, and I really don't like writing on any device other than my trusty pc.. Sorry again. Now, I will try to upload more as I'm free now. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter, as I am starting to steer this story to a.. you will see. ;)
I'm bored.
Like, really bored.
My hands were cuffed with these crappy and uncomfortable handcuffs. I couldn't even move my hands from the table before-
Wait…
I'm missing something.
Ah, I forgot the usual speech I'm supposed to give when we start with a new chapter. Can we do this another time? Being stuck in the place where no one wants to be in really knocks you out of concentration.
The room was bright. Very bright. The only things the square shaped room had was a rectangular steel table with steel chairs on either side. I stared in front of me, where the infamous one side window was placed in the wall.
I knew they were watching me.
Whatever they were doing, they better hurry. It has already been 2 hours..
Then the door opened.
A big and muscular scruffy man walked in. He was wearing a rather dirty trench coat and had a loose tie strapped around his neck. He sat down opposite of me, and looked me in the eyes, a favor I would gladly return.
So, we just sat there, staring at each other until the guy started to speak up.
''The name's Murphy. You can call me Gumshoe. Everyone does,'' he said, in a rather stereotypical police officer voice. I really had the feeling he wanted to be stereotypical.
''So, you are here for flashing, correct?''
I didn't respond. Instead, I just stared at him.
''But, I don't think that's your real crime,'' he threw a few crudely taken photo's on the table. I looked at the pictures displayed on the table.
Ah. They were all me, when I was leaving the police station, remember?
''I believe you are one of those punks. Hackers you call yourselves, right?'' I narrowed my eyes. Still not saying anything.
''Listen, we all want to make a difference in this world. But it ain't that easy. If it really was so easy, we all would be celebrities by now,"
Well, that's because not all of us have special abilities or genius intellect... Not trying to brag, of course. As of right now, I haven't done anything special yet, so my worth as a human being is still not so high. Well, that is how I determine one's worth. Let me start with saying that I despise the aristocracy. I see no reason why we have anything like that, because you were born an aristocrat does not mean you are special. Your parents are special. You might not be. This is why I like plutocratism, as this will require one to do something in order to get a higher ranking within society. How I define someone's worth is by examining the things one had done, and seeing if it really changed something.
"So, stop throwing your life away for such nonsense and get a job, son," he said.
There, the determination I needed. The single spark I needed in order to get the motive for going all-in on this guy.
"Nonsense, you say?" I casually asked, surprising the detective before me. I looked into his dull, grey eyes and threw my own legs onto the table, forcing the detective to get his own off the table to avoid collision.
"Then tell me this, what do you see as 'nonsense'. To me, nonsense would mean things that don't have a meaning, and therefore be useless. Is that what you are trying to say?" Gumshoe nodded slowly. I took a deep breath. This will be long, so bear with me. Hey, I got an idea, why don't we use this speech as a replacement for the missing speech I normally have?
"Let me tell you my story. This will be a bit long and complicated, so try to keep up," I said, letting a devilish smile appear on my face, making Gumshoe narrow his eyes.
"What do you think when you see that a hacker has been arrested? Let me say that for you, 'another one caught today, it's all over the papers, like 'teenage hacker arrested in computer scandal, or hacker arrested after bank tampering.' Damn kids. They're all alike.' I bet that's what you think. But did YOU, in your three piece psychology and 1950s techno brain, ever take a look behind the eyes of a hacker? What forces shaped him? What may have molded him?" He started to shift a bit in his foldable metal chair, as if uncomfortable.
"Well, I'm a hacker, so why don't you enter my world instead?" He looked at me, his face expressing both confusion and a bit curiosity.
"Mine is a world that starts at school. You see, I was smarter than most of the kids at my school. The crap they taught us bored me out of my wits."
Damn underachiever, they're all like. That's what he's thinking now.
"I'm in junior or high school. I've listened the teachers explaining us how to reduce a fraction for the fifteenth time already. I already understand it. Yet, even if I took my math test and completed it almost flawlessly, they still treated me as an idiot and continued to explain how to reduce a fraction, even though they knew I was smarter than them. They feared me."
Damn kid, probably copied it. They're all alike.
"But then, I made a discovery. I found this thing they called a computer. It was cool, it did what I told it to do, and if it did something stupid it was because of me, I screwed up myself then. Not because if didn't like me... Or feel threatened by me... Or thinks I'm a smartass... Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here..."
Damn kid, all he does is play games. They're all alike.
"But you see, then it happened. A door opened to a new world, rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins. A place to escape our rotten society. The hacker forums. 'This is it, this is where i belong!' was the first thought that ringed in my ears. I knew everyone there, even though I never met them, never talked to them, and may not hear from ever again... People that understood me. People that taught me things that really intrigued me. I was there, when hacking was just a harmless prank to tie people's phone lines. I was there, when hacking became a serious thing.
Damn kids, tying up the phone lines again. They're all alike.
You bet your ass that we are all alike.
"We've been fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak. The bits of meat you did slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists or ignored by the apathetic. Even though the only thing we really longed for was knowledge."
I took a breath, and shot a glance at the detective. He had once again changed his seating position and a single drop of sweat could now be seen.
Heh, and I wasn't even finished yet.
"This is our world now, the world of the electron and switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing, without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals."
I removed my legs from the table and folded them onto each other and I continued to stare him down. Preparing for the final.
"We explore, seek after knowledge, we exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... Yet you call US criminals? You build atomic bombs, you murder, you wage pointless wars, cheat and LIE to us, making us believe that it's for OUR OWN GOOD?"
"Yet we're the criminals."
"Well, yes. I'm a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think. Not by what they LOOK like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something you will never forgive me for."
"I'm a hacker, and this was MY manifesto. You may stop me, but you can never stop us all. After all,"
"WE'RE ALL ALIKE."
I leant back in my cold chair, and smiled upon seeing the detective. Five minutes ago, he was all high and mighty. Yet now, he was a whole different man. He just stared at me, not saying anything, speechless.
He mumbled something to himself before becoming silent, like the rest of the isolated room. I patiently waited for the words that would never come. Instead, it was a timid knock that responded me. Gumshoe slowly got up from his chair and clumsily walked over to the door, to the extent of almost knocking over his chair. When the door opened, I couldn't see the person on the other side of the door, and also couldn't hear what they said, but the detective looked relieved somehow, and moved his hand into his pocket and unlocked my shackles.
"Uh.. Someone paid your bail... You can leave..." he managed to say within heavy and deep breaths. Not so tough now, are you? I stretched my arms as they were finally free. I stood up only to see I was the only one left in the room.
That's strange. I mean, isn't an officer supposed to accompany you?
And more importantly, who paid my bail?
...Good question..
I took a few steady steps toward the door before being stopped by a familliar figure. A tall and blonde woman walked in. She blocked my toward the door.
Overwatch's medic.
Mercy.
We had an epic showdown before the doctor signaled me to sit. After I shook my head, she finally spoke up.
"Warum arbeitest du für Talon?" she sked me.
"Look, I know you know I'm Dutch, and I know I speak many languages, but German isn't one of them," I responded, causing Mercy to tilt her head slightly.
"Really? German isn't so hard..." she mumbled back in a subtle German accent.
"Well, German grammar is the only language that gives me headache... and to almost every Dutch student..."
She raised her eyebrow.
"Anyway, let's get down to business, shall we?" she asked and put a black USB stick onto the metal table. The bright light reflected off its shiny surface, meaning it was recently cleaned or just bought recently. "I was sent here by Dva, as she knew that if she would come here personally it would attract too much attention. She told me that you would aid us if you got the chance, so here you are. We will meet up later," she said and left the room, leaving me behind with the USB stick... and a rather confused state of mind. Then, as if they did not want me to gather my thoughts, footsteps could be heard coming from the corridor outside the room.
They were almost silent, but I still heard them.
Seems liked years of playing stealth games really do pay off.
I quickly grabbed the stick and put it into my pocket and leant against the wall behind me. Not many people walk with such footsteps, but the only group who does, are mostly made out of assassins.
Good, that means I'm not forgotten.
Is that good news?
..No?
Shit then.
I stared at the entrance of the door, I couldn't really do too much. Then, a figure walked through the door, surprising me, like she always does.
Hah, you expected Widowmaker?
Too bad for you.
''Surprised to see me?''
''Yes, I am, Jess.''
Before me stood a woman, a few years younger than me. She was just like me, East Asian. She was of average height with long shiny black hair, a single lock of bright white hanging over her eyes. Her full lips were ruby red and slightly apart. Her black trench coat clang tightly to her gentle female curves. She had an arrogant look on her pale face and seemed to be looking down at me.
Isn't that great?
''Since when did you learn to walk so silently?'' I asked, and took a step closer.
''Why do you care, brother?'' I flinched when she said the word 'brother'. A word I had not heard for a long time. Especially not directed at me.
Well, looks like I have some explaining to do, don't I?
…I don't like talking about my-
CORRECTION: writing.
-past. Well, I figure I will need to. You see, Jess and I are siblings. When we were teenagers, we found this laptop… It belonged to our grandfather, who in turn was also a hacker.. A talented one at that. When he hacked, he always saved his logs. Jess and I examined the near endless amount of logs and eventually became hackers ourselves. Years after that, as our experience grew, we became one of the best. I was knows as 'ENIGMA' and Jess became known as 'Oracle'. This might be a bit confusing, with so many hackers, but the list goes like this.
First was me.
Second was Dva, and third was Oracle.
So, Jess and I worked together in bringing down multiple multinationals by revealing their corporate secrets, and it would be no surprise we were both feared and loved. But then, a few years prior to this, Oracle and I got into an argument. Yes, and argument that changed both our lives.
This was what many hackers and outsiders call 'The hack crisis'.
Following the fall of Overwatch, the world was plunged into chaos. I had always been against Overwatch, but my sister wasn't. We had a fight.
She tried her best in reviving Overwatch by destroying companies she thought had something to do with Overwatch's fall. I tried my absolute best to keep her from doing it.
As you can expect, we had a little war.
And I won.
I destroyed Oracle, and the public knew it. Oracle's reputation was ruined and she disappeared. Even though it never was my intention to reveal the results to the public. And now, after all that has happened, she is here.
''Why are you here and how did you find me?''
''Easy, I tracked you down. You were a ghost until a short time ago, you gained a lot of publicity, brother.''
''Don't stop talking. You haven't answered all my questions yet.''
''Persistent as always. I saw the news. Did you really join Talon?'' her features hardened.
''Uh, well. I was forced into Talon.. But, I did get this,'' I showed her the stick. ''I guess I'm an Overwatch spy now.. also forced, by the way.''
She raised her eyebrow, before freezing in place. She suddenly fell forward, to me and I was forced to hold her, as her warm body made contact with my own. I moved my fingers toward her neck.
She was unconscious.
I looked up to see Widowmaker in front of me, with smoke coming out of her rifle's barrel. There was a silencer on it.
''I used a tranquilizer.. I overheard your conversation.''
Now I froze in place.
She put her gun down and stared at me.
''That's good, that speeds things up a bit.''
''What do you mean?''
''I mean the process to become an Overwatch spy, and your sister will be useful.''
She sent me a sideways glance and left the room before saying, ''Be a gentleman and carry her please,''
Ugh, I had the feeling she made her unconscious just to make me miserable… And there was a lot of explaining that needed to be done.
