Chapter 10
It was a month later Aiden walked outside of the makeshift hospital with Niall Quinn, his outfit was patched up and he had a new pistol.
"Good to see you are feeling good. Just so you know Defalt has set up arrangements to distract the Shus and The Bratva. You should get no more problems from them. So. Ready to start working," he held out his hand, "partner?"
Aiden glared at him and shook his hand, "Got you…so. Where do we need to go?"
"San Francisco. We need your help to enter the server network. The San Francisco Blume HQ is the source of the American ctOS system. Defalt can lowered their defenses but you need to go inside and drop our code into the system. Then the ctOS 2.0 is ours. Your freedom will come after."
Aiden looked down at his feet, he clenched his hands.
"What do I do?"
"Just take a flight to San Francisco with me and we can begin. Our flight leaves in three hours."
Aiden nodded, "Alright. I'll do it for you…but if I find out you've hurt my sister I'll kill you."
"Deal then, you won't have to worry about it."
Before Aiden followed Niall his phone rang.
"Let me take this." Niall nodded as he went forward towards his limo.
Aiden picked up his phone and saw the unlisted number, "Hello?"
"Pearce, it's T-bone."
"T-bone? Where are you? Where did you go?"
"Into hiding, since Defalt has been trying to find me he sent those Rosarios after me. Me and Frewer are somewhere out of the city, and I have been watching. You can't do this."
Aiden sighed, "I have to do this, to ensure my families survival."
"You don't understand what you're doing! You are giving the Club access to the greatest profiling system in the world! Bank accounts, criminal back grounds, and creating false alibis. You'll give him the greatest weapon that Blume has. Blume is corrupted yeah but they aren't as evil as the Club."
Aiden lowered his head, "I have no choice. They'll kill Nicky. Besides I've run out of time. Unless you have coordinates on her location I have no choice but to do this."
"Pearce! I'm begging you! Don't do this. You give the ctOS to the club, you give them more power than the fucking Government! Hell they'll have control of all of the Governments!"
"Sorry Ray." He hung up as he walked to the limo, the door held open by Niall, he smiled gesturing inside.
After a short ride Aiden sat on a private jet, Jordi Chin and Niall sat across from Aiden as he looked outside at the ground thinking of Ray's words. He knew this was a mistake, but this could offer his freedom. He had to do this.
After hours of flight they finally landed in San Francisco. Niall stepped outside inhaling deeply.
"Ah…the bay area…smells like progress and corporate corruption. But they'll know who makes things work around here."
Aiden felt guilt hearing that. He wanted to just shoot Niall and Jordi and run. But where? He knew Niall would have back up plans if it happened. It was lucky he found Nicky the first time Damien kidnapped her, but he could make phone calls. Here he had nothing.
As Aiden rode with Jordi and Niall he asked him, "Why not Jordi do this instead?"
"Look, I may be a Fixxer but I'm not into that tech shit. Besides you are already enemy number 1. You already have a big target on your back. I wanna remain the faceless thug who no one knows about."
"Precisely, any other hacker can do this but they would no doubt try to get a part of the cut. Defalt will keep control himself as part of our deal. But I have collateral over you, I know you won't betray me."
Aiden sighed as Niall handed Aiden an ear piece. As Aiden put it inside Niall spoke into his phone, "You hear me?"
Aiden nodded.
"I am here as well." Defalt's distorted voice spoke over ear piece, "Follow my instructions and we'll be fine. First wait for my distraction to work."
"What distraction?"
Large explosions shook the ground as the Umeni Zulu security scrambled from the building. Aiden's eyes widened, "What did you do?"
"I overloaded some car batteries, I had organized some terrorists to set bombs and shake things up. You'll find it easier to access the server's underground."
Aiden nodded sliding his Vigilante mask on. He exited the car, his pistol in hand, the phone in the other.
"This should help."
A large sound of machines being powered down whirred as the lights shut off. Aiden dashed for the main building, jumping over benches as the door automatically opened. As he entered the lobby of the HQ. He fired off his gun shooting two guards in the legs. Other guards noticed and fired back. Employees ran as the lights came back on.
Then the men screamed as their ear pieces overloaded with a loud sound. Aiden withdrew his baton and knocked the guards out, smacking them in their stomach, legs and face. He ran into the employees only section, the elevator to the servers already open. He dashed into the elevator but more guards came.
They fired through the glass bullets missing him barely, As the elevator lowered to the basement. Aiden dashed downstairs as Defalt spoke, "I've falsified snitch reports on some guards. It'll keep them busy for a while."
Aiden ran through the humongous room with a glass floor, underneath him were the servers.
"Head to the air gap computer. It will expose the servers for you. Then you're done."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Aiden went to the Air Gap computer hacking away to expose it, the servers pushed upward exposed to the room.
"I see it…time for some magic."
Defalt cracked his knuckles as he went away typing, he was accessing the network, instead of downloading information he put his code it. It spread like wild fire, moving from server farm to server farm around the world. Removing any remote access, including that of Dedsec.
"Good. Now put them back in, we have what we want."
Aiden shut the servers down as he walked away, security stormed down the halls as he asked, "Fuck-I'm cornered."
"Don't worry about that."
As the guards charged into the room their ear pieces went off, screeching their ears, their grenades began to beep as they exploded, blood in a localized spot.
"Shit…after our little encounter I didn't think you were capable of this."
"I told you Pearce, you can't catch the rat."
Aiden panted as ran to the elevator, Defalt booted it up and allowed him to go upwards. Outside it was chaos, police and gang members were in fire fights. Tezcas and Ragnaroks were engaging the police and Umeni.
Aiden saw Niall's limo still parked far away. He ran through the chaos as Defalt mass hacked their communications. They all cried out as their ear pieces went off nearly making them deaf.
The door opened as Aiden got in and the limo drove. Off. Aiden panted as he was sweating, he felt the sting of three bullet holes in his chest and back.
Niall smiled placing a hand on his shoulder.
"The debt is clean. You're free Pearce."
"Where's Nicky?"
"She's in a boat that is come into harbor. They are currently in Oakland."
"Take me to them," he said with a sigh, "I'm done with this."
On the freight container Greg hung up his phone as he entered the room, Nicky looked to him.
"You guys are free to go. Aiden is coming to get you."
She smiled, "Thank you Aiden…"
As Greg shut the door he turned to see the Bull, his hand on a pistol.
He then gasped as he raised his gun and fired a bullet into Greg and he fell to the ground, being lifeless.
Nicky stood up, grabbing Jackson, both of them were frightened as the door opened and The Bull stood there, he held up his pistol cocking it.
The limo pulled up to the freighter, "And here we are. They are inside."
Aiden got out immediately and dashed to the boat where he saw dead bodies, bullet holes in their heads. His eyes widened as he ran through the boat until he saw an open door, his sister on the ground out cold. "Nicky!" Aiden ran to her shaking her to wake up, she groaned, a massive bruise above her eyebrow.
She looked up, "Aiden…"
He smiled, "I'm here…where's Jackson?"
She looked up at him and spoke, "A man took him…a guy with an eyepatch."
Aiden became cold knowing who that was. Niall walked in behind him, "What is going on?"
Aiden growled grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pushing him against the wall, "You lied to me! You flat out lied to me!"
Niall 's men pulled their guns to shoot him but Niall rose his hand and spoke, "I didn't do anything! What is going on?"
"Your lap dog, the man with the one eye, he did this! He took Jackson!"
Niall's eyes were wide with surprise and then they narrowed with fury. "We are going to find him."
"Tracked him, he's at the starter oil company."
Aiden dropped him running out of the ship Niall briskly walked outside as well. But Aiden had hacked access to one of the Club's cars and took it.
"Boss! He stole a car!"
"Let him, he needs to save his nephew."
Aiden bit his lip driving on the roads using his Nudle maps app to find the starter oil company. He hacked traffic lights just to get past them and find him.
"Jackson…come on… please be ok…"
At the Starter Oil Company docks The Bull had his gun pointed at Jacks, he stared at him with a look of fear. The sun was setting as Aiden pulled up in a club car. The Bull got up and clamped his hand on Jackson's shoulder. He placed the barrel to his head. Aiden got out of the car and aimed his gun to.
"DROP IT!" he said cocking his pistol, "Or the kid dies."
Aiden glared at him and dropped the pistol, "Please…leave the kid out of this, If you want to fight me then fight me. But my sister doesn't deserve this. Neither does Jackson."
The Bull glared at him, "You think I care? Those men you killed in Chicago were my family. I was in the same school as them, we grew up on the streets. But did you care when you killed them? No. I did what we had to so we could appease the Club. You just didn't care."
Aiden was filled with anger, but as he spoke he was slowly letting it go. He felt guilt, remorse for him. He was feeling pity for the man.
"Your right. I did."
The Bull smirked, "So you admit it. You are a horrible person who is selfish! You only care about yourself! You just want to do what you want without consequence! You killed my friends, and several others for your own selfish goals."
Aiden shut his eyes and sighed, "Yes."
The Bull was surprised.
"You are right. I did. I regret it. I did all of this because my sister's daughter died. That's my fault to, I didn't have to rob and steal, I could've been good and simply been a hardworking man. But I caused myself, and others pain. You are completely right."
Aiden looked to Jackson and then to the Bull, "If you let Jackson go I'll let you kill me."
He was shocked, this evil man who was the anthesis of his life had given him the option to kill him. His gun shook as tears formed in his eyes. He dropped his gun and let Jackson go. "Fuck…FUCK! Why the fuck did you have to apologize?! This was to be simple! I make you suffer for what you did to me! Why the fuck did you make me feel sorry for you?!"
He sobbed, "Its not fucking fair!"
Aiden walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Its fine…you should leave while you have the chance. You can forget this life and be normal again."
The Bull looked up, tears in his eye.
"You need to forgive and forget, let go of this and learn to move on…something I should've done."
The Bull nodded and gulped.
"Thank you."
Just then something whizzed past Aide's ear and hit the him in his remaining eye. Blood burst from the man's face and he fell back on the ground dead. Aiden gasped as he saw him on the ground dead. He turned to see Niall, walking from out of a bush with a sniper rifle. He walked down the hill towards Aiden and he smirked, "Bullseye."
Aiden looked at him, "Why did you do that? I talked him down."
"He disobeyed orders and killed my men. He deserved nothing less than death."
Niall's men then picked up the body and carried it off to the docks where they tossed it in the water.
"It's something called discipline. You use fear to put people into their place."
He turned to Aiden, "You're free to go." Niall walked off with his men as Nicky ran out of the limo to hug Jackson. Aiden stared at Niall who climbed into his car and it drove off.
Aiden stood there as the sunset made the night lights come on. Nicky then stood up hugging Aiden, "Aiden…are you ok? You don't look good."
Aiden was snapped out of it as he stared at the water where the body was dumped. His mind racing with the possibilities of the future.
"What are we going to do Aiden? Go back to St. Louis?"
Aiden turned back to them, "No…we're safe. We can go back to Chicago now."
"How do you know?"
"Because we are going to be given new identities with histories. We'll be free from the ctOS."
"Aiden…what did you do to get us out?"
Aiden looked off into the sky as she asked again, "AIDEN."
"I gave it to him. I gave the ctOS to him."
She gasped, "Why…why would you do that? Do you understand what kind of man would do with it?"
"Yes."
"Then why did you do it?"
Aiden snapped back, "I did it to protect you and Jackson!"
Nicky pointed at him accusingly, "Aiden! I don't know if you know this or not, but Niall is ruthless. When I was in that box he intimidated me with ways he could kill you and Jackson. But I knew you'd come through and save us…but to just give that man access to the ctOS?! What are you thinking?!"
"I wanted to save you!"
"But not the world huh?"
Aiden groaned, "Look, I came to St. Louis to make a new life with you. I did what I could as the Vigilante and cleaned up the streets as best I could."
"But now you've made things worse. You did all of that work and now you erased it!"
She pushed him, "You are greedy Aiden! Lena was my daughter! Not yours. You don't get the right to just pretend like you were the one who hurt the most!"
Aiden's mouth was wide open, "Nic-"
"Don't get me started on Damien! If you just agreed to work with him he wouldn't have come after me! We wouldn't have had to leave Chicago Aiden! We wouldn't have to leave our home!"
Aiden's eyes watered, "Nicky. Please!"
"You even broke your promise! That promise you told me when you came back that none of what happened in Chicago would endanger us! It has! You left Chicago, but you didn't make sure the job was done! Jackson was almost killed Aiden! Killed!"
"Nicky…"
"Don't 'Nicky' me! We heard your conversation down there! You had been robbing and stealing for nothing but greed, if you had stopped and been a normal man we'd be in Chicago right now! You made our lives Hell Aiden! You-"
"Stop."
Nicky looked surprised to see Jackson speak up.
"Please Mom…uncle Aiden tried to save us. Please don't make him cry."
Nicky turned to Aiden who teared up slightly, clenching his eyes shut.
Nicky then wrapped her arms around his body and hugged him tightly. He crumbled to the ground hugging her stomach as he cried.
"I'm our Dad…I'm just our Dad all over again!"
"No," Nicky said, "You are nothing like Dad."
"Yes I am! I am nothing but some thug who hurts people because he wants to! I hurt so many people! I hurt you and Jacks!"
He sobbed as he hugged tightly, "I tried to make it right with Lena! I just wanted to help you grieve! I wanted to give you closure for my mistake! It was all my fault! All my fucking fault!"
He whimpered at her feet, Nicky had only seen Aiden cry six times as a kid, this was the seventh. She kneeled down and held his face, making him look into her eyes.
"Aiden…I'm sorry. I was harsh. But now we're out, you need to fix this. This isn't just about us anymore. This is about the whole world. You need to help them."
Aiden looked into her eyes, tears streaming down his face as he nodded, "O-Ok…I will."
He wiped his face dry as he stood up, he was still a bit red faced.
"So…are we going to Chicago?"
"Yes. We are going to Chicago and put an end to Niall."
Aiden picked up his phone as he dialed T-bone's number.
"Aiden?"
"Hey Ray…I did it…but I wanna take it back. I want to take down Niall Quinn for good, put him behind bars."
"You sure? You're free now. If Niall finds out you're fighting back he might make hits on your family again, maybe get you arrested. You don't have to fight if you don't want to."
"I have to," he said glancing to Nicky, "I want to take responsibility for what I did."
"Good…because I have some friends in San Francisco that might help."
Aiden chuckled, "Well, I'm already in San Francisco."
"Huh, one step ahead eh? Good. I think you'll like to meet them."
In Blume HQ the fires had been put out, bodies were being removed. In the main offices, there were executives and technicians discussing the event. Then Xavier Maxwell entered the room, "What the Hell happened?! I was having a nice time in bed sleeping and I get told by my wife that my workplace is on fire?! What the fuck is this shit?! If this is Dedsec I want Umeni Zulu on it!"
"It wasn't Dedsec." Said a voice as Niall entered the room. His cane flacking against the floor, his black trench coat waving in the wind, his black glasses concealing his eyes.
Xavier growled, "You did this? Who are you?!"
He smirked, "You don't recognize me? It's Niall! Niall Quinn! Lucky's son."
He growled, "We don't deal with the club anymore! Get out!"
"Of course, you don't," he said as he pulled out his phone profiling Xavier, "You deal with prostitutes and drugs?"
He felt grave about hearing that.
"H-How do you know that?"
"Simple Maxwell, we hacked your backbone. You'll be pleased to know I found a rather annoying bug in your system. Dedsec. We purged them so you won't have to worry."
The technicians all looked worried as Niall paced around the table, "As you know gentlemen your company isn't clean. Its rather filthy in fact. So filthy Dedsec is having a blast just making their little inspirational PSAs about you. But I think if we work together, we can take out Dedsec and any opposition as well."
"W-Why are you offering?"
"We offer because we know you are missing a CTO. You have been very decisive about who you should hire to fill in his big shoes. But I have an answer."
He gestured towards a tv screen and Defalt's logo flashed on before Defalt himself stood in front of a camera.
"Hello gentlemen!" he said in his normal voice.
"You probably recognize Defalt, you guys have had some dealings with him in the past related to Raymond Kenny. Luckily for you Defalt is on the hunt for both Kenny and Dedsec. So I feel he would be the ideal CTO of Blume."
Xavier shouted, "ABSOLUTELY NOT! We will not enlist a hacker as out CTO."
"So I should just have him tear up your network then? Drop virus after virus and let people's bank accounts be emptied and in the end Blume will be the only one people can point fingers at."
He raised his finger, "Ohhh! Better yet I should expose all of what you're doing, that includes any criminal history as well as what the ctOS does to people."
Xavier bit his lip.
"Ahh come on why so serious? After all we are business partners now! I don't see how this is a bad deal! If anything, I think it's a major improvement. Having the best top of the line hacker in America, and the world's most charismatic mob boss as a spokesperson. It's a financial wet dream."
Defalt spoke, "As the CTO I'll do improvements far better than Raymond Kenny ever did, I'll revolutionize the ctOS and I'll accelerate plans to be moved forward. Not a bad deal?"
Xavier looked to Quinn, and Defalt and sighed, "Fine. You win."
Niall grinned, "Good. You won't regret this, I promise."
Authors Note! Hey guys! This is the end to the first Watch Dogs fic. Hoped you liked it. I do have more planned for the next fanfiction so I am very excited for the next story I have planned. I hope you enjoyed and I encourage you to leave your reviews for this story here!