Axle, Elliot, Cady, me...ybgiruacghviryghbjknvcm netstat KLSjowDKNSVM but wait ogourawgfhdsuvbcjnkl mdfijohrg that didn't oughabmv ,ghru input ygeuudibhu not real...help meaugaebdfsjlcm ipconfig adhiu;oclnvdjasfnfgch
Nigel?
(black)
What...
What just...
(black)
I don't know what's happening to me. I woke up this morning and my brain was just muddled. I don't know how else to describe it. It's kind of like the way I used to feel waking up before the neural processor, but since the information overloads of day one finished, I've always woken up completely alert. I start to stand up but I'm bombarded with so many symbols and letters and numbers that I immediately fall back onto my bed again. I think I actually black out. When I wake up, my roommate's gone, and my processor shows that it's almost 0900. Why hasn't anyone come to find me yet? More importantly, what's going on with my processor?
There's been a lapse within CamCo. Last night, all of our identities were broadcasted for the world to see. Quite frankly, we're all a little terrified. Whoever leaked the names knows everything about us, and all we know about them is that there's a traitor among us. They want to interrogate us all now. One by one, they come and grab us out of the common room where we're all huddled. Everyone's on edge, frighteningly so for a group of kids who can command drones millions of miles away with confidence. Axle, on my left, is picking at a string on his boots, and Cady, on my right, is breathing significantly faster than normal. Alec and Elliot are having a muttered conversation a couple feet away, and Heather is sitting off by herself, chewing her lip so hard I think she might bite through it. I haven't spoken to her since the last time she'd blown up at me, and truth be told, I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing it now. Maybe the tension in the air has gotten to me.
"It's going to be ok, Heather," I tell her. Even now I can't resist joking a little. "At least, if you're not the traitor, it will. You're not, right?"
She cracks a half-smile. "Nope."
"Then you'll be fine. They'll find whoever betrayed us, and it'll be a little rocky for a while, but I'm sure we'll be back up and flying again in no time."
She nods. "Why do you look so worried, then?" She elbows me teasingly. I almost laugh. This is the Heather I knew from our days as roommates, best friends, and it feels so much better than the fighting.
"I'm sure it's nothing, but something weird happened with my processor yesterday. I couldn't wake up, and everything was this weird jumble. Nothing's happened since, but if it does it again I'm going to have to see someone."
An odd expression crosses her face, but it's gone before I can identify it. I brush it off. I'm sure she's just as confused as I am.
Then Emefa returns from interrogation, and I'm sent in. Yet again, I find myself facing General Marsh.
"Let's get straight to it, Kaynes. Do you know anything about the breach?"
Easy enough. "No, sir."
"You have no idea who could have been responsible?"
I try to repeat my previous answer, but the words won't come out.
Suddenly, my brain goes fuzzy. My consciousness is falling deep, deep into a pit.
I black out.
When I wake up, I'm strapped into the census device.
Blackburn is standing over me. I blink up at his silhouette blocking the harsh lights.
"Kaynes, we don't want to believe you're the traitor, believe me." My jaw drops. How could they think I betrayed the USIF? I've been one of their top combatants, sometimes even the top combatant, for months. Blackburn continues. "However, after you passed out, I ran some tests on your processor, and once I started poking I found some very unusual data. It might be nothing, but we can't afford to take the risk."
"I thought there was some rule against this?" I could've sworn they weren't allowed to do this to us, but at the same time none of us had ever been entirely sure what the extent of Blackburn's sanity was.
"It won't be a problem if you have nothing to hide."
I didn't. Did I?
He begins the process of starting up the census device, and suddenly I'm frantically searching my brain. I don't know who was behind the breach, not consciously at least, but something about the morning of my scrambled neural processor is pulling on me.
And as I dig into my own brain, suddenly I'm seeing flashes, shattered fragments of images- images that couldn't be real because none of that had ever happened. We hadn't betrayed the USIF. None of us ever would have. But that won't stop Blackburn from thinking this fake memory is real. I know truer than I've ever known anything that if he finds these images, I'm going down and my friends are going with me.
I can't let that happen.
I focus all my remaining energy on creating a wall around that memory. Somehow, in my desperation, I control my processor's data like I control my ships in a fight. Almost my entire being goes into protecting that lie. I will not let them find it. All that remains I force into a flashdrive, left in my pocket after I used it to teach Elliot new strategies. I use it to make a record, because I am no longer sure I will come out of this alive, but I do not want to be gone.
Then the census device begins probing and the pain starts. It burns, pierces its way through my skull and I scream.
But the pain doesn't stop.
netstat: error
error
error
I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm doing here. Where am I? I look around. I'm strapped into a chair with people in military uniforms staring at me, uniforms that kind of look like the one I'm wearing. My head swims and everything hurts. I look down, and clenched in my hand is a small blue flashdrive on which someone has written "Elliot Ramirez." It might have been me. I don't know. I don't know who that is. I wish everyone yelling right now would just go away. I want to go back to sleep. Darkness was better. But I guess the drive was important, or I wouldn't be holding it this tightly. So, Elliot Ramirez, whoever you are, I hope it finds you. I wish I could tell you who it's from.
...wasn't that fun, kids? Anyway, I'm really sorry I left this for so long AGAIN. If I go over two weeks or so (middle of september ish) before posting the last chapter, feel free to PM me to remind me.