Disclaimer: I do not own Watch Dogs

Chapter 1: Security

*Profiler activated…

ctOS Database Accessed…

Name: Laura Annette Brendan

Occupation: Blume Security Chief

Income: $15,000 per month

Note: Was responsible for bringing down Dedsec 2 years ago

Laura Annette Brendan walked down the hallway at Blume headquarters with long, measured strides. Although having only stepped up to the post of security chief a short while after that fiasco with that Vigilante fellow, she had worked hard and within half a year of entering her post, she had ordered a series of arrests that brought down a large majority of Dedsec's inner circle, and IP addresses and bank accounts known to be affiliated with Dedsec had been locked down.

Laura was highly respected among the employees at Blume, and even though she was known to metaphorically muscle her way through various proceedings to get what she wanted, it was widely agreed that her methods were usually successful, so the higher-ups tended to give in to her, confident that her unorthodox methods would yield results.

Right now though, Laura was seriously pissed off. If looks could kill, she could become a mass murderer simply by stepping onto the street. In her hand, she clutched the reason for why she was so angry. It was the report that had landed on her desk, detailing the incident at the baseball stadium. The incident had been kept under wraps from the media, as it would understandably cause widespread panic.

As Laura advanced towards the conference room she had booked, other Blume employees ducked out of her way, not wanting to piss her off any further. The Blume head of marketing started to say hi, but broke off and turned away when he saw her. The tall, slender blonde gripped the report even tighter, crumpling the high-res photo of the Dedsec logo being projected onto the wall with several of her best security officers sprawled on the ground with clean bullet holes to the head.

Bursting into the conference room, Laura was slightly placated to see her dedicated team of Blume employees, all handpicked personally by her, already sitting there waiting for her.

Slumping in the chair at the head of the long table, suddenly exhausted, she turned to her secretary. "Well, John? What do you have for me?"

The stocky man nodded, replying, "We've got quite a lot, madam. We got our local analyst teams to cross-check the logo with past known logos and we found a major difference. The ASCII code that makes up the Dedsec symbol has changed, and can be translated into reading 'We will stop at nothing'; and also another decoded message reads 'The Vigilante can't save you this time'."

Laura frowned. The mysterious Vigilante, of which there was no record of in the ctOS databases for some reason, had gone off the radar a little over a year ago. He was known to have had contact with Dedsec in the past, but a salvaged recording from before the disastrous blackout back then had revealed the two had had a falling out, with the Vigilante refusing to give Dedsec access to the ctOS databanks. The Vigilante was praised by the people for stopping crimes, and most witness reports pointed to a tall man dressed with a cap, a neckscarf and a trench coat.

"Anything else?" Laura asked. A lithe young man, one of the newest members of her team leaned forward. "We're analysing the security camera footage of the attack. The men were masked but some of the cameras in the stadium are equipped with infrared scanners. Forensics is doing reconstruction of their faces and should get back to us with results soon."

Laura nodded. "Thank you, Jake. Let me know immediately once you identify who the men are."

A short, middle-aged woman slid a report over to Laura. "These are the specs of the projector we found at the scene. Highly advanced stuff, not the kind of thing you can buy at the local tech shop. The lab guys are looking for fingerprints, but their initial guess is that it'll be inconclusive. Once they're done with it they'll pass it on to the tech guys to dismantle it and look for other clues."

"Thank you very much, Jennifer." Laura replied. "Well, everyone, we've got a group of Dedsec-affiliated murderers on the loose, and we've got almost nothing to go on. John, write letters to notify the families of the victims and tell them we are working around the clock to identify the killers. Let's get to work. We have got to find those men."

*10 minutes later*

Laura collapsed onto the sofa in her private office. She was wearier than she had ever been. The apparent resurgence of Dedsec would be a huge hit to her reputation, thanks in part to her proud declaration that "Dedsec will never rise from the ashes again" two years ago at a press conference.

Laura was exhausted, and she closed her eyes, wanting to rest for a while, and she slowly drifted off to sleep.

Suddenly, a rapid knocking woke her up. Looking at the clock on the wall, Laura was surprised to discover she had been snoozing for only 20 minutes. "Come in," she said.

Her secretary John burst in through the door, looking flustered. "Ma'am, I think you should see this." He grabbed the remote and turned on the television mounted on the wall.

Laura sat up as the flatscreen TV flickered to life. There was an emergency news report being broadcasted, and the pretty newsreader was in the middle of delivering a report. "…millions of dollars have been siphoned from Chicago bank accounts in a matter of minutes using stolen credit card and bank account information. ProviBlue Bank is working to lock down the affected bank accounts and track down the missing funds, but experts' initial speculation is that the funds will have been transferred many times over to offshore accounts and to other bank accounts, and it is highly likely that the funds will never be recovered."

The petite woman paused, holding her hand to her earpiece. "Folks, an update has come in. The hacker group Dedsec, thought to be defunct, has claimed responsibility for the bank hacking. Investigations are ongoing, but for now, ProviBlue Bank spokespeople recommend the people of Chicago to remain calm, and withdraw as much hard cash as possible to prevent funds from being stolen from their bank accounts. Dedsec has released a statement online claiming that they were able to steal the relevant information due to a vulnerability in the ctOS. Blume has yet to release an official statement, but their spokesperson is expected to do so later today."

Laura was flabbergasted. She had hoped to keep the supposed revival of Dedsec under wraps from the public until she had enough information so it wouldn't be just a piece of news, but now Dedsec had gone and done that for her, and it wasn't necessarily going to be good.

But the pretty news lady wasn't finished. "Dedsec have also claimed to have video footage of how they obtained the information and will be releasing that video later today at 1700 hours sharp. They claim that this video footage will be undeniable truth about the vulnerability of ctOS."

John turned to Laura. "We're already working on tracking down the relevant IP addresses and newer IP addresses that seem suspicious."

Laura was pale. "That won't be enough. Prepare for a city-wide ctOS lockdown on file uploads and downloads. Black out the city if need be. That video must not be released!"

John nodded and ran out of her office. Laura got off the sofa and rearranged her slightly rumpled clothes, before stepping outside.

The Blume headquarter building was a hive of activity. It was all hands on deck, with Blume employees typing furiously away at their computers and rushing about with documents in hand. Laura thought for a while, before dashing back into her office and re-emerging with a piece of notepaper in her hands. She grabbed the nearest intern, passed him the note and instructed him to deliver it straight to the IT department. The note was a message for the IT department to shut down all cameras in the Blume building, as it was known for hackers to exploit the cameras being linked to ctOS to gain access to certain areas and sensitive information.

Laura looked around at the men and women rushing about doing their job. She thought to herself, "This is going to be a long day."

Just above her, a camera moved slightly, panning so she was in full view of the camera. Laura had no idea she was being watched. But it was not Dedsec that was watching her, for Dedsec had yet to gain full access to the ctOS…

A/N hey guys, here's the first full chapter of my watch dogs fic, hope you enjoyed it and if you got the little hint at the end, good for you, you've figured out who's going to be making an appearance in the next chapter! laura is going to be the main character of this fic, and great things are in store for her, so stay tuned!

as always, feel free to leave a review commenting on my writing, and don't forget to enjoy the story!

stay awesome, and happy reading!

Darkrai the Slayer, signing off for now