another. “You’re part of the New World Order!”
“Yeah! Get the bitch! Get all the bastards,” shouted several more voices. The crowd surged forward, smashing windows, grabbing consumer goods, overturning cars, dragging people from their homes, beating, burning, raping, murdering. It was mob violence, orchestrated by mob hate and mob attitudes. There was no thought, no reason, just violence and hatred, hand in hand.
“Ah, here come the riot police,” said Henry in satisfaction. “They’ll soon have the scum back where it belongs. I hope they have the authority to shoot to kill. You have to take a firm hand with these sewer rats. Show them who is boss.”
He and Eileen glared at me in hatred and anger. Only Gwen looked sad and resigned. I knew then that any common ground between the street and the steel city, between the poor and the rich, was doomed.
“Being experimented on is all your sort is fit for!” hissed Eileen in sudden venom, her personal hatred of me bubbling up from within her own insecurities.
I turned away, too upset to even say anything.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Gwen to me, while the others watched the monitors and Andrew finished off the bottle of wine. “I can see you genuinely hoped for revolution, but revolutions don’t really work. Whoever ends up at the top inevitably go on to repeat the mistakes of those they have replaced, and society ends up just as it was. With a few at the top but most at the bottom.”
“Don’t you believe in progress, in equality, in anything?” I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“Yes, but I also realise it will never happen,” she answered. “Society is too solidified now to ever truly change. Not without ripping it all down, but even then, how long before the new world resembles the old one? Some will always have more money or more power or better skills at rousing people, and they will always float to the surface. It is the human way. History shows us this is so. The best we can hope for…”
“Yes?”
“Is to do the best for our loved ones and maybe help a few others on our way through life. Beyond that, we are utterly powerless.”
“Maybe, but I have one last card to play,” I snapped. I summoned the neural link and accessed everything that Vine Corp had ever committed to computer, which was pretty much everything. Their secure data, hidden behind encryption files that would have taken an expert years to unravel and which would have deleted themselves automatically long before then, were child’s play to me and my new abilities.
Every dirty little secret, every bribe, every policy that they wanted to be kept hidden was cracked open and transmitted across the Data Web. Every crooked politician who had given Vine what they wanted, every dodgy deal, every unethical experiment and decision was dumped wholesale into the world for all to see.
Andrew gaped in despair at the information flowing over the world and fell to his knees. I snapped myself free of the mental link and walked out of the silent apartment, unwanted by them, unwanted by the street, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Chapter Fifteen
I knew I had to end it. My life. What was left of it. Two weeks of hiding after the riots confirmed that. The revolution had come and gone but had never really materialised. It never will. Gwen was right. Nothing will ever change. All I had left, before ending it all, was a final visit to where it all started. To be honest, I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t belong anywhere anymore. I couldn’t belong. I was too different from the street and the steel cities.
I made my way into what had been the headquarters of Vine Corp. Most of the building was empty now. The scandal of their corruptions had caused the stock value to plummet. Of course, what caused the outrage in the business community was the fact that Vine got found out, rather than their policies and actions.
They had been bought out by the Tendriz Corporation, their
“Yeah! Get the bitch! Get all the bastards,” shouted several more voices. The crowd surged forward, smashing windows, grabbing consumer goods, overturning cars, dragging people from their homes, beating, burning, raping, murdering. It was mob violence, orchestrated by mob hate and mob attitudes. There was no thought, no reason, just violence and hatred, hand in hand.
“Ah, here come the riot police,” said Henry in satisfaction. “They’ll soon have the scum back where it belongs. I hope they have the authority to shoot to kill. You have to take a firm hand with these sewer rats. Show them who is boss.”
He and Eileen glared at me in hatred and anger. Only Gwen looked sad and resigned. I knew then that any common ground between the street and the steel city, between the poor and the rich, was doomed.
“Being experimented on is all your sort is fit for!” hissed Eileen in sudden venom, her personal hatred of me bubbling up from within her own insecurities.
I turned away, too upset to even say anything.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Gwen to me, while the others watched the monitors and Andrew finished off the bottle of wine. “I can see you genuinely hoped for revolution, but revolutions don’t really work. Whoever ends up at the top inevitably go on to repeat the mistakes of those they have replaced, and society ends up just as it was. With a few at the top but most at the bottom.”
“Don’t you believe in progress, in equality, in anything?” I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“Yes, but I also realise it will never happen,” she answered. “Society is too solidified now to ever truly change. Not without ripping it all down, but even then, how long before the new world resembles the old one? Some will always have more money or more power or better skills at rousing people, and they will always float to the surface. It is the human way. History shows us this is so. The best we can hope for…”
“Yes?”
“Is to do the best for our loved ones and maybe help a few others on our way through life. Beyond that, we are utterly powerless.”
“Maybe, but I have one last card to play,” I snapped. I summoned the neural link and accessed everything that Vine Corp had ever committed to computer, which was pretty much everything. Their secure data, hidden behind encryption files that would have taken an expert years to unravel and which would have deleted themselves automatically long before then, were child’s play to me and my new abilities.
Every dirty little secret, every bribe, every policy that they wanted to be kept hidden was cracked open and transmitted across the Data Web. Every crooked politician who had given Vine what they wanted, every dodgy deal, every unethical experiment and decision was dumped wholesale into the world for all to see.
Andrew gaped in despair at the information flowing over the world and fell to his knees. I snapped myself free of the mental link and walked out of the silent apartment, unwanted by them, unwanted by the street, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Chapter Fifteen
I knew I had to end it. My life. What was left of it. Two weeks of hiding after the riots confirmed that. The revolution had come and gone but had never really materialised. It never will. Gwen was right. Nothing will ever change. All I had left, before ending it all, was a final visit to where it all started. To be honest, I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t belong anywhere anymore. I couldn’t belong. I was too different from the street and the steel cities.
I made my way into what had been the headquarters of Vine Corp. Most of the building was empty now. The scandal of their corruptions had caused the stock value to plummet. Of course, what caused the outrage in the business community was the fact that Vine got found out, rather than their policies and actions.
They had been bought out by the Tendriz Corporation, their
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