This is Rom from the Packrat Sprawl, making waves and coming to you live and direct from a government building in the Echelons which just had the doors blown off. And yes, Packrat Underground did that. Caused a bit of a stir if I might say so myself.
But lets backup a moment and get into exactly what happened. Minister Shimura from the Pacific Territories’ palace of the Viceroy in the City had a speaking engagement in the Echelons today. It was all over the Newsfeed. He was speaking about raising a tax on the homeless and on those in the Echelons that live in the Shizuoko ghetto. The Shizuoko ghetto is a slum. This tax was for housing and for trespassing at night after curfew in abandoned buildings and on sidewalks. Now where else is a homeless person supposed to sleep if they have no where to live? I am homeless. Have been ever since the government threw me out on the streets after erasing my memory. I was sleeping in a subway squat until the Packrats took me in.
These people can’t afford a tax to keep their dwellings. There is barely enough food in the Echelons to feed everyone as it is with the dangers of radiation on foodstuffs like milk and cheese, and meat is too expensive for those who live here in the slums.
Anyway this minister wants this tax and well what do I say, light him up!
So I went to Faid, the leader of the Packrats and asked if I could organize a demonstration. He gave me the go ahead. I put it out on my radio show for when the minister would be speaking and I put it on the gridscan and even advertised at Hack the tech and ware nightclub on the hacker job board. The word of mouth went like wildfire. We had about 1000 people at the demonstration.
Katsu, the Packrat also helped scope the place for me. Relaying information about the Zone Police presence which was heavy at the op.
But I digress. You want to know where the doors blew off. And I will oblige. Well, a Packrat with a rocket launcher did that little deed for us. Katsu provided the logistics and found the location and we had to assemble the piece on site in an abandoned building as the Zone Police will not allow you to walk down the street with a weapon. So we got all that done and waited until the minister started speaking.
He got 5 minutes in from his podium before we lit up the building. He was not hurt. The Zone Police saw to that. We were not out to harm anyone just send a message that we are serious and the Elite government is not going to suppress our rights to live free of extra tax.
So I am still onsite. We are on top the abandoned building across the street watching the Zone Police scurry around. It is rather fascinating. Katsu is here with me looking through those high powered binoculars of his.
****
Rom walked to the side of the roof and placed his hands on the low wall leaning out and peering around the corner. There was still a slight dust cloud surrounding the area near the door of the government building. The Zone Police had put up caution blue tape to keep people out and the municipal government was there with their vans trying to ensure no one was hurt.
“See anything Katsu?” asked Rom lifting his leg and careening his neck out trying to see down the street around the corner. The top of the building they were on was not in the direct line of sight. The streets were slightly caddycorner so you had to go to the edge of the roof to see the front of the government building where the blast went down.
Katsu with his short brown hair and honey skin brought the binoculars up to his eyes and looked on. He hesitated for a moment changing the scoping on the binoculars. There was a lot of activity at the government building. “Minister Shimura is being moved now into one of the Zone Police vans. Looks like he has a bandage on his arm from what I can see. We maybe roughed him up a little. That projectile went right to the door. He may have been hit by debris from the blast.”
“Well, he thinks he can raise a tax on us when we have nothing to live off of in the Echelons. He is in for a rude awakening,” said Rom and pushed back from the wall turning to Katsu. “You coming back to the Sprawl with me?”
“No, I have the task to stay for another two hours and watch. You did get all the Packrat Underground demonstrators away before the Zone Police started rounding people up. Are you sure everyone is safe now? I can see some demonstrators in handcuffs down there.”
“Do they have the white and black fox spirit masks on?” asked Rom curious as he pulled out his handheld and sent out a message to all his Packrat Underground members who had been at the demonstration. He had a massive number of followers that had all heeded the call when he announced the action.
Katsu looked closer through the binoculars as the Zone Police were cuffing random demonstrators who had not bailed out when the blast hit. He watched carefully to check for the Prophet white masks of the fox spirit with the black ears, large eyes and red mouths. “No, I don’t see any masks. You must have ensured everyone was away before the ZP got into it.”
Rom’s handheld chimed as he got multiple messages from him Packrat Underground followers. It seemed no one had been rounded up and everyone got away in time. One of his followers asked when the next action was. Rom started to reply with an answer and then his handheld rang. He brought it up to his ear.
“This is Rom. Is this Anj?”
The voice on the other line started speaking. “Yes, this is Anj. I need you in the Processing Centre right now. You were supposed to be back to the Sprawl after the action. Remember Faid does not like you out too long on the streets due to the fact that the Elite government are looking for you because you are a Level 9 hacker and have information against the Parliament. Faid needs you back in. I expect you in front of me the minute I hang up.”
“Got it. Sorry about that. Was just excited the action was a success,” said Rom pacing around the roof away from Katsu.
“Well, the action is over. Come in now. You don’t want Faid upset with you. That could be unpleasant and then your outside privileges might get revoked.”
“On it. Coming in now,” said Rom and hung up putting the handheld back in the pocket of his dirty tan trench coat.
Katsu pulled down the binoculars and turned to him. “You out?”
“Yep. Let me know if anything goes down. Will you also be watching the Newsfeed? If they try to exact this tax again I will organize another event for them that will make them wake up,” said Rom with an angry look on his face. He ran his hand through his tan Mohawk.
“You know the Elite will just try again. You best watch carefully.”
“I will watch it like my life depended on it. Which it does.”
“Later,” called out Katsu and went back to the edge of the building looking through the binoculars.
Rom vanished using his psychic power and arrived in front of Anj at the Processing Centre in the Packrat Sprawl. Faid was in there waiting for him.
****
“I told you three hours. You were supposed to be back from the demonstration an hour ago,” scolded Faid with his hands on his hips. His bright fire engine red hair screaming in a bob with gel making the ends stick out wild in every direction.
“Sorry, I was excited and wanted to watch the wrap up,” apologized Rom and bowed his head.
Faid sat down in the wooden chair with casters and swiveled it around to face Rom. He pulled out a handheld. “I give you leave for Packrat Underground because we need your hacktivist vision. You are a Level 9 hacker and the information you have in that implant of yours manufactured and fitted by the data pirate Black Holes could take down the government. I know you were the hacker that procured all that data and you did it illegally right under the Elite government’s nose.”
“Yes, I do have that data. I know they are looking for me.”
“Every time you go out the security boards light up on Zone Police sightings of you on the street. We wiped clean the tag that the government put on you tracking your every move and blanked your avatar so you can be free and clear on the gridscan but when a surveillance camera picks you up on the street all hell breaks lose. Look at this,” said Faid and leaned forward handing off the handheld.
Rom took the device and looked at the screen. There was a listing of illegal activity associated with a hacker named Rom and a call to haul him into Zone Police headquarters if he was located. The list he was looking at were time stamps of actually movements and CCTV camera sightings of Rom. The list was every few seconds as he walked down Astor street picked up by multiple cameras at various angles. He clicked on a picture and could clearly see his tan trench coat and Mohawk in a shot. Rom’s eyebrows raised as he handed back the handheld.
“Look, I know the government is after you. That is another reason we took you in. Along with helping you restore your memory once the government wiped it and threw you out on the street. We cannot have you captured. You are too vulnerable. I need you to cover your tracks better. Luckily no one saw you near the demonstration as you were wearing that mask around your neck,” said Faid.
“Next time, I will be more careful,” said Rom with a soft voice as he pulled the strap at the back of the plastic white fox spirit mask over his head and set it down on the back table in the Processing Centre.
“I got work for you. We need nanomachines added to a few vials of neurocyne. Are you available to work now?” asked Anj, the head of the Processing Centre which controlled the psi inducer drugs for the Packrats and was the Runners’ stronghold.
“Let me get my Packrat Underground daily message out, then I will be back here and get that done. Can you oblige me that for the moment? It should only take about 10 minutes?”
“Sure,” said Anj.
“Just be more careful when you go out. I don’t want to have to restrict your movements more. You are a Runner but I am still cautions about sending you out on a run. If you can show me you deserve it, I will let you become a full fledged Runner and I know you want that,” said Faid getting up out of the chair and walking towards the entrance. He stopped near Rom and put his hand on his shoulder in a show of support. “You did a good job today with the minister. Keep it up. Packrat Underground is the subversive voice of those who have no say. Speak it loud. Hackers Unite!”
Rom smiled as Faid walked off. Anj waved to Rom who left the Processing Center and went to the Radio Room and sat down at the back desk where there was a laptop and a two way radio device where he did his broadcasts from. The room was tiny and had two desks with radio devices and a two-way camera setup as well with an accompanying hardline terminal on a table, the only things in the room. He logged into the computer using his avatar credentials and went to the anti-government Packrat Underground site. There was a radio frequency listed on the black site where the next radio broadcast would be today at 10PM like clockwork every Friday. His followers used an anonmyizer to get to the Packrat Underground black site which was hidden from regular search engines on the gridscan. You had to know where to go to find it. He was late today with his broadcast because of the demonstration. The radio frequency of the broadcast changed each week and Rom had to slap up stickers in the streets and leave them at hacker establishments so people would know where to find the show since the government shut him down every time they located his broadcast.
He set the frequency dial in the AM band on the radio transmission device and picked up the antiquated old fashioned mic that looked like a round orb with grooves in it on a short pole with a rectangular platform. The pole was worn where it had been picked up multiple times and the black paint was chipping of the sides of the tarnished metal rod. He set the button on the back of the mic to analog and then flipped the switch on the radio device and the broadcast began.
“This is Rom making waves and coming to you live and direct from the Packrat Sprawl. Welcome to Packrat Underground, the subversive radio show broadcasting every Friday like clockwork to bring you the voice of the people the government doesn’t want you to hear. The radiation level is high today on this post-apocalyptic afternoon in the Zone. Packrat Underground is the voice of the revolution. We will not be silenced. We are everywhere. Hackers Unite! Hack Till You’re Dead!…”