by Travis Knoll
Signs pulled out his phone from the microwave and showed him a secure transmission from the instapress stating that the TaxMan could help to bring back unity to the Uprising.
"Their news is spreading their propaganda. The instapress is our news," Talks said, as Signs put his phone back in the microwave.
"They've already implemented the software and now they've pinned everything on you," Talks said as Signs pointed at the TV tube.
The news continued further as it showed the police that were everywhere around the city of San Francisco. It showed hooded and masked photos of Signs and Talks with Odysseus, who were the perceived hackers that infiltrated the media on the TV tube during the President’s master debate. The below headline read that these people were labeled armed and dangerous and wanted at any cost.
Police helicopters scanned the area for them overhead, as they could hear the propeller noise vibrate the small cavernous living space all around them. The light from the spotlight flooded in through the cracks of the cavernous abode, illuminating the room like the lights of a disco ball on us.
"This is all your fault. You know that, right, and you dragged us into this..." Talks stated, trying to restrain Signs, the usually calm and stoic one of the two, from coming at me.
"I was just trying to get her back. I loved her, and the bitch set me up," I said.
"No getting her back now, pal. Now come on, they'll be here shortly, and we can't risk being here anymore."
Talks grabbed the map of the underground system from the wall, and pushed a rug from the center of the floor to reveal a secret wooden door embedded into it. He lifted the archaic rusted metal door handle that resonated like something out of medieval times. The door led to an underground hidden passage way in the sewer system of San Francisco. Signs used his dog whistle and called on Odysseus; the dog stood at the ready by the cover of the secret entrance.
"The boys won't follow us down here, it's below them. They'll get lost and they don't have maps."
A loud blaring sound of a cop siren outside of their place rang inside the walls of their cavernous house.
Signs pointed to the dimly lit sewer drain, from which I could hear the faint dripping of droplets of water from old rusted pipes, hitting puddles around the area. I climbed down the ladder to what could only be described as a labyrinth of a dungeon’s medieval system. I was able to navigate the system in the past, but rarely would I go that far out, as you could easily get lost. There was little service for phones, and no one allowed to venture down there. You might never be found. Signs clipped Odysseus to his back and climbed down the ladder to follow us. He pulled on a rope that closed and locked the hidden door, encapsulating us in darkness.
The noise from the police was subdued as we ran down the sewer system. They truly knew how to navigate the underground city like it was their own. I grabbed Talks and made him stop. I needed answers.
"Who are you guys and why are you helping me?" I asked.
"Don't you get it, ya stinkin’ Barney? We're a part of the Uprising, and the only ones that can fight him," Talks said, as his Bostonian accent flared in bits between words.
"I never wanted to be a part of the Uprising," I said.
"Well, you have no choice now. Fight or die," Talks said.
Signs pulled out a plastic portable stick light, creating a vignetted glow around us that illuminated the sewer lime green. He pointed in the perceived direction as we continued to walk down the damp path.
"You see, some call them suits of the government and the news plays it off, telling people it's a foreign country like Russia or China hacking into their system, but it's them feeding us the information they want to give the masses. They own the bank and control the entire system. Why do you think the news on the instapress is completely different?" Talks said.
"Where are we going, and why the hell are you helping me?" I asked.
"They're all controlled, every one, and the last effort is the Uprising fighting against them, and we aren't helping you, you're going to help us," Talks said.
Signs grabbed me from behind in a way to get my attention, pulling my collar toward him. He pulled the drab hoodie back from his head and showed an eight-inch elongated scar on his neck.
"He's seen what they can do, and you're one of the ones that can help to get our freedoms back," Talks stated.
"It's just up here to get out of the city." Talks pointed in the distance.
March 8, 2035
San Francisco, CA
Abandoned Alleyway
16:32
Talks peered up from the sewer storm drain at an abandoned alleyway, and everything appeared to be clear. Behind the storm drain was the rev of an engine, followed by a car. Talks quickly closed the cover, and the car drove over. He peered back up and looked around the alleyway, which was now truly clear.
We raced through the backside of the plush high-brow area of the Pacific Heights, which I rarely ventured to as there was extraneous security keeping the Unlifes and Lifes out. The area was clean, lawns were kept, and most of the houses appeared to have new paint. There was no graffiti and order was in place. There were regular restrictions being enforced with signs stating for people to say something if they saw people of the Uprising or an Unlife in the area. The signs also stated that they were trying to take their hard-earned money.
Police drones were released in the area, controlled by artificial intelligence and mapped with geo-targeting. They would just patrol the precise area of the upper-crust Lifers’ residences and the day-walking taxpayers. They protected the payers of the tax. Most of the technology that was useful was reserved only for the high-end taxpayers.
There was a multitude of election propaganda of President Johnson hanging nicely on trees and in sign posts nestled in Lifers’ finely manicured yards. The signs stated in bold Arial font to vote for your Johnson below the President’s smug grin. “The change to bring our economy into the future” was written below the bold Arial font, and the words donate for change in apple chancery stenciled font, a campaign’s attempt to garner the pretentious Lifer vote. The eerie thing was that in the entire area that we walked in there was no one outside, it was dead quiet. Everyone must have been on the Lifer clock.
In one of the opulent houses, a quintessential 1950s Stepford Lifer wife, holding a child, peered out the window, spotting us. Behind her on the TV tube I noticed Pastor Michael professing a prosperity sermon. I met eyes with her and she quickly closed the blinds.
A police car turned down the street and Signs pulled me into a back alley that was fluttered with the texture of bricks. He put his finger over his mouth, insinuating for me to be quiet as the police car drove by.
There was a Cave Adsum tag directly above me about fifty feet up; it was small, but I did notice it. Talks pulled back one of the bricks in what appeared like a normal brick wall, revealing a security device. He scanned his thumbprint for entrance, a green light lit, a door opened, and we ran inside.
The room was a darker, smaller place, but with the same cavernous feeling. Talks took the map of the underground system and started planning where our next move would be. He turned a soft light on in the corner that illuminated the room as Signs unclipped Odysseus from his back. The single room had a closet stacked with boxes, and only bore an older-model laptop on the corner table that Talks turned on.
Signs signaled to Talks to look up flights.
Signs poured some food and water into a bowl for Odysseus from one of the cabinets for him. He grabbed a black box from the back and opened it up and there were prefabricated passports, IDs with fabricated marks, paper wallet crypto currencies, and assorted cash.
"This is great, but how are we going to get through security?" I asked.
Signs opened up a closet that had a plethora of assorted hoodies that were hanging, and a box full of the same hoodies on the floor.
"They can't hack into it..." I stated as I pointed at the older-model computer,
and Talks nodded his head.
Talks adjusted the lighting a bit, and dropped a photography backdrop, taking a photo of me, with glasses on, a mustache, and a tie for my passport photo. Talks had an online blacklist of social security numbers that he could tap into to create a fake. It was similar to what Cowboy did, but Talks used the newest Lifer deaths that were updated through the morgues. The files weren't reported to the credit bureaus, so they were happy to continue their tax status.
"It's for your new passport Mr. Magnuss," Talks said, and I looked at the passports.
"Where the hell are we going?" I asked.
"Kiev, we have a contact there that can help us."
"Kiev? Isn't that a part of the forbidden zone?"
"It's not safe in the states right now, and the new media is what called it the forbidden zone. It’s fine to travel to, we just need Lifer IDs," Talks said. He was pulled by Signs, who continued to signal to him.
"We assume that you built a backdoor into the application that you gave them?" Talks asked.
"What, the one that they took my girlfriend and killed my friend over?" I responded, and lowered my head, peering at the secret compartment in my shoe, housing the flash drive.
"Supposed girlfriend, pal," Talks stated, and he was right. But not something I wanted to hear.
"No, I didn't build anything in it," I calmly stated. Signs and Talks glared at me in shock with immense concern and disbelief in their eyes. I could tell that they didn't know exactly what to say.
"You're fucken' joking, right?" Talks asked. His Bostonian accent flared, coupled with the pulsating of a thick vein in his neck that was throbbing, and approaching concern of rupturing in my mind.
"Listen, fellas, that's just what it is, and I don't have a copy."
They both stared at me. I could feel even Odysseus glaring at me sharply, putting me in the interrogation room.
"We're just going to have to break in, then.
"Here are our travel itineraries and passports, gentlemen," Talks said, handing over the papers to me.
"We will rest here and go early in the morning after the curfew alarm."
March 8, 2035
San Francisco, CA
FBI Office -- Cyber Division
17:33
Detective Slate paced back and forth in an open room that had officers and detectives, whose attention was turned toward a large cork board. Detective Slate talked while he placed printed pictures of TaxMan, Signs, Talks, and Odysseus on the cork board, in front of everyone in the room.
A couple of officers giggled as they noticed a dog on the cork board.
"Hey, watch it! That dog you're laughing at almost tore my arms, and those of my partner, clean off," Detective Slate said, and everyone’s attention was drawn back to the corkboard.
The pictures had red yarn lines that connected them to a continuous spree of cyber-attacks that were linked to alerts relating to the notorious TaxMan. There was the California brown bag tax system hack. The supposed hack during an election year that blew up the ratings on the media system. The TV tube was interrupted at the President’s Super Bowl Halftime master debate against himself, and presented with a hilarious GIF rendition of pigs with space suits on emblazoned with the slogan of “he's paid across their side.” Talks and Signs were credited with interrupting the broadcast and garnered some notoriety in Uprising circles. It was also revealed how the President was with Pastor Michael dabbling in e-sports betting.
These stated hacks have made the assailants criminals pending apprehension and into the list of America’s most wanted criminals. Detective Slate and Detective Hall handed out photocopies of what the criminals looked like to the rest of the detectives and police that had gathered around the area. The photocopies stated that at this point the assailants were assumed to try and flee the country, and to alert every officer in the entire Bay Area, to include the TSA at the airports.
"We have every right to believe that these criminals are going to flee the country. We will have their pictures posted everywhere, and using social media with hashtags—wanted—so if someone sees the likeness of these criminals then we can locate them. Every news outlet and phone alert will be used if we see them. We cannot let these criminals get out of this country at this point, and I want double, make that triple the security at the airports!"
The rest of the officers in the room nodded their heads and looked at the photos of the criminals.
"Are they armed?" one of the officers asked.
"We can only presume that they are, and that our tax dollars are now being raised because of these hacker fugitives. They're taking money from our pensions, so get to work to apprehend them at any cost. Do I make myself clear?” Detective Slate said. He looked at the rest of the officers and detectives in the office as they nodded.
March 9, 2035
San Francisco, CA
S.F. Airport
7:32
Who deemed man, that roamed unfree with chains in their minds, to be the rulers of the Earth? Animals were free to roam and care for their families, but in their likeness we did have one thing that we had in common, and that was the survival of the fittest.
According to African folklore, the leopard didn't originally have the spots. It stopped sharing his meals and started to hide his kill in trees because jackals and hyenas weren't reciprocating his generosity. The question remains, how did the leopard get his spots? The fable states the benefits of harboring camouflage in the safari. Leopard looked like a sunflower against a tarred fence when he entered the forest from the field until the Ethiopian kindly painted the five-dotted rosettes, which cover the leopard's coat to this day. How does the leopard remain existent in the safari to this day? Spots, and this has created its own reciprocating effect, as now the leopard doesn't have to share his meals and he became the fittest...
TSA agents and police had painted the entire airport with photos of the three men and a dog together with hoods on. The message on the posters and throughout the airport read: “They're armed and dangerous and America's most wanted. Proceed with caution, and if you see something, use hashtag “wanted” to immediately report them to an authority nearest you.
At the check-in counter outside of the airport, people were taking their luggage to their desired airline. Signs checked in Odysseus, that is in a cage.
"I assure you sir that he will be fine," the attendant said. Signs adjusted his tie with an apprehensive smile, and put both his hands together in a praying motion to bow before the attendant. He was cooler then a cucumber and made me feel confident to be able to get on the plane.
We walked into the airport with me sporting a large carry-on bag flung over my shoulder, a pair of birth-control glasses, and the first tie that I had ever worn, making me feel like I was being choked, and it was wrapped around a white ironed shirt. I felt awkward, but I looked like the supposed Lifers, or a missionary.
The monitors flashed wanted posters and images of the three of us with hoods on. Below the TV tubes and cameras were posters of the same likeness with the words wanted below them and the hashtag “#wanted,” stating “If you see something, say something... Let's end crime together.”
I adjusted my fake handlebar mustache and tapped the others, pointing at the TV tube screen.
"We need to split up," I said.
We walked through the check-in line and I shared a smile with an adorable bubbly blonde attendant. She looked at the bag that was stuffed to the gills and flung over my shoulder.
"Would you like to check your bag, sir?" she asked. Her overaccentuated smile pushed her bright red lips back, revealing her almost bleach-white teeth, just a shade off of her platinum-blonde hair.
"I'm traveling for business today, ma'am, and would like to give everyone in line one of these as a free promo. I mean if that is OK with you?" I said to the attendant. She shrugged her shoulders with an effervescent glow and looked at the hoodies.
"Umm, I don't, like,
see why not," she said.
"Perfect, the only thing is if you can tell everyone to put them on, take a photo, and post to social media. You know how it is, the boss’s orders for promotions. With hashtag ‘wanted,’" I said.
"OK," she said enthusiastically. Her facial expression showed that she believed me, and why not? I had the right camouflage on for this Lifer jungle.
It was surprising how rapidly people took things when they were free. They immediately took the hoodies, put them on, and proceeded to take multiple selfies. I watched as everyone laughed and were having fun. The social-media hashtag filled up almost instantly with the herd mentality of Lifers laughing wearing the same hoodies with the hashtag “wanted,” and this got us to security.
Moving through check-in, Lifers were vying to get through the long security line. Scattered throughout the line, I looked at the Lifers still wearing their hoodies and taking selfies with the hashtag “wanted.” They all had overly enlarged smiles on their faces and continued to take pictures.
The FBI radioed Detective Slate's radio, and another detective, alerted Slate that all the people were wearing hoods everywhere like a blanketed sea. The radio erupted with feedback before Detective Slate yelled into the radio, "Check them all and now!"
--Radio feedback--
"Sir, the social feed has been flooded with people in hoodies with the hashtag ‘wanted,’" the radio beeped. The detective glanced at the happy faces that were wearing their fresh hoodies waiting in the security line.
Detective Slate was in awe at the mass of Lifers that were wearing hoodies with mixed colors throughout the security line.
"They must be here somewhere. Check everyone!" Detective Slate said into the radio. The Officers and detectives grabbed the shoulders of the people in line wearing hoods, and turned to look at them.
Talks walked through the security line and smiled at the security agent that patted a gentleman down next to him. Signs stood behind what could only be described as a blonde bombshell that was probably a Lifer supermodel from a country that they asked what did they put in the water. The male TSA agent stared at the supermodel in front of Signs, paying no attention to him. The female guard stopped him with eyes rolled at the other guard, and examined his passport. He pointed to the elongated scar on his neck, and jingled his military dog tags as he adjusted his tie.
