Cenerea, 3rd planet from the star Letria, Regalius,

The Homeland, Central Region, The Capitol City,

Eighteen Cenerean Months Ago

Jay returned to Harold's small gray house the following day after class. The old man once again whipped up another wonderful dinner of some exotic food that set Jay's taste buds into overdrive.

"I've never even heard of half of the ingredients in this stuff," Jay said. "Where did you say this one was from?"

"Hold up a sec," Harold said lifting his hand into the air. "Gertie, turn up the music please."

Yes, Harold," Gertie replied.

Jay's communicator indicated it lost service just as it did the other night after Harold spoke those same words.

"Sorry, but I have to get most of the ingredients freeze-dried off the underground Lavidian market to make that. It's quite the pain in the ass and dangerous as hell. As far as what each dish is, I don't try to pronounce some of the names. I just know how to make them. To be honest, my wife was the linguist in the family and the chef. She always loved making strange recipes like these." Harold leaned against the kitchen counter. "She was quite adventurous in many ways."

"Well, Harold my stomach and I appreciate all of your efforts, you and your wife's," Jay said with a smile and gave Harold a thumbs up. 

"You're welcome."

Jay let his spoon rattle in the empty bowl as he released it and matched Harold's gaze. "Okay Harold, when you tell Gertie to turn up the music, are you asking her to run some sort of jammer?"

"Yes, it's a spoofing technique I developed long ago called Modified Reflection, a safety precaution if you will. Gertie is transmitting a copy of our timepiece data from the tracking module in our wrists, and mixing it with over the air broadcast music in lieu of our real data and audio. Even satellite infrared detection is thwarted. I also have the technology installed in my transport. We can move anywhere and say anything in this house or the vehicle and no one in the Homeland will hear it or know what we are doing. I used it the other night when we were driving around. When we are in the house, Gertie just sends out false signatures that randomly move, you know, like go to the kitchen or just walk around and then sit on the couch. We're perfectly safe, I promise." 

"Ah," Jay said with a nod of understanding, noting Harold appeared to be examining him with narrowed eyes. The young man then sat back in his seat with his arms crossed, an action that seemed to release the tension in Harold as well. "That's good to know since I now find myself in a rather precarious position regarding my future...a bit more so than you, no offense." 

Harold lowered his face for a moment and nodded. "This is true and with your life still before you, I know you are the one taking the most risk, regardless of the actual minor nature of our current conversations to date...fucking Homeland and its fear of dissenting opinion."

Unconsciously rubbing the disabled tracker in his wrist nervously, Jay shuddered and resisted the urge to bolt from the room. 

Harold pointed toward Jay's shaking hands. "And that is the reason for my extra layer of security. Not for me, but for you. Relax, Jay. They can't hear us. They have their stupid monitoring A.I.'s and I have Gertie."

"That is correct, Jay," the security system said in response. "All safety protocols are enabled."

"See?" Harold said with his hands in the air. 

"Okay. S-s-sorry, thanks," Jay exhaled and then deflated in his seat. "I just feel like they're still listening to me even with this thing off."

"Well, that's what they want. The Chancellor doesn't actually need to keep a constant eye on everyone all the time if he can convince his subjects to police themselves. Hey, look at me, Jay. You don't need to apologize. After years of the Homeland's mental oppression, I know it is not going to be easy for you to simply break those mental chains," Harold said with a reassuring smile. "But I must warn you, a time will come that you will have to learn to toggle between the slavery world of the Homeland and this one quickly. Because, once your mind fully tastes the sweetness of free thought, it will become a wildfire that cannot be put out. You'll unfortunately have to watch what you say and when you say it."

"Free thought? Wildfire?" Jay angled his head in curiosity and then sat up, remembering something Harold said "You know Harold, there is this one thing you mentioned that has been eating at me. You told me the Homeland wanted to use me as a weapon. What did you mean when you said that?" Jay asked as he leaned forward.

"Well, I'll get to that, but I think it would be better to start with a story, one that takes place many years before the Homeland, in the old Confederation, when most people lived life as they pleased. Its citizens went to school, worked, and did most everything the way they wanted."

"Oh, I know about the Confederation. The lawlessness, the unequal distribution of resources..." Jay paused as he noted all expression slipped from Harold's face. "What? What did I say?"

"Yes, there were problems, but if you contrast the state of things today to then, that sadly forgotten era seems damn near paradise," Harold said waving a hand around. "Do you not think there is unequal distribution of resources now? Boy, it's even worse. Look at where your girlfriend lives and where you live. There's virtually nothing in between. It's those that rule have everything and those that don't, don't!"

"No, that's not it, Harold! We need the Chancellor, the politicians, and those in Homeland Defense to run things," Jay snickered, scoffing at Harold's crazy ideas. "You can't expect the average Homeland citizen to rule themselves."

Harold stood erect and clinched his fists.

"Harold!" Gertie said unexpectedly, her voice a bit sharp, its tone taking Jay by surprise.

Harold nodded as if in response and took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. 

"Good, you may continue, Harold," Gertie said and fell silent once more.

"Are you sure man cannot rule himself?" Harold asked Jay, his voice low but calm. 

Jay, a bit bewildered by the odd, sudden exchange between the home security system and its owner, shook off any further examination and scratched his head as he pondered Harold's question. 

"Are the Homeland's rulers not human, too, Jay? Fallible humans just like you and I? What makes them so special that they should be able to determine another person's path in life? Control it even?"

Jay shook his head as these new thoughts fought with the old. "I, uh, I don't know, Harold. I..."

Harold took a seat across from Jay and sat. "I tell you what, let's put this discussion away for a later time, alright?"

Jay nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I'm sorry Harold. Finish your story. I shouldn't have interrupted."

"It's fine, my boy. It seems we both have things to work on and mine are my one-on-one skills. They are a bit rusty I must admit," Harold said and cleared his throat. "Alright, so, back in the days of the Confederation, there was this rebel...not the dirty, bloodthirsty kind you read about in the Homeland propaganda they call history today, you know, the 'anti-Homeland, violent revolutionary' sort, he was just a young man, quite similar to you in many ways."

"Really?" Jay asked with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not really terrorist material."

"Are you sure?" Harold asked. "How many laws do you think you've broken tonight?"

Jay waved his hand in the air. "Go on."

Harold smiled and continued, "Well, armed with technology, his mind, and a massive amount of curiosity, this rebel began to seek out like-minded individuals across the net and eventually found such a woman online who was also looking for the same thing. Over time, he found he was able to trust her with the information he uncovered. She eventually invited him to join her group of disparate former Regional citizens who now lived out in the Sub-Regions on the other side of the mountains vowing to fight the increasingly relentless attacks on personal freedom."

"Wow, they went into the Subs?" Jay asked incredulously, his curiosity piqued.

"Yes they did. It's because they both could see things were changing politically in ways that threatened the Confederation's freedoms and people's lives. There were dark clouds on the horizon but very few saw them or chose to see them, however, they did. In fact, these rebels knew what was coming. They had the documents.""

...

Cenerea, 3rd planet from the star Letria, Regalius,

Eastern Sub-Region,

Forty-Three Cenerean Years Ago

The dilapidated building creaked and moaned. Tiny slivers of light cut into the darkness, leaking through small holes in the rusty metal roof of the archaic facility. Dust particles floated through the air, disturbed occasionally by a battery-operated fan sitting on an old rusting workbench. The wind generated by the poor vibrating machine was paltry at best. Water dripped from everywhere, evidenced by the sounds of their impact with several puddles on the nasty concrete floor.

A young woman with red streaked hair tapped a few buttons on her terminal pad with a bright fluorescent pink fingernail. It generated a clacking sound every time it made contact with the glassy surface of the device.

"What's your real name?" the painted black lips queried.

"Harold Bouri" replied a handsome young man with electric blue hair. He noted the girl's locks were as bright red as his was blue. "I like your hair," he said smoothly.

"You like it?" she asked, temporarily putting the tablet down to run her fingers over the brightly colored strands, pulling the long soft hair over the front of one shoulder like a curtain. Her smile lifted her unblemished cheeks, forcing her heavily painted eyes to narrow. The smile disappeared as she heard a cough from behind her. She quickly returned her attention to the platen glass object in her hands. "Age?"

"Twenty-two," Harold replied. He wished he could see her better. The hacker glanced up at the singular overhead light and squinted. It was annoying him.

"Hang on a second...alright; I have your ID here. Okay...what is your online name? What do you go by?" the girl inquired as she clacked a few more inputs into her machine.

"Meta."

The woman put the tablet down on her lap. "No shit? You're Meta, huh? Man, we have heard so much about you. You're the one Browne's been yapping about. She's been talking up a storm about you! In fact, she won't shut up about all the stuff you guys want to do to the Chancellor and his cronies."

"Really? Huh," Harold said coolly.

"So, you've known Browne for a while?"

"Yeah, we've met a couple times." Harold said as he squinted, looking over her shoulder.

"Okay, well it's just weird she didn't say you were coming." the pretty girl noted, placing a fingernail to her dimpled chin. She bit her lip as she watched the young man glance at her, then over her shoulder, and back to her again.

"I didn't tell Browne. I wanted to see what I was getting into." Harold said.

"Oh. Well, just to let you know, you almost got yourself killed. Glad you didn't, though." The young girl flashed a large smile at Harold. He smiled back, but only briefly, his focus was elsewhere in the room.

"You gonna point that fuckin' thing somewhere else or are you gonna shoot me, pencil dick?" Harold glared angrily at the barely visible large man standing in the shadows, looking at him down the barrel of a chromed pistol.

"I'm the one with a weapon and you're goin' to talk to me like that? I oughta..." he said stepping into the flickering light, the pistol sparkling in its glow.

The burly, crew cut man looked ex-military and Harold knew the guy could probably break him in half. But then again, that kind of stuff never stopped him from shooting his mouth off before. "Why start now?" he thought. "What? Kill me? Go ahead and then you'll have to explain to Browne why you shot the one guy on this rock that can get you into any Regional Defense server on Cenerea. What do you do for them?"

The behemoth's face and ears turned red.

"That's what I thought. Are we done with the stupid questions? You know why I am here...let me get to it. Where's Browne?"

The girl's smile was gone now. "You don't have to be such a dickhole about it...We're just takin' precautions. Sheesh. Gotta make sure you are who you say you are..."

"Yeah...sorry, you're right." Harold calmed down and grinned trying to get back into the girl's good graces.

The lovely smile returned. Harold watched a bead of sweat trickle slowly down the pretty girl's neck disappearing between the exposed cleavage of her perky young breasts. He was already calculating the odds he might have a chance with this one.    

"Meta!"

Harold was startled at the sound of his name yelled from the dark. "Yeah, what?" the young man shouted in reply as he turned in his chair attempting to peer down the dimly lit corridor. He thought he recognized the feminine voice.

"I see you still can't make any friends. You always were a bit anti-social. Regardless, you know I wasn't expecting you...but, then again I was." A very attractive and very short woman in her mid-thirties walked out of the dark smiling. She reached her arms out and said, "Come here, give me a hug!"

"Browne!" Harold stood, walked over, and picked the woman up in his arms and spun her around. She planted a huge tongue-diving kiss on the young man. Harold was a little over 2 meters tall and somewhat skinny, built well enough. Browne was about 1.6 meters tall and pleasantly filled out.

The burly man and the girl with the red hair just looked at each other. "I wasn't expecting that," whispered the giant with a pistol. He let his hand fall by his side, the weapon was now pointing down at the ground.

"Neither was I," said the girl, smiling a very large smile.

Harold set Browne down and grabbed a metal pipe running across the ceiling of the dilapidated room they occupied. He stood with his arms stretched above him holding on to the pipe and glanced around, examining his surroundings nonchalantly. Browne hugged him around his waist with her head on his chest.

"Everyone, as I am sure you know by now, this is Meta. He's the best damn hacktivist in the fucking Regions. He's the one that's going to help us rain on Chancellor Santum's little celebration tomorrow."

"Cool." Replied Josie.

Browne pointed to the girl with bright red hair. "Meta, Josie there is an electronics genius. She helped put together our little setup here and that big bastard right there, that's Tank. He's the guy that's been keepin' us girls safe. He's ex-Eastern Region Defense Forces (ERDF) and one deadly son of a bitch."

Harold nodded. "Awesome. Glad to meet you all."

"C'mon Meta, I gots somethin' to show you," the woman said and released Harold, beckoning him to follow her.

...

Browne led the group further into the abandoned building finally resting in front of a large heavy nanitanium door. Its surface covered by flaking yellow paint and the word CAUTION spelled out in faded black letters across the top. Tank grabbed the door's handle and yanked it to the left. He pushed the heavy object open with a bang. Tank backed away and Brown stepped through the opening followed by Josie, Harold, and finally Tank, himself. The four resistance fighters now stood in a large round musty room. Browne located a box with a three-button panel on the wall. One green, one, yellow, and one red. She selected the green one and pressed it. Harold jumped as the floor beneath him rumbled and the roof of the building began to crack open revealing blue skies.

"What the fuck?" Harold exclaimed as the floor began to rise upward toward the opening in the ceiling. Within moments he was overlooking a sun soaked, green valley filled with flowers.

"It's just a little further." Browne said with a smile, trying to reassure Harold everything was all right. She began jogging down the grassy hill toward a concrete slab in the middle of the field. "Here we are." Browne said as everyone arrived. She pointed down at another yellow-flaked hatch set in the center of the paved platform. This one however was set vertically.

Tank, just as before, grabbed the round hatch release and spun it until it clanked. He bent over and lifted the rusty round door with a squeal. Harold assumed the hatch was an entrance into some sort of underground bunker. He observed Browne swing a leg over into the opening and set her boot on the topmost ladder rung preparing to descend down into the hole.

"This is it, down the hatch," Browne said with a laugh. Each metal rung the woman's boot encountered created an echoing clang as she climbed down further and further. "Come on, all the gear's down here, Meta."

Harold followed her into the hole, Tank and Josie close behind them. When they reached the bottom, Harold could see only darkness in any direction with the exception of the dust filled light beaming down on them from above.

"Hang on a sec...fucking auto light function ain't workin' again," Tank said. He continued mumbling profanities as he walked into the nothingness.

Harold heard a 'thunk' and lights began flickering on in sequence around two large gray concrete tunnels heading to the left and right of the group's position. One of the overhead lights generated electrical sparks and flickered out. Harold felt cool air blow through his hair displacing several blue locks over his eyes that he brushed from his face. He looked up at a dusty vent above his head. "Awesome, we have air conditioning."

Browne took the left tunnel and motioned for Harold to follow her once more.

"What the hell is this place, Browne?" Harold asked nervously. Everything he had seen so far seemed as if it was way too elaborate a setup for a few ragtag hacktivists.

"I discovered this place about a year ago doing a little research on the net. I found an article about an old Eastern Region University (ERU) particle accelerator project. I took a chance that it was still intact and here it is. The ERU just left it when they were told that the defense forces weren't going to protect them anymore. Not that any of the stoned ass subs around here would hurt them anyways...fucking Urbanite cowards. I was just lucky no one else had moved in here first."

Harold felt a little better. "...makes sense," he said.

"Here we are." Browne palmed a worn metallic handle and pushed a door with her other hand. As the door opened, the room lit, exposing a motley assortment of varying electronic gear. "What do you think?"

Harold heard the fans and motors whirring to life. Terminals whined waking from hibernation and their monitors activated, displaying the status of their boot up processes. He strode confidently over to what looked like the master terminal and lay his hands on the desk. The virtual keyboard illuminated around his fingers and he began to run a few queries.

"So, you have a dark fiber run jacked into a couple of proxy servers then? Cool, cool..." Harold nodded his approval.

Browne smiled. "Yeah, thanks to the university. They left it connected to the net. We just added a few extra security measures. You can do anything else you want to it. This is your baby