Chapter 24 Communication Breakdown.

Johnson circled warily around the landings, on his morning check, cognizant of something feeling off, a tension that he could not identify.

Darren "The Ox" Slaney and McBride had been watching him from the common room.

His foot soldiers leaned against the worn brick walls, smoking through a cloud of stale smoke, scrolling through their prison phones with the flickering television for company.

McBride moved within a hair's breadth of Ox's ear, curling his hardened calloused hands into fists, like every muscle in his body was coiled like a spring ready to snap.

His poker-faced facade was that of a man who didn't want Johnson's recording devices eavesdropping on their criminal conversation.

"Ser, what's the craic then, Ox?"

"Word has it that it's all about to kick off," Ox said.

"Up and down all the nicks all over the country."

"That's what I heard too from my network.

What's our numbers like in ere already, eh?"

"Mcbride, It's as sweet as a nut mate. The screws don't want the bother anymore.

You have seen what it's like on the outside"

"Do we have all the gangs onside, No quarrels, like?"

"I told you it's safe bruv. The police don't give a fuck anymore.

Except for that jobsworth prick Johnson."

"Leave Johnson to me," Mcbride said.

The thought of orchestrating a prison riot danced upon Mcbride's mind, intersecting with the idea of waltzing straight into the control room, and taking control of the security systems.

"OK, Ox, this is what I want you to do. The screws have a shift change over 5-00. You Understand?"

"Yeah, I'm following."

"Get word out to the cleaners on the landings. Tell them we are going to blitz this place on association time."

"Have you got a plan, then?" Ox asked.

"Ox come on, who do you think you're talking to? I am a leading member of the IRA, reigning chaos is my specialty.

I am the spark that starts the party."

It was the jumbled scramble of background white noise, that initially turned everyone's heads in the common room.

The television screen had transformed into an incomprehensible kaleidoscope of distorted faces.

Eyes bulged out of proportion, noses elongated, features twisted and stretched - like a Claude Monet painting jamming itself over the screen, swirling like everyone was on an LSD trip.

Then it was the mobile phone's turn. Calls started dropping mid-conversation, and messages failed to be delivered.

Social media notifications disappeared. Video posts impersonated the same erratic behavior of the TV.

It was as if the devices had defiantly turned against them in some technological apocalypse, crumbling under the pressure of information overload and the last threads of connectivity unraveling.

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Just like it started with the sudden mangled transmission that had corrupted every device.

The fragmenting words and resolution melted away.

Then coalesced together, forming a single whole crystallized view, revealing the king standing proudly before his audience with a woman and a man standing next to him.

McBride and the Ox looked on in bewilderment. The other men in the common room were doing the same.

Their phones were now being treated to the same box office viewing of the TV.

"McBride, is that the Prime Minister?" The Ox asked perplexed.

"Too fucking right that is!"

"McBride, why is she dressed up like a sex gimp?" The Ox asked even more perplexed.

"I don't fucking know. And who the fuck is that guy?"

The king's triumphant voice boomed throughout the common room.

"Friends and benefactors..."

The camera shuddered and spun around. Segwaying to all of the Prime Minister's Conservative party members, dressed provocatively, with a few men in Nazi uniforms in the background.

McBride and the Ox with puzzled expressions, looked at their phones

Both their phones likewise had regained signals, displaying the king's mid-speech on their screens.

Johnson was sitting with Gunner and Brummie in the control room. All of their banks of screens had been invaded as well.

"Tonight we celebrate a momentous occasion - the maiden deployment of our submarine fleet..."

The prisoners gathered around, watching in confusion as the king detailed the launch of some kind of virus.

"It will truly be a worldwide disaster," the king proclaimed with a sinister grin.

As the strange broadcast invaded their devices. And the king proclaimed the virus would cause worldwide disaster.

McBride sensed an opportunity and smiled, formulating a cunning plan as the unexplained transmission of the speech continued through the corrupted screens.

"Worldwide disaster!" Looped over itself three times.

Then the king praised the prime minister for her support, with a special mention for Roger Blackwell the head of M16.

Then a countdown began, chanting "Five! Four! Three!,"

This was no ordinary broadcast - it held a significance McBride was swift to realize.

"Well fuck me, Grey, the old bastard, was telling the truth," McBride said out loud to himself.

As the king pressed the launch button to raucous cheers. Gulag's perfectly timed photobomb caught the king leaning back in a perfect shot of power-hungry glutinous ecstasy.

**********

In Piccadilly Circus, the giant cracked LED screens flickered to the king's unhinged laughter reverberated across downtown London.

Vigilantes and gangs of looters, running from department stores. Stopped and dropped their loot, the monarch's transmission, playing over and over in a looped nightmare.

White-lettered bolded fonts that read.

"The royal family has infected you. You have been infected by the royal family."

Swiped across the screens, hypnotizing the public, in an expertly edited display of propaganda - all from the comfort of Uncle's Chinese cell.

Across the Atlantic. The infected in Times Square froze in stunned silence.

The animated billboards had glitched, and then the oozing sound of the king's voice infected the screens in downtown New York in a sludgy echo.

Americans huddled in clumps, transfixed yet unsettled by the corrupted viral playback.

In Tokyo's Shibuya crossing, ordinarily vibrant with promotions, the towering screens shuddered together, sloshing in a technicolor slush.

Commuters gripped phones, checking for any explanations online.

Only scattered reports surfaced of the malware overtaking screens globally with its looping payload.

From the bustling city streets of Cairo to the vibrant ports of Cape Town, and across the digital highways connecting São Paulo to Shanghai.

The cryptic clip spread virally by piggybacking networks and hijacking public screens everywhere it went.

Endlessly looping grainy footage captured from different global perspectives but always retaining the same disturbing message.

It spawned organically across all borders. The king's cackling swelled, Swallowing up all of social media.

Crazed citizens stumbled in confusion. Feroxed up to the eyeballs.

The king's cruelty, ingrained in their retinas and consciousness - especially in the UK.

**********

Leaning in close to his old friend, McBride whispered.

"It seems fate may have presented us with a chance.

Johnson will be distracted by whatever trouble this virus brings. That is when we strike."

The Ox grinned, understanding his friend's meaning.

It seemed their prison break had just received an unexpected boost from this strangely fitting interruption.

They would be fools not to employ it to their advantage.