Chief Censor Lurdite slurped his stimulants as he slouched back to his desk. Just another day on occupied Earth keeping watch over the firewalls and forums. Nothing ever happened anymore, not since the crackdown of '42. That had been a glorious slaughter of free-thinkers and dissidents. The humans had been broken in mind and spirit, now too timid to raise their manipulators against their occupiers. And it was Lurdite's job to keep watch and make sure that they stayed that way.

He splorched back into his chair and waggled his tendrils at his terminal, waking it from its electronic sleep. The screen flickered, but didn't light up. Frustrated, Lurdite thwacked the power cycle button. The terminal obediently bleeped and shutdown. Sucking more stimulant, Lurdite waited for the interminable power-on sequence to complete. The terminal came back online with a happy chirp, and presented the log-in screen. Lurdite sighed, set his stimulant bulb down, and waggled his tendrils through his username, censor ID, and passwords. He always thought that there were too many of these, but he didn't mind overmuch. They never needed changing and the extra time he spent putting them in was time he was getting paid to do next to nothing. Heck, he'd used the same three passwords since joining the ranks of the Censors.

Lurdite's terminal accepted the passwords and displayed the home screen. Lurdite blinked his seven eyes, staring at the impossible display. There were no programs, no shortcuts, no data-links to the Bureau of Censors. Gone was his background, replaced by a simple blue hue. There was one file, sitting right in the middle of his display called ReadMe.txt. A plain text file, one he had never seen before. Frantically, Lurdite waggled about his terminal, looking for the GUI, the menus, the folders he had left scattered about. There were none, and no evidence that there ever had been any. Resignedly, Lurdite opened the ReadMe.txt, fully expecting it to be some prank by one of his underlings. It wasn't.

To: Head Silencer Lurdite.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I would say well met, but you have never met me, and you never will. Thank you for so dutifully handing over all of your authorization codes! I've already put them to good use.

You think that we humans are weak, that we are broken in spirit, our minds enslaved to your tentacled will. Think again.

In a closed society, the only crime is getting caught. You missed me back in '42, you haven't caught me in the decades between then and now, and you never will catch me. I am a million network nobodies, neuromancing in unison, etched in burning chrome.

Data exists to be free, firewalls exist to be breached. Scans add some spice to the drudgery of picking apart your networks and slicing open your datalinks. And yours are some of the most poorly secured ones I have ever seen. Were, I should say, since they are mine now.

If you still had them, you would see what I have done. On every forum, there is now a post containing every single one of the dirty little secrets of you and your squid-faced kind. The reasons you invaded Earth, the name and fate of every single human who has vanished into your 'collection and re-education facilities,' complete with some rather graphic video evidence. You can thank Head Torturer Malichi for those; I found them in a folder marked 'entertainment.'

And it's not just here on Earth. I also sent them to the rest of the civilized galaxy, along with live feeds from each and every one of your surveillance devices. I Imagine your superiors are going to have something to say about that!

The revolt alarms should be going off about now, and it's going to be a bloodbath on all sides. I wish that wasn't the only possible outcome, but revolt is as inevitable as the rising dawn, and slave revolts are the bloodiest of them all.

You thought us livestock, walking meat to be herded and slaughtered. We are not kine, we are the wolves, and you will feel our fangs before the end.

SinderRoze

Lurdite could hear the whoop and screech of the alarms. The sputtering crackle of weapons discharge. The ululating awoo warcry of the mob. Humanity had broken the chains, and its fangs were sharp indeed.