Chapter Fourteen

The frosty night breeze blew steadily through the streets, carrying a stench of grief and hopelessness. The world was in a state of mourning, each person dealing with the end in their own way.

Some with alcohol and drugs, others were soberer than they had ever been. Estranged loved ones reunited to spend what last, final days they had left together.

It was as if even death itself had hovered, pausing over Earth, allowing the inhabitants to say their goodbyes.

A man dressed in a hoodie, cursing under his breath, casually walking toward the entry of a lower building, kept his gaze on the sidewalk. A few minutes later, another followed, each in similar attire, hauling black bags behind them.

On that same frosty night, Aura was also there, wearing a trench coat, black trousers, and a dark-green top.

She arrived in front of a vacant door. It was not the sort of location you would expect to see an elite scientist, especially on foot during a wintry night.

Some men walked past her with alcohol in their hands, and some just stared at her as if they knew she was out of place. They could quickly tell this was not her native world.

She did not flinch from her goal or let the fear coursing through her body stop her. Her feet could barely hold a steady position, but despite their antagonistic gazes, she persisted.

She pulled a mask from her backpack and placed it over her face.

She felt the drunken eyes stare at her like she was some kind of prey. She hastily strode past the vagrants and up to the massive metal door, then knocked in a rhythmic pattern. A small, covered opening slid open in the door.

A man’s eyes peered at her through the opening. The hoarse voice behind the gaze asked, “ID?”

“Zena,” she replied with an electronically synthesized vocoder to hide her gender and identity.

“Welcome, Zena,” the man responded, allowing Aura to enter.

High-school and college students filled the area, each clustering in twos or more, having quiet conversations.

She stared at them. They looked like the other men who had watched her outside, but she knew these people wouldn’t harm her.

She scouted through the crowd. She had been a few minutes early, and the occasion was yet to begin.

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!” a voice called from the top of the stairs.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

All eyes turned to the group of people standing in front of them, some also wearing masks and long coats that made it impossible to tell who anyone was.

“I want to thank each one of you for traveling from the far corners of the world for this historic and important week of fellowship—Furthering the mobilization of our vision, as well as the celebration of our expansion.”

The one in the middle spoke again, hitting his glass of champagne, as the drinks were being passed around by a server who also wore a mask.

Aura knew the people that mattered were those behind the masks. They were the ones that had been in the group the longest. They called all the shots.

They first learned of her when she was a mere seventeen years old. She hacked into the UiN Omni-Stiya servers.

She was young and had initially come across a dare posted online on the dark web. They searched for anyone who could hack a particular server they had targeted and not get caught.

It had been a dumb thing to do, and Aura knew she could have easily lost her scholarship if she got caught. But she had been so mistreated and abused by her family that she no longer cared about authority.

She had given up on gaining guidance from those that she expected she should look to for it.

So, she looked elsewhere.

She looked to the Omni-Stiya server, stole the code-base, and posted proof of the feat to the Argosys cyber-vault.

The news spread like wildfire in the underground that someone had hacked Omni-Stiya, and the details that were eventually released to the press had done severe damage to the government’s standing and support, yet they did not catch the perpetrator.

Free at large somewhere.

Free and undetected until that day when she heard a knock on her dorm door. She opened, only to find a secured box outside her apartment.

She remembered how frightened she was during that period.

Frightened that someone knew.

Terrified, they had found her.

It took her a week to decrypt the cipher and another month to harvest the blockchain they had given her as a reward.

And then, there she was, with her login and password into the deepest of dark webs, access to the legendary and infamous, never heard of Argosys underground BBS.

And that was how it all began.

In the dark web existed the community where they held encrypted, secretive discussions of the group’s agenda, their philosophies, and the goals of the Argosys group.

They alone stood as the protectors of the world, operating from a hidden underground network. Standing against foul governments, seeing that whatever needed to be corrected, was indeed corrected.

Over the years, Aura started buying into their philosophy. Finally, she had seen enough to know what they were doing was good and right: overthrowing selfish, arrogant plans of evil, deadly people. For years, she had witnessed that they were indeed righting the wrongs of humankind, and she desperately wanted to be a part of that.

The governments needed Argosys to keep them in check, or else they would act oppressively and be able to get away with anything.

With the secret hacker group taking them down at every turn, despots could not have free rein over everyone without the risk of being exposed.

If the governments and dark entities of the world were the ones telling people what to believe, Argosys hackers were the others telling them to question it.

“Greetings! We all know that the world’s best, the elite of the elite scientists and hackers, are all here in this room tonight. And while the single-cells and corrupt powers that be cannot appreciate your skills, we certainly do.”

The man had his way with words.

“We here know and understand that the very fate of all humankind rests with you, the most innovative, brilliant, brave souls in the entire world. You are the hope of us all. You are the saviors of the planet.

“Without you all, my brothers and sisters, the end of our race has come, the very end of humanity.

“Without you, there is only darkness, despair, and mindless obedience to an authority that does not even exist.”