The phone rang. She was old fashioned that way.
She checked the ID and picked up, “Bubalah.”
He grinned. She could tell when he spoke. “Hey beautiful. Busy?”
She looked at her many screens, all full of work.
“Eh, you know.”
“Cool. Can I ask you for a favour?”
“That depends if it’s with a U or not.”
He laughed. “I have a rush job. Needs out ASAP, and seeing as you’re the best…”
“Flattery will get you everywhere. Show me.”
He uploaded the movie.
“Got it.” There was silence. “Shit. Are -”
“Yeah. Students.”
“But they’re being gunned down…by cops?”
“Private security,” he sent a new file. “Look.”
The screen changed to a bar. A drunk, older guy was talking, filmed with a hidden camera.
“Private security in cop uniforms. It’s perfect. They do what we want, and then we blame the company. It’s one great hand wash.”
“Where did you get this?” She was still shocked.
“I can’t tell you that.”
A thought hit her. “Is this line safe?”
“Of course.” A link flashed on her screen. “Look. This is the government’s tap on our line. This is what they hear.”
She opened the link and listened to him talking to his mum about dinner.
Her brow furrowed and she shook her head.
“Everyone has to see this.” Her voice was hard. “Not just the choir”
“Sure. We’ll embed it on official news sites.”
She thought. “If you can handle delivery, I can get it on the air.”
“What? You can wh-”
She added. “You know we can’t be touched by this.”
“You can?”
“Are you in?”
“Give me 10.”
***
For the next 10 minutes he called, bartered and cajoled, but at the end he had a team.
She sat and watched the video.
HNer next decision would change her life.
She dialled.
“Hey, Peaches. We got that contract for the Vault, right?”
***
He called back. “I’ve got a crew, and a one shot transmitter.”
“I have an access point. Secure for one use. I also need you and your crew to bomb this name.”
Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
He laughed. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope.”
“That name?”
“Yes.”
“THAT name?”
“3 hours?”
“On it.”
***
6:30.
They stood on a beach. The report was held on a phone. The phone on a raft. At 7:00 it would be SMS’d a code, access a news stream and deliver the movie.
***
“This…is the evening news. Coming up -”
The picture cut, sharply.
Uniformed security forces fired live rounds into a group of students.
A female voice stated “Students murdered for protesting.”
A tight cut to an injured student having round after round emptied into her.
“By a private army you pay for. Spime here for the full report. An image appeared in the corner of the screen.
A shadowy face. The Anchor.
“I’m the Dread Pirate Roberts and this is the first of many reports.”
***
“We’d have to shut the system down and reboot it. The way we set up the feed was exactly so something like this couldn’t happen once the show was on air.” The stream manager was on a conference lynching.
“Then do that!”
“What about ad revenue?” He countered.
A channel head screamed, “I don’t care. Get that off the air, now.”
***
Screens went dead.
Newsfeeds ran with: “News Silenced.” And the entire audience moved from screen to spime to continue watching.
The Dread Pirate Roberts’ first crew spent the next 30 minutes keeping servers alive.
Servers fell to overuse, to government attack, to denial of service attacks. Those not protecting and moving data were protecting those that were.
Once it was over the entire thing was seeded to the torrent sites and within an hour everything was scrubbed clean.
***
The net went mad trying to source the anchor. Every search produced the same answer.
Media Pirate.
