A cursory glance at the current Teleworld activity vectors (through the backdoor Tela provided me) confirms my fears weren’t just legitimate–they were conservative. These dumbfucks are logging onto the Teleworld in record numbers just to see if their brains will really get fried! Not only did the number of online members not drop to half a million as I predicted, it skyrocketed from 10 million to 20 million because of the announcement.
Though Kilroy will of course whine about how these people are just so stupid and he had no idea this would happen, he’s clearly purposefully weaponizing their stupidity: he makes the biggest impact if he can kill tens of millions instead of hundreds of thousands, after all. I do think in some fucked up way he thinks he’s saving the world, cementing my realization that I’m not as fucked up as I thought I was since even I can look at this and say “Holy shit, this is legitimately fucking insane.” I close the screen on my NeurOS and have Nat high tail it over to OVPD headquarters to meet me and Tonio ASAP. If I’m piecing this all together right, I know a way to potentially stop it--it’s almost impossible, but isn’t everything I do?
I hop in Baller and race over to the OVPD as fast as I can, which is to say, very. “Tony, here’s how it’s gonna be,” I blurt, struggling to regain my breath and clutching my still-aching chest wound with my only remaining hand. “We’ve got less than 24 hours to save about 20 million people from becoming unwilling actors in a really bad 1980s cyberpunk horror comedy.”
“...uh…is this about that warning Kilroy put out?”
“Just trust me–I’ll get Kilroy for you in that same 24 hour period. If I fail at that, I’m also failing to save all of Telecom’s territory from the biggest terrorist attack in history. I’m gonna need you to trust me though, one last time: I need full access to your lab, to your men, and to your resources, all of them, no questions asked.”
I can see those gears running behind his tired, worried eyes as he takes this all in. “Tell me what you need and I’ll do it. If you pull this off--”
“Oh, I will, don’t worry. First thing, I need a copy of the brain image you took when I started working here the first time--”
“Blake, you know very well that under intercorporational law, we aren’t allowed to keep those; I’m sorry, but I don’t even have--”
“How long will it take?”
Deep sigh. “Ten minutes, Charles. Just let me get my Tela to pull it from the archives.”
“That’s what I thought. Now, I need you to personally put a call through to the head of the Teleworld department in Teletopia. Tell him Blake knows how to stop this, but he’ll need to be set up for a quick update, and to just trust me on--”
“I’m pretty sure Kilroy and his gang know how to brute force through any security update you can dream up to keep them out, Blake.”
“That’s not even what I’m--look, just trust me on this, Sarge. Oh, and I need a new Telaphone, mine got kind of fried--”
He pulls one of about a hundred new ones out of a huge drawer next to him at the desk. “Done.”
“I need you to open the main lab for me and get the top hackers on the force in there to help me in… about half an hour,” I continue, booting up my new Telaphone as I speak. “But not Araña. Trust me. Have them brought here under heavy surveillance under prisoner protocol to the main hacking office, where I’ll be set up. Have Natasha and her Pneumats on standby. Have Chad--”
“He’s working with Lawrence on trying to find Kilroy right now. I haven’t been able to reach him all day, they’re probably in an area with no signal out in the country or something.”
Shit, that’s right. I never actually updated the Sergeant on the whole ‘Lawrence is Kilroy’ thing–and if Chad has no signal, he never got my text about it, either! “Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but I am 100% certain about this. Don’t trust anything Lawrence says, because he’s Kilroy. If you somehow manage to reach Chad, let him know. I tried, and I don’t think I succeeded.”
The Sarge fumbles around in a case to his left and pulls out the main hacking lab key, tossing it to me as I try to catch it with my left hand and fail miserably. “I’m on it. Stay in touch. And Blake?”
“Yeah?”
“Not a drop so far?”
“Nope.”
“I’m proud of you, kiddo.”
“Be proud after I save 20 million people,” I reply, dashing out of his office and towards the lab.