ALL CITIZENS BE ADVISED, CURFEW BEGINS IN 35 MINUTES, PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR PLACE OF REDIDENCY.

ALL CITIZENS BE ADVISED CURFIEW BEGINS IN TEN MINUTES.

Eris stepped to the side of the sidewalk, keeping her head low under her hood as a set of peacekeepers passed by, their mechanical limbs whirring softly over the ground, their feet clattering with every step. Behind their partially opaque plastic face plates, she could see the glow of a single red light pulsing gently.

She could hear no thoughts, for there were none behind thick tangles of circuit and wire, when they passed by her she felt the cold absence of consciousness, the real people who controlled these constructs hidden away safely in their command centers. All around her other people did the same, passing to the side of the sidewalk to let the peacekeepers pass, their heads down their faces covered by hoods.

Red had really been a very poor color for the light behind the peacekeepers masks. Whoever designed them clearly did not know the psychological associations that were held within the human conscience after hundreds of years of robots portrayed in media. Either that or they did know exactly what they were doing.

Overhead the sky was only partially dark. Even though the sun was setting, the stars had not been visible for some time now.

Not with the Impetus sun hanging over them during the night.

The glowing orb was bright in the sky, not as bright as the sun but far brighter than the moon, and the circumstances of its appearance had been cause for great concern over the past months or so. With as bright as it was during the night, no other stars were visible on earth.

The night sky was dominated by a second sun, forcing the moon to relinquish the night.

The government had attempted to control the flow of information, to hide what lead to the events of the star's first appearance.

But with access to the internet, there was no way to stop people from finding out, not when the Europa and Martian colonies knew as much as they did.

Now everyone knew what had caused the Impetus Sun, regardless of weather the government wanted to know it or not.

Behemoth, an eldritch abomination of a thousand years and a million eyes had been detected bearing down upon the colonies of an Earth solar system, heading straight towards the human homeworld. No one had known what had happened at the time, but not hours after the star appeared causing near mass panic on a global scale, the information had been leaked past growing government sensortship.

The UNSC station at Europa rioted, and information on operations were dumped onto the internet, and accessed through illegal streaming sites, the Darknet, and videos were uploaded to Vidstream before being taken down by government hackers, though by then it was already too late.

Military documentation had been sifted through and read until the people came to their own conclusion.

At approximately 8:45 PM GMT Admiral Koslov of the UNSC fired two Thermonuclear warheads at the behemoth, the first ever firing of such weapons against a nonhuman entity in the history of earth. No change had been detected and the ship was almost overtaken when an unknown alien vessel appeared out of warp. The UNSC Europa station loses contact with Koslov and his ship as the new entity began firing weapons of unknown origin at Behemoth. These unknown weapons did more damage than thermonuclear weapons, but it was going slowly.

At 9:25 GMT contact was re-established with Koslov's vessel, and multiple others as. At 9:32 an explosion was detected, and Behemoth was destroyed. The alien vessel was nowhere to be found. All gravitational anomalies ceased. Contact with the ships was established only to learn that one of them was the stolen battle carrier once known as the UNSC Omen.

Admiral Koslov refuses an order to capture the Omen, and was immediately charged with insubordination.

Contact is established with the Omen an hour later, and Ex-marine Angel Ramirez essentially tells the UNSC to shoved it up theirs.

The story is released onto the internet.

Ex Admiral Vir, supposed traitor, tracked a Maker to their place of origin and stole their most powerful vessel in order to deal with the Behemoth.

He sacrificed himself to protect earth.

And now earth was in a state of riot. Thousands upon thousands of people had stood up to blame the government for keeping secrets from them. Riots had begun in the streets, white fists were being spray painted on walls and overpasses and the sides of government buildings in protest along with the word.

Impetus.

Adam Vir's face could be found on anti-government literature and propaganda as one walked the streets. He appeared on paper pamphlets discarded on the sidewalk, and tucked into books as bookmarks, he could be found in pop up advertisements all over the interne, and in advertising hubs at shopping centers. His face was plastered upon picket signs and billboards. When the riots began, president Hunt used them as an excuse to enforce martial law upon earth , but when UNSC service men refused to patrol, they began using he peacekeepers to do their dirty work.

This is what was left.

A planet under martial law.

A people fighting for their rights, and diplomatic relations between earth and her colonies going poorly. Hunt may have been able to control some of the flow of information on earth, but it could not so easily control its colonies.

And Mars itself was a great center of contention.

Eris passed up the street still keeping her head low and turned onto the sidewalk that lead up to the Vir home. The blinds were drawn, and light could be seen flickering from behind the windows. Stepping closer Eris could hear the thoughts of those inside, worried, afraid, angry, and sad all mixed into one, though a thread of Hope underlined all of the voices inside.

Up the street she noted a pair of other voices she had grown familiar with.

Their surveillance in the form of a dark van posing as a small family-owned electrician company parked at the end of the street. Inside two men were busy monitoring all signals that went in and out of the house, hoping to find and track the Tritors, hoping that Martha or Jim would attempt to try and contact the people who knew their son.

They should have known better. Martha and Jim weren't stupid, and neither of them had ever been that fond of the government anyway. Eris stepped up the the house and unlocked the door, knowing rather than sensing that there were eyes on her. She greeted Martha and Jim sitting tense and silent in the living room as they watched the news, before passing them and heading into her room.

The space she had made for herself was cozy and homey color coordinated around her favorite theme, dark night sky blue. She pulled out the chair and sat at her desk, cracking the joints of her knuckles before getting to work.

There were plenty of perks to being able to read minds

And one of those perks was being able to use the knowledge of others to your advantage. Every time she looked into someone's head, everything they knew was laid out before her like a library to peruse and to open.

It hadn't been difficult to find friends who knew how to navigate the internet, and even less difficult to find the hackers. It had only taken her a few minutes with a master, to know what she was doing to a high enough degree that she wasn't worried about the men outside.

It helped that she could read their minds and avoid the sorts of things they were looking for.

All it took was one loophole.

The chat window opened up, a black space with a single blinking white cursor.

It was incredibly outdated and old fashioned.

But that was the point.

The new internet they had now, had been built on the bones of old code, like the cities they built on the gutted remains of another. Digging deep enough you could often find yourself in abandoned places lost to time, some hundreds if not thousands of years old, brought back to life with a little bit of coaxing.

And it was there within the jungle of abandoned spaces, and deep history that a new society hid itself. A community of the disillusioned and the deranged, a Dark net that spanned the scope of the universe, unstoppable, impossible, and a complete nuisance to the UNSC in every way that mattered.

Starrwhisper: You there?_

Not a moment later words, in green this time, began to appear on screen in response.

MadAnnon: You know I'm always here. What's up_

Starrwhisper: have you gotten much done?_

MadAnnon: Less than I wanted, or at least not as fast as I wanted, but we will get there_

Starrwhispe: What are you working on?_

MadAnnon: Have you been watching the news_

Eris clicked open a window on her screen and turned to the news leaving it on in the background as she continued to type away

"And in news tonight, another government server hacked, and an entire segment of political infrastructure crippled tonight after another cyberattack in a long string of attacks following the Impetus Star. John Holden is on sight with more news."

"Thanks Kathryn. A government report earlier this morning describes a sudden server crash after a malware package was delivered Via email through an unsecure connection in a lower management office in this building behind me. The packet was originally sent to the offices on the lower floors for the secretary of land management affairs, but we were told in a press conference earlier today that the packet contained a rudimentary AI that copied all of the emails in the folder and sent itself to everyone on that email list. While the secretary of land management has relatively low cyber protections, that packet made it to someone in the building who had greater administrative access, and the virus was dropped from there replicating itself until it completely overloaded the system, The packet was successful enough to spread to unsecured servers in the presidential residence, though it made it no further than that."

"And do we know who was responsible for the attack."

"The malware actually came with its own special icon. Members of the hacking group known only as Citizen404 have taken responsibility for the act claiming that the government is attempting to sensor free information."

A warped voice passed over the speakers to Eris's ears.

"The government has proven that it does not have the citizens best interests at heart. It has lied to us, stolen from us, and placed blame off of everyone but itself. There is evidence that President Hunt was involved in the plot to assassinate acting president Kelly Just look around you, he is patrolling the streets with robots, forcing us into a state of martial law. He is no longer a president, he is a dictator, and we the citizens will not stand for that. We will find the truth when they will not give it to us, and we will distribute the truth when no one else will."

"Tell us a little about who was speaking just now."

"Of course Kathryn, we aren't entirely sure who that was, but many sources believe it to be SmileMan infamous leader of Citizen404 though nothing can be known for sure. He uses many aliases and has either the skill or the technology required to avoid any notice or detection by government yber professionals.

Starrwhsiper: You're quite popular today_

MadAnnon: Yeah A little, but not popular enough._

StarrwhsiperL: I wish there was more I could do to thelp._

MadAnnon: Lol? What? With the information you give me I have never been this productive in my life. It's one thing to be able to write code, it is another thing entirely to know all the passwords._

MadAnnon: Why are why are you doing this anyway?_

Starrwhisper_ Because.... They hurt my father and now I am going to make them pay for it.

MadAnnon : That I can respect, let me know if you get anything else, and I will work it into the plan no problem. Stay safe and try not to attract attention.

StarWhsiper: too late for that .

...

She closed the chat and began looking through Expo Universe on her computer falling on the image of the moon in question she was looking for.

Arcadia

She was certain this was the place. She flipped through a few additional pictures the internet had turned up, thousand s of selfies, and photographs taken on a dark planet with artificial light, hundreds of floating jellyfish like creatures glowing in a dark sky.

That had to be him, but how she was going to get the people she loved there.

It was hard to know.

She was going to have to do something.