The window slid open with a dull hiss, and a cold wind kicked up into Eris's face as little flakes of snow intruded upon the room, dusting the windowsill and nestling into her long, black hair like pearls rest against sand.

Eris gently slid one leg over the cill and then the other activating her gravity belt so she floated, feet never touching the newly felled snow under her window. She wore a long, black wool coat, and a dusty pink beanie, though she let her hair flow free down around her shoulders. The coat had been tailored for her by Martha specifically, and so had a flap on the back that allowed her ribbons to trail out and flare like they were supposed to.

Wind kicked up another gust of snow as she slid the window shut, and her hair waved in wild undulations around her face.

It was unusually dark outside, a thick layer of low hanging clouds insulating them from the light of the Impetus star hanging high above. The light that did manage to make it through was cold and diffused leaving a dull grey darkness, and the black skeletal silhouettes of leafless trees hunched in the darkness against the cold.

Eris let her ribbons flare, not worried about anyone seeing her.

Eris was very sneaky, not because she was particularly skilled in the art of stealth, but it is easy to be sneaky when you can be sure no one is paying attention. So her ribbons unfurled in the darkness, whipping in the wind as they slowly propelled her forward over the dark snow and towards the forest, using up what energy she had stored from napping in the cold winter sunlight.

Eris did not have to worry about things like temperature the way that other humans did. Her skin was starborn skin, meant to withstand both incredible heat and cold without issue . She had learned of this strange ability only by accident when she had bare handed a pan from the oven right in front of Martha who screamed her name loud enough that she almost dropped the sheet of cookies. It was ony through the memories of humans was she able to understand the meaning of temperature.

It was a pretty cool superpower to have. She could walk into boiling water without much issue or take a nap in an ice puddle in winter, and with a gravity belt and her ribbons she could glide, like she did now, over the silent winter scape.

The surveillance vehicle watching the house did not see her go, no one did.

More cold snow pelted her face, but the sensation was only a memory inside her head. Eris did not have to wear the jacket or the beanie, but she still wasn't entirely comfortable in showing her other-ness even to herself. Even now she was well aware of her monstrous appearance. A pale skinned humanoid entity with coal black eyes floating through a dark winter forest only on the power of stored energy.

Anyone who accidentally ran across her might assume she was a monster or a witch.

It wouldn't be the first time.

Just last week some woman at the grocery store had accused her of being possessed by the Void because of her eyes, and it only took Martha intervening with threats of a beating that let the woman back off.

Martha and Jim had apologized to her on behalf of other humans, but Eris tried not to think about it. Humans had a habit of being afraid of things they didn't understand. Meant a human that is afraid of something and odds are they have almost no experience with it. Either no experience or too much.

Her silent foray led her through the dark corner of a winter forest, and towards the glittering lights of the city. Eris was well aware that she was the most dangerous thing in these woods, but still, there was soemthing about an Earth forest in the dead of winter that made her shiver, and despite her sure knowledge that there was nothing with a mind in her general vicinity other than hibernating squirrels, she couldn't shake off the feeling that she was being watched, that there was something else in this forest watching her, annoyed at her trespass.

She did not stoop to bothering the dark entity of the winter wood for much longer.

She floated over hard packed snow as the gentle flakes from above let up, leaving her floating over an unbroken plane of glittering white. Strings of Christmas lights from nearby houses and businesses sent diamonds sparkling over the ground passing away under her feet, and for a moment she was suspended in a perfect moment of silence, floating over glittering snow, listening to the distant echo of bells, and watching the occasional flake of snow fall down from the heavens passed the diffused yellow light of Christmas lights, like she was immortalized inside a snow globe.

The feeling passed a moment later as she crossed over the slush slicked road and into town.

It was here that she pulled her phone from her pocket , and alit on the ground, walking under her own power through the diffuse pools of light and dark.

She reached back into her coat and withdrew an entire can of green paint.

She turned on her phone and began to record a video as she stepped forward. She turned on her throat mike which deepened and warped her voice as she spoke.

"I am a citizen, and I will not be found by our corrupted government. I am citizen 404, I could be you, your husband your wife your daughter tour son. I could be our lover or your enemy for we are all the same under the hand of an authoritarian government seeking to hide the truth." She reached up a hand and the spray can sprung to life under her fingers.

There was a police patrol that came around town hall on occasion, but she knew for sure that the human patrol officer was a street away eating a burrito in the front seat of his car, wishing he could go home and be with his wife and daughter instead of stuck out in the cold darkness. He could sense soemthing was going on with the world, and it made him uncomfortable. His thoughts turned to the Impetus star and then to the man behind it.

Targeted propaganda adds were being leaked constantly onto the internet to discredit Adam Vir and the men and women who had caused the Impetus star, but for every piece of propaganda they put out Citizen404 was attempting to bring the truth, crashing sites, pointing out inconsistencies and leaking documents whenever possible.

She came away the crude fist and circle marring the front doors of the town hall right in their security blind spot.

She spoke as she worked, doing her best to make sure that no one would be able to identify where she was.

She might have worried about it if not for what she was doing.

This wasn't just a lone act of rebellion. All across the world people had been invited to join her in this act of rebellion, taking out onto the streets with the same color spray paint to mark their defiance. She was just another citizen 404 but she was the voice of the people on many occasions. With her abilities she had aces to more knowledge at one time than most people had in their life.

This was not to brag of course, but when you had access to the memory and understanding of everyone around you, it was like having access to many lifetimes full of information.

She used all of it to her advantage.

Yes, right now, all around the world others had taken to the streets with spray paint in hand read. A few famous tagging artists of the undercities had come to offer their services in the name of citizen 404 including Psychat and Cobaltblu, who worked in ways that even Eris could not understand. Psychat had managed to tag an entire wall of a government building in one night with a beautiful depiction of Admiral Vir fighting the Behemoth.

There should have been no way anyone could have done soemthing like that in one night, yet it happened.

It was painted over the next day much to the outrage of the entire city's population, but enough pictures had been taken of the art piece that it was immortalized o the internet.

CobaltBlu, not to be outdone, was not only a graffiti artist, but an installation artist as well . It was on a snowy morning not so long ago that a statue of some sort had been left on the steps of UNSC headquarters. It was a simple piece, a man shaped object reaching out as if calling for help.

The torso of the figure was hollowed out, and inside his belly had been filled with All the medals, awards and commendations Adam Vir had ever received during his work for the UNSC. A lot of people liked to talk about the meaning, but Eris new for certain. The soldier gave everything it could to the UN and the UNSC, and instead of being filled, the were hollowed out and filled with empty commendations.

No one was sure how either artist had managed to work without being caught, but both of them had, and tonight was going to be another big night.

Supposedly the two competing artists had been brought together by Citizen404's mastermind SmileMan, and were ready to do something big.

He was watching over them now, keeping their locations and streams anonymous as they all logged on to stream their tagging adventures all around the world.

The patrol officer started his car, and Eris inched backward, falling into a snowbank and burrowing herself down into the cold, unperturbed and unworried. The children had been playing I the snow earlier that day, so she wasn't worried about being caught.

The patrol officer rolled by her hiding spot without a second glance as she scrolled through her phone, watching the other streams with great interest.

An entire group of high school aged kids tagged an entire underpass in under ten minutes.

Another group of workers took over an entire billboard, pasting admiral Vir's face on it. All around them skilled and unskilled workers used their talents to make statements. A group of artists in warmer climates gathered together to make a coordinated chalk mural before the patrol came by, another group of welders took a cue from the artists, and created a poignant recreation of the Drev war in metal figures, emphasizing pain with twisted metal.

Carpenters

Artists

Welders

Ice sculptors

A thousand children's drawings were plastered over the side of another government building, each one of them depicting a time before martial law. UN flags, alien worlds, aliens and the Omen. She was not surprised to find another name appear on the screen. Chaplain'sAngel. He didn't really try to hide his identity like the others. He was already on the run, and so when Angel Ramirez stepped into view Eris smiled.

"I'll do you all one better." He was saying standing on the bridge of the omen as he turned to his crew, "Fire the lasers."

An entire race watched as Ramirez carved the words, "President Hunt is a – Well you get the picture, into the board side of some unspecified moon somewhere in the galaxy

Pity for Hunt that his name was so easy to rhyme .

Eris covered her mouth with her hand to suppress a giggle. It was like having Adam back gain, as that was the sort of thing she could imagine him doing, though he would have been nicer than Ramirez despite Hunt not deserving it, Ramirez had decided to channel Adam but spin him as being more edgy.

Ramirez was the face of the exiled Omen who had lost their captain, trying his best to keep in their leader's path, but angry and hell bent on causing as much trouble as possible.

"Better to ask forgiveness than permission."

She was still resting in the snowbank when SmileMan himself appeared on the screen, cutting off all the streams for himself.

"I will only interrupt our beautiful act of rebellion for a moment to address the government directly. We are citizen404, each one of us could be and each one of us can be. Your actions have stirred the people, and we will remain an anonymous power against your corruption." He held up his hands, "tonight we demonstrate that government comes from the consent of the government and not by threat of violence>" The camera zoomed out and it became clear where he was, standing over the Alexandria skyline with his hands held out to either side.

"Behold the capital city, the monument to your sins."

"say goodbye, to your capital's power grid."

He snapped his fingers, and the image went dark.

***

When Eris returned home, the snow had picked up again, falling from the sky in big flat flakes that stuck together on the ground below her. There was no wind anymore, and the falling snow was simply the gentle caress of winter, soft and beautiful, but deadly serious. Eris lifted her head to the snow for a few long moments before sneaking back inside to place her wet coat over the back of a chair.

She sat on the edge of her bed tying back her damp hair and looked at the news.

Urgent reports of city wide power outage in Alexandria Egypt.

Domestic cyberterrorism threat on the capital.

PowerGrid out