My usual Gold routine consists of coffee and long, brisk walks, watching out for whatever fresh lunacy the Dome vomits on my shoes. It was supposed to be a pleasant day, until I noticed the unmistakable ruckus of a mixer who claimed that New Light Media's garage was "Sarz turf". I laughed hard at the magnificence of watching a nobody with nothing announce ownership of someone else's private property, then I realized, this might be my story.
Once on the scene, my suspicions were confirmed. A woman who looked like she was dragged out of a dumpster, beaten up, then thrown back inside was tagging the walls and issuing threats with her heavy bolo machete. Yes, very dramatic. Yes, very Red. Very terrifying if you've never seen a huge knife before. Then NSEC arrived, and I realized the threats were as funny as they were empty.
This pledge, who goes by "G", appeared to be yet another victim of an industry as old as the Dome itself: turning the weak, fresh-faced, and easily impressionable into disposable meat. Find somebody desperate enough to make a name for themselves. Promise them respect. Give them a weapon they can barely hold. Point towards something expensive.
Congratulations! You manufactured your own little revolution.
The attack went from "mild disturbance" to "BALLS-TO-THE-WALL CHAOS" when Vexx, a member of the Sinners street gang, joined Ksenia "Oxiana" Orlova, a criminal associated with their rival gang, the Snakes, and together attacked Junior Agent Frank Murdoch.
Then everything went to hell.
I saw Agent Murdoch fight back with tooth and bone. The defense did not come without sacrifice. Murdoch and two other members of NSEC lost their lives in the fighting, a grim reminder that sometimes, the line of duty stops being a line and becomes a meat grinder.
The Judges arrived and helped secure the perimeter, driving away the surviving terrorists, who fled aboard a HondaMitsu Koi and a Sandfly Aerodyne. So you might be wondering, dear readers, what did this glorious revolutionary offensive accomplish?
The answer is a big, fat, and reassuring "NOTHING". No equipment stolen, no prizes, no triumphant narratives... only a hunger for glory they couldn't sate, leaving empty-handed, licking their wounds, and abandoning two of their own behind. One dead... another alive.
The unfortunate soul left in New Light Media's was Drazen "m0th" Kos, unemployed and unoccupied. I thought that perhaps her alias was just a witty reference to the tasteless biomodifications that left them looking half moth and half human, without quite managing to successfully commit to either. I'll call it: a rough draft from nature that someone approved for production.
When Kos was taken for interrogation, they revealed a shocking truth to us: they had no idea what they were getting into. According to them, they had simply been asked to perform a small task and were assured there would be no consequences.
I repeat: NO CONSEQUENCES!
Somebody apparently convinced a Red-sector moth-person that participating in an armed attack against a megacorporation was roughly as consequential as picking up groceries. This is where this stops being merely another story about mixers making catastrophic life decisions and starts becoming interesting.
It is easy to point fingers at the disposable foot soldiers: Vexx, Orlova, Kos. The harder question is what put these people in the same place, at the same time, and pointed them in the same direction.
How do people who caught the short end of every stick the Dome ever handed out suddenly get access to a Koi and a Sandfly Aerodyne? Who provided transportation? Who coordinated the escape? Who set up a distraction bomb moments before the attack? Who provided cover fire while the others bled?
There may be an answer.
In the aftermath of the attack, a group calling itself "RYE", short for "Remember Your Enemy," claimed responsibility. Little is publicly known about the organization or who, if anyone, leads it. What is known is that RYE has been actively spreading anti-corporate propaganda across the Grid, and now appears eager to attach its name to the bloodshed outside New Light Media.
A claim of responsibility is not proof of orchestration. Any idiot with Grid access can take credit after the bodies hit the pavement. But if RYE truly organized this attack, then the questions become considerably more interesting.
Who recruited the attackers? Who provided transportation? Who coordinated the escape? And who convinced people like Kos that there would be "no consequences" for participating?
And most importantly, who benefits?
Honestly, dear readers? I don't know. But I know several citizens who might otherwise have pursued lives of achievement, productivity, and prosperity instead allowed themselves to be shepherded into somebody else's violence. Somebody promised them purpose, pointed them toward a corporate target, and sent them forward to bleed in vain.
That is the ugly little secret behind every disposable revolutionary. The shepherd watches from a safe distance, preaching revolution while sending his flock to the slaughter.
My gratitude goes to Agent Murdoch, who stood his ground against the terrorists, took two of them down in the process, and sent the survivors fleeing with their tails between their legs. The Withmore Justice Force likewise deserves recognition for their response and assistance.
E. Reed,Globe Reporter.
