Rez: Eqstr[Tera]

by NiGHTcapD


WH1: BRB

Not by any stretch of the imagination is my life normal. First my biology declared it wanted to be different. Then I learned I was a hacking prodigy. Then I corrected my vision, but obtained synesthesia in the process. Then I saved Eden and the whole of the K-Project network. Then I found myself talking to something from a different world and possibly universe, and I've barely even started to deal with that by the time I found out that not everyone appreciates what I did to resolve the Eden Incident. Which happens to have been just now.
There's a guy with some political power, and top of his agenda is hackers. He doesn't like them. He thinks they should all be jailed, some of them possibly even killed for their crimes. He even thinks that we would have been better off if I hadn't hacked into-and successfully fixed-Eden, that the professional programmers could have fixed the problem.
But it's never been made public. Those that do know are keeping it to themselves, and for good reason-rumors state that he has his own private mini-military, and that he uses it to silence those that speak up against him. They've never been proven, but no one wants to find out if they're true.
That cue to leave an hour and a half ago gave me my first real insight on his plans, as in I was called to hack it in the middle of upload. Needless to say, it's not good. So I sent the guy a message through an anonymous email: "Why do you fear us?"
He responded by trying to open voice chat. I let him.
"You steal information and you change data, in an era where data is important to stay as it is set."
"I don't do it like that. I have an honest job, hacking is just a hobby. I love what I do."
"Well I can't stand it. I don't like what you do."
"Then understand that I do, and I'm not about to have my freedom squashed because of irrational hatred."
"I have no tolerance for cheaters. You cheat the system like you own the place. Zero tolerance."
"Here's me not caring about what you think. If you can't tolerate us, then you'd better learn to withstand us, because we're not going away anytime soon."
"Not if I can help it."
I scoff. "Don't you know your history? Mass extinctions can come, wave after wave if you want, but empty niches will always quickly refill."
He fell silent at that. He ended voice chat within seconds. Which ended my call to action, but the real problems had only just begun.