Exodus

Riding the train downtown I was the only one in my car. I used that time to dig into the situation and find out what happened to cause the protests.

To say public reclamation by the people in Tier-1 were "common" was tricky. Sure the Mask members were always causing trouble on the main streets but they were never in large groups. Hundreds tops. Serious, major protests supported by the big mass were more unusual, unless the matter affected the workers directly.

What provoked the general discontent was a new law the Leader put to vote in the Assembly. The Exodus law. It consisted of sending all the illegal citizens of Tier-1 back to their home cities. Up until then if you weren't a citizen you couldn't own property in the city, vote for the Assembly, have access to the healthcare system nor work for the City. The last one wasn't a big deal but all the other prohibitions affected the people only it was still better than being casted out and forced to return to a place they barely knew.

Over 70% of the city's population were immigrants from all around the world. These people formed the working class that kept Tier-1 ahead of time. The decision of whoever represented them was left in the hands of a minority composed partially by company owners and their families. Not always the 20% of legal working voters won. The odds were never in our favor.

No joke the people were pissed and marching to the City tower. The citizens were willing to fight and the Force was there to stop them. That's when it got ugly. Something needed to be done to balance the board, even with the Trinity sending armed members to hit back, the type of weapons they could use in that situation was limited. Confronting the Leadership directly ten times out of ten it ended badly for the people.

Out in the open the night was cold. I was glad I had brought my mask with me, my nose always froze to death on that weather. A whip of wind hit me, making me realize the sound of a million voices shouting under the tracks. At the edge of the platform I leaned over to find the avenue that led to the City Tower packed with people for kilometers beyond my sight. I couldn't help but shout in excitement.

That was going to be a great night.

Not to lose any more time, I took off already with a spot in mind to set up camp not far from there. Knowing that the Tower was close, the security would be strong on the ground but also strict on air. A little less on the last one which was good enough for me.

As beautiful as being in the middle of the boiling veins of democracy sounded I needed more range to work. At a very young age I learned not to fight directly things bigger than me, but to wait for their weakness to present itself before striking. My battleground was on the rooftops, away from the violence and the electric guns.

Once I got into a place out of the camera's eyes, I got my mask on to protect my nose from the chilly night and headed to the path I created on top of the station. Buildings were not far from one another. They all were connected with bridges and letters, for maintenance reasons.

Force drones were patrolling the airspace. They were equipped with heat and motion detectors which made them the perfect tracking weapons. For that I used a jammer, it emitted a pulse that caused a momentary glitch on their system. It gave me enough time to hide and wait for them to pass.

I arrived at one of the tallest buildings on the street. There I had already left some stuff in standby, such as a signal amplifier, a terminal with access to the building's network, my baby drone designed to generate intense interference at short range and, last but not least, blankets.

Everyone down there was brave to face the Leadership in such unfair circumstances, the least I could do was give them a hand. Make things more fair by messing with their systems. Less than a kilometer away the Leader had put to use every resource he had to cover the Tower and the nearby buildings with warnings. A perimeter had been set around the head office prohibiting anyone from crossing under the promise of lethal fire if done so.

Most obeyed the order and kept on singing their demands and broadcasting their message on every available network. Just like they kept trying to have their message heard, the Leader kept shutting them off. An endless cycle. We had the numbers, they had the resources.

Working under a small concrete coverage where I had access to the terminal and connection lines to set up my drone and gear an inaudible brick of sounds was my soundtrack. Before heading down I was going to jam all the communications between the headquarters and the soldiers while interfering with the armours' systems. They would be blind, allowing the protesters to advance towards the Tower. Cause a significant impact, that was the mission.

Buzzing with excitement I let the drone go, kicking off my plan. Quickly I picked up my stuff and headed to a fire escape that I used to get down to one of the side alleys.

One look down to check if the coast was clear and I was ready to go. Every step got me closer to the voices as they began to invade my body making it vibrate with every word. Loud and fearless the people affirmed their right to be citizens of Tier-1. Half way through, a pop up on my vision device warned that the drone was in place. I tightened my pace.

Didn't take long for me to touch the ground. Over at the street people were passing by unaware of my presence. I fixed my mask and joined the crowd. Nothing more than another insignificant dot.

Without any effort I was taken to the middle of the wave positioned right under my drone. In my field of vision I could see a live image of the soldiers at the blockade. After a simple command on my screen, I watched them all shrink their shoulders. Some even fell down with the hit of the disturbance frequency. Stunned and agitated the soldiers started to advance against the protesters pressing them with their shields. Others pointed guns randomly at anyone that moved. I turned up the signal to the limit, making Force agents everywhere collapse.

Astonished, the people stopped their march, uncertain if it was safe to go on. A sea of people stared, immobile hundreds of officer fight with themselves to resist the strength of their robotic armour. A great silence spread through the narrow corridor between buildings just before something happened.