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In with Dan Deacon's Feel the Lightning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK-1axSGkXc
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Apr 27, 2024 02:01
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 01:18 |
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Installation 1269 Words Song choice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK-1axSGkXc I burst through the rooftop door, cold air and neon lights washing over me. I kicked it shut behind me and got to work welding a bolt in place to keep it that way. Sparks and slag cascaded down the door, marking the pristine metalwork of the Quinovic-Woolworths Banking Ministry's copterpad entrance. In a city that stopped sleeping, you can at least trust them to give the brass a night off on CEO’s Birthday weekend. That was what we were hoping at least - no blue-bloods working means no copters, and therefore no staff on the air transit level. I finished up with the door, cutting a solitary figure outlined by a dull orange glow against the green and blue bathed rooftop landing pad. “Status report, Blue” Alice chirped in my ear, coordinating the mission from her multi-monitored roost somewhere far across the cityscape. ”Phase one complete, moving to position two” I’d spent more nights than I could count staying up shooting the poo poo with Alice over tightwire channels, it felt a bit rude - but OpSec came first for her, and I got a bit of a kick out of sounding competent. For anyone listening in, our transmissions blended into the grey noise of the nightly corporate espionage and black market chatter. I moved to the edge of the roof, taking my pack off and unspooling the cable and gear. I glanced down while I hooked my anchor through the drainage sluice and back up over the low wall. It was a clear night, I could see a couple of blocks at least before the buildings were lost in the swirling clouds of pollutants and exhaust. Bright white light washed across me, dazzling me and sending everything beyond my hands into inky black as my pupils contracted. I was on the radio before the realisation of what was happening hit. “In position, but we’ve got company”. The copter sliding into position above the building, as if on an invisible helical track. I had a few seconds before someone noticed me huddled against the railing, I didn’t have time to wait for Alice’s go or to know the other moving parts were ready - it was now or never. I gave my anchor a quick tug to double check the hook held, then clamped on my descender. “Starting phase two” I whispered as I rolled over the ledge into the dark, the cable whipping out below me, lashing out at the night sky like a mad snake. The top of the billboard was three stories down. It beamed lending rates into the night, colossal numbers falling out of sight as they unfurled far, far down the skyscraper facade. If Alice’s intel was right (and it was rarely wrong), there would be an override panel tucked in behind the top left corner of the signage. Above me I could hear the copter touching down, the quad rotors roaring louder as it descended, then tailing off to a whine as the pilot powered the craft down. There was no point waiting to see if I’d been spotted, they’d see the mess I left on the door and start looking for answers any minute. I started my descent, drawing on months of training for this moment, trying not to think about how different this was to a 10 metre wall above a mattress. I slowly fed the rope through my descender, alternating between the two automated grips on the device to maintain the balance of slack and security. Step by step, metre by metre. About a two thirds of the way down I heard shouts, and caught the full beam of a flashlight in my face as I looked up. The wind took the words for itself, leaving me with their angry shapes - I could guess that they wanted to know what the hell I was doing and also to stop doing it and come explain further. I wasn’t stopping. I pinged Alice, “I’m busted, please tell me Green has come through”. “Code’s coming through now, can you hook us in still?” I checked over my shoulder - the gantry along the top of the sign was only a few steps away. “Roger, give me two minutes”. I felt a tug on the rope from above - poo poo, they were messing with the anchor. I rushed the last few steps, losing discipline in favour of not dying - forgetting for a moment how connected they were. I missed the regrip on my descender and fell the last metre, cracking my head on the gantry rail and feeling the whole thing shake and creak under the impact. On the platform, tucked just behind the top of the sign, I rolled over onto my knees - checking my head for blood but fingers coming away dry. I shook it off and got to my feet. As I did, my anchor and cable soared past me over the top of the billboard. Fuckers had cut me loose, the gentle glow of vindication spurred me on. As the anchor ended its arc, the cable tugged on my harness hard - enough to make me grab the rails tight. “In position for phase three.” I crept along the gantry to the control panel and popped the front off with a quick shimmy of a screwdriver. I hooked Alice’s transmitter into the admin port. It was a beautiful thing, years of scrounged PCBs and componentry to create our very own lightning rod. LEDs blinked their sequence before beaming a steady green light. “Connection is live, command.” “I’m seeing it here, Blue.” I saw more flashlights behind the windows of the building, office lights coming on as they honed in on my position. I looked around to see whether there was a way to get to me - to get to the controller. There was a single window near the panel, an outer handle marked with a telltale red and yellow striped border. In the mirrored surfaces of the glass monoliths surrounding us, I watched the reflection of the billboard change - our new programming sputtering into life. The uniform teal and white of the Ministry logo gone and replaced with a blast of colour and life. Over time we had commissioned hundreds of art pieces under the guise of The Collective. Today we had a gallery. Portraits, landscapes, raw emotion expressed in textures, poems, Intermingled was what Green was working on. Our man on the inside, working in god knows what department, exfiltrating the transcripts of dozens of board room meetings where the quiet parts get said out loud. Direct quotes from the people that run nations outlining past and future plans to stick the knife in and twist. As I watched day break, the red light of dawn bleeding through the smog, I radioed Alice. “You wait your whole life over for this moment to begin,” adrenaline pumping and not knowing what happens next “and now it's over but you're not tired?”. I could hear Alice smile of the airwaves “That’s because it’s not over.” The window thumped, I moved over to it and leaned my back against it, bracing my feet on the railing. I could hear muffled shouting behind me, but I just grinned as the warm golden light of morning stroked my face. Watching sunrises and sunsets, country scenes, smiling families, joy worth fighting for reflected in the windows of the surrounding buildings. And then one by one, other billboards sparked into life across the cityscape. I gasped, loud enough to trigger my throat mic “What?” Alice spoke, smile definitely a grin on her face now too, “You thought the Collective was just us?”.
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Apr 29, 2024 05:04
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