May 2036. The Second American Civil War has been ongoing for months and the United States as you know it is crumbling. The fascist and totalitarian New American Federation (NAF) has risen and taken over much of the country, whilst the former governm...
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"Ah, fuck," Daniel groaned, looking frustratedly at the monitor in front of him and banging his fist on the table. "Paige, can you come here for a minute?"
"Yeah, sure. What's up?" Daniel's younger sister replied, making her way over to the desk her brother was sat at. She couldn't see his face as she travelled from one side of Syber's HQ to the other but she could tell just from the posture of his shoulders that he was annoyed. He wasn't especially good at hiding his emotions, particularly around his sibling.
"I got a tip-off on the secure network from a contact in the Bay Area this morning saying that President Dawson made a speech last night. I'm trying to get access to watch it but obviously they've blocked everyone out here in the east from viewing it. They seem to have put up extra firewalls and I'm struggling to get through them."
"Let me have a look," Paige requested, falling into the seat that Daniel vacated. Both of the Sampson siblings were extremely technically proficient but between them they knew Paige had the slight edge when it came to overall ability. Daniel didn't mind though. He was just pleased to see his sister as devoted to Syber as he was.
With Paige now in front of the computer she, like Daniel minutes earlier, opened up several tabs of the command panel and the device's location and network settings. She typed away at full tilt, hardly even sparing the keyboard a passing glance as letters and digits appeared on the screen at seemingly random intervals. All the while, Daniel stood behind her with his arms crossed watching in awe.
"Hm," Paige mumbled. "You're right, Daniel. They have definitely made these much harder to bypass." Daniel could barely hear her as a result of the constant clicking of the keys on the keyboard.
"Do you think you will be able to do it?"
"I think so. Just give me a...ah, done," Paige replied proudly, leaning back in her seat. Daniel congratulated her despite the very obvious smug facial expression she now wore. He called over Justin, the leader of Syber, to take a look at what was on the display in front of them.
"Jesus," Justin started. "You managed to get onto one of the U.S news sites? How did you manage to do that? I've been trying to do that for weeks," he continued, emphasising the enormity of what Paige had just accomplished.
"Well, I managed to re-route the IP address so that it looks like we're connected to the internet from California, but I'm not sure how long this connection is going to last for so we need to watch this speech quickly," Paige explained.
"Okay, well stick it on then," Justin requested. Paige obliged, clicking play on the video that had been uploaded hours earlier. Daniel meanwhile fished out a digital camera from one of the filing cabinets in the large, spacious room. Syber had most of President Dawson's speeches stored on old cameras that couldn't connect to the internet. It was far too risky to keep anything like that on an ordinary smartphone.
"My fellow Americans. I speak to you tonight as our country overcomes a great hurdle in our battle for sovereignty and our battle for freedom. This evening, the regime in control of the occupied territories launched a large-scale cyber-attack against us. You will undoubtedly be aware of the disruption to our communications tonight. I am glad to say that this has now been resolved and everything is now running as normal. In a heinous act, the occupiers also disconnected millions of people inland from the coast from the electricity grid, resulting in widespread chaos and distress for several hours. This was particularly contemptible given the known lack of back-up infrastructure in the region and many people's lives were put in danger."
