Hacking the Sun [Old Version]

Chapter 24.2 Neon Boughs

"Citizens of the deceitful Sovereign..." 

Thanks to those words, the streets devolved from ghostly to frenzied in the blink of an eye. Sobriety was nowhere more engraved than on Stockwell's gaunt and tired eyes that stretched to the sky. Exploiting his mental stagger, Jessica snuck closer.

"How does it feel from this point of view?" she scorned. When Stockwell lividly met her gaze, his mouth opened wide. He reared his head and started running. His drunken sidewalk jaunt, however, led to an immediate stumble.

Dauntlessly, Jessica shoved past random pedestrians. But in seeking to catch the man, she found his bar lackeys in her path. Their interference boiled the veins in her fist and caused her to mindlessly shove against them. 

"Let me go!"

"What's your deal, girl?" one of them barked. A mysterious hand thrust and grabbed him from behind. 

"You should let her go."

Stockwell's companion looked over his shoulder. The crazy hooded woman from before, faster than he could react, punched his nose and sent him reeling onto the ground. She invited the rueful attention of the others. From a fighting stance, she quickly kicked the next assailant's cheekbone. Thus rattled by the mysterious kicker, Stockwell's friends let Jessica slip free.

Her target stumbled, disoriented. At a glance, drunkenness ruined Stockwell's balance, and so she tackled him to the ground with ferocity then swiftly pushed herself upright. When the man's glasses scraped the pavement, his pale eyes tossed in every direction as he began crawling away on his back.

Gait uncompromising, Jessica thrust aside the hoodie and strapped her black glove. She saw enough life in Stockwell's eyes, enough fear. A dropped jaw and a yelp later, he backed into an advertisement pole, where he saw his own face in the emergency hologram – In the playback, he was a resistance leader; in the real world, he was a cowering actor; in both, he was a terrorist. And he froze as the eyes of the Lynx pinned him.

Jessica stopped a few feet from his face, arresting his gawk of terror, and let the anger spill from her mouth. "Why the fuck did you do it?"

"I—"

"Don't even try!" She lurched and pulled the coward's hair into a bundle, making him shriek until his face merged with his own holographic likeness. "Why did you have to murder so many innocent people?" 

"Hey, miss!" a voice yelled from behind. It was NSS, but she didn't care.

"You're gonna confess!" She pushed Stockwell's face into the pavement. "A terrorist's luck doesn't last long!"

Hands over his own head, the shivering actor whimpered, "I didn't know what I was doing!"

"Pretend you're looking at their faces!" Jessica crunched her teeth together at the sorry man beneath. Impatience secreted down her skin, intensified by the arrival of security. They were accompanied by the crazy woman in a poncho, and Stockwell's friends were nowhere to be found.

"I didn't know I would actually kill anyone!" Stockwell rambled on. Head shaking, body rocking, he gasped, "It was supposed to be a regular gig: auto-crew, lights, camera, paid lodging..." The two security officers halted just a few meters away, dubious until one of them inched closer. 

"Ma'am, this isn't a safe place. What is wrong with this man? Is he your friend?"

Jessica ignored everything else and basked in the neon light of rage. Stockwell continued groveling on the floor. Before he got comfortable, without remorse, she grabbed and lifted him by his coat collar. "How did you bypass the countdown?"