FLASHed

4. User Security

Over the period of twenty years, one corporation has gained global dominance.  With close to monopoly presence in the communications and component manufacturing industries, It is estimated that ninety-eight percent of the world's population relies on zeity.u for staying connected with local and global networks.  Some people spend as much as eighty percent of their waking life immersed within Zeity's flagship virtual reality product The Environment ™. The average direct spend of the company's nine billion users is Z122.88 per annum with indirect revenues per person estimated at Z40. Brand loyalty of the Zeity userbase is so strong that Governments are losing sovereignty over their citizenship, many individuals preferring to claim themselves Citizens of the World ™ (citizens of Zeity).

Today was no ordinary work day. Tensions on the East China Sea were at breaking point and planned attacks by the Pacific and Asian factions were imminent, threatening to plunge the world into war. All that stood between war and peace was Aisha and her team of eighty security specialists of the Drone Redirection Taskforce (DRT) of Zeity's User Security Division.  

Zeity's User Security Intelligence Agency (USIA) had information that both sides of the to-date, cold conflict were mobilising several thousand assault drones. Armed with a deadly payload, each drone was designed to incapacitate or destroy strategic coastal objectives. Information collected indicated that the cities Busan, Hong Kong, New Taipei, Osaka and Darwin were the initial targets and that the damage of this single conflict was to be around one hundred and twenty million users.  Billions of users were at risk should full blown war eventuate, and it was not in Zeity's best interest to allow this to happen.

They'd been working eighteen-hour days now for the past months and, for the past few weeks, the DRT had been running hot 24/7. Team members would spend most of their workdays in the Office Environment where the team would run through tens of likely scenarios that they would be facing in the days ahead. Right at this moment, Aisha was on a coffee break with her friends and co-workers Matt and Rudy.

Aisha cleared some surface space on the rec room table and placed her coffee mug down with a plunk, splashing some of the precious liquid out of the cup.  She sat heavily on the chair taking a deep breath and stretching to relieve stressed muscles, "So it's finally happening -- Team Zeity versus the World."

Matt nodded, "Yeah, we're going down in history for the single biggest sabotage event ever.  I just wish I could be there to see the look on the faces of the fat cat faction brass when we ditch their entire arsenals into the sea!"

Rudy added, "Have we calculated the impact on the userbase when they die from heart failure?"

"Acceptable loss!" injected Aisha in her best robot voice as the trio laughed.

"Seriously though," she added taking a sip of coffee "Do you believe the number of lives we're going to save if we pull this off? The innocent children that will still be breathing and playing..."

"The number of cats that won't be vaporised!" piped in Rudy.

"...I mean don't you guys feel that this is a changing point for the world -- for the human race?" mused Aisha.

"You know they'll call us traitors in our home countries?" mentioned Matt.

Rudy objected, "Does it matter what they think? Don't they know that this single event will mark the end of world's boundaries, Governments are going to take Citizens of the World ™ seriously for the first time."

"But they aren't going to take it laying down, we'll be the focus of their wrath then." warned Aisha.

"Bring 'em on Bitches! They won't know what hit them if they take us on", Rudy stood and fisted the air in defiance.

"We'll, let's just take it one step at a time." reasoned Aisha, even though, deep down she felt exactly the same.

The three sat and exchanged anecdotes about their latest adventures in The Environment ™ as they finished their coffees.  Aisha finally stood and stretched, "Right 'o boys, let's go save the world!".

.fin

(692 words)

<◕.◕> first posted here at Wattpad. 27 Nov, 2014.