Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Power Grid Out

She did not stoop to bothering the dark entity of the winter wood for much longer.

She floated over hard packed snow as the gentle flakes from above let up, leaving her floating over an unbroken plane of glittering white. Strings of Christmas lights from nearby houses and businesses sent diamonds sparkling over the ground passing away under her feet, and for a moment she was suspended in a perfect moment of silence, floating over glittering snow, listening to the distant echo of bells, and watching the occasional flake of snow fall down from the heavens passed the diffused yellow light of Christmas lights, like she was immortalized inside a snow globe.

The feeling passed a moment later as she crossed over the slush slicked road and into town.

It was here that she pulled her phone from her pocket , and alit on the ground, walking under her own power through the diffuse pools of light and dark.

She reached back into her coat and withdrew an entire can of green paint.

She turned on her phone and began to record a video as she stepped forward. She turned on her throat mike which deepened and warped her voice as she spoke.

"I am a citizen, and I will not be found by our corrupted government. I am citizen 404, I could be you, your husband your wife your daughter tour son. I could be our lover or your enemy for we are all the same under the hand of an authoritarian government seeking to hide the truth." She reached up a hand and the spray can sprung to life under her fingers.

There was a police patrol that came around town hall on occasion, but she knew for sure that the human patrol officer was a street away eating a burrito in the front seat of his car, wishing he could go home and be with his wife and daughter instead of stuck out in the cold darkness. He could sense soemthing was going on with the world, and it made him uncomfortable. His thoughts turned to the Impetus star and then to the man behind it.

Targeted propaganda adds were being leaked constantly onto the internet to discredit Adam Vir and the men and women who had caused the Impetus star, but for every piece of propaganda they put out Citizen404 was attempting to bring the truth, crashing sites, pointing out inconsistencies and leaking documents whenever possible.

She came away the crude fist and circle marring the front doors of the town hall right in their security blind spot.

She spoke as she worked, doing her best to make sure that no one would be able to identify where she was.

She might have worried about it if not for what she was doing.

This wasn't just a lone act of rebellion. All across the world people had been invited to join her in this act of rebellion, taking out onto the streets with the same color spray paint to mark their defiance. She was just another citizen 404 but she was the voice of the people on many occasions. With her abilities she had aces to more knowledge at one time than most people had in their life.

This was not to brag of course, but when you had access to the memory and understanding of everyone around you, it was like having access to many lifetimes full of information.

She used all of it to her advantage.

Yes, right now, all around the world others had taken to the streets with spray paint in hand read. A few famous tagging artists of the undercities had come to offer their services in the name of citizen 404 including Psychat and Cobaltblu, who worked in ways that even Eris could not understand. Psychat had managed to tag an entire wall of a government building in one night with a beautiful depiction of Admiral Vir fighting the Behemoth.

There should have been no way anyone could have done soemthing like that in one night, yet it happened.

It was painted over the next day much to the outrage of the entire city's population, but enough pictures had been taken of the art piece that it was immortalized o the internet.