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The Story:
I wanted to see the launch, but I didn’t want to feel it. The thunder of those propulsion engines carried the risk of pounding into my heart the fear I was working so hard to push out. So, I picked a remote location far from the launch site.
My watch was synched with the launch countdown timer. I don’t know how long I was on that rock by the lake before the watch began sounding, but they were punctual. Shortly after the watch went off, I heard the distant crackling of the booster rockets firing the shuttle upwards into the atmosphere.
“You wanna see something cool?”
I spun around to find a group of four people, three men and one woman, standing behind me.
“Who are you?”
“That depends on you. Here, take a look at this.”
Their spokesman handed me a tablet and on it was a complicated string of code and what looked like controls for a spacecraft. The first remotely operated shuttle wasn’t even in orbit yet, and it had already been hacked by this group. My worst fear was already realized.
“Before you say anything, Kessa, it’s not what you think.”
“Oh? So, I’m not supposed to think you hacked my programming?”
“Yeah, we did that, but we did it to protect us all.”
How could hacking the shuttle be for anyone’s protection? I was fired after I created the program, but I would’ve never taken over the spacecraft.
“The exploration of our solar system is a coverup for a government agenda.”
“What agenda?”
“They plan to repair and reactivate the nuclear satellites from the Treaty of 2037 when they agreed to dismantle them. We don’t intend to let them.”
We had narrowly escaped World War 3 the last time. Reactivating those satellites would mean humanity’s annihilation for sure.
“We want you on our team. We… need you. All we want to do is send the shuttle along on the mission of exploration it was intended to be on.”
Joining a group of rogue hackers really felt like hitting rock bottom, to me. But I had to stop this secret mission from happening. I couldn’t stand by and watch them doom us all. Admittedly, it was going to be an epic programming battle if we were going to succeed.
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