New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

A little further north, in the tranquil suburb of Bois-des-Filion, inside a large mansion’s security room, were three men having a minor panic attack.

“Get the boss! Someone’s breaching our security!”

The man that shouted that was sitting a bit further back from the two others, enjoying a cigar, when alarms started flashing in the security room.

The two other men were manning the computer screens, checking the cameras showing the inside and outside of the mansion, as well as a large part of the yard that surrounded it.

But right now, their cameras were failing, one by one, in rapid succession. As each screen turned black, it wasn’t long until the screens displayed lines of code, constantly defiling down, as a nasty virus chewed away at their firewall.

It wasn’t long before the firewall broke, and the hacker was inside their systems.

Around the house, fire sprinklers started showering the unsuspecting residents, doors locked people in their rooms, sliders shut on the windows, and alarms blared on and off.

A young man suddenly rushed into the room. The man was around thirty-five years old and looked like a typical mafioso you would see in movies, wearing an expensive suit, which was now drenched.

He was sporting a rage-filled look as he smacked the leader of his security team behind the head.

“What the fuck is going on, Rico?! Why is my mansion acting like a haunted house?!”

“A hacker cracked into our systems, boss! We’re trying to kick him out, but the Stronzo is skilled!”

The security chief was an adept hacker himself, but he couldn’t push back the intruder. Viruses were coming in through the breach at a faster pace than he could stop them, and it wouldn’t be long before he lost access entirely.

He typed furiously on his keyboard, entering lines of code in a vain attempt to fight back. But it was already too late.

He already guessed that his firewall had only caught the hacker after the hack had started, and the damage was already beyond his means of repair. This revealed access to some serious hardware and showed the level of skill this hacker had.

A few tense minutes went by, with the young Italian shouting in the back, cursing at his employee for his ineptness in pushing the intruder out. And then the screens went completely black again.

The boss stopped shouting insults.

“Did you kick him out?!”

But his chief of security’s face was livid, as he shook his head no.

An enormous eye appeared on the screens, blinking once before a robotic voice spoke.

*The Oracle has foreseen your fate. You have played with forces you cannot fathom and your future has been forever altered. The Oracle prophesizes your end in the near future. Take the rest of your life to repent in silence, as the world has abandoned you.*

Immediately after finishing, the screens shut off, followed by the mansion’s power. The inside of the house went dark, as the sun was setting outside, and no more electricity fed the lights.

The chief of security was still staring at the screens, his face pale as a ghost, as a slight trembling took his hands.

His boss smacked him behind the head.

“Who the fuck is the Oracle?! And why did they hack into our shit?!”

The trembling man turned around to face his boss, his face now a mask of despair.

“Sir…” he started, with a trembling voice.

“No one knows who the Oracle is. Hackers around the world call the Oracle the best hacker ever, but that is all we know about them. When they hack into someone’s mainframe, they always leave a prophecy, and it always comes true. Word is, The Oracle has the power to see the future, or alter it.”

The Italian man looked at his subordinate like he had lost his mind and snapped.

“What the fuck are you even saying?! How could a hacker alter the future?! Stop being such a superstitious vigliacco, and get the security back running!”

But his chief of security shook his head again.

“I can’t, sir. If the Oracle shut us down, there is no way I can get us back online. They will have total control of the entire grid around the mansion, be it electric, or internet. Nothing is coming in, or getting out, without their say-so.”

“Nonsense!” the boss screamed, pulling out a pistol.

“Get us back in control, or I will put a bullet inside that big brain of yours!” he added.

But the hacker was too far into despair to even care. Whatever his boss had done to anger the Oracle, he was already in their cross-hairs. He was a dead man walking either way.

Seeing his inaction, the boss pulled the trigger.

*Bang!*

Brain matter splattered on the screen behind the chief of security and on his two subordinates, as he slumped in his chair, unmoving.

Pointing his gun at one of them, the boss yelled, “Get to work, or you’ll be next!”

The man nodded his head hastily, getting off his chair to boot up the auxiliary power line. He needed power if he wanted to push the Oracle out.

Seeing them spring into action, the Italian boss stowed his gun, leaving the room. He had people to contact if he wanted to get to the bottom of this.

As he walked away, putting his phone over his ear, all he heard from it was a dead tone. He angrily tried to restart it, in hopes it would work again, but nothing changed.

He screamed as he lobed the darned thing into a nearby wall, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. He stormed off, heading for a secret room in the basement of the house. ｂｎ𝚘ｖ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐

But he couldn’t get inside the room, as all its security measures were on the same power source as his home. He would need to get generators running if he wanted to do anything further.

Going back upstairs, he stopped the first person he could get and shouted at them.

“Get some generators running, you useless idiots. We need power in the house, or the defence system is as useless as you!”

The man nodded his head, scampering toward one of the numerous sheds on the property, pulling out generators to get some power flowing again. But they still had no access to the defence system and could only power the house’s primary functions, such as lights and door locks.

This made the boss even more angry, and he shot another of his subordinates as a result.

“Will one of you turn out to be useful, or do I have to kill all of you myself?! Get us back to normal, or I swear on the Bianchi name, that I will murder all of you and your families!!”

It was a hectic night, that night, in the Bianchi mansion.