"Yeah, I can," Alphon said flatly. "I can expose the banking cartel behind the corporate faà §ade, and I can name the people pulling the strings. You folks have hollowed out the world in your greed, and left large parts of it a hair's-breadth from collapsing. I know. It's my business to know. And I can pull it all down. Just give me an excuse!"
"You couldn't," Joe said confidently. "Too many people would get hurt."
"And you'd be wrong. I'd do it to get your masters."
"Be serious, Quince. We have complete control of the communications networks. All we have to do is drop you off the net. And don't think we won't!"
"Oh, I don't doubt you'd try," Ferd said, stepping to the side to force Joe to shift his focus. "The thing is, you'd be getting a hell of a lot more than you bargained for."
Joe turned the droid and gave him an exasperated look.
"Who the hell do you think keeps the infrastructure running these days? It sure as hell isn't the companies that decided to forego maintenance, on the bet that things wouldn't fall apart while the jerks in the penthouse offices were still around. Your masters are probably congratulating themselves on being so lucky for so long. But luck had nothing to do with it."
"Get to the point, or I'll torch your other foot."
Alphon had turned, and was now looking directly at Ferd.
"The underground hacker collective has been patching things together for decades. Take the Hyperloop run into New Orleans. The tubes are sh*t. They're falling apart. We hacked an override so we could manually ease it past obstructions. Trust me. I was on duty yesterday when the number 32 magnet assembly fell off."
"You mean that wasn't just a clever AI?" Alphon blurted. "I thought""
Joe sneered, ignoring Alphon's outburst. "So what? New Orleans was written off a long time ago. You stop that run, and you're only hurting yourself."
Ferd's stance stiffened. "Oh, no. I'm not just talking about one stretch of backwater HL tube. Just about all of the infrastructure that depends on tech to keep it running has been neglected like that to keep a few fat cats from having to give up some of their obscene profits. And not just here. All over the world. The collective is the only thing that's holding what's left of the tech world together." He stopped to catch his breath, and then dropped the other shoe. "You really don't want to see what happens if we call a strike!"
The screen went dark.
Alphon smiled to himself briefly, and then drew the microwave gun from his belt. He aimed it at the drone and waited.
A few seconds later, the screen came on, and Joe glanced at them, a troubled look on his face.
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