Overthrow

The bag was taken off of Crimson's head, revealing to her that she was on a beach, "So..." Crimson began, "am I in?" Behind her were five other people.

"Welcome to BlackOut," said the first voice. The person with the robotic voice and a new person brought Crimson to her feet and undid her handcuff. "I'm Moonshine." Her hair was baby blue and swept to one side. She was wearing an off-shoulder top, and jean shorts. "This sweetheart here is Arrowhead A.K.A. 'B@listics'," Arrowhead was wearing a black baseball cap, gray shirt, and black track pants. His hair was a dark brown.

"Yo! You're B@listics? Man, I loved your Fraternity hack. Real talk," said Crimson. She put her hand out for a high-five, but Arrowhead didn’t do it.

"... Thanks," he said.

"This weirdo is Sledge," said Moonshine as she pointed at the person with the robotic voice. She was wearing a black leather vest over a dark gray hoodie with the hood on, black jeans, and a black mask that had a visor which uses LED lights creating pictures. A bit of her mint green and aquamarine hair hung slightly over her right eye.

"The needs of the many," said Sledge as he separated her pinky and ring finger from her middle and index finger.

"This enigma is Sequoia," said Moonshine as she pointed at a fourth person. Sequoia wore a white tank top and blue jeans. His hair was pastel red with gray stripes and was messy. Sequoia gave Crimson a sloppy two-fingered salute.

"And this Casanova is Storm Call," said Moonshine as she pointed at the final person. Storm Call wore a hoodie with BlackOut written on the chest and baggy blue jeans. His hair was dark blue and shaggy.

"What's up, man," said Storm as he grabbed Crimson by the hand, pulled her in, and patted her on the back.

"'Sup, man," Crimson said in response. She looked over the five people. "It's the crew, huh? Took y'all long enough to get me, shit."

Later that night, the six of them sat around a campfire and started drinking. "You saw Blume's bullshit. CTOS isn't just regulating infrastructure. The amount of personal data in that thing." Crimson was slurring because of all the drinks she had.

"Yeah, it's Big Brother and little brother, all rolled up into one," added Storm.

"Uh?" asked Sledge. She scratched her head in confusion.

"It sees everything you do and tells on you," answered Arrowhead. Arrowhead was the only person that wasn't drinking.

"Thank you Arrowhead," said Storm.

"So what's the fix?" asked Moonshine.

"Sledgehammers and fire," said Sledge excitedly. She pointed at the air. "No, sledgehammers ON fire." Sledge began to get up but spilled a drink onto Moonshine. "Oh sorry," Sledge said apologetically.

"All that data in one place mean, they can reject your fucking application before you click on it," said Crimson.

"Congratulations, you have been pre-rejected for our credit card," mockingly said Storm, trying to replicate the voice of an automated system.

"Your house or your insurance." Crimson lied down on her back.

"That's not even the worst case scenario. All the data in the hands of the government? They'll arrest you for shit before you even do it," said Moonshine. She pushed herself up slightly with her hands.

"Yeah, I've been there. And now I fucking know why. You know what, fuck it. Fuck it!" Crimson stood up, "Fuck it, man. We're hackers. We, we outthink, we out-dare. I-I say we tear down the fucking wall. Show everyone what Blume's up to, man. Show the world that their personal information is being used to rob them of their fucking freedoms. Fuck..." Crimson took a sip of her drink. "I installed a backdoor, so all we got to do is walk right through." Everybody began to think.

"Hold on, you what?" asked Storm.

"He installed a back door, so all we have to do is walk through," Arrowhead repeated.

"Bingo," said Crimson, elongating the "o" at the end.

Later, Crimson went off to the said to vomit. As she finished a person jogging walked up to her. "Hey, man. You got the time?" he asked. His hair was sapphire blue, with cerulean and dark blue streaks, and was in a man-bun. His bushy beard was the same color.

"Uh, yeah man," said Crimson as she took out her phone, but she dropped it.

"I got it, I got it." The man picked up the phone and checked the time.

"It's kinda late for a night run, isn't it? Hey, what are you... you're running from the cops?" jokingly asked Crimson and she giggled at herself.

"Maybe I am one." The man made eye contact with Crimson

"Hey, you... you look familiar." Crimson pointed at the man as she stumbled to her right. The man just gave her back her phone.

"Have a good party." The man jogged away after that.

Crimson shrugged and then looked at her phone. "Ping this, motherfuck..." said Crimson as she threw her phone into the water. The force of the swing made her fall over."Fuck you, Blume. I'm gonna go have a god damn good time."

The next morning, Crimson woke up on the floor to a phone ringing. She was down to only her white tank top and tan shorts. Answering the phone she said, "Hello? Whose phone is this?"

"It's your new phone." The voice was Moonshine's.

"Where's my phone?"

"In the ocean, where you threw it, I think? I don't remember. I was pretty smashed. Look, go to work, then meet us at the at the hackerspace."

“Where is it?” asked a confused Crimson

"Check your pics and figure it out." Crimson sighed and hung up.

"Okay, c'mon, get the fuck up." Crimson slowly pushed herself up. She looked around and stopped. "Yo, whose place am I in?" Crimson turned around to see a half naked man sleep on the bed. Crimson went outside and looked out to the water from the porch. "Damn, last night was one party," said Crimson to Moonshine through the BlackOut channel.

Moonshine laughed and said, "Like Mardi Gras. Go get yourself something to wear and I'll tell you how to get to your job from there. Oh, and you'll need your phone ready for operations, so hit the store and download your apps before you get there."

"Damn, walk of shame on my first day." Crimson opened up the app shop on her phone and downloaded the apps "Car on Demand", "Nudle Maps", "Media Player", "SongSneak", “Driver SF” and "Director's Cut". Crimson called in a Driver SF worker to drive her to her house, and she got her work attire on. She got into her car and hurriedly drove to Blume Corporations Offices, with Moonshine giving her direction. She arrived to work on time, checked in, and sat down at her desk. About halfway through her work day, Twilight Sparkle walked up to Crimson.

Twilight smiled at Crimson. "My brother told me you had quite the party last night," she said.

"Who's your..." Crimson tilted her head slightly to the left.

"Shining Armor. He asked you for the time last night."

"Oh... I remember."

"So tell me, what was the party for? Was it for getting hired?" Twilight grinned.

"Naw, it was... it was just friends hanging out," said Crimson as she scratched her head.

"You look pretty... shall we say, beat. Tell you what, I'll let you go home now. But let's keep this just between us, Shining gets upset when I let people go early."

"Oh… thanks." Crimson got up from her seat.

"Just, don't over do it next time."

"Will do." Crimson walked out of the building and got into her car. Crimson entered the BlackOut channel and said, "Alright Moonshine, got out of work early. Where are you at?"

"Sending you the location... and the passcode for the door," Moonshine answered. Crimson drove to the hideout: Games, Glory, and Goblins. Crimson parked her car and inside the car, changed into more casual attire. She entered the shop, and when into the back, where you found a door with a keypad on it. She entered the code Moonshine gave her and the door opened. It revealed a staircase leading to the basement, which was covered in wall art. There were multiple screens as well. "Yo!"

"Finally!" said Moonshine. "So, Arrowhead and I spoke, and fucking over Blume has been a long-standing project."

"You need two things to take down Blume. You need to get people to rally behind your cause to separate you from the trolls," added Storm.

"And we need bots and a lot of them to handle the data CTOS is processing," said Arrowhead.

"Thank you Arrowhead."

"We spent all night modifying our app, so you can get followers to download the app, so we can use their processing power for the cause," said Moonshine.

"This is happening? It's really happening?" wondered Crimson.

"Mmhm."

"Yeah man, this is happening! You'd better get to it!" exclaimed Storm.

Sledge chimed in. "Hell yeah, man! Barbarians are at the gate and ready to burst some Gryphon heads."

"Yeah, we gonna focus on some high-profile ops and play them for exposure and laughs to get people to download our app," said Storm.

"Don't worry, we'll start with something fun," said Moonshine extending the "u" in "fun".

"Well, this will be interesting," said Crimson as she walked off to begin her work as a BlackOut member.