Author’s Notes: Hello! My name is Elizabeth. Let me tell you a little about this story, since the summaries force you to be brief:

This takes place in the year 2250, after several World Wars have merged Earth into one entity, called Arestis. The reason for this are brain-controlling microchips. These used to reroute the brain’s nervous systems to put a stop to epilepsy, cancer, and even blindness. However, now, they are used for controlling the citizens of Arestis. One group of people are immune to the microchips. The government calls them defects. They call themselves the Rebellion. They want to free the world from its dystopia, but because of their small numbers and their own problems their chips can’t fix, they aren’t having much luck. But when the Rebellion leader meets and falls in love with a government agent, he changes their very ideas of right and wrong...and they learn that they might have the power to change things after all.

Chips

Prologue: In the Year 2250

In the year 2250, technology is at a new level. Everything is controlled by microchips. Everything. Not just computers; chips control radios, televisions, microwaves, telephones, cars, cameras, showers, weapons, even homes.

Even humans.

When the chip that could manipulate the human brain was first invented, it was treated with a great amount of caution and fear; if used in the wrong hands, it could be a deadly weapon. But the scientist who invented it, Dr. Howard Kashto, refused to use it for power. Instead, he controlled the brain to change eyesight, hearing, and other senses to their fullest; glasses and hearing aids became obsolete. He was able to use the chip to stop the rapid, out of control production of cells, otherwise known as cancer. He was able to program the chip to eradicate blindness, deafness, and was even able to use it to regrow lost limbs. People everywhere wanted one. Soon, it was custom for a baby to receive one at their moment of birth.

Society grew more and more dependant on the chips. Soon no one was without one. And at the height of his glory, the scientist who invented them vanished.

Shortly after, the government seized all rights to the chips. New babies who were born received newer, modified chips that were government issued. Slowly the people became repressed; the chips were now being used to control their thinking, but it happened so slowly and gradually that no one realized what was happening. Those who were born with the new, brainwashing chips soon outnumbered those with the old chips, the ones used to help people. The ones left who weren’t brainwashed by the new chips had little hope left for the future, and eventually passed away without fuss.

The fifth world war began. Babies who had had the new chips installed had grown into strong young men and women, all fighting against one another for a cause they didn’t understand. Their chips were being used to force them to fight; to win, or to lose. Every country in the world soon fell apart due to the soldiers of opposing countries being manipulated to give up fighting or to take drastic measures they would not have normally had the courage to take. The world was left without separate countries, but instead with just one faction. This new country was called Arestis. They planted their capital—Arestis City—in what had once been New York City and let it grow. Soon, it was referred to as the center of the universe.

And in the year 2250, technology is at a new level. Everything is controlled by microchips. Everything.

Even humans.

There are some humans, however, who do not respond to the brainwashing chips. They, for whatever reasons, are born differently, and so the chips cannot repress their minds in the same way that other humans are so easily repressed. These people are labeled “defects”. They are taken from their homes and families off to testing labs, and are never heard from again. Anyone who protests this treatment, or anything else the government decides to do, is also taken, said to be dangerous and insane.

To protest the government activities means death, or worse.

But there is one small group of people, known simply as the Rebellion, who protest anyway.

x-x-x

Rain lashed against the windows of the houses of Central Arestis. It always did on nights like this. The only time when the Raven spread its wings was during the rain.

A dark figure wearing a hooded jacket and a pair of shades made its way quietly down the street, stepping in puddles along the way, and ignoring the chill in the air. It eventually reached the top of a set of stairs to a house that did not belong to it.

“Please give access code,” the security system beeped, and the person smirked.

“You, security system, are far more polite than most people I know...”

“Invalid code. Please try again.”

“One one two five,” the person replied, after they had stopped laughing.

“Thank you. Please wait.”

The door soon beeped, indicating it was unlocked. The person pushed open the door, and stepped inside, seemingly not caring that the carpet beneath them was getting soaked. In fact, it was a good thing to be so wet. Fingerprints, DNA samples, and the like, would all be harder to get this way.

“Now, I need a computer...” Thoughtful eyes scanned the room quietly, well used to seeing in the dark. “Aha.”

The computer had soon been booted up, but there was still the matter of logging in to the government’s files.

“Now who should I log in as today...hmm, I know the code for this one, he’ll do.” The mouse moved up to the name “Darrel LonSord” and clicked. When prompted for a password, the fingers hesitantly typed out LonSord’s serial number, trying to drag it up from memory. No one was supposed to know his serial number but him, but the Rebellion had its ways of finding out a lot of things the government didn’t want anybody to know. When it prompted for a second password, the one every agent had to know and was the master password, the fingers slowly but surely typed in one hundred memorized digits.

The person’s face, visible with the light from the monitor, was now smirking. They raised the wristwatch on their wrist and pushed a tiny button that looked as though it was used to set the alarm.

It was not used to set any kind of alarm.

The person opened the wristwatch; all the was underneath the plate was the time...and a very small light bulb. From the light, a hologram rose up, appearing since the watch was now opened. It was a small green square, that said, very simply, “Input Command.”

It was voice activated.

“Contact Ookami, number six nine four eight nine oh.”

“Please wait.” The watch beeped, signaling that the line was open.

“Ookami, I'm in, over,” the person said quietly.

“Gotcha, Raven. Over.” The voice floated through the speaker of the watch, also quietly.

“See anyone yet? Over.”

“No, the coast is clear. Just hurry up, you’re making me jumpy, over.”

Raven laughed.

“Not to worry, I don’t think our Mr. LonSord will notice I'm borrowing his name for awhile. Over.”

Raven, now logged in as the man known as Darrel LonSord, started deleting files out of the precious database the government used to hide its little secrets. There was no use reading the files; Raven had read them all before, and there was no way to get access to the top secret ones without lots of time at hand, which, unfortunately, was not available at the moment; as soon as Raven was discovered, the time to flee would be at hand.

So Raven patiently deleted and messed with the government files, making sure to do it just right so everything would have to be replaced manually by Darrel LonSord.

Unfortunately for Raven, Darrel LonSord was watching.

x-x-x

“Warning. Warning. Warning.”

Darrel LonSord looked up from his novel at his laptop, his baby, his one true love. The only thing he could get along with and that got along with him. However good his reading was, he could not get annoyed with it—but the hacker was someone he could definitely get pissed at.

“Warning,” it told him again. He sighed resignedly and put the book down.

“Bring it up,” Darrel said in an irritated voice. His job was to keep out hackers, but usually the warnings were false alarms, and he wanted to get back to his book.

“User is logged on at two stations.”

“Shit,” Darrel cursed. No false alarm. Ah, well. Stupid rebel hackers didn’t know what they were doing. He smirked; he had an easy solution for this. “System, shutdown.”

“Password required.”

Darrel moved over to type in his serial number, which was the password each government agent used to log in. The system began to shut down.

x-x-x

“Aah, so he did notice,” Raven mused, from the other end of the system. “Well I'm not done yet, LonSord.” Raven hit several keys on the keyboard, inputting Darrel’s social security number again. “System, override the previous command. Oh, and kick the other user out, they’re a hacker.”

Raven had to snicker at this irony.

x-x-x

“What the...” Darrel stared as the system stopped shutting down and booted back up. It attempted to kick him, but he put in his password back in to override it.

Okay, so this hacker did know what he was doing.

He and the hacker had a battle of commands for awhile. He would put in a command, but before it finished loading, it would be overridden by the hacker, who apparently had all his information. At the same time, every time the hacker put in a command, he would use his password to override it, too.

He did the only thing he could do; get the IP from which the hacker was working. As soon as he got the IP, the agents could be dispatched, and maybe they would catch the rebels once and for all...

Darrel got the IP and wrote it down. Then, on a stroke of brilliance, he entered in a code that enabled him to control the computer.

“Activate webcam.”

x-x-x

Raven finished deleting all the files quickly. Seemed like Darrel LonSord had given up; there had been no more overriding commands and now the database was gone. Raven raised the watch.

“Ookami, I got it. I’ll be out in a few. Over.”

“Hurry up, I hear sirens, over,” came the worried reply.

Raven frowned at the computer. All that was left was to leave a mark. Raven opened up the notepad program and typed in, “We want our freedom back. Next time it will be worse. Stop the oppression.” Raven double-spaced down to add the signature.

“Raven.”

The document was saved, and Raven changed the password of the government’s database again, to give them a harder time to get back in. Then the Raven flew the coop, not noticing the little red light that came on the computer’s built-in webcam.

x-x-x

“Raven?” Darrel said, thunderstruck, reading the file the hacker had left. “The Raven?” He smirked as he brought the screen from the webcam up. “The famous leader of the rebels. Finally we will have a face to go with the...name...”

Darrel stopped, staring at the screen. His words died in his throat.

He saw a dark figure dash away from the screen. All he could catch was a flash of very long red hair, and then the silhouette, lined against the window in a flash of lightning.

The silhouette had curves.

Curves.

The illustrious Raven, the famous rebel leader, the master hacker...was a woman.

“I’ll be damned.”

x-x-x

It’s wonderful, she thought. Even if they see my face...even if they learn my name...

She leapt from the roof of the house to the roof of another, where her partner stood waiting for her.

They’ll never catch me.

Author’s Notes: I hope you enjoyed that! If you are interested in more, please visit ArestisCity DOT Net! The story is there, along with a webcomic adaptation my boyfriend is drawing, character profiles, and other extras. We’ve worked pretty hard on it, so please take a little time to drop by and tell us what you think! If you like this chapter, I will put the others (that I have completed) on here as well.