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Dumped

by: m.2

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DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, 
events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used
in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
companies, coperations, and the like, or actual events is purely coincidental.





=== ===

He didn't know if it was the constant drone or the flicker of distant red and 
blue warning lights that woke him up. And what was that mind numbing smell?
All he knew was that he had a decent headache. His eyes still closed, he tried 
to get a signal. Nothing. All he got was the humming of the brain-ethernet 
interface he had to get implanted a year ago - for his assignment. He tried 
again. The WiFi symbol in the upper right corner of his vision was blinking.
 
No Signal.

He opened his eyes and sat up. His head was pulsating in time with the distant 
drone, about to explode. An agonizing groan was all that was coming out of his 
mouth. Clutching his head with both hands, he sat there for a while until the 
throbbing died away a little.

Where was he? Not at the Con anymore that was for sure. But how did he get here?
Wherever 'here' was. And why this headache? Slowly he got up from the ground 
and raised to a more or less upright position. 

Still holding his head, he tried to look around. Without a network connection, 
the augmentation overlay was not working. So he could only guess where he was.
 
Nothing came to mind.

The darkness was almost complete — only broken by the distant red and blue 
flickering lights that reflected off what must have been hundreds of steel 
columns. He turned around slowly in the hope for a door or anything that would 
lead out of there. But all he was able to see were more steel columns that 
gleamed red and blue as far as the dim lights reached into the utter darkness.

He stepped forward to the nearest column to lean against it because he 
feared he would faint otherwise. He had to let the situation sink in and decide 
what to do. And above all, he had to find out how he got here in the first place. 
Slowly, he slid to the ground to sit down. 

Then he remembered ... 







=== 3 days earlier ===

The light of the floods that illuminated the Goliath Tower made the smog look 
like huge curtains. Something you can push aside and see what lies beyond. 
Thomas somehow liked this view from his balcony on the forty-second floor of the GT. 
He had worked long and hard to afford an apartment on a floor that was up high 
enough that he wouldn't need his Breather when he wanted to go outside. 
The air was even better farther up. 
But here, where he had lived for the last three years now, the air was good enough 
for him. The noise of the pulsating city below was so faint that it almost sounded 
like waves rolling up a sunny beach somewhere in the distance. 

But Thomas had no room in his head for such thoughts tonight. Nervously he paced
up and down in his apartment between the large window and the computer screen.
The window doubled as a holographic screen and showed a news reporter standing 
in thick smog in front of some stairs leading into a basement entrance in a 
better part of the city. Policemen brought out two guys in handcuffs. 
He instantly recognized some buddies he met at DefCon a couple of years ago. 
The reporter was talking about the biggest coup against cyber criminals in 
years. But Thomas was not listening to her words. He knew what she was saying 
anyway. And he knew who was responsible for all this.

Thomas couldn't take it any longer. He switched off the holo screen, giving way 
to a moonless night outside, and turned around to his computer. It was still 
logged in to the Oracle cluster of the Cyber Defense Ministry, the last insert 
statements still visible on the screen. 
And a nervously blinking cursor that seemed to wait impatiently for new commands. 
The statements clearly showed the names of the two guys in cuffs
and the names of some other human rights activists.

The CDM was an agency "they" created just a year ago to "Protect 
the rights of the people in a free country." But all they did was 
aggressively hunt down hackers that tried to unveil the reasons for so 
many unresolved environmental accidents that led to mysterious forms of cancer 
no doctor had ever seen before. Everybody was pretty upset about it, but nobody 
tried to say or even think anything critical. Through the augmentation implants, 
which had become very popular, "they" knew everything. Even what people thought. 
The only people talking about this were the guys at DefCon. 

Of course, no sane hacker would ever get such an implant in the first place anyway.

At DefCon, more and more talks were given on how to overcome the security measures of the 
big companies and expose the real story behind the "accidents." They also talked about 
how to jam the parts of the augmentation implants that transmitted thoughts to 
the big players in the business who sold those thoughts for a good amount of 
money. Or who gave the data away to federal agencies that were concerned about 
"destructive thoughts." 





=== ===

Thomas was still sitting on the floor. The smell was unbearable, but he couldn't 
find his Breather anywhere. And if being trapped wasn't bad enough, it was getting 
hotter and he was getting thirst. He decided to walk towards the
warning lights in the hope of finding some sort of exit. Feeling shaky, he 
got to his feet and started to walk slowly towards the lights, thinking about
the day that changed his life forever.






=== 2 years earlier ===

It was DefCon, and Thomas was really tired because the Black & White Party went
on until right before his talk in the morning. Amped up by a couple of the 
strongest energy drinks he could find, he reported his latest findings. He’d 
discovered that sending any number of pings that equaled a Fibonacci prime with 
a packet size of the same prime number would trigger a bug in a certain Windows Server 
version - a version used only by fracking companies to control their gear - and get him 
superuser privileges. He’d used the exploit to shut down several fracking machines 
in California and the German Alps.

When his talk was over, Thomas dragged himself to the elevator. The caffeine was 
already wearing off, and he couldn't think straight anymore. That was when a 
woman started talking to him on the way up to his hotel room. 
She was really eager to know more about his work as an environmental hacker, as
she called him. Thomas was suspicious at first. But she looked and talked like 
someone from the scene. And she was pretty cute.

Exhausted, he agreed to meet with her later in the day. She gave him her room 
number, and told him to stop by when he woke up. She winked at him as
she left the elevator.

Finally in his room, Thomas collapsed into his bed and was asleep in an instant.

*

When he woke up. Thomas felt like he hadn’t even slept. He sat up and rubbed his
eyes. With half closed eyes, he saw a piece of paper on the floor in front of his
bed. Without looking at the paper, he heaved a sigh of resignation and dragged
his feet towards the shower.

He wasn't sure what she wanted. Maybe she was really interested in their work as
activists. Having a girl in the group might lift their spirits.  Not to mention 
that she was kind of cute. Or maybe she wanted just him? She had invited him to 
her room after all and not asked to meet in a restaurant or the lobby. 
But then he had never heard of anyone having sex at the Con other than with their 
own hands.

When Thomas finished his thought he was dressed and ready to go. He grabbed an
energy drink and picked up the piece of paper with the room number he got from
the woman.

*

At the door to her room he hesitated. Were there voices coming out of her room?
Maybe he was hallucinating? He knocked twice. "One moment please" said a female
voice on the other side of the door. When she opened the door she smiled at him.
"Come in."

Thomas went in but didn't say anything. He felt he wasn't awake long enough to
be able to talk. "Please sit down" she said "I want you to meet somebody".
"Wait, What?!" Thomas said, but it was already to late. The bathroom door opened
and two suits came out.
One stood guard in front of the hotel room door. The other guy pushed him
into the chair that was standing behind him. Thomas knew instantly what that was
and he had always been warned that this will happen sooner or later.





=== ===

Thomas had stumbled through the darkness of the huge chamber for a while now. The
drone got louder and louder, and even the smell grew much worse than he thought
possible. He tried to focus on the lights and to forget his mouth that was dry
as a desert by now and made it almost impossible to swallow. Then his foot hit
something hard. What sounded like an empty glass bottle crashed into a pile of
stuff before him and more glass and possibly plastic and other stuff came down
in a small avalanche. Suddenly his stomach turned.
It all made sense to him now. The smell, the heat, the drone - The Dumps!





=== 2 years earlier ===

"Listen idiot!" the suit in front of him said with his finger pointed right at
his nose. “We’ve been watching your games for a while now! We don't like punks like
you that threaten national security with their twisted ideas!" 

Thomas was wide awake now — his heart pounding in his head. The adrenalin was rushing up and down
his spine. The same thing that had happened to some of his friends would happen to him
now. Interrogation. For weeks on end. Day and night. Until they had all the
information they wanted. 

Then the process of decomposition began. They had studied the person for years.
They knew all their weak points and psychically destroyed them. People that got
into the hands of the CDM spent the rest of their life in psychiatric
facilities. Those who where lucky found a way to commit suicide during the decomposition
process.

Thomas' head was spinning. " ... well, punk! Will you work for us and maybe get
out with a couple of years in jail? Or ... ?" The suit didn't finish his
sentence. He knew very well that Thomas knew what would happen to him otherwise.

Thomas stared at the woman that he'd met earlier in the day. She didn't look at him.
She sat on her bed and stared out of the window. "Come on, we do not have all
day!" The suit insisted. Thomas nodded slowly while staring to the ground. It
was all over now. They got him. 

He would be their bitch now. For better or for worse. His mind was numb as he
stood up and went to his room to pack his bags. He had to leave. He wanted to be
home. Even though that changed nothing.

On the way out, they said they would contact him for the necessary implants and
to give him further instructions after the operation. "Keep up your covers and
don't talk to anybody. Or else ... !" was the last thing the suit said to him
before Thomas left the hotel to fly home.






=== ===

Wading through knee-deep garbage, Thomas reached the source of the drone and
the warning lights. Or actually it reached him. A huge trash compacting machine
that looked like an ever-hungry centipede crept by, devouring the garbage in
front of him and spitting out little packets of compressed waste that were
carried out of sight on a conveyor belt. Thomas felt some hope. The compressed
garbage must go somewhere, and there must also be a chute or something where the
trash came in. He decided to follow the conveyor belt for a while.





=== 3 days earlier ===

When it became clear to him what he had just done, Thomas felt sickness crawl up
in him. He had betrayed some of his friends to the enemy.

"They" would call him right after his job was done they said. But nothing
happened. Thomas had waited for over thirty minutes now and had started reproaching
himself when finally the message "incoming call" flashed at the bottom of his 
vision. 

He answered. It was the voice that gave him the names to insert into the CDM
database. The guys threatening him weren't with the CDM that was sure. Or why
did he have to hack into the CDM's database cluster and issue insert statements
when the voice could just give him the names they already had anyway.

It was all very strange. He was the push button monkey for some corporation,
that was sure. "Well done Thomas." The voice on the other end said. This guy was
always friendly but direct. Just like one of those British sales persons
that all sounded alike and tried to sell you a scam over the phone. Except that
his accent sounded quite German. "Here are some more names we'd like you to
take care of,” the German said in his odd accent. He gave Thomas the names and
added "And hurry. We are pretty sure they will be at DefCon and we want them to
be caught when they enter the hotel lobby." There was a short beeping noise, 
and the letters "EOL" were displayed at the bottom of Thomas' vision.

What to do now? Thomas was unsure. If he didn't insert the data into the
database they would find out. Maybe in three days or within the next ten minutes?
He was in a mild panic.

"Calm down. Calm down,” he said to himself. He sat and thought for a while.
Then he decided to insert their names and try to intercept them just before they
entered the Con. The only problem was that the names "they" gave him didn't even
look familiar. So whom to look for then?





=== ===

The conveyor belt seemed endless. He must have been following its path for half
an hour now. His whole body started to ache, and his head was becoming woozier
with every meter he walked. The first signs of dehydration were already setting
in. But maybe he could make it. Thomas thought ab"out riding the conveyor belt.
But it was going much too fast to jump on without being ricocheted back to the
floor, breaking all his bones. He had to walk. Rubbing his head between his hands,
he stopped for a moment. Suddenly, the conveyor belt came to a screeching 
halt. Huge relays began popping like the sound of a machine gun. 
With every click, a wall of bright light approached him and finally ran him over 
and spread out behind him. Within a couple of seconds, the whole Dump was 
illuminated. Being in complete darkness for a couple of hours Thomas felt as if 
he was staring directly into the sun "What the ... ?!"





=== 12 hours ago ===

It was four hours before the ticket counters would be open. The hotel was already 
packed. Where should he start to search for people he didn't even 
know? Thomas turned around quickly searching for hints that might lead to the 
guys he was searching for. The lobby was so crowded that he couldn't see  
farther than three or four rows of people.
Panic overcame Thomas once more. But he remembered the augmentation overlay for 
his implant.

He quickly fed the names to the system and looked around. Nothing. Where were 
they? They were supposed to be here.

Thomas turned around once more in the desperate hope he would spot them, when a 
bunch of policemen followed by some guys in black suits entered the lobby. 
One of the suits pointed at him and started to walk faster. 
Damn it. "Everybody out of here! This is a raid!" Thomas suddenly shouted as loud 
as he could. Then he started to run towards the stairwell of the hotel. The 
DefCon crowd suddenly parted in all directions and chaos started to take over 
the place. The suits pointed the policemen towards some people in the now-chaotic 
crowd, then started to run after Thomas.

Thomas flew down the stairs to the basement. Damn it, where to go now? 
Left. 
Then through the tunnel. 
Then right. 
He wasn't even thinking about where he was going. 
As long as there was no wall blocking him. 
There, a door. 
It was open. 
He turned around once more. The suits were gone. 
He flew out of the door up a short flight of stairs and ran over the lawn for 
another hundred yards. Then he stopped. His breathing was so heavy that he 
thought his lungs would explode any second.

Heavily coughing from what may have been the fastest sprint in his life, he was 
wrestled to the ground from behind. "Pin him down!" He heard the very familiar 
German voice say. Then something hard landed on his head, and the world faded.





=== ===

"Hello Thomas.” The heavily accented voice came from every direction at once. 
Thomas looked around in panic. Every hair on his neck stood on end. "Quite a 
messy place to spend our time, isn't it? But we thought you might like it 
anyway. It looks like a nice home for filthy punks,” the voice went on.
 
"What were you trying to do back at the hotel? Didn't we have an agreement? 
You help us keep our business intact, and we help you stay safe!"

A big lump in Thomas' throat prevented him from speaking. All he could do was 
sit down. Tears rolled down from his eyes. It was over now. That he knew. He 
was so weak by now he couldn't even think about running away. And where could 
he run anyway?

"Don't do stupid shit with us!" the German said. But this time the words came 
from behind Thomas. Thomas turned around and there he was: A middle aged man 
in a perfectly fitting suit. He looked like how Thomas had always imagined an 
industrialist would look.

The men was guarded by two rather large and strong guys in black suits. 
"We gave you a chance. You ruined it for yourself. But we will make sure you 
won't ruin it for anybody else this time,” the industrialist said. With his 
look fixed on Thomas he said "He is yours."

Then he turned around and left.