Day 15: Power corrupts

6 am

They were staring out the window, the video behind me three dead greenhorns. Cut down with a blade made out of bone. It seems they got that wish of theirs to see the game, but as victims. It was not pretty, crying, blood, guts. It was brutal and time-consuming. It was locked in an old tunnel, running, abandoning each other, like rats.

I told her to take the weekend off. She did not enjoy watching that much violence. Paid a bonus, approved week off paid time off rare for being so new to the company. She smiled warmly, but it didn't reach her eyes. I don't think she will be back. But, whatever tons of little fucks that wanna be at the top ain't mean they all deserve that chance.

Knives in the dark bleed. The most brilliant! The title of the stream blinking at me as it ended over and over with neon dripping blood. The right hand is coming up to wave it away. Cigarette between my lips not yet light, as I take out my gold plated zippo, flicking it on leaning into the flame.

Smoke is curling around me as I think for a moment, the youngest man ever to run CI for this company. But the sharpest, the best I'm told, and I aint' here for the last failure of a chief.

Here working this out of school now. Trained by the corporate training for one purpose since a young age, to find and to control. To protect, my childhood is a wash of black memories, but what fills in those holes is knowledge.

Purest of knowledge, how to work and to sort the information. To find the holes, to fill them, I was told it was a test. I was the first person to get out sane and able to channel the knowledge. I'm labeled in my HR file. I hacked it to see it subject 65. They have tried since, and it has failed. I know this is why they watch me, through the feeds, through people. I'm never truly alone. I'm subject, but because I work granted some freedom.

Freedom in this city means, no-one is breathing down your neck actively. Not that you are given privacy, there is no privacy in this dome.

My cold deep blue eyes watching it, my dark skin reflected in the light of the glass, as I stand there. As I send off the mail, I am thinking now, reporting this as closed and banning the finding of such devices. Not my job to tell the peons, but I sent it to the peon controller that scary lousy HR.

One fucking lousy day is coming for those that sold them out. I got the names and well images of the dead on my desk. Another bonus to pay out, I never seem to leave my home to work anymore. It's all netrunning and finding information. I forget what my office even looks like lately.

Fucking hell, these little rats will burn for this. Two dead fixers, three deadly kidnappers, and one dead law officer. My words and my hand brutalized the ones doing it after finding them. It was supposed, trace the money find the crime.

But yeah, greed is a fun vice. There is a rich, filthy rich, and the dumb and rich. All of those tend to understand the value of power and money. But the lucky rich are the ones that are dumb. They earned nothing, but steal cheat, or find the fortune. These are the ones that I have seen do such things. Wasting it overspending, leading themselves deep into the dark places of the dome.