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A final keystroke and it was done. Done and done again, a thousand times over, repeated and relayed by the hundreds and thousands of computers connected by the invisible network binding them all.

The users would never notice. They couldn't, not by now. The worm was embedded deep into their systems' fundaments, below even the operating system. It leveraged any platform, any CPU, any amount of computing power, no matter where or when or who was using it or why.

The little red LED on the camera began to flash on and off. She locked eyes with it, adjusted the shemagh so that it covered her fine features, and hefted her AK-47 so that it was plainly visible.

"We are NwaR," she said, in accented by understandable English. "We are everywhere... we know everything and we can't be stopped. At this moment, there are hundreds of us, waiting in the shadows, for the right time-the right signal. And when it comes, the Motherland will never be the same."

Fifteen seconds. No more. She hit the switch to the surge protector and at once, every single article of technology in the room powered down. Each had been daisy-chained to that one switch, that single point of failure-and it was intentional. She needed an safety cutoff, in case the FSB got too close, in case something happened. And after fifteen seconds, the risk was too high.

She gripped her rifle tighter. Looked outside at the falling rain, so cold it crystallized into ice when it struck.

Nothing. Just silence, darkness, and the ever-gripping cold. For the moment, at least, she was safe.

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Fifty meters. Now drop. Fifty meters. Now drop. Fifty meters. Now drop.

When it had once worn her, made her muscles burn, now it was almost routine. Almost boring. Almost muscle memory enough that she could retreat into the endless expanses of her mind, and lose herself.

And so she had. She had long since lost track of how many sprint-burpee circuits she had completed, so now she just... kept doing them.

Why not, after all? Why not? There was nothing to distract her. Nothing to bother her. The city was alive and it was dead, the decaying structures around her were organic and artificial, steel rusted and now sprouting plantlife; the mud beneath her boots was likewise a dichotomy, semi-radioactive heavy metal mixed with the refuse of thet city.

And it was snow. It was snowing hard, almost a whiteout, almost enough to blot out the protesters, the rioters, the freedom fighters depending on who you asked, and the thugs, the fascists, the fearless blue lives maintaining order and peace who were fighting them.

Flares. Tear gas. Rubber bullets and occasionally, bullets.

Yelling. Crying. Swearing. Blood.

Fifty meters. Now drop. Fifty meters. Now drop. Fifty meters. Now drop.

She felt a desire come to her. A familiar desire for the warmth of stained wood and the chill of stamped metal. The honed perfection of hard-cast slugs and tarnished brass.

If only she had her AK-47. That could bring real change to the Motherland, real change that was needed, now and forever, and ever and ever, and aim at the cops, aim at the protestors, aim at herself, and then pull the trigger.

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Soft percussion damped by tattered clothes, written by men who ate grits and wore no shoes. A cello played in the background but in the dark, through the smoke, she barely heard it.

She lifted a vase to her lips. No, a glass, a mug, a somesuch anyway. Drinkish meschmeer gleben shemerven. And fulled a pace and burnish zumurgen.

Gleblicket! Geschmecken zukunften! Nicht geseiben durkermen!

And then she set it down and stared. Stared at the walls of white, black in the darkness. Stared at her fingers, black painted with lipstick, now red painted with blood as she bit them and chewed them and then ripped them off.

They wanted an explanation. They all eventually would. The shapes...

The figures...

The sillhouettes... around... her...

She... needed... an... explan... a... tion...

Getreib! Getreib Sie! Geschweibgeschwichitel...

Drei...

Zwei...

Ein...

She stood, shakily, then gave her hair a toss so that she could see again. Which she could always see, because she always could see, because she was clear-minded and strong and straight and true.

Even so. They wanted the truth. They needed the truth. They deserved the truth, and if they didn't get it, there would be Hell to pay.

And then it came to her. Just tell the truth and it'll all be okay. Tell the truth starting right now today. What do we mean, who do we are, where do we came from and what am I now?

A blank cryptic smile touched one side of her painted lips. And then she explained:

NWA. Russia.