Hax #129

Gray's hideout

"Everything looks in check..." I muttered to no one in particular as I sat on my couch, double-checking my work and the status of the malware I've planted in the task force x database.

It has been a week and several days since my conversation with Deadshot. I kept myself busy by helping Patrick and the others sort out the theatre, recreating my trench coat, and upgrading my Sentry Spiders.

I've also met Cassandra on multiple occasions. It never ceased to surprise me how much of a ball of blind optimism and happiness she was, despite her circumstances, which were considerably worse than mine when I first came here.

It reached the point where I couldn't hold back my curiosity and used my empathy on her to see what was really going on, and what I found was even more shocking.

Her aura was a mixture of green and violet (willpower and guilt,) so bright that it almost blinded me. I shit you not, my eyes took actual damage from it, and my vision grew fuzzy for a second before my healing factor kicked in.

Cassandra had an ungodly amount of will, the will to help, to make people happy, and make the world a better place. Sadly, there was no will to live, and the violet color (guilt) vastly outshone the green.

The girl had what I could only interpret as a death wish, and I wasn't talking about recklessness. She had no attachment to her life, viewing it as worthless, likely because of her guilt.

It was a sad sight, and I wanted to help her, but I'm no psychiatrist and had my own demons. I didn't want to be the well-intentioned fool who fucked everything up out of a misplaced desire to be helpful.

Thus, I did the only thing I knew I couldn't fuck up and just tried my best to be a decent human being around her whenever we met, which was more difficult than I expected since being an anti-social asshole became second nature to me.

Fictional character or not, no one deserved to suffer as she did, and being nice to her was the least I could do, so I did just that. Still, her interactions with Patrick, the others, and Little Soot seemed to lessen her guilt, albeit extremely slowly.

Hopefully, the little demon would cure her depression in time, but it was out of my hand, so there was no point broaching the subject to myself anymore.

In any case, my software was at work in the background, finding new weaknesses by the hour, which I packed full of sleeper malware, waiting for this very moment. It was finally time to get the evidence I needed to get rid of Waller, once and for all.

...

Belle Reve

Seated behind her office, Director Waller was reading the latest reports from the operatives she sent to Gotham to do various tasks, such as hunting for Gray's whereabouts, helping Multiplex stage his assassination attempts, and so forth.

She froze and sharply turned to the door as the prison's alarms activated, signally trouble. The door immediately opened, and an agent in a black suit walked through, tightly gripping his gun.

"We have an emergency, Director. Blockbuster has escaped his cell, and he's currently attempting to free other prisoners," the agent quickly reported as he stood before Waller.

"Please allow me to accompany you to safety until the situation is resolved," he impatiently added, hurriedly gesturing towards the door to emphasize his words.

"Calm down, agent..." Waller said, frowning in displeasure at the agent's slightly panicked appearance. "My instructions were clear; if any of the 'special' prisoners were to escape, you are to terminate them," she calmly added.

"So why haven't you activated the explosive ship in Blockbuster's head?" she asked, her frown growing more pronounced as she gave the agent a sharp look.

"We already tried, director," the agent replied, sounding even more impatient. "It didn't work," he concluded, and the simplicity of his answer gave even Waller pause.

"Either way, there are contingencies for such occasions. Stop making a fool of yourself and inform the crisis-management squad to get in position and subjugate the prisoner or terminate him as need be," Waller instructed, maintaining her calm.

"Yes, ma'am," the agent said, finally regaining his composure after witnessing Waller's calm attitude. He then left the office, already barking orders through his walkie-talkie.

'Wraith...' Waller thought as she recalled the one occasion when the explosive chips hadn't worked so far. However, she didn't get to overthink the subject as she received a call from her cyber security team.

...

Gray's hideout

'They sure work fast...' I mused, smiling as I opened my eyes. Waller team's reaction to my cyber attack was surprisingly quick and efficient as they immediately began fighting back.

If I wasn't so thoroughly prepared, I might have even struggled, and they might have been able to thwart my efforts. However, they were ill-prepared to handle an attack of this degree, especially with a good chunk of them busy trying to bring Blockbuster's chip back online.

Their attention split, and taken by surprise; they could do nothing as I broke through the firewall and began ransacking the database to my heart's content while my malware destroyed whatever security measure they activated to salvage the situation.

And as I browsed the database, I discovered that the controls over the explosive chips and prison cells were part of the mainframe, and that's when I started hesitating.

At that moment, I only needed a thought to deactivate every control chip and unlock every goddamned door in Belle Reve, and that would have been the end of Amanda Waller.

I'd imagine the first thing those vicious villains would do is find Waller and tear her to shreds once they were free, and that would have been the end of any threat Waller might present to me.

However, that wouldn't have been the end of it. The villains likely kill every guard in there, every janitor, every visitor, not to mention those they'll kill once free.

I didn't want that on my conscience. I might have blood on my ledger. However, not all blood is equal. Some people's lives were worth more than others, and I wasn't talking about their monetary value.

The Beast, Copperhead, and Merlin were all scumbags. I would avoid killing them if I had the chance to redo things, but the world was undoubtedly a better place without them.

However, most of those working in Belle Reve were honest, hardworking folk out to feed themselves and their families. Letting those monsters get to them would end in tragedy.

Suffice to say, I immediately squashed the idea as soon as it formed in my head, and the fact that I even thought of doing something like this makes me sick.

Still, I needed a distraction to be sure everything would go smoothly, even if there were no hiccups till that point. Blockbuster, the sometimes brainless brute, sometimes genius criminal mastermind, was the perfect guy for the job.

However, I only set him free once I activated certain contingencies already put in place by Waller's people to stop him from killing anyone, and it worked like magic.

The guards and government agents were running around like headless chickens, and the cyber security team was at a loss at what to prioritize between the rampaging Blockbuster and my digital assault.

Still, they reorganized rather quickly when Waller took charge of the situation, and they were already taking out my malware one after the other, but it was too late.

I was already in without them even knowing, and now all I had to do was download the entire database, which might take a couple of days. Even if they did know, I had countermeasures, but that was highly unlikely.

...

Belle Reve

As she stood in the prison's server room, which technically didn't exist, Waller frowned while watching a dark-skinned man with an afro and a thick mustache work in checking servers' integrity.

"I-it all looks good," the man said, stuttering as he closed his laptop and disconnected it from the servers. "B-but I gotta say, this was probably a distrac— distraction," he added, adjusting his glasses as he turned to Waller.

"W-who ever did— did this; did it to get into the database while your cyber security t-team was busy dealing with the malware..." he added after Waller gestured for him to keep talking.

"Can you find who did this, Gorman?" Waller asked after a bout of silence, giving the man a hard stare that caused him to flinch, but he quickly nodded, seemingly eager to please.

"I-if they're still inside; def— definitely. B-but it will take some time, and the culprit might be able— be able to get what they want by then," The man, Gorman explained.

"T-the best option i-s to shut down— down the servers to keep them from what they want and move the data to a new, more secure server from the backups..." he concluded, giving Waller the best course of action.

"If you find the whereabouts of the culprit, he won't be able to use anything he gets..." Waller blankly said. "Do this, and you'll be a free man with a clean record. I might even be willing to offer you a decent job."

...

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