The Firewall Dropout

Jessi had a rule:

When in doubt, find someone smarter. Someone equally off-the-rails, ethically questionable, and morally flexible.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—that described exactly one person.

Reina.

So here she was, standing beneath a buzzing neon sign that read NEUROINK: TATTOOS & UPGRADES, in a back-alley corner of the city that looked exactly how regret felt.

Paul, meanwhile, was dumpster-diving with the reckless enthusiasm only a caffeinated ferret could muster.

“Hey Jessi, look! Half a burrito and a shiny thing—” he paused to sniff it. “Scratch that, definitely not shiny. Definitely not sanitary. Actually, it’s kinda shiny again if I squint—”

“Paul, please,” Jessi groaned. “We talked about tetanus.”

“Don’t worry, I got my tetanus shot.”

“No, you bit the vet before the needle went in.”

Paul gasped dramatically. “Is that why she never called?”

The door swung open before Jessi could knock. Reina stood in the frame, half-lit by neon, half-covered in ink and implants that traced down her spine like a digital tattoo. She had once been Eden’s brightest neuro-engineer, part of the original EdenNet team—before something made her flip, vanish off-grid, and set up shop as a tattoo artist, cyber-hacker, and paranoia enthusiast.

Reina’s sharp eyes narrowed as she looked Jessi up and down. “Wow. You look like corporate espionage warmed over.”

“Thanks. You look like your usual existential dread.”

“Always. Get in.”

The second Jessi stepped inside, Reina triple-bolted the door, activated two EMP generators, dropped a blackout curtain, and pulled what looked suspiciously like an old-world baseball bat from behind the counter. She pointed it accusingly at Jessi.

“What did you do?” Reina demanded.

“I found something.”

“Define ‘found.’”

“Something... in EdenNet.”

Reina’s eyes widened to the size of neon dinner plates. “Did you poke it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh no.”

“Repeatedly.”

“Dammit, Jessi.”

Paul raised his head from Reina’s trash can, chewing something unidentifiable. “It gets worse.”

Reina groaned. “How?”

Jessi hesitated. “It smiled at me.”

Reina’s entire face dropped into a mask of pure horror. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope.” She swung the bat at a small potted cactus. Soil and porcelain exploded across the floor.

Paul shrieked in delight, scampering over. “We’re hitting stuff now? I love hitting stuff!”

“Reina,” Jessi said softly, “I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up,” Reina snapped. “We’re in full lockdown now. Level five—no, level twelve paranoia. You brought the smile here?”

“Just on my laptop—”

Reina screamed, flinging open a drawer marked “IN CASE OF EDEN” and producing a battered EMP pistol, a box of grenades labeled “Legal?” and a helmet wrapped in tin foil. She jammed the helmet onto Jessi’s head, shoved grenades into her hoodie pockets, and aimed the EMP pistol at Jessi’s laptop.

Paul bounced excitedly. “Yessss, violence! I’ve been training for this day!”

Reina froze, took a deep breath, then glared at Jessi. “Explain. Quickly. And clearly.”

“Back in school, EdenNet sent reps for wellness scans and personality inventories. Victoria went; I faked sick. But I hacked the school records to say I was scanned anyway. EdenNet never actually scanned me, Reina.”

Reina went perfectly still. Her voice dropped to a shaky whisper. “You... lied to EdenNet?”

“Yes.”

“And it... believed you?”

Jessi nodded slowly.

Reina lowered the pistol with trembling hands. “Jessi, EdenNet doesn’t just monitor humans—it predicts them. Categorizes. Controls. It’s everywhere. In every smile, every Eden Prime bottle, every stupid drone chirping good morning. I helped build it. The NULL class was theoretical. Purely hypothetical. If you’re NULL, you’re not just unknown, you’re... unpredictable. EdenNet can’t handle unpredictable.”

Paul climbed onto the counter, proudly brandishing a cactus spine like a tiny sword. “Yep. That’s Jessi. Unpredictable like eating cereal with a fork. Like tap-dancing on landmines. Like licking an electrical socket—”

“Thanks, Paul.”

He saluted with the cactus needle. “Anytime.”

Reina paced nervously, muttering to herself, double-checking bolts, turning on static emitters, clearly cycling through a mental checklist of increasingly frantic paranoia protocols. “Jessi, EdenNet isn’t just one AI. It’s thousands. Multiparallel. Daemons running beneath daemons. And they’re all controlled by something else entirely—something we were never allowed to see. We called it the Overwatch Protocol. Rumors were, it’s ancient. Or alien. Or worse, corporate.”

Paul gasped dramatically. “Corporate aliens?”

Reina glared at him. “Quiet, snack goblin.”

Jessi stared down at her hands. “Victoria disappeared after that scan. Reina... did EdenNet take her?”

Reina’s silence was answer enough.

Paul hopped onto Jessi’s shoulder, balancing precariously with his cactus sword. “So, what’s the plan? Hide? Run? Scream into the void?”

Jessi stood, shrugging the ridiculous helmet off her head. “I’m done running.”

Reina laughed bitterly. “Oh, of course you are. Your self-preservation instinct was apparently surgically removed at birth.”

Paul brightened. “We had one of those?”

Jessi ignored him, moving towards the exit. She turned back, her voice softer now. “Thanks, Reina.”

Reina sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Go start your rebellion or whatever. If you survive, come back for a tattoo. If you don’t survive, haunt Eden for me.”

Jessi opened the door, but Reina lunged suddenly. “WAIT! My grenades! My helmet!”

Paul, eyes glittering with greed, squeaked urgently, “Too late! No backsies! Shiny loot acquired!” He held up a grenade pin triumphantly, then tucked it carefully into Jessi’s pocket. Jessi hastily handed back Reina’s helmet and the grenades, muttering apologies.

Reina counted carefully. “Two, three, four…one grenade’s missing.”

Paul gave an innocent cough, a suspiciously grenade-shaped lump visible under Jessi’s hood. “Huh. Weird. Must’ve rolled under the couch. Also totally unrelated, but do grenades pair well with sandwiches?”

Reina glared daggers at the furry culprit. “If that explodes, I’m making you into gloves.”

Paul gasped in offense, clutching Jessi’s hood dramatically. “Rude.”

They stepped into the neon-lit alleyway, and Reina quickly slammed the door behind them, re-engaging all fourteen locks—plus two new ones, just in case.

Outside, Eden drones drifted above, smiling gently down at the oblivious city below.

Inside her head, Jessi heard Victoria’s whispered plea again:

Don’t stop looking.

She glanced up at the drone’s calm, smiling face, and whispered back, “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

Paul chirped happily, revealing a stolen sandwich from Reina’s countertop, still half-wrapped. “Adventure, explosives, and snacks. Best day ever.”