A poster flew past her, the wind blowing heavily, rain had stopped pouring while darkness covered the ground with its curtain of shadows, silhouetting the tall buildings around. Her eyes remained forward, the streets gleaming at brightness and light, like a parade with beaming bulbs, and a glowing white coming from the big screen in front.
"Now live at Fox NewsFad Station," the voice of a woman, echoed through the busy street of New York Time Square.
It was rush hour this time around, and neither, nor not everyone pays close enough attention to care about some news. They needed to catch up with the train, and their shift to work. Some, like Rubi, stood there for a moment, eyes locked on the big screen with anticipation.
"Good evening everyone, my name is Vera, reporter from Gail Law," the woman spoke, her appearance lived on the big screen. "And this is breaking news…"
"One car had been reported to have been in an accident," the woman paused, as she listened to her colleague's voice realizing the gravity of the situation, her eyes widening. "There is additional information we just recently received. Brooklyn Station detectives had been investigating the said car crush since morning. And they found links and evidence pointing out that the crush was indeed intended."
She tilted up, her eyes following the images the reporter had exposed. Two cars indeed were there, one flipped as the other was gunned, and it was beyond recognition. It was wet from the rain, but she could see the oil spilled on the trunk, not to mention the empty seats.
"Fortunately, it was a mobile automatic electric car. It said that during that time, they'd been mistaken for someone else, and we receive the evidence from the police, they as well added a captured video footage from the shooting that was taken by the mobile car advance artificial intelligence and was uploaded through the database of the mobile car company, Telon," the female reporter added as she began showing the footage taken from the scene of crime.
Rubi clutched the piece of metal on her hand, which was directly near her ears. The sound of the reporter and the man behind the call was eerily silent as she watched the scene unfold.
Indeed, there were no casualties, and death. Yet, seeing the footage from this angle. She did not fail to notice that they didn't look if the car was empty or not. It's like they have ambushed them subtle or swiftly, while trying to complete a task. Then, there was that car, one in the middle, a Mercedes Benz in the distance caught her attention.
Plate number xxx20, she thought a bit hoarse as she smirked. "Tony, can you hijack the main street CCTV?" She inquired as she stepped back, moving away from the sidewalk, as her right hand slid on her pockets.
"Which part?" A voice of a man, echoed behind the call, asked in a gentle yet firm manner.
"Brooklyn Bridge entrance and exit," she said in response.
Amongst the city scrapes, brightened up each building, her gaze remained steady in front, yet her surroundings were eerily bright. She pondered, her lips ever so lightly, pressing against the tips of her beautiful lips. Breathing on the city air, wind chuckling, it's a breeze touching her bare skin.
Night in this city has always been the same, like a repeated loop, the feeling and the variant never faltered. It was noisy, filled with busy clubs, listening to loud music, watching overworked underpaid employees in their daily routine.
There was just enough silence, a peaking peace, one she's used to — yet behind it... Striking a murmur of whispers, violence behind closed curtains, and uncertainty one can't fathom. Such a place in the city, where no one is safe and when violence has become something of a norm rather than a crime.
"Alright, Rubi."
The silence was indeed deafening, but the man behind the call, Tony. His voice pointed her back to reality, as she tilted, holding the phone tight as she looked in front. "Finished?"
She could hear a ruffling sound behind the call, his breath ragged, before it fell short, then he gulped. "Yeah, about that," said Tony, as he began typing on his computer which was loud enough for Rubi to hear.
"About what?" She asked, as she shifted the position of the phone on her ears to her other one.
"I've checked the official CCTV camera that was currently active on that side of the city," he said, as he looked at the screen and nodded. "I need to show you something," he said and paused before he spoke again. "I am calling you through video call, can you go somewhere covered with no cameras around...?"
Rubi gently looked up, the sky was beaming ever so gently in darkness. The heavens immersed from the cloud that had covered the sky earlier. It was gentle yet soft that the sight was ever so shining, then small shuttering sparkles glowed as the stars appeared one by one.
"I need to meet with our client by midnight, so make it quick."
--+--
In silence, the young woman, Rubi navigated her way through the trenches of the street city. Looking for a place where no one could eavesdrop, and her initial thought was a hotel, but given her trust issue, she ended up on rooftop closed corridors.
She sat on the floor, with one palm resting at the ground, her eyes wandered for a moment, as she leaned her back on the wall. It was enough privacy and there's no way a camera could find her here. She also found a place with a roof, making it hard for the satellite to even spot her.
Her eyes for a moment scanned the area, her ears silently listened for any movement, her nose picking up a scent from anything the wind could gather, and soon as she noticed, when everything was clear. She brought her hands inside her pocket, pulled her phone out and began dialing Tony's number.
A few moments later, the call went through, and her voice turned cautious as she spoke. "Alright, all good," she expressed, as she leaned her head on the wall.
Tony, who was silently busy tapping his hand on the mechanical keyboard, looked at the screen between his monitor and his phone screen. The phone screen has the photo and number of his current operational partner, Rubi.
"Hold on, I'm connecting to you now," he said as he turned towards the side, computing the time it could take and with one swift, he grabbed his phone, held it tightly and raised it up to make sure the camera could see his monitor.
While in Rubi's case, she could see her phone being internally connected to Tony, feeling a slight annoyance as she nodded. After her phone went dark, she remained still waiting for whatever Tony had in mind. She maintained her grip on her phone, tightly as she raised up.
Then after a few seconds, the black screen, which had been there, turned to white, and images appeared on her viewpoint. She could see it one by one, the usual monitor screen, and Tony holding the phone like he was taking a selfie was all there.
She then scoffed as she sighed. "This better be important, Tony," she said and then silently she shook her head. "So, what do you got?"
In a few seconds after the camera had been fully synchronized, he couldn't help but chuckle at Rubi's impatience, the woman he's currently working with, as he shook his head. "Rubi, has anyone told you how stiff you are?"
Rubi rolled her eyes in amusement. "Plenty of people, not only you, so get the fuckin straight to the point, will ya?" She retorted with her voice sharpening, the tone of her voice silently deprived from any excitement making it sound so hostile.
He giggled once again, as he sighed and shook his head. "Chill, alright," he said as he began moving the camera closer. "See these six different footages I gathered?"
The woman's eyes glimmered at the footage he showed on his screen. She could see about nine of them, which were piled with different variables — time frames as such, and each of them has different types of dates, including timelines that are pixelated, and something was actually off with the footage.
Because below the time frame was a glitch number, she could barely understand. The glitch continued at a certain time, and the footage or the video was on point with the exact position where the time frame stopped and began to glitch.
This glitch turns each of the numbers into something one couldn't understand. The footage also shows that every single one of them, each had been hovering in the same glitch effect despite it looking like that.
In conclusion...
"This is a government property, an exact technology they claimed to be perfectly not, well easy to hack," he said as he used his mouse to play the button. "I took the footage the media had shown on the TV, calculated the exact time and the exact location they drove."
Once he got the exact time, he paused it, the glitch on the screen stopped. "I hacked through the main beta station of all cctv in the city from Chinatown to Brooklyn, but the exact result was the same."
Then he clicked at another file, and then he typed on his screen using one of his hands. "But given that the cameras had been completely compromised, I can't directly confront them," he explained then he moved again, looking at the camera and saw Rubi's expression turning slightly pale.