Ringing. Shrill, incessant ringing. Evan’s vision blurred and smudged as he struggled to pull himself off the pavement. Groaning with pain, he grasped his head, willing his ears to stop ringing.

Several people were shouting all around him. Lights swept over the alleyway and the adjacent plaza square. Bullets ricocheted off the walls, and metal scraped against metal in armed combat.

Evan tried to stand up, but his vision faltered, and he collapsed back on the ground. He couldn’t walk. He was doomed to die in the midst of this battle.

Evan saw a fuzzy silhouette running towards him. Here it goes. Here’s the day I die, he thought morbidly. Evan rubbed his eyes, hoping to get a better view of his assassin.

The figure knelt at Evan’s side, clearly asking him something, but all Evan could hear over the ringing was indistinct words.

The figure touched the sided of his head, and Evan felt warm liquid trickling down from the spot.

Great. Now I’ve been poisoned. What a stellar quick way to go.

As his vision cleared ever so slowly, he saw the figure wave over another person. A burly dude with a huge beard and a machine gun larger than Evan’s arms. The first figure was a female with two swords crossing behind her back. A V symbol was tattooed onto both on their wrists.

The burly dude slapped his gun onto his back and picked up Evan. Flinging him onto his shoulder, the two figures worked their way through the battle away from the square towards a dark ship looming in the distance.

A cursor? These must be outlaws. Cursors were banned years ago to avoid a resurgence.

The female yelled orders to her crew, and the battle shifted towards the cursor. The dude sprinted up the ramp through several halls into the cursor’s cargo hold and set Evan down.

“Wait here,” he thundered. Retrieving his machine gun, he dashed back outside.

Evan rubbed his ears gently, relishing all the sounds finally coming clearly. He listened to the raging gunfight outside, the shouts of soldiers ordering or getting hit, a few grenade launches. A machine gun started up, and Evan wondered if it was the same dude.

A wiry man dashed past the cargo hold towards the cockpit. “Get us out of here! We have what we need.”

The cursor’s engine rumbled to life and lifted off the ground. Gunfire continued at the retreating ship, but the cursor’s cyber defenses held strong.

Evan glanced out the window, and he saw the Inner Circuits vanishing into the darkness below as the cursor soared towards the unknown regions between the Outlets and the Inner Circuits.

A knock sounded. Evan turned and saw the same female who kidnapped him and the burly dude standing in the doorway. “Mind if we join you?”

Evan shrugged. “It seems I have no choice.”

The dude rolled his eyes. “I told you he wouldn’t be cooperative,” he muttered under his breath.

The female glared at him. “And I told you why we need him.”

“Operation: Keylogger was not what I had in mind when you said a rescue mission,” the dude argued. “We can’t trust him.”

The female stared straight at Evan, and Evan couldn’t help but notice her crystal blue eyes. “I trust him.”

“Who are you?” Evan asked, curiosity getting the best of him. “Why did you abduct me?”

“Call it a rescue,” the dude rumbled. “We don’t do abductions.”

The female sighed. “Gavin, let me handle this. Go check our arsenal inventory.”

Gavin huffed and stalked out of the room. Rolling her eyes, the female knelt to look Evan in the eye.

“We didn’t abduct you,” she said. “We rescued you from the Board.”

Evan found it difficult to look away. “Why?”

The female smiled. “You’ll see, but for now, just relax. Enjoy the flight. You’re safe for now.” She stood up. “We need to have a meeting. I’ll explain more afterwards.”

The V symbol on her wrist caught his attention. An eagle in the shape of a V. A sword clutched in its talons. All of a sudden, it clicked.

“You’re Viral,” Evan muttered. “You’re one of the enemies of the CPU.”

The female smiled again, hand on the door frame. “Call me Jess. And we’re not Virals. We’re Resurgents.”

She disappeared before Evan could retort. Evan was too stunned to move. At the beginning of the day, he was a rebel on one end, working for the Board through the Dark Web against the CPU and Firewalls, and now here he is, fleeing the Inner Circuits with a band of Virals, also against the Firewalls and CPU. And all this happened because he got caught stealing the magnetic plasma inducer.

No, all this happened because my parents abandoned me when I was six. Evan’s mood darkened and he turned to stare out the window, watching the dim landscape flow by.