Darlene’s right. I can’t trust them. This was too easy. But at least I stopped them. For now. I can go home knowing that. But was she right about me? Am I sticking my head in the sand? Did my revolution just bury our minds instead of freeing them? Encrypting Evil Corp’s data was meant to empower us, but instead it left us powerless, scaring us into even more submission. Five/Nine didn’t get rid of the invisible hand. It turned it into a fist that punched us in the dick. And, like a botnet, the fear I created is spreading so fast, it’s practically airborne. It’s swallowed us whole, digested us, and now we’re stuck in its a**hole, waiting to be dumped out. And while we’re here, they are having their way with us. They’ve packaged our fight into product, turned our dissent into intellectual property, televising our revolution with commercial breaks. They’ve backdoored into our minds and robbed our truth, refurbished the facts, then marked up the price. This is what they do. This is what they’re good at. This is their greatest trick. Lobotomizing us into their virtual reality horror show. And this all started because I tried to hide from society. Remember? [Fuck society.] Yeah, I fucked society all right. I reset it to zero and if I don’t do anything about it, it’ll continue to grow in this malignant way. And that’s what I’m afraid of the most. This dark future I set in motion. Who knows what could come from this… What if, instead of fighting back, we cave? Give away our privacy for security. Exchange dignity for safety. Trade in revolution for repression. What if we choose weakness over strength? They’ll even have us build our own prison. This is what they wanted all along. For us to buy in on our worst selves. And I just made it easier for them. I didn’t start a revolution; I just made us docile enough for their slaughtering. And I can stand here and blame Evil Corp and every other conglomerate out there for taking advantage of us. Blame the FBI, NSA, CIA for letting them get away with this. Blame all the world’s leaders for aiding and abetting them. Blame Adam Smith for inventing modern-day capitalism in the first f*cking place. Blame money for dividing us. Blame us for letting it. But none of that’s true. The truth is, I’m the one to blame. I’m the problem. This was my fault. All of it. I did this.