Episode 1: White Revenge

"Mr. Oswin told us to kill the motorcycle riders whenever we see them."

"Yeah."

"Well, how many years have you not seen a motorcycle?"

"For a few years. Nobody’s still riding that rag in reality. Harley-Davidson stopped production 20 years ago. Besides, in the Metaverse, there are all models since the industry originated, even the WLA in World War II.”

"I remember last year in a place called G ... Goetsupolis, I have seen motorcycle riders rampaged in groups.”

"Don't mention that ghost place, such a messing around, tour guides, sellers, and robot waiters, all fucking in a mess..."

"Don't get distracted Ali, still focus on the targets. They may come at any time."

"Oh... Yeah"

“If Simo Häyhä (Finnish sniper during the 1939-1940 Soviet-Finnish War, who shot more than 500 Soviets, ranking first among the world's ace snipers) could hear his targets talking, would he still kill the 500 Soviets or so?” White Crow thought. It wasn't her first mission, but was the first time she could hear enemies' talking. The hacker, Nash, had hacked into the mercenary group's communication and battlefield situational awareness system, and connected the signal to White Crow's mobile terminal so she could hear everything clearly. While the enemy's detection signal was suppressed by the hacker Nash, she could not be found.

Welcome to the Earth in 2061! People are still killing each other, still so stupid. Has technology made life better? No, even worse, in a sense. You might be shot by snipers in the distance, gunned down by a sniper, leaving the last glimpse you left for the world in the high magnification scope. While nowadays, before getting a headshot, you don't even have a little privacy.

The taller and younger guy is called Ali, and the fatter and more mature one who looks like a veteran is called Jack. Through the high magnification scope, you can only see their backs lying in the grey grass. Besides them, there are other four guys. Three machine guns guarded the high ground at the intersection, and the mercenaries were all dressed in long-retired American tri-color desert camouflage uniforms. No one knows where the surplus supplies were obtained, nor which mercenary group they were, but certainly not the Spartan, because the Spartan never chatted about their missions.

"Get back home." White Crow thought, "You won't live for long anyway." As a professional sniper, she never had any pity for her targets.

Targets, mercenaries, weapon dealers, gang members, blockchain bankers in suits and leather shoes, politicians, rude warlords, evil scientists, programmers with all shirts in the same color... Everybody should be killed. Serving the giants, so-called "the Uranus", is to do evil things, but there is nothing else called "work" worthy of a living.

"So fucking hot! Will they on earth come here?" Shitty climate gets hotter and hotter every year. The earth is going to be screwed."

"In my view, the earth is dead. There is no place for living. Humanity has now invaded Mars, and Mars is going to die too."

"Uh, wanna hear something that might chill your back so you can cool down?"

"What?"

"When I was on vacation a few days ago, I saw a secret blogger whose name I forgot. One of his videos says that over ten years ago, there was an orphanage in Vitemusk..."

"……"

"Crazy, isn’t it?" What kind of kid it will be?"

"Told you."

White Crow, or Veronica, just came from that orphanage, She and her sister Katerina originally had a happy and harmonious family, and their parents loved each other so much. However, it could hurt if the couples are in too good relations. On a snowy day, a skidding self-driving car rushed onto the sidewalk and killed them both. Afterwards, the car company actually paid some money, but the compensation and all the family property were divided by their aunts and uncles who heard the news. The two poor kids who had just lost their parents did not know what to do, and they were too young to do something. Little Veronica and Katerina were sent to a local orphanage, and they have never seen their aunts and uncles again. Of course, they do not want to see those fake faces. Guessing the asshole uncle probably had exchanged his share for vodka and game tokens. King in the game, the loser in reality.

The high magnification moved Veronica's gaze to the side. Jack's right arm was pinned a crumpled armband with a symbol she hated desperately — the logo of the Thoule Group.

"How charming is Oswin? Why do these people wear Thoule's armbands when they do bad things? Aren't they afraid of revenge? Or don't they care about revenge anymore?" Veronica thought. “Is this their rule? Why do even mercenaries have to wear this?"

"Squad B, pay attention and stop chatting. Team A failed to block the target at the stronghold. The target escaped and was expected to reach the ambush site within twenty minutes. Get ready to block. Repeat, get ready to block the target, a Harley motorcycle. Make sure to kill everybody on the spot……"

Since coming to the Matr1x Alliance, Veronica has forgotten how many targets with Thoule's armbands she has killed.

Life in the orphanage was neither good nor bad anyway, no hunger and as long as not separated from her sister. After all, she is the only relative left.It is said that they used to have a elder sister called Victoria, who fled home long ago, which made her a family taboo.About two years after coming to the orphanage, the Thoule Group, which was not so famous at the time, sent a group of people to find the chubby dean whose eyes were always sneaking around. They had an afternoon meeting and maybe bribe some money, who knows. In short, the next day, the dean announced to everyone that there will be no need to go to class again, but just do a small operation, to install a "bean interface (brain-computer interface with an Eastern European accent)", and the knowledge can be downloaded from the network to the brain.

You can download it at night when sleeping and finish works during the day. Children can play around as they wish. A few boys who regarded the class as punishment were cheering at the time, ignoring the discipline teacher.

"Then what do teachers do after that? Countless math teachers should be unemployed?" Little Veronica was sitting there, thinking to herself.

The Thoule Group sent a car to pick up the children for surgery. Two kids died during the operation, which was not a good sign. The dean lied to everyone that they were adopted by the managers on Thoule's side, "There will be a big difference in the future! They have fallen into the blessing pile," said the dean with joy.

The operation was suspended, and the children who did not have surgery were set as the control group, and those who were operated on were the experimental group.

The academic performance of the experimental group has improved sharply, and all of them are expected to be scientists and scholars in the future, as they can recite difficult engineering and philosophy books perfectly.

While the control group was still the same as the old way.

However, the children in the experimental group became more and more emotionally unstable, depressed, and bipolar. It seemed that passive studying was like being forced to learn, which had side effects. The amount of knowledge they acquired had probably exceeded the limit that the human brain and nerves could withstand.

After some more days, the situation became more serious. Some kids in the experimental group jumped off buildings, committed suicide, and fought with each other. The dean had to gather them together and take strict care of them. The Thoule stopped the experiment, but things were getting worse.

The shadow of learning can follow people for a lifetime. Multi-day intensive care destroyed the experimented kids’ remaining sanity.

The door was broken open, and the first person to suffer was the dean. Completely out of mind, the experimental team began to kill people with everything they could get, table legs, and fire extinguishers, which should not be part of the experiment.

Veronica showed her killer potential at that time. She managed to lure some of the children of the experimental group into the kitchen, where the gas valve had long been unscrewed by her. She neatly closed and locked the door, shoved the ignited ignition through the crack in the door.

She was still too young and too crude—the huge wave of air from the explosion stunned Veronica, and the roar and rising black smoke drew in the police and the fire brigade.

Poor little Katerina. The dean subconsciously protected her when she fell to the ground, but she still could not...

As one of the few survivors, Veronica seemed to have lost her memory. So stupid that she didn't know anything the police asked.

The policeman told Veronica that her sister was gone. She was stunned, and then cried.

The cause of this accident must be the Thoule Group, because when those guys came, Veronica saw that Thoule's armband pinned to their suits on the right sleeve.

When Veronica's parents were still alive, her sister once asked her father, "Daddy, are there white crows in the world?"

Dad held up his glasses and picked up his mobile phone: "Oh, yes, as the Internet says. Some crows are born with albinism, and their feathers are white. Such white crows are very rare... By the way, the crows are very vengeful, don't provoke them. You can feed them, but don't invade their territory or hurt them..."

Many years later, a female sniper nicknamed "White Crow" stood out in mercenary circles. She was hidden and her shots were accurate. No one had ever seen her true face. "White Crow" is very cautious. She never uses the blockchain or any other contract to take orders. Although her price is high, it is not outrageous. The only bad thing is that as long as the order is to kill Thoule's target, there is always no living left on the scene.

"Do it, White Crow," Nash's voice came from his headphones, "Be safe, I don't think I'll have to send you coordinates. Come back immediately after you're done, the kids miss you, and ask me every day why Sister V hasn't come back."

"Did Katerina take her medicine today?" The white crow whispered, and took a shot, knocking down Jack at the same time, and then Ali, who had not yet had time to close his mouth. Jack could no longer see his wife and children, and Ali could no longer get along with his mates.

"She did, so cute! Ha ha. "

After killing everyone, the "white crow" saw that there was a tripwire near the ground at the intersection. There must be some explosives attached to the other end. What a despicable trap！

She fired a seventh shot, breaking the tripwire. The roar of the motorcycle was faintly heard from a far.