Starting from South America, speeding through the world

Chapter 169 Holy Fuck
New York, early morning.

The sky outside the window was still dark, and the streetlights cast a dim yellow hue in Lower Manhattan.

The office lights were still on.

Ethan looked away from the exchange rate chart and rubbed his temples wearily.

The backend model is still running.

The fluctuations on the East Asian side exceeded the evening tolerance, triggering a recalculation mechanism in the algorithm.

He had been sitting there for more than seven hours.

Originally, I was only temporarily staying on to help the Tokyo team monitor the hedging exposure of a yen carry trade.

However, starting at 2 a.m., redemption requests for US dollars from the Indonesian and Taipei accounts flooded in.

He was forced to take over, and the outsourced operations team processed a batch of emergency liquidation applications.

Log in, review, and confirm the line.

Update the flow table to the Hong Kong clearing node.

The final round of audit feedback has just been sent out, and the counterparts in Southeast Asia may not have woken up yet.

Ethan took off his headphones, leaned back in his chair, and didn't want to touch any more keyboards for a moment.

Then--

He heard someone behind him say "holy fuck".

It's not a complaint, it's not anger.

His tone revealed surprise.

Ethan turned around and saw two colleagues standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

There was no conversation, no movement.

It felt like being nailed to the spot by what was in front of me.

"What's wrong?" Ethan asked casually as he walked over.

"Something bad is going to happen," one of them said. "Something really bad is going to happen."

Ethan's heart tightened, and he quickly looked down.

In an instant, he froze.

Before I knew it, the streets were packed with people.

It was full of people.

They gathered quietly, densely packed and layered upon each other.

There was no noise.

There were no banners being waved wildly.

They are arranging.

Cameras were installed between the steps, bricks, railings, and streetlights.

"Look there!"

A colleague exclaimed in surprise.

Looking in the direction she was pointing, there was a black device standing in the very center of the park.

What's hanging at the top?

The next second—

The lights came on and shone on the north wall.

Snow white.

It was so intense it was blinding.

Ethan read the line aloud:

"We're back."

"We're back."

Elliott silently recited it in his mind.

The ground beneath my feet was damp grass.

Not far away, on the gray wall of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, words appeared.

Just as planned.

Elliott smiled silently.

I shouldn't speak now.

My task is to control the main relay – the most crucial step in this capture.

The line of text you just saw wasn't an animation; it was a local layer that automatically switched during the projection.

Elliott looked around and saw that more and more people were gathering there.

There was no running, no slogans.

Something changed in the wind.

The gaps that originally belonged to this city are being filled little by little.

Streets, squares, steps, guard booths, lampposts.

A series of unfamiliar faces.

Loud.

Elliott stood in the center, unable to determine exactly how many participants had come.

He couldn't see the end of the street or the entrance to the building.

As far as the eye could see, there were only people.

An angry person.

Groups of people.

They came in waves, one after another, from all directions.

Back view, shoulders, gray clothing, tripod, bulging canvas backpack, crowding the entire park.

After an unknown amount of time, a sliver of bluish-white light appeared on the horizon.

Upon seeing this, Elliott immediately looked down to check the time.

Five o'clock in the morning.

It's time.

He quickly inserted the key, the signature was completed, and the five accounts lit up with green lights in turn.

This system was deployed two months ago.

Not through YouTube or Twitch.

The entire setup is on our own CDN nodes.

The starting servers are Iceland and Lithuania.

The front-end page looks like a news blog from the last century.

A short headline—

"Occupy Wall Street 2.0".

The account preheating is complete, and it will be managed by six journalism students.

They are distributed across four cities and four time zones.

In less than half a minute, the traffic light turned green.

Push streaming starts, and the image enters the link.

Elliott stared intently at the browser.

The frame rate is normal and the bitrate is stable.

The next second, my image appeared on the internet. Perhaps that's not quite accurate.

Because he wasn't the only one who appeared.

Instead, there are thousands upon thousands of them.

The entire city of New York.

On the morning of election day.

"Look at this!"

I don't know who shouted first.

Before Eileen could react, a live broadcast appeared on the big screen.

Instantly, the previously noisy editing room fell silent.

That was a neighborhood.

A huge crowd, some standing, some sitting, and some moving slowly.

A high-profile oath:
—We're back.

Eileen froze, her fingers still resting on the keyboard.

Before she could look closely, one image after another flashed before her eyes.

The camera pans upwards, passing over a tall building.

On the terrace, men and women in suits leaned against the glass railing, chatting and smiling, looking relaxed.

No fear.

There was no panic.

It's as if we're appreciating some kind of "installation art".

The camera zooms in again.

suddenly--

Eileen noticed a detail.

On the far right, something started flashing.

Very weak.

It appears to be some kind of bright reflection in motion.

She narrowed her eyes.

One second, two seconds——

Finally, she was certain.

Those are police lights.

It wasn't just one car that arrived, but an entire convoy.

They sped in from Fifth Avenue, approaching from afar.

Fully armed men jumped off the vehicle and lined up on both sides.

Rifles held horizontally, shields raised, beams sweeping back and forth through the crowd.

Eileen held her breath, her gaze involuntarily returning to the tall building.

That group of people is still here.

A blond man even took out his phone and started recording a video of people downstairs.

Eileen fell silent.

She suddenly felt unwell.

Colleagues are still enthusiastically discussing the headline for the next report.

"We can't go too far to the left, or the higher-ups won't approve."

“'Second occupation'? No, we need to find a new term.”

"By the way, we can create a split screen, with the live stream on the left and the analysis table on the right."

"Does anyone still want to listen to experts these days? I think it's better to just post some sensational pictures."

Eileen remained silent.

She sat back down in her chair.

I don’t know what he is thinking about.

Maybe it's next month's salary.

Perhaps it was his father, who lived far away in the Rust Belt.

Just then, someone interrupted the discussion in the editorial office.

"Hey, look! More people are coming."

Eileen raised her head and refocused her gaze.

New figures appeared at the street corner not far away.

They marched in large groups, in a grand and imposing manner.

They didn't look like protesters, and they weren't police officers.

The equipment is incredibly diverse.

Black, sand-colored, civilian pistols and semi-automatic rifles are mixed together.

Soon, they came into physical contact with the people present.

At first it was just pushing and shoving.

This then escalated into a small-scale brawl.

Several people tumbled and fell, like embers falling into dry grass.

Chaos spread rapidly, tearing a hole in the crowd.

"Oh my god."

"Eileen said softly."

As if hearing her thoughts, the live stream suddenly switched perspectives.

The original overhead view was transformed into a close-up follow-up shot.

The camera was shaking violently, as if the photographer was constantly running.

The sound from the scene then flooded in.

The music rose and fell, weaving in and out from all directions, making one's scalp tingle.

"Get out of here! Get the fuck out of here! You all deserve to go to hell!"

"Put down the gun! Did you just load it, you idiot?!"

"Lieutenant, they're gathering! What do we do?!"

"Channel intercepted!"

"Who the hell is switching our channel? Who gave you permission to switch our channel?!"

"Get down! Get down! Drop your weapons immediately!"

"We are peacefully occupying this country! How dare you use force?! This is a democratic country!"

"Fuck democracy! You sons of bitches assassinated Seville!"

"NYPD! Final warning! Put down your gun!"

"Which side are you on?"

"Who's in command? I need to speak with your commander!"

“I’m telling you bunch of Democratic wimps: I only obey the Constitution!”

"Back off! Did you hear me?! Everyone back fifty meters!"

(End of this chapter)