[ WP ] `` Let grandpa tell you about the time he participated in the great cyber-war of 2018 . ''

My two year tour did n't start too great. Recruits do n't get to have good stories from their first week, even if they do get promoted to squad lead leaving the institute. Fresh from graduating in August 2018, they gave me a four-man room, five techs to cram it with, and command of the Techolite's Alpha Division, 4th Squad. One of the techs was four years my senior and formerly a network administrator with some big bank company. However he found out his squad lead was a restaurant manager before my induction into the institute. He may have taken some exception to that during orientation. 
 
 Blood boiled on day one in that small room and we had n't begun engaging the enemy. I was lucky he did n't try and overthrow me there and then. Techolite recruits were an angry, repressed branch of the army. We were new. There was a lot your lowest tech could get away with that a marine could only dream of doing to their drill sergeants. When a nation rested on young shoulders, bitching about your back came with the job. And boy, they *let* us bitch. 
 
 Sudden orders from the top paused the admin from making any further rebellion. Division command ordered a recon of the enemy defense. Aggressive tactics were Alpha Division, and they asked for 4th Squad specifically to scoop some data. We'd bring back the mess. Intelligence would make sense of it. Our tiny room became a hot zone. Four techs jumped on their consoles booting up hardware. I sent the fifth to get us coffee. Your Uncle Buttons still gives me shit for that in his Christmas cards. 
 
 Twenty minutes later, we launched our operation with nothing but the latest and greatest extens for Alpha Division. The room would die every time we threw them on, and trails of blue light screamed over us. Extens let you see the coding and blocking zap above you in lines like bullet trails. The love taps and initial hack attempts were higher above us, way into a space looming like a chandelier. Harder stuff would try to hit deeper, sunk lower. Sometimes zipping inches above you. For recon ops, we had to be on some fine wire to see deeper. Beyond what a monitor could tell you. 
 
 It was not just coding at that point. Techneurology hooked us into the war itself, first row seats and popcorn banging on both sides. I witnessed the firing of a virus for the first time in that first op. Those large yellow blots always zipped in a blur. God forbid any of them would get smashed over us. You would n't want those things in your head after unplugging. 
 
 We took our time pushing through trenches of corroded data, staying low to avoid a zip smashing through our little group. Finally found ourselves gaping at a large, blood mesh wall. There was no seeing through or over it, the damned thing was too tightly woven. I remember the patterns too. How they made no sense. It was n't for us to do, but if at any time you ever see'random' in your life, I can bet your weekend pass I've seen *chaos, * and how nothing ever looked sane again. 
 
 The op was simple. Just a literal scoop of that wall for intelligence to poke at. Our squad backup specialist whipped out a pole like he was going to beat it with the wife away, and thrust the damn thing like she just came back. Your Uncle Quaint was always a weird one. A couple seconds later he yanked it out, and I guess some logistics personnel forgot to cap the pole with a sealing agent. 
 
 Our hole in the wall was n't closing. I threw Quaint back, kicking the boys back into the trench. We had to make a haul for it. The wall was going to send out a detonation to clear the base before sealing the hole itself. Purges were nothing to let pool casually behind your back. We were warned at the institute that the enemy was more conscious of info leaks from random prods, and would blow out a server of any waste-data to ensure a leak would n't pile with the corrupted trench files for us to search later. The same ones we had to kick and push our way through to make our exit point. 
 
 It was damned close. Your grandpa would have been a vegetable for a couple weeks if Buttons had n't found another console to clear a few trench loads that'd have stood in our way. Boredom can save missions. 
 
 And that's how your grandpa and your uncles helped crack the Turing Wall. We had many missions in the Great Cyberwar, but that first one told Alpha Division what 4th Squad was good for. Remember to ask your Uncle Quaint how we got some launch codes and accidentally blew up a town with them trying to order takeout later, I get a kick out of that every time. 
 

