EXTRA CHAPTER FOR EVERY 500 POWERSTONES.
The scent of the coming storm carried out of the calm breeze soon enough.
Online, accusations against the Prism prosthetics suddenly multiplied.
"I installed a Prism prosthetic, and I regret it!"
"Prism Sciences' goal is to control all of humanity through brain-machine technology, like Yuri out of that old Red Alert game. Everyone who installs their prosthetics gets converted into one of their evil soldiers!"
"Prism prosthetics are priced far higher here than in their own country. That is consumer discrimination. They are discriminating against us foreign consumers!"
And on television, a good many public figures fell into the habit, whenever they spoke, of casting the Prism prosthetics as an invader, holding that Prism was pushing into their territory.
All of it unfolded within two or three days, and it worked quickly on people's emotions, the rednecks' above all.
Soon enough, the first protest against Prism appeared.
Several hundred people walked the streets, publicly protesting Prism's price discrimination, its mind control, and conspiracy behaviors of every other stripe.
The TV stations moved faster still. They were on site before the protest ever began, cameras already standing, the live broadcast rolling from the first minute, walking their audiences through the protest's origins.
Where there was a first, there came a second, and a third...
Anyone with eyes could see it. An enormous storm was taking shape.
Even far across the ocean, the response from Prism Sciences headquarters lagged not one beat.
Tom received the news immediately, and put his questions to Robert, the partner on the far side.
"What exactly is going on with the wind in your country right now? Something is very wrong with this!" Tom asked in the local language.
On the other end, Robert, a pair of Hermes earbuds on his ears, answered fast. "Gaentech has moved. Their force is heavy, and we are working out how to answer it."
A very large question mark rose in Tom's mind. "One single company can push things to this point?"
The protests across the shore now ran all day without pause. Told this was the handiwork of Gaentech alone, he genuinely did not believe it.
Robert lifted the investigation report his subordinates had handed up, and shook his head. "Of course it isn't only them. Your technology has scared a cold sweat out of every internet enterprise over here. Not one of these fellows hopes to see you enter our domestic market. What you're looking at is the strength of all of them together."
Though only Gaentech had ever made contact, that had never meant the other internet enterprises across the water would welcome Prism Sciences into their market.
Tom's brow locked tight. "Then what now? Do you actually have the strength to answer this offensive? Because otherwise, I will simply have to change friends. I have a great many friends in your country."
Robert hurried his answer. "We're already working the countermeasures. The moment I find their weak point, we strike, and the whole board flips!"
Tom went cold, which was rare in him. "On the current course, by the time you find that weak point, the Prism prosthetic will already have gone the way of Edium's Helios!"
Robert, equally helpless, smoothed his sparse, oil-bright hair.
"They are the internet's new nobility, money in both fists. Those who know, know, and what can't be said, I'd best not say. The interests tangled through this run too large, and the water runs deep. Standing against them is no simple thing."
"Then how long until you can flatten this storm?" Tom was not entirely without understanding himself. He simply had to keep the pressure applied.
"We're old friends. On this matter I will spend everything I have. Set your heart at ease."
Robert finished, then added, with some hesitation, "Only, as the board now stands, a fresh round of investigation into the prosthetics is a certain outcome..."
At the mention of it, anger surged up in Tom. "Meaning the sales suspension from before happens all over again?"
"I fear so. The Triton generation one's installed count in our country has essentially saturated, so they've no real fear of the disabled community's opposition. At worst, the disabled curse them online for a while." Robert said.
For a moment, Tom had no answer.
It was true. However fine the Prism prosthetics' reputation, that did not mean anyone would go stand against protest crowds on its behalf.
Faced with matters that don't touch their own interests, most people's first choice is to hang them up high and far away.
And bear in mind, the protesters over there worked for pay. That ordinary people hadn't chosen to take the money and join in was already good enough.
Against people like that, Tom had no remedy.
Wait!
Perhaps he was not entirely without one?
Something had suddenly come back to Tom.
He spoke into the phone. "There's one more move on my side!"
...
Across the water.
The negative news about Prism kept multiplying, online above everywhere else.
What Prism faced this time was very nearly the entire internet bloc, and the network was the enemy's absolute home ground. However hard Robert fought the fires, the online opinion could not be hauled back.
And out in the real world, the protests against Prism Sciences never once paused. They burned hotter.
By now, plain protest no longer satisfied them. Many brought out photographs of Ryan and burned them where they stood.
And the other shore, bowing to "the will of the people," announced that a thorough investigation of Prism would be opened.
That day, the photograph of Ryan burning in the flames made front pages across the entire world, and plenty of people who had only been watching the show were left genuinely shocked by it.
The moment the news carried back home, the pot blew open.
"These people are actual dogs!"
"Is this Edium up to tricks? Is their Helios prosthetic trying to crawl back into our market?"
"Our market, my foot. Their Helios has lost even its foreign markets. They're about ready to shutter for good!"
Edium took a stray bullet out of nowhere. In this affair, they genuinely had not lifted a hand.
Not that the domestic netizens cared in the least. They strung Edium up online and hammered away regardless.
Of course, there were also those who saw the truth of the thing clearly, and said the truth of Gaentech's black hand out loud.
Some of the onlookers understood at once.
"So love curdled into hate and went dark? What cannot be had must be destroyed?"
"Yanderes are the most terrifying thing alive!"
Bellidyne's official Twitter: "So THAT'S how it is? Shocking! Luffy-fist-pound.jpg"
The Dome Base.
When Ryan learned that his own photograph was being burned, he went blank for a moment despite himself.
Then he glanced at the progress on his system, surging toward fifty percent, and discovered that, if anything, it rather seemed he owed them his thanks?
But the blaze of fury lit in him all the same. His grandmother's leg. Trash talk was one thing, but that pack of turtle grandsons actually dared to burn his photograph?
Did they truly take him for the freshly debuted trainee of the old days?
He had been debuted very nearly two and a half years!
If his father hadn't called to say the counterattack was launching at once, and if Chloe hadn't called as well to comfort him, he'd have thrown himself straight into developing an urban-warfare mech.
Even so, this grudge went into the book!
He even had Patricia help him compile the concrete list of enemies, guaranteeing that not one name in the little notebook stood wrong!
And now, the counterstroke Robert had brewed so long began at last!
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