Maximum Resistance Joins the DarkR Web

The last message still on the screen was “>...Working...” This in response to my rashly typed command to “+join Cypher” to the DarkR Web. But now, freshly appearing on the screen was a new message:
 
>SCRT: +13135559899,,,
 
I immediately recognized the telephone # format. But this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone. I thought of the first place I could that would be “safe” for a meeting among hunted Superheroes — or safe enough for a large cosmic explosion, if this was a trap.
 
And Riverside Park fit the bill. It was where my Father took me for little league ballgames when I was a kid, but it had been destroyed in a fight among two rival ”cape gangs” last year. Under Destroyer’s government, repairing ballparks wasn’t important...so it was now charred and in ruins — and abandoned.
 
I called the number from SCRT’s message using a DarkR FOB so that my location wouldn’t be traced. The phone rang three times before a voice answered:
 
"Hello, Maxwell..."
 
I didn’t waste any time in my response, “Maxwell, this isn’t a secure line. But it can’t be traced. Can you meet me in thirty minutes on the pitcher’s mound at what used to be Riverside Park? I think we need an in-person introduction.”
 
"Yes." And the phone called ended abruptly.
 
I asked Jeremy, my driver, to bring me to a spot roughly one mile from the park, instructing him to wait while I went for a run. As I got closer to the ball-field, I walked up to the public restrooms, now closed with a badly rusted chain securing the door.
 
Looking around periodically, I was anxious to make sure no authorities or others were around. And luckily, the area was deserted. I kicked at the chain a few times and it snapped.
 
I walked into the bathroom as Aaron Sharpe. But once inside, I allowed the “Runeforce” to fully manifest. Turning around sharply, I opened the door and walked slowly out onto the pitcher’s mound — standing still and...patient, broad daylight revealing the gold swirling scripts on my face. Even with all of the work we’d done to implement the DarkR Web, this felt like my first real moment of Resistance.
 
Eventually, one person walked up to the edge of the field, a young man, probably not even twenty years old. He was dressed in jeans and a button down short sleeved shirt. We were both out of place, me in super form and him being nicely dressed — a student, probably.
 
“This was a risk, I knew it going in,” I thought to myself. “I’m determined to find other heroes to join the resistance. With Destroyer in charge, being a hero alone it isn’t worth it. We might as well not even try.” These thoughts kept running through my head as the young man began to walk toward me on the pitcher’s mound.

“A college kid wouldn’t be here otherwise. This must be Maxwell”, I thought, as he now stood directly in front of me.
 
“Maxwell?”, I said.
 
"Not exactly what I was expecting. Not sure what that was, but this isn't it. Are you 'Unknown'?” he asked, looking around warily.
 
“Yes. But in this form, I go by Runeforce. A new day is coming. One that brings about truth and justice. What do you stand for, Maxwell?”
 
There was a momentary pause, and then he answered:
 
"A better day where we don't have to hide like this, and can turn the tide against Destroyer. Make this world a better world." Maxwell spoke directly, maintaining a wary gaze and periodically glancing to the left and right.
 
“Do you mean that? Trust is more precious than gold these days. I am willing to trust you and am showing you that by standing here in this form, in the open. If you mean to stand against Destroyer, I assume there is something more...?”
 
Maxwell was unmoved. "Well, considering I haven't shared my secrets with anyone else, and yet you know who I am, I'm guessing there isn't much more."
 
I was honest in response to him, stating truthfully, “I only know you through a Handler. And I’m still not perfectly sure this isn’t a trap. But if it was, we’d both be dead already, I assume.”
 
"Well, fair enough. I probably shouldn't be standing around out here all vulnerable anyway." Max's clothes began to disintegrate, while being replaced with a blue body suit.
 
I immediately felt a pulse of energy — or electricity, maybe — and a faint blue glow appeared around the now suited figure in front of me, bearing a large symbol for which I couldn’t remember the meaning. This public display was enough trust for me...and the risk of our discovery increased the longer we stood like this in the open.
 
“That’s enough for me at this point. What should we call you?”, I asked.
 
"I'm Maximum Resistance." he responded. "That's what these symbols mean.”, he said as he pointed to his chest.
 
Growing more anxious, I asked,“If you’ll allow, let me take us both out of the open?”
 
With another curious tilt of the head, Maximum Resistance shortly agreed, "Sure".
 
I opened a portal quickly around us both. Cosmic dust and stars visible for only a moment, we both disappeared and then reappeared inside the same cramped bathroom that I’d been in moments before. Without being able to see the room clearly, I had imagined the space where I had previously stood. And luckily, the portal narrowly missed depositing us into a toilet stall.
 
"You take me to the nicest places...", Maximum Resistance quipped.
 
With that, I handed him one of the small key FOBs that acts as a proximity encryption key and as a connection to the DarkR Web. I explained the DarkR Web to him and then confessed,
 
“There are only a few others among us at this point, but at least we aren’t alone. All of the pillars have been installed and these FOBs allow us to coordinate securely.”
 
He wanted clarification, "So you communicate through these over the phone or computer?"
 
“Both.” I continued to explain. “It creates end to end encryption if both parties have one. For computers, it makes tracing impossible by hashing the route taken for any internet traffic. If you call someone who doesn’t have one, then they see only ‘Unknown’ as the caller and the call cannot be traced...but it isn’t encrypted.”
 
"Hmm, I don't normally carry a phone with me, but I can...um...see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Wonder if I can piggyback on this.” Maximum Resistance continued to think on this new information.
 
I responded in earnest, “I truly hope you can. And maybe even improve upon it. I’m an inventor, not a cryptologist”.
 
Maximum Resistance continued to consider the technical ramifications, "Haven't figured out how to communicate that way though, but I'm close.", He changed the topic quickly with a different line of questions:
 
"So who is this 'handler' you spoke of? I've only been doing this for a couple weeks, and only really taken down some street thugs. Was really hoping to stay off radar for a bit longer."
 
This was a practical question. One I continued to ask myself, even. There was nothing helpful I could say, except the truth.
 
“I like to say ‘None of us are operating on Zero Trust’. And so this is my foundational assumption...that the person — or system — feeding me coordinates and telephone numbers means to help the resistance, not to destroy it. At least not at this moment.”
 
His response was equally honest, "Yeah. I suppose if destruction was their goal, and they know who we are, then that information could easily be passed on to others that would remove the problem. So you've been doing this for a bit? How many others are involved?"
 
Again, these were practical questions, so I gave straightforward answers — “I’ve been working on the DarkR Web for almost three years. It became fully operational yesterday after I and three others strategically placed the devices. In that time, we added “Cypher” and now you. So, in total, there are six of us now. Seven, if you count the Handler.”
 
Maximum Resistance was getting up to speed very quickly, "Now that you have this DarkR Web operational, what is your plan?"
 
This answer wasn’t ready yet. My plan had been to find others. I hadn’t thought about much else beyond that...not until I started hearing from SCRT on my prototype DarkR Web. So I shared with him about that...
 
“The Handler gave me a fifth set of coordinates. I only planned for four installs. When I checked out the fifth set of coordinates, it was a Hydro Power plant, along with a time stamp...5:08AM in the morning, tomorrow. When I added Cypher to the network he was already there, at the site. Talking with someone named “Secret”. Cypher said Secret was being held captive at the plant and needed to be rescued at 5:08. So our next step is to rescue the “Secret”. Beyond that, my plan is to find other heroes and add them to the DarkR Web until we grow our ranks enough to take on missions that help us understand the source of The Vanishing, and maybe even how to shut it down. We are in this for the long haul.”
 
But Maximum Resistance wasn’t satisfied. "Hmm, why 5:08am? It's a hydro plant, not exactly a prison. Why not just go get them?"
 
Maybe I was too short with my response, “I don’t know this answer. If you can find a way to join the DarkR Web with the FOB I gave you, then ask Cypher.”
 
"Supposed I'll have to go home and grab my phone. At least for now." Maximum Resistance was still considering this new information.
 
“We all appreciate the sacrifice.” I said to him maybe a little bit sarcastically, given that I didn’t anticipate needing to pair the FOBs with electromagnetic field-reading super teens.
 
I had to get back to Jeremy before he began to worry. So I opened a portal and disappeared. Again, without line of sight, I imagined the tree line behind the ball field and reappeared near there — luckily without landing in the middle of a Liveoak tree, then allowing the Runeforce to subside. I jogged the remainder of the way back to where Jeremy was still waiting in the car.
 
“Jeremy, take me home.”
 
Later that day, Maximum Resistance logged onto the DarkR Web — joining us in the resistance, really...a fitting name for the purpose we collectively shared.