One Last System

"Contact in five, four…" a robotic voice filled the command room.

All the eyes zeroed in on the main hologram showcasing the flight of their counter-battery fire.

"… three, two…"

The room turned silent.

"… one…"

The hologram darkened, shielding the spectators from the blinding light of the explosion.

The nuclear attack of the Black Rock group struck Daniel's headquarters with quite an impact. Yet, the distance between the encampment and the detonation zone was big enough to keep most of the attack at bay.

And now, everyone was about to experience the Conglomerate's nuclear response.

The host of three missiles shot by the counterbattery salvo soared through the skies.

On the highest point of their path, they all split into different paths, each aimed at a different group of enemies.

"Strike!"

A black fog covered all the holograms, shielding the spectators from the blinding light of the nuclear discharge.

For a fraction of a second before the explosion, the tracking cameras mounted on the ordnance allowed everyone to catch a glimpse of the enemy forces.

The quasi-quantum computer serving as the heart of the base saved the image and displayed it by the side of the main screen.

A ball of dark fire appeared on the screen, raising for a mere five meters over the ground.

There was only a minuscule amount of nuclear material within Daniel's rockets. The majority of their volume actually consisted of classic explosives.

Normally, the amount of the radioactive element would be too small to sustain any reaction.

But by exploding all of the rocket's content at the same time and channeling it all toward the nuclear core, the rocket created an environment so extreme, the usual math no longer added up.

For but a single instant, the temperature and pressure rose so high, the radioactive clump lost the limiters that held it back.

And in that single instant, the petite five-meter high ball of fire… Shot forward, turning into a fifty meters wall of flame that extended in a cone, right in the direction of the enemy forward-deployed artillery.

By the miracle of the conglomerate's technology, the entire might of the nuclear explosion was directed across a single vector. And with the rocket exploding right in front of their entire unit, once the wave of the impossibly-hot fire passed, even the rocks deep below the sand dunes melted away.

The two other explosions soon brought the same level of destruction upon the other two targets, the nuclear launching site that released the attack and the local mass grouping of the Black Rock forces.

The attack was completed. Enemy forces were devastated.

But in that single moment, Daniel bit down on his teeth.

'They got us.'

The images of absolute destruction lead to a realization dawning upon him.

And before Daniel could form a single thought, hundreds of small messages appeared on the holograms.

The quasi-quantum heart of the commanding center gave them an impossible advantage.

Its insane computing ability allowed them to access most of the information… before its publisher got the chance to announce it.

By the time one's fingers would type the message's draft, it would be long stored on the conglomerate's servers, free to access by any of the executives.

And right now, Daniel stared down at hundreds of interactive articles with a live feed of the nuclear wasteland.

[Private Conglomerate commits an act of nuclear terrorism! Live Video Here!]

The titles fought between each other for the right of being the greatest clickbait.

"Sweep the net from that press," Daniel shortly ordered.

He had a few seconds.

The rapid response to their counterattack meant that it was all a part of the enemy's plan. But still, a few clicks had to be done. Someone had to write the title, and someone else had to create the body of the article with the details of the ongoing situations.

Some wanted to be smart and used various AI and prefabricated pieces to construct their news page…

Only for the local heart to detect it and hijack the entire process before any results could appear on the other screen.

And now, right as all sorts of publishers hoped to hang posters of Daniel's fake war crimes…

All of their computers failed.

The amateur news reporters, big brands, locals, and even the entire government-sponsored organizations!

All of them, regardless of the connection or method used, failed to publicize their articles.

Daniel could somehow sense the waves of confusion and anger spreading across the entire world. He could feel all of that hostility aimed at the back of his head.

'There is no way they managed to pull this kind of action on their own,' Daniel realized, squinting his eyes as he watched the hologram for the updates.

"How long can we keep them out?" Daniel then asked.

The combined power of the entire world's network far outclassed the meager local heart that Daniel had at hand. And it would be at least two hours before the conglomerate would fire the power-hungry servers back home.

So, there was only a short window of time that Daniel's quasi-quantum computer could provide.

"Thirteen minutes under a full load," one of the military engineers provided the concrete number.

'That's too short,' Daniel bit down on his lips.

"Drop the full blockade, scramble the network," Daniel ordered without mercy.

A few of the soldiers twitched.

Scrambling the network wasn't as simple or gentle as the name suggested.

The instantaneous computing output of the quantum computers, even the quasi version of them, was infinitely higher than what the normal computers could do.

And by exploiting this gap, Daniel could flood the internet with such an amount of conflicting data, it would effectively erase any means of ever accessing it or recovering it as a whole.

Not a single bite of data would be deleted, but decoding even a small piece of the information would take normal computers years to achieve.

This single command would bring an end to the internet as a normal person knew it.

"We will just need to rebuild it," Daniel muttered, fully aware of just how big a part of everyone's lives was the relatively free and unrestricted access to the endless entertainment, culture, and knowledge.

"Executing the order," one of the technicians said.

"And if we have to choose between the luxury of the internet for the whole world and the survival of our people…" Daniel muttered, tightening his grip over the rails.

His eyes fired up.

The memories of all the losses he willingly took upon himself and his people flooded his brain.

Daniel, throughout the ages, always opted to pick the lesser evil. He would allow a great civilization to fall apart just because this course of action would ultimately bring less death and evil into the world.

And time upon time, he had to watch his centers of world development fall.

Right now, the history of over fifteen thousand years old civilization was left only on two sets of shoulders, split between Daniel and only one other surviving member of the Atlanti.

'All Territories, Lands and Nations Integrated,' Daniel thought, closing his eyes the moment one of his soldiers confirmed the order, putting an end to the global Internet.

Daniel opened his eyes. He then raised his head to look at the holograms.

His enemies were momentarily pacified. Now they would have to adopt other means to spread their propaganda. And it would take a lot more time for them to pain Daniel's conglomerate as the evils of the conflict.

"Raise the alarm to the code black," Daniel then muttered, dropping another bomb on everyone gathered in the commanding center. "Right now, we are in a state of an open war."

Daniel spoke and closed his mouth. But his eyes remained open, burning with the fierce fire of determination.

'It's high time to bring Atlanti back!'