The 100,000th Try
Chapter 33: The Seeds of Revolt

Chapter 33: The Seeds of Revolt

Location: District 9 — Civil Data Archives

Time: 11:18 AM

For most people, the Civil Data Archives were nothing more than government red tape—a web of licenses, records, and bureaucratic headaches. For Kaen, they were the nerve endings of the city. Data was memory, and memory was control.

He moved through the halls unnoticed, his ID badge flashing the identity of a low-tier maintenance officer. Just another cog in the machine. No one stopped him. No one questioned why his badge had been added just this morning.

They wouldn’t. He’d made sure of that years ago.

As Kaen entered the deeper levels, he glanced at the reflection on the glass—a man dressed in grey overalls, clipboard in hand, utterly unremarkable.

Beneath that reflection, however, lay the mind of someone who had died thousands of times. Someone who had cracked the walls of this system like old paint.

He wasn’t here to steal.

He was here to plant a lie so precise, it would bloom as truth.

---

Location: Archive Core – Level 4 Security Wing

Time: 11:23 AM

Inside the dim-lit chamber, humming servers lined the walls like sentinels.

Kaen pulled a thin device from his belt—shaped like a pen, but when pressed, it projected a custom-built neural interface. It shimmered with his own encryption protocols—written in years the world never remembered.

He connected it to the mainline terminal.

> "Injecting Ghost Identity Protocol..."

"Altering Search Heuristics..."

"Seeding Archive Bias..."

The AI of the data center twitched.

> "You do not have clearance to—"

"Override accepted. Origin match: System Root Authority."

"Welcome, Architect."

Kaen smirked.

That title never got old.

---

Location: Tower of Council — Elsewhere

Time: Simultaneously

In a high-rise filled with polished marble and digital silence, three figures sat at an obsidian table. The city knew them as the Core Committee. The public believed they were elected.

They weren’t.

"We’re losing visibility on Sector 9," said one, sharp-suited and steel-eyed.

"Could be a local breach. Maybe even internal rebellion," said another.

The third leaned forward. "Or maybe... he’s moving again."

There was no need to say who he was.

He had no face. No confirmed name. Just anomalies. Ghost trails. Gaps in memory.

"A phantom with fingerprints," muttered the first.

And now, that phantom had touched the Archives.

---

Location: Civil Data Archives – Exit Ramp

Time: 11:31 AM

Kaen walked out just as quietly as he entered. No alarms. No traces.

But something had changed. The city’s official memory had been adjusted by mere lines of code:

> A new entity now existed.

It had always existed.

It had never existed.

He turned the corner, vanished into the flow of pedestrians, and thought to himself:

> "They built a world on truth."

"But I’ll rewrite it with lies... better than any reality."

Location: Hidden Café – Underground Market District

Time: 1:02 PM

The place didn’t exist on any map. No license. No paper trail. No cameras.

But for those in the know, it was where movements began.

Kaen sat in the corner booth, sipping bland coffee as static jazz hummed from a broken speaker above. He was early. On purpose. He liked watching people arrive.

One by one, they filtered in—each of them ordinary to the world but dangerous in silence.

Rina, a public transportation clerk with a photographic memory.

Mallor, a warehouse loader who secretly mapped every tunnel beneath the city.

Ezra, an ex-council auditor with a vendetta and a gift for decryption.

They took their seats, eyes flickering with nervous curiosity. This was the first time all of them were in the same room. Brought together by encrypted messages, anonymous pings, and rumors of someone who knew too much.

Kaen set down his cup.

> "You’re not here by mistake," he said quietly. "You’ve all noticed the same things: numbers that don’t add up, orders that vanish, people who disappear."

Rina nodded. "And files that change after we’ve read them."

Ezra leaned in. "You know what’s going on?"

Kaen smiled faintly. Not smug. Just sure.

> "What if I told you... the truth isn’t broken?"

"It’s been edited. For years. Maybe longer."

Silence.

Then Mallor muttered, "That’s not possible."

Kaen slid a small tablet onto the table. It flickered, revealing a video of a councilman giving two entirely different speeches—spliced together flawlessly.

Same date. Same timestamp. Same lips. Different words.

Ezra paled. "That file was archived..."

"By the system," Kaen finished. "Which I just rewrote."

---

Location: Café Backroom

Time: 1:45 PM

Behind the café’s false wall was a digital war room—dim, full of code, and humming with stolen energy. Kaen stood before a smartboard littered with redacted documents, surveillance frames, and projected city schematics.

He turned to the group.

> "We don’t fight the system with guns."

"We dismantle belief. Slowly. Quietly."

"Until the people who built this prison start questioning their own doors."

Rina crossed her arms. "And what makes you think we’ll win?"

Kaen’s eyes sharpened.

> "Because I’ve lost enough to learn exactly how to win."

They didn’t know the depth of that sentence. They didn’t know how many times he had tried this—failed, bled, died.

But in this loop, he had chosen the perfect players.

He had planted the lie.

Now, all that was left... was to let the truth unravel.

Location: Rooftop – 16th Ward Observation Tower

Time: 10:23 PM

The city below shimmered like a false paradise—neon lights masking systemic decay. Kaen stood near the edge of the rooftop, hands in pockets, as wind cut through his coat. His eyes scanned the skyline, but his mind calculated moves far beyond the buildings.

> "We shook the nest," came a voice behind him.

It was Ezra, breathless from the climb. He handed over a device wrapped in cloth.

"Council communications. I cracked three levels before the encryption tried to fry me."

Kaen unwrapped it calmly. "Anyone tail you?"

Ezra shook his head. "Used three fake routes. Burned a decoy ID on the third turn."

Kaen smirked. "Good. You’re learning."

But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Because he already knew—someone was following Ezra.

He had let it happen.

---

Location: 9th Sector Surveillance Core

Time: 11:03 PM

Inside a high-security server room, Kaen moved like he belonged—his badge, posture, and demeanor mimicking an upper-level technician perfectly.

In reality, this entire room was built on the illusion he had architected months ago.

Using Ezra’s delivery as bait, Kaen fed the system a traceable breach. Enough to spark paranoia, but not enough to trigger shutdowns. While the watchdogs scrambled to patch a leak that didn’t exist, Kaen moved through the real gate—one he’d hidden inside the noise.

He uploaded a silent script into the internal grid.

> "Silent corruption injection complete."

"Node DNA rewritten: Access rerouted to Protocol Key: K–001."

The system flashed confirmation. He had just hijacked the city’s emergency override grid—the mechanism used to shut down power, redirect transit, even reroute food deliveries.

---

Location: Abandoned Library Archive

Time: 2:12 AM

Kaen gathered his small team again. Tension crackled. They knew something big had shifted.

"What did you do?" Mallor asked.

Kaen didn’t answer directly. Instead, he tossed a datapad onto the table. It displayed a looped video of the city’s elite squabbling in a closed council room—private footage, never meant for public eyes.

Ezra’s jaw dropped. "You... you turned them on each other."

Kaen’s gaze was cold and exact.

> "I didn’t need to break the system. I just showed them the cracks in each other."

> "We’re not starting a revolution," he added, leaning in.

"We’re starting a collapse."

Location: District 5, Underground Tram System

Time: 3:45 AM

The soft hum of the tram was the only sound beneath the earth. Kaen sat with his eyes closed, yet his mind moved faster than the bullet train they were on. Across from him, Ezra stared—no longer just curious, but concerned.

"You really think this will work?" Ezra asked.

Kaen opened one eye. "It already has. The seeds were never meant to grow overnight. But I’ve been watering this soil for a thousand years... even if they forgot."

He pulled out a folded city-wide food rationing schedule—the kind only high-level logistics officers would access.

"Tomorrow morning," Kaen said, "Sector 12 doesn’t get water."

Ezra blinked. "That’s... chaos."

Kaen’s eyes were calm. "That’s leverage."

---

Location: Central City News HQ – Hacked Server Room

Time: 4:12 AM

A silent upload. A viral clip. Hidden metadata. Timed releases.

Kaen didn’t need to fight the powerful—he just needed the public to see their corruption. One leaked video of a senator laughing while slashing housing funds. Another of the head of sanitation trading favors for influence. Carefully selected truths. Edited but not fake.

> "Let them deny it," he whispered, "and they’ll only dig their own graves."

The virus was named TRY_100K.exe, just like Kaen’s journal—his silent mark.

The public would erupt. The Council would panic. Trust would disintegrate.

Just as he planned.

---

Location: Observatory Tower – The Next Morning

Time: 6:00 AM

Kaen watched the sunrise alone.

Behind him, the city groaned as the news spread like wildfire.

Riots would start by noon. The Emergency Override Grid—his grid now—would be activated within hours. Power outages would "mysteriously" hit sectors 8 through 13. Surveillance would scramble to trace a ghost that didn’t exist.

And when panic gave birth to desperation, they’d seek order.

His order.

Kaen lit a match, held it until it singed his fingers, and whispered into the dawn:

> "Attempt number 100,033... but this time, I think I’ll let them believe it was their idea."

To be continue...

🌟 Author’s Note 🌟

Hey dear readers! 😊

First of all, thank you so much for sticking with The 100,000th Try. Your support means the world to me, and it’s because of you that this story keeps growing one Chapter at a time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings about the story so far! What do you think of Kaen’s journey? Any favorite moments or characters? Your feedback helps me improve and keeps me inspired to write more for you.

Drop a comment, leave a review, or even just say hi—every word from you motivates me like crazy!

Stay awesome,

– Anime Mastermind ✍️💫