Johnny is a Netrunner in a dystopian world ruled by Megacorporations more powerful than world governments. He moves through cyberspace like a ghost, untraceable and mysterious.
Until tonight...
Nightmares in Neon and Chrome: Tales from the Edge
Pt. I
“Why do they call you the Ice Queen?”
“Two reasons: first I’m a stone cold bitch.” I smile at the thought.
“The second reason?”
“Because no one breaks ice like I can.”
A pause…
“No one?”
“No one.”
“You sound pretty confident.”
“Only because I’ve proven it over and over again. There isn’t a system I can’t crack. I’ve gone up against the hardest and deadliest Black Ice out there and cracked all of it. Military, government, megacorp, all of it.”
“You’ve never been caught, have you?”
I frown at the question. “Caught means dead in this biz, slick. If it’s not black ice making your head explode or melting your brain it’s a kill squad kicking your door down and putting two in the heart and one in the head so no, I’ve never been caught.
“No one knows what you look like or where you live. It’s said you never meet a client in Realspace, just Netspace. You’re a complete cypher. How do I know what I’m looking at now is what you really look like?
What he’s looking at is near six feet of goddess. A blonde Valkyrie encased in a Second-Skinâ„¢ Suit of gleaming silver with reflective mirror shades hiding pale blue eyes. I’m not showing any weapons but when I can kill you with my mind, I don’t really need them.
This guy is getting on my nerves now. These are amateur questions. I’m pissed that they sent this drekhead after me. It’s insulting.
“Remember the whole thing about not getting caught? You don’t know what I really look like or where I live and that’s how it’s going to stay.
I lean back and the look on my face is the definition of ice. Here, in Netspace, looks can kill and this chummer’s about three seconds away from his brains running out of his nose.
“By the way, your tracers should be leading your kill team into a free-fire zone in Moscow, right about now."
I laugh at the look on his face.
"What, did you think I’m some nugget jacking into her daddy’s deck for the first time? Bloody rooks, I pegged your trace the second you connected. You corpses are clumsy. Interview? Please, I tracked you to your GenCon office with your first datapak.”
“I sent you a little gift, tell the Smilies I said hi!”
I cut the connection and drop out of Netspace right as his scream started. Strategic Munitions Inc. has been looking for me for a long time so it didn’t take much work to send one of their HK Squads (perfectly deniable of course) to GenCon HQ, thinking I was there. Office 790B should be a smoking wreck right about now.
The fact that SMI and GenCon were engaged in a low level corp war didn’t hurt.
“A little chaos never hurts.” I think as I lean my middle-aged bulk back in my uplink crá¨che. I sigh as Netspace dissolves and with it the freedom of being the Ice Queen. Now I’m back in my real body, gravity pulling my 320 lbs. down. The old hate rises up and overwhelms me and I cry.
Pt. II
I don’t like people.
I never have and, at close to 50, I don’t see that changing. Consequently, I don’t have a lot of friends and by a lot, I mean none. There’s a small handful of people in Realspace I deal with out of necessity but none of them know the real me. Ok, one does but I'm not getting into that.
Today I was dealing with one of those people and it had taken me a good two hours to get ready for the encounter.
We met a noodle kiosk downtown. No one goes to my house. No one.
It’s warm and pissing down a nasty rain. Too many people, too many cars in the street and air, too much noise have me on edge. It’s noon but the overcast sky and the towering buildings all around me conspire to make it seem more like dusk.
An advertising drone flies overhead, a constant message blaring out first in English, then Japanese, then Cantonese. On the side of the drone a giant screen advertises the new BMW-Benz Shrike AV-7. A real steal at only 175,000 new bucks.
“Wish in one hand and shit in the other.” I noisily slurp another spoonful of my kibble and soy soup, another steal at only 10 new bucks.
“This is coming out of your cut, Choi, you fuck. You know I hate going out and now you’re 15 minutes late.”
“16, gweilo. Keep your tits in. Traffic was a bitch.” He smirks. When is it anything but?
“I’d offer you some soup but this shit ain’t cheap and neither is what I’m assuming you have for me.”
Choi smiles, his left eye flashes red at me as he flares his optics. One of his little quirks, cyberoptics generally look like the real deal but he gets off on the whole Terminator thing. Mine is in my right eye and looks completely natural. I even spent a few new bucks more to add a layer of moisture and some warmth so it looks organic.
The skinny Amerasian slides a tightly packed, square object towards me. “Why you insist on real decks over virtual links is beyond me.”
“This SGI Elysia is cutting edge, Choi.”
“Ten years ago. Who the fuck uses a deck now?”
I don’t tell him that I have bleeding edge virtual hardware and the best wi-fi money can buy installed and wired into my nervous system. I also don’t tell him how I modify old cyberdecks to boost them so they sync with my virtuality gear and in tandem offer me a nearly 3% speed increase over the best WF runner out there. Not to mention acting as a good old fashioned firewall.
“I do. Call me old fashioned and now let’s call you getting the fuck out of here so I can go home.” I pull out my credstick as Choi holds out his right hand. I program the amount we agreed on, minus the cost of the soup and wave the stick over his hand. His eye flashes as he accesses his account and sees the money deposited.
“Cheap bastard, you really did charge me for the soup.”
“Yeah but you can have what’s left.”
He makes a face. “Scrag that, chum, that’s shit’s nasty.” He gets up and turns up his collar. “I hate the city. You ever think of getting out of this shithole, John?”
“All the time but where would I go? Leave one metroplex for another? Or maybe hit the highway system and play with the nomads and biker gangs? Real Mad Max shit? Hell with that. Maybe one day I’ll score big and go to New Zealand and see real trees and breathe clean air but I don’t see it happening soon.”
Choi laughs. “You just love the fun and excitement here. San-Angeles has all anyone could need. Take a ride to Chiba City for the real bleeding edge shit and then fly to Fire Island where parts are still paradise, right?”
“I had enough paradise when I lived in the Anchorage-Fairbanks metroplex; acid snow and earthquakes. At least it’s warm here most of the time.” I heft my bulk out of the stool and turn my collar up. “Thanks, Choi. See you next time.”
“Joigin, gweilo.”
“Cut the shit, you’re as American as, well, not me. I was born in the Republic of Alaska, but as American as something American.” I give him a one-finger wave as he laughs at my retreating back.
I make a wireless call to a hovercab company and sit back in the shelter, pressed on all sides by too many people, breathing in the stench of bodies and exhaust. I’m getting claustrophobic but it beats being in the rain.
A Smilie police aerodyne suddenly takes off, blue lights flashing and screams away into the distance. I toy with the idea of cracking SMI encryption for shits and giggles but find I don’t really care what’s going on. As long as they aren’t going to my arco I couldn’t care less.
Words to eat as it takes me an hour to get home. Traffic had to be routed a good 10 square blocks as two chromer gangs decided to turn part of downtown into a free fire zone. That they did it in front of the Arisaka Arcology speaks to a certain level of stupidity. All it took was one stray round before heavily armed guards poured out and returned fire with above-military grade hardware. Once SMI got on the scene it really turned into a clusterfuck. Arisaka invoked corporate immunity and claimed self-defense. Strategic Munitions and Arisaka are hardcore competitors in the munitions business so they couldn’t resist a little nose rubbing which really pissed off the Smilie operators who contract for metro law enforcement. Corpsey rivalry tends to overwhelm Protect and Serve so things almost went squiggly between the two. Meanwhile the corpses of the two gangs were busily bleeding out all over the sidewalk. Air and ground traffic came to a dead stop and since we were deep in the traffic pattern we weren’t moving, not with Smilie patrol flyers coming in from all directions.
The city was seconds away from a full blown corporate war which is good for my business but bad for my commute. Luckily suits from both corps made it on scene and calmed things down. SMI contractors and Arisaka guards went back to their respective corners with more than a few glares and upraised fingers and I, I finally made it home.
Three hours later and my brand new, 10 year old deck was humming alone in my uplink crá¨che, synced to the Kirama LPD wireless nestled along my spinal column and into my brain through the foramen magnum, leads and wires implanted at all sorts of spots in my brain as well as different points in my body.
As much as I wanted to play I was tired. Getting out had exhausted me so I crawled into my bed, turned out the lights with a thought and went to sleep.
Pt. III
There was a buzzing in my head. A very special buzz that only comes when the Ice Queen’s fixer calls.
Without getting out of bed I activated the wi-fi and plunged into Netspace. My outer vision went black as the inner vision kicked in and suddenly I was in the data stream, looking at the netspace the Ice Queen met clients in. Light streams flew by as I looked out the “window”, endless columns of multi-coloured data. I saw avatars scurrying to and fro, most of them corporate programmer types, intent on their own business, some of them virtual representations of various programs. Advert bots flew by flashing messages on everything from toilet paper to getaways to Mars.
I loved Netspace. Here I was free to be myself, free of that meat body I despised. My wiring ensured as good a tactile experience as possible but it still wasn’t as good as the real thing. I can live in virtuality, halfway between Real and Netspace but I want a new body first.
One of these days I’ll get a job that pushes me over the edge into being able to do so. Real recombinant DNA and nanites, not a Fire Island skin job but the real deal from Chiba City.
Enough grabassing. I tab the link and bring up a window in my Data Fortress. “Speak.”
The avatar of my fixer looks back at me with a lascivious grin. “Ice Baby, you look fine as always. Are you sure we can’t connect and have some wild V-sex one day?”
“I’d rather fuck a hellhound. What do you have for me, Slick?”
He grins at the old banter between us.
“How about a quick data grab? Well, quick being relative. Quick for you since you’re the best. I wouldn’t run this one by anyone else since it’s high level corp, the kind of shit that will have black ice all over it. Just the kind of thing you love.”
I smile. “Damn straight, chum. Speak to me.”
He turns serious and I know there’s a part to this I’m not going to like. “It’s an Arisaka affiliate, Ice.”
“Fuck me. How did you get a job cracking them? Did you hit the big league and not tell me?”
He shakes his head. “I got it because no one else would touch this one with a ten foot pole but I knew it would interest you. I haven’t actually taken it yet so it’s still out there but I figured you might want it.”
I have to think hard about this one. I’ve cracked every corporate data fortress but theirs. Arisaka does not play. The use the blackest of black ice. Soulkillers, Hellhounds, Melters, to name a few. They also keep HK squads on standby to trace and eliminate anyone stupid enough to try.
“Affiliate, not their own mainframe?”
“Nope. Some small time company that seems to have hit it big with a product Arisaka is interested in but I don’t know what. That’s the job: find out what it is they have that Arisaka wants and how much they plan to offer for it. So far they seem to be playing nice and haven’t just gone in with an extraction team and grabbed the board. As far as I know this company hasn’t formalized anything with them yet so it may be small time Ice, gray, maybe a little black. I haven’t heard anything about them taking on Arisaka data so I don’t think you’ll hit any high level Ice but you may tangle with a tracer or a Hellhound they’ve backdoored in.”
The thought of dealing with Arisaka must be why no one else has touched this one.
“How much are they paying, Slick?”
The lascivious grin comes back at that. “Ready for this? Hold your tits, pretty lady. 250 large, new bucks, in cash and untraceable.”
My jaw drops at that. “Are you fucking kidding me? Slick, that’s insane money for a job, even one involving Arisaka and one that might not even have them involved until afterwards.”
“I know. The name has them all shitting themselves. They’re scared some hotshot Jap runner will bust their trace busters and send kill teams after them but I know you, you cover your tracks better than anyone else out there.”
I sit back in my virtual chair, mind racing. This is it; this is the job that will put me in striking distance of a visit to the top end New Uâ„¢ in Chiba City. A few more runs after this and I’m set. It’s not hard to make up my mind.
“I’m in. You’ll take your normal cut?”
“I’m not even going to haggle this one with you, babe. This is the best paying run we’ve done so I’ll stick with my usual 20 percent. You pull this off and we’re both set for a while.
“Done. Stream the info to me and I’ll look it over and get to work once I’m decided on the best way.”
Slick’s avatar looks over for a moment. “Done.”
I acknowledge receipt of the data packet and give it a quick once over.
“Slick, who’s the client? It doesn’t say.”
“That there is a mystery, pretty lady. This one came through pretty highly encrypted channels with some pretty impressive Evasion and Stealth subroutines.” I know a few decent runners that have taken a crack at it and have gotten nowhere.”
Well, shit. I don’t like doing runs for complete enigmas but this one pays well enough that I might just have to make an exception.
“OK, Slick. Let me know if you turn anything up. I’m going to give this a good lookover and start planning. I’ll be in touch once I have the data in hand.”
“Watch your shapely ass, I don’t want anything bad to happen to it before I get a piece.”
I give him a one-finger wave before severing the connection. I download the data off my VR hub and into my neural network. In Realspace I pick up a chip and insert it into a data jack behind my left ear after running several very good programs that reassure me there’s nothing in here that can hurt me. I drop out of Netspace, bring up the data and project it into a VR overlay visible only to me and begin reading.
Part IV
So somewhere out there is a small company that came up with a program that Arisaka wants. This is all well and good. Not so well and good is that I can’t figure out what the fuck it is.
I know where it is. The instructions are very detailed on what to look for and where to find it. It sounds easy so I know it’s anything but. If Arisaka wants it this much that they’re willing to play nice and negotiate rather than take it by force, as they are normally wont to do then this is something big. I have no doubt they’ve slipped some of their own Ice into this Access Tech’s mainframe. Melters and zombies are highly illegal programs and Netwatch deals very severely with anyone caught using them. Even Arisaka plays nice when the eye of Netwatch looks their way. Every government and megacorp signed the accords giving Netwatch the power to police the Net, including Arisaka but that doesn’t mean they don’t use the hell out of killer programs like those. I’m going to have to play this one as carefully as I ever have. The best Evasion and Stealth I know, the top end cracking and defensive ICE and reflex boosts to deal with the nasty shit I’m sure is waiting for me. Overclocking and brainhacks, I’m not scared to do it which is part of why I’m the best at what I do. It keeps me alive but even so the thought of a Hellhound scares me. Those nasty buggers follow you home, all sneaky like, and then attack your hardware whilst executing an alarm subroutine. The fact that said hardware is attached to your nervous system tends to be bad enough. Most runners who survive a Hellhound attack have some residual neural damage that’s very costly to repair. That’s why I use the old-school decks, they act as a buffer between me and those nasty programs. I can cut the sync with the deck and drop out of Netspace, I just have to make sure the deck is in a nice spot, surrounded by metal so the resulting explosion doesn’t hurt me or anything else. Only the best runners can deal with the Hellhound attack and its alarm program at the same time. If you miss the alarm then you have a few moments at best before the kill team arrives and splatters you all over the apartment.
Lucky for me that I’m one of the best.
I spend eight hours optimizing my equipment, making sure the sync between the cyberdeck and my internal hardware is rock solid. I run simulation after simulation, making sure I have the best programs loaded and ready to go. This is why I’m so good at what I do: I leave nothing to chance. If I’m not sure my ass is covered then I don’t run. I backup my backup plans. On a job like this that extra preparation means the difference between life and a messy death. After checking everything I nap for three hours. I get up and take a long bath, soaking away the care and stress. I brush my teeth and comb my hair, looking in the mirror as little as possible. I take a few hits of a stim drink, enough to give me some energy and a little bit of a mental boost but not enough to give me the shakes but otherwise my stomach is empty. Some SysOps cover their data with a nasty little program called Upchuck. I know people that have run afoul of it and would really prefer not to. Dry heaves are better than a full bout of explosive vomiting.
Preparations done I connect my wi-fi to the deck, check the read on the sync and drop into Netspace. The world fades around me and I step into a galaxy of light and colour.
Part V
The Net appears as an immense city made of light. Every building, home, vehicle, everything with a connection to the Net appears in virtual space in a location relative to its place in Realspace. Looking around I could see the Net presence of my blocks wide Arcology. My data fortress occupied a space that was several hundred virtual meters above and to the left of my Realspace flat.
At the same time I appeared in Netspace I activated an Invisibility subroutine and vanished from the sight of anyone who might be watching. I knew the Arcology had surveillance in Real and Netspace. Netwatch had a node close by as well though they didn’t know that I knew.
VR cara flew by, their guidance systems and built in wi-fi broadcasting. I saw streams of data everywhere I looked. Wireless coms, virtuality signals, news, advertising. Netspace is a riot of colour and the sheer amount of data and the size of the potential space can be overwhelming.
Users both casual and professional flew or walked by everywhere. People using VR overlays, wi-fi handheld devices, or wi-fi implants, connected to Netspace as they went to and fro in Realspace. They didn’t interest me, right now I had work to do.
I activated my Armour, Shield, and Sword subroutines and smiled as my Valkyrie-like form suddenly became far more impressive. Not that I planned on anyone seeing me. The armour and shield were Netspace visualizations of the programs I was running for defense and, in the case of the sword, offense.
Double checking my stealth subroutines I set out for the target. I plunged into the nearest data stream and headed “Uptown.”
I hit a data node maintained and watched by Netwatch and tossed a Ghost program at it, setting it to head off at a right angle to me. I felt the SysOp turn his attention towards it and took off, continuing towards my destination.
It wasn’t long before I was floating across the street, giving the Access Tech building a good, hard look.
I dropped a Speedtrap near me, a nice little program that would alert me to the presence of another Netrunner or offensive program within 30 meters of me. So far it showed clear.
I activated SeeYa and looked closer at the building. I could see the first level of ICE, simple alarm programs so far. A Pit Bull patrolled the building. Tricky but not impossible. They’re designed to detect intrusions and track them to the source then cut the user access. They also report to whatever admin happens to be watching the system at the time. Brute forcing the puppy would be fun but would likely set off an alarm.
Time to throw the dog a bone. I activated a program of my own called Glitch and sent it on its way around the other side of the building. It would show an irregular burst of energy that would draw the Pit Bull’s attention away from me. It would pulse at different intervals, each one triggering the Pit Bull to investigate and send a query to its operator who would, eventually, get sick of the alerts. It was designed to look like background Netspace glitches so it wouldn’t draw the attention of all but the most paranoid of admins.
Soon enough the Pit Bull perked up and ran around the side of the virtual building, leaving my path clear. I jumped a datastream and landed on the roof, instantly dropping another SeeYa which showed no alarms.
I looked at the virtual wall of the building and decided the subtle approach was working best. Time to get inside. I activated a Worm and set it down on the roof. The little program began to pulse in time with the colour shifts of the virtual building’s icon before sinking into the roof. I was in. Now I just had to wait for the door to open.
It took ten seconds for my Worm to find and open the door for me. A section of roof flashed green for a second before going black. I had penetrated the first layer of Ice and was in. According to my schematics the node I wanted was three levels down. I double checked my Armour, Shield, and Invisibility before going in.
I was inside the building now and the virtual elements took on a look more akin to Realspace. A hallway stretched before me before turning into a T. I activated another Speedtrap and dropped it behind me before letting loose a floating eye. It zipped down the hallway and turned left, broadcasting what it was seeing back to me. The hall looked clear.
I followed the path my eye took and made it to the lift. This is where things get tricky. This “lift” was an internal data stream and wasn’t being used much at the moment. If it showed a spike in activity that would set off an alarm and draw the attention of the SysOp.
Time for another one of my homegrown programs. I activated a subroutine that doubled my invisibility program and bled off any excess energy into the nearest datastream that could absorb it without triggering an alarm. I truly was the ghost in the machine now. I dropped into the light and let the lift take me down to the level I needed.
Part VI
I exited the hallway and immediately saw the first problem. The door I wanted was there and standing in front of It was a Zombie. A truly hideous program and very, very Black. I don’t think Access Tech uses these so it appeared Arisaka had sent some security of their own.
The program looked like a shriveled, skeletal figure, giving off a gray mist that stunk even here in Netspace. Maggots writhed in its virtual flesh, occasionally dropping off and splatting to the floor. Zombies were designed to attack the Runner, sending a lethal burst of energy to their body and frying their forebrain. There wasn’t any way to sneak past this beast so it was time to go on the offensive.
I readied my sword, and checked my Replicator program. I was going to have to fight through the door, deal with any ICE inside which, based on the Zombie, was likely to be black, get the data, and get the hell out of there, all without being traced.
All in a day’s work.
I activated the Killer IV program and dropped my invisibility, popping the Replicator as I did.
The Zombie reacted instantly, reaching forward and biting one of dozen images of me that suddenly appeared in the hall, jagged teeth tearing into its neck and ripping the head off. My doppelgangers attacked with their swords, cutting off bits of program as the Zombie continued its relentless attack. I tossed the Killer program and activated a Silence subroutine, hopefully cutting off any alarms before they could reach the SysOp.
The Killer latched onto the zombie and immediately dug in to its rotted flesh, revealing glowing code beneath. The zombie lurched to the side as errors began to replicate in its logic center, code began to drop to the floor and disappear as the Zombie succumbed to the swords and Killer. I waited until it dropped to the ground and dissolved away then stepped up to the door. I could feel my heart pounding in Realspace. I hated those damned programs.
I fully expected there to be worse behind the door.
I activated the Jackhammer program and set it against the door Ice. Bits of colour flared as the datawall was chipped away. It took about thirty seconds before the door flew apart in a bright flash.
It was that moment that the Hellhound leapt out at me.
God damn but I hate being right…
I jumped to the side as the burst of flame exploded out from the room. The huge form of a metallic wolf followed, turning malevolent eyes towards me.
“Ice Queen.” It hissed my name, and leapt at me.
I felt the pulse of energy and raised my shield, turning the flame aside and activated my most powerful Defense subroutine. A burst of light shot out of my shield, blinding the Hellhound and giving me a chance to run into the room.
I wasn’t free, not by a long shot. I had to kill this thing or it would wait in the Net for me, constantly scanning for my brain waves. Detecting them, it would track me and attack again and again. I would never be free of the damned thing unless I ended this now.
Another pulse of energy shot out from the vile program, designed to travel through the link between my consciousness and my meatbody and stop my heart. My shield stopped it again but I saw the glowing cracks begin to appear.
I activated my Replicator program again and threw another Killer IV at the Hellhound. The Killer attached itself to the metal skin of the beast but, unlike the Zombie, did not immediately find entry into its logic center. The Hellhound turned towards one of my Replicants and let loose a burst of white flame, incinerating it.
Another pulse of heart stopping energy erupted from the Hellhound and more glowing cracks appeared in my shield.
Time to get out the big guns. There was no way this wasn’t going to get the attention of the SysOp. I activated my biggest anti-ICE program and threw it at the Hellhound. There was a roar and suddenly the metal wolf was engulfed in a noxious purple mist as the Hydra materialized. I saw bits of code begin to fray off the Hound’s body and cheered as the Killer found its way in through one of the cracks. Instantly errors began to double then triple in the logic center of the Hellhound. It whined piteously as it began to slide to the ground, the metal skin coming off in chunks now.
It turned its gaze to me, eyes beginning to fade. “Ice Que-“ The light went out and the beast dissolved into a puddle of glowing light.
“Fuck me!” I took quick stock of my programs and realized I was in deep shit if anything else remained. The Hydra and Replicants were gone, destroyed in the fight with the Hound, and my Shield was almost useless.
I could hear alarms going off and knew I had little time to get what I needed. I pulled out my best decryption program and aimed it at the VR computer storing the data I was here for. Blinding white light shot out from my hand, symbols flashing, too fast to see clearly, and struck the datawall of the computer. Six billion codes a second hit the encryption and began to crack the code. It took three seconds, three heart wrenching seconds before I was in. I threw a Jackhammer intrusion program at the nearest wall and grabbed the data, matching the folder’s icon with what I was told to look for.
Behind me the door to the room rematerialized and slammed shut. Brute force was what was getting me out now. The wall exploded out as the Jackhammer collapsed the side of the data fortress and I jumped out, spreading wings and flying up. I could see three glowing lights behind me and knew pursuit programs were after me. I activated one of my last tricks and threw a Flak program behind me. Bright white light exploded, blinding the sensors of the pursuing programs. I activated my Invisibility program and jumped into the nearest data stream, sending off two more Ghosts as I did.
Two blocks from home I exited the data stream, leaping to the top of the nearest virtual building and waited, watching. I extended the range on my wi-fi and tapped into Netwatch, hearing huge amounts of chatter. Netcops were swarming the area around Access Tech which made me smile. If they found the remains of the Zombie and Hellhound there were going to be questions asked. Access was ground zero in a giant shit storm and I was about to be several hundred thousand new bucks richer.
If I had known what was coming I would not have been so fucking cocky…
Part VII
“Come on, Slick, answer you rancid frakhead.” Four hours post-run and not a word from my Fixer. He was probably out spending his windfall on hookers and cheap synthahol but the lack of response was still pissing me off. The sooner he answered the sooner I got paid and the happier I would be. I had run the numbers and this job put me a year away from getting my Chiba City makeover.
I looked again at the datachip containing the info I had cracked at Access Tech. As curious as I was to know what was in it I hadn’t looked. The job hadn’t said I wasn’t to look but it also hadn’t said I was welcome to and some clients got real pissy if you peeped their data or made copies. I didn’t get my reputation by being nosy and looking at the stuff I cracked so I fidgeted a bit more before setting the chip down. I’d wait for Slick to answer, copy the data to my neural network, erase the chip, and upload everything to him once in my data fortress.
There was an internal ping indicating a message. “About damn time.” I connected my wi-fi and synced with the deck before opening a virtuality interface into my data fortress. No need to go all in to Netspace just yet.
“Slick, you rotten bastard, what took you so long?”
Silence.
“Slick?” I called out. “If that’s you stop dicking around, I have the data. Time to pay.”
There was a loud crash as the front door, three inches of steel reinforced wood, locked, deadbolted, and barred, flew off the hinges, and slammed into the wall, four feet away.
I screamed and turned, rolling off the couch and went for my Ruger Superwarhawk. The VR interface kicked in when my hand made contact with the grips, transforming me into a Smart-Gun wielding kill-
I didn’t see the motion but the gun was wrenched out of my hand, three fingers breaking in the process and I was flying across the room. The VR overlay went dark and suddenly static filled my optics. I hit the ground heavily and lay there, stunned.
A hand, hard as steel, grabbed the back of my neck and I was flying again, this time back to the couch. I slammed into the wall and slid down, landing on the couch with a cracking sound as the frame broke.
I shook my head and groggily reset the interface with my optics, the VR overlay kicking back in, and found my assailant.
The first thing I noticed was she was gorgeous. The second thing was that she was kind of short, maybe 165 cm. Long black hair framed a stunning face with Amerasian features, Japanese by my guess. Almond shaped eyes of a brilliant green stared back at me and her cupid bow lips had a half smile on them. She was encased from neck to feet in a jet black, skin-tight slicksuit and carried a matched pair of pistols at her hips. The distinctive hilt of a monokatana peeked over her left shoulder. She held my gun in her left hand, fingerless gloves revealing long, shapely nails.
Still looking into my eyes she took the gun and bent the barrel, no tightening of the eyes to indicate strain on her part, and tossed It into my lap.
“Hello, Johnny. I must say, you aren’t quite what I expected the Ice Queen to look like.”
Fuck…
Pt VIII
Despite the pain radiating through every part of my body I managed to sit upright on my broken couch. “How did you find me?”
She gave that little smile again. “Thank you for not insulting my intelligence and trying to deny who you are.”
She pulled out one of my chairs and sat down. “You’re good but I’m better. That’s all.”
She rubbed her hands together like she was cleaning dust off of them. “Johnny Livingston Miller. 47. Living on disability due to spinal stenosis and bad knees. Obese, balding, agoraphobic. That’s one life. In your other life you’re the Ice Queen, one of the top 10, maybe even top five Netrunners in the world. You have a reputation for getting in and out of places few other runners can and have never, before now, been caught.”
I shifted, trying to ease the pain in my back. “Who are you?”
“Sorry, Johnny. There are a few things in this world you simply won’t ever know. One of them is what’s in the data you cracked and the other is who I am.”
“You should have left this job alone. You stepped neck deep into shit you can’t even imagine and now I’m here cleaning up.”
“You’re a little late since I already copied it and sent it to my Fixer. The client likely has it already.”
She shook her head, looking disappointed. “Now you’re insulting my intelligence. You were waiting for Slick to call you when I came knocking but the thing is, he’s been dead for three hours and I made sure the data had not been sent to him. That means you still have it and your Fixer and the client, who I will find before the end of the night, do not.”
My stomach dropped and my chest constricted at the news. This woman was far beyond anyone I have ever heard of. How the hell had she gotten on our tails so quickly, cutting through every program I had in place to avoid such a thing?
“Give me the chip, Johnny. I’ll make it quick; you have my word on that.”
I sighed and reached into my shirt pocket, fished out a data chip and tossed it to her.
She smiled and stood. “Thanks, Johnny. I mean that. I appreciate the lack of bluster. For what it’s worth, you really are one of the best.”
I stood up and waited by the couch as she came to me. She reached out a hand and gently rubbed my cheek. “You won’t feel a thing, I promise.”
I covered her hand with my own and gave a wan smile. “I know.”
I popped my last surprise.
About six years ago I made one, half-hearted attempt at being a Combat Runner. You know, the kind of moron who goes in with Ops teams and cracks data isolated from cyberspace. Before the run (which I never did go on) I had a friend, the one person who, until tonight, knew who I really was, cook up something for me.
A pair of sharp probes shot out of the back of my hand and stabbed into the flesh at the top of the hand. There was a pop as it went through the glove and another pop as it penetrated what might have been a light layer of dermal plating. She hissed in pain as nanites flooded from the reservoir connected to the probes and hit her bloodstream. Suddenly her face went blank and her eyes hardened. “Bad idea, Johnny, now you’re going to suffer.”
“SHIT!” I screamed as I went flying again, crashing into the wall some eight feet away, separating the main room from the little kitchen. Those nanites should have had her bent double in agony as they connected to her nervous system and started playing merry havoc with her pain receptors.
The nanites were designed to be injected into a computer’s hardware and start cracking its physical form while I went to work on its datawall in Netspace. A side effect I had my friend built in, just in case, was they would run roughshod over the nociceptors in the body. Apparently my assassin had built in pain suppressors since they didn’t appear to be doing shit to her.
She strode over to me with another one of those little half smiles. “Nanites, cute trick. You showed me yours so I’ll show you mine.”
She opened her mouth and popped a pair of very sharp cyberfangs, shooting a stream of clear liquid like a spitting cobra out at me. I cursed and threw myself to the side and just avoided the spray. A quick glance to my side showed the wall begin to disintegrate where the spray landed.
“Shredder nanites, nasty little things. I think I’m going to bite you and wait for them to circulate before giving them the order to start melting you from the inside out. It will be slow and agonizingly painful.”
A sudden flash from my VR interface caught my eye and a display popped up on my left optic as I looked at her.
“Datawall breached.”
She was wired. With a thought I synced with my deck and prepared a Jackhammer program but she was on me before I could move. She caught me by the throat and effortlessly threw me across the room, right into my cyberdeck. The impact of my 320 pounds hitting it cracked the casing and shattered the deck. I screamed as stabbing pain lanced through my head. A sudden virtual overlay showed my wi-fi signal suddenly disconnected as the deck stopped working and then…
…I saw a virtual representation of my wi-fi signal snapping out, quick as a striking snake and latching on to her neural network, a tiny chink in her implants made by my nanites enabling me to even see the network.
She stopped with an odd look on her face and I felt something vast and baleful turn its attention towards me and LOOK at me. Something else, something not her.
I slammed my Jackhammer program into her neural network and popped a nasty anti-system program called Flatline right after it. Designed to trace and kill the operating interface of the network, it was a desperate attempt to get the hell away from her. I could see how wired she was, far, far more than anyone else I had ever seen, the network infiltrated all of her body from central locations in her brain and all along her spinal cord. If I could shut down the interface it might be enough to stop her so I could run.
She growled and moved, faster than I could process and I felt a cold wetness trace a line across my stomach. I stumbled back and looked down. Seven centimeter Rippers had extended from her fingertips and slashed across my belly. The cold feeling turned into a burning as blood began to pour down my legs. I fell to me knees as all the strength left me.
“Bad idea, John-“ She stopped as something popped inside her neural network. The resulting agony made us both scream as I suddenly merged my network into hers. That sense of malevolent observation I had felt earlier vanished and was replaced by a cold void. My optics flared again and a message flashed across my narrowing field of vision.
“Transfer initiated.”
To be continued…
Author's Note: This is loosely based on Cyberpunk 2020, the first cyberpunk RPG made which is itself, more then a little based on the Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson, the High Prophet of Cyberpunk. Please read and comment. Let me know what you liked or didn't like.
Part IX
“Transfer Initiated”
The words that changed everything for me.
They flashed across my optics and then there was blackness. I don’t know how long I floated in the dark beforeOHMYFUCKINGGODTHISHURTSPLESEGODMAKEITSTOP!
Ever had the sensation of your entire body being ripped to shreds and put back together again? No?
Good.
I don’t suggest you try it. It hurts. A lot.
The ripping started in the back of my head and expanded from there to encompass the entirety of me. It wasn’t just my body, it was by brain, my spirit, everything that made me ME, was being turned inside out and then I was rushing along a tunnel of light.
So…I’m dead and there really is an afterlife. The bitch gutted me and now I was dying.
I was so fucking close to making all my dreams come true and now, all of it was gone, taken away by some cybered assassin’s Rippers. Ain’t that a bitch?
The light raced across my field of vision, getting faster and faster, the pain getting worse and worse.
I have no mouth and I must scream.
Fuck you, Harlan.
Blackness and blessed numbness.
Unfamiliar words floated across my field of vision.
“Alien nanites 95% purged.”
“Cortical uplink damaged beyond repair: unable to reestablish uplink with Union.”
“Cortical uplink damaged beyond repair: unable to reestablish uplink with Enclave.”
“Suggest immediate return to Union Haven for repair of cortical uplink.”
“Acknowledge?”
“Acknowledge?”
“Acknowledge?”
Fucking acknowledged!” I screamed inside my own head. The scrolling words stopped.
Everything was still black.
I had the mother of all migraines but oddly enough my guts didn’t hurt anymore. I felt as weak as a kitten and numb, my whole body was numb except for the headache that made me want to puke from my toes up.
I did the only thing I could think to do. I laid there and pointedly did not move.
How long I stayed there, pointedly not moving, registered in optics that didn’t look the same.
43 minutes, 22 seconds. That’s what flashed across my field of vision as feeling returned to my body.
When feeling did return it did so in a body that wasn’t mine.
Eyes that weren’t mine opened and looked across the wreckage of my apartment.
What I lacked in beauty and grace I more than made up for in intelligence. I was quick witted and smart so it didn’t take me long to figure out the what, if not the how.
I was in her body. I knew it was impossible but there it was. Impossible or not, I was lying on the floor in a skin tight leather body suit with a left hand coated in blood from my old body. Everything felt different. Setting aside the sensation of unfamiliar skin, a changed center of gravity and a lack of years of fat brought on by emotional overeating, I felt…phenomenal.
I felt potential in me, like a coiled spring just waiting to be released. I wanted, I needed, to move, to leap up.
So I did.
And tried to land face first on the ground but something inside me kept that from happening. I felt a rush of air and balance was forced. I made a three point landing that felt so graceful I could cry. Until I saw what I had landed next too.
My old body was on the ground and it wasn’t dead. My old mouth gaped like a fish desperately trying to breathe. Blood had run out of said mouth and nostrils and the look in my eyes made me gasp.
This wasn’t an empty shell. Something was in that meat and since it wasn’t me it could only mean one thing. My erstwhile killer had traded places with me and was experiencing the painful death from being gutted that she had intended for me.
I wish I could say I didn’t have any sympathy but I wasn’t that cold. I knelt down beside my old shell and picked up my- her, head and put it on my knee.
No one should die alone and in such agony, with such fear. Not even the person who meant it for me.
“How did this happen?”
She shook her head and tried to speak but only gurgles came out.
Her mouth moved, making words I could understand but not hear.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry.” I snapped her neck.
It was a mercy.
Answers died with her but there was no way I was linking our brains together again.
Almost an hour after she had kicked the door across the room and no one had come to investigate. If they had they would have called 911 and since there wasn’t a SMI aerodyne hovering outside my window and a tac-team in the apartment it looked like the basic rule of living in a shitty arcology applied.
“Don’t get involved.”
Good for me but I still needed to get out of here. Whoever she worked for might send more and I wasn’t used to this body.
This female body…
Elation at my changed fortune would have to wait. I needed to go.
I took quick stock at what I had on. A Second Skinâ„¢ Armoured slicksuit with composite plates over the torso, a pair of Glock X390 Genie Guns with variable ammo, Militech DK-70 Monokatana, and class-III Rippers in both hands.
Jesus. I was a walking army.
Paired cybereyes, tactile and sensory boost and at minimum, level III Kerenzikov-Yutani Boosterware. Some kind of subdermal plating, and a nervous system so wired I couldn’t even begin to guess at what all I had in it. And a pair of cyberfangs connected to a shredder-nanite reservoir. How could I forget those given the gaping hole in my wall. I should be a posterchild for cyberpsychosis and whilst she didn’t seem batfuck crazy, anyone who did what she did couldn’t be the most stable of individuals. At least I wasn’t entering into a dissociative state and feeling the urge to start killing everyone in the Arcology.
Yet.
I did a quick once over of my flat, taking what few items I really needed and tossing them in a bag. Item the first was my credstick which, with a simple wave over the cooling hand of my old meat was open for use by Me V2.0.
Did I mention always having a certain gallows humour?
I looked around at the remains of my old life one last time. I wasn’t ever coming back here again and whilst there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that there was also the stark terror of having no idea where to go, who was after me, and why.
The datachip. The answers were there. I grabbed it, a few empties and a portable copier/reader and tossed the lot into the bag.
Remember the one person I mentioned earlier that knew the real me? Yeah, that’s where I was going. No one else was crazy enough to believe what had happened to me and brilliant enough to put the pieces together.
Mad Mary.
Brilliant and crazy. She loved and hated me. I mean it this time when I say I’m not getting into it.
Techie, Edgerunner, mad scientist. Mad Mary is the most brilliant person I know and one of the most eccentric. She’s done more brainhacks and psychotropic drugs then the next 10 people I know put together. The end result is a brain that processes information so fast it makes me look like I’m standing still. The other, not so good end result is that she’s…off.
Way off.
Out the door and down the hall to the lift. I feel the interface plugs behind my left ear and plug in one of my chips. A menu pops up showing the full suite of programs on the chip; my Oh shit list. Instantly another menu pops up with a different set of programs. Stunned, I stop for a moment in the hallway.
She has crap on here I’ve only heard of, and some of those only in whispers. I thought I was a hotshit Netrunner but she — me, puts that to shame. She was a real combat runner.
I’m in Netspace as the lift heads to street level, hitting my own data fortress. This is a new perspective for me since it reacts pretty poorly to an unknown WF signal and I find I have to fight my own ICE to get in. It’s easy. Easier than it would have been for me before. One powerful Jackhammer knocks down my data walls and lets me input my own code into the mainframe, disabling the real nasty shit before it deploys. I settle into familiar space and call up a window, dialing Mary. I snap an Imposter into place and I’m the old me in Netspace.
“The Ice Queen is dead, long live the Ice Queen.”
The window fuzzes out and a familiar face appears. “Hi, I’m not in, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-“
“Funny. Cut the shit and listen. I need your help, Mary.”
“Always so chipper, Johnny. But you aren’t Johnny, you have the Ice Queen face and mannerisms down pat, you’re in the data fortress and your signal masking is topnotch but you ain’t who you say you are so I’m going to melt your brain in ten seconds unless you tell me what’s going on.”
Told you she was brilliant.
“I need your help to tell me what’s going on, Mary. Something impossible happened tonight and I need you. Anyone else hearing this story would say I’ve gone crazy but not you.”
“Mary, do the words ‘Union’ and ‘Enclave’ mean anything to you?”
That got her attention. She stood up straight and her eyes narrowed. “If you are who you say you are than you know where my second bolt hole is, you know how to get in and survive. If you make it to me I’ll believe you. If you die then I’ll strip the pieces from your corpse.”
I smirk. “Dead is dead.”
“Parts is parts.”
We finish it together, “Dead guys is parts.”
Her smile vanishes. “One point to you, you win if you survive. You’re meat until I see you standing in front of me.”
The connection ends.
Bitch. Her second bolthole is in what used to be East LA. I’m in the Oakland Arcology. Close to four hundred miles, through free fire zones, corporate controlled areas and the old interstate system. Nomads and biker gangs.
This is going to be great fucking fun.
The nomads chasing me had a few bikes capable of almost keeping up with me but with my rate of acceleration I was going to leave them behind so, in desperation, they increased the volume of lead they were throwing at me.
Part X
An explosion bloomed behind me and was quickly lost in my rear view, another direct hit from a well placed HESH round from the Glock X390. I gave out a whoop and opened the bike to a dizzying 250 KPH.
Have you ever been in a firefight on the ruins of I-5, about 200 km from the ruins of Oakland? No? I really suggest trying it if the chance ever presents itself. It's a shit tonne of fun.
The nomads chasing me had a few bikes capable of almost keeping up with me but with my rate of acceleration I was going to leave them behind so, in desperation, they increased the volume of lead they were throwing at me. This in turn increased my adrenaline and the heart in throat feeling I had as I kicked my speed up to 275 kph. I had an internal sonar/radar implant connected to a HUD which seemed to be directly wired into my reflex boosters so I was unconsciously making manuoevers that were simply impossible. Instant course changes as I dodged other drivers stupid enough to be on this stretch of highway, leaping over debris, going around craters. The world should have been a blur, impossible for me to react too but I was so boosted it almost seemed as if I were moving in slow motion. I could actually see bullets coming at me and was able to move around them.
Let me back up a bit and explain how I got in this situation since the last time I told my tale, I was leaving behind my old arcology with the rapidly cooling remains of my old body bleeding messily.
After getting off the link with Mad Mary I hustled down and out. I had long ago established control of the cameras in the halls and stairwells of the arcology, those that worked, and turned them off with a thought as I made my way downstairs, moving at a rate of speed my old body wouldn't have been capable of at all, let along sustained as I doing. I made my way to a side entrance and noted the alarm was already off. I guess that where my mystery assassin made her egress.
That was confirmed by the very low slung, jet-black, custom made motorcycle parked by the door. This thing looked like a panther, crouched and ready to pounce. I've never seen such an impression of speed and power from a parked vehicle before.
There was a smoking body on the pavement next to it. Some idiot street rat who tried to boost the bike and discovered the anti-theft system the hard way. I reached out with my wi-fi and found a heavily encrypted node on the bike which opened at the touch of my signal. My mind instantly linked with the built in VI and information streamed across my cyberoptics.
"Jesus." This thing was deadly and fast. Built in stealth technology, deployable micro-missile launchers, integral front and rear assault rifles and a few other nasty tricks. "Who the hell were you?" I asked out loud of my erstwhile assassin.
The bike turned on with a high pitched whine that quickly faded into silence and lights pulsed on the instrument console. More data scrolled across my HUD and suddenly my mind...partitioned.
That's the only way I can describe what happened to me. Part of my brain linked with the bike, forming a bond so complete and...intimate, that I gasped. I was the bike. I could feel power just waiting to be unleashed. The other part of my brain remained separate from the bond and was still scanning the street, scanning wi-fi signals, looking for threats, and generally doing the normal stuff the brain of a highly enhanced, cyber-assassin does when it's possessed by the animas of a former overweight, male netrunner.
OK, freaked now...I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I felt like I should be close to, if not, panicking, but that same emotional bluntness I felt upstairs in my former flat was happening again, as if I was being insulated from normal emotional response.
Feeling steadier I slid onto the bike and settled into the seat, feeling it mold itself around me. As I touched the handlebars a targeting reticule filled the field of vision on my left eye and data started scrolling as it started "pinging" various objects around me, assessing them for threats.
I reached out with my wi-fi and snagged a data stream, sending a query to a mapping service I used, and plotted the fastest route from Oakland to the East LA portion of the LA-SanFran Metro.
Yep, the interstate.
Shit.
The interstate system is, at best, anarchy. Nomad gangs, CHIP, and various corporate tac-teams have turned I-5 into a warzone. Normal, run of the mill folks, like the me I kind of used to be, stay the hell away from it. If I'm very, very lucky I'll be able to avoid tangling with anyone during my 640 km trip.
With that thought I accelerated the bike away from the arcology that used to be my home and headed for the nearest on-ramp.
I wasn't very, very lucky...
Part XI
Which bring me to the part of the story when I describe how the hell I was in a running firefight with the Crimson Wolves nomad gang.
What's a nomad gang, you ask? Ever see an old, pre-Collapse, 2D movie called Road Warrior? That's a nomad gang. Modern day outlaws traveling the back roads and interstates of our decimated world. At least that's the romantic notion. The reality is they're a bunch of over-chromed cyberpsychos in customised vehicles acting as highway robbers of the worst kind. Heavily armed and armoured cars, trucks, bikes, and the odd aerodyne, all traveling together, making trouble for anyone who crosses their path. They make war against other gangs, Highway patrol, Corporate security, and the occasional citizen desperate, or mad enough to use the highway system. The Republic of California has a long history of highway madness which only got worse with the collapse.
The old me, Johnny the fat netrunner, would never have taken the highway but I wasn't the old me. I was a lithe, deadly assassin with so many ways to kill people I hadn't figured all of them out yet.
Rounds whipped by me as I blew down the highway at near on 300 kph, dodging almost contemptuously. Despite myself I was having fun running and gunning. I'd only dreamed of doing something like this before and now I was living the dream. I let out a laugh and drove around a pile of wreckage that exploded behind me as one of the faster nomad bikers launched a missile at me.
The part of my brain not linked with the bike shot out and scanned for VR nodes behind me and found several. I snapped my wi-fi out and let loose with a Hammer program, smashing through their weak encryption, and seized control of one of the gangs armoured trucks. With a thought I jammed the wheel to the right and into two bikes running escort. At the speeds they were traveling they damn near disintegrated. At the same time I aimed at the vehicles in front and opened up with a roof mounted chain gun. Bikes and cars in front came apart as some 4000 rounds tore through armour and people. There was a series of explosions and suddenly the Wolves were down about half a dozen of their cars and bikes.
I turned and aimed one of my guns behind me and fired once, an armour piercing sabot round went through the grill of the vehicle I had under VR control and exploded, taking out two more of their bikes and suddenly the Wolves decided they had other places to be.
I laughed and holstered the Glock and continued on towards East LA.
Part XII
LA was dangerous before the collapse, East LA especially. Now it was downright deadly. That said I think there was something about the sight of a small Asian-American woman wearing skintight armour, carrying an arsenal and riding a bike that looked like a stealth fighter that gave off a distinct "don't fuck with me" look. People got out of my way and did everything they could to leave me alone as I rolled down Whittier Blvd towards what used to be Woods Avenue Park. I read the signs posted on the side of the road:
"You Are Now Entering a Free-Fire Zone. This Area is Not Patrolled by the LA County Sheriff's Department. Calls to 911 Will Not be Answered."
The same warning flashed across my optics and with it a small prompt:
"Enter Urban-Warfare mode?"
Urban-Warfare mode? What...the...hell?
I responded with a mental "yes" and the warning and prompt vanished. The targeting reticule enlarged and began scanning the area for threats, returning a great many of them. The genie guns at my sides both clicked once as the safety disengaged and I felt the world slow down as additional reflex boosting kicked in. Adrenaline flooded my system and I suddenly felt as if I could pick up and throw a car.
Jesus, this is addictive. I don't know what my facial expression looked like but the two cholos in a custom lowrider suddenly got the hell out from in front of me.
I turned down a side street and stopped. As I swung off the bike another message flashed in my optics:
"Anti-theft engaged - lethal measures."
There was a ping in my VR and an overlay came up. I opened a window into cyberspace and saw a message waiting for me. Mad Mary's face appeared, looking grim. "OK, babes, you made it this far so that's something. I'm giving you one chance to get in. Johnny knows the code for this side door and how to enter it. He is, I might add, the only one, other than me. I doubt anyone would have taken the time and effort to torture him just to get the location of my safehouse and the code to get in so I'm giving you the chance to enter the code and walk in the door. Any sign of netrunning and I open up with my defenses and if you are Johnny, you know how deadly they are." Mary's image vanished.
I walked up to the door and another window opened in my optics as I half-entered virtual space. A keyboard hovered in front of me. I "reached out" with my VR interface and typed in the 24 digit code that opened the door and bypassed Mary's defensive systems which were indeed, very lethal.
There was a beep and the door opened, lights coming on in the hallway beyond. I walked in and closed the door behind me, hearing the locks engage. I popped a Stealth subroutine and looked into Netspace and saw the red and black lines indicating that Mary had not actually disengaged her defensive systems. There was a click in the air as she engaged a speaker. "OK, test number dos. What month and day was it that Chang introduced us?"
I smirked. "It was Choi that introduced us and it was 15, August."
"Not bad, OK - test the third: what's my favorite Star Trek character?"
"You hate Star Trek - you're a Star Wars fangirl and Mara Jade is your favourite character. You dyed your hair red five years ago and have spent the past three trying to figure out how to make a real lightsaber."
The silence, to my enhanced and boosted reflexes and subsequent dilated sense of time seemed to stretch on forever."OK, no one else knows that. I'm disengaging the stuff that was aimed and about to kill you. You know the way around, I have your poison of choice stocked. Relax and wait for me and get ready to explain how the hell you've gone from a fat, balding, transgendered netrunner into China doll killer Barbie."
Yeah, that's quite the tale...
In which questions are answered and answers are questioned.
“The mystery is killing me, Mary.”
She gave me a look that scared the hell out of me. She looked completely lucid and almost frightened. I’ve never seen Mary look like this before.
“No, answers are what are going to kill you, chum.”
Part XIII
“OK, you want the good news, the better news, the not so good news, or the ‘oh shit, I’m fucked’ news?
“It’s been a great day so far so how about the good news.” I replied as Mad Mary raised the diagnostic bed she had me stretched out on.
“You can get dressed now.”
“Which news was that?” I asked.
“None. I just want you to get some clothes on. You’re so damn toned and pretty it makes me sick.”
I smirked at that.
Let me describe Mad Mary for you: take a short, petite, mad scientist and give her flaming red hair and wild eyes. Then make her crazier.
That’s a start. Mary’s cute in that “little sister I just want to love and hug and protect” kind of way but doing so is likely to get you cut, shanked, stabbed, shot, or brain-fried.
She looked like a high-tech bag lady with her custom-made VR goggles, handmade vest with pockets stuffed full of shit, some of which I couldn’t identify, and cargo pants, similarly burdened with stuff.
“The good news is I believe you are who you say you are which means I’m not going to kill you and sell you to a parts dealer I know which, believe me, is a tragedy for my bank account balance. The better news is that you’re the most lethal looking person I have ever seen. You have shit in you I can only guess at which leads to the ‘I’m fucked’ part.”
I counted off the news on my fingers. “I’m pretty good at math and that’s only three bits of news. You said there were four.”
“Don’t rush me, damn it all. “
She sat down and took off her goggles. “OK, what happened to you should be impossible but the tech in your new body made it not so impossible. She’s not cutting edge, she’s beyond bleeding edge, more like, I don’t know, speculative edge. When the two of you linked you crashed into a VR signal you weren’t supposed to and that signal, designed to handle a tonne of data, is what enabled you to do your little brain dump into her cerebral cortex. At the same time you were able to make the connection work to your advantage and dumped her into the other end which was your old body. None of this would have been possible if she wasn’t who I suspect she is.”
“The mystery is killing me, Mary.”
She gave me a look that scared the hell out of me. She looked completely lucid and almost frightened. I’ve never seen Mary look like this before.
“No, answers are what are going to kill you, chum.”
“You’re scaring me, Mary.” I said quietly.
“You should be. I don’t know what you’ve stepped into but it’s big; bigger than a formerly fat Netrunner and his crazy scientist friend. Arisaka? They aren’t shit compared to this and that’s the problem: they’re scared too.
I sighed and sat down on the couch across from her. Once I cleared off a precariously leaning pile of spare parts. “Did they send the assassin after me?”
“No. They don’t have this kind of tech.”
I gaped at that. “Arisaka doesn’t have this kind of tech? What the hell is in this body and who does have it?”
“The first part is easy.” She began ticking down with her fingers. “Both eyes are cybered. It looks like you have thermal, IR, UV, and telephoto capability at the very least. Both ears have implants so I imagine you can hear well beyond human norms with directional hearing. You have implants running all throughout your brain and central nervous system so your combat interface links to your guns and bike, the data slots behind your ears, VR and WF interface, cyberfangs with nanite reservoirs, and general sensory boosting. With me so far?”
I nodded, feeling numb.
“Continuing with your CNS and wiring: you have general tactile boosting with pain dampeners, Class III Reflex boosting and a move by wire system so advanced that you can move and process at speeds many, many times human norm. Even heavily boosted Solos can’t touch you. Add to that an internal gyroscope in your pelvis and you’ll put cats to shame when it comes to staying on your feet.”
“Yeah, I noticed that when I almost fell standing up in my flat. I recovered without conscious thought. It was pretty impressive.”
“It should be. That alone is about one hundred k in new bucks. You have full body, nano-dermal plating that is sufficient to stop small arms, nanites reinforced bones and muscles with myomer-fascial implants, giving you about four times the strength of a non-augmented human. You have implanted class two Ripper blades in all ten fingers and three extra organs that look like they produce nanites which, unless I miss my guess, are there to heal tissue and tech damage you may endure.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t possible. With this much hardware she should have been a Class A cyberpsycho but she, and I, aren’t.”
“You told me earlier you felt kind of numb, right? You have wiring in your amygdala and ventral hippocampus. I believe those mute your normal emotional response and prevent the formation of Primary Cyber-Replacement Induced Detachment Disorder.”
Shit. They figured out how to prevent cyberpsychosis – the human mind’s reaction to too much implanted cyberware. Too many tech parts and not enough meat parts play holy hell with the human brain. Every part taken out or replaced is a little slice of your humanity and ability to relate to others that’s gone and not coming back. Eventually you hit a tipping point and go into full psychosis with a berserk rage. You tend to die a messy death at the hand of the police who field special tac-teams to deal with insane, marauding, cyborgs that try and take as many people around them as they can.
“Someone wants that info I boosted from Access Tech and they have resources beyond anything I have ever heard of before. Beyond the most powerful of mega-corps is what you’re telling me.”
Mary just nodded.
“Who are the Enclave and the Union, Mary?”
Mary stared at me, not blinking; giving me that perfectly sane state that was scaring the shit out of me, even past the wiring in my brain. You have to understand: this isn’t the Mary I’ve known for years and years. The person looking at me now was a stranger.
She sighed and nodded as if she had just come to a decision. “You’ll know the Union by the name they went by about 20 years ago: the Datamancers Union.”
Part XIV
“Seriously, the street gang of Techno-Mage wannabes? That Union? They were kindehackers, as I recall, more into the flash and fun than real running. How the hell could they be behind this and didn’t they vanish about ten years ago?
“They did vanish about ten years ago. The Union I knew couldn’t be behind this but the Union I knew is gone, replaced by street ghosts and phantom whispers of unstoppable Runners and assassins, wraiths in the system so deadly they scared the megacorps and world governments.”
“Come on, Mary. I saw some of those kids with their tophats and steampunk crap, Victorian-era costumes. There is no way they could be remotely involved in this. The kind of tech this body has? If the corps and govs can’t field this shit than how could a former street gang?”
“Understand that what I’m about to tell you is what I’ve heard from people I consider pretty reliable sources, people that have since gone tits up or vanished completely, you copy? Someone is covering their tracks hardcore.”
I looked at her. “If they’re that hardcore how come you’re still drawing breath?”
“Simple: I used to be one of them.”
“Seriously, the street gang of Techno-Mage wannabes? That Union? They were kindehackers, as I recall, more into the flash and fun than real running. How the hell could they be behind this and didn’t they vanish about ten years ago?
“They did vanish about ten years ago. The Union I knew couldn’t be behind this but the Union I knew is gone, replaced by street ghosts and phantom whispers of unstoppable Runners and assassins, wraiths in the system so deadly they scared the megacorps and world governments.”
“Come on, Mary. I saw some of those kids with their tophats and steampunk crap, Victorian-era costumes. There is no way they could be remotely involved in this. The kind of tech this body has? If the corps and govs can’t field this shit than how could a former street gang?”
“Understand that what I’m about to tell you is what I’ve heard from people I consider pretty reliable sources, people that have since gone tits up or vanished completely, you copy? Someone is covering their tracks hardcore.”
I looked at her. “If they’re that hardcore how come you’re still drawing breath?”
“Simple: I used to be one of them.”
Part XVII
I start to laugh. I simply can't help it. I can't see Mary as part of the poser street gang that was the Union. I laugh for a good minute or so, wiping tears from my eyes before I look at Mary and see I'm the only only one laughing. The look on her face is deadly serious. My laughter slowly dies down and I get a very serious look in my eyes.
"You're not laughing. Why aren't you laughing. You were one of the Union? They were hacks and you are so above them that I find that hard to believe."
Mary sits back and sighs. "Look, I was looking for a group to run with and they were better than people gave them credit for. They pulled some crazy shit back in the day, shit no one has traced back to them. Remember the Militech data heist? I nod and she smirks. "That was us."
I lean back in my chair and shake my head. "No shit? That was pretty damn hardcore."
"It was and it was also the beginning of the end. We attracted the attention of someone and suddenly Vlad, the leader, came back with grandiose plans, talking about a sponsor who would give us top end gear and make us the most elite Runners the city has ever seen. He was very evasive and wouldn't tell us who but members suddenly started vanishing, all part of his Grand Plan. I wanted no part of it and told him. He said that was fine, it was volunteer, but he told me to stay out of their way when they started running again."
She sighs and runs a hand through her wild hair. "I took off and made this bolthole, not sure what the hell was going to happen but they kept their word and left me alone. I would even see one of them here or there but I avoided them. They weren't the same but I couldn't tell you what was different."
"And that's when the rumours started. About three years after they went dark. Impossible runs, ops so black that no one knew who was behind them. But I knew. Don't ask me how I knew but I did. It was the Union and their sponsors and they made good on their word. They were the hardest of the hardcore. And now, here you are, in one of their bodies but not just some random member. When you decide to fuck up, you fuck up good."
"What the hell do you mean, Mary?"
"That body you're in? That's Vamp, Vlad's girlfriend, and you can make same damn sure he's going to coming looking for her."
I sit back in the chair, stunned and really damn confused. "Well this is wonderful. I finally get what I want and you're telling me that the most elite runners in the metroplex are going to come looking for me. Any more good news to hit me with?"
She smirks. "Yeah. You broke the link back to the Union and whatever the hell the Enclave is so they can't track you but they're going to be looking. You can rest assured they've already tossed your flat and broken into your Netspace. Good thing for me is I'm so damn smart that I erased all trace of our little talk and whilst they may be great, I'm better. They ain't tracking you that way."
It is, of course, at this moment that the proximity alarm starts to go off. Mary and I look at each other for a moment, both stunned, before she pulls up an image from outside her hiding hole.
Fuck me...
"What? I ask her, trying to fight down the panic that really, really wants to claw its way up my spine.
"They found you. Which means they found me which you means you've fucked us both."
I look at the holo-image she's pulled up and see a man casually strolling up the street. He looks like he's whistling which means that in this part of town, he's badarse enough to pull it off.He's wearing a long coat over a suit of body armour and has on, of all things, a top hat. He has the air about him of a man who knows he's the biggest, baddest guy around and judging by the locals vanishing into the shadows, he's probably right.
With his long black hair and Van-Dyke he's actually rather attractive. Part of myself is drawn to his air of self-assurance whilst another part is screaming "what the fuck are you thinking?!"
He stops in front of the entrance to Mary's place, putting an end to my vague hope he was just out for a walk. At 0400. In a free-fire zone.
He looks around before smiling at the apparently not so well hidden camera. "Mary, I'm disappointed. We had a deal; you leave us alone and we leave you alone but you've gone and fouled things up. Vlad's worried about Vamp dropping her connection to the Union and the Enclave and wants her to come home so we can fix things. So you just let her walk out and we go about our merry. How about it, it's the best offer I have. You do that and we go back to ignoring you."
"Shit, fuck, damn, piss. That's Marcus. He was pretty tough before but now? I have no idea what he can do. He's Vlad's right hand and enforcer. They want you bad."
Mary hits a key on her panel. "Hey Marcus, looking good, old friend. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by lying to you. Vamp just came by to say hi and catch up on old times. Nothing major and she'll head home before too long."
Marcus shakes his head. "Mary, we've seen what's in the arcology she paid a visit to earlier tonight, big damn mess. And her cortical uplinks aren't working so we're a little worried about her."
He shifts position and almost looks bored, save for the muscle tension I can see in him. He's like a lion about to pounce. I lean over Mary and key the mic. "Marcus, it's cool. Really. I had a bit of a time with the Ice Queen but I'm good and headed back soon. You can let Vlad know I'm fine and on the way home shortly."
He shakes his head. "Sorry, pretty lady but you know how we work. Vlad's better half or not, I'm not leaving without you so, come out on your own, or I come in and that's going to be messy."
I let my head drop for a few moments before looking at Mary. "I'm sorry. I have no idea how he found me. I'll go and hopefully they'll leave you alone."
She looks at me and the wildness that's usually there is coming back. "Nope. They're not letting me walk away from this one. I need to get moving. Think you can keep him distracted whilst I pack the important stuff."
"Yeah, I can do that." I pick up my gear and put everything back in place before looking back at her. "Be safe."
"It's not me I'm worried about."
With that ominous response I head outside to confront Marcus.
"Yeah, I can do that." I pick up my gear and put everything back in place before looking back at her. "Be safe."
"It's not me I'm worried about."
With that ominous response I head outside to confront Marcus.
Part XVIII
I left Mary packing and walked down the hallway leading outside, checking my gear as I went. My new body’s systems much have picked up on my tension because I was in serious combat mode. The HUD attached to the GENIE guns came up and gave me an ammo check on both. It checked my sword and gave me green on the molecular-edged katana. My nanites reservoirs were full and fangs and claws ready. My move-by-wire system and boosters were running and the world was slowing down around me.
I forced myself into as natural a walk as I could but I know I still looked like a lioness on the tail of prey. I stopped and took a breath before opening the door and stepping out into a suddenly chilly night.
Marcus was leaning against a car, watching as I came out. His cat-ate-the canary grin grew larger as I stepped out and he put away the knife he was using to clean his nails. He pushed himself off the car and doffed his hat.
“Evening, lovely lady. We’ve been worried about you since you didn’t come back from what should have been a very easy job. Imagine my surprise when I tracked you here. Really, Mary? After all these years? How is she? Still batshit crazy?” He smiled again and I was hit by a very, very powerful sensation of “something else” looking at me from behind those eyes.
“Come on babe, time to get you home and repair your uplinks. You know the Union and Conclave don’t like it when one of us goes offline like that.”
With that he turned and started walking off. “My ride is just around the corner.”
I nodded, trying to think how to stall for time. “Give me a few, OK? Mary and I are just about done. I was running some of the stuff I got from Ice Queen past her.”
Marcus stopped and I suddenly knew that I had said the exact wrong thing. He slowly turned around and looked at me. REALLY looked at me and his eyes went wide.
That’s when things turned to complete shite.
I was starting to move when Marcus raised his left hand, almost as fast as I could and, at that moment, too fast for me to really see. There was a sharp crack, a blinding light and I was thrown back and into a wall, the smell of ozone burning my nose. Stunned for just a second I moved before rounds stitched the wall where I had been. My guns were up and out before I even thought about it, on target and firing. I saw Marcus’s eyes widen and he dove behind a car but the cry of pain told me that he had been hit at least once by the GENIE rounds which had directional vanes and followed him around the car.
I slammed into another car, moving like the wind and looked down at my body armour. There was a charred area there which was still smoking. ‘Seriously, he just threw lightning at me?’ I thought to myself.
The HUD in my right eye was suddenly replaced by an image of Marcus raising his hand and a vid playback started, vastly slowed down. I saw a dart exit his hand and a long spool of nanowire fly out and hit me, discharging a massive jolt of electricity. There was a flash and the playback stopped.
The motherfucker hit me with a giant damn taser that made it look like he was throwing lightning!
Pretty cool, actually.
“Dirty pool, Marcus. You’re not supposed to hit a lady, especially in ambush like that.”
His voice came back to me from the left of where he had been. He was behind another car, thinking he could flank me. “I don’t know what your game is, Vamp, but you’re coming back to Union HQ one way or another so we can figure it out.”
“The fuck I am!” I popped my fangs and sprayed a long stream of nanites at the car he was hiding behind and watched as it began melting. Marcus screamed out “FUCK!” and moved away before he was hit by any of the vicious little machines. I took the opportunity to open up with the left hand Glock but the dirty bastard did something tricky: as he moved he hit the car with another massive shock and threw the targeting systems of my rounds off so they hit the car and ground around him. I saw the gun in his hand before he opened fire.
Militech R93 Smart-Gun. Heh, Smart Gun, old school. He’s fast but I’m faster, a fact driven home by the way I watched the bullets coming at me and simply ran through them, like dodging raindrops. Everything around me was moving at a snail’s pace now. I was fully boosted and in combat mode and I was pissed.
He tried to bring his hand up to hit me with another one of those shocks but in the millisecond it took me to close on him I had holstered both pistols and drawn the katana, bringing it down in a beautiful diagonal slash. There was a spray of blood and I watched his hand fall to the ground, counting the drops of blood before ramming into him shoulder first and feeling his armour - trenchcoat and dermal, give way. He was on the ground with my sword at his throat before his brain even processed the pain. He gave a short scream before his body was flooded with pain killing medication and his eyes went slightly glazed.
He gasped, trying to talk around a flail segment and pneumohemothorax. Blood began to bubble from his mouth. “What…the…fuck, Vamp? What…are…you…doing?” He looked at me with eyes narrowed in pain and once again I got that sense of something vast also looking.
“How did you track me, Marcus? Tell me or I’ll drip some nanites on you and let you melt here on the street.”
He shook his head. “What…happened to you? I don’t…even…know you.”
I wasn’t about to give him and anyone else watching the answer to that question. “Just tell me and I’ll let you wait here for help. Otherwise you’ll be a puddle before they arrive.”
“Tracker…on your…bike. You should…know that.” His eyes narrowed some more and focused on me more intently. “Who are you? He wheezed.
“I’m on my own. Anyone else comes after me and I won’t be so merciful. Got it? Leave me, leave Mary, alone.” A quick strike to the temple with the pommel of the sword had him unconscious and I got up and quickly ran to the bike, accessing the schematics and finding the tracker which I pulled off and threw on a passing AV.
I sent the signal to the bike to turn on and keyed my comms to Mary. “You safe?”
“Yep. Jesus, I had to slow that crap down to follow it. You two were like gusts of wind. Leaving him alive isn’t going to win you any slack from the Union, you know.”
I climbed on the bike and hit the power, feeling the sleek beauty take off like a rocket. “I know but I’m no killer. If he comes after me again I’ll deal with it but until then, I’m not spilling any more blood.”
She sighed in my ear. “You keep thinking like that and you’ll get dead fast.”
“You let me worry about that. Can you find out more about this Conclave he mentioned?”
There as silence for a moment and then she sighed again. “Fine, since you already have me knee deep in crap I might as well go all in. Stay alive, chica, you die then I die and I’m not ready to die.”
“Yeah, you too.” I cut comms and raced off into the night.