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.