Set in the world of Cyber Knights RPG
Written by Paxdad
Trese Brothers Forum
Discussion Thread
Data Kill: 4. Hearts in the Darkness
The Matrix
02:48:42.42, 03/02/2217
Dat’s bloodhound program returned a hit in just under one minute. He smiled and thought, “You may have some moves, but your stealth is for shit!”
His mind slipped across the current to the IP address at the speed of thought and caught sight of the whisp of smoke that was Sl1p’s avatar. Dat was uneasy about how simple it had been to locate the offending deck. No cyberknight should have been picked up that fast. He was wary, he had no intention of getting caught unawares again. He was fully cloaked, his sys scan was running a constant battery of system checks, and his most lethal programs were primed. Amature night was over and DAT was ready to burn this chummer down.
Invisible and powerful as the fury of the wind DAT moved in and closed the distance with the softly shifting whiff of smoke, the belligerent who had the temerity to intrude upon those more powerful than himself. Though DAT was certain that he could not be detected he was cautious because of the apparent apathy or ignorance or sheer bravado that this decker displayed by just hanging out on an open node as if he were waiting for a crosstown bus. As if he were waiting for...
The puff of smoke swelled suddenly and then violently imploded, collapsing in upon itself at the same moment DAT’s proximity sensor triggered a window that popped open to the right of his vision. Industrial Synth began to play and a multi color spectrogram pulsed up and down visualizing the beat. The window slid open growing in size until it arched over him, completely engulfed his field of view, surrounded him, and became his entire world.
DAT was still aware of the figure before him, the smoke dissipated to a thin filmy serpentine line which raced around a scrawny looking teanager with wild hair. The figure before him thrashed about briefly, a look of terror flickering across his face. Meanwhile the music surrounded DAT until the only thing he could hear and feel was the rhythmic pulsing of a base line in his chest like the beating of his heart.
DAT knew his deck was compromised in some way. DAT knew he should be concerned for his data, and more importantly for his life, but he felt caught up in a strange lethargy that stayed his hand from unleashing any kind of defensive countermeasure.
The volume of the music lowered becoming nearly imperceptible, until all that remained was the pulse of the beat. “Forgive me DAT, most illustrious master of the net, but I knew no other way...”
DAT was then submerged in a roller coaster ride of electronic noise, images, words, and emotion. A reflection in the pupils of the old man of a child fending off blows and covering his ears in a vain effort to drown out the most hate filled and hurtful diatribe. The more casual daily violence and humiliation at the hands of the neighborhood gangers. The elation of the moment his first program ran. All of the fear, pain, hope, and triumph of Sl1ps small life crashed over him in an undeniably compelling and yet unbearable cacophony.
When Sl1p had breached DAT’s deck he had managed to inject a line of rogue code that hid in the system apps of the OS escaping detection. It consisted of a thin client program that used the decks resources and native apps to create a virtual box stimulation simulator. He had learned the trick of it by de-compiling the code in the old mans joybox. Stim simulators created photo real life experiences with accompanying physical and emotional stimulus directly triggered in the brains nerve centers. They were harmless escapes for most people and a dark addiction for others. For Sl1p it was the only way he knew that might get DAT to listen to him.
The recording ended and the window snapped closed shrinking to a tiny circle of white light and disappearing like an ancient television set. Breathless and nearly overcome with emotion DAT was aware of his surroundings and was free once again. The first thing he saw was Sl1ps virtual self laying in the darkness of the net, small convulsions the only movement. Without thinking DAT rushed to him falling to his knees and scooping him up as a father might gather a small child that has fallen off of his bike.
DAT held the image of Sl1p, not the fabricated virtual avatar that everyone used on the web, this was the raw subconscious image of himself. Unable to maintain an avatar due to distress or deck malfunction, the most basic image of himself was naked to the world. A near mirror image of himself outside of the net but made of luminous binary code. Blue binary flowed from his vacant eyes like tears and a red pulsing glow bled ominously from the base of his skull.
DAT reacted with a soldiers instinct when defending a fallen comrade. He gently placed his hand palm down on Sl1p’s chest and used a subtle intrusion program to gain access to his deck. Within the construct of Sl1p’s deck, the walls were glowing red hot like molten steel, this deck was on the verge of collapse. DAT scanned the system and sent out security agents to look for anything out of the ordinary. The CPU was overclocked well over the safe threshold and was running cycles like crazy generating heat and was on the verge of melting down. A fault in the data jack connection was also detected which was overloading the data port in Sl1ps head, generating heat that if left unchecked would fry his brain like an egg. Dat acted fast, gaining SU superuser access in a matter of milliseconds. He underclocked and undervolted the CPU to slow it down and hopefully get it to start cooling off. The main danger being an uncontrolled burn out that could wipe Sl1ps mind with a burst of feedback up the data jack. He killed all active tasks and turned his attention to the data port connection.
The data port hardware showed no fault, the problem must be software. He called up the code and before him a 3d hologram appeared, a shifting code cube that had a second string of code snaking in and out of it. DAT put his hands on either side of the cube and began to pull outward. The cube expanded, began to separate and when he thought it would open up to allow editing, a warning flashed in his mind just in time to alert him to the unexpected strike of the snaking code inside of the box!
Like the lightning fast strike of a death adder, the code coalesced into a virtual snake that lunged at DAT faster than the naked eye could track. He managed to throw up an arm in defence, but the red black monstrosity wrapped up his arm and began to snap at DAT’s head!
Somehow DAT managed to avoid the deadly intrusion agent long enough to counter attack. His avatar ignited and burned with a blue wind swept flame across a muscular humanoid frame and he snatched the head of the snake just below the jaw with his free hand and squeezed the snapping mouth open. His tongue coiled out of his mouth, a blue flaming snake of his own that shot down the throat of the other. Turning and twisting throughout every character of code, deconstructing and reading it as it went. His tongue ripped back into his mouth and the coded snake fell to his feet, brightly burning one’s and zero’s disappearing into the net like sparks.
He raced back to the data port code, once again expanded the box and made several quick adjustments, repaired what he could, then turning his wrists the boxes twisted and fell back into place and disappeared. His security agents came back clean. The intruders foothold for the moment had been destroyed. He quickly locked down all external ports and set his own listeners and surprises should anyone try to gain access. He tapped the wifi address to get a lock on the decks real world location, then slipped through a port back into the net.
Invisible once again he stood above Sl1p’s fallen form and considered, he hoped like hell that he had been able to do enough and that the boy would survive. The convulsions had stopped but the kid could be a vegetable by now for all he knew. This boy reminded him of another young man he had known long ago. He sighed, opened a connection with his mind and dialed out.
Outbound call 617-63-843...Dialing...
DAT prepared a defensive program that allowed multiple attack options as well. His avatar drew a white flaming katana that seemed to melt under it’s own heat as his cloaking program absorbed it into its algorithm. The code he’d tasted in the agent he had destroyed had all the marks of a Yakuza decker.
Dialing...
It was only a guess but DAT wouldn’t be surprised if that agent belonged one of the Syndicate’s counter insurgency deckers assigned to monitor Liberty Square’s grid tonight, and if there was anything he knew about the Yakuza, it was that they didn’t let shit go. He set to scanning all about him and shifted to a combat stance standing above Sl1p in the darkness of the matrix, a guardian angel with soiled wings.
Dialing...
In this brief moment of calm Dat thought he could feel his heart beating in his chest and could almost hear the song of his blood in his ears.
Call connecting...secure handshake established...connected...
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