| From: | scotthiller2002@*****.com (Scott Hiller) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Chicago CZ Adventure |
| Date: | Fri, 8 Oct 2004 05:52:51 -0700 (PDT) |
If anyone has the spare time, please read through it
and offer forth your suggestions on what Craith can do
in light of his perdicament. I'd think he could upload
the images to NooseNet ... could he do that through
the camera's Slave Node? Or not? What might his
options be?
Here it goes:
" A second floating window lit up on the flat screen,
calling Craith out of his memories and back to the
here and now. The second message. On screen was an
image of a Dwarf with short, dark brown hair and a
bushy light brown goatee that covered his mouth
beneath the long, bulbous nose. His gray eyes betrayed
some sort of vague unease. “Craith,” he hesitated,
“remember when you said you’d reimburse me for the
fuel cred? You needed to get food for your cat.
Remember? The one I helped you rescue back in
f-fifty-six? I’m sorry, I forgot her name. Well. I …
well, I um, I haven’t gotten the cred yet.” He finally
sputtered out, leaning in close as if trying to keep
under wraps something that was supposed to be top
secret. “Let me know when you can pay me. No worries.
Keep keepin’ yer head down, chummer. Later.” From what
Craith knew of Harley, it took a lot for him to come
out and say something to stand up for himself. He must
really need the cred.
Two-sixty-two-point-five UCAS dollars. Easy come,
easy go. He’d pay Harley and jack in for a few hours
of Forgotten Realms IV: Champions of Ironmark.
Offline.
Craith hit a key and the real-world view of his doss
swam out of vision. Then, a moment of blindness, which
was slowly replaced by the electron skies of the
worldwide Grid. The Grid, or the Matrix, was a virtual
reality cybernetic universe dedicated to the dealings
of big business and personal correspondence, but was
also the play ground of deckers, virtual Ghosts in the
Machine who managed to accomplish only what the
SINless can accomplish, if they survived. The Chicago
Grid, however, had been severely disrupted during and
since the quarantine. It was now made up of private
hosts and was even rumored (mostly by Wire) to be
oriented toward data storage for warlords,
shadowrunners or the Mafia.
Beneath him, was the glowing network of the “ground”
connecting various masses of icons. These were
datalines that connected the different nodes. This was
Noose Net, its distributed hardware hidden around the
Containment Zone, maintained and guarded by multiple
paranoid administrators, like Fin. As much as these
sysops cooperated to keep the grid online, they also
kept many secrets from each other, so it was anyone’s
guess what they’d encounter in terms of intrusion
countermeasures, or IC, and Paydata they could sell on
the streets. What this meant was the Chicago Grid was
permanently in a state of flux. The whole Chicago Grid
was a hash of old and new code and the electronic
virtual skyline, both dead and vibrant at the same
time, reflected this.
As Craith’s physical fingers continued to type, a
360-degree global view of his real-world doss suddenly
filled the electron skies of his digital universe.
Then it constricted to one-fourth the size and shunted
off to his right. Up and to the right was a sphere
revealing what Craith knew to be the hallway side of
the door to his doss, its only entrance. Should
anything happen, he’d be prepared to jack out and
teach any intruder the virtues of not trespassing. Fin
had seen to it that Craith’s Matrix system was not
only secure, but was also linked into the building’s
security system.
Craith and Fin knew this function would probably slow
down his ancient cyberdeck, but it made Craith feel
more in control of his environment if he could keep an
eye on his physical doss while conducting
correspondence biz in the Matrix … which was just
about all what his cyberdeck was good for any more.
A glowing white screen appeared in front of him, and a
menu bar of icons lined the top of this floating white
screen. Craith’s persona icon, a slender humanoid
figure shrouded in a silvery-black cloak, reached out
a gleaming mercury arm and touched a neon-green “¥”
icon. Suddenly, a floating screen resolved into view.
It was his credstick account, once anemic, now very
well fed with just over a thousand nuyen thanks to
Fin. He tapped a series of button icons which
transferred fifty nuyen into Harley’s credstick
account, then the floating payment screen disappeared
as Craith’s icon turned to the message board in front
of him.
Funds transfer complete.
Delete.
Craith reached for the Logoff key …
The virtual sound of a doorbell rang and,
super-imposed over a flashing cell phone icon, was the
word “INCOMING” which flashed before him. Craith’s
commlink utility was alerting him to an outside call.
When Craith’s icon reached out and tapped the virtual
cell phone, it was replaced by another floating
screen. It was Fin; his expression was less tired and
more urgent than usual. But it was just as arrogant as
usual. “Hey Craith!” Fin paused, “what the frag’re you
doin’ in cyberspace?”
“Paying back a friend. What’s up?”
Fin shrugged again, then, “hey, that surveillance gig,
nobody saw you, did they?”
“What? On the job? No.” The truth was Craith had no
idea and he really didn’t care. He needed some rest
and relaxation, he wanted to play the fragging game
already.
Maybe someone could have seen him and he never knew …
People in the CZ hide out wherever they can find
space. Millions of pairs of eyes could have been on
him. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his gut that
they were, but none of them had his back.
“What about coming back?”
Craith’s icon shook its head, “no.”
“Good, ‘cause I got some bad news,” Fin announced
derisively. “You know that slot Tony who owned that
Simsense and Gaming Store up in Century MegaMall
before the quarantine?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, his old lady got cacked at Lincoln and Armitage
just east of the old ‘El’ tracks.”
Craith’s world stopped … Mama was dead …? Mrs. Culnámo
was the glue that held the lives of so many people
together through the quarantine since it began ten
years ago. Including Craith’s. It was because of her
friendship with Fin and Nessa that he was even here at
all … in this nice, safe, secure two-floor townhouse
condo! After a long pause, Craith asked, his voice dry
with shock. “When?” he asked dimly.
“Last Sunday … the twenty-fifth …”
“How?”
“Magical attack.”
“Insect shaman?”
“Nobody knows, but the few people who talked were too
far gone to help much.”
Craith remembered some sort of scuffle and
confrontation amongst a crowd of Mutants during the
end of his three-day stint, but he couldn’t quite get
a clear look as to who was involved. There were
screams, lots of noise, guns went off, several thuds
and the horrible sounds of a couple people dying. He
remembered turning around quickly and issuing a mental
command to his cybercam to snap off a few holopics.
Then he was off. Was that it? Frag, he didn’t know.
There were so many shootouts and drek like that the
past three days … Was that Mama’s death?
“What time?”
“Early afternoon, around 13:00 hours. Why?”
It was! That was it.
“I might have gotten a shot of the perp!”
“I know. You did. Craith. The perp was you.”
“What?”
Fin gave a long pause.
“Fin. I didn’t do it! Mama helped me out many times.
I’d have no reason to want to geek her! Besides, you
know I don’t do wetwork.”
Fin held up a hand, the expression on his face was
very sober, “I know, I know. I believe you, Craith.
But the evidence does not look good. You better keep
your head down while I get the street scan on this.”
Craith feared one group in particular would not be as
understanding as Fin: The Ancients. Like everyone else
in the neighborhood, they loved Mama, even though she
was human. But, Fin and Nessa were obviously their
eyes and ears, and Craith hoped that would bode well
for him somehow. Maybe they could sway them to his
favor. “Good, then you can tell them I had my
invisibility spell on. There’s no way anyone could
have gotten a holopic of me. How could someone have
taken a pic of me doing that, download it to my
headware memory, and all without me being any more the
wiser?”
“I don’t know, but if I said that, it might hurt you.
Anybody who does not know you is not going to believe
you could not, or would not, do that. Everyone knows
if you cast in the CZ, you die. And if someone was
able to somehow magically imitate you, whoever that
was tossed off some major mojo. You’re the only person
I know in this ‘hood who can do that without dying.”
“Then I’m being set up and I have discover who’s doing
it!” insisted Craith.
“Well, do what you must.” Fin shrugged, “I wouldn’t,
though. Leave it be and let us handle it. Maybe it’s
simply a coincidence? They just like the look of your
face … ?” and cut the connection.
He rolled his eyes at a blank screen in disgust. No
fraggin’ way this was coincidence. He heard of folks
getting their ident stolen back at the turn of the
century from someone getting their Social Security
Number or a credit card. That was maybe coincidence,
an unfortunate random incident. But this? No, this was
deliberate. He was marked.
Craith brought up the pics he took at the site of the
incident. They flashed by in rapid succession at the
speed of thought as he ran a Search Utility to look
for any of them with him in them. After a few tics, he
found one. There he was: his tall, lanky form dressed
in baggy army-green, multi-pocketed khaki shorts and a
once-white, sleeveless, oversized I LOVE NY t-shirt
smudged with dirt and grime. Had he known he was not
the one in the pic casting deadly combat spells at a
crowd of helpless Mutants, he would have thought he
was guilty. The Elf in the pic had golden skin with a
reddish tinge just like Craith. His long, red-gold
mane of hair was identical, too. And just like Craith,
his head hair also stuck nearly straight up and spiked
in all directions, as if he had been a cartoon on the
receiving end of a taser. He noted the familiar
almond-shaped dark brown eyes (too dark for the
red-gold skin and hair), the thin narrow face, the
long and pointed ears, and the scar that ran down the
left side of his face. A random thought intruded into
his mind as Craith ran a slender hand down his face:
Was this what he had become? A Changeling?
But the Elf in the picture held some sort of dark,
determined look of malice that was not Craith’s.
Craith continued to stare at the image, maybe
determined to find some flaw that would be such an
obvious mistake, if he pointed that out to enough
people, that flaw would clear him. … The long, pointed
ears, the gleaming metal-chrome right cyberarm seemed
to clash oddly with the red-gold skin of his left arm
… chrome right hand and flesh left hand clasped
together … outstretched in a gesture of violence and
mass murder, aimed at a crowd of people dressed in
rags, oblivious to the threat that had them in its
crosshairs … Some were sitting and eating. Others were
having wounds tended to. All were oblivious to
“Craith’s” presence. As he analyzed the holopic stored
in his headware memory, with a mere thought, Craith
issued a command to the image magnification cyberware
to enlarge the image, causing it to pixilate slightly
and then smooth out again, as it adjusted to the zoom
command. Craith closed in for a tighter scan of his
own face. Yes. Even the long, barely-visible, scar
from his forehead to near the left corner of his mouth
was there. The imposter didn’t miss a single detail.
But there had to be a flaw …
Where is this flaw!? … It had to be there … nothing
imitated is ever perfect.
He cut the connection, disconnected the fiber optic
from his datajack, and sat back in the battered chair,
He was being framed for the murder of at least five
people, plus Maari. His ears burned red as his heart …
his very soul … filled with grief for Maari, and with
fear and anger of being set-up. Fear because some
fragging idiot who thought it’d be cute to frame him
suddenly disrupted his safe little world in the middle
of Hell. Anger for the second half of the former
reason of why he was frightened. He had the
uncomfortable feeling that he had done it. But there
was no way he could have. He knew it. Fin knew it.
Anyone who knew him knew he could not have killed
Maari Culnámo or any of the others. All he could do
now was sit there, wrestling with the death of a
dearly loved friend and his implication in her murder.
It was him in that image. But there was no way it
could be him. AH-HAH! Suddenly, a most obvious thought
occurred to him. That’s it! … He took the picture! …
Straight from his own cybereye camera! That was the
imposter’s flaw! Whomever it was had no way of knowing
the real Craith would be there taking holopics. A
sudden single ray of light pierced the gloom of his
heart … maybe the fact he took the picture would be
enough to clear his name! But who would listen? Whom
could he trust?
He knew! He got up out of his chair and began to
disconnect his cyberdeck, a pitifully weak and ancient
Allegiance Sigma. Very low-end. He also grabbed his
cat, stuffing her into a small cat carrier under much
protests of meows and growls from her. She braced
herself several times at the edges of the carrier
door, barring any entrance and refusing, struggling
against Craith. But, at last, with much effort, he
managed to shove her inside. The loud, desperate
meowing continued and filled the doss.
Too noisy, she’d attract too much attention …
Backing away from and facing the cat carrier occupied
by a now-very-frightened … and loud … housecat,
Craith placed his hands before him, palms up and
slightly cupped, aimed at the cat within the carrier.
He whispered something that sounded like a soothing
melody, not in English, and not in any other language
common to humans … something of pure captivating
harmony and peace … like an Elvish lullaby. But the
look on his face and in his dark eyes was hard and
determined, focused on the cat, and yet not on the
cat. The colors of Astral Space became visible to him,
the dark and jagged colors of fear surrounded
Arlanna’s aura. They were pushing at the inner walls
of the carrier, trying to escape, and pulsed outward,
suddenly, with each piecing meow. But he remained
concentrated and focused. Craith felt arcane energy,
focused and powerful, flow through him and at the same
time grow to surround the housecat in the carrier as
the spell did its work. To any on-lookers, it would
seem as if it was nothing more than his soothing,
androgynous voice that did the trick, but any magician
worth their Craft would know better … the fear
surrounding her aura gradually smoothed, the jagged
edges becoming rounding out, its colors calming to a
benign and soothing, glowing beige, allowing the spell
to work. Slowly, Arlanna curled up and lay in her
carrier, quietly purring, eyes closed and sleeping
peacefully.
He gathered the carrier bearing his sleeping cat,
shoved his cyberdeck into its casing, grabbed his
quiver of arrows and his long bow, slinging them over
a shoulder. The cat was undisturbed, purring steadily
and softly. He stuffed a dagger into a scabbard that
was tied to a belt loop and shoved some clothes, his
wand, amulet, enchanting kit, and a few program chips,
trid chips, music chips and simsense chips into his
Kevlar III backpack. …
… He knew this was Hell on Earth, but he had to still
have his jams to groove to.
The dagger, which he had gotten from an old
talismonger shop in the neighborhood before the
quarantine, had intricate Celto-Roman designs, loops
and knots, engraved into it’s golden hilt. Though
Craith had no idea how to use one effectively in
combat, he hoped common sense and a will to live would
carry him through … hopefully it would serve him much
better than it did the previous owner.
While he was walking out the door, a last-minute
thought struck him. Maybe he should call first … not
just show up. If he showed up unannounced, without
making sure the man was truly on his side, he could be
walking into an ambush. He turned back, dropped his
stuff on the floor, but gently placing the cat carrier
back down on the floor, and punched in a code into his
telecomm and the flat screen filled with the image of
a thin, chrome-eyed young human man with marked
Mediterranean features framed by a shag of long, curly
black hair … except for the right side, which was
shaved to clear away room for the clusters of chrome
datajacks, to which were connected several clear, and
translucent neon fiber-optic cables. The lower half of
the man’s face was covered by a contrasting
light-brown beard and moustache that all but hid his
mouth. The cold, chrome cybereyes stared vacantly back
at Craith. In those chrome eyes, the Elf could almost
see his own distorted reflection off of the man’s
telecomm screen before him. Craith found the resulting
effect to be unnerving.
“Chummer, you really let yourself go,” Craith
mentioned. A feeble attempt at humor.
“Yeah?” Mávros sneered. He wasn’t smiling. Craith had
a sick feeling that, apparently, the wrong word had
spread fast. Maari Culnámo was apparently better known
and more deeply loved in the neighborhood than Craith
had thought.
“Look, chummer, I didn’t do it.” Craith suddenly
remembered the fake System Identification Number
Mávros gave him years ago for his cyberware. The same
cyberware that was used when Craith was taking those
pics around the CZ last weekend, “I’ve got proof.”
Mávros arched an eyebrow, his expression still hard as
stone.
Craith nodded in eager affirmation, the look on his
face determined and truthful. Desperate.
There was a long pause as Nevin considered his
options. “Come over. On the level. But you better not
be lying to me!”
“On the level. All the pics got my SIN on ‘em. You can
forward them to anyone you want with the SIN
highlighted.” Craith knew Mávros was well connected,
though he didn’t know to whom exactly. He hoped the
Human would do something to help him clear his name.
And he hoped he was connected to the right people.
“I’m comin’ over right now.”
“Be careful. The Blue Demons are out tonight.”
He nodded, “so-ka.” Craith knew them all too well. He
knew well enough to stay the frag away from their
turf! They were a gang of non-elves, Humans, Orks,
Trolls, and Dwarfs, that claimed the entire campus of
the old DePaul University as their turf. It wasn’t
hard to find their turf as the heads of dead Elves
were impaled on the spears of the black, wrought iron
fence to rot in the autumn heat. “The Ancients, too.”
Craith was well aware.
At that, Mávros seemed to narrow his eyes slightly.
His look was … menacing?
Some times the Blue Demons would venture as far east
as Lake Shore Drive … whenever they felt brave enough
to take on The Ancients. The sounds of continued
gunfire, and the low rumble of Harley engines grew
louder. This was one of those nights that word spread
The Ancients were busy quelling another squatters’
riot. Looked like the Blue Demons were taking the
opportunity to try to move in.
“Looks like another rumble. You sure?”
Craith nodded and then cut the connection.
Chapter 2
Sometimes, you don’t need to be right next to someone
to read their auras. They say you can’t read someone’s
aura over a telecomm line, but Craith could have sworn
he did just that now with Mávros. Something was … off.
There was danger. He couldn’t trust him. He knew
Mávros thought he killed Maari, despite his
invitation, the only way to prove he didn’t was to
show him the holopics he took with his own cybereye
cam. Craith was a packrat and had them stored in his
headware memory along with every bit of data ever
known to Metahuman kind that he might have found even
remotely interesting!
He could go over and present the proof to Mávros, but
he might be walking into a trap if he did that. He
decided to go, but to arrive prepared.
He could also could jack into a street cam himself,
provided any were still working. But what would he do
once he was in the system? … YES! Upload the data he
got with documentation of who took the holopics."
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