Logs for ShadowRN and Associated Mailing Lists

From:	Gian-Paolo Musumeci <musumeci@***.LIS.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Ares Run
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 1994 19:10:31 -0600

Message no. 1 ***** ENCRYPT BLACK PHOENIX {ALL RELEVANT MEMBERS} *****

>>>>>[No way to cut the distance down. The Yellowjacket can carry a hell
of
a lot, I never thought to measure the drekking cargo hold out to the
millimeter. Two problems with a go-kart thing: it's noisy as all hell (tiled
floors), and it's a walking target for a Vindicator minigun. I was thinking
of bringing along a few Ranger SM-3's and just blasting out the viewports with
explosive rounds. Or a good decker could knock the controls down...what I'm
looking at is on the inflight using my pirate jacks to tear up their security
procedures, rip in there as fast as we can, blast the vault doors off the
tissue lab (I have 20kilos of C13 saved up), then rampage out whatever we
need. Ares security teams are behind 6" steel security doors, we can lock
those in the down position with a good deck. I have a few programs the decker
will want to use, by the way. Oh, yeah, I hope Mr. Decker is drek-hot. He
can use my deck if needed, I'm probably not as good on it as he is. I have
also arranged for a contact of mine inside Ares to stall the security teams as
long as possible and to hold open an access corridor for us...]<<<<<
-- Durandal (19:11:30/01-19-55)

From:	Eric Randolp Benson <fountain@****.UDEL.EDU>
Subject:	Ares Run
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 1994 21:34:29 -0500

Message no. 2 ***** ENCRYPT BLACK PHOENIX {ALL RELEVANT MEMBERS} *****
>>>>>[Durandal - If you've got 20 kg C13, why don't we just swipe a fuel
truck and convert the entire facility to scrap? Why enter at all...]>>>>>
-- Laurissa <21:36:06, 01-19-55>

From:	ANGLISS BRIAN EDWARD <angliss@****.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:	Ares run
Date:	Sat, 14 Oct 1995 20:25:51 -0600

Message no. 3 >>>>>[ +++++Include penetrate.transcript.video

The view is a shot of the Matrix, as experienced by a decker. Myriad lights
flicker over the landscape, bathing the scenery in a fitful glow that is never
quite bright enough to aid vision and never quite dim enough to impede it.
Scattered across the landscape are the innumerable Constructs, each ensconced
in its mesh of datalinks: some Gothic, some Byzantine, medieval or futuristic;
forms rising and writhing, some torturously, some sensuously, into the
impossibly-lit sky.

Cyberspace slides into disorienting perspective from a thousand points, like
a camera iris sliding shut in slow motion, creating an infinitely detailed
horizon of sparking data. The streams of data spin in tightly wound helixes,
cascades of faintly illuminated symbols winding about each other as they go
their laser-straight way. Sparkling off the data streams are the limitless
constructs, wound about with the pillars of data in a surreal geometric
shape. As the view shifts and pans with breathtaking speed, blurring down
the datastreams with an almost-real smoothness and grace, faces of the
intricate geometric environment appear and then recede into mist. The camera
turns and pans back, leading a black chrome angel, rendered in brilliantly
dark colors, his wings spread out behind him like a cloak as they push him
onwards, eyes scanning the datastreams, endless pools of vaporous, midnight,
indomitable black.

The angel jumps streams, shifting rapidly, like a runner weaving through a
field of competitors, picking his way through the helixes, jumping through
a Bell Europa and a Bell Canada network switch, leaving naught a trace to
provide a hint of his visit. He pauses, treading data in front of a
monolithic skyscraper, covered with black marble, veined with thin blue
traceries of data.

The angel slowly glides towards the construct, a panel crackling into life
with an almost-audible burst of static to show an Ares corporate security
logo. The angel floats towards the logo, pressing his hand into a small
square of static, his hand dissolving in the instant before he would touch
the structure. The wings push forward with blinding speed, slashing his
wings up and back as he tears through the black marble fabric of the digital
skyscraper. The fabric seams instantly behind him, the camera lagging long
enough to note the message on the static square: "Internal data transfer
request from Ares Europe approved."

The angel next to one corner of the skyscraper, from inside, now a vast,
hollow structure filled with pulsing streams of light. With a quick flex
of chrome, the camera is suddenly enmeshed in a stream of data, soaring
up towards a joining of several streams. The security systems around him,
digital wireframes of blue eyes, fail to see the black chrome figure, growing
increasingly faint and transparent. He reaches the hub and spins in a slow
circle, making sure that none is following him. A figure of a woman, all in
black, with an hourglass frame and a red hourglass logo on her left shoulder,
fades with incredibly rapidity into view, the angel spinning and seeing her,
talons forming at the edge of his wings as he shifts towards her, dodging
instinctively. She raises her hands as if to ward off his blows, but his
raptor's knives tear through her as if she was hollow, leaving horribly
digitized scars as she screams and vanishes.

The angel soars up another datahelix into a large, heptagonal chamber, walled
with streams of data, and opens up his wings, enfolding the entire center into
his very soul.

+++++video interrupt: assemble insert

The view is now that of an external surveillance camera, accompanied by audio
from a directional microphone sighted along the camera's axis. The perspective
is of some sort of loading dock, the camera situated at around 10 feet off the
ground, a "fish-eye" lens giving the camera a roughly hemispherical field of
view. Then, something strange happens: five see-through-gray shapes, humanoid
in appearance, walk into view on the main video sequence, their countours in
three dimensions evident from shading, accompanied by red labels indicating
range and velocity. A blinking label in the lower left corner indicates that
these shapes are ultrasound data. One of the shapes makes a swiping motion
through a maglock on the wall that the camera is mounted on, and all the
shapes file quickly through the door which closes quickly behind them.

The view shifts to an interior shot of a corridor, the figures indicated as
before as ultrasound data. The silhouetting of the ultrasound makes it
difficult to determine much about the figures; they are all dressed in some
sort of baggy garment that makes almost no noise that the camera is picking up.
Two appear to be thin and gaunt, almost the classical elven profile.
Another appears to be a dwarf, about 1.6m tall, and the remaining two
appear as normal humans. HOwever, as the profiles are masked somewhat,
you can't be certain.

The figures move swiftly and quietly, the camera shot changing repeatedly as
the Runners move from one hallway to another. More than once they stop at a
junction, while one of the characters uses something that might be a periscope
to peer around the corridor for potential interlopers. They finally arrive
at an elevator, whose doors open long enough to admit them and then promptly
shut, the interior shot of the elevator for once not being outfitted with
ultrasound. Arriving at its destination, the elevator doors open and shut
again, camera perspective changing once more to include the ultrasound imaging
again. The figures hasten down a corridor and one of them again swipes
something through a maglock, body language indicating nervousness as he
apparently glances further down the corner. The audio begins to pick up the
sound of footsteps coming down the corridor toward the group. After a moment
he swipes the maglock again and this time the door opens, all the members
crowding quickly in and the door closing behind them. Not a moment too soon,
for a squad of three guards carrying SMG's walks into view, striding down the
corridor and past the camera without slowing down.

The view shifts again to a small, cluttered laboratory, ill-lit by several
oscilliscopes, tridscreens, and lights from assorted pieces of machinery.
In the ultrasound image, the runners quickly disperse, two of them proceeding
toward one of the walls and pulling out tools, two more of them approaching a
cluttered lab table containing a small metal and armored suitcase, and one
standing in a position to cover the door to the lab, pointing some sort
of firearm at the doorframe. At the table, one of the figures picks up
the suitcase and, grunting and swearing under his breath, seemingly attaches
it to his back, while the other figure makes a gesture which causes the case
to vanish from plain sight. Meanwhile, the figures at the wall have removed a
service panel and are busy manipulating a small black box (which becomes
visible as they let go of it) which they attach to something inside the wall.
The others wait while they reattach the panel, and then all gather at the door.

The video shifts, suddenly, to the angel, floating in limitless dataspace as
he monitors and subtly adjusts the streams of data. A stream of data, lit
faintly red, streams by. The angel's black mirrored glass eyes read the
stream and divert it, changing the syntax slightly, as sirens scream within
the entire compound, the emergency display showing "Fire alert reported, floor
25," followed by "Janitorial emergency, all floors, coffeepots." An
internal
camera view appears, reflected in the angels' eyes, of a small lab room starkly
lit by a fire burning in a spectrophotometer. As the camera pans the room,
yellow safety lights flip on and the space is filled with halon. Five seconds
later, a FRT in environmentally sealed suits burst through the door and begin
to scour the lab for any other signs of damage. One of them audibly murmurs:
"All damage is restricted to the spectrophotometer. Volatiles are secure.
Get the lab boys up here for the forensics, though I think the explanation
will be the same as the last one that gave up the ghost." The camera image
shifts, to show a thousand overflowing coffeepots on every floor, each LCD
display panel slowly typing out "Don't you like coffee?"

At this moment the door to the lab with the rest of the runners opens very
briefly and all of them scramble out, heading for the elevator they came up
in. As they are nearing it, an exit sign conspicuously flashes three times, at
which point the group of runners makes an abrupt turn down a side passage and
heads for another elevator, reaching it and descending rapidly. The runners
file out, looking in different directions in momentary confusion before moving
down yet another corridor, arriving again at the loading dock. The lead
runner swipes another card through the maglock, the door opening obligingly,
and the group files through the door and hurries off along the side of the
building and out of the camera's visual field.

The angel draws his wings back around himself, tight, and soars rapidly
down the streams of data, careful to remove all trace of his activity, fading
out the door. The last image the camera picks up is the square of static on
the front security checkpoint: "Internal data transfer from Ares Europe
cancelled by systems operator. Record deleted on executive order."

As the footage begins to blank, one of the datalines out of the SAN
seemingly shifts somehow to become what appears to be a human form, but
without recognizable facial features, or even fingers. But before you
see any more than its body reflecting everything within the node and the
Matrix, the log comes to an end.

+++++end of footage+++++ ]<<<<<
-- Hardware corruption, no ID or T/D available. Node shutting down

From:	Andrew D Brown <andbrown@*******.NODAK.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Ares run
Date:	Mon, 16 Oct 1995 23:15:06 -0500

Message no. 4 >>>>>[Always did wonder what the matrix looked like with a simsense chip.

Thanks for the view, masked decker]<<<<<
-- Zelf the Worox < 23:17:12/10-16-95 >

From:	Gian-Paolo Musumeci <musumeci@***.LIS.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Ares run
Date:	Mon, 16 Oct 1995 23:16:40 -0500

Message no. 5 >>>>>[Simsense chip? Please.]<<<<<
-- Christopher Tarleton <Dark/Angel>

Mailing List Logs for

Further Reading

Disclaimer