| From: | Gian-Paolo Musumeci <musumeci@***.LIS.UIUC.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Frypp Security AudioVisual Upload |
| Date: | Mon, 17 Apr 1995 10:10:28 -0500 |
International Decking Contest...
+++++ AudioVisual Upload: Commence
(FryppSec Internal Offices Security Camera)
The room is large, walls panelled with polished wood and the floors
covered with a nondescript grey carpet. Light falls softly across the muted,
ultramodern highlights of the room: black leather chairs in the corners, a
heavy glass coffeetable on one side, a small refrigerator, a dark grey
leather couch, and a massive pool table that occupies a good portion of the
middle of the room. Sitting not-so-neatly on the coffeetable are the
remnants of take-out Chinese food, having been devoured mostly by a tall elf
in relaxed garb, who is sitting in one of the leather chairs.
A tall, thin woman with narrow features and hair the color of
burnished copper is sitting next to Freddy, arguing casually with him over
some obscure point. An elven woman, with long dark hair and wearing a loose
emerald-green raw silk blouse and jeans, is leaning up against the wall, a
pool cue in her left hand, the fingers of her right entwined with those of
the man standing next to her -- a man dressed in black jeans, a black
synthetic windbreaker, and an indigo-coloured silk shirt, with white-silver
hair that is pulled back into a loose ponytail.
(FryppSec Internal Offices Security Camera)
As a game of 9-ball finishes up with Patricia sinking a miracle
shot, Chris gets up and quietly excuses himself, a barest hint of
nervousness showing through the cold, determined wall of his personality.
Patricia stops him, catching his arm lightly, and kisses him very softly
on the cheek.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
Spinning motion, with all the force of a beam of light, shattering
through the milky azure of FryppSec guardian ice, the shards twisting into
globules of chrome as they peel away --
And through, banking across the data cores, looking at the endless
steel and blue neon spires, as formless patches of darkness and shadow writhe
on the edge of the child-decker's vision.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
Dark Angel looks down, suspended high above the chrome spheres of
FryppSec ice, watching the four blurred shapes push through the white-
marbled azure barriers. He turns to the exquisitely rendered cockatrice
figure beside him and whispers, quietly.
Angel: Basilisk, follow Zactof and coordinate security efforts, please.
Bas: Herr Tarleton, I will do as you ask.
The cockatrice moves off as the angel spreads its black chrome
wings and banks sharply downwards, senses warped with speed.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
The four split into two groups, an orky figure running in a half-
crouch off along a blue-silver datastream towards an unreflective black
sphere of ice, the cockatrice the barest hint of pixelation against the
expanse of infinite steel. A child, carrying a set of playing pipes and
a toolbox, a troubador, and an elf fly along a slowly unwinding helix of
data towards one of the steel and neon towers.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
The orky figure growls fiercely at the unreflective black sphere that
hovers there, and draws a large assault cannon, opening up with a terrible
rattle of spent shells clattering down onto the datastream and fading quickly
into oblivion, shattering the ice, tearing apart the code fragments.
The cockatrice banks around a building and watches, then falls back
and begins to marshal a defense, glitch ice rising up to pursue the
intruders.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
The three others push through the chrome ice guarding the base of
the tower and ascend a spiral staircase of light, gently hopping off at a
small panel in the wall. The child immediately goes up to it and begins to
play with the controls, intensely engrossed in the display. The elven icon
looks over the child's shoulder, watching --
(FryppSec Internal Offices Security Camera)
The lights dim, flicker, and go out, then snap back on ten seconds
later. The coffee machine in one corner begins to produce coffee at a
prodigious rate, overflowing the pot in a matter of seconds, as the lights
begin to strobe on and off.
Freddy swears profusely.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
-- the troubadour shouts a warning at the engrossed child and her
elven companion, just as a bolt of light sears white through the spiral
staircase and strikes the child in the back of the head. The child spins
and plays three low, plaintive notes: the sniper gurgles and unrezzes at
the force of her simple attack.
Jonesy: Are you okay?
Flute: Yeah. I'm fine.
The bolt of light unwinds in Flute's control software, tunneling
through the tightly woven silicon lines, finding the reaction control
loops, spinning grids of green neon, and begins to distract them, warping
around them and slowing the processor cycle rate down.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
Jonesy floats easily down the datastream corridor, followed by
Flute and Harlequin, treading a digital brook that suddenly opens into a
vast, calm lake, with a small shining cube, spinning rapidly, suspended in
the middle. Flute grins, puts down her toolbox, and moves towards it,
motioning Jonesy off, reaching up --
-- a flicker of motion on the horizon --
Dark Angel tastes the Matrix in his mouth, logarithmic Mandelbrot
sets that expand and replicate along his tongue and in his eyes, as he
banks hard, weaving through the chromed spires.
Flute turns, looking at the black chrome angel that rushes down
towards her, and scrabbles for her flute, trying to play a series of
twenty-one notes, a strong attack program -- the electrons fly down the
fiberoptic cable of her deck, passing into the parser and whipping through,
reaching the execution cores and beginning to work, the system struggling
against the unwound white lines around jade neon that slow the process
rate down. Flute plays a note, then pauses as her deck cycles fast, and
plays seven more in quick succesion, then pauses for a long moment, plays
another note, as the Angel draws a long, slender kris blade and rushes
headlong towards her. She plays another note, and another, the blade
slicing down through the fabric of the very Matrix towards her.
As the nineteenth note plays, the knife strikes, the blade
shattering against her, the shards burying themselves deep in her persona
and replicating at a furious rate, flooding the system with sheer load,
bursting into various viral tendrils that wrap their claws into the
processor and output chipsets, finally spinning off a vicious pulse of
biofeedback that hurtles down the fiberoptic cable --
(Flute's)
Flute jerks back in her chair, her nose trailing a stream of bright
crimson blood as her eyes snap back in her head, showing nothing but
endlessly hideous white, her muscles involuntarily convulsing. Buzz
gasps at the sudden reaction and tries to get up from his seat next to
her, reaching for the white fiberop cable, spattered with blood, but slips
and can't quite get a firm enough grasp on it.
(FryppSec Matrix Security Log)
A storm of glitch ice rises from the rippled water of the lake
and moves towards the rapidly derezzing Flute, as Chris banks around
hard and easily dodges a blast from Jonesy's Ruger Thunderbolt attack
program. He rushes towards Flute, realizing in a moment that he won't
be able to quite make it to her before the ice does --
-- he spins, his wings growing at an exponential rate, the
system response rate slowing to a crawl as his black angel's wings
envelop the world and then suddenly snap shut about itself, crashing
the system and bringing the world to a screaming halt...
(FryppSec Internal Offices Security Camera)
Chris walks into the offices, finding Freddy instantly in front of
him, offering him his hand and congratulations.
Chris: That wasn't a contest.
Freddy: You kicked that bitch's ass!
Chris: No...Freddy, she killed herself. Her ego got the best of her.
He walks over to the couch and lies down, resting his head in
Patricia's lap. She runs her fingers softly through his hair as he falls
quietly asleep -- a single, solitary tear trickling down his cheek.
+++++ AudioVisual Upload: Terminate
...]<<<<<
-- Christopher Tarleton <Dark/Angel>
