Awake

Sunshine

Hideout

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AWAKE

It began with a throbbing pain. A ball of pain, floating in nothingness. Then it began to glow with soft but growing light. The nonexistence became gray mist, boiling as it came to contact with the newborn star. And just as she was getting intrigued, the pain and the light separated, the latter snapping in place at the back of her head and the former stinging her eyes. She must have opened her eyes because the world came into view but it took a while before she could focus her eyes on anything. Visual Interface booted up, expanding the edges of her field of vision with its symbolic controls. ANGEA, it said in crisp letters. But there was no Feed. No signal. For the first time in her life there was no one to talk to, no news feeds to tell her what she needed to know, no status updates, no comforting call cards from friends she'd never seen in flesh.

She was lying on a bed that had seen better days, in a room where walls seemed to be held together by faded posters of artists she'd never heard of and graffiti that was fading fast as the crumbling plaster became coarse and crystallized. ANGEA... it must be her name but it took a surprisingly long while of staring at the ceiling until brains accepted the connection. When they did, it triggered an explosion of memories. Consciousness reasserted itself, memories flooded in and took up their temporarily vacated places. But there were still gaps. Like how she ended up on this bed in such a godforsaken hole.

”Awake, are we?” a low feminine voice asked. The woman was sitting in a surprisingly good-looking chair at the centre of the room. She was dark-skinned and her hair hung down in dreadlocks, weighted with metallic studs. No, blades. If she swung her head, her hair would lash out like a clawed whip. A merc or a pirate. Someone from the other side of the wall. Angea glanced down on her own body and was relieved to find it clothed, even if she did not recognize the blank shirt and shorts she was wearing. No chains. No cuffs. Her head hurt but there were no scars where organs might have been cut out for the black market.

”Am I kidnapped?” she asked, biting down on her rising panic.

The woman laughed and the motion sent her hair blades jingling. Now Angea could see she had no eyes. Just round black lenses where the eyes should have been. It gave her a disturbingly snake-like look. And she was not alone. Behind her the entire back wall was covered with electronics, pipes, wiring and holo displays, now reduced to blobs of fog because of the distance. There was someone else by the wall, apparently busy with the wiring. And she could see a naked pair of withered feet, probably belonging to a corpse. The rest obstructed by the woman and her chair. Probably on purpose.

”You don't remember, do you? You are not a captive. You're our partner.”

The woman flashed a radiant if also somewhat predatory smile at Angea before continuing: ”You got booted from the Cadet Program for breaking into the test results database. My boss Azure here has a fondness for people who can crack Cartel databases. He pulled you off the street and struck a deal with you. Now we'll see if you can hold your end of it.”

The Cadet Program. Oh yes. That memory too.

The one memory she didn't want back but it came anyway. The crime. The trial. And worst of all the sensation of becoming an outcast. She wanted to go to the stars. Or if not the stars, the off-world colonies anyway. She got into the Cartel Cadet program and had trained, eaten and slept with her potential crew mates in every sense of the word for two years. They were going to be a team. A unit, perhaps for life. To be engineered physically for the alien environments of Solar Space was tough. To be engineered socially to live and work together in such a place for the rest of their lives was far tougher. It was all to be pre-programmed; love, sex, competition and social tensions.

But she had been a little too competitive and showed off her hacker skills by looking up classified data on the Program. She would not alter anything, of course, but it would prove a point and settle a score. Then someone ratted on her. She got the boot and the rest of the team... well, the social programming back to square 1 or worse. She had ruined it for everybody, including the one she was to love, the one she was to compete with and the one she was to have tension with. They would become “flunkies”, old cadets whose program had been screwed up somehow. They would hang onto low-level administrative tasks, hoping for a reassignment to a new team but it almost never happened. The sensible thing to do would have been to walk away but very few did. The dream was too big for them to let go. She got off easy, with no hope at all. When the Cartel Security Agency finally erased her Citizenship Account all she was left was her name. Striking a deal with someone, even with what the Cartel considered criminals, certainly made sense.

Angea sat up and gasped when when the pain in the back of her head suddenly pulsed. She felt it with her hands and found that her hair been cropped short, or more likely shaven off and had a few days worth growth on it now. There where hard blocks in the back of her head, each the size of a fingerprint and slightly sore to the touch. She counted six of them and felt them continue right down into her skull.

“The pain you feel is from the holes cut in your skull”, the dark woman said. “The brains don't feel pain but can do funny stuff for a while.”

“You did brain surgery on me?”

The woman shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Some. The Cartel did us all a big favor by installing the cranial socket in your head. Having that done in some black clinic could have killed you. We're not exactly a match for the med-labs in Luxor.”

The pain was subsiding a little, probably because of an adrenaline surge. Angie swung her legs onto the cold concrete floor and stood up, only to fall forwards and into the woman's arms. She had been up and next to her in a blink of an eye. So fast in fact, that Angea was not really certain she had moved at all. But now she could also see the entire console wall and a sudden realization had her gasping for breath.

“A ghost runner”, she said through clenched teeth, struggling to regain her balance and to push the woman away. “You turned me into a ghost runner. That thing on the wall is a Link controller module, spread out. I recognize the components...”

And then she saw the body. Or what she had thought to be the body. The man was alive but withered down to skin and bone. He was also naked, covered in grime and sporting a mane of unkempt hair and a scraggly beard. He seemed to be asleep and leaning against the console wall but actually all that held him sitting up was a thick bundle of cables attached to his. By the smell alone she would have thought him dead by now but she could see him breathing ever so slightly. Someone else, probably the man in the long coat now kneeling next to this living corpse, had rigged up an impromptu life support system, feeding the man on the floor with fluids, nutrients and even blood through a vicious-looking set of pipes and needles.

Satisfied that the system was up an running, the coated man stood up and turned to face her. For a moment Angea thought he didn't have eyes either but he was wearing dark goggles, undoubtedly packed with vision-enhancers. He seemed to be in his forties but that could have been just a fashion statement. In stark contrast to the woman he was almost bone-white. For some reason the short-cropped hair standing on up on his head gave Angea a strong impression it should have been white too. Instead it was striking blue, as were his eyelashes and even the shadow of a stubble on this jaw. A mutation or a genemod. In any case the only difference between the two was that one of them came with a price tag. The cryocoat was running at full power. Angea could see vapor drift down from the lining. She would freeze wearing it but apparently the man would have liked it even colder as he was sweating.

“No, Miss Angea”, the man said, “You made yourself into a ghost runner. You asked for the tools and we gave them to you”.

He extended his hand and after a moment's hesitation Angea took it.

“I am called Azure”, the man said and smirked, “I'd like something less descriptive but the streets kind of decide it for you”.

She glanced down at the living corpse at Azure's feet.

“And this is..?”

“The owner of this particular hideout”, Azure replied with a sigh, “I've brought you here so that this place wouldn't become his tomb.”

“I am not a medical specialist.”

“No. You are an information warfare specialist. This poor fellow is a info-casualty.”

“So what happened to him?”

Azure turned to one of the holo screens. It lit up, showing an endless stream of numbers and symbols, milling about like floodwaters with nowhere to go. He then tapped the screen with his finger, distorting the holograph for a while.

“That's what you're here to find out. Somehow this stream of garbage is holding him captive. I nearly killed him trying to pull the plug.”

“So what can I do that you can't?” Angea asked with a growing sense that she was not going to like the answer. Azure pointed to one of the components on the console wall. She did not recognize it.

“This is a ghost deck. It projects your avatar into the Link and translates the information back into your brain. I've rebooted it and set up a parallel connection. You should able able to ride this guy's connection to whatever the hell he has jacked into. I want you to find the source of this garbage and turn it off.”

“And what if I end up like him?”

“Then I'll find someone else to save the pair of you”, Azure said sharply and Angea became suddenly aware of the dark-skinned woman behind her. She was so close that Angea could feel her body heat. Angea had not seen a weapon on her but it did not mean she would not have one. Azure let this realization sink in before he continued: “I own the wiring in your head. If you go back on the deal, I'll take it out right now. With a pair of pliers.”

Now she could feel the breath of the dark-skinned woman on her heck. She was sniffing it, like a beast sniffing for the best place to sink her teeth in. Maybe the dark-skinned woman didn't need a weapon. Tall, athletic and undoubtedly loaded with cyber, she could probably break Angea's neck with a twist of her bare hands. It was a test. A test of nerves and control. The boundary between an equal partner and a frightened slave. Angea locked her gaze into her own defiant reflection on Azure's goggles. Suddenly the man looked very, very tired. He averted his eyes.

“Look. If you succeed, I'll make it worth your while. I promise. But I can't have you see this and just walk away. I'm sorry but it is not going to happen.”

Victory.

“So there's no choice?” she asked with a crooked smile. The answer was there already, she just wanted Azure to say it aloud.

“Not really, no”, Azure confessed and held up a bundle of cables identical to those attached into the dying man's head. They terminated in long black spikes, covered with lacy patterns of pure gold. They were contact surfaces, thousands of them on each spike. Angea had a brief but disturbing vision of them puncturing her eyes from behind and pushing out past her eyelids, caked with blood and goo. She shook it off and instead thought about space. The Colonies. The High Frontier. The last, great unknown. Despite a lifetime working with computerized systems, she knew more about the Great Unknown than she knew about the world at the end of those spikes. Officially, it didn't exist. Then again, officially quite a few things didn't exist according to the Cartel. In this room alone were three people from that world and they were holding a door open for her.

And if she had become a Pioneer, what would that have meant? Anyone this far into the training knew the reality was a far cry from the adverts. Being a Pioneer meant a life scheduled all the way to the grave. It meant becoming a cog in a machine and being thrown away or even destroyed once broken down or obsolete. It meant total submission to whatever designs the social engineers had planned for her. And she would be constructing a system to enforce all that on the millions still to come. Cadet recruitment may have drawn on the lust for adventure but once you got into the Program the psych training spent years hammering it out of you. Now she felt it once more. Fear. Excitement. Arousal. She was struggling with her feelings when she suddenly heard herself say it.

In a thick, hoarse voice.

“Plug me!”

2 SUNSHINE

The Sun beat down on the rooftop without mercy. Even with the sea breeze heat haze was thick as a fog, turning the forest of antennas, solar panels and black-painted water heaters around her oily blobs. She had never been to the rooftops before. In the arkologies that was strictly forbidden but out here nothing was off limits. Sure there would be some micro-state militia hanging about in vital spots but if you kept out of sight you were okay. There were simply too many holes to plug.

Heat haze and structures blocked her view of the horizon but above her was Starspine in all its glory. It was like a gigantic spiderweb, stretched to the breaking point. At night the strands would glow white and blue with the vast energies flowing through them. Now in broad daylight they seemed made of out glass. She had never seen them this close before. Bundles of strands, spreading out from the dozen or so ground terminals and joining together to form a complex web that hovered over the much of the city. Then, towards the middle it narrowed down into a dozen or so mainlines that vanished up into the blue.

Somewhere high up Starspine left a contrail of its own as it met the high atmospheric winds. And beyond... the space. It was unreal. Too massive to contemplate and yet too sparse and airy to cast a shadow. It was ghostly. And in itself a force to be reckoned with. Terminal Complex had originally been just the surface installation for the orbital elevator. After WorldCrash the city mushroomed right on top of the facility. The Cartel claimed some parts. The artificial intelligence operating Starspine claimed others. Between them lay a patchwork of slums, red light districts, industrial zones and microstates.

Most people called the city ”the Complex” and it fit. For Cartel, it was the unofficial if also undisputed global capital. But it was also the only place where they were openly defied. For Singularity, all Humanity may have been a necessary evil. Yet sovereign shards broke off from the Singularity Cloud and created physical avatars, Meks, to interact and sometimes mingle with the humans. And in the no-man's-land between the two an explosion of subcultures defied the very definition of both human and society: neosapients, gestalts, cyberpunks, hybrids, clans, hax...

Her three weeks outside the Corp Sector had taught her more about life and people than the previous three years inside it. And she had changed too, more than she ever thought possible. The brave but nerdy Angea would not survive a week out here. Maybe she died? Maybe she got lost somehow? Memories of being her felt distant and strange now. Being Arkangel was both more fun and definitely more useful. It also opened more doors. What a difference a little attitude adjustment can make!

She laughed out loud. After the throng of the chasms the silence and brightness of the rooftop was making her philosophical. Either that or it was the warning shot of an impending sunstroke. While her cryocloak kept her comfortable she wasn't wearing any headgear and the Sun wasn't taking any prisoners today. Better make it quick, then. She checked the Interface for coordinates and found she had walked past the cache already. Getting to it meant dealing with a jumble of pipes and a rust-spotted antenna tower but she figured she could use the exercise.

The package was right where it was supposed to be, in a nook between the pipes and the upper mountings of an antenna tower. It was a capsule, about the size of her two fists and with a wireless codelock. Undoubtedly left here by some free-running courier who'd laugh his ass off if he saw her clumsy climb up these same pipes. It was necessary to avoid the package being found by some random sun-stroller but an annoyance nevertheless. The package linked up with her Interface as soon as she touched it. She mentally punched in the reference number the fixer had given her and it opened with a puff of air, revealing a chipboard wrapped in plastic. It also brought up a notice of an open comms request on an encrypted channel. Strange. That hadn't been part of the deal.

She grabbed the chipboard and left the empty package in the cache to wait for the courier but climbing down proved even harder. Sweaty and exhausted, she removed her cloak and sat down under a solar panel to catch her breath and let the sweat dry off. Direct sunlight might have worked even better but after three weeks in the cave Azure left her she wasn't about to risk her skin. To pass time she took out the chipboard and unwrapped it. A plastic grip that doubled as a connector and a crystal plate with all the colours of the rainbow. She could not make out the individual nano-engineered components and connections. Instead, the whole thing looked as if swirls of multicoloured smoke had been frozen in place and encased in synthetic crystal.

Chipboard was a piece of Tek, probably from a nanoforge somewhere in Chumamji. It was also a breach of a couple of hundred Cartel patents but Street Sectors of Terminal Complex were the one place on Earth where those patents were not valid. Of course, that did not stop the corps from sending mercs after the pirate workshops from time to time, or smugglers taking Tek out to be sold in the black markets of Cartel Hubs around the globe. The chipboard also reminded her of the mysterious comms request. Maybe it was better to open it here, rather than through the landlines of the ghost deck.

Leaning back on the panel supports, she called up the Comms Request from the Inbox and accepted it with two-way audio and no outgoing visuals. Almost immediately a visual screen popped up into the interface. She moved it out of her field of vision and since it was fed into the optic cluster of her brains rather than the optic nerve, she could see it clearly even when it was outside her physical field of vision. Such a trick used to disorientate Angea but for Arkangel it was second nature.

Using visual feeds in comms was largely a tradition as there was no way to check if the visual feed was authentic. Besides, with so many people communicating via the Interface they'd have to have a camera trained at their face or stare at a mirror to show live feed of themselves talking. However, some things were clues, like the poor visual reception and the very poor background lighting on this one. The man must have used an external terminal and the light from it barely illuminated his face. He seemed to be an older man, a corporate type that could have passed for a doctor or a personal teacher in better days. Now he looked a little haggard and a couple of days past his last shave.

”Arkangel? I need your help and will pay for it if I live.”

He was talking fast and she could hear the panic and lack of sleep in his voice loud and clear. She knew her own voice would be steady and controlled since she wasn't actually speaking. Her replies were fed into the comms mentally through the Interface.

”Slow down. Who are you and how did you find me?”

The man closed his eyes and Arkangel could see how he pulled himself back together. This guy didn't have the hawkish aura of the macrocorp execs but it was obvious he was used to being in a position of authority.

”I paid my fixer for a ghost runner contact. I am trapped inside Mextron Arkology. I'll pay you 3000 Cartel Stock and start a fan site if you can get me out of here.”

”I am still waiting on the first question.”

”Uh, yes. My name... I guess it won't matter. Melk Ziroska. I am... was a science project administrator in Mextron working on... well it was top-secret. Mextron could burn in a Cartel inquiry if it leaked so when they canned the project they canned most of the team as well.”
”So how did you escape?”

”I was expecting foul play. I also knew the infrastructure from my junior engineering days and prepared a hideout in the biocycle maintenance shafts. Lucky for me they went for the other team members first.”

”So you knew this might happen and didn't warn them?”

Even in the dim light of his console Melk Ziroska seemed offended.

”There was still hope that the project might be salvaged! Almost to the very end! Such a thing would have been bad for morale!”

Arkangel smirked but realized with some regret that Melk would not see it.

”I guess that's one definition of team spirit. What kind of help do you need?”

”Orders for my termination are classified. Even the Mextron Internal Security is in the dark. However, scanners at all the exits have been set to trigger a Class-A biohazard alarm upon recognizing my face. If I try going through, I'll be trapped in a quarantine box filled with formaldehyde. They'll say it was an accident related to my work. Case closed.”

She thought about it for a while. It all sounded very daunting but part of the Hax creed was that complex meatspace problems usually had simple solutions in the Link.

”Hmm. If I can break into Mextron datacore, I can hack the security protocols. Then you could just walk out with a smile on your face and the guards wouldn't be any wiser. Mextron Datacore is in the InfoGrid network, right?”

Melk thought about it for a moment but did not seem convinced.

”There are three successive security layers in InfoGrid. The security servers are synchronized across all three. It can't work.”

”It's a hidden protocol so it can't be part of the regular backup transfers. If I can hack the security server and fix it on all three levels it doesn't matter if they're synchronized.”

”You can do that?”

Melk seemed so astonished that Arkangel had to bit her lip not laugh. She didn't know if the laughter had translated over to the comms but she didn't want to risk it.

”I can try. You're the one who is risking his life here. How long can you stay there?”

”Couple of days. It's mostly about water.”

”That's long enough. Can they trace this comm?”

”Not likely. This is an engineering console and I am using a faked ID with sapient encryption. They won't pick it out from the overall traffic.”

”If you say so. One final question. Can you really pay me 3000 Cartel Stock if you get out? What if they erase your Citizenship Account?”

”Mextron Credits would be wiped but Cartel Stock can't be erased. It can't even be transferred without an independent verification of my death. I have been promised an asylum with IKAI. I will arrange the transfer from there.”

”You'd better or I'll hack into IKAI and drown you in formaldehyde myself.”

”So it's a deal?”

”It's a deal. You'll hear from me again in 24 hours.”

And with that the channel was closed.

Her sweat had dried up so she put on her cloak and started walking towards the maintenance exit. Mextron, eh? Until now she had done only quick free runs into the first level networks and scooped up low-level data for Azure by intercepting package transfers. She'd been paid with small amounts of Cartel Stock and most of it had gone into the chipboard she now had in her pocket. This would be her first real gig and the 3000 Stock alone would be more than she had made until now. But even more importantly, this would make her look good. The Hax scene would take notice and she'd be somebody. She could use allies in this strange new world.

But she didn't dare to ask for a friend.

3 VIRTUALITY

The evening rains began like clockwork. In the Chasms, man-made canyons yawning between the massive city blocks, walkways lining the edges were covered either by more walkways above them or by makeshift canopies of plastic and steel. Those venturing onto the bridges and spans thrown across the chasms, seemingly at random, were not so lucky. A sheet of rain and mist so thick you could hardly see the other side of the chasm run right in the middle. The crowds didn't really permit running, so those worming their way across either held something above their heads or sported a bewildering array of hoods and brimmed hats. Some took advantage of the violent downpour and stripped naked or down to their waist, showering on the bridges or in places where rainwater was allowed to pour down from the roof. Some of them where just showing off: pirates their scars, prostitutes their breasts, sometimes three or four of them.

It was a freakshow. Even now, after three weeks, Arkangel had to constantly remind herself that she was part of the show now. Her hair was growing back and it was black and spiky all over, with a muscled flap covering the new plugs in the back of her head. It had about the same strength as her lips and she quickly found other uses for it. For example, it allowed her to contort her scalp in many bizarre ways, which made her hair spikes move about. She had since then spent hours watching herself in a mirror and practicing hair moves to emphasize her facial expressions. She was also growing paler. Back in the arkology she had been proud of her rich tan but it was bleaching out. Occasional visits to the roof did little to compensate for the lack of sunlight elsewhere. Startled by her own blue-veined hands she made a mental note to get a dermal mod when she could afford it.

”Eat more! No catch men with reedy legs!”

Her food vendor didn't need a dermal fix. She'd come with pirates from the continent over a dozen years ago and the years had done little to blemish her dark brown skin. Arkangel had been doubtful whether her few Cartel Stock would be valid scrip to a foodstall vendor in the Chasms. It was. The Stock were good everywhere. Instead of having to pay for every meal, she had given Zemu some Stock and now ate for free since the credits generated by that Stock covered her meals. This time it was algae noodles, assorted nuts and a handful of vat-grown shrimp, all cooked in a delicious African sauce that could have doubled as battery acid. Zemu always wanted to chat her up even while she was cooking like crazy. She ran an application in her Interface that monitored everything going on in the kitchen stall, from hardware performance to food orders and portion readiness. She had seen the whole world through this virtual kitchen for a decade now and had a habit of thinking about everything in terms of food. But Arkangel had a job tonight so she just grabbed her food and left after a few failed attempts at a graceful exit. Zemu was strangely quiet as she watched her go.

Zemu was by no means exceptional. This side of the chasm was lit up with with so many billboards, holograms and ad boxes you could barely see the actual wall behind them. And you might have been forgiven to think they were real, until you noticed they did not illuminate their surroundings and appeared crystal sharp even through rain, mist and sometimes the crowds. It was all virtual, a data stream from the Link to the Interface. While you could surf the local operators and get a slightly different offering of notices on each, or have services highlighted with search terms, you couldn't turn the Interface off. Or most people couldn't. Arkangel remembered reading from somewhere that 30% of all visual signals in an urban environment were actually virtual and the number was creeping up every year. Some called it the virtual light. These days everybody saw the world through a virtual filter. Cyberdrugs would make it go berserk, dropping you into virtual fantasies until your brains couldn't find their way back. Simple, really. Why use drugs to fool biochemical receptors when you could abuse the Interface to feed the same data straight into the gray matter? And with a much higher bandwidth.

On second thought, maybe Zemu was an exception. At least she had been able to create her own reality on top of the infomercial crap, even if it meant her entire world was a kitchen stall.

Arkangel could freely channel-surf with her Interface. She could even turn it off at will which was a felony in most microstates. Arkangel could also use it to spy on channels restricted to public, like low-level security networks, merc channels, pirate Net stations and Hax darknets, although the last were often superbly encrypted. The first thing any self-respecting ghost runner or Hax adherent would do was to hack his or her own Interface.

Yeah, the Hax. A street culture from somewhere between the Hivers and the Cyberpunks. The most visible secret organization in the world. Originally it was just about fooling around with the Interface, doing and writing cyberdrugs, pirating and mixing software, or hacking into restricted smart systems for shit and giggles. Then some evil incarnate came up with ghost running and Wham! They were hardcore criminals all of a sudden. Not all Hax are ghost runners but all ghost runners are Hax. All the Datathieves, Info Mercs and Link Spies. You name it, they've got it.

As Arkangel turned away from from the Chasm walkways and headed down an alley inside the block, she could tell where the walls were by the virtual ads and billboards. However, in places where lighting was poor, she could still bump into people because the ads shone right through them. Occasionally there was an exception, like when someone was wearing sponsored clothing or had paid extra for a personal Interface beacon. Arkangel did bump into a few but mostly because her mind was on the Hax. She had been a hang-around back in New Singapore but went straight as soon as the prospect of becoming a Cadet came into view. Besides, the Hax scene in South Asia Hub didn't hold a candle to that in Terminal Complex. As a matter of fact, no Hax scene anywhere in the world did. Maybe Zemu was right and she should have been catching men. She could use some friends and back up tonight. She could use the Hax.

For Arkangel, one of the main benefits of being able to turn off the Interface was being able to see the entrance to her hideout. If the Interface was running, the door simply wouldn't be there. It was a small maintenance hatch in a back alley, never very visible to begin with. But someone, somewhere, had painted it over with virtual light. It was a useful gimmick but also a terrifying reminder of the power Link had over reality.

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