Oh, man. I nearly forgot! I have more of this!
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Resonance Dogs
Part 003 – Stir Fry
Running the shadows wasn't a way of life for some people. For most, it was a last resort, rock bottom and a ladder up. It was a world filled with illegality and moral gray areas, where people lived fast, died on their feet, and forged a path in life as free as they could in the world the system provided. Of course, to live in the shadows, a runner needed a name. There was actually a very complicated process involved in it, most of which was unwritten. The most important part was that nobody ever got to name themselves. The rules are simple.
1. You have ten minutes to come up with something crazy and or embarrassing you've done in your past, and can submit a name for voting yourself, but the actual naming and voting is done by the rest of the crew.
2. If you like it, it's not a good name.
3. If you don't come up with one and a story about why you don't like it, you will get one by the end of the first run.
4. You won't like it, either.
5. If you complain about it, you'll get a worse one.
6. You only get awesome callsigns once you've earned them. For example, “Abrams” is not a good idea for a tough guy, “Slice” is not a cool name for a hacker, and trying to give yourself a name that sounds like that will get you hauled off into a urine-soaked alley and beaten to the tune of Roy Orbison's In Dreams.
7. If you do not do something stupid while on your first run, it will be based off your name. If your name is Cesar, expect the other runners to call you "Salad." If your name is Kraft, you should expect to be called “Cheese.”
8. This is not the name you use online. You can call yourself whatever the hell you want online.
Stir Fry had no excuse for what her name really meant. Most guys had the ability to piddle off with some story about how they got their name by doing something awesome, or they got the name Ice for being that awesome instead of losing control of a vehicle at two in the morning in January, or the name Hash from being so good with decryption, rather than having the last name “Brown.” Stir Fry was Japanese, an elf, and had, during the great crash of '64, burned out two data jacks, half her brain, and the system she was jacked into, scorching her nervous system into near uselessness. Extensive surgery and bioware had repaired the damage, and had taken eight years to get back into the swing of things. She had not yet invented an excuse for the name.
Right now she edited simsense, more specifically, a recording of her last summoning, all bone-ripping, flesh tearing, panic-inducing six seconds of it, from the tickling, reaching, gnawing sensation of an astral beacon to the direct and crying request to force it into screaming physical reality, coupled with the jagged lance of pain that always came with it, like giving birth out of her eyes and ears. It was a whirlwind of boiling emotion, of exhilaration, fear, and exhaustion, and she'd been experiencing it on repeat while biting through it to make sure she caught every nuance just right. When she was truly satisfied and finally pulled out all three wires, she dry heaved at a wastebasket for about five straight minutes.
Sitting up from her bed, she stumbled off through hissing monitors and old style cables, taking a quick shower to rinse grease off herself and take care of her rather stringy hair. She was an elf, with slim and pointed ears and gangly limbs, with a face and body she was proud of, even if she'd paid pretty heavily for both. She messed with her hair until it looked terrible, gave up, and stomped into the kitchen. Half-rotten strawberries and kiwi greeted her, and she gave up that, too, and went for a pack of salt crackers and a can of Nerps before throwing on a sweater and jeans. Yesterday's message from Nagarjuna still hovered off to her side, blinking to remind her that he'd found the item she wanted, if only she would bring his sim disks by.
Seattle was dark, lit up with neon lights both real and projected into her mechanical eyes by lasers dancing in artificial retina, dank with the scent of ammonia, and raining. Most notably, it was the type of late-February rain that still took the form of icy needles that managed to get down in between her sweater and skin and run down her back and make her reconsider the vat-grown hyper-sensitive replacement she had gotten herself into. Today was fairly normal, all things considered, and she was at least relieved at that.
Sifting through the flash drives in her hands, she counted about three unique recordings plus the one she'd just finished. She made her way down the street, feet crunching in glass like she was walking through snow, clocking her credstick and identification for the Knight Errant security booth at the end of the road, crossing the border into the slightly better districts. She heard one of the officers talk about a better-than-life burnout with no evidence to drag her in and how much of a shame it was, as if the cops really cared about evidence.
The roads leading up to Nagarjuna's convenience store were much more open than the street she lived on; hers was a claustrophobic alley lacking windows with laundry hung more out of habit than any real expectation of successful drying. This was an open street, a broad thoroughfare through Redmond scattered with the corpses of cars and newspapers drifting through like fallen cherry blossoms. At the edge of the crossroads, almost on a hill like a small castle, sat a broad-roofed convenience store with boarded-up windows and gutted drones strewn across the concrete parking lot like the carcasses in front of a lion's den.
The black box over the door flicked from red to green with an audible snap, and she opened it to the thick smell of curry and incense. Indian pop belted out for the brief moment she was assaulted by the heat and scent, and she shut the door behind her. Nagarjuna kept his place warm and dry, with the floor covered in sheets. He was currently seated on a pillow with an old-style analog television embedded in a nest of wires, fiddling away with some archaic controller while horrifically pixellated aliens tried to kill a soldier.
“What do you want?” the Indian said, scarcely looking up.
“I have the sims you wanted to trade for the object,” she answered, fighting back the anticipation in her voice.
The screen froze, the word “pause” flashing on screen like a warning. He craned his head back and narrowed his eyes; he was light for someone from Sri Lanka, with jet black hair and a propensity for wearing sports jerseys.
“Yes, but do you have what I want?” he answered.
Stir Fry nodded at that; holding up flash drives in her clutched palm like spurs, she dropped them on Nagarjuna's desk.
“A ghoul taking care of her man during a drain recovery from both perspectives, a day spent living in the arcology, and being shot to death by a Knight Errant officer. Collected at no small risk to my legal status,” she said.
“My contacts will love them. Sorry you had to look for things that were so specific. What's the fourth?” he asked.
“It's me summoning a spirit a little too big for me,” she said, shrugging.
He laughed once, cleaning off his couch.
“You know how many hoops I had to jump through to get this thing?” he asked, going under his coffee table for a locked box. “I couldn't find the stone, and I know that was the deal, but I like to think I went you one better.”
She nodded. He pulled a key off his neck and opened the physical padlock. Inside was a velvet wrap, ever so gently folded over a sword. The handle was gold, inlaid with jewels and a gleaming silver blade; it was the sort of sword Gary Gygax would have loved. She picked it up, feeling the weight, even as a cold thrill ran through her veins. Stir Fry was shuddering in ecstasy by this point, and her simrig kept letting her know she was experiencing a heightened emotion while asking her if she wanted to activate it way off in her peripheral vision. She was too engrosses to pay attention to it, watching the light of the room glint off the blade.
“The Sword of Ultimate Sorcery,” he said. “One of five items created for the Swordquest video games in 1982. Only two games were ever released and only two items were ever awarded, the Talisman of Penultimate Truth and the Chalice of Light. The Chalice still exists, and the Talisman was melted down, except for the silver center piece. The last three were lost. You now hold the sword in your hands.”
Stir Fry was smiling like an idiot now. She swung it experimentally a few times.
“The guy my contact took it from put up a fight for it,” he said. “Apparently, he kept screaming 'he is the one who builds the bridge,' and tried to cut him with it.”
“But you don't have the stone?” she gasped, still giddy through her disappointment..
“No,” he shook his head. “They tracked the sword down in Pueblo, and getting it out of the country was a fucking chore. They thought maybe they wouldn't get paid, because it's not what you wanted, but I asked them to bring the sword instead. You angry with me?”
“Not at all,” she giggled, and gave him a hug. “It's amazing. I was going to try and get as much of it as I can, I just wanted the Stone first because I thought it's what I could get. To tell the truth, I wanted the sword, anyway.”
She clutched it like it was a sick puppy.
“It's amazing,” she whispered to herself. “Thanks.”
Kissing him on the cheek, she took the key and box, twirling once, feeling as giddy as she did on her sixteenth birthday. The day was still dim, gray, and dry, but none of that really mattered. Skipping merrily back home, she snagged an ARO floating outside her door in the shape of a winged letter and fell back on her bed with both of them, grinning and with her heart light and her cheeks flushed. She kicked off her shoes and opened the letter.
Gameshow's voice bleated out at her, and small whine. His image in the video wheedled and pushed its forefingers together.
“Stir Fly,” he whined. “I need your help. Please? Call me when you get this.”
She frowned. He only called her Stir Fly when he was trying to get something out of her for free. Usually sex or a sim of sex. Not that this was a problem, but she rolled around on the bed, holding the box like a pet cat. She needed to get a back sheath.
“Gameshow,” she said aloud, and a window opened to her left. She looked at the camera on her wall and reached for a chocolate bar. His face came up after two rings, with a slate warehouse wall behind him coated in thick piping. He was in the dark someplace.
“Hey, Stir Fry,” he laughed. “That was quick.”
“What do you want, omae?”
“I have a job. I thought maybe you want in on it.”
“Is it a movie?” she teased.
“No,” he looked away, as if he was checking outside the nearby door. “I need some help clearing some stealthed IC out of some commlinks. I was gonna do it myself, but I'm a code cleaner, not a crackerjack.”
“I'm not a crackerjack,” she said. “I'm a sense editor.”
“Goddman do I hate our little group being overspecialized,” he sighed. “Then who do you know that is?”
“The bug is.”
“Bug?”
“BugintheSystem,” she shrugged. “So is whalewithlegs.”
“Who and who?”
“A hacker I know, she lives in the Underground, some kind of mutant. The other guy is an AI, I don't know how you feel about that, but he helped me during the crash.”
He seemed to contemplate that for a minute.
“Wait, is this the mystery hacker that MBA knows?”
“How should I know? I don't get my gear from MBA. I get my shit from Burn Ward.”
He boggled.
“Wild Bill's boss? Are you fucking serious? No, fuck that. Are you sane?”
That was the reaction she'd expected; Burn Ward ran a food barony for the Vory, from Russia with love and guns, and had possible links the Tamanous organleggers out in Redmond. She was a good source for spare parts, knew a lot of really top notch surgeons, and she personally introduced her to Litterbug, the best damn cyber and cosmetic surgeon she'd ever met.
“The old lady gives me the right goods for the right price.”
“Those are bad people.”
“I know they are.”
“Good, then you know you're an accessory to anything they do. Look, just come down here to warehouse forty-eight, bring whoever you want. AI, giant bug monsters, whatever.”
She sighed. As much as she needed more work for the moment, she really didn't want to go anywhere for the rest of the day.
“I was gonna watch the Roast of Anatoly Kirilenko tonight,” she whined.
“That's on tonight? 'And now introducing the man who owns the technology that lets sixty-year old Japanese men live out their fantasies by turning them into sixteen-year old Japanese schoolgirls, the CEO of Evo, Anatoly Kirilenko!' Here are two more jokes, you'll be hearing variants of all three the rest of the night! There, I just saved you an hour of content and three hours of Horizon and Aztech commericals. Now come down to Puyallup and help me.”
She let the air of her nose slowly and stuffed the box under her pillow.
“Fine.”
“And bring me back my copies of The Hills Have Thighs 2: Thigh Hard and Lesbian Elf Stripper Ninjas 7,” he added with an air of finality, before closing the window.
She groaned and sat up. He would be impossible to deal with at this point, but she knew people she could bring. Whale was usually tooling around in the chatrooms this time of day under an anonymous name, and Roach was, well, Roach was Roach, and probably digging in someone's trash or else being shot at again. She fired up her commlink.
[node: ?#428.$@2.198: whiteroom]
[#! - )$ - @)&@ : 17:03]
[you have subscribed to this node]
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[17:03] holocosplay: Hey, is Bug around? I need to ask her about some paydata
[17:04] BugintheSystem: I'm here. 'sup?
[17:04] blooscream: Eeyah, the cockraoches r back
[17:04] blooscream sprays the channel with raid
[17:05] holocosplay: I need to meet you in the meat. Come by this vending machine >data packet< sometime in the next hour. Also, if you see Whale, tell it I want to see it in my commlink as soon as you can.
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[17:05] blooscream: anythin i cn help with?
[17:05] trash.hog.47: has whale not fixed that stupid unrecognized node message or somthing? Isn't he some kinf of super AI?
[17:05] holocosplay: Actually, yeah, blooscream. You're an IC cracker, right?
[17:07] blooscream: yy
[17:07] holocosplay: Sweet. Meet me there, too.
[17:07] trash.hog.47: what's up now?
[17:08] holocosplay: A friend of mine wants some help with a hack in Puyallup.
[17:10] trash.hog.47: oh nevermind i'm in chicago
[17:10] trash.hog.47: tell roach I think i saw on of her buddies
[17:11] BugintheSystem: I'm still here.
[17:11] trash.hog.47: will i think I saw one of your buddies
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Tossing her commlink back in her pocket, she sighed and wiped her hands off on her pants. Grabbing her fun kit and a few sims off the counter, she took one last look at the sword box on her bed. She grinned pointedly and slung it over her back before leaving. She felt power thrum from it like an old wound, and she laughed.
Nice night.