I sent a pulse of electricity through the wires of the netrunner chair, and felt the jolt pass along the circuit. Overloads had been dumping electricity up through the jack. Not too big of a deal for me, but it’d fry Luna. It seemed I finally got that little kink worked out.
I ran a program Luna made me, and it dumped scrap code into the shitty deck I linked up to the chair. An electric whine broke out, and the computer sparked. Even through it all, the jack circuitry only had a marginal increase in power draw.
It’d been four days since the exhibition, and I hadn’t wasted a single moment. I had dozens of Raijin’s display pieces saved away in my memory. Using a combination of my own skills and Weakness Wrangler, I’d put together a monster of a netrunner chair.
It had dozens of safety backups, it was hooked into an entire rack of additional processors to make up for my lack of chrome, and there was an entire bank of servers to keep and save information. As for coolant? It wasn’t even an issue. The chair had more refrigerant systems than an industrial meat packing facility. Once it was turned on, anyway.
“Shiro?” Luna called out from my workshop.
”I’m back here!” I shouted back, and slid out from under the chair. Throughout the entire R&D time of the net gear, I’d set an armada of autominers to dig out an offshoot chamber from my workshop. It was a bit smaller, but it was full to the brim with gear of various pieces.
A moment later, the door into my new net facility slid open and Luna appeared wrapped up in a big hoodie. One of Kaynis’, from what it looked like. “I can actually walk around in there again.”
I’d been keeping all the net gear stashed in my workshop while the autominers worked, so it’d been quite cluttered. I stood up, and leaned back on the chair. “Finally got this place dug out… what do you think?”
”Needs more RGB.” Luna shrugged. “Nothing goes with net gear like RGB lighting literally everywhere.”
”I’ll keep that in mind.” I pouted, and crossed my arms in front of my chest. I’d been a little busy with prepping everything else. Aesthetics hadn’t really been a focus compared to output and safety. “You finish on your end?”
”Yeah.” She tossed me a heavy drive, and moved around to inspect the distant server banks.
While I worked on the hardware, Luna had been hard at work on the software. I wasn’t totally sure what she’d made, but last I heard she needed to prepare everything from Daemons to programs to keep us protected from attempted invasions and reverse connections. Not to mention she made a dummy version of the battle royale to walk me through.
I plugged the drive into a server bank, and flicked off a manual override. Every single bit of tech in here had physical overrides built into them. They also had electrically trippable shutoffs I could activate with just a slight impulse of my kinetic ability should I have the need.
Luna pulled out her deck, and popped it down onto a rack between the two chairs I’d put together. “I’ll run some diagnostics and tests before we do anything. That okay?”
”Take your time.” I waved to her, and shuffled toward the door. “I got some other stuff to work on. Let me know when you’re ready for me.”
”I will.” Luna glanced up with glowing blue eyes. Her silver hair framed her fragile features, and gave her a surprisingly strong look now that she was in her element.
I shook my head and backed away. Nothing was cooler than a professional in their element, no matter what the profession was. I headed back to my workshop to get to work on the gravitic metal once more.
— — —
About five hours later, Luna finally called me back into the room. I slid into the net den to find her passed out on one of the chairs. The neuroport jack on the neck of the runner chair was sunk deep into specialized chrome at the back of her brain stem, and a softly glowing headpiece was down over her temples.
The headpiece was half to keep her head in place so the jack could be inserted easier, and half a safety to keep her in place should she start seizing. Similarly, restraints were deployed around her legs, torso, and arms.
“Luna?” I poked her cheek lightly.
”Cut that out.” I jumped as her voice came from the opened deck sitting just next to the chair. “Can’t even feel it like this.”
”Sorry. So, safe enough to dive with?” I checked her out. She’d swapped into a suit to better keep her insulated from heat caused by her chrome and the chair. Likewise, it would keep her warm enough not to be too affected by the refrigerant systems.
“For now. I noticed a few things, but we can fix them later.” Lights along the other chair flashed lightly. “Jack in. I’m all ready for you.”
”… chek.” I hesitated for a few moments, and then sat down on the chair. As soon as it sensed my weight, it reclined into a much more comfortable position. I was… scared? No, that wasn’t quite right. I was downright terrified of fully diving into the net. I’d already agreed to this competition, though. If I couldn’t even handle diving into a private server, I definitely couldn’t handle going into the DarkNet.
I didn’t have deep dive neuroports, so I had to get a bit… creative with how I could dive. Not like I could go to Nael and ask him to completely modify my brain stem. Not on such short notice. Anything having to do with the brain also wasn’t his forte.
Then there was the whole glitching issue. Who would’ve thunk, but chrome directly connected to the brain and nervous system had a higher chance of causing glitches. Even if I could’ve gotten it implanted, using it before I had a chance to acclimate wouldn’t have been ideal.
I pulled a specialized helmet onto my head. It was partly designed from the Halo Cortex, and designed to scan brainwaves. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting the sensation of actual diving. A metal clamp pressed into the back of my neck, and squeezed.
A shiver went down my spine, and it took all I had not to squirm. The first night I tried this tech, it crushed my spine and I had to just lie in the chair until I managed to pass out and start healing again. Ah, memories.
My vision started to swim as the clamp tightened, and paper thin needles shot into the back of my neck to interface with my spine. A buzz of electricity passed through me, and my surroundings abruptly faded.
An infinite expanse of gray fog stretched out around me. Neon pink lines moved along the plane, forming a grid that disappeared beyond where I could see. It was incredibly similar to the interface’s learning space.
”Shiro?” An amorphous blob called out to me from the side, and shifted toward me. The voice was heavily modulated, and sounded like a robot.
”Luna?” I eyed the blob.
”Oh, right.” The voice cut back to her natural, weak-sounding one. “How about this?”
”Much better.” I stretched out, though the motion was ultimately pointless. This wasn’t my real body, but a mere simulation built to represent my consciousness. “So… this is it, huh?”
”This is just an offline server. I don’t have ICE baked into the chairs yet, so it’d be quite… awkward if another runner got access to us.” The amorphous blob waved a tendril of ooze, and the scene around us abruptly shifted. “Welcome to Cyberspace! Or a rendition of it, anyway.”
Brilliant light poured down from above, and a city stretched out before me. Nodes of light lit up the buildings, and countless data streams flowed from the central sun. It was digital and holographic, though, leaving no room to doubt we were still on the net.
Just being here… it evoked something I’d long forgotten about—a desire to just go out and explore. It’d been a long, long time since I wanted to go on an adventure like this. “Woah.”
”The real thing is even wilder.” A hint of pride crept through her modulated voice. The city faded back to the blank expanse of nothingness. “Okay, you ready?”
”Chek. Lay it on me.”
”First, let's talk about the map.” Luna faded away, and I was transported to a radar station in the middle of the desert. A wave of vertigo washed over me from the sudden shift. This time, the location lacked that net film, and it truly felt like I was in the middle of a blistering desert.
”Damn, this is so weird.” I pulled at my shirt uncomfortably—only for my hand to phase through my chest. A sensation of intense dysphoria washed through me.
”One sec. Your neural feedback is overloading.” The heat pouring onto me instantly disappeared. “Here, I linked your temperature to your actual body. Should’ve done that first… sorry.”
”You can do that?” I pulled my hand out of my chest, and looked down at my body. I was a sheer white avatar, with only the basic look of a person.
”Oh, Shiro, I can do anything in the net.” My avatar abruptly shifted, and I turned back into myself. It shifted once more, and I transformed into Mira. Over the course of a couple seconds, I turned into everything from a dog to rockers from Thus, Crack.
“I can see why some people let this take over their lives.” I shook my head. If I was good at netrunning… Netrunners could basically warp this reality how they wished. No wonder so many of them had god complexes. “Can you stop changing me?”
“Oh, right, sorry.” She let me turn back into my normal body. “Where was I?”
“The map?” I shifted uncomfortably. I hated this.
”Right! Okay, so… Monarch basically picks a place in the world, and drops a Node down. Last year it was a facility in the middle of the Eternal Sandstorm. Had a whole element of Locust Swarms.” Luna appeared beside me, and pointed off toward the side of the radar station. “This is just a replica.”
”So we’ll actually be there?”
”Kinda. More like… a replica, where what happens in the net can and will affect reality. Vice versa is also true. All fighting and people will be in the Net, but… well, its so much more complex than that.” She sighed, and an oozed tendril swiped at her head. “I-I’m butchering this. Just treat it like a video game with a cool map.”
“Chek.” I could totally do that. Just pretend it was a dive game—one that could kill me if I played it wrong. No pressure.
”The Node will slowly collapse over the course of the competition.” Shadow walls erupted around the facility, and slowly narrowed into toward us. “In here, we’re safe from all manner of rogue AI and blood-thirsty monsters of the net. Out there…”
”Got it. Stay inside the ring.” I could totally manage that. I eyed the shadow wall, and a shiver went down my spine. Although this was just an example, I couldn’t overlook the fact that I’d really be in a place like this sometime soon.
The shadow wall faded, and a loot bin appeared in front of me. It glowed a soft golden light, and screamed open me! “This is where you’ll get weapons, equipment, programs, and all sorts of things. Go ahead, open it.”
I kicked the chest, and it popped open. Golden glowing machine guns popped out alongside grenades and all sorts of things. “Is that it?”
”Every one of these you open gives me more room to infest the battle royale and do things.” The amorphous blob looked back at me. “Kills, assists, and extra objectives do the same thing. I can’t tell you enough how important it is to open the door for me. It’ll let me do stuff like this.”
Our surroundings blinked, and we entered a small coliseum. An avatar appeared on the other side, and the battle royale abruptly shifted genre to a 1v1. “Cool. Okay, so you’re a Sprite, and I have to summon you to work your magic?”
Luna abruptly shifted into a wolf instead of her amorphous blob form. “That’s a good way of looking at it. Woof woof.”
I flinched, and stared at her with wide eyes. ”Did… did you really just say woof woof?”
“N-no.” Her tail twitched around behind her, and she shyly rubbed her paws together. The next instant she turned back into a formless blob. “Just… forget you saw that.”
”Fine, fine.” I crossed my arms. Once I got out of the net, though, I was definitely going to make fun of her.
“We have twenty-four hours to work up a strategy.” We moved back to the desert. “Thats the basics. Any questions?”
”So, so many questions.” First, though, I really needed to test which of my Perks and Traits still worked in this place. “This is an exact replica of the battle royale, chek?”
”Basically. Monarch just posted this practice mode today… If you want to do your thing, I can start working on cracking the code to get a leg up.” She offered. “I’ll throw you into a practice space.”
”Good idea.” It’d give me a chance to get used to moving in a net body, too. It was close to reality, but so, so weird. It was like there was a delay to my every motion… though that might just be because my tech wasn’t up to date. I also wasn’t using a neuroport like most everyone else would be.
”Okay! Have fun!” Her voice echoed in my ear, and the surrounding scenery abruptly shifted to a gun range.