I dramatically hit enter on the keyboard, closing out my last line of code.
Fuck yeah.
Stretching in satisfaction, I glanced up as I heard the thud of punches reach a crescendo. Both Jess and Nat pushed to win their spar.
I'd been concerned when we first started that they would quickly lose interest in training, particularly given Avery's relentlessness. But I had it completely wrong. They took to it like ducks to water, loving the competition and at this point, whipping my arse.
Not all that surprising considering how much time we spent in the training gym. The first month or two, we came 3 days a week, as we paid for. Then it was 3 full days (from morning to dusk). Which increased to 4, then 5, and now 6 months after we met Avery, we effectively lived there.
If we weren't on a gig, we were here at the Forge.
I was glad for the variety of training Avery had on offer. The girls might have been okay doing the same thing every day, but it would have bored me to tears. I'd have powered through it; it was too important not to, but it wouldn’t have been enjoyable.
Out of all the training, the real exercises were the best. Like the drills on how to safely clear a room.
At first, Avery surprised me by allowing us to be around all the time, but as I got a feel for him, it was pretty clear he liked the commitment we were showing… and the eddies. We did end up paying him more than we agreed on. Partly because he was so popular, but mostly just the sheer amount of time we spent at the gym. I liked to think it was our commitment and enthusiasm that really did it. We were paying significantly below what the training was worth.
Or it was the eddies… It was probably the eddies.
Looking back down at my code, I grinned, another sense of accomplishment washing over me.
The second code I'd created from scratch.
How such a small programme took months of work, I'd never know. But it showed how much I still had to learn, which was just preem.
I loved the process. I might well be addicted in fact. Learning more about it and then improving what I'd already done, only to learn more and start again. Yeah, learning netrunning and coding in general was an ace idea. One of my better plans if I did say so myself. Not that I had any doubts.
There had been a few courses in the orphanage, which was what drew me in, in the first place.
It would have been easier to buy some ICE, then change it to suit me, but that would cost eddies we didn’t have.
Regardless, the end results were ace.
The 2 programs were both based on the scan command built into all decks. The program scanned your surrounding area to detect access points to the Net. Go back 10 years, and that meant something different. Nowadays, ever since the Krash, that just meant a Net Architecture.
When the scan finished, it gave me a list of connections on the deck screen, or if you had netrunning googles, you'd actually be able to see the access points in real time just by looking around.
The one that came with the deck ran like shit and so I scrapped it.
Sure, it got the job done, but it was so poorly made that even to my newbie eyes it almost hurt.
So I spent the time to build it properly. Effectively rebuilding it from the ground up. Stripping out all the inefficient code and any back doors or glitches Corpo's had left in. Like one where if you scanned an EBM facility, it would alert the facility. I'd created the 2 different modes after which was the endless debugging.
The first mode, which I'd creatively called 'range scan', had a much further range, able to go out dozens of metres, but with decreased clarity.
Not very useful for me right now, as I have no way to access them from very far away, even if I find them. I'd need to upgrade my deck to be able to connect at further ranges first. But I would still be able to see those connections, which would help me plan.
The second mode was 'detailed scan'. This had a much shorter range, but I had combined it with some other programs like Pathfinder, so now it would tell me how strong, big and secure the network was. It wouldn’t always give me the full deets, as it was only a scan, but it could give me an idea if I wanted to even consider messing with that Net Architecture.
Or at least it tried to.
I'd only programmed 3 threat levels into it. 1, easy and no threat, up to 3, which was, 'leave it the fuck alone.' I still needed to tweak the thresholds, and as I learned, I would need to change the cut-off for the grades, but for now, it suited me down to the ground.
Unlike the girls, I was only doing the 3 full days of training and maybe an hour or 2 the other days. I had other things I wanted to work on, which felt to be far more important, aka, netrunning.
I had completed all the books and documents I'd bought. Some were great, others were poor, and most of it was propaganda of some sort. Either way, it helped point me in the right direction. From there, it was trial and error.
I was just glad coding was easy.
It all made logical sense and therefore, wasn’t too hard to improve on.
Best of all, Avery allowed me to practice on his Net.
Just the outer portions of it of course, but I got good practice trying to hack into it and take control of the various parts, like the cameras or turrets. I would have followed the girls to the gym regardless, as it was riskier being on your own even with the firm around.
I just felt safer with them by my side.
I would have liked a zetaech diagnet which was a safe environment to test my programmes, but that would set us back over §5000. Just a tiny bit out of my price range, and even if I could afford it, I wasn't likely to find someone selling one. I wouldn’t even know who to ask.
Ebucks were tight anyway and with no recent big score, we were feeling the pinch. Although I was kind of glad for it.
Another one would bring even more attention our way, as even with my best efforts, people realised we had a big score. Not the size of it, but they knew we had one. Only one gangoon seemed to put things together.
But he made a fundamental error. Actually, no, he'd made three. First, he threatened the twins, and second, he tried to blackmail me. Thereby becoming a threat. Finally he vastly overestimated his leverage.
So I delt with him the best way I knew how.
I ended him.
---
It was 3 weeks after the big score when Tyler, a small-time gangoon, approached me. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. He was part of Adrian's little clique, one of the quiet ones. I'd barely even spoken to him until he tried to blackmail us.
"Aden." Tyler said, smirking.
I just stared at him, waiting. I didn’t even know what he wanted, but I wasn’t expecting it to be good news.
As the seconds dragged on, Tyler shifted uncomfortably, the smirk slowly sliding from his face.
"Wha'ever man. You've been spending a lot of scratch recently. I know you 3 got a good score. One you didn’t share with Billy. I'm sure he would be interested in hearing abou'it." He said, his cocky smirk returning.
This fucking wasteman. It was like my worst nightmare come to life. First to see how bad it was.
"What do you want and how many know?"
"Just me right now. And if you want it to stay that way, I want a cut."
I almost audibly sighed with relief. Good old blackmail, that I could deal with and only he knows…
I keep the rage and hate out of my voice and try to put on a scared look. I'm not sure I was that successful. "We… How much? We've spent most of it already."
"Sure. A mate of mine saw the deck you are rocking. It’s the one Boxy was offering round. So that’s like, 2000 eddies right there. Then there are the guns and food and shit. So I bet the pay out was 4000 eddies. I want a 1000."
"A 1000." I blurted out, incredulous. A 4th of it, that was greedy.
"Yeah. A 1000. Or I will tell Billy and then he will ring your and those pretty little girls necks."
My heart went cold.
"Okay. Okay. I… I can get it, but it will take some time. We will need to sell some stuff."
"You do that. I will give you a week. After that it will go up by a 100 each week."
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Every instinct in my body wanted to rip the pistol from its holster and empty it into him. But that would get us nowhere. I would need to do it right.
Smirking once more he walked away whistling. Or at least trying too. Twat couldn’t even whistle properly.
With him thinking he had won, I bought myself time and so formed a smart plan to get rid of him. I would disappear him and sneak in to steal his gear from home. With that everyone would think he'd deltaed. I had the whole plan laid out in clear steps. The girls helped and wanted to take part but I didn’t allow it. Not yet. They also needed to be my alibi. After all, everyone knew where my sisters were, I wasn’t far behind.
Before I put my plan into action, I spoke to Avery, asking about the best way to dispose of a body. He gave me some tips before asking why I would even need that. It didn’t take long before he had most of the story, and he damn near hit the roof.
“Aden you gonk. You don’t need to make him disappear. Just shiv the fucker in the tunnels. If you aren't seen, no one will think it is you.”
“Oh… yeah, that makes sense. Okay then, what is the best way to zero someone silently from behind? Like, slitting their throat?”
“Have I taught you nothing? No. Come up behind them, hand over their mouth and stab the dagger under the ribs deep into the torso. Here let me show you.”
Even expecting it, it was still so sudden. After showing me how to do it, I practised it countless times until I could do it in my sleep.
Then it was just a matter of finding the opportune moment.
Turns out I didn’t have to wait long.
It happened almost by accident. A few days later I saw him leaving alone and spur of the moment, followed him. I made sure no one saw me leave and then tailed him, which was both easy and hard. There was little traffic, so if he saw me, there was no hiding, but his heavy boot steps were more than enough to follow him.
A few minutes in, and I knew where he was aiming for. It was a common route to The Chromed Limb, a small underground pub and fighting ring. I avoided it if I could. Drugs, alcohol, fighting and gambling were a well-known excellent combination.
I made sure to follow him all the way there. Once I was sure he entered and, more importantly, wasn’t joining a large group, I retraced my steps searching for an ambush point. I had the perfect one in mind.
The tunnel in question transitioned from the bright IM to a curved passage without power. Within a few steps, it was pitch black. What made it perfect was a small side tunnel that I could sit and hide in. It was a dead end, the tunnel having collapsed decades ago, so was unused.
The tunnel scouted, I set up watching for him to leave the Chromed Limb.
I stared unblinkingly at the pub for hours, barely shifting, an ice cold fury filling my veins like anti-freeze was pumping through them, giving me perfect clarity. I made sure the girls went to the Forge and covered for me. They tried to ask questions, but I brushed them off for now.
4 hours later, he emerged… alone.
With a cold smile, I ducked into the tunnels and crouched in my hiding spot. My long-serrated dagger already unsheathed. No one knew it was mine; I'd bought it specifically for this.
The gloom swallowed me whole, and I knew I was invisible, with a clear view of him as he approached. Still alone.
Perfect.
Sinking back further into the shadows, I timed it perfectly. I closed the gap just as he stepped around the corner into the pitch blackness. Before his eyes could adjust, I moved behind him.
I was on him before he recognised the danger he was in.
My gloved hand clamped over his mouth wrenching his head back into my shoulder. At the same time, the 10-inch blade drove up into his back, beneath his ribs.
He jerked violently, desperately twisting to break free. His hands instinctively clawed at mine over his mouth.
But I had practised this position countless times. I held him long enough to rip the blade free and plunge it in again and again. By the end, the handle was slick with blood, and the warm liquid running up my arm.
Leaving the dagger sticking into his back, I let him fall face-first to the floor.
I froze, ears straining, but just silence. Feeling empty, I slipped away for the Forge to meet with the girls. As I sculked through the tunnels, I cleaned off what I could, throwing away the gloves and rolled up the bloody sleeve.
I would need to wash it at the gym to get rid of the last of the evidence.
Halfway to the gym, it kind of hit me. What I had done. I still expected to feel something. Sadness, guilt. Anything really. But I still felt as little as the first time. Killing poeple were meant to be like that right? At least according to Avery. I felt nothing but a flash of satisfaction and pride for a job well done. A cold smirk flickered over my face.
No one threatens me and mine.
---
The body was found several hours later and ignored. It was only days later, when he hadn't returned, that the gang searched for him and found his half-gnawed body kicked into the side tunnel. There was some half-hearted investigation by the firm and the Armstrong gang. But it went nowhere.
Death was common on the streets and he was soon forgotten with no one the wiser.
That clearly showed the usefulness of the training, and I'd only doubled down on learning it.
It was slow at first, and it didn't feel like we were making any progress at all. At least not until we went out with the firm and saw the now obvious things they were doing wrong. Glitch-brained shit like how they held their irons or where they kept them.
Or weapon discipline. All things we'd started to take for granted.
And don’t get me started on the shooting. They looked cool, holding their strap sideways while firing, but it was about as effective as you might expect.
This only became more pronounced as time went on.
Nat and Jess even started to give out pointers to the rest of the gangoons. Although Adrian wasn’t too happy about it, judging by the looks he gave them, which had Jess mostly stop. Nat, as ever, ignored him and helped those she felt like.
"Yes!" Nat shouted. Looking up, I caught the tail end of her getting a perfect block and counter, forcing Jess to move into an awkward position, which allowed Nat to close the gap, tackling and then pinning her, ending the match.
Smooth. I clapped, cheering for her. "Smooth Nat. That looked ace."
She beams at me. Basking in the praise. "Thanks!" She glanced at Jess. "You made that move one too many times."
"I will have to vary it up next time." She grumbled as she climbed to her feet. "Come on, I'm wiped. Besides its almost the end of the day anyway." We nattered quietly as we cleared up and headed home, saying goodbye to the few gym goers we knew.
As we got there, Billy flagged us down.
"Yo. We have a big gig tomorrow, so don’t vanish off."
"Sure thing boss." Jess replies.
-----
"Good yo'll here. We're hitting the Spicers." Billy said.
Hmm, that’s a choice. Not the worst firm to hit. They were a small time dorph gang, so lots of drugs, both recreational and combat.
Billy glared to silence the whispering that broke out. "They kelped some stuff they shouldn’t have. Ain’t important enough to call in big mercs or solos. This is our chance to show we mean biz. They are holed up in a deserted building. We're hittin' them this morning, so most will be spaced out on Black Lace."
I chewed my lips. It was still risky. dorph gangs were always high on something. That made them unpredictable. They could be off their faces, so easy pickings, but they could just as easily ignore all pain and rage out.
But it was a good opportunity for the firm. If we could get some recognition for this, we might start to get some better gigs. Which meant more eddies, which meant better gear for me and the girls.
Billy, with Eli and Adrian, walked out in front as we slowly moved to the target's location, chatting quietly to themselves.
The walks over felt weird.
I expected to be more nervous, knowing there would be actual fighting. And I was, don’t get me wrong, but it was like the nervousness focused me. I felt alert and ready. My main concern was keeping the 3 of us safe.
We would need to make sure we were near the back of the gang when we went in.
This was the first time the gang would start violence. There was always that threat when we rolled out as a gang, but it had never been the goal. We were usually lookouts, clean up, support, couriers, or, if particularly lucky, guides in the tunnels. But if this was successful, this might be the start of a new trend. Time would tell if it would be good or bad. The reason I was so happy staying with the gang was the safety that it provided. That and Billy mostly cared about us, or Eli did anyway.
But when I was a better hacker, that decision would need to be re-examined.
Walking along the street, I sent out a [scan] to see what networks I could connect to (habit at this point). Without fancy cybereyes or specialised goggles, I needed to resort to a wreath. I had modified the BrainDancer headset to still be able to see out of it, even when diving, unlike some models. I had one of the screens flipped down over my left eye, but the right was free.
Not ideal, but it allowed me to see what my deck was pinging off on the move. Walking and looking at a screen was surprisingly hard. It only took one incident of walking into a pole to decide a wreath was a worthy investment.
Avery had also pushed me to get one. Showing me how unaware it made me without one and how fatal that would be.
Looking around, I found a connection for the target house. I jerked back. Well shit. I'd expected cameras, but 3 auto turrets were not good news. I needed to let them know, we would be shredded if we went in unprepared. I was about to ping Eil when Billy called a halt.
In person was faster, so in person it was.
Jogging up over to him, I told them what I found. Billy nodded and paced along the pavement. He always paced when thinking.
After some back and forth between Eli and Billy, I took a deep breath and interjected again. "I can try to hack them if we are willing to hang about. It won't be fast."
Humming to himself, Billy nodded at me. "A'ight, change of plan. Jess, Nat stay with him. Aden, hack and disable what you can and then ping me. They should be blasted so be easy to take down." Without waiting for any dissenting opinions, he marched off around the corner to get into position.
I glanced at the girls, giving them both a nod. "Okay then, normal positions." I said. Where to hide. I couldn’t be too far from the building; I needed to be within line of sight and within 6 metres of the connection. A wall stuck out, offering limited concealment, which would have to do.
Settling against the wall, I got a strong whiff of urine before putting it to the back of my mind, that barely enough to register on my radar. I twisted my custom rucksack in front of me to allow access to my deck's screen and keyboard. I say custom, it just had a slit in the side to access the deck while keeping it somewhat hidden.
Hopefully it made it less obvious what I was doing. I scanned and searched for an entry point to this Architecture.
When I first started learning about netrunning, I was surprised by how obsolete a lot of the information was. Much of it was about diving in from a rig or secure connection and navigating through the net to the target. The connection could range from a large bath filled with ice to a specialist chair and suit costing 100,000s if not millions of eddies.
However, ever since the Krash, that was no longer possible, or at least incredibly dangerous and hard to do.
This shift changed the landscape for deckheads, not even counting the huge portion of netrunners that were connected to the net during the Krash, who got them flatlined. Culling 1000s from the profession, leaving quite the large void.
This could be an advantage for me if I played my hands right and stayed out of Netwatch's hands. They had a nasty habit of forcefully recruiting any netrunner of a certain skill, particularly in the EEC, where even before the Krash, free netrunners were few and far between.
Luckily, from the chatter I'd picked up, most of their attention was in the EEC, which the UK was no longer a part of, reclaiming the Net or rebuilding citinet allowing limited communication across the city. London was still years away from having a complete and reliable citinet, but it was in progress. MetSys (a local government-owned version of Netwatch) were in the process of creating it and linking it around the UK.
Nower days if you wanted to set up a camera, turrets or sensors, you'd need your own server known as a net architecture rather than just connecting to the Net as done in the past.
Having found the camera as an access point, I start to slowly hack my way. My deck wasn’t the best, but it had all I needed with a screen and keyboard.
I was nowhere near ready to fully dive in, so it was the slow way.
Still, after what felt like hours but was likely closer to 9 minutes, I’d hacked into the net. Snorting to myself, I shook my head at the state of it. It truly was a shit setup and just like that I had control. In this case, the 2 cameras and 3 turrets.
Depending on the set up (and the money you were willing to spend on it) dictated how hard it is to get control of the architecture and how much security I would need to fight to get control of it.
Fighting was a bit of a misnomer because again, what I was actually doing was just good old-fashioned hacking and not really netrunning. While I did have the equipment, a cyberdeck, I did not feel nearly confident enough to risk myself just yet.
Since I was not actually netrunning, there was no risk of bodily harm; it was just slow as shit since I was using a keyboard on my deck. Luckily, there were no sophisticated enough ICE (Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics) or even worse, Black ICE.
Netrunning involved actually going into cyberspace; this used to be within the Net, which was a vast telecommunication network including anything that could relay information, like radio, hardline transmitters and so on.
My books explained it was the IG protocols that made cyberspace special, turning the data on the net into a 3D world the human brain could understand and interact with. With it, you could explore, rendering it very similar to the real world. For instance, real-world distances between cybermodems and PCs roughly translate to the same distance on the net.
Where it really got into its own was that in the net, everything felt lifelike. From the movement to, if you were really lucky, the food, not that you were actually eating food. Just a clever programme that was designed to taste like food. This could even update in real time. For example, if you had a poor connection, mountains might suddenly spring up in front of you, representing that poor connection rather than having a laggy experience.
Unsurprisingly the more powerful the machine running the protocol, the more realistic the cyberworld could become.
With the Krash, most people blaming Rache Bartmoss for it, some even cursing his name. The IG protocol was disrupted, so no more access to the Net. Since it was inaccessible, the only cyberspace that could be accessed were Net Architectures, which needed to be done in person.
No longer could a hacker hide miles away, safely tucked away. They had to be in the action. Which I was not greatly pleased about. It was stressful enough without being shot at.
Unfortunately, I was hampered by my current technology, with my deck only able to access a system several meters away.
Net Architecture or nets are much more straight forward, they are servers or LAN (think home networks), all isolated from one another, with several layers of software. The more layers there were, the more secure your architecture. With subsequent costs increasing as they did.
Having control over the system I just turned it all off, not sure I would have been able to turn it against the gangers. The cameras only showed the outside of the building, so were of no real use anyway.
I flicked a message to Billy and sat back, breathing out a huge sigh of relief. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my trousers. Avery's might have been more complicated, but it didn’t risk death when doing so.
The sound of gunfire erupted as soon as Billy and the rest of the firm stormed the building.
Overall, it was rather anticlimactic.
As hoped, the gangers were off their faces and put up very little resistance, which allowed us to take the place with no casualties. Although it was a close thing as one wasteman had fallen down the back of the sofa and was almost missed.
With the place secure, Billy called us over. "Yo, preem spot. Those turrets would have ghosted us. You up for doing that again?" Asking in the voice of 'there is only one right answer to this question'.
Thinking it over, as it is a bit of a surprise he was asking, but then normally I did not have anything he really needed. "Sure, as long as we get a larger cut, like first 1st pickings of any loot, for example. After you, and any exceptional circumstances of course. Finally, Nat and Jess watch over me as cover."
We stood in silence as we watched Billy look off into the distance in thought, finally nodding to himself, "Preem, I will give you 10% of the job eddies depending on your contribution and a look over the loot. But it will only be 2 items at most, not 3."
Glancing at the girls, both of them nodded and turned back to Billy and shook on it.
----
This started a very comfortable and profitable cycle for us. So much so, we no longer needed to go out on our own, as with the greater cuts and first pickings, we quickly accumulated eddies.
At first these larger jobs were once a month, but that quickly changed to once a week, and these days, several months later, even twice a week. We were doing so many gigs in fact, all that required hacking, I had to decrease the amount of time I was training and focus on coding to improve my programmes and skills.
Although all this work did help get properly kitted out, with lots of the stuff I had wanted but could never justify or afford. By the time of the girls' 9th birthdays in April, we had sorted out most of the things I considered necessary.
Avery had helped us a huge amount on this. Mostly by poking and prodding holes in our gear choices, particularly Jess's, as well as offering insight into where he felt our time and eddies were best spent. For instance, he turned me off an entire brand of weapons from his horror stories about them.
He explained the benefits of different but overlapping roles and gear. Each one complimenting the other. It was obvious in hindsight and something we all agreed to do.
Hopefully we would never go on missions separately, so we could cover each other's weaknesses.
That was one thing I constantly made sure of.
No stupid risks or shortcuts. None of us were going to get flatlined from rushed plans.
Luckily we had already been falling into roles without even realising it, and our talks only sped this up. I, unsurprisingly, would be focused on netrunning, so would not have much of the firepower in most situations, just a light or heavy pistol. I did pick something for longer range, but rarely carried it.
The girls gained a light and heavy pistol as well, with Nat normally carrying a heavy and Jess a light. It just fit them better. We'd decided on the Federated Arms Impact and Sternmeyer P-35 for our light and heavy pistols, respectively. An American and German company.
There were better ones on the market, but ours were some of the most reliable and still decently accurate. Far more important traits than anything else. Avery had hammered that into us. You only had to have the gun jam once to never want that to happen again.
They were also some of the most common guns on the market so they and their ammo were incredibly easy to come by. Most could be bought from corner shops. Hell, there were vending machines that sold them. They were in shit condition, but they were there. And with a bit of know-how from Nat changing out parts, we had some good quality iron, unlike the vast majority of scrap on the market.
The pistols could be concealed under light clothing. That was a must-have. Flash anything in the wrong areas and you'd have a fight on your hands.
Our primary guns were less straightforward and where our gear really started to diverge.
None of the guns spoke to me like they had for the others. Not that I minded. I was a hacker and that would be my weapon. So I settled for a rifle, the Royal Enfield Ordnance Liquid Propellant Assault Rifle LPA1. A bit of a mouthful, but with its longer range and heavier calibre, it was perfect for me. Able to punch through most light or medium armour and with our most important feature, very reliable.
It was one of the few British-made guns, making it more common in the UK than it would be in the rest of the world, particularly with the fall of the MLA and the wave of guns that hit the markets. Although it was still a lucky find.
Thank you, Alley Runners. Your contributions will be remembered.
I also had a Militech Dragon Light Assault Weapon as backup, which had the advantage of being small enough to hide under a jacket. It was awkward as fuck, but useful nonetheless.
Jess, after much complaining, got a mono sword instead of the mantis blades she desperately wanted. Why she wanted them so much I still didn’t understand. Her answer of nim-nim did not help matters. I was firmly on Avery's side, that wanting to be a ninja was not a valid reason.
No matter how much she pouted.
She also had a Heckler & Koch MPK-2020 SMG for similar reasons to all the others; reliable, easier to acquire and accurate. Nat had a Stolbovoy St-5 Assault Rifle and a Sternmeyer Stakeout 10 shotgun to bring some serious death to the party.
At home, hidden away, all of us had a spare light and heavy pistol. Some of the final bits and pieces we bought were first aid and body armour that we could wear under our clothes. It could only stop the smallest calibres and stab-proof minus mono blades, but it was a good start.