“Jinxed Again”

Digits and Jax sat in the Cyberdeck Cafe booth mulling over the events of the previous hour.

Jinx was also present, but only in body. “Wow,” said Jinx as she sat at the table wearing her Second Sight © VR goggles. She hesitated a moment before giving a sinister smile.

“I’m in,” she whispered just loud enough for Digits and Jax to hear.

“In where,” asked a black haired man in his mid twenties who placed the cup tray and ridiculously sized chocolate muffin on the table. Jinx looked at the source of Leo’s voice, but the goggles blocked his face.

“Huhn?” she wondered aloud.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” said Leo as he sat down beside Jinx in the booth. “We three and half the cafe are captivated.” Jinx pulled the VR goggle set off her head. Her eyes and head immediately scanned the room for eavesdroppers. None. Jinx looked at Leo with annoyance. Leo smiled and gave a short laugh.

Digits smiled politely, but could not avert his eyes from Leo’s left arm. Leo, being one to never missing a chance to talk about his brief military career, smiled and drummed his right hand fingers on his chromed left arm. “Looks good,” Digits said, “any surprises?”

Jinx picked her large tea; extra cream and extra sugar, from the carry tray while her second hand reached for the sugar dispenser.

“This is the second one,” Leo began. “I got the first one from the Army. I was blown up on some backwater Central American road. That’s where I got the Neural Processor and a no frills, psychiatric certified replacement arm.” Leo turned his head to the right revealing a chrome filled ear canal. “Got this thrown in for free as well.”

“What neural processor you running?” Digits asked.

“Government Issue,” Leo said on a down note. “Could be worse,” Leo said sipping the hot coffee, “it could have been first gen surplus.”

True, thought Digits raising an eyebrow.

“There she is,” said Leo as he pulled out his vibrating cell phone. “Hello, Roxy,” Leo said.

“Hey Leo,” said Roxy, “you want the info now?” She is all business, thought Leo and he lost his smile.

Leo turned the phone’s volume all the way down and turned up his cyber hearing. With it, he could hear a pin fart from a mile away. A phrase he picked up in physical therapy.

“Sure. Go,” Leo said.

Digits looked a Jax.

“Roxy’s got her finger on the pulse of this city,” Jax said in a hushed tone. “She can fix or break anything.” Jax was beaming with what Digits figured to be admiration for Roxy’s reputation as a serious Fixer. Or breaker, echoed Jax’s words in Digits’ mind.

Leo sat silently blinking and listening to Roxy’s report. After a couple minutes Leo added, “Thanks, Roxy.” A moment later he concluded with, “We will be.”

As the crew slid from the booth and took their turns placing their ceramic mugs on the dish tray, Jax looked around. “I like this place,” she said before downing the rest of her Chocolate Mocha Latte.

“Roxy said no net runners operating out of the establishment’,” Leo relayed as Jax drove the large silver van. “However,” Leo continued, “a great deal of bandwidth is being used.”

“Could be a freelancer,” said Digits as in a rear swivel seat. He placed his third favorite cyberdeck onto his lap, and pulled up the monitor lid.

At first, Leo was taken aback. This dude is running a high stakes game on a STARLINE© “Tourist” cyberdeck? He thought. A company with a King Koala mascot? They stopped engineering King Koalas a decade ago. Everyone loved the little koalas, but the king sized ones proved to be too “bitey” for commercial sale. They were all slaughtered and sold as an ‘exotic cuisine’ in the more hungry nations. . .

. . . But then, Digits raised the lid and flipped out the dual monitors, Leo felt a bit more at ease. Leo huffed a laugh. “Dude,” he said to Digits, “you had me for a minute there.”

Digits smiled as he slip his Net glasses on.

“With the four of us,” says Jinx, “we could knck down their firewall and see who’s there.”

Digits eyes darted around like a stroke victim. It was a long moment before he spoke. “The Geyser building is running an old anorexic pipeline which cuts us down to two runners at best.”

“I’m low bandwidth,” Jinx said with a smile as she raised her goggles.

“We need the bandwidth that’s left to run programs, Jinx,” said Leo. “Sorry.”

As the van pulled into a parking spot on the street, all four passengers watched as a big, bellied man tucked in his blue shirt. After a moment, he tugged his tactical suspenders which apparently were caught on the car’s center console. Third time proved the charm and the suspenders leap into his arms. The holstered pistol smacked him in the face and the golden badge of the city police force nearly fell onto the street. The mustached man gave a quick glance and darted from the street to the Geyser building sidewalk with a quickness suitable to his girth.

“Well that was a quick resolve,” says Jax in the driver’s seat still holding the wheel.

Leo’s Sabretooth© connection locked his neuralware to his net glasses. In an instant, his realities flipped. The real world was being seen through a lens and the invisible world of the Net swept into view. Leo looked up. Along the top of his field of vision was the Net menu. He thumbed through the digital Rolodex of custom programs he made or copied over the past two years of working as a cyber contractor. As he did so, holographic avatars morphed to and from each program’s description viewed.

With his lead at entering the Net, Digits already had his programs loaded. A holographic, muscle bound sailor with a pipe and one squinting eye carried an oversize wood mallet on his shoulder.

As Leo flipped through his Deck of Many Things, Digits could not help but recognize mixed in among the space wasters were more than a few programs that could have you stretching your legs in the prison yard just for having a copy.

Digits found an open broadcast form a camera on the Geyser Building and relayed the info to Leo.

“State your business,” said an authoritarian female voice both men had heard many times before. Leo and Digits held their breath and sure enough, it was a librarian. One of the old, pseudo-intellects that could not compare with even the most base artificial intelligence. It was in fact, the Pass Code protector equivalent of the STARLINE© Cyberdeck.

“When you were followed, did you back out of the system or just drop out?” Asked Leo.

“I just dropped out,” said Digits with embarrassment, “The mainframe is ancient and I had been here just a few days before.”

Leo looked at Digits. “What do you think?” Said Leo. “Do we ping the Hell out of it and map the system or do we go in stealthy like?”

Digits looked undecided.

“They have no runners, Roxy says,” said Leo.

“Let me try something,” Digits said. “Systems and Business Maps statement,” Digits commanded of the poorly rendered Pass Code Librarian. Her image shuttered a moment before presenting Digits and Leo with a cross referenced menu displaying all available businesses and their digitally equivalent addresses.

“You sly old fox,” smiled Leo to Digits.

Both watched as the percent of bandwidth being used by the respective businesses was totaled and reported in real time. A major surge was seen on the 4th floor in an unoccupied office space.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation,” said Leo and he held up a holographic badge. A moment later the Librarian image flickered as it studied the code embedded in the Badge program.

It took a few seconds, but the librarian faded away leaving the two

The hallways and doors of businesses flashed by as Leon and Digits zeroed in on the spiking bandwidth. Leo pointed to an open conputer terminal.

“I’m recording this,” said Digits as he adjusted the digital microphone’s sound enhancement.

“Me too,” Leo said. Ironically, all Net content experienced in real time is played through the Net glasses visor window. The experience was less than ideal since they could barely make out faces. They would have to wait until after the run to get better pictures.

The two runners watched from the perspective of the desk top monitor which gave them nearly full coverage of the room.

The room was rather large but sparcely furnished. Perhaps four chairs and a couch on which someone was resting. Although the video and sound are clear, they do not match up. A common problem with Real Time/Real World vs. Net Time.

“That’s Cherry?” Asked one man wearing two service pistols in dual shoulder holsters. He had his head back and his eyes closed.

“Yeah,” said the other man who was blowing smoke rings after taking long drags off his flavored cigarette.

“What’s that?” The smoker asked followed by a coughing fit. The sound of a door opened off camera.

Both officers perked up. Officer Smokes took a sudden interest in the monitor displaying a dozen outside cameras while Officer Cherry barely recovered from a backward fall from leaning on his chair.

“Hey, LT” said the Smokes looking guilty by attempting to look innocent.

“Glad you could join us, Lieutenant,” said Officer Cherry.

The overweight cop was doing his best to recover from the four flights of stairs since the elevator was broken. Sweat poured from his face and he labored hard to catch his breath.

“Did you get anything on that girl?” He says between pants.

“Some local kid,” said a voice familiar to Digits. “She was helping keep the neighborhood clean of cyber graphiti,” Donny Stillinato continued as he rose off the couch.

“A do-gooder?” said LT with a sunken heart. The innocent ones were always the most difficult to forget, but Donny paid well enough to afford plenty of activities to occupy an idle mind.

“Do-gooder my ass,” Donny raised his voice as he grabbed his right knee. “Do-gooder’s do not stab people in the knee.” Donny was huffing heavily and looked wildly at the blue shirted Lieutenant.

“Right, Donny” agreed the Lieutenant sheepishly.

Digits looked at Leo. “Don’t drop out,” Digits said. “That’s how they got me last time.” Digits consulted his own Rolodex for a moment before continuing. “Let me drop out first. My program will catch any virus trying to follow us.”

At Digits’ feet was a yellow rubber duck the size of a large dog. Digits activated the Decoy program. Immediately, hundreds of yellow ducks began backtracking the steps taken by Digits and Leo since they passed the Librarian.

At the Librarian, the pair watched as a Beacon Tracking Virus attempted to connect with every one of the thousands of ducks exiting.

Leo started searching his cyberdeck for a suitable killer program, but Digits’ little sailor was back and with two puffs of his whistle his hammer came crashing down wrecking the Tracer virus for good.

Leo could hear the warning beep that he had lost the signal. Leo reached up and removed his glasses. Instantly his visor went clear.

A moment later, Digits followed Leo’s actions.

“You’re in some deep shit, kid,” Leo said to Jinx.

(CREDIT) P. Benjamin