Chapter Seventeen (Crashrider)

Eegleet/Calshiina/CRASHRIDER pressed himself against the wall at the same time as his two chummers did the same. They held still, trusting in their holo-camo to prevent the silent machines, bristling with spikes and blades, from spotting them as the machines moved down the hallway in perfect lockstep.

Crashrider waited ten pulses then held up his black anodized cyberarm and motioned his chummers to follow him. The arm replaced in the game the useless meatspace one that had been burnt and scorched, the nerves reduces to screaming fire and the artery exploding from biofeedback and now hung slack from his meat shoulder.

The group of three moved carefully through the facility. Streaming waterfalls of runic fire covered some walls, some doors were blocked by spiked and bladed code, and three more times they had to press themselves into nooks and crannies as mechanicals moved by.

Some were draped in the raw and bleeding skins of their recent victims's social media profiles and chattered vile runes at one another in mechanical glee.

But they were part of 1337BOYZ, the best of the best, survivors of everything that could be thrown at them.

They'd seen worse.

Crashrider knelt next to a barrier of snarling twisting flowing glowing neon runes that muttered with warnings of dire fate if so much as touched. He brought out his chrome cyberdeck, plugging the wires into the jack in his head. His induction link was long gone, burnt out in the game, his left aural nerves burned out in meatspace. He closed his eyes and saw Calshiina's name flow up, along with the last picture he could find of her.

The last where she wasn't screaming.

He tapped out his code on her and the deck went live, showing the complex twisting venomous serpents that made up the door lock.

He twisted them until their heads bit their own tails, curled them, circled them, gave them a half-twist.

The code of the door flowed smoothly.

They moved through, into the chamber beyond.

Massive glowing racks of supercomputers extended off into infinity, electricity crackling across them, plasma spiders scurrying and looking for any intruders.

The trio were silent as Crashrider knelt down and deployed his cyberdeck again.

They watched nervously as the picoseconds ticked by, stretching into nanoseconds, into seconds, until almost a full minute had gone by.

Crashrider suddenly punched out, falling against his chummer, trembling and sweating from jumpshock.

"Wesa gotta buzzbuzz nownow," Crashrider gasped in streetspeak, clawing at Steeltalon. "Mesa says badbad thinges comecome."

Steeltalon yanked her chummer up, throwing his meat-arm over her shoulder. The three runners threw themselves through the door and let their feet make them their namesakes.

Getting out was faster than getting in, corridors were shorter, fences were meant to keep people from getting in not getting out, and the whole facility seemed to be paralyzed.

As they burst out of the facility they saw the white square hanging in mid-air at the same time a screech erupted from the building.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

Neonbaby looked back and saw the building itself was shifting and changing, tearing its way free of the neon ground, saw its eyes open to sweep across the ground with hatred, seeking who dared come near it.

"A Smaug? Wesa wuz insides a Smaug?" Neonbaby yelled in streetspeak right before they plunged through the white rectangle.

Eeeeeeverryth1ng w3n7 siiiibbbbeeesyawedis Ɉnǝmom ϱnol ɒ ɿoʇ mǝʜɈ no. They were stretched even as they were squeezed and for a second they all were part of eternity and part of entropy. Neonbaby looked back and saw the end of the tube, the way they'd entered, stretch and warp, the tube screaming in agony as the black and red maw pushed its way in. The side of the datatube split as the head of the giant machine pushed deeper in, roaring and screeching as it did so.

Then they were three, falling out of a white rectangle and onto the broken and dusty ground. Crashrider knelt in the dust, coughing and spitting up blood. Steeltalon got to her knees, lifting her SMG and coughing. Neonbaby lunged to his feet, grabbing a grenade off his belt.

"Wesa gotza boomboom da tubez!" he yelled. He threw one, two, three grenades inside the rectangle as everyone else scrambled away.

The rectangle flashed twice and collapsed.

"Get out of the impact zone!" A figure in military camo yelled, gesturing wildly. "Yousas run run! Big boom boom!" he yelled, switching to streetspeak.

The three runners looked around and realized where they were.

The Makalet Fusion Reactor battle zone. Held for almost six months by the Bothan Regiment, a force of Street Sam turned soldiers who refused to back up a single step in the face of a digital onslaught through GalNet nodes the government refused to shut down.

Together they scrambled to the figure, tumbling into its fighting position as dense datapackets of twisting runes slammed into the ground around them, sending up plumes of neon dust and burning chrome.

Above them the sky the color of a TV tuned to a dead station groaned in pain and seemed to bulge.

"Neo, we need an exit!" Steeltalon screeched into her headset.

Crashrider looked at the soldier, who looked beaten and battered but still defiant. "Yousa gotta holdsa it off bang bang muey muey."

The soldier looked at him, wiping the dirt from his face. "What is it?"

The sky tore as the anti-air emplacements began to fire. Rockets, lasers, plasma beams, packets of code washed in grief and hatred all slammed into the sky as the tear began to widen.

"A Smaug," Neonbaby said.

The soldier nodded, looking at Crashrider. "Is it important?"

Crashrider nodded, switching to realcode to avoid misunderstanding. "More important then even the fusion plant."

The soldier hefted a big rotary autocannon. "Go. We'll hold or die here."

"Got an exit!" Steeltalon yelled out. Crashrider turned in time to see the door open up.

A hundred paces away.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

"Go! Mesa cover!" The soldier yelled, leveling his autocannon at the motes floating down from the terrible jaws that had forced their way through the crack in the sky.

The trio scrambled out of the fighting position, running for the gate.

Motes crashed down, revealing themselves to be machines made of vile and blasphemous code. They snapped their pinchers, clacked their jaws, flexed their talons as they oriented themselves.

Two were between the trio and the gate.

"FOR ALDOON!" The soldier bellowed, leveling his 300TB SSD autocannon and clamping down on the smart-trigger. The autocannon has his regiment "BOTHANS" spraypainted on the barrels.

Heavy shells/packets of code slammed into the right hand creature, flipping it over, probing at its belly, finding a weak point, and slashing apart its code. The rate of fire made it look like a solid shaft of light.

BRRRRRRRRRT!

The beam of rotary autocannon fire swept across the trio, the smartlink holding back four bullets by a microsecond, then locked onto the other one, stopping its forward rush toward, not the runners, but the gate itself. It stopped dead, hunkered down, and kept advancing, ignoring the autofire prying at its armor and firewalls.

More of the Bothan Regiment joined their fire as more and more motes slammed to the ground. Their air defense pummeled the head of the Smaug as it pushed its way into the sky.

Neonbaby stopped at the gate, looking at Crashrider. "Is it worth it, chummer?" he asked.

Crashrider nodded.

"Drink me to Freeware, chummer," Neonbaby said, hefting his heavy rifle. He checked his mag.

Proxy-Piercing Virii Rounds.

"Yousa go go nownow," Neonbaby said.

Crashrider didn't pause, didn't take any more time, and threw himself into

ytinrete otni dehsurc yportne ssorca deraems gnilooc gninrub erif noen erif nrob gnieb ekil struh gnizeeuqs gnihcterts

a rainy dark street. Cold neon flickered across dead building facades. In the distance lights of a city could be seen but the datahighways were empty here.

Steeltalon tumbled to the pavement, barely keeping hold of her SMG. She turned toward the white rectangle of the gate.

It turned red, flashed twice, displayed the LAST [CONNECTION LOST TO HOST] CODE, and vanished.

Crashrider could see his bike. A two wheeled ground effect vehicle, high powered gas engine to replace the purring weak electric one, the extras stripped away, a cybercontrol rig expertly attached to it. It sat next to the sidewalk, old screamsheets flapped against the chrome spoked wheels.

"We gotta move!" Crashrider yelled, grabbing Steeltalon.

The big Street Sammy nodded, running for the bike. Enhanced reflexes and musculature got the big street machine there first and she jumped on the back, facing backwards, cocking her SMG and checking the rounds.

TCIPPort Searching IP Tracers.

It would have to do.

Crashrider threw a leg of the seat, grabbed the handlebars with one hand and pulled free the datacord with the other. He kicked the starter to life as he plugged in the datacord, everything synching together. Crashrider maxed the throttle, the rear tired barking and screeching on the dark wet tarmac for a moment before it grabbed. The front wheel lifted for a few dozen feet before it slammed down and they were off.

A bellowed screech echoed through the alleys of The Barrens.

"Someting big big isa coming," Steeltalon yelled.

"Can't talk, must go faster!" Crashrider said. He revved the engine to the redline and swerved between the wrecked, burnt out, scattered vehicles littering the road.

The buildings whipped by, windows shattered and black, some lit by feeble candlelight, a few with pale faces staring out, but most empty. Graffiti started appearing. Specks at first, then letters, then runes, then whole sentences.

A LawSec SWAT vehicle crashed to the road behind them, the road rippling and flexing around it, the buildings swaying like gelatin. Crashrider hit the throttle, ramping off the first ripple into the air, holding it for long seconds, letting the ripples pass beneath them, before slapping back down to the damaged datatube.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

the SWAT vehicle's sirens screamed. Coiled metal tentacles reached out, realized they were too far and retracted, clicking their graspers in mechanical frustration at being denied their digital flesh.

Steeltalon hosed the entire mag of her SMG into the armored windshield of the SWAT tank and grinned with neon teeth as it suddenly slowly.

There. That graffiti.

Crashrider inhaled and yelled it.

"HACK THE PLANET!"

Fires lit in the alleys and it was roared back to him.

"HACK THE PLANET!"

They were past the fires and Steeltalon saw the streetboyz flood out from the alley into the street, pushing burning cars. Their heavy cybermuscles were covered in tattoos, sweat poured from their brows, but still they brought out heavy weapons that would tear Steeltalon's cybernetic arms off to just try to lift.

The Arnie Awesome's raised their firepower and bellowed out their warcry.

"Let off some steam, Bennett!"

They opened fire on the SWAT vehicle as Crashrider cut the corner hard enough glittering datapulses peeled from the tires and sprayed the facades of the buildings.

Crossing a bridge, Crashrider yanked the bike to the side, lifting the front wheel, slamming into the barricade, and with a scream of tortured code and warping datastrings the bike caught air.

For a second they were suspended in blackness, between one trace and the next, forcing quark drift between two frozen traces of tachyon wire.

For a moment the two runners saw ALL of GalNet.

Then the world came rushing back as the bike slammed down onto railroad tracks. It shuddered and thudded on the ties until Crashrider revved the engine, popped the clutch, and snapped the bike onto the right hand superconductor rail.

Crashrider goosed it, redlining the engine, but that didn't matter.

"What do we have?" Steeltalon yelled.

"Core data from the Smaug's ROM!" Crashrider yelled back. He leaned forward and Steeltalon did the same, the back tire dangerously close to her.

Behind her she could see it. The train tunnel under the bridge they'd jumped from was bulging. A tear started in the middle, flames licking out.

"He wants us bad!" Steeltalon yelled out.

Crashrider ignored her, concentrating on keeping the bike on the supercooled strip of metal and code and data.

"Neo, we need an exit!" Steeltalon cried out. "On the GalNet Supercruise Thread! Yes! I know! DO IT!"

The tear bulged further and a flaming skull burst from the under the bridge, the bow of a train made of blackened and twisted cybernetics crushed together with still screaming runners bleeding neon blood from between the deadspaces.

He could see it coming, a station. Just beyond that.

The train engine roared out

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

"STOP SAYING THAT!" Steeltalon screamed back, firing another magazine of Spam Popup rounds at the train's open jaws.

Into the station, the pillars whipping by, graffiti on the walls.

"HACK THE PLANET!" Crashride cried out desperately.

The Daughters of Chrome Lloth dropped their stealth fields, women in tight spandex and leather, cleavage and thigh revealed, four chrome arms to help their two flesh arms. They waited until Crashrider sped by, smoke pouring from his engine and from the hubs of his tires, and threw their datanets across the tracks.

They poisoned their datanets, wrapped their ends around the columns, and vanished back into stealth, climbing through hidden ports, sliding behind invisible proxies, jumping through unregistered trial software.

Crashrider kept going. The gate was ahead, in the middle of the tracks, and he swore in streetspeak as he dropped of the supercruise rail, the tracks bumping and shuddering.

Spokes shattered and neon fragments of code sprayed from the wheels of the bike.

The Trainsmaug hit the nets, the poisoned IPsniffer port jackers cutting deep as its firewalls collapsed. It roared and the nets held but no longer cut deep, no longer held it back as it charged forward.

It pulled the pillars down.

Digital dust plumed around crashrider as the station collapsed on top of the Smaug. It roared with anger and started to shoulder its way up.

The Daughters of Chrome Lloth swarmed it, jamming deep with their code-probe stingers, squatting down, the stingers descending and puncturing deep into it's code. Some died, shrivelling up with a banshee scream, but others grew plump and lush. Secrets filled their poison wombs and they flickered and vanished as they fled, laughing and mocking the Smaug.

It didn't care.

It's searchlight eyes were locked on Crashrider.

Crashrider hated to do it, hated to lose it, it was an ARG reward, irreplaceable.

But this wasn't an alley brawl against a rival ganger, a street slambang against another gogang.

This was Corpwar.

No, it was bigger than Corpwar.

It was WAR.

The lead tire hit the rectangle and dissolved. The bike slammed to a stop, beginning to accordian up, throwing both riders through the white rectangle as the bike destroyed itself against an illegal data-line crossline.

Crashrider managed to

ytinrete otni dehsurc yportne ssorca deraems gnilooc gninrub erif noen erif nrob gnieb ekil struh gnizeeuqs gnihcterts

tuck and roll as he fell out of the rectangle. It was already blinking red, the unique code of the bike stripping through and destroying the code of the gate.

CONNECTION

Steeltalon TO flew HOST through.

LOST

The gate blinked away.

Steeltalon's arm didn't make it.

Crashrider got to his feet, pointing at what they were after.

Stu's Diner.

"What do you have?" Steeltalon gasped as she wrapped a tame overwrite virus onto the neon blood spurting stump of her sole meat arm.

"They think I have the encryption key for the mid-grade ground assault mech shields," Crashrider said, pulling his friend as fast as he could. This run had already cost him a fellow ARG player, he wasn't about to lose another.

"What to do you really have?" she gasped as they pushed open the back door.

They stumbled into Mister Johnson's private lounge. The suited man, his face a colorless blank mannequin's face, looked up.

Crashrider tossed Mister Johnson his cyberdeck.

"The ROM encoded secondary master algorythm for the planetary harvester class vessels," Crashrider gasped.

"Wesa hacksa ROMHACK forsa Smaug?" Steeltalon gasped.

Mister Johnson caught it, nodded, and yanked a cord he'd grasped from nowhere.

The room dissolved and vanished.

In a room in an unnamed hab complex in a dreary city on a worthless planet in an abandoned system Eegleet shuddered and groaned as dumpshock took him. He felt hands rolling his meatbody on his side as he vomited.

He was still smiling when consciousness fled.

For you,Calshiina, he sent out to the spirit of the girl who had held his hand on the playground once.

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GALNET NEWS!

The Makalet Fusion Reactor suffered a magnetic containment failure as the primary and backup computer systems failed this morning, resulting in a 12.5 megaton explosion, destroying the city of Makalet. Casualties are estimated in the tens of millions.

More as this story breaks!

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FROM: MANTID INTELLIGENCE

TO: DIGITAL SAPIENCE INTELLIGENCE

oracles say something is coming

something war changing

build more thinking nodes

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

FROM: DIGINT

TO: MANINT

Will keep eyes out on the networks.