... In another part of the Slag, Onigiri's Amaya Tanto emitted a low rumble as she carefully cruised through the desolate and rainswept blocks. The hacker didn't have much confidence in her riding skills, so her choice of ride was much less of a rocket compared to her cohorts. The low thrum of the engine and her clipped pace was good evidence of both of these things. At the very least, she wouldn't have to worry about drawing attention to herself, as being overt wasn't her goal at this moment. Her goal was a hab block to the south. Personal business.
The further south she drove, the less sparse things became. Husked out ruins and corrugated shacks led into small buildings that survived the scourge that turned this place into the Slag. Corner shops, houses, businesses. It was almost something resembling cohesive civilization instead of the nigh-on anarchy that reigned further up north. It offered up a kind of feigned security, given that most go-gangers didn't have any issue straying this direction to cause trouble. Hell, she strayed this far south to cause trouble, though she tried to keep her go-gang associations on the down-low by wearing a bright red puffer jacket clean of insignias. A couple sizes too large, but you take what you can get. The end result being that she looked more comedically non-threatening than usual.
This all was on the back of Onigiri's mind as the HUD in her helmet informed her that she had reached her destination. Hab C19, Pristine Views. An ironic name for a daunting dozen story monolith with the entire place having a good view of the desolation to the north, on top of the exterior walls of the place still bearing scars from what turned this place into a hellhole. She booted her kickstand into position and dismounted, not forgetting to activate the Tanto's security measures before she strolled up the concrete path inside. Not that anyone around here would be dumb enough to mess with an unattended bike.
Her first hurdle stood before her. A locked door. If it was electronically locked, this wouldn't be an issue for the self proclaimed Hacker-Queen of the Waves, but it's almost as if whoever built this building all those decades ago knew that she would be here at this very moment and opted for a standard key lock. Every caretaker of this building for those years onwards never opted for electronics that every other bloody building in this city uses. Maybe she should've thought this one through.
“How in the fuck does anyone order shit?” She verbalized the first thought that sprang to mind, only to clip herself short when she realized she was talking to herself. The hacker turned a heel to ponder this over further. Kick the door down? Fat fuckin' chance. Shoot the lock? She's not looking to attract attention—
Her train of thought immediately jumped the tracks when a lanky looking lad pushed the door open from inside, apparently paying her no mind as he strode outside.
“Uh. Thanks! F-forgot my keys! Haha!” she shouted out after him, as if some kind of social obligation and non-feigned awkwardness slammed into each other.
He continued to pay her no mind, given that he was well down the sidewalk at this point, and Onigiri was already well inside the tacky-as-all-hell lobby. Wallpaper that went out of style a century ago, non-synthetic hardwood that likely survived from a kinder age, a musky smell that betrayed the presence of leaking pipes somewhere, and a decades-old electronic directory. Bingo. Anyone else would have to worry about bringing the right kind of chrome, and having to worry about having the right conversion port to jack into a terminal that happens to be nearly half a dozen generations out of date with today's standard protocols.
Not Onigiri. Oni is what they in the biz call ‘a cheater.’ Sticklers for the proper usage of technical terms would call her a technomancer. Someone with a penchant for being able to speak to machines. Not that most machines are good conversationalists, especially the geriatric kind, but this one would have to do for the time being. She vaulted over the terminal desk and slapped her hand on the input plug. Her consciousness split in two, with her more aware half dipping into what she called ‘the Waves.’ Or the matrix. Internet. Whatever term was fancied.
Reality slipped away, only to be replaced with raw data forming a winding neon-lit labyrinthian pathway that had naught a care for such simple things such as the laws of physics. Hallways and stairways leading upside down into Escheresque patterns, with thrumming pixie lights pulsing indescribable colors as communications passed through the local network and into the wider network beyond the hab block she was in. Though different parts of the Waves could be as diverse as any biome, most took on an uninteresting web of pathways that best suited the flow of data and information. Onigiri herself in the digital space being represented by a significantly less mousy form than her physical self; a towering red figure garbed in traditional Zhaponese wear with a horned visage of a stage mask covering her face. The fact that she was clearly compensating wasn't lost upon her.
She exhaled as she took in her surroundings for all of a nanosecond. This is what she lived for.
The hacker snapped her fingers to bring up her personalized HUD, sending out a quick active scan in the process. She doubted anyone was looking, but it'd hardly be a good look if anyone noticed her while she was making a house call. She came out all this way for a reason, instead of cooking the bozo from the comfort of the Banshees' garage. The scan came back a split second later. As she thought, no ICE anywhere on this part of the network. Not that it would matter, she never met an intrusion countermeasure that she couldn't evade or crack.
Next up, activating the sniffer. The bozo she was looking for was likely the only clown on this subnet that was running any form of security, which made the job of finding him roughly a thousand times easier. A flick of her wrist, and the F.IDO executable was activated and already bounding off in search of its quarry; the pixelated image of the curly haired white purse dog yipping and glitching as it passed through a solid digital wall. All the easy parts were going to plan.
Now? Now it was time for the grandstand. If there was one thing in life that Onigiri adored, it was showing off. She pushed away from the terminal in physical reality, managing to keep her other half connected to the Waves by a combination of skill and willpower. Not the smartest thing to do, as doing what the hacker community calls 'dualboxing' was the quickest way to send yourself to either the hospital or the morgue. Even top-of-the-line hardware and chrome wouldn't be able to handle it for long periods of time. Failsafes crack and brains end up cooking like eggs on hot pavement.
Chrome? Hardware? Failsafes? Onigiri didn't believe in any of those things.
The hacker pivoted on a heel and pushed open the heavy metal door that obfuscated the staircase that spiraled up into what looked to near infinity from her position; deducing that if there wasn't any security or ICE in the immediate digital space, her mark was on the upper floors. The conclusion of such elicited a loud groan. She wasn't built like Stiletto or Switch, and sprinting up anywhere from four to twelve flights of stairs wasn't going to be the easiest of tasks for her. This was the bed she made. At least she had time before F.IDO tripped into something.
[https://i.imgur.com/TvfKYqL.png]
She forgot to knock on wood as she thought that. Both her physical and digital self jolted when the executable reported back loudly with a series of glitchy barks. Fourth floor. Crap. She bounded up to the first landing, reaching back for her messenger bag.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Up to the second landing. Was she out of shape, or was dualboxing harder than she remembered?
Third floor. She finally managed to unsnag the zipper on her bag, pulling out her autopistol in something of a near fumble.
Fourth floor, and she shouldered the safety door open. She didn't have time to catch her breath, but at least she spotted her mark's abode without referring to the digital space. The only bloody door on the floor with an electronic keypad.
The digital space was ablaze with alarms and flashing red lights, warning of an intrusion in the most overt way possible. Not that she was being subtle herself, but everything was still going as planned. As desperately as her burning lungs wanted her to stop and take a breath, she wasn't going off schedule.
----------------------------------------
A smug-faced avatar materialized mere inches away from Onigiri's digital self.
“Evening, Oni. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked through a cheshire cat grin. His garb could only be described as eye searing, looking as if he stole the bit from a poorly designed anime protagonist. Belts and straps supporting absolutely nothing, and clothing that makes no physical sense whatsoever.
“Security check. I was figurin' you were gettin' bored out here on your lonesome and wanted to light up your night with some malware.”
“Tsk. Malware? What do you take me for, one of the stumblebrains in your regular infohub circles?”
----------------------------------------
Distracted as expected. She raised her autopistol to the electronic lock and pulled the trigger. Click.
Crap. She forgot to load the mag. The hacker fumbled around with her messenger bag, unaware of her now bleeding nose. At least he couldn't see her being a fuck-up.
Lungs burning. Head hurting.
----------------------------------------
The avatar cackled obnoxiously. “What, no clever retort?”
Onigiri's digital avatar exhaled loudly, folding its arms over its chest. “I'm more fuckin' surprised you used stumblebrain than anything else. How fuckin' old are ya again? Like, six?”
“How delightfully unscathing,” he responded, losing that grin for all of a split second. “So. How do you want to play this? You piss off and stop ruining my only day off, or I kick your ass here and now?”
“Ruinin' your day? Shit, I'm about to ruin your whole week.”
----------------------------------------
Slap the magazine in. Rack the slide back. Try to ignore how much everything sucks.
She lifted the pistol up to the lock once more, squeezing the trigger. This time, the expected result occurred. A near deafening report of gunfire reverberated down the hallway and the door gave way under military grade armor piercing rounds. Back on track.
The room beyond could only be described as a hikkikomori's haven. Unwashed clothing scattered across the floor, bags of garbage stacked halfway up the wall, a stained mattress shoved into the corner. Frack, the stench was thick enough that you could cut through it with a mono-knife, with the only consolation being her helmet blocking the smell somewhat. Her hurried pace soon turned into a careful traipse, solely for the wish to not step in anything disgusting. Not that she could tell what she was stepping on, between the scrunching of garbage bags and mysterious wet squelches under that. At least she could see her mark dead ahead.
Balding. Middle-aged. Stained wife beater. Looks the part of a bottom-level corpo burnout. Jacked right into an Orsa A8 terminal chair. He might as well be deaf and dumb to the world around him.
Nice chair, though.
----------------------------------------
He threw the figurative and literal first swing, aiming to clean Oni's clock with a digital suckerpunch. She might've been in two places at once, but she was still faster than that, dipping out of the way with a grace that her avatar definitely shouldn't hold for its size.
She feinted right and jabbed her opponent's ribs with a left hook, causing his avatar to nearly hurtle off through the digital-space around them, stopped only by Onigiri gripping him by the shoulder. She repeated herself non-verbally, left hook to the ribs again. She just needed to hit him hard enough to get his chair's safety measures to dump him out of the matrix.
Her thumping head suddenly reminded her that she was in the midst of a bad idea, causing her concentration to lapse for a brief moment. A brief moment that her nemesis used to slip from Onigiri's grasp, seizing the moment to shoulder tackle her to the ground. With the initiative now in hand, he returned Oni's assault in kind manyfolds over. Left, right, left, right. The most that the intrepid hacker conjured up in response was throwing up a guard to shield her face.
Oni's greatest advantage of lacking safeguards, would also be her greatest disadvantage in this situation. Namely, all of this hurt like hell, but the consolation was that the pain snapped her back to the task at hand… And to the fact that F.IDO was sitting mere feet from the fray, barking and yipping loudly.
She waited for the precise moment that her foe drew his fist back for the apex of his swing, opting to end this fight in the most technical fashion: punching him in the digital throat as hard as she could. If this was in physical space, there would be a meaty thunk. Her opponent's avatar quickly began to glitch out as his safety measures kicked in and dumped him back into realspace. F.IDO’s incessant barking wasn’t doing her any favors with her currently rung bell, so she snapped her fingers to dismiss the construct for a brief reprieve; the digital being pixelating further before fully vanishing.
She was definitely going to curse herself out later for how sloppy that was.
----------------------------------------
Onigiri's best pal awoke to an autopistol being jammed in his face by a biker clad in a red-puffer jacket. Needless to say, between stumbling to find his words, he most definitely pissed his pants.
“Next time you fuckin' spread rumors about my doujinshi collection, you're gettin' sharded. I ain't gonna get into a lame wrestlin' match with you,” Onigiri snarled, her voice heavily muffled by her biker helmet.
“Wh—You were dualboxing this entire t-time?” he stammered. It was almost impossible to tell that he was the smug jerk in cyberspace with how he's currently playing the opposite role.
“You were dualboxing this entire time?” she responded in a mocking tone, stepping back around the terminal chair to make her exit. Onigiri wasted absolutely no time in getting out of there, wanting zero part in any further social interaction.
“SUGOI! INCREDIBLE!” He suddenly sat upright and leered at Onigiri as she was leaving, showing a surprising amount of spring for someone who just experienced dumpshock. This only made her exit all that much quicker, including the fact that she caught several distasteful doujinshi out of the corner of her eye. The kind that would more than likely catch him in legal trouble if there was any kind of law enforcement out here.
Regardless, she sent her message.
----------------------------------------
She managed to hold it in until she got outside. By that point she couldn't wait any longer. She yanked the bike helmet off her head and hurled chunks all over the sidewalk. All things considered, what she just did was incredibly stupid, but—
“Fuckin' worth it, ” she mumbled, wiping spittle off her lip with the sleeve of her jacket. "Alright. Earned myself a break. Time to kick back and relax with my new doujin—"
She was just about to straddle her bike before an ARO popped up in her face.
[https://i.imgur.com/A0GD0oh.png]
“Fuck.”