The time was really flying by as I checked the time and say a lot of the day had passed. Mom had even left a juice out for me and I hadn’t noticed as I was working, I drank it greedily with a dry mouth.
Next up was a defense of some kind or ICE as it was known. ICE was a catchall term for defensive aspects to programs and daemons. Some programs and daemons were entirely ICE as that was their sole purpose.
For mine I would like some sort of shielding around me, something that generally stood in the way of anything trying to get to me. The books Marchand had given me listed a basic program called a snow globe type shield that just put a layer of abstraction around the user in every direction and hoped that whatever was coming at it would effect the ICE instead of the user. Easy to crash but only piece by piece so it wouldn’t all go at once like a bubble and each crash was an attack stopped.
I wanted something a little better than the most basic option though, I might be a newbie at netrunning but I had some pride. I devised a defensive measure that was basically a chain of statements that would crash only in single pieces similar to the snow globe but instead of being based on position and dependent on the user for it’s locational data it would instead use the earlier, still running parts of the program to maintain it’s position in the node space. This would make it less of a ball around me and more of a chain that shattered a piece at a time before latching onto the next working part to maintain the chain, instead of breaking and being exposed the chain would simply shorten.
This would be an active defense program that I could use to throw at attacks or simply wrap around my arm and place in the direction of attacks. It would break easily to keep it’s actual RAM cost low and the script lightweight but it would still be enough to protect from attacks by it’s nature. I added in some extra code that allowed the chain to regenerate lost links by making the actual script modular and iterative so that if parts crashed, as they were meant to, it would simply add more modules to the script in runtime to make new links at the end. How fast the chain regenerated really depended on how fast running programs were allowed to make changes to their scripts and that was decided by the node settings so it was out of my hands there.
I added some data for visuals at the end, a simple chain made of ice with clear glassy links. A chain turned out not to be a simple visual with lots of joints for motion needed by I managed to get it all done so that the program could make it look right once in the net.
Checking the clock again showed it was already early evening. The whole day was nearly gone. Mom was asleep in her room and likely playing some incarna or another.
I got up and brushed myself off, I was very crumpled from sitting all day and even had some pancake crumbs on me still. I headed out and across the street to go see Noe, I wanted to show off my tough skull. The jokes practically wrote themselves.
Noe opened up quickly and I was on the sofa avoiding drinking the prune juice near me before I knew it.
“So what’s up? You nervous about your job tomorrow?” Noe asked.
“Nah that’ll be preem. Netrunning properly for the first time, breaking through things to open doors more than a mile away. Be just like the movies.” I said, settling back.
“Well as long as you’re confident. Just don’t get shot. Or stabbed. Or burned on the net. Really you should just be careful in general because you’re a gigantic gonk most of the time.”
“Speaking of that actually, I forgot to tell you because it all kind of happened quickly today but I have some new chrome. Do you see it?” I asked with a smile and planting myself in the middle of her view.
She squinted at me with suspicion, glancing at my hair, my ears, my mouth, my torso, my hands.
“No. If it’s internal then you’re a gonk. How am I even meant to tell then?” She said with a huff.
“It’s a new set of eyes, very fancy chrome from an old friend of Marchand’s and an old neighbor of mine. She also gave me a really good braincase. Once the recovery is finished in a few days I’ll be able to shrug off most light rounds to the head if need be. I’m a lot harder to put down now.” I said, crossing my arms in front of me to look cool.
“That’s totally nova Mal! I always wondered if I should get a braincase for the workshop, things sometimes go pop or just straight up explode sometimes and having my brain not go splat would be great. What’s so great about your eyes though? They look normal to me.”
“I’ve got full color night vision, thermal overlay and a audio indicator system just in the eyes. They’ve got all kind of expansion compatibility as well so I can upgrade them with other cyberware later like cyberears or a sensor suite.”
“Very fancy. You’ll need a new sight then because I gave you a night vision scope before, useless to you now. You should get some shooting practice with those new eyes, I’ve heard it can throw some people off.”
“Nah these eyes are as preem as they get, even more clear than my old eyes. Tougher too, I don’t even really need to blink and I can look into the shower spray when it’s running with no issue.”
“Can I try touching them?” Asked Noe, a tiny smile on her face.
“Sure, they’re all healed. I don’t think touching them can do much to them to be honest and they’ll just feel like plastic I think.” I said as I leaned forward to offer my open right eye.
Noe went on to place her index finger delicately onto my eyeball which felt weird but didn’t hurt or anything. She got a bit more confident and placed her whole finger tip onto the orb and then moved it around in the socket a little.
“That’s so preem and weird at the same time. Like a ping pong ball but sticky.” Noe said.
“Yeah , there’s still normal tear ducts and fluids and so on. Just the braincase and eyeballs so far. I’ll be looking into some legs soon and maybe something for bones in general like a new spine and pelvis to go with the legs, get some big jumps.” I said, rubbing my chin as I thought about it.
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“I can’t believe you’re borging out so early. You’ll end up being a grown man with a ten year old’s body. Don’t come crying to me when you’re mom puts the car keys on a high shelf.”
“I’ll be fine, I’ll get new parts and refits and so on. Get the surgeries to make it all good growth wise. As long as I’m working for Marchand directly she eats all my medical bills from her doctors and just pays me less for a while, if I can use that to borg out early and survive to be an adult operator that way then all the better.”
“Hm. You’re chrome is cool though Mal. I rate it preem out of five stars. Want to come see something cool?”
“What you got?” I asked.
Noe just gestured to follow as she got up and walked into her workshop, it was interesting to see how much of her mom’s stock of stuff Noe had managed to go through while she had been away. The boxes were mostly open in the room and a few were just empty now.
“I’ve made a custom designed smart round. A very fancy one.” Noes said proudly while gesturing to a round held inside a small vice on the table.
It was a normal forty five round with a hollow point but the cartridge was separated into two parts and had three little holes near the back on the side. The hollow point was split into four as well from what I could see close up, with a little black line of separate material between the cuts but the weirdest part was that the four way split of the round and the black line wasn’t straight, it was corkscrewed. The round would shatter into a spiral pattern instead of straight forward.
The smart parts of the round were at the back of the cartridge, the brass giving way to steel. The three small holes would assumedly allow the round to thrust itself into different trajectories as it flew. At least that’s what I understood of the concept.
“It’s a single curve smart round design, so it can only curve one way, but it can curve it’s trajectory up to a point seven ratio. That’s only about a point two under the highest grade rounds. It’s current load is a custom piece I’m working on, it’s mostly copper but has a slice of tungsten in there separating the copper quarters. It’s designed to flatten and flower nicely on impact but if it doesn’t penetrate then the shards of the bullet don’t lose all their momentum and glue together but instead scatter around the target area. This can damage equipment or nearby allies of the target.” She said as she pointed excitably at the different parts of the round on the table.
“That’s pretty nova in a scary sort of way. Horrific but likely effective in battle if it works right. How’s it done in testing?” I asked, sitting in my usual seat nearby.
“The simulations show it flowing on impact fine and with penetration it causes huge damage. The shattering function works well on not penetrating but so far the effective range of the shards is tiny. I’m considering starting from scratch and making the whole slug an explosive bullet but that sends the costs through the roof.” She said sadly as she sat down in her chair.
“What about a cavitation effect instead of an explosive? Put a bit of some heavy fluid into the hollow point and let it get real squished faster than it can cope with, big pop and bits go flying.” I said, thinking about fluid dynamics and explosion.
“How did you learn about cavitation? You been hitting the books when I’m not around?”
“It’s an engineering thing, you have to watch out for different hammers and stuff like cavitation. You can’t salvage as much as I have and not learn what things are and what’s happened to them.” I said a bit sheepishly, the knowledge was among the stuff I’d got from Sanctum’s skills.
“You’re just a smooth brain though. Be careful not to learn too much or your head will pop. Braincase or not.” Noe said as she nudged me with her shoulder.
“You’re the gonk, you can’t even tie your shoes.” I said back.
“Who even uses laces anymore!? Velcro and magnets are the best anyway! We’re not in the stone age anymore.” Noe said defensively, she was a little sensitive about it.
“A lot of people, most combat gear is laces. My boots right now are carbon fiber laces.”
“You’re a caveman so that fits.”
“Ug.” I grunted and then nudged Noe with my shoulder.
“Gonk.” Noe said while smiling and working on filing down a cartridge.
-
Waking up the next day when I heard a weird noise I remembered I’d slept in Noe’s living room after we’d spent the evening kicking each other while watching action movies on the vid screen and talking about guns and potential projects. Noe really had a one track mind but that was just how she was made.
As I opened my eyes I was surprised to see Noe’s mother stood in the doorway with a big duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a complicated backpack on her back with a bunch of antenna coming from the top.
“Mal? What are you doing here? Is everything alright?” She asked as she walked in and dropped her duffel bag onto the floor and sliding her backpack off and into her hand.
“Huh? Oh right, hello Miss Gibson. Sorry about me sleeping in your living room, me and Noe were watching movies last night and I fell asleep I think.” I said blearily.
“It’s not a problem Mal, you’re always welcome here obviously. It’s just odd to walk in and see you right there. As long as everything is fine then there’s no issue. I guess Noe is still asleep then? It’s nearly six AM.” She said, walking over to the workshop door and opening it, frowning at the storage a little before bowling the backpack across the floor, sliding it into the pile. The duffel bag was left near the door.
“How’d the job go? Noe said you were away for quite a while.”
“A complete gonk brained foul up as far as I can tell, my part went off just fine and then several people dropped the ball. Intelligence leaks and bad communication all over the place, the main team had a corpo squad all over them and us in the support team had to open their exit. Eventually they got pinned down by a pair of halos that swept in after one of the main team tried to break the ICE on a secure industrial evac tunnel and triggered an alert. I tried to cause a distraction by hitting the nearest central comm station but the corps had already rolled out field command units and it didn’t do much. I did my job though, so I’ll get paid.” She said, helping herself to a bag of meat snacks and a can of Noe’s prune juice.
I stretched on the sofa before getting up and brushing myself down. I looked like I had slept in the rough, which I technically did.
“Jobs like that sound so exciting, the most excitement I get is scuffling with a blitzed out borg ganger in the dark of the sewers.” I said with a sigh.
“You’ll get there at some point Mal, I’m impressed you’re still alive after all this time. I knew I’d be seeing you on Marchand’s street when I got back because of Noe’s messages but I wasn’t expecting you to be Marchand’s current blue eyed boy. Apparently she’s got you on a tight leash at the moment? Looking at a new hand huh?” She said, sitting in Noe’s normal spot opposite me.
“It’s roughly on the table apparently, she’s put some money behind me and laid some stuff out. It’s still in flux at the moment though and I haven’t made my decision on it either. Feels like more a heavy choice than I’d like to make so early in my life.” I said honestly and with a bit of a grimace.
“Ooh, very juicy gossip. I could imagine you grown up in a suit more expensive than most apartments down here as you stood behind Marchand during her meetings, ready to effortlessly kill all the threats to her in he room at the slightest incline of her head.” She said, drawing the picture in the air with her hands while holding the prune juice can.
It sounded oddly preem but also like the worst possible thing at the same time.