It took Mike-Mike only a few seconds to create the data interface with the cat.
The data wire ran which from Mr. Sulla butt into the Mike-Mike's laptop irritated the fuzzy-wuzzy little beast. Mr. Sulla alternated between batting at it with his paws and hissing at it. The cat's actions must have distracted Mike-Mike, because he absentmindedly reached out to pet Mr. Sulla. Either that or he was secretly a cat lover. Mr. Sulla began to purr contentedly, ignoring the data uplink.
This went on for a little while until, Mr. Sulla rolled over onto his back. For a while even that went well. Then without any provocation, Mr. Sulla began to bite and scratch at Mike-Mike’s hand. Nursing his torn up arm Mike-Mike stopped petting the cat, and Mr. Sulla went back to hissing at the interface wire running out of his ass.
It took a little while, but eventually all of the algorithms Mike-Mike was running coalesced into a three dimensional map of the local area. Dangerous areas were marked in red, good areas were marked in green, and everything else was marked in grey.
Excitedly looking at the map, Necrobump said "Fuck yeah, this is exactly what we need. What's that green spot right there." Obediently the computer zoomed in on the green area of the cat's map. Suddenly the perspective of the computer screen changed into a video recording. But the perspective was all wrong. "It feels like we’re only half a foot off the ground." Necro said.
"Cat height" said Mike-Mike
"Argh. Well did Mr. Sulla record anything useful at least." Necro said.
The camera moved around a bit. Various views from the prowling cat-beast rendered into a virtual 3 dimensional topography. Admittedly a virtual 3 dimensional topography, they all now knew had been taken and measured by a cat walking only half a foot off the ground.
"Focus on that dark green spot. The cat's spottened something interesting there."
Turning the angle slightly until the scene became exceptionally green and then turning to the point of most greenness… stood a bird feeder.
"Fuck" Necro yelled.
"How exactly did you program this cat?" Mike-Mike asked, “you should've had me do it like normal.”
"You were busy, and I figured, how hard can reprogramming my neighbors beast really be. I took in the latitude and longitude of the research facility. Then I told it that this crazy feline to wander around mapping everything it saw. Added a GPS and mapping script I found on some website. The cat was supposed to look for things that were good; and I specially highlighted doors and entrances as being really good. If possible Mr. Sulla was to get in those doors, and try to get as close to the central latitudinal and longitudinal point. It was to mark things as red, things that were dangerous, and I fed it a database of guns, and added another script I found online that was supposed to give it the ability to see mana." Necro said.
Mike-Mike thought about it for a few seconds. "I'm pretty sure you forgot to take out the ordinary cat reflexes, and you definitely didn’t limit the area around the research facility enough. Plus some of those script kiddie programs interfere with one another. Total amateur hour. You really should have had me do this."
"Like I said," Necro said, "You were busy. Ms. Bee was bound to start asking questions. Plus I wanted it to still act like a cat in case someone, besides yourself, got suspicious and performed the cat version of an anal probe."
The scripts that controlled the cat NPC must have been flowing through Mike-Mike's enhanced core processing and calculating feeds. Necro could see him thinking. A vexed look on his face as he sorted through encapsulated objects and polymorphic methods while simultaneously routing trough reams and reams of pictures of birds, kibble, and kitty litter.
"This doesn't have to be an entirely wasted experience." Mike-Mike said. "Give me a second, and let me cross reference the data with city map and let's see what we've got."
While they waited, Necro scrolled around the data the cat had gathered. The biggest green spots were the bird feeder, the dumpster behind a sea food restaurant, and some French doors that looked into a house with another cat. The biggest red spot was a back yard with a German Shepherd and an alley with a bigger cat.
"I think I got it," Mike-Mike said. The data changed. Street names and addresses were added, icons indicating power lines, sewer lines, and traffic flow were added. Demographic information, census data, property taxes, and estimated real estate values appeared next to all the local buildings.
"If we just filter out everything around the research center." About 90% of the map disappeared except a much smaller 750’ x 600’ lot. A row of hedges obfuscating the grounds, the cat however, had found plenty of ways through the hedge and marked each of these egress points in a vibrant green. The security guard, a high level NPC, at the front gate was marked in both green and red, green because there was footage of him feeding Mr. Sulla. Red because of the small side arm at his waist.
"Hmm... the whole place is non-pvp, but check out that gun. They are prepared for a sudden zone change. Pretty decent security. Nothing we didn't expect or already scope out though."
"Did the cat get inside the perimeter? I see color on the inside."
"Yup, Mr. Sulla walked across the most of the lawn. Look here. The cat actually managed to get in the front door." On the map the front doors, the loading dock, were all marked marked in green. "This might be very useful data. Big Mike, you mentioned that you got hacked a copy of the blueprints from city hall?"
Big-Mike spoke up. "Give me a second... I just sent them to you."
Mike-Mike reached out and grabbed his hand.
"Thank-" Mike-Mike said.
"you!" Big Mike said, his face flush with pleasure.
"Quit it you two. No sex on the job." Necro said firmly. "I'm totally watching you three, no holding hands and screwing until we finish the job. Keep it professional. You can canoodle on your own time, right now we're on the clock."
"Sorry." Mike-Mike said.
"Sorry." Big Mike said, letting Mike-Mike’s hand go.
"Give me a couple of seconds, to combine the data" Mike-Mike said.
A few moments later the interior of the building was rendered overtop of the data Mr. Sulla had compiled. Areas that had been changed -- renovations, interior design, etc... -- in the time since the blue print had been submitted to the city of Chevy Chase government, were marked in blue, and areas the cat hadn't gotten into were in grey."
"My turn," Lauren said, "I am patching in as much as I've hacked in of the building's video feed. It isn't much. They have some pretty secure firewalls on this place. But it's better to patch what we've got into the map now, and I will update it once I'm actually into the building."
Mike-Mike pulled pulled up his map. "Okay folks, Necro, Shrike, Dwight, Jesus Wept, Lauren, Big Mike, Savanah, and of course you Black Dahlia, I am sending the data that we've compiled so far to all of you." Mike-Mike send out a package to everyone. Moments later they all had an interactive map of the building.
Necrobump examined the data that had been sent. “Let’s all have a group meeting in the Pedovan. Big Mike and Dahlia, you might as well stay here and watch through the view screen. This van is your base of operation, and our backup getaway vehicle. Get used to being in it.”
Necro opened up the map and it filled a portion of his vision as he walked to the other van.
If he concentrated in a certain way, he could send it up to the left hand corner, as a mini map. Because Mr. Sulla was a thinking breathing digital NPC, some of the cat’s consciousness matrix transferred over with the map. Parts of the building and area around the building, now had a kind of familiarity. A little something that Mike-Mike had distilled and included in the package he'd uploaded to everyone. It was as if certain areas nearby were places they’d all walked through dozens of times. More like a house that had been lived in for a couple days, than the purely representational nature of even the best maps.
As an added bonus if any of them focused on certain areas, they were presented with exceptionally clear images of the undersides of chairs, the space behind couches and part of halls, best windows to watch birds, plants to urinate into, and the occasional employee lap to cuddle on. Most of which was from the perspective about half a foot off the ground that had been taken directly out of Mr. Sulla's CMS (central memory storage).
Once everyone had grouped up in Savanah’s vehicle. Necro said, "according to the person who gave us this job. We are to go into the main research room, marked here."
Everyone's map the primary target was marked in purple. We are supposed to go in here and torch the place.
“I don't know what kind of research they are doing here. Big-Mike?"
"I wish I knew," Big Mike said. "It's incredibly secret. I did a global search on about four hundred internal world servers looking for even a hint of information about this place and nothing. Some sort of dark company. Black ops computing or some sort of completely hush-hush corporate research. I can't even tell if it is government or corporate, guild or clan or even secret society based. Usually I can find a little something about a target. With this place, Nada. Just a street address and a name 1523721924 Holdings Ltd."
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
That was odd, Big Mike was one of the best general purpose server level hackers in the game. Together with Mike-Mike and Lauren they could pretty much ferret out anything. That they had found nothing was made Necrobump much more paranoid than he usually was and since usually Necro was very paranoid, his current state was unsettling.
Necro cleared his throat. “Ahem”
“Yes, oh great and benevolent fearless leader, Necro-poop.” Shrike said. “We await, your most tedious wisdom.”
Ignoring Shrike’s sarcasm, Necro said. “After we hit the primary target, we need to cautiously approach the secondary target. Keep in mind that the primary target is marked as shock and awe. We go in hard and fast and visible, and we make a hell of a lot of noise doing it. The secondary target which I’ve now marked in orange, we do quiet. We try to clear everyone out of the building, and then go into this room, then Lauren transfers data into a very specific computer that I’ve marked on your map.”
Choirboy spoke up for the first time. “The benevolence of this mission raises concerns. What in all the realms of Gods and AI is the reason for the drama and silence surrounding this purging.”
“That’s been bugging me too.” Necro said. “My bet is that the secondary target is the real target, and the shock and awe part is just the cover. But there is something about this whole job that is making me suspicious. Have we ever gone into a place with this little data?"
“I must concur. I feel the same way.” Choir boy said.
“Yup, sounds like a fucking set up.” said Jesus Wept.
“What he said,” said Jesus Wept’s smaller head.
Everyone ignored both of Jesus Wept’s heads though, and Necro spoke again, “Mike-Mike and Lauren, suit up. Mike-Mike is the main guard a PC or an NPC?”
The difference between a PC and an NPC was crucial. High level NPCs cost a fraction of what PC’s did, they cost nothing to train and a facility could pick any skills they wanted, depending on how much money they wanted to spend.
The drawback to hiring an NPC was that a skilled hacker like Mike-Mike who specialized in overriding NPC AI data cores could hack into them. The amount of security around the NPC AI’s thought process being the only thing keeping people like Mike-Mike out.
A PC on the other hand could not be hacked, well there were domination, beguilement, and charm spells that could influence a PC’s action but in a null magic zone these would not be as effective. Furthermore high level PCs often had skills which prevented domination from working.
The downside of hiring high level player characters was that frequently the urge to go out adventuring and gaming to raise their level beyond the plebian Civ masses. They’d grow bored of sitting working as a security guard for long periods of time. As a result, hiring a player character cost a lot of money, turnover was high, and hiring random PC’s to fill a post sometimes meant your employees might be security risks.
NPCs also weren't the most original thinker. A player character could spend as much money as they wanted on processing power. NPC's were limited by the structure of the server, and the power of the Global AI in charge of NPC interaction. Player characters had actual experiences and memories which informed their decisions. NPC's were just generic intelligences pulled out of the either.
Oh, it was possible to graft the conceptual and though matrix of a Player's experiences onto an NPC. There were binary chains of fight-flight responses that Players and Civs developed while growing up, but most servers had laws and some severe restrictions against doing that. Which, of course, didn't mean people didn't do it anyway.
“The guard at the gate is an NPC. High level one too. Damned good cyber security on the AI, but I spent all morning getting past his defenses, and he is under my control. I’ve just included his feed into the main map.”
And sure enough, the green red space on the map representing the front security guard, now included an expandable window which represented what he was looking at.
“Good, Good.” Necro said. “So here’s the plan.”
“Tell us oh wise and gracious leader.” Shrike said.
“Shut it Shrike. This is serious.”
“I am being serious, oh font of wisdom and benevolence.” Shrike replied.
Sighing, Necrobump spoke again. “Mike-Mike, as we drive to the gate can you have the guard, I’d don’t know, tie his shoelaces or something.”
“NPC’s don’t have shoelaces, but if you let Mr. Sulla out again, I can have the guard occupied petting your neighbor’s cat,” said Mike-Mike as he unplugged the cord from the cat’s ass and handed Mr. Sulla back to Necro.
Necro opened the back of the van and let the cat out.
"Necro-poop, as soon as you get your hands on some pussy, you let it escape you. That's not how you do it. Though I do like the whole catch and release thing. But you should let me take you home and show you how its done." said Shrike while Dwight glared at her and muttered about the other men in her life.
Mike-Mike ignored them. “Give it a couple minutes, I’ve set him to go straight to the security guard who I’ve just programmed to be mysteriously wondering where the nice kitty has been for the last couple of days.”
“Okay. Big-Mike you stay out here with Black Dahlia in this van. The rest of us will get into the Pedovan. Once we get past the security guard everyone, remember shock and awe. We hit them hard, we hit them fast.”
“According to the blueprints there is a central atrium here where they’ve built a Intra Server Gate. In crises most of the NPC’s will flee towards that gate. So let them get away. Only shoot them if you really have to.”
An Intra Server Gate (ISG) was a gateway that lead off the server and into the great hallway. It would have made this whole escape easy if they had some way to know where the gate came out, and if most gates didn’t keep logs of the users who used them.
The hallway was its own server. In some respects it was the original server that had been programmed. Owned by nobody, every world server had at least one access point to it, and many of the most populous and liberal servers had thousands of access points. Some of the bigger corporations that did business with hundreds of worlds had their headquarters here. Many guilds, gaming or otherwise, that had players spread out over multiple worlds did too. I Like Big Booty had its headquarters in the Hallway. There were players and NPCS lived their whole lives in the hallway never even entering a world, though the costs of living in the hallway were astronomical compared to any living on a virtual world.
“Why not, they'll just respawn again at home in bed in bed in a couple of hours,” said shrike. “Why not give them a paid day off, while we work.”
“Just do it Shrike. That goes for you too Jesus Wept. I know you both like the mayhem, but there will probably be plenty of security coming at us, so only kill the NPCs and civs if you absolutely have to. Concentrate on the guards.”
“Spoilsport,” muttered Shrike.
“Fuckin-A,” said Jesus Wept's smaller head.
“We take our time heading to target one. Conserve mana, I’ve only got so much and we need it all for this raid. Bullets only. And remember, my effective PVP generated buff zone only has a radius of 25 feet, so unless the security is wearing PVP gear, combat is only affective at a short range.”
“Once we get to the main target, we gasoline up the place, and then Shrike uses elemental fire to first of all torch the place, and then secondly put the fire out. We don’t want it to spread to the entire building. Just this room.”
“Why the hell not. Fire’s an awesome distraction. People and NPC’s don’t think straight when they are on fire.” Jesus Wept said and his second head nodded and Shrike looked like she agreed too.
“Remember. We need to infect the secondary computer. It needs to be available for whomever the real target it once the whole place is up and running again. So we burn down the primary target, but we can’t have the building on fire for the secondary target. So Shrike, once the room is cleansed, I’ll probably have enough mana left over for you to put the room out.”
Necro reached into his inventory and handed Dwight, Shrike, Lauren and Choirboy a mana gem. It was enough for a single small spell. “Use these sparingly, they’re a bitch to make.”
“Lastly, we leave the pedovan in idle at the back door. Savanah you’re with us. Dahlia, you stay out here. Once the mission is over we head towards the pedovan, but if we can’t get to it, we head out the front gate, Dahlia you’re our back up, so be ready. We will probably be coming out of there hot and fast.”