by Jace Kang
Having cleared the path, Ryu entered the fog. It was too thick to see through, but his connection through the mist revealed the location of everyone within. At the far end, the two shocktroopers struggled to break free of the ice, and in the middle, the Kappa was wrestling with their leader…
And winning.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given how spiritually weak these shocktroopers were. Using its diminutive size, the Kappa slithered through the leader’s grasp, never fighting against his force as it flowed into superior positions.
Though hard to follow visually, it was a thing of beauty.
Ryu dodged the minigun’s errant shots as he drew closer.
The shocktrooper reached for the Kappa’s neck, but it spun out of the way, seized his wrist, and leaned back into an armbar. The smoothness of the motion pinned the man beneath the water. The soldier’s minigun splashed and shot, the bolts superheating the water and increasing the steam in the area.
Just as Ryu reached them, the armor hummed and the shocktrooper bent his arm. It and the Kappa lifted out of the water. It was an ugly creature, no larger than a child, with green skin and a turtle shell on its back. A dish of water balanced on the scraggly black hair of its head. Its webbed hands now splayed open as it released the shocktrooper’s arm.
Gathering water molecules into a whip, Ryu lashed through the minigun’s mounting, sending it flapping like a fish back down into the canal. When the shocktrooper sat up and his head broke the surface, Ryu drove a Splashing Hand into his face. It cracked the visor and knocked him back into the water, unmoving.
The Kappa made to flee, but Ryu grabbed it by the wrist. It twisted its hand free and dove into Ryu’s waist, wrapping him up, but Ryu slid one arm underneath the Kappa’s. Lifting that one while pressing down on the Kappa’s shoulder with the other, he flipped it onto its back beneath the water’s surface.
It would regain its strength there, and it continued its roll out of Ryu’s grasp and swam between his legs. He twisted into a cross-legged squat, pinning the Kappa down and protecting his anus, but it hooked one of his ankles and sent him plunging back into the water. It scrabbled up between his legs, forcing Ryu into a back roll to avoid having his Core stolen in a most unpleasant manner. He finished his roll as his feet found the canal’s floor, then popped back up, breaking the surface of the water.
The Kappa emerged next, its back to a shocktrooper who set his blue energy blade to the creature’s throat. The Kappa only came up to the man’s waist.
Another blade appeared in Ryu’s peripheral vision as the last shocktrooper behind him reached around his own neck. Ryu seized the wrist, turned it over, then yanked the shocktrooper’s arm down while rising with a Surging Wave technique. His shoulder rose up into the man’s sinking elbow. Armor shattered and ligaments tore.
The man screamed. With a torque of his waist, Ryu flipped the soldier over his hip and into the canal with a spray of water. His light blade sizzled more water into steam before winking out.
Ryu then looked to the Kappa, held in check with the last shocktrooper’s blade at its jugular. Though a Water Whip could sever the blade emitter, the space between its ear and the metal tube left an exceedingly thin margin of error.
The fog hung heavily around them. Could the shocktrooper see Ryu?
They locked gazes.
“Hands up!” the man yelled.
Bluffing, Ryu snorted. “Why? I don’t care if you kill it.”
“What?”
Sinking his feet and rooting to the canal floor, Ryu bent his knees and lifted his arms in the Watershaping form. A column of water shot up, dousing the blade with yet more steam. With a push of his hands, the column of water rocked back, taking the man with him, but leaving the Kappa standing there.
It gaped for a few seconds. Then it bowed, the bowl of water gliding along its head to stay upright. It spoke with a croaking voice. “You saved me. I owe you my life.”
“Yes,” Ryu said, taken aback for a moment. But it made sense, since Kappa did have a strange sense of honor back in the World of Rivers and Lakes. “Come. We need to get to our hiding place. Follow me.”
“Hiding place?” It came out of its bow.
“The people here can track you with cameras.”
“Camera? What is that?” It quirked his head.
“Never mind, just follow me.” Ryu turned and beckoned.
“All right.” It shuffled on quick toddling feet as Ryu worked his way through the fog. With the power of his intention, Ryu kept the mist around them.
“You’re from my world, aren’t you?” the Kappa asked.
“From here, originally, but I’ve been in the World of Rivers and Lakes for eight hundred years. I just recently came back here.”
“You must be on a Water Path. Your Core is immense, and you can still fully draw on it here.”
“Yes.” Ryu looked over his shoulder at it. It might want his Core, but Kappa became strangely loyal. “What’s your name?”
“Teppin,” it croaked. “What about you?”
“Ryu. Tell me, was it you who killed that man last night?”
“No.” It shook his head, the water in its bowl sloshing but never spilling. “That’s the Shirikodamanuki clan.”
The Kappa had clans? Perhaps that made sense, just like Cultivators had sects. “Do you know what they are doing here?”
“Looking for easy prey.”
Of course. Humans in the World of Rivers and Lakes had the martial skills to defend themselves against many of the creatures there, but except for the Peacekeepers and MoD shocktroopers, humans here would be defenseless against these yokai. Even the former’s weapons might not harm certain creatures. With a name like Shirikodamanuki, it was obvious they were trying to steal Cores.
“What about you?” Ryu asked.
Teppin fiddled with the rim of his bowl. “My clan sent me to monitor them, and to try to steal any Cores they acquired.”
Ryu harrumphed. So Teppin’s clan wasn’t going to do the dirty work themselves, but wanted human Cores all the same. They were just opportunists.
Within a few minutes, they’d nearly reached Ginkakuji, spreading the fog with them.
“How many of the Shirikodamanuki are there in this world, and where are they now?”
“Six.” Teppin pointed southwest. “They’re at the Kamo River, near Shijo.”
“Where did they enter into this world?”
It pointed north. “The Kamigamo Shrine.”
Up to now, the other yokai had entered through Buddhist temples; this was the first instance of a Shinto shrine being used.
“I’m going to introduce you to my friends,” Ryu said.
“Friends? Did they come with you from our world?”
“No, two belong here. Another is from out there.” Ryu gestured to the skies.
Teppin rubbed his bowl again. “What do you mean?”
“From a faraway star.”
“Ohhh.” Teppin’s big lips rounded.
“You owe me your life, right?”
Teppin bowed. “Of course.”
“We are going to fight the Shirikodamanuki clan. I need you to show them your fighting style.”
Chapter 21:
The Hacker
I nside the EtherCloud, the shocktroopers’ encrypted datalink to their hovering gunship appeared to Aya as a cable intertwined by chains and locks.
Static protection, without Sentinels.
Within her dilated perception in the EtherCloud, it gave her near-infinite time to break in. With her hacking algorithm macros appearing as lockpicks, she simultaneously tried a dozen codes in different spaces. Openings quickly appeared, with one large enough for her Avatar to slip through.
She’d done it.
She’d gotten into a Ministry of Defense EtherSpace partition for the first time. As far as she knew, only her friend Slash had accomplished this.
Appearing as a library with rows and rows of shelves, it was a treasure
trove to mine, at least until the MoD realized there was an intruder.
“Ai, copy all files, priority on current visual, aural, olfactory datastreams from the shocktrooper armor sensors.”
As the nine-tailed fox dashed off, Aya snooped around. As a gunship, it only contained a limited amount of information; another virtual cable extending into the sky represented its link to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, and the spiderweb sprouting from there depicted Earth’s defense network. The thicker cable from the satellite to Northern Europe led to the MoD’s central EtherSpace
How tempting it would be to look around there!
But no, the farther she ventured from the datalink she’d entered through, the harder it would be to get out. Not only that, the MoD’s AI defenses would be Level Eight or Nine, orders of magnitude above Aya’s ability to run from, hide from, commandeer, or decompile.
The Level One Filers on the hovercraft’s server, appearing as wizened librarians in vests with several pockets, would be easy. She went to the closest one, which would ignore her until she addressed it, and slipped a note into one of its pockets—a command to create copies of the files onboard and assemble them in a packet they’d pass on to Ai when she zipped by.
With a nod, it set about the task she’d assigned, and she continued to the other Filers. At the fourth, she paused as the robe-garbed Avatar of a real human stuttered into the library from a hallway. Using another macro, she copied its Shell.
When Aya put it on, she would appear to anyone monitoring the EtherSpace as a very fast human. Thus disguised, she went from the library into the hall from which the Avatar had emerged.
Side passages led to rooms that represented other aspects of the craft’s functions. Curious, she continued along a straight path until it arrived at a chamber filled with gears, maps, and other devices.
The control system. Weapons, flight and navigation controls, everything in one place. All relatively unprotected by Level One Sentinels appearing as unarmored foot soldiers, so that humans could operate the vehicle. Indeed, it was mostly Avatars fiddling with the controls, though several laborers—Level One Operators—and craftsmen—Level One Repairers—roved around taking care of mundane tasks.
Now she was getting greedy. From here, she could sever the craft’s link to the MoD, and then set the gunship down in an uninhabited area outside of the city. There was no telling what kind of hardware she could acquire that would help her hack into the MoD’s EtherSpaces in the future. She just had to get to it before the salvage teams.
The uplink to the satellite appeared as four small lines from different parts of the ship, fused to create a thicker tether. She’d have to cut all four connections, then jam the sockets before Level Six Repairers re-established the link. Enlisting Ai would make it almost possible, except that would slow the file copying down.
Aya would just have to do it fast.
With a flick of her wrist, the link termination code appeared as a blade in her hand. With a sweep of her other hand, a plug formed in her palm. She went to the first cable and slashed it.
Alarms blared.
Shit.
She’d missed the idle Level Seven Sentinel hiding inside the cable.
It lumbered to life, the computing needs of its complex code necessitating the shutting down of non-critical systems onboard. It would decompile her Plug in a fraction of a blink of an eye, and emerge from the port any moment now. If she didn’t get out of here fast, it would rip her Avatar’s code apart, and possibly use her digital fingerprints to track her back to her EtherSpace. MoD coders might even be able to break through the firewall.
She turned and ran back toward the library.
“Ai, status.”
Files seventy-three percent copied, Ai’s chirpy voice sounded in her head.
That would have to do. Even now, the Sentinel’s footsteps started to thud on the wooden floors in the virtual halls of the carrier’s EtherSpace, coming closer.
She reached the library. Red lights blinked on and off, and an alarm bell went off. Up ahead, near another datalink port, a second Level Seven Sentinel emerged. The ambient light and several of the books representing data went dark as the Sentinel’s code drew more power from the craft.
Her interface didn’t distinguish it from a Peacekeeper Level Seven Sentinel, so it looked like a ferocious dragon. Razor-sharp claws could decompile her Avatar code down to Level Five, or even Level Four; its jaws could destroy the code altogether, and leave her a slobbering invalid in the real world. If she’d had a heart in the EtherCloud, it would be racing now.
The Sentinel would be able to see past her Shell, so she shut it down and activated her stealth program. That app would help her code mingle with the EtherSpace’s background. However, with her stealth rated only Level Six, she’d be at a disadvantage against its sensors.
She crept behind into a new row of books and slunk along the shelves toward the datalink to the shocktroopers. Once actual humans realized what was going on, they’d shut those links down, trapping her in here indefinitely, but they were still limited by their perception of real time.
The roar near the library entrance announced the arrival of the first Sentinel. At the far end of the structure, a third Sentinel came to life. Once their search subroutines took effect, they’d systematically root her out.
“Ai, go ahead of me and transfer the files, I’ll create a diversion.”
Understood. The little fox spirit zipped toward the shocktroopers’ datalink.
This might be a painful mistake. Perhaps a fatal one. Right now, though, it sounded as if the Sentinels had begun their coordinated search. If they weren’t so high level, she’d use her Clone app to distract them; but they’d see right through it. Disengaging her Stealth programs, she moved away from the datalink and back toward the entrance to the library.
To the left, a dragon roared and locked its gaze on her. Other roars answered to the right and behind, and the two other dragons flapped up above the bookshelves and into her line of sight.
Which meant she was now in their line of sight, as well.
They surged toward her, unbelievably fast.
She turned and darted down one row, then turned into a side passage, then continued two rows down. Still, they had the advantage of being able to fly above them all.
Once line of sight was broken, she re-activated Stealth and deployed a Clone. If it fooled them at all, it wouldn’t be for very long, so she dashed toward the datalink.
They roared, back where she’d left her Clone. That bought her a precious split second, and she sped toward the datalink.
She was almost there, and would be home free, no damage.
A claw clamped around her virtual ankle. Pain flared there, real as if she’d slashed her leg. She dared not look back, but reached for the portal. Her fingers wrapped around the threshold, just as the Sentinel’s jaws ripped through her.
A defensive layer of her code decompiled first, followed by some of her tools for penetrating security, then two of her Clones. The Sixth Level Sentinel Shell disintegrated.
One Level of code, destroyed, and every nerve in the real world fired. Her Avatar’s remnant code wriggled through the opening, then zipped through the line to the tear she’d made in the link.
She opened her eyes to find herself screaming. Head foggy from the shift to real time, she was lying down, and Siena loomed over her, brushing back her hair.
“Are you all right?” the Elestrae asked.
Aya’s chest heaved as she tried to draw in breaths. All her nerves were seared from the damage inflicted on her Avatar in the EtherCloud. When she could think clearly, she would have to see if they’d captured enough of her code to analyze and track down her identity.
Siena sang several unintelligible but beautiful sounds, then placed her hands over Aya’s heart.
A calm cool settled over her, and the pain subsided.
“Does that feel better?” the Elestrae asked.
Did it? Aya fo
cused on her arms and legs, and neither hurt. She nodded.
Siena straightened, revealing Kentaro behind her.
Worry was scrawled over his features. “What happened?”
Too much. Internally, she ordered her AI, Ai, run a diagnostic on my Avatar. Here, in the real world, her heart squeezed tightly at having lost even some of her code. Maybe the backup files would help restore some of it, but oftentimes a scuffle with Sentinels led to permanent damage, in which case it would require extensive programming to merge a backup with the Avatar.
With a deep breath, she found her words. “I hacked into the shocktroopers’ data feeds to see what was going on. The MoD’s countermeasures damaged my programming.”
“And it was able to affect you in this world?” Kentaro’s eyes roved over her. His brow furrowed. “You were screaming.”
She nodded. “When our consciousness is in the EtherCloud, our body feels damage to our Avatar’s code.”
“Meditate,” he said, “just like Master Ryu had us do after training.”
As much as it stung to be ordered around by Kentaro, the Purebred was right. What else could she do? For now, returning to the EtherCloud, even behind her own firewall, was a frightening prospect. She shuddered at the memory of the Sentinel’s claws in her.
With his further encouragement, she sat up in a lotus position. She let her Huiyin point connect to the ground. Here, among the trees, the air felt fresher in her lungs than in any other place. She drew Qi up from the earth to her head, then back down to her Core. As expected, the damage to her body made it more difficult to push the energy into her meridians, but it was actually easier to push it through the usual blockages in her head. Did the higher-level code hinder Qi circulation?
Across from her, Kentaro had joined in the meditation. His Fire energy seemed to seep into the space between them, invigorating her more.
“Good,” Ryusuke said.
Aya’s eyes fluttered open to find Ryusuke kneeling by her.
He ran a finger over her bare arm and held it up. A black, oily sheen reflected the late morning sun. “You’ve been expelling impurities from your meridians since the start of your training,” he said. “But this is the first time I’ve seen so much. I also sense the Qi flowing through you more strongly. Did you get hurt while I was gone? Were you sparring with Ken-kun?”
