“You alright, girl?” the announcer whispered, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked to him and simply nodded. She didn’t trust opening her mouth right now; she felt like any words that came out would be at an unrecognizable speed.
Without any more interruptions, she climbed into the aged chair. The seat was warm from the last competitor, and she could smell blood, which was likely Nitrex’s. The panic started as a ball in her stomach. It had been a long time since she had fully immersed herself from anywhere but her home or work set-ups. The connection that she was used to was a stable one, whereas OwnPlace’s was not so much. Many of the Seattle areas were known for regular brownouts and occasional blackouts, and being immersed when one of those hit was not fun.
“You ready, beautiful?” asked the bars tech. When she nodded, he took her wrist and wrapped a band around it, a vitals monitor, before handing her the wires that connected the Nexus Gateway to her cerebral implant. Venom was just glad he didn’t try to insert them himself; she would have hit him. She reached behind her ear and slid the wires into the installed port with ease.
‘Ok, Venom, you can do this. Get in, get the package, get out, kill Fenric, hide the body, have a drink, and go home and fucking sleep’ she thought. She looked at the set-up before her and saw the man she only knew as the DataKing lazing in the chair liked he owned the place. When their eyes met, he brought two fingers to his lips and kissed them before pointing them to the floor. The sign of disrespect was enough to cause her to grind her teeth. All fear evaporated and was replaced by the need to destroy him. He was going down.
Venom’s eyes moved to the crowd. There, right in front, was Fenric. He was grinning as he gave her a thumbs up. She was so killing him when this was over.
“Challenge three of the night… let’s see what the boys have come up with,” the announcer bellowed, mainly for dramatic effect. From her vantage point, she could see the words of the challenge over the screen.
::Match Three - Data delve, exploit challenge, SUN::
SUN? Venom found herself racking her brain; she had heard of them. Who the hell were they? Work, it had something to do with work, that's how she knew them. As the announcer played to the crowd, her eyes flicked back and forth as she tried to work out what and who they were. It could be enough to give her an edge. Realization struck. The SUN were a radical group with similar ideals to the Network. They were a lot smaller in size, but they were known for more aggressive movements than the Network. That was something she could work with.
“DataKing, you ready?” the announcer asked, indicating to her competitor.
“I am ready to decimate. Prepare to eat virtual dirt, greenie,” DataKing declared with a cocky smirk in her direction. She was starting to remember why she stopped coming to these places; it was the assholes that also came here.
“CausticBitch, you ready?” the announcer asked, looking to her.
“Oh, yeah, I am ready,” Venom said with a malevolent smirk.
“JAAAAACCCCKKKKK INNNNNNN,” the announcer hollered.
As soon as the call went, Venom’s eyes slammed shut. The cerebral implant converted all of her thoughts, allowing her to walk the Nexus as if it were another plane of existence. In many ways, it was. The usual moment of distortion overcame her, the moment when she ceased to be conscious in OwnPlace and awoke in the Dreamscape.
Venom’s avatar flickered into being. It was a unique representation of her in the Nexus. In this realm, she was tall and slender with ass length lime green hair, her body clad in Amazonian style leather armor as an anaconda slithered around her form. In the same access point appeared another figure. A male form shroud in robes encrusted with gems and carrying a huge jewel encrusted staff. DataKing. With a cocky smirk, the avatar twirled his staff.
The access point itself was a barren point; from here, there were thousands of different data streams. Hundreds of thousands of routes to take. Venom glanced back to DataKing just in time to see him vanish into one of the data streams. Her hyperactive brain demanded that she follow. He was getting ahead, but she was going to take this slower. Venom doubted he had any idea what he was truly looking for.
With a swish of her wrist, Venom called up her search bar. The SUN wouldn’t throw up much under a standard search, because organizations like them paid hackers to keep them hidden. Instead, she stepped into the data stream, arriving quickly at a set of wrought iron gates with the name Sanctuary in metal letters over the top. The Seraphim Network’s personal system. Luckily, the system was obscured to OwnPlace’s viewers by the extensive lattice of programs in place to protect it. The lock of the gate was thick with ivy, a visual personification of a lock program which prevented anyone from entering. As she approached, she placed her hand near the lock, and a big brass key appeared in the lock and turned. The Network system had verified her legitimate access. Through the gates, there was an extravagant park. In the virtual world, the Networks Sanctuary was truly that.
Venom had walked this route a million times, so finding what she needed was easy. Passing through three more gates, she found herself exactly where she needed to be. She opened a rusty old gate built into a red brick wall and slipped inside. Activating stealth mode programs, her avatar raised its hood. Last thing she needed was her colleagues seeing her here. Beyond the red wall was a large glass greenhouse, and within there was seemingly endless planters with a range of fruits, vegetables, and plants. Activating her search engine program, Venom inputted the word SUN. The snake uncoiled from around her and set off through the greenhouse. Only moments later, it came to a stop beside one of the watermelons. With a grin, Venom grabbed the fruity looking data packet and quickly backtracked the way she came and wiped all traces she had been there.
Stepping into the general Nexus, she watched as a virtual representation of the city of Seattle rose around her. Now she was out of the Sanctuary’s system and the data packet had changed from a watermelon to a simple file. It held everything she needed; the location of the SUN’s personal Nexus.
‘Bingo’, she thought. She closed the file and jumped back into the data stream pinpointing the exact location.
Everything was moving so quickly. Her command input was faster than ever before, her avatar responding instantly to the dreamscape around it. Whoever was the mastermind behind this drug was her God at this moment. Before she knew it, she was standing on the outskirts of a chessboard suspended in an endless space of stars. This was a dreamscape she hadn’t witnessed before. The outer squares were dominated by pawns, whereas the most important pieces were in the center, a mix of white and black showed not a war but a truce. On the central square was a larger piece that she didn’t recognize, a towering obelisk with a stern face, crossed arms, and large sword at its side. She really didn’t want to mess with that guy.
Now how the hell did this Nexus system work? As Venom approached the board, the pawns drew weapons, blocking the gaps between them. The Nexus system was detecting she didn’t have adequate access. So this is why it was an exploit challenge. Bringing up her list of programs, she activated the stealth program once again. She would need time for the exploit to run its course. Next she summoned an analysis program to find a weakness in the defensive line. As it activated, the snake wrapped around her came to life. It slithered off her and up to the pawns, slowly flicking its tongue at each piece in turn, trying to find a weakness in the defensive line. The waiting seemed to take forever. Her avatar crossed its arms and tapped its feet as it waited for the snakes return, hopefully with some good news.
Suddenly a pain struck through her. It stabbed into her chest like a knife and warning sirens blared in her head. Something had detected her. Selecting her analysis program, diagnostic statistics started to fill her mind. It wasn’t hard to find her attacker. DataKing was here. Using some of her processing power, she extended her stealth shroud to encompass her analysis program. The vivid green scales of the snake shimmered to a midnight blue and finally to black as it vanished from vi
ew. Venom stayed calm, attempting to ignore the pain. It wasn’t truly in her chest, it was in her mind somewhere, but that was simply how the cerebral implant interpreted the pain for her virtual avatar.
Venom and DataKing stood on opposite sides of the board. She watched him, anticipating his next move, but it appeared they were both waiting for the same thing. Moments later, the snake returned; the program had run its course. It may look fancy, but the system was nothing but a low budget structure with some fancy decoration. The beauty of systems like these were that the cracks were numerous, and now thanks to her analysis program, they were highlighted to her. All she needed was to pick her point of entry. With her stealth program, active she walked the edge of the board herself. Now that DataKing was here, she needed to be careful. More unauthorized users meant there was a higher chance of being discovered by the system’s security.
The seam between the white chess pieces and the black was the key. Venom’s avatar took the steps confidently; with all her programs running, she didn’t need to worry. She placed a hand on the weakness, her touch causing a corrosive reaction. The spacing between the pawns expanded. She stepped between and found herself standing on the chessboard. She activated her search program, and the snake quickly settled on a black space before her. It was five squares in front of her. She tried to take a step forward, but she hit an invisible wall. The system was more complex than she had originally planned for. That pleased her. Venom liked a challenge.
Venom called up the menus again and activated one of her analysis programs Hopefully, it would work quickly and find its way through the subsystems. Lists of data came flashing up in front of her vision; it was an entirely different language read almost exclusively by hackers. The information she wanted was protected by one of the black knights. Each square of the board was a different data storage subsystem. Venom guessed that the bigger the chess piece the more important the information that was stored there.
Venom went to move across the board when pain sliced through her. She wheeled around and saw the pawn had a sword drawn. How had it seen her? Her stealth program was running hot. She shouldn’t be experiencing this sort of issue; it was built by Vara, one of TechPit’s strongest stealth programmers. With the system on the attack, she activated her defense program, and a shield appeared in her avatar's hand. Next was her system diagnostic program. Unfortunately, she was forced to separate her focus between defending herself from the active system and finding out what had triggered it. This NeuroPep was a lifesaver, reducing the lag from splitting her attentions.
It didn’t take long for her to find the issue. She had been tagged. It must have been when DataKing hit her earlier. That attack must have been to disguise the tagging. She was like a beacon to the opposing system security. He was going to beat her, because there was no way she could defend against the system and beat him to the information. Or could she?
It was easy, but it was going to hurt her. Tearing apart the coding used to build the simple tag gave her the invaluable information she needed: his user ID. Composing herself, she prepared for what was to come. Needing full focus, she dropped her defense program and uploaded DataKing’s user ID to the SUN system. As it uploaded, the pawn brought down a heavy strike, and pain ricocheted around her shoulder, but it only attacked once. All of a sudden, every piece on the board turned to look at one location. DataKing! His position highlighted to the system like the analysis had highlighted the cracks. With his user ID known by the system security, he couldn’t hide. DataKing was screwed. Venom took advantage of the situation. Hurrying across the board, she found the data system and extracted the target information. Then she was done. Leaving her opponent to fight the system’s entire defense program, she snuck out and started the disconnection procedure.
The jack out was quick. Her limbs felt heavier than they had on the dreamscape, the room was colder, the light was blinding her, and the cheers of the crowds were deafening. So many sensations that her brain wasn’t able to cope. Sitting bolt upright, she clapped her hands over her ears and slammed her eyes shut to protect her from overstimulation. She didn’t feel right. Something was wrong.
She yanked the cables from the side of her head and stumbled out of the chair. She didn’t care about the prize right now; she needed out of here, she needed quiet. As she forced her way through the crowd, she ignored the many hands that were trying to shake hers or clap her on the shoulder. As soon as she reached the woman’s bathroom, she dove in a stall and slammed the door shut.
Venom’s breathing was coming hard and fast as her back hit the stall wall. She slid down to the floor and pulled her legs to her chest, resting her forehead on her knees. The world instantly began to spin, and nausea rolled in her stomach. Was this the NeuroPep or Neural feedback damage? Either way, she didn’t like it.
Venom had no idea how long she had spent in the stall. The door to the bathroom had opened and closed many times, and each forced her to grit her teeth against the onslaught of fresh pain. The sickness and dizziness did not abate; instead they simply grew worse. Tears started welling in her eyes, and the tremor was still in her hands. She needed to get out of here, she needed to get home. Calling up her AR, she tried to focus on the display, the images and symbols blurring in her vision. She couldn’t even figure out how to make a call. She needed to find Fenric. He could help her.
Forcing herself to her feet, she couldn’t ignore the tremor in her thighs. She was so hyper alert and sensitive while also feeling completely weak. Her mind was heightened. Thoughts, feelings, sensations were all powerful while her body seemed to sleep. There was no way this was Neural Feedback. She’d suffered from that before, and it wasn’t this bad. This had to be the drug. Venom could see why this was a hacker’s drug of choice. While jacked into the Nexus Gateway, the physical side effects would mean little, but the mental effects were amazing.
Making her way from the bathroom she realized how drunk she must seem. She stumbled towards her destination, her fingers grabbing at the wall for support. The door opened into ‘the colosseum’, and it was busier than before. The sounds of all the voices, the cheers, the boos just seemed to cause her endless pain.
Scanning the bar through blurred vision, it took her a few moments to find Fenric. He had a beer in his hand and was in conversation with a blonde woman. Gentle touches passed between the two, the way her fingers played on his lapel, his hands in her hair. A few more drinks, and she was sure he’d take her back to his place and…. Fuck! This super alert brain was really focusing on things she really ought not to. Pushing herself from the wall, she stumbled up to him.
“Sorry, sweet cheeks, I need to talk to your boyfriend a minute,” Venom said, noticing the slight slur in her voice as she grabbed Fenric’s shoulder for support. The glare from the blonde indicated she saw her as a threat. With a flick of her hair, the blonde made a disgusted noise and headed deeper into the crowds.
“Ok, that was not cool. You totally cockblocked me there,” Fenric said, looking at her with an unamused expression on his pretty face.
“The Neep, what the fuck are the side effects?” Venom slurred as her head began to spin a little. Her grip tightened on the edge of his jacket.
“Minor physical weakness, nothing severe,” he explained, casually taking a swig from his beer. Venom snatched the drink from his hand and took a gulp, her mouth was so dry.
“Minor? I can barely fucking stand,” Venom responded exasperatedly.
“Look, it’s a new drug, and you aren’t used to it. Go get yourself some fresh air. It helps, I promise,” Fenric replied.
Venom was about to ask him to help her upstairs when she followed his line of sight. Fenric was far more interested in the pretty blonde than helping her in any way, shape, or form. With a glare in his direction, she turned and started towards the stairs. The crowd was thicker now. Warm bodies knocked into hers as she tried to walk, and scents of sweat and cologne permeated her nose, causing the nausea to well up inside her. She couldn’t brea
the; she was suffocating. Panic overtook her, and she started to run, pushing aside anyone that stood in her way. She didn’t stop running until she felt the cool spray of misty rain on her face.
Night had fallen. When she had arrived at the bar, there was still light in the sky, but now it was pitch black. The dark and decrepit street that she was on was almost solely lit by the neon lights advertising ‘The Glitter Dungeon’, ‘Aston’s Pawn Brokers’, and numerous other dead end joints.
Venom’s breathing was coming quick and shallow, which exasperated the light headedness that overwhelmed her. Sliding down the wall as her legs collapsed beneath her, she didn’t care what detritus she was sat in as long as she didn’t have to stand anymore. Fenric had lied. The cool and misty air was doing nothing to help her. Instead, it was just making her feel worse. Panic overtook her again. She was in no fit state to defend herself, and she was alone in a dangerous part of town. Summoning her AR, she took the risk and redialed the last person to have contacted her. She prayed it was Xander.
Chapter Three
Xander came awake to the sound of a call. With a groan, he rolled over and grabbed his AR glasses. He put them on and the image of his green haired friend came into view. He glanced to the other side of the bed, hoping to find Caitlyn still asleep, but the bed was empty. Keira must have woken her. Xander blinked a couple of times before taking in the time. ‘2 am, Venom, what the hell are you playing at?’ Xander thought as he answered the call.
“Have you looked at the time?” Xander asked tiredly as he dragged his hand through his hair. Before Keira had been born, he had cared little about late night calls or lack of sleep, but now that his darling daughter prevented the well needed rest, he tended to get a little more wound up about it.
Caustic (The Seraphim Network - Everyday Series Book 1) Page 3
