Anthology - From the Street

Then came the first sign of trouble. A pair of Condors appeared, floating high and distant over the top of the compound. Nuyen to noodles they were outside Jabberwocky range. They weren't mine, so I knew they could only have come from one source. The sec-rigger'd figured out that Something Big was up, and had sent a couple of spies to find out what the frag was going on.

Well, I'd expected that. Not quite so soon, though; when I finally got to tangling mano a mano with this guy, he was going to be good. The enemy Condors weren't armed, so I ignored them and got on with the primary task: nailing the daylights out of the blinded perimeter drones, some of which were still spinning around in crazed circles. At first my Wandjinas made short work of them. After awhile, though, I saw some of the ones that'd stopped dead starting to move-sluggishly, but with purpose. They were getting out of the Wandjinas' line of fire, and a couple of Guardians were even starting to swing their turrets back and forth. Bad news for me-either the Jabberwocky effect was wearing off or the sec-rigger was using a little ECCM to overcome the Jabberwocky interference. Either way, it meant I didn't have much time. I had to take over the building system before the perimeter drones recovered, or I'd be their sitting duck.

I slung my duffel bag over my shoulder and ran up to the nearest sensor post. The access panel was easy to spot; I blew the lock on it with a short strip of acid solder, then pulled a decryption module out of the duffel. Tech-heads like me use this little hand-held meter doohickey to analyze and decrypt CCSS protocols. My Hedgehog had already told me the system was encrypted, which let me bypass the usual step of plugging in a protocol emulation module and using it to figure out what was there. Took lots less time this way, which was vital on this particular run.

I found the junction box and carefully opened the cover plate, exposing the optic cables and electrical wires inside. Then I took out my microtronics kit and delicately spliced my own leads into the system. As I started to connect the free ends of the splice into the decrypt module, I felt a bullet punch me in the side and flatten itself against my armor. The sec-rigger had managed to get at least some of his toys working again. I had to take care of them before jacking into the building system, or they'd take care of me. Lucky thing I'd brought along a signal amplifier.

The output from the signal booster let me call the Wandjinas in closer, within the range of the fading Jabberwocky interference. Thank the Ghost in the Machine for those boosters, and for the Battletac IVIS system some bright tech so recently came up with. Makes a combat-drone network sooo much easier to deal with… and leaves part of a rigger's mind free to take on another job, like connecting illicit wiretaps and turning on a decrypt module. The 'jinas took out a Ferret and a Guardian that were far too close for comfort. Now, I thought, and jacked in.

Overriding a security rig is a tough job. Unlike decking, you can't rely on a clever bag of tricks to outwit any IC or other deckers you happen across. Instead, it's a pure battle of wills between you and the sec-rigger. The toughest mind wins; the loser usually ends up brain-fried or dead.

›

› Just for the record, decking into a system is NOT easy. And I resent any implication to the contrary.

› E-slipper

› Didn't mean to rile you, E. I didn't say decking was easy. But it is different than the way a rigger taps into a system. I just wanted to get that point across.

And now back to our feature presentation…

A flood of images and voices surrounded me, as if I'd invaded someone else's brain (which, in a way, I had). I built a mental wall around myself as fast as I could, then formed a fist of pure willpower and struck out hard at the source of the flood. I felt an echo of dizzy pain as the blow connected-then a wallop, much more immediate and powerful enough to send my virtual self sprawling on my hoop. The sec-rigger was fighting back-and as I'd guessed, he was no slouch in the battle-of-wills department. I could feel the shape and weight of his virtual body, saw the two of us locked together in a wrestling hold. One or the other would have to give, and I was determined it wouldn't be me.

Distantly, as if my meat body belonged to someone else, I felt the impact of more bullets against my heavy armor. I ordered my Wandjinas to redouble their assault. A few seconds later I felt the sec-rigger reel away from me, and I knew that one of my drones had blown up one of his. Impressive that he'd managed to hang in; half the time, a direct hit on a drone you're controlling will dump you right out of the system. It isn't only deckers who have to worry about dump shock.

The next minute, that worry hit me over the head with all the subtlety of a tire iron. A Guardian got off a lucky shot that took out one of my Wandjinas, and the resulting nasty feedback damned near made me black out from pain. But I couldn't afford to black out. I had to win this fight or die trying.

My control of the rest of my drone network was hanging by a thread. Sick and dizzy, trying to ignore the red-and-black flashes that kept cutting across my vision, I pulled a sneaky tactic that had the added virtue of not demanding mental effort. I pushed a button on my decrypt module and sent a complicated encrypt protocol down the dataline. As I expected, the sec-drones that had been moving toward me slowed down, then stopped. None of them fired. My little encryption trick had slowed the sec-rigger's response time dramatically while he tried to sort out just what the frag I'd done. Now I had time to shake off the not-quite-dump-shock and sneak up on the fragger.

I focused inward, then made an even bigger mental fist and slammed it down on the ghostly outlines of the sec-rigger's virtual body. As his mind wavered under the impact, I wrapped my virtual arms around his middle and squeezed. Hard. His virtual shape began to collapse, curling into a fetal position and then melting into a shapeless mass.

Then his collapse speeded up. He was trying to wriggle out of my grip before I throttled him into a coma. A dark hole of nothing suddenly opened nearby, and the sec-rigger flowed toward it. Little fragger was trying to jack out. I stretched out a virtual leg and blocked the entrance to the hole, then wrapped around the sec-rigger again and squeezed some more until I couldn't sense his presence anywhere in the system.

I'd won. I was the building now; I could feel every square inch of it, plus all the perimeter drones that had been doing their level best to knock out my Wandjinas. First thing I did was order the sec-drones to back off. I kept them active, though, in case I might need them to help my buds on the way out. (That old martial-arts rule is dead on target; use your enemy's strength against him as much as you can. Saves you the trouble of doing all the work yourself, and surprises the hell out of the bad guys.) The next thing I did was find my team, just in time to open some convenient doors for them without tripping any alarms. I also kept track of the Yamatetsu security guards, alerted to trouble by the security rigger before I'd dealt with him. Thanks to my Jabberwockies, they had no idea who was attacking their facility or where the team was; they jogged up and down corridors at random, not knowing where to go. For the sheer fun of it, I set off a gaggle of motion sensors several hundred yards away from where my team was. The razorboys dashed off, each of them eager to be the first one to nail himself a real live intruder.

Needless to say, we pulled off the run and were well compensated for it. Which just goes to show what a talented rigger can do-especially if she spends her cred wisely.

› Josie Cruise

MISSION IMPROBABLE