Shadowrunning Part 2
Cathy was bored. She hated being bored.
Now that the war was over, shuttling tourists around the solar system and beyond to show them the wonders of space wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.
“Maybe we could really do our trip to Starbase 2 Cortana” she said, laying on the driver seat of the Stargazer and looking into the black through the crafts large windows. “Doing something for fun doesn’t sound that bad... but I have to admit that it just looks like another long journey, interesting to do but nothing that will take the rest of our life...”
“I know what you mean” answered Cortana, “After saving the world flying to Alpha Centauri just does not sound as exciting as before. I have a lot of friends online and maybe some of them will continue to support the rest of GJ and the Space Patrol, but... but we still need a plan what to do next... how to move forward.”
Maybe we should start working on the plans of this mobile hideout we talked about during the war. We just start small and see where we will be going... what do you think?”
Cathy nodded, not truly convinced. “I don’t think we have enough resources for finishing this project, we need some source of income, something that pays better than tourist guide. I would like to tinker again with some waved stuff, but even for this we need a solid place to work and some starting money... And I don’t want to join one of the larger factions at the moment. We need a new plan, something great and interesting and exciting... and crazy !”
Her eyes certainly had a crazy gleam to them.
“Yes, we do,” said Cortana, “But do you know where to start looking for it ? Maybe you can ask the Senshi if you borrow one of their labs for a few weeks Cathy ? You built some pretty nice toys during the war, I think there might be someone else interested in them.”
Cathy shook her head.
“The idea was not bad, but the QEDs are not really mass producible. They are difficult to build and tend to malfunction pretty quickly. I am not sure we can really make much money with them, only if we find someone really in need for them.”
“Okay Cathy, then let’s get online and look what is going on at the moment, maybe we get an idea while looking through some chats and forums... maybe we can raid some mailing lists too!”
“Oh oh, are you really sure you are subscribed to all this info lists you have access to ? One day they will send a headhunter after you because you broke into the wrong one.”
“Hey, I am not that bad... and they are all public news mailing lists. Ff they want a private one they should apply a better encryption. I always have respected the right for privacy, but then people will have to respect my right to have some fun with their bad communication security.”
Cathy shook her head again and grinned. She had discovered a long time ago that discussing this kind of things with Cortana were futile. There were some ‘well encrypted and protected’ signals in Fenspace, but most of them were ‘pretty nifty number changing game’ in Cortanas description.
“Just make sure they do not get you Cortana, I would really miss you...”
“Sure Cathy... I am always careful...”
The Dead Bang! shooting range at Marsbase Sara was almost unique in Fenspace in that it allowed practice with live real-steel weapons. Buried underground, it was a hundred meter long alleyway hewn straight from the Martian bedrock. Available targets ranged from the traditional silhouettes, to videogame characters, some unpopular BNF’s and Haruhi Suzumiya.
In a laneway towards the end, Ford Sierra adjusted her shooting glasses, reloading her customised Beretta. The walnut grips were moulded for her hands.
Behind her, Jet was busy adjusting her own smartgun systems. “...he actually called me a bitch.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Ford assured her with a mischievous grin. “Soon you’ll even start carrying a handbag. ”
Jet scowled, pouting playfully for a moment before switching to a strange wry grin. “It’s not that....” she paused, then held up her hand “Well, mostly not that. It’s just, the first thing I thought.... ” she sniggered. “I just couldn’t stop laughing.”
Ford raised an eyebrow, “What was it.?”
Jet inhaled a deep breath. “Do ah look like, ah Bitch,”
Ford smirked. “That’s Southern hick, not Samuel L Jackson,”
Jet shrugged, “Well you know what I mean. Anyway....” she trailed off. She plugged the receiver for the gunsight into the socket under her ear, snatching a breath as the drivers loaded. She blinked, checked the signal was good, then smiled. Gaining new senses was always a little bit of a transhuman rush.
Ford brushed a few strands of hair off her brow. Her hair always reminded Jet of Bourneville chocolate with its burnt brown colour and high sheen. It was too bad she never let it get any longer. Ear protection was unnecessary thanks to a set of artificial eardrums.
Still, with a pair of shades on, Ford projected an aura of almost effortless cool. With her Beretta gripped firmly in both hands... left on grip, artificial right for support. She used her right leg to brace herself and took aim through the sights.
Exhale slowly and squeeze.
The gun snapped five shots downrange, with a pause between each for a breath. Ford smirked at her partner as the score came up on the board above.
“Now beat that,”
Jet raised her handcannon of a pistol in one swift motion. An electronic crosshair pinpointed the exact impact point of the bullet before she fired. Target in the centre, pull the switch.
Jet’s pistol fired like a bomb going off, Smoke and flame and destruction and dust flying with every shot. The ranges computer totted up the score.
“Heh, not a problem,” she shrugged laconically, making the pistol safe. The slide had locked back, thick smoke rising from the chamber.
Ford planted her hands on her hips, glaring up at her partner.
“Cheater,”
“It’s not cheating, it’s hardware,” stated Jet with pride.
“What, you afraid of a fair contest then?”
Jet’s expression soured. “For me, a fair game is pretty bloody unfair,”
“Hah!” Sierra snorted. “Because you know you’ll never beat me over iron sights.”
Judging by Jet’s expression, that was exactly it. Ford decided to sweeten the deal a little.
“Tell you what. You win, and I buy you a custom KoFen avatar... and let you spec it. I win, I buy you a custom KoFen avatar...” her grin widened. “...and I spec it. And you have to use it publicly,” And finally, the cherry on top, “I’ll even use your gun,”
Jet looked dubious at first, wondering just what her partner had in mind. The first thought was something pink and frilly, but that sort of Senshi candy just didn’t suit Sierra...unless she really wanted to make Jet suffer.
Still.... she’d be using Jets gun. That put her at the disadvantage.
“It’s a bet,” Jet extended her hand.
Sierra gripped it hard with her artificial hand.
Getting the targeting system off Jet’s pistol wasn’t hard. It really was little more than a camera gunsight, a laser rangefinder, a lightweight processor and a transmitter, clamped to the top of the barrel were a scope normally went. Adjusting the original iron sights was a little trickier with some of the radiator fins on the barrel getting in the way, but Ford could do it.
The hardest part was just holding the damn thing steady. Even using her mechanical arm to brace it didn’t give much benefit. The trigger pull was so high it actually hurt her finger.
The first shot she fired, she swore that somehow she’d shot herself. She felt the gun go off rather than heard it, recoil nearly tearing her arms from their sockets. Gritting her teeth, she let it fall back on target. The next was that little bit easier, followed by another, then another, then on until she’d emptied the magazine.
“Phew,” she exhaled as she put the gun down, feeling all tingly all over. The score came up on the board above.
87 points
“Do I see a little excitement?” Jet snickered, looking down.
Ford crossed her arms with a scowl. “Just take your shots Jet,”
Jet took her pistol from the bench and slipped a new magazine home before releasing the slide to chamber the first round. Line target up in the sights and squeeze the trigger. Lather, rinse repeat. Jet’s powered actuators made it seem effortless, her shooting that modified Deagle like Ford might shoot an airsoft gas gun.
“Easy,” she smirked.
The scoreboard had other ideas. ‘82’, it declared
Jet’s expression said it all. How the hell did that?
Ford beamed. “Well, technology is no replacement for sheer skill, is it?”
Jet looked down at her, wearing a bitter pout. “But I had it dead on,”
“But you didn’t adjust them right for your eye,” Sierra told her. “I know your eyesight’s so much sharper than a normal humans, I bet you didn’t compensate for that, did you?”
“Never fired with iron sights before,” Jet defended herself.
“Well don’t feel bad,” Ford soothed. “I learned from the best. My aunt Irene could shoot the hammer off a gun at 50 yards with a pistol like this.” She held up her own Beretta.
The cyborg looked dubiously at her partner.
Sierra just smiled victoriously, “See, What did I tell you? Going shooting is the perfect way to relax after a tough day. It’s the great American pastime,”
Jet could only answer with a wistful sigh.
“Ow!” Daisuke yelped, “Too tight,”
“Sorry,” Alita backed off.
The tech rubbed at his shoulders where his girlfirend had been leaning.
“You know, you wouldn’t have this problem if you got cybered,” She said, wearing a playful pout. Her breath tickled his ear as she leaned in, smelling of steel and oil, her faux-leather bodysuit and whatever it had been that she’d had for dinner. “The AR-13 body doesn’t have an AI yet...”
“I like meat. Makes me soft to hug,” he smiled. Alita pursed her lips. Daisuke seized the moment and pecked her right on the lips... just a quick surprise kiss. “And because you would kill me if I did that in a cyborg body,” he added with a goofball grin.
Her purse deepened into full blown octopus lips, those ruby eyes glaring right into him for half a second. Those lips were the reason Daisuke built her in the first place. In her daily body, she was achingly cute. Lethal, but cute.
“And that’s why I hope I don’t forget you when I get my memory back,” she smiled at him, bright and wide.
“I would not worry about that,” Dai responded flatly, looking away at his work.
“Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, “G’night Dai,”
“‘night, Achan,”
Alita closed the workshop door behind her, Daisuke heard it clang shut followed by the hiss of its safety bladders pressurising. He was alone in the workshop, surrounded by his equipment. Most of it was salvaged from a dumpster somewhere, refurbished, enhanced and then pressed back into service.
Most of it wasn’t pretty.
But he felt far more proud of it than he did of some of the newer gear thay’d bought after Battle Angel. Daisuke prided himself on being able to do a lot with very little. Grunthal had started as a bunch shipping crates concreted in under an overhang in the rock, before the new parts were tunnelled out during the war. He built the AR’s using scrap parts; a production series of AI gynoids, each of them capable of sharing parts.
Sure they weren’t anywhere near as elegant or ‘advanced’ as the other builders but they were robust and could be fixed by anyone with a decent working knowledge of mechatronics. They were also damned fun and interesting people to be around....
He smiled on that thought, tinkering with an arm ripped off of Zwolf during a sparring match earlier in the day. Zwolf still managed to win. Thinking about it filled him with an odd paternal pride.
Another part of his mind was trying to picture what it would be like if it was his arm. To have a body like that... he’d be lying if there wasn’t something of an allure to it. Who was it again that said an un-cyber’d cyber-tech is like a mechanic without a drivers license?
Daisuke didn’t care. He had his reasons for remaining fully human. He’d gained an extra one seeing how bothered some of the others were by this hack.
His computer terminal chirruped.
Speak of the devil.
The analysis was done. And about time too. Even Grunthal’s computers were top-of-the-skip models. They really should’ve replaced the lot, rather than order that shuttle. But, Daisuke’d been outvoted on that one.
Oh well.
He collated the data, and started to type.
To: “SkyNet.tech” (undisclosed recipients) From: “Dai-kunV” (edo.daisuke@zalem.grunthal.fen) Subj: SCC Radio plugin vulnerability exploited in wild. ‘Ghost Hack’ Time 13/01/15, 18:15MST Hi all I assume you have all heard about the robbery a few days ago here on Mars. 2 Kunstler involved were remotely disabled using a hack of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s software radio plugin. Hardware logs attached do confirm this. It appears that they used the vulnerability discovered a couple of weeks ago in the chip driver. It meant the system was hacked even before their protection software had a chance to act. More disturbing however, is the hack was used to erase their biological memories. I did not believe it myself at first but neural map scans show a strong discontinuity when the Kunstler involve are asked about events surrounding the raid. The timing of the raid maps up to the damaged memory. One, Jana Hall, was hacked on three separate occasions. Twice on overflights of the attacking convoy and during the attack. Jana did not notice the first two. After the attack, she believed it to be a head injury until the Patrol investigated and found no injuries. Also, it can be seen in the attached data that Vanko’s scans at the time of the attack show the exact same patterns. A penetration using the radio driver which is somehow used to erase the memory. I am sorry our analysis cannot go any deeper, our equipment is quite old. We cannot tell how the erasure was performed, just that it was. We cannot tell if it can be reversed either. A good number of us are very worried about this. And we need a patch for the SSC plugin fast. Kind Regards --Daisuke Edo -------------------------------------------- Mk 1 Homo Sapiens. Just because it is old. Do not throw it away.
The response to his mail was pretty much exactly what he expected. Grabbing a can of Red Bull, he settled in for a long night.
Jana’s quarters were in the older part of Grunthal, in the original welded shipping containers. Four steel walls, with some storage space for her few personal items that’d been recovered after the crash, a desk with a few workbooks and a porthole which looked out into the canyon.
There was no bed... just an upright rack where Jana was supposed to sleep.
She longed for a bed. She longed for the feel of soft downy sheets brushing against skin she didn’t have anymore. There were sensory pickups on the metal, but they just weren’t the same. There was no caress of a cool breeze, no tingle from a hot sun, just an electric tingle of information which informed her that something was touching her arm.
Synthetic skin just wasn’t robust enough for vacuum operation.
The picture of her... of who she was... wearing that leotard in zero-g gear with streamers trailing behind her... it brought tears to her eyes. She swallowed a lump in her throat... at least that felt real, trying to remember what it felt like to wear that leotard... how tight it was against her skin.
“Dammit,” she whimpered. Her fist clenched, her breathing hard and rapid. “God Dammit!” she screamed, driving her fist through the table.
It offered as much resistance as a piece of tissue paper might. The chipboard just burst apart, dumping the contents on the floor. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at her fist, at electromechanical joints, at the broken flakes of chipboard strewn about the floor.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In through the nose, slow out through the mouth, blowing air across her lips. She could feel her spit vapourise, just a gentle cooling that seemed to sooth. Close her eyes... take deep breaths. Isolate the self from the machine. Go right back and feel that inner core then slowly add each and every system to it, integrate them into herself.
Open her eyes again.
She could see the heat radiating off of where the sun had been shining all day.
A few more tears tickled as they fell down her cheeks. She padded them away with tissue paper, shaking her head to clear it. She could feel the mass of her hair moving, brushing against the back of her neck...
There was something reassuring about that.
Always remember Jana, this was your choice, she thought. And just when I thought I was getting over it, this happened.
She stiffened her lip.
“I am still Jana Hall,” she reassured herself. “I am still Jana Hall,”
She still felt wide awake, but her power cells were in the red. She stepped back into the alcove, feeling docking ports on her back, arms, legs and neck come open. She felt them dock, connectors sliding into place.
Systems called out green in her mind as power and data began to flow. Actuators shut down, inerting themselves for safety reasons while the alcove began to interrogate her hardware. Diagnostic cycles began automatically, ensuring her charging circuits were functional.
The power turned on, warm and flowing through her core. It made her smile unwittingly. It might not have been a weighty duvet, but there was still something deeply satisfying about that feeling, despite its unnaturalism.
She had to admit, there were things she enjoyed about this. The training... the training really helped, even if her trainer was far better at handling the action side of things than she was at the psychology.
Being out in space was all she hoped it would be; it was just the price seemed that bit too high. However she figured if she could hold onto that, she’d get through this eventually. She had no choice really but to.
With that thought, she allowed the sleep inducers to kick in, gently pushing the biological parts of her mind into restful unnatural sleep.
She dreamed of her last competition, of the cheering crowd.
Jets morning started with breakfast. She wasn’t really the best at it. The one time Jet’d tried to do something more complex than pancakes, she set the fire suppression off. Technically it was still night time, she’d only slept for two hours. Just enough to recharge the batteries and keep dopamine levels in balance.
Any longer and she’d hit REM sleep and that was something she was keen to avoid.
She had a small breakfast and got herself cleaned up. Ford was still sleeping in the tanker truck which made up the living quarters when Jet left.
Sara was always alive, there was always something going on. A battlemover stomped past. The new dome kept the dust out. It also kept her from just shooting straight up and off.
Her morning commute involved a quick boost up to orbit, a spin around the planet, followed by a skipping re-entry down to Grunthal. By the time she got around the planet, it’d be just past sunrise. Twelve hours or so later, when training was finished, she’d scoot back around home and have another few hours to spend with Ford.
While she had quarters at the base, it was worth the extra effort. And USB-powered devices with decent bioskin sensory feedback made things fun. Bzzzzt... snigger. There were advantages to plug and play hardware... with a bit of effort you could really make up for the deficiencies of solid armour. That thought never failed her smirk, and her insides ‘fizz’.
Still, skimming through the canyons of Noctis, she knew today was going to be one of those days. It was a feeling in her, well, bones. The courier was due from the White Tower sometime this morning... she checked her planner to be sure about the time.
It was a useful thing, having an iPod in her head. It let her fake being smarter than she was. That GURPS profile proved it. At least it had its own wireless and cellular systems, so she could make do without the SCC plugin even if flying in crowded space without radar was just a little bit hairy. The usual morning commute gave her a chance to make a few quick changes to Jana’s training schedule, read some coursework and go through the details of that joint training exercise planned with the Soviets. Flying was second nature; she didn’t even have to think about it.
The morning mist clung to the valley, Jet skipping just above it to see where she was going, banking right over the training grounds and the motorball track. She passed the track, and flew over the construction work. Grunthal had changed in the last few years, hadn’t it?
There was one new hanger, housing the Destiny Nova, while another was being built for the shuttle they’d ordered. There was more building work in the walls of the canyon, expanding the base, while two yellow digger trucks trundled across the canyon floor with a load of rubble. The construction company was made up of mundanes just up to make money.
Feeling playful, she deliberately threw herself over into a spiral dive, aiming straight for the ground. Her whole body clenched up tight inside the armour to resist the G-forces, forcing blood up to what remained of her brain. She could feel every muscle in her body pulsing along in time with her heartbeat. She couldn’t breath. The injectors from her life-support systems took over, force-oxygenating her blood.
At the last instant before a very terminal crunch, she pitched herself back, aiming feet forward. A braking flash from her engines brought her to a gentle touchdown on a ledge, just outside what was effectively the front door to Grunthal proper.
Her whole body released at once, blood fizzing back out to her extremities chased by a quick shot of adrenaline that made her shiver just a little bit. Always fun.
Thanks to the miracle of wireless networking, she pulled her email off the server as she keyed in the entry code to the doorway. She was already reading them before she reached her office.
A quick text search on the stuff coming in off the SMoF list didn’t pull up her name. Since nobody was specifically trying to contact her, she just ignored the lot. Jet got involved in the politics surrounding a convention exactly once, years before Jet became Jet. That had been once too many times. She muttered her daily curse at whoever had decided to sign her up to that waste of bytes, leaving the whole lot on the server to archive just in case it was important later on.
Next, she sent a message to Jana, letting her know what her new schedule would be. Jana herself answered a few minutes later with an affirmative. That was good, the more she used her internal systems the better for her getting used to having them. Jet made the decision to go ahead with the day’s planned exercise.
Jet also made sure Jana was scheduled alongside Francoise Arnoul in the Kammers. Francoise was a dancer too. She might be able to help. Jet let Yoko, the Kammer’s leader, know about it.
Next item on her morning agenda was firing off an email to the Soviet Airforce, suggesting a date for that proposed exercise at Gagarin. Afterwards, she saw to the rest of the Engel Gruppe. She ran through a few Gruppe exercises, checked maintenance, operational and downtime requirements and set meditation and practice schedules for five other upcoming trainees.
Jet wasn’t only responsible for Jana.
Finally, she saw to her own practice. Keeping her own edge was just as important.
She was with the trainees in one of the practice halls when the Radi-KS courier arrived on her speed-drive-equipped skateboard, decked out in day-glo re-entry gear plastered in sponsored logos from Fencorps....to go with the fandom.
“Just thumb on the dotted line,” the courier smiled, helmet underarm while she handed a pad to Jet.
Jet grimaced as she tapped her metallic fingers on the touchscreen, “Got a pen?”
“Ew,” the courier winced “Metal lady likes the old fashioned way. Viki can dig that, Viki got a pen.” She clicked it and offered it to Jet. “Well, electric stylus but it does the same,”
Jet took it and signed on the pad, the glass creaking a little. Behind the dark shades, the courier was obviously some fenkinder, maybe only 14 years old or so. “There y’go,” she handed the pad back,
“Viki says thank you for using Radi-KS. The fastest, the securest, the most radical courier service there is out of Serenity Valley.” The courier winked, “And now with special discount for Con veterans!”
“Thanks,” Jet forced a smile, hoping it’d be enough since she had no money on her to offer a tip. Honestly, where was she supposed to carry her wallet?
The girl left with a zoom, leaving Jet holding the package. Just a simple jump drive. She plugged it into on of her USB ports and skimmed through some of the files inside. ID’s on suspects, images of vehicles, a few possible leads, but not much that was immediately useful. Nothing technical at any rate. Disappointing
Still, with a quick thought she fired it off to Daisuke in case he might find something useful, along with the warning against doing anything which might let anyone know they had it. Then finally got back to the 5 trainees who’d been watching the whole time. Jana was there, doing her best.
“Sorry about that,” she apologised. “Now back to where we were. This exercise is going to be a standard canyon run with full kit, with one difference.”
That gleam in Jet’s eye made them nervous. They were decked out with training gear, metal blanks on their arms instead of true Damascus blades. Jet’s blades were the real deal; shinning, shimmering steel.
“We’re going to run blindfolded.” Jet informed them. “No eyesight allowed.”
There were worried murmurs from the trainees, each of them looking at each other. Jet picked up one or two flashes of text messages being sent quickly.
“Now. We’re going to go slowly at first. I’ll be watching you and giving warnings. The usual rules apply. Remember, if in doubt, get out. Pitch up vertical, don’t try and make a turn you aren’t sure about.”
She looked right at each one of them in-turn, gauging their reactions. About normal really for a mission like this. It sounded insane. It sounded lethal. It was, once you actually started doing it, pretty simple.
“We all have radar senses capable of the necessary resolution,” And the chance of being attacked on a training exercise was, in Jet’s judgment, low to non-existent, especially with the precautions taken. “And if you don’t want to try that, you also have your navigation systems, a map, and a timer.”
“If the map is accurate enough,” one of the trainees snarked. Jana quietly tied her blindfold over her eyes before putting on her helmet. A small pair of metallic vanes extended out from just behind where the ears would be. She looked up at Jet almost pleadingly for some reassurance.
Jet answered with a soft smile, snapping her own wings into place with a sharp chack-ak.
“The aim of these exercises is to get you used, not just to using your hardware, but to relying on it totally. Over the next six weeks, you should be able to make these runs blindfolded as fast as you can eyes open. Now w…”
She stopped mid-word, cut off by an incoming message. “Sorry guys. Duty just called,” she apologised with a smile, “Pair off for sparring. I’ll ask one of the Gruppe to come down and take over.”
Normally, she’d ask one of the AR’s to take over, none of the AR’s were flight capable. Lenneth agreed to take over. By the time Jet got the message, she was halfway to Daisuke’s workshop and storming through the corridors with a purpose, still wearing blades and still decked out in full flight gear with rusty eye-black on her cheeks. She damn near pulled the workshop door off getting it open, before slamming it behind her.
Daisuke jumped out of his chair, sending empty cans of energy drink clattering to the floor. The cybertech adjusted his glasses, staring bleary eyed at the armoured figure standing in the glare of the lights.
“Jesus Christ man, you’ve been awake all night,”
“Lie, Lie,” Daisuke slurred, “Daijoubu, daijoubu,” he shook his head. “I am okay,”
“You sure?”
“Not first time I pull all-nighter,” Dai smiled, trying to keep a yawn in “Not last. All I need is Red Bull and Sailor Moon image songs to keep my batteries charged.”
Jet sucked on her lower lip for a moment, “So, what was so urgent? Find something interesting?”
“Oh yes,” Daisuke nodded, wearing a cat like smirk. “The entire mailing list was working on it, even Attim was in. The scan data will take some time to analyse, another day at least before everyone has results, so we worked on patching the vulnerability.”
“Damn,” Jet murmured under her breath. She’d been hoping for an answer to give to Jana.
“No. We found something. In the driver.” There was a gleam in Daisuke’s eye. He was clearly having fun being the important one. “We audited the code, going line by line through it to where we thought the problem was.”
“And...”
“Look for yourself,” A quick flurry of keystrokes sent the source file to Jet, with a few lines highlighted. It took the cyborg a few moments to parse through it, followed by another few seconds wondering what the problem was, some more time to check, then doublecheck it before she realised something.
“It looks okay,” she said, looking a little confused.
“Exactly!” Daisuke damn near jumped down her throat. He really was wired like a power station. “There is nothing wrong with it. Step through it in the debugger and it runs fine. It makes all proper bounds checks.”
“But...” Jet began.
“It does not work when compiled into a binary. Running on the actual system. It performs the bounds check, but with certain inputs, does not report the correct answer. It tells the program that the input is correct even thought it is not.”
“Compiler bug?” Jet assumed the obvious.
“What we assumed. But...” Daisuke looked away at his screen. “Read the logs. They knew exactly where to look and exactly what to do.”
Jet sucked a breath through her lips. “Fuck.”
One word which summed up both of their feelings. Somebody on the mailing list had leaked the information.
“It is worse than that,” Daisuke said, his voice flattening. The tech almost seemed to be disappointed by what he’d found. He clicked his mouse and brought something new up on screen. “We decided to take a look at the compiler itself to see if it was a bug, or not. It was a few of us keeping our cards close to our chest. What we found...” he clicked and sent it to Jet.
Again, the relevant section was highlighted and commented. It still took her more than a few seconds to figure her way through it. Daisuke could see the moment Jet worked it out, that flash of anger followed by an almost pained grimace.
“Who’ve you told?” she asked him.
“Just a few. Nobody from Sirius Cybernetics. Or any of their associates.”
Jet nodded, exhaling a long sigh as she buried her face in her hands for a moment. Her blades glinted menacingly.
“Right,” she said, trying to catch up with her own thoughts. “Right so, this just became a Troubleshooter matter.”
Jet didn’t bother flashing her warrant card. Daisuke looked up at her, then at his own screen allowing himself a small smirk of satisfaction. He may not have been cyber-enhanced like many of the others, he might not have been a great fighter or a warrior, but he could still make himself invaluable. It’s not the hardware, but how you used it.
“Why didn’t anyone spot this?” Jet asked, after a few moments silence.
“It is a special compiler for a special hardware chip,” Daisuke answered. “Only four people work on it.”
“And you can tell who committed these changes to the code?”
Like all open-sourced projects, they most likely kept careful logs of who’d committed what changes to what code, and when.
“I did it. Just before I messaged you.”
Jet smiled at him. “Nice one,”
“The least I can do,” He checked his screen, “Roland Foster. Comm’s specialist. He committed the bug April thirteenth last year. It has been in every build since.”
It took only a few keystrokes to send the rest of the data to Jet.
“Is Roland on the ML?”
“Unh,” Daisuke nodded, “Yes he is. But once it became obvious that the problem was not accidental, we have been keeping it private,”
He was in his element. This was so much more fun than plugging thanklessly away on quick repairs.
Jet nodded “Keep this secret for the time being. If he thinks we’re on to him, he could go to ground, or ‘vanish’.” She thought for a moment, “What does Roland normally work on? What’s his expertise?”
“Communications, like I said.”
“Hardware, software, wetware?”
“Software mostly, some hardware. I do not know about wetware.... probably not. Sirius themselves provide hardware plugins only, which only ever interface with existing hardware.”
The conclusion to be drawn there was obvious enough.
“So, he couldn’t have pulled off this hack alone,” Jet leaned down on Daisuke’s desk, thinking. It started to buckle.
Daisuke exhaled a long breath, “In Japan, we would call this situation ‘Fukushima’,”
Jet raised an eyebrow.
“Just keeps getting worse and worse,” he explained. “And might shit everywhere if we’re not careful,”
“Send everything you can on him to the terminal in my office,” A pause. “And when can you get a patch for the radio?”
“Now that I know what is wrong, an hour.”
“Great,” the cyborg smiled. “Don’t make it public. Keep it quiet, to people we trust. We can’t let Roland know we’re onto him yet. If he goes to ground, we lose whoever he’s working with,”
Arresting Roland would be the easy part, Jet figured.
“We are already doing it,” he said, with a proud smirk on his face. “And feeding Roland false information, making him believe we found a different error,”
Jet looked almost ashamed. “I should’ve assumed. If you need me, I’ll be in my office,”
The first thing she needed to do was make sure somebody filled in for her gruppe training duties while she was busy, the next was that she needed to find out where in Fenspace Roland Foster actually lived.
It wouldn’t make sense for her to take the mission if he was clear across the solar system. Someone else might be in a better position than her. It also paid to let other troubleshooters know what she was doing... so two people didn’t end up working the same mission. Next, she messaged Erwin, letting him know that she really hadn’t intended to do this when she asked for the info, while trading back what details she had.
The robbery was still a Space Patrol crime. Deliberately adding a back door to software that was used as a physical part of someone, then giving that information away to Zwilniks was a Great Justice matter.
It left a lingering sense of....violation, running through her body. Jet pushed it to the back of her mind.
It didn’t take too long for her to get an answer back on her search. A physical shipping address just around the planet, in Helium. The temptation was to just grab Roland as soon as possible. Nab him off the street and get the information out of him before somebody realises he was missing using the Gene Hunt method.
Something about the idea was deeply satisfying. It might even be possible to seat someone else at his email inbox and have them take his place.
Jet pondered it over a cup of black coffee. It could work but it just wouldn’t be Jet’s style. The other option was to just let Roland deliver his associates himself, without even realising it.
Jet dialled out using her onboard phone. It was still night on the other side of the planet, so she didn’t expect a quick answer. She scratched at the “Hunter-Warrior” badge engraved on her shoulder while it rang.
It was plated in gold leaf, varnished in place. It’d been a pig to get done, the handwavium metal-ceramic tearing through engraving tools, but it was worth it.
“Hey, uh Jet.” the voice on the other end slurred. “Y’know what time it is?”
“Ford,” she smiled. “We’ve got a job,”
“Great.... now let me sleep. We can’t all recharge from a power socket,”
“I’ll see you in the afternoon,”
“Yeah... late in the afternoon.”
Ford yawned as she hung up. Jet finished her coffee with her feet up on the desk. The next matter to worry about was Jana.
Installing the patch wasn’t hard. kextunload, followed by kextload, a deep breath and kextstat to check to see if it loaded properly. She sprung out her wings, listening in on all the radio chatter going on around her for a few moments followed by a quick radar scan of the room.
Dense objects and hard edges gave bright returns amidst the noise coming off the walls and furniture. She could close her eyes and still see where she was going.
She scanned through a few channels, listening in on different programs for a few moments before moving on. It was comforting to have it back online, even as she retracted her wings and dropped her reception ability back to normal.
Getting it back made her realised just how much she’d missed having it there. It made her feel oddly complete. The dirty violated module was deleted, and Jet felt clean and pure again.
She gave her blades a thin coating of oil before placing them back in their case, placing the case under her desk. She cleaned her face up while checking in on the others. Two of the Engels were out at the Watchtower, Gant was taking a training course on Atalante. She made sure everyone had the patch before spreading it out to a few contacts.
While waiting for a few responses, she started going through Roland Foster’s biography. It was nothing especially noteworthy over the last couple of years, just quietly plugging away for Sirius. He was Nobody special; no listed biomods, Just moved into a new apartment in one of Helium’s more upmarket Towers. He’d somehow managed to get himself a Mig-25 dirtside and launch way back in ‘08. First fen. A few notable accomplishments back before the Fenspace convention really existed...including some early pre-Islandcon interwave stuff, but nothing since. A one hit wonder really.
But damn he’d been around a long time, why’d he go bad now?
7 years doing the same thing, it might just be sheer ennui and boredom.
Jet could empathise with at lest. She took the troubleshooters job to keep the variety in her life. Another example of how much she’d changed. Had things been different and certain mistakes not been made, maybe she could’ve been the one stuck in a rut.
There was a knock on her door.
[It’s Me, Jana.]
“Yeah,” she called out, sitting herself upright.
The door opened, Jana stepping in carefully. She was still covered in dust after her canyon run. “You wanted to see me?”
Jet nodded, putting on a warm smile. “Yeah. Come in. You can sit on the couch, just put the gear on the floor or something,”
Jana looked around for a few moments, realising that this was the first time she’d ever actually been inside Jet’s office. It was just as disorganised and messy as she’d expected; something which made her feel just a little more comfortable. It was a very human place. She sat herself beside the circuit gear, edging it over just a little.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing today,” said Jet, with a deliberate softness in her voice.
“A little better,” Jana answered hesitantly.
“Good.” The Engel leader waited a moment. “Better how?”
Jana shrugged, “After the exercise, I spent most of the morning with Acht, training. We started talking, about how I felt “ She gave Jet a guilty smile, “I ask her how she kept her identity, being just a copy of Alita,”
Jet looked surprised, “You’re still alive,”
Jana rubbed at her shoulder, wearing an embarrassed smile. “She told me she wasn’t just a copy. Then she kicked my ass.” She forced a laugh. “It.... didn’t hurt as much. Daisuke patched me up,”
She just radiated discomfort, pulling at her arm.
“She ripped your arm off?”
Jana nodded once. “It didn’t hurt.” Not like it was supposed to. “It was....annoying. She picked me up; then picked up the arm. Some of the power lines were sparking.... I could feel it. She looked at me and asked me if I was still Jana Hall.”
“And?” Jet pressed.
“Well,.... yeah. She asked ‘What made me Jana Hall’?” she paused. “I couldn’t answer her. She just did that lip pursing thing all the AR’s do and said that ‘I know I’m Acht. I know I’m a different person and not just a copy. We start the same, but from the first millisecond we become different people. And I know what makes me different from my sisters, what makes me Acht, and not just an Alita Replica. So she asked me again what made me Jana?”
“Sounds like Acht alright,” The AR’s may have scored low on AI intelligence tests, but sometimes they could be far sharper than even the supposedly super-intelligent ones.
“What made me Jana before I had that accident? Was I any less Jana now that she had pulled my arm completely off?” She sighed, looking at the floor “I said, no. So she said, so why should replacing both arms, or both legs.... or a torso. If an arms makes no difference, or a leg, adding any number of zeroes is still zero,” She stopped, thinking about it for a moment. Jet just sat back, waiting for her to keep going.
“I...” Jana paused again, holding her hand out in front. “It makes sense rationally. But.... I don’t feel it. I know it’s true, I know I’m me.... but I can’t shake the feeling. They were inside my head”, she pointed to her ear, “First replacing parts of my brain, then...got inside my mind. I’m...supposed to be me, but....” she swallowed a little, trying to think it through. “It just feels wrong. I think...”
She stopped, looking up at Jet for a moment, then at her own arm, flashing a set of vents at herself.
“When did you stop being whoever you were, and become Jet Jaguar? When did you know? What did that feel like?”
Jet looked like she’d sat on a live sparkplug.
“I didn’t,” Jet answered, looking down at the Jet figure on her desk, “I picked this name off the top of my head to answer an air traffic controller so they wouldn’t know who I really was.” She looked strangely ashamed. “I just grew into the name, for want of a better phrase. Why, is that how you think you feel?”
“Maybe...” Jana answered quietly. “Maybe not. I feel better than yesterday,” she forced a smile, “I saw my arm torn off and Acht was right, I wasn’t any less Jana than with it. But... I was less human, and Jana is human?”
“You don’t feel human anymore?”
“No,” Jana confirmed.
Jet made a note of it in Jana’s file. “That’s good,” she said.
Jana looked confused.“But... I thought...”
Jet’s smiled warmed up, “It’s important for you to understand that you really aren’t human anymore.” She leaned forward again, resting herself on her desk. “You’ve gone beyond humanity and become something different, You see...”
Jet paused to collect her thoughts for a moment.
“This isn’t Cyberpunk 2020. Cybernetics don’t eat your soul,” She hated referencing that site, but sometimes it said things better. “That’s just something game designers made up to keep munchkins from going crazy. Your self isn’t harmed by this,” she knocked against her own body. “You don’t have to be human to be a person. Your body doesn’t determine who you are, it’s just a shell that lets you do stuff and experience things, and lets the world do stuff with you.”
“So what makes me ‘me’ then?” Jana asked, looking hopefully at Jet.
“I’m not really a philosopher,” Jet demurred. Jana’s expression was insistent however. “Well,” Jet looked at her terminal screen for a moment. “Your actions determine your existence. What you do, what people do to you...what you enjoy doing, what you hate. What did you enjoy doing six months ago?”
“Stardancing,” Jana answered quickly. That was the first thing which came to mind.
“And,” Jet pushed.
“I liked performing. I like being in front of a crowd and listening to them cheer. I liked the smell of pancake breakfast in the morning. I liked... the view out the window from my home on Central.” She paused, realising something, “I know where this is going to go... you’re going to say that I still like all those things, and so on... so I’m still the same person,”
Jet gave a gallic shrug. ”It’s cliché but true. But it’s important to understand that being human isn’t needed to be Jana. Human is just a label for a type of body really. You don’t have to be human to be a person. The very....” she stopped for a moment to think “ … the very essence of who you are is still there. Your body can be whatever you want it to be....”
“It’s easy to understand that rationally. A different thing to feel it,”
“The feeling is something that just takes time,” Jet reassured her. “It helps if you do things that you enjoy, or things that you associate with yourself. Things that make you feel complete... like what you said yesterday.”
Jana was quiet, turning it over in her mind. Take a deep breath to heave a sigh. Feel how alien and wrong it is. It’s okay to feel not-human, she told herself... because you’re not. Look down at the intakes on the sides of her legs.... and it just feels completely and utterly wrong. She curled her toes up, then spun the turbine on it’s starter motor for a second, feeling it wind up inside her leg. It was just a gentle torque on her knee.
Jet look startled for a moment, wondering just what she was doing.
“It might be okay not to be human,” Jana said, carefully choosing her words. “But, can I still lose my....um.... humanity?”
It took Jet a few moments to figure it out.
“You mean decency, common empathy and just being a Good Person type thing?”
In fairness, Jet had no idea what word to use for it other than ‘humanity’ either. Jana just nodded.
“Cybernetics doesn’t take that away either” answered Jet. “You can trust me on that too. And the things that will... they affect squishies just as easily. I’ve seen plenty of ordinary humans without a shred of humanity in them.” she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. It was something that had the weight of experience behind it. She decided not to go into details, preferring to let those experiences fade back into the background.
“It’s good that you’re worried about that too,” This was something Jet had saved, she couldn’t remember from exactly where, it might’ve been from an old fic, but it had always struck her as rather profound. “Let me try an analogy. You know what the difference is between a truly good, religious person and a fanatic is?”
Jana shook her head.
“The fanatic will never - CAN never - question himself. Their faith is brittle and cannot stand up to scrutiny. The good person will admit to themselves doubts, and work through them. Sometimes the doubt remains, but it doesn't cripple their belief. It's the same with us. The surest way to know if you still have your humanity is to be able to doubt whether you do." She paused to let her thoughts catch up. “It shows that being a good, decent person is still important to you. So long as that matters, you won’t lose it. It’s when it stops mattering that you have the problem,”
Jana was still looking at her feet, spinning her engine up. She took another breath....another reminder of what she was.
“There are things I’m going to miss too.” Jana said. “And I guess, if I were to magically get my old self back, there’re things I’d miss about this body too.”
“Me too,” Jet assured. “We’ve all gone through this.”
Jana focused on the floor. Do things you enjoy, do things you associate with yourself. Where had she been going when that bloody idiot crashed into her? Bang and darkness.... She shook off that memory.
“Jet...” she started. “I’m going to Jeanne’s Dance this year,” she stated with firm conviction and a stare in her eyes that might almost have been channelling Alita’s determination. “I’m going to enter using Panzer Kunst,” she grinned. “It’s got an austere beauty to it.”
Jet looked perplexed for a moment, working through the idea. “That’s.... that’s actually a good idea. It’ll fit with your training.” It was perfect... she didn’t have to change her planning or scheduling any more, while a direct goal would be good for Jana to work towards.
It was still going to take her time to work through, and Jet wondered if she’d be ready for Zenith. She started to twirl a few strands of hair through her fingers, mulling it over. Doing it without ripping clumps out took a surprising amount of concentration.
“So, how are you feeling?” Jet repeated her question from earlier.
“Better,” Jana saw no reason to change her answer. She sure wasn’t over it, not within an ass’s roar of being over it. She didn’t feel comfortable... even breathing still felt wrong, never mind the thermal glow everything seemed to have.
She could trace the underfloor heating, if she wanted to. She could still look in a mirror and see an alien face, even though her friends recognised her immediately. It still felt wrong on so many levels that someone had been inside her mind.
But....
Take a deep breath. Close her eyes. Open them again.
It did seem... surmountable. With time and effort.... it would pass. She could believe that at least. Jet looked at her, then checked her own notes.
“One last thing,” the Engel leader said, “I’m going to be away on duty for a while. The others will still be here to help. If you really need me, message me... but It’ll be a while before I can answer,”
“Yeah,” Jana replied. “I’ll try with Acht, she offered to help me if I need it,” Jet raised an eyebrow. Jana grinned a little. “I guess, I must’ve impressed her.,”
Jet wasn’t sure whether Jana was proud of whatever had impressed Acht, or ashamed. She figured it must’ve been equal parts both, and set a reminder to ask Acht what exactly happened. Impressing the AR’s was hard...
The meeting came to and end with a promise from Jet to check up on Jana at the end of the week, and a promise from Jana to keep working.
A few more little administrative loose ends needed to be tied up. She started idly spooling her engines over as she worked, just taking care of a few last things before she left for Marsbase Sara.
She was already formulating her own mission plan.
Step one: Quick surveillance of Foster’s apartment. Note anyone going in/out. Laser bug it. See if there’s a way to gain into his computer remotely. If not, see if there’s a way in.
Step two: Depends on step one.
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