First Contact

Chapter 843: Names of the Fallen

It's Tuesday where I am. Proof of life is... oh, I don't know. I saw a bird today, at least, what passes for a bird here locally. More like a lizard with wings. But it tries to sing and the singing reminds me of the sound my first ground-car made.

Let's get it out of the way.

The color 880808 will block the shades attacks as well as keep them from moving through an object when painted with it. The color used as light is difficult for a shade to enter but they CAN enter it.

Mylar with a 0.25 micron layer of aluminum oxide works as another barrier, although something about the shade's touch causes the aluminum oxide to slowly vanish. You can hide under a mylar safety blanket, but you'll be able to feel the shades touching the blanket.

Just another data point for those who come after, I guess.

The sound of a goodboi howl will cause them to vanish or even flee. Even a recording will work.

You become used to what I've heard referred to as "The Baskerville Choir" after a while.

The hissing of a purrboi will get them to flee.

Goobois, Purrbois, and Terran Descent Humans are able to fight these things without armor.

Too bad there's not very many of them.

Sodium lights work. The shades don't like the light. Make sure it's in the yellow specturm. If you go full bluish white, they congregate under the light.

Sodium chloride (you can even have iodine additives) for a barrier or to disrupt the shades if flicked at them. The sodium chloride line must be at least a quarter inch thick and completely cover the surface for it to be effective. Spread across doorways and window sills.

You can also put a circle around yourself if you're in trouble.

Iron weapons. Projectiles don't work that well, unless you're Terran or lucky enough to be Enraged.

They seek out phasic energy. Stay away from the Atrekna, the Dwellerspawn, and your local psychic.

You can use a barrier of iron oxide in place of salt. (Thanks to the Hesstlan Code Station broadcast for that before their ansible went offline)

Remember, you can see them easier at night.

Well, that's about it for today.

You can probably tell I'm tired.

Me and the others are going to try to break out of the city tonight. There's supposedly a Terran military base in the mountains, we're going for it.

If nothing else, to make sure their superluminal communications system is down.

Good luck. Stay alive and remember: you aren't alone. - Recorded Broadcast from the front Lines of Iron Piglet; Journalist unknown (Presumed Killed in Action, remains unrecovered, file header damaged)

"You have no idea the lengths I will go to survive." - Unknown Terran, recording fragment found in ruins. No Terran remains discovered.

"We Stopped the Signal, Mal!" - Graffiti found in VR space. Origin unknown.

Ahead of him was the tunnel that led to the ansibles, led to the superluminal signal propagation systems. It was a virtual construct, the walls of error and virus checkers, the lights file header sorters and designation routers.

The convoy of heavy tractor trailer rigs were all heading straight for it.

On either side were vehicles that were weaving back and forth, the digital representation of the drivers all screaming and clawing at their own faces, beating their faces on the dashboards or the steering wheels, or fighting with one another.

Normies caught in the system and attacked by the emp-shades.

The cop and SWAT vehicles had dropped back, the heavy forms of black ICE roaring out their authority over the area. The eVI and VI security programs deferring to the big boys.

The eVI and the VI couldn't see what Crashrider could see.

The black ICE was swarmed by emp-shades. They were fighting for the digital lives against the cold icy touch of the dead Terrans. Even as Crashrider watched one slumped down, falling to pieces, the emp-shades ripping at its form, tearing away data to cram into their mouths.

His eyes narrowed as he saw that the emp-shades screamed in wrath, the digital flesh and blood of the black ICE pouring from their mouths as they shrieked.

The black ICE didn't have what the emp-shades wanted.

His eyes shielded by his mirror shades, he looked around again, checking for any threats.

Crashrider held his Caught-Tonya blade with one hand, his SMG in the other, staring ahead of him. His left hand was bleeding, the digital flesh carved with "We Gotta Stop the Signal, Mal" on it. One lens of his mirrorshades was cracked but slowly repairing.

Dime and Plushie were on his left, Talon and Rain on his right. All of them crouched down, one knee pressed against the top of the tractor-trailer that was full of corporate inventory files heading for the Maggie's Love Line.

The digital Mag-Lev.

Straight to the ansibles. Straight to the hypercom wave repeaters. Straight to everything.

"Nobody's ever ridden Maggie and survived to tell the tale," Dime yelled over the buffeting wind.

"Guess someone's gotta pop Maggie's cherry!" Crashrider yelled back. He sheathed his Caught-Tonya across his back, reloading his SMG with DDOS and hijack rounds.

Steel Talon, the last of Crashrider's original guild members, who had been an Alpha Tester and an ARG player just like Crash, nodded grimly. "Nothing to lose in meat or code," she said.

"I'ma withsa yousa," Plushie said. He gave a short, sharp laugh and switched from 1337-speak to regular Unified Standard. "Overseers always told me I wouldn't amount to anything and I should be grateful to them." The other runner looked around himself. "Guess the joke's on them, I'm about to flame out spectacularly."

"Crash..." Rain said, pointing at the front of the truck.

It had put on its turn signal, heading for the virus check station. One of the dummy VI's had somehow twigged onto the runners and was flagging the triple trailer semi into the station.

Crashrider looked around.

Nothing but smaller cars.

All driven by people driven mad.

Crash closed his eyes for a second.

No matter how much chrome, the heart never changes, he told himself.

He opened his eyes, looking at the various vehicles.

"Everyone take a car," he said, reaching down and drawing a knife that was little more than a browser hijacker forged into a blade. "Use these. Stab the poor sod in the driver's seat and head for the superluminals. I'm going to try something."

Everyone nodded.

Steel Talon leaned forward, bumping her forehead against his before standing up, taking two steps, and jumping off the back of the semi-trailer. She somersaulted in midair, tucking her legs tight, the chrome tips of her boots catching the sun for a second.

Crash turned his attention back to the station, putting the knife back in the sheathe.

There was still security everywhere, all of it designed to keep rogue code from the ansibles.

A legacy of the Precursor War from where the Autonomous War Machines had hijacked large swaths of GalNet and broadcast their terrible actions.

The truck slowed and came to a stop.

Crashrider burst into motion, jumping off the top, spinning in midair to bring targets into sight. He held the SMG tight, one hand around the grip, the other on the forward handle, finger on the trigger. The bursts were short, tight, only two to five rounds. His implanted smartwire fed the data to his eyes and brain, which knew exactly when to fire.

The initial flagger went down, its chest blown open, blood spraying. The two guards by the door went down, both of them shot through the chest.

There was an alarm and a dozen security guards popped up from the ground like whack-a-moles, but Crash was ready. He'd seen the glimmering in the code of the ground.

He emptied his magazine on the last guard and he let the SMG fall on the strap as he broke into a run toward the main building.

It wasn't a large building, but Crash knew that looks could be deceiving.

It was the packet authorization and switching station for the entire ansible system.

The Caught-Tonya blade sang and sparkled as Crash drew it even as he rushed forward.

A guard tried to close the door, but a thrust of the blade transfixed the guard and stopped the door. Crash stepped through, tasting blueberries, and hacked down two more guards. One further down the hall fired their heavy pistol.

He was in The Zone.

He parried all nine bullets, the code packets hitting the wall in a shower of sparks.

The guard threw the pistol at Crash, who parried it, catching it with the edge of the blade, swishing the blade around, and throwing the pistol back.

The butt of the pistol slammed between the guard's eyes and the guard dropped.

Three steps and Crash was over the supine guard, putting his shoulder into the door. The barrier exploded as his cracker busted the encryption on the first try and Crash rolled into the room.

The bullets of the security forces tore into the wall at would have been waist level if he had walked into the room. Instead, the bullets snapped over his head, even as he drew his own pistol and came up on one knee, the Caught-Tonya held out from his body at a 45 degree angle, his pistol held out, the smartlink in the Ares Predator-II synched up perfectly.

He emptied the magazine, a single bullet for each of the secmen. Each bullet punching through a weak spot in the armor and crashing each of the security programs.

Crash didn't waste time, coming up smoothly, reloading his pistol one handed before holstering it.

A kick drove open the control room.

A half dozen emp shades rushed him.

He was in the zone.

He was a Animeland cherry blossom floating in the reflection of the moon on a perfectly still pond of black water.

Two slashes and they all shrieked, shattering and dissolving even as he dodged out of the way of the two grabs at him.

Three avatars rushed him, foaming at the mouth, their eyes wild.

A single cut and they all dropped, derezzing immediately, their home decks or wage-decks slagging out as the malicious code embedded in the Caught-Tonya fried out the electronics they used to log into GalNet.

Crash moved up to the controls, glancing at the board.

He could see which cars his friends were in. See that the automated systems had flagged all three cars for stop and search.

Crash typed without looking at the keyboard, rapidly altering the flow of code.

One by one the cars were cleared, overriden, and Crash watched them vanish into the tunnels, each heading toward one of the superluminal systems.

With a single exception.

The Maggie's Love Line and the Hypercom Wave system.

Running it naked was impossible. Everyone knew it. You had to use dedicated lines.

Even the authorized systems could only use text interfaces and limited 2.5D GUIs. No VR or eVR for the Hypercom Wave, which was the main backbone for the realtime eVR linkages that surpassed even GalNet's ability.

It was impossible.

Crash closed his eyes again.

I am the chrome blossom floating inside the reflection of the moon upon the waters of the black digital pond.

He opened them and headed for the exit.

Twice emp shades burst out at him, twice he cut with the Caught-Tonya, slicing them in half and moving on before they had even finished dissipating.

He burst out into the parking lot, kicking open the heavy steel door.

A glance up showed a sky the color of a tri-vee turned to a dead channel.

The stars had gone out.

Crash ran for the nearest vehicle, a police cruiser. He jumped as he got close, leading with his boots, crashing through the ID check and password, into the driver's seat in a shower of burst code. A slam with his palm brought the cruiser to life.

Secmen ran out of the building, firing assault rifles, hitting the light armor t he cruiser. Sparks exploded off, the back window shattered, and Crash grunted as a round went through the trunk, through the back seat, and through the back of his seat, catching him just under the bottom of his body armor.

Crash stomped the pedal, wishing he had his old motorcycle, which he'd lost on a run on a Smaug itself. The car fishtailed as it screeched out of the parkinglot. Two guards popped up, firing pistols, and Crash ducked down, slamming the grill into both of them, sending them flying over the top of the car even as they derezzed.

A couple of punches, half standing up, and the windshield flew away, vanishing as he pulled into traffic, swerving across a dozen lanes. A semi-truck caught the ass of the cruiser, ripping away the bumper, but Crash got it under control.

SWAT choppers filled the dead sky, their black armor merging almost flawlessly with the background. Dev textures started popping in and out and one of the choppers got tangled with the sky as textures overlaid it. The explosion was greasy, but Crashrider didn't notice.

Maggie's Mouth yawned open in front of him.

He looked back once.

The city, normally gleaming chrome and sparkling lights, was awash with red light, whole sections going dark.

He looked forward at the mouth of the tunnel.

His fingerless leather gloves creaked as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, the wind in his face and ruffling his hair. His mirrorshades were missing the left lens and his eye watered even though he was squinting.

He didn't close his eyes as the car crossed the threshhold.

He was Crashrider.

And he was in The Zone.