NOVEL WEB Blood and Steel C41: Two Highways
Chapter 41: Two Highways
SynTec Analyst’s personal view on the Old_Data; Author unknown.
What the world once knew as the internet no longer exists, it had been in disarray since The Collapse left most of Earth’s telecommunication devices without power. Even more troubling was the solar flare in 2097, all remaining satellites and underwater network cables ceased functioning due to the electromagnetic storm passing through the planet.
All of it would have been lost, ironically enough, had it not been for the MAL. Four years after the flare, the MALswarm descended from the heavens and overtook all of the planet’s destroyed technology, remaking them into living phenomena of engineering.
Perhaps most worrisome, is what they did with the internet. A library containing all of human knowledge left in scattered pieces
by a natural storm of radiation, yet the MAL had used it. They had found some sense within that chaos, perhaps they could only consume it because they were chaotic themselves. Or maybe it is better to say that the chaos of the fractured data consumed them?
Most worrisome is how the Data Devourers took after Artificial Intelligence, causing them to become [REDACTED]. They achieved a singularity within the Warpcode, thousand of MALs sometimes acting as one.
The MALtitan at the epicenter of the Old_Data. The Allseeing.
That is why the Old_Data is sealed off. We have NeoCore to thank for that, but that only troubles me more. Because it means they have access to it, they know what’s in there. Why haven’t they told us? Haithama’s resurgence of a Warpcode-based SecondNet… hasn’t it only given it more food? What will happen if they break out again?
I just hope I’m dead by the time that happens.
4:32 PM July 10th
The last couple of days after the job had been… nice. I was getting work done, I was getting better at it, I was learning quicker and I was finally getting to understand the people I would be working with.
“You’re in a chirpy mood… is it because of your partner today?” Daylight teased me, poking her holographic finger into my cheek.
“I swear to god, are you and Twilight best friends or something? Gossiping all the time?” An exasperated sigh ripped free of the confines of my chest, if I had to hear one more ‘seduce Elsa plan’ then I was going to lose my shit.
“No… Ripley… you are!” She hugged me,the warmth buzzing through me pleasantly.
“Then as my best friend… mind giving me a hand with these next few muscles?” I gave my best impression of a ‘looking helpless’ expression, but Psyche didn’t quite help me with acting.
She still indulged me, her warmth spreading through every synthetic and organic bone of my body.
Daylight Protocol Activated
All three sisters had some sort of twist on control. Daylight’s was subtle, she was less a puppeteer and more of a second brain that handled all the lower-conscious tasks at play in my mind. My eyesight sharpened, my fingers became more obedient, breathing mellowed and heart rate smoothed. She even had subtle effects on my mood.
Twilight on the other hand represented a more conscious control, she could directly manipulate limbs but only to her knowledge of them. It wasn’t like she could just become a master Shard Op’ by possessing the body of one.
As for Midnight… I would have to see her to know what it is.
And this was important information today, I was working with Mirage if what Missy said on my break was to be believed. Even Daylight wasn’t aware that Mirage had specifically asked for my aid on the job. It was good to know that neither of the Persona’s were that omniscient.
“So how’s a NetDelve… never did a deep dive before, sure my frame can handle it?” I was wary about sinking my consciousness into a digital world.
“Nope!” Daylight confidently answered as rewired the muscle onto the spine. “But don’t worry, her Neuroframe can take it! She’s already carrying three other mental bodies in with her, one like yours should be no issue!”
“That sounds like an insult.” I pointed it out to her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to call you dumb or anything, it's just that your mind’s relatively small right now!”
That sounded worse. “Uh okay, so what’s the worst that could happen?”
“Well, whenever me or Twilight aren’t with you, we normally dive into the net for a few days. It’s quiet on the surface, think of it like a reeeeaaally deep ocean, the more you sink down the creepier the data and your threats become. At lower AbyssNet levels, you could even find a stray Data Devourer.”
So MALware attacks. “And what about the human threat?”
“Datashields, cyberthiefs and Intrusion Countermeasures. We’ll be fitting you with a DS before you dive in, Elsa’d be stupid not to. Plus, since it would be crafted by her, it would easily be better than any cheaper stuff you’d find sold around.” She swirled out of my body as the job finished up, leaving me done for the day unless I decided to take some overtime.
As I was heading out, I first stopped by the gym showers. It was better than the one at my apartment even though a hundred sweaty goons used it last week. Readied up, I dried my hair with a towel and waited, Topaz rolling out soon through the changing room.
“Yo.” He waved at me, Topaz was around my age and somehow the most talkative yet least known member of Missy’s group to me. I’d heard that he has a brother from among the gym rabble, but he never really indulged most on topics other than the ones at hand. “Looking for a drive?”
“Yup.” I nodded thankfully, the place I was supposed to head to was some hostel an hour’s off from here. A monorail would be quicker, but I was coming to like the company.
“Hop in. Once we’re not naked tho.” He said, patting the buzzed yellow hair dry once more. I wondered if it had been dyed because the way it all contrasted against his dark skin was definitely a statement, his whole body was. He had piercings in more places than I could count, hidden even under his shirt as our time in the changing room had shown.
Not that I was staring… they were just… shiny. And spiky.
He kind of reminded me of Mirage in a way with the piercings. Except she wouldn’t step a foot in a gym like this, and he was much more friendly to the blind eye.
“Honestly… I want a piercing.” I casually mentioned as the car started up.
He had a hard time believing it. “Really?”
“Really.” I was honest. “Yours look… cool, Mirage’s too.”
“Well, I could take you to my guy. He knows his shit, and he’s fabulous with tattoos as well, even holographic ones.”
Holographic tattoos were just the latest fad, it was rare to find someone skilled in them. “Damn, really?”
“Really. Also like, sorry man, know you joined up and all but I haven’t been able to give you a second to really get to know me. You just joined at a really inopportune time, don’t know if Missy told you but there’s a big job coming up. More than a mil in pay. Each.” He chewed his teeth in excitement, seemingly thrilled at telling me.
“Wait… really?” That certainly was news to me.
“Sure… I could spill the tea if you want?” He chuckled.
“Spill… the tea?” I had never heard that phrase in my life.
He sighed. “Old pre-collapse lingo used by a more… fun folk. Means to spill out the details, share a secret, gossip… that kind of stuff.”
“Never been the gossip type.” I lied. “But… maybe I could use a little, you wouldn’t believe the shit Twilight and Daylight say about me.”
“That you have a small crush on Elsa, right?” Topaz raised an eyebrow at me, a smug one when you know more than you’re letting on.
My hands burdened the shame of my groan, already the rumor mill was tarnishing my reputation. “It’s not a crush… just an interest. So far I’ve talked to her Personas a lot more than the real thing. I want to-“
“They’re real, Ripley. They’re real people, all of them.” Topaz firmly stood on that opinion.
“Yeah.” I let the regret show on my voice, nodding nervously as Daylight appeared in the rear-view mirror with nothing but a devilish smile. “You’re right, they’re all certainly unique individuals. I just want to get to know where they all came from, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah it does, we’re chill here. For what it’s worth, she thinks you’re worth being nice to.” Topaz steered out the gym driveway.
“How so?”
“She hasn’t sent you Midnight yet.”
“Is she really that bad?”
“Only when Midnight’s annoyed, and she gets annoyed easily. I don’t have high hopes for you.” He stuck out his tongue in a teasing way. “But I’ve tamed her.”
“No he has not!” Daylight chimed in.
“Daylight says you haven’t.” I repeated.
“Well, Daylight, that’s what you think, and you know what? You get to live in your ignorance because I don’t spill out valuable information easily.”
I twisted my head back to him. “You literally asked me if I wanted you to… spill the tea?”
“Only if it’s fun to share. And there are some secrets which are more fun for me to keep.” He wagged his eyebrows at me, but from Daylight’s more furious reaction I got the sense it was meant for her.
———
20 minutes later after bullying Daylight some more…
“So like… you never made a move on Mirage, right?” I felt like I needed to clear the air here first.
“Geez, Ripley, I thought you had sharp eyes.” Topaz snorted, while Daylight started to crack away in a fit of laughter.
Was I missing something? He swept his nonexistent hair up, relishing a sweet gasp of air as though to prepare himself. “If you were more muscular, it would be me trying to nab you instead of Mirage.”
“Ah.” I got the drift. “Don’t worry, my friend Hoaqin would love you.”
———
5 minutes later after showing Topaz a picture of Hoaqin…
“Okay, so yeah he’s not really gay! I was just exaggerating that for the sake of comedy but like… seriously, that’s your type?! Muscleheads with small dicks?!” Topaz was still gushing over the picture of Hoaqin I showed.
He barked back. “You talk alot for a man who likes women that are emotionally unstable.”
I defended myself like any sane man would. “Hey… it’s kind of… you know.”
———
15 minutes after discussing how they both have toxic taste in partners…
“We need therapy.” We both unanimously agreed, then chuckled.
———
10 minutes later… they arrived.
“I have heard too much!” Daylight’s eyes were on the edge of tears, their inner gaze hollow from the dew of forbidden knowledge.
“You’re carrying this to your grave.” I warned her as we strolled up the quiet rundown hostel. Entering the specific room we’d been told, we found Mirage and Missy seated around a pulsating floor. It took me a second to notice that the reason the floor was pulsating was because it was covered in a thick layer of arranged Warp-carrying tubes all feeding into a box on Mirage’s lap.
I saw Daylight pounce out of my body, sinking into Mirage’s like she tried to possess the woman. “Elsa, they’re so mean!”
And… I felt my entire body clam up, please don’t snitch on me Daylight. A blue light shone on Mirage’s band, right above one of purple and red, and she seemed utterly bemused as some internal dialogue spun out through her head. Then she chuckled, a quiet melody that was pretty charming if you forgot the fact that I went into detail about how I thought women with… issues were far more interesting than those who lived their lives plain.
Among other, far more worse topics.
Topaz held himself up by leaning his compactly heavy frame against me, quiet laughs imprisoned into his gut. “You’re in trooouuble.”
“Me?” I stared back at him. “I can spill tea about you too, you know.”
Mirage perked up a confused eyebrow at the two of us. “Spilling tea? No wonder both of you got close so quickly. But putting Daylight’s antics aside, we have a job, Ripley.”
“Right.” I pushed myself to address her directly, staring into the amethyst jewels framed by one side of black hair and the other of white. “We’re delving into the net, looked some stuff up about it but I’m not clear exactly on what I’m supposed to do.”
“You’re going to be her battery.” Missy had a wide smile on her. “Simply put, the job requires that you both go deep into the AbyssNet layer, then pop back up into a different section of the SurfaceNet. Right into a Yuzhou datacache.”
“Yuzhou?” As in… we were attacking one of the Five Corporate Nations?
“Right, their Weaponry branch — Shandian Engineering.” Missy explained. “You’ve been getting your feet on the ground but it’s time you got to know a little about our job. We’re helping out a mercenary called ‘The R0N1N’. He’s planning a heist on some of Yuzhou’s Shandian Facilities, payment’s hefty. Stage one of the job is securing a floor plan and security details, enough access codes that the day of our entry into the facility goes simple enough. Stage two is Topaz’s job, he’ll be getting information about who in the police are on Yuzhou’s payroll among stealing data directly from their corporate personnel. As for you being a battery…”
Mirage pointed me to a briefcase that looked to be mashed up with ten different computers, wires buzzing all over the damn thing. There was a faint edge in her words. “We’ll be using something called a Proxy Protocol, normally it allows one person to have complete access to another’s body and mind. This is a modified version that allows the input to go both ways, I’ll be able to drag in your Warp Energy into my head, and through that I can use your Gold Warp Energy to boost myself and protect you if necessary. Any questions?”
“A lot.” And so I asked away.
In summary, I would have two different direct connections to my Neuroframe. One into Mirage’s own Neuroframe and the other towards the Proxy Translator (the briefcase) which would also be connected to her. The direct connection was meant to allow my Warp Energy to directly transfer into her, the latter would keep my own thoughts separate to hers — allowing a brief lag that would keep both of our minds stabilized.
We weren’t entering a true Proxy state, neither of us would be able to control the other’s body or Features but it would keep our two brains under one digital skull if that made sense, and then we’d dunk that skull into the depths of the net. I still had questions about how exactly we would be moving through the net, but Mirage explained that it would be too complicated to go through all the details, when experiencing it would be enough.
She sort of lost me in her explanation with the coding and software part of my questions already… so I actually indulged in that.
“You ready?” Missy asked, opening up a fridge and pulling out some bags of ice.
“What’s the ice for?”
“Overheating.” Mirage said with bitterness. “A deep dive like this takes a lot from the mind, forces it to work several times faster — it’s a countermeasure for the Net. Deeper regions of the Net process at a faster frequency than in real life. Our physical bodies will be undergoing intense metabolic changes to compensate for thinking several times faster. Months down there could be days here.”
Topaz chimed in from the side, his voice startling me as though he’d vanished long ago. “That’s also why we need this!”
He pulled out a defibrillator from the cupboards. “Your mind could be so preoccupied focusing on the world of the net, it forgets that your physical body needs to work. Don’t worry though, it’s only happened…”
“Twice.” Mirage answered with a sour face. “Just a worst-case scenario, I’ve done this several hundred times. My Personas… thousands.”
“Got it.” Reaching for my armband — which I’d called the Mimicset — I wondered what Feature would be best to imitate.
Missy smiled at me. “Diamante didn’t try it out with you, did he?”
“What?”
“He didn’t let you read data from his Neuroframe.” She concluded.
I stirred with my voice. “Truth is, didn’t want to ask him about it when he already gave me this. By the way, did you ask him to give me-“
“He did that all by himself.” She looked proud, and I relaxed at that. I was right about that much. “Hates going to the armory, but looks like he made the right choice with you. Moving back… Mirage? You comfortable? He could use a Dataweaving Feature in there. He could try my own Jailbreak if you’re not comfortable.”
Mirage’s lips pursed tight, the three bands pulsing at different rates which to me surmised she was conversing with her Personas. “Okay.”
I hadn’t been expecting that at all, but the next answer deflated all hopes of it coming out of a place of trust.
“He would already be able to see my Warpcode, might as well have him scan it beforehand so he’s not surprised by it.” I didn’t understand what that meant, but she reached for the back of her neck, ruffling away some hair and exposing a frame that encompassed her entire neck and even extended up into her skull.
I approached slowly, deliberately, making sure she could hear my own disengagement as a long wire pulled from my frame and plugged into her own. My breath was both shallow and deep, a confusing balance as I felt our minds connect in a way that I’d never felt.
It didn’t go deep, and this was only surface-level compared to what we would be doing later. Yet, her entire presence engulfed me with colors and feelings rather than pure thought, it was hauntingly beautiful in a way. I felt murmurs of black whisked away by hopeful white, shimmering stars of violet exploding from the conflict as her Warpcode exposed in my Feature’s eye.
Scanning Warpcode… 1%… 2%…
It was slow, both of us silent throughout the process as her breath grew into heavy panting. Slowly, three figures began to fade into being, one of light, one of darkness and the final one being a shade in between both.
“How’s it feel?” Twilight cooed closest to me. “Your mind’s connecting to her.”
Heavy. Was all I could think.
“Heavy?” A voice I hadn’t heard before rang out, it was jumbled and discordant like a hundred shadows had spoken out at once. “You should die where you stand…”
The owner of that voice sat in the corner of the room, staring at me. She was a being of stitched shadows in the form of a human, black hair crowning crimson eyes the shade of blood. She flickered in and out of being, like a flame breaking apart and reforming each passing moment. “You’re a disgrace, Ripley… I don’t know what she sees in you… what they see in you.”
“Stop that will you, Midnight!” Daylight scolded her sister, her form as radiant as ever. “We can’t talk about that!”
…30%
“That?” I asked, a humble laugh faintly pulling into my thoughts. “So she thinks of me?”
“I mean…” Twilight whispered, staying by my side while her siblings argued in the corner of the room. “It’s not like a fourth of her Psyche’s constantly watching everything you do.”
“Right…” I smiled, even at the dismissal.
…50%
“You want a hint, Ripley?” Twilight sat in between me and Mirage, pointing to the hair her organic self was still holding up. “Her hand’s beginning to tire out holding the cord, why don’t you help her out?”
I moved quietly, adjusting my seat on the floor to raise both hands and support her hair so that it didn’t tangle the wires. Just the slightest tickle of our skin resounded through my mind, feeling the mental pressure of both her and mine colliding with the touch.
“Thanks.” Her voice gasped out, and the weight behind it absorbed me.
“No problem…” I tried to sound strong and resilient, but I was betrayed by wheezing it out.
…80%
“Almost there.” I whispered to her. “Nearly done, then no more of me probing into your mind.”
“It’s fine…” She whispered back… “Your thoughts are… nice. They’re gentle… and… I understand them. More than most.”
“Understand what?”
“What you want to be.”
…100%. Warpcode reading complete.
Current Adapter: [NA]
Grade: Silver VII
Development: Tier III (Modification)
Compatibility: [NA]
Features: [S] Network V.5.23; [S] Dataweaving V.6.14; [S] Psyche V.5.03; [S] Sustain V.5.19
“What?” The gasp expelled my awe at the sight of her Features. Not how high they were developed but rather their ammount. She had four Features like a Gold… but she was a Silver? Silver’s only ever had three.
That was a defined rule.
“I’m a bit like your right arm…” She tiredly chuckled, and behind it I felt the weight of pain and shame pressing on my body.
My mouth could barely form the words. “A… Pseudo-Gold?”