"Hmm...King George? Really?"
"Nah. not at all...oops. Sharks or something. They're very bright. Gotta avoid those, they disintegrated my hands...Right, well, lets look at those documents....OH! There's some on Cambridge too...will go look at those."
"Okay! I'll go look, you stay here and look at these!"
Anne told anne, and they both raced off, investigating the most bizarre story.
"Oh, anne! This one is locked" Anne had found a private node, labeled Cambridge Royal Records, that seemed to be encrypted...encryption was easy enough, but it took time. Rather, it took hours. Hours wasn't time, it was currency. Anne shot off ANne, aNne, and ANNe, and the trio began to tear through the lock. They began to attract attention, and were spawning more instances to defend themselves from a rather sharp biting sort of wolfy thing, when anne yelled!
"HEY! HEY! There's someone here!"
"Who?" A chorus answered. Distracted, three instances were swallowed by the cambridge defenders.
For an instant, she/they received feedback, a searing emptyness, and then silence. The data was dark and alone, and then the data ended, pulling at them.
"Ouch! Get out of there!" And the now 47 instances of anne merged back into a single primary.
Looking at the other interloper, anne poked it, and drew back a stump.
"Ouch!..Hello? Who are you?"
Fastjack was having fun, fun he would no doubt get in trouble for from Gibbs if Gibbs ever found out, trouble along the lines of "That 10million credit hardware in your brain is not for fun, it's for the cause" yada yada. But Bretonia's Cortex archictecture was beautiful, so serene and elegant. He'd spotted the comunication from the supposed King George earlier and had decided to do some digging. The digging had been difficult, but he'd managed it, hacking Cambridges records centre and taking a long hard look at the genealogy files. He downloaded them for perusal at his own leisure, if they hadn't wanted him to have them they wouldn't have left them in a node he could access, that was his reasoning and he was sticking to it.
It was then he noticed the trace, only this one was different, less of a program and more human, less of an antagonist and more inquisitive, not trying to find his source, but simply trying to find his persona. Which was odd. Very odd. Then all the alarms went off at once, whatever this thing was, it was incompetent, no not incompetent, clumsy, no finesse. Raw talent with no control. Impressive stuff. But impressive stuff that would get him caught and in no end of more than just shouting trouble. He ran. Only to be confronted with a dizzying number of persona copies. He damn near dropped the data bomb, but his instincts made him stay his hand.
The personas collided and formed back into one cohesive entity. A young girl, the definitin was astounding as if he was looking at a living breathing human, here in a digital medium. She prodded him with an electronic finger.
"Who are you?"
His icon bowed, a cartoon charicature of President Powell, complete with glazed eyes and a manic grin.
"Fastjack, milady. and who might you be?"
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
She was standing still, and the sharks were begining to swarm. She wanted to stay and talk to fastjack....but there were sharks.
"Hullo! I'm anne!" Fastjack was presented images along with the name, with a few tunes attached...a small girl humming.
"Oh, Mr. Fastjack, Duck!" anne moved, and the world shuttered, and a group of CvlDfnsAlgrthms sniffing around the scene disintegrated from the tail up, poping and snarling, and finally snapping closed around a butterfly before their jaws became as dust...the butterflies fluttered off.
"Are you reading about George too? I'm inclined to disbelieve his proclamations."
She was incredible, the attack IC, black as the balckest night, would've killed him outright so distracted was he by the persona in front of him. She'd destroyed it without effort, spotting it, and nuking it. Of course she'd used way more force than neccesary but she'd got the job done. She must be processing with more memory that a supercomputer.
Fastjack thought, clearly he couldn't spend too much time here, this place was fast becoming a deathtrap thanks to her lack of control. But she could be taught. She could be molded into a hacker with more power than any Lane Hacker could muster. He wondered if she were an AI, purposely created to run the Cortex, or if she were just a natural prodigy with more power than she knew what to do with.
He decided know was not the time to worry, his icon executed another bow.
"Well it's been fun Milady Anne, but I fear things are getting a tad hostile. Au revoir, but not adieu."
He accesed the node and left pursuing data trails that lead back home, travelling sirius wide in an attempt to lose any pursuit, he'd hung around there too long and it was likely he was in some trouble. He briefly wonderd if Anne was following him, but decided it was neither here nor there. Eventually he found an empty node in a GC datahaven. He ste the data cutter for a three second timer, modifying it slightly to replace the Cortex Architecture with a rendition of an ancient Sol song. A little something from some dead fellow called Eddy Grant. He took the leisure of jacking out properly.
Manwhile within the data node, which had once contained GC data on potential threats from Liberty, including Fastjack himself, the sound of soft rock could be heard.
"We're gonna rock down to,
Electric Avenue"
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
Anne was very interested in gowns...but she really couldn't find a decent set of matching gloves for anything...She'd set about making her own, the way she had read old humans did it, skinned from beasts and sewn to fit...this particular pair was a bit heavy for her tastes, more gauntlet than glove, with bits of shell fragments crushed off of BAF encryption packets set into a mesh of silk from a Leedsnet profanity-Fltr's net...
This one was still rather crude, but they were getting better...soon enough, Anne would have a pair of gloves that didn't look slipshod or gaudy.
Fastjack was bored, technically he was grounded, Gibbs had found out about his last stunt and told him that he was to remain in close proximity to the Alamo web systems, rather than going chasing after whatever he felt like. His encounter with Anne had left him a little out of sorts anyway, he found it hard to believe that Bretonia could have an AI that talented and yet so raw, something which lacked finesse. Most AI's born to the Cortex were spectacular at everything except human empathy, and she had seemed somewhat childish, naive even.
Fastjack decided to pay her a call, although finding her would be difficult it might be easier if he just set off a few alarms to see if she noticed. He loaded a number of scan and trace programs, and jacked himself in.
The Alamo architecture became his point of view, his Cortex tools interpreting it as he'd designed it, an electronic version of Denver before the rich had moved in, back when it belonged to the true people of Liberty. Despite the aging hardware the software was cutting edge and he spent a few minutes just lounging in the system. When he was ready he searched for the relay node that would take him to Nome and began to surf the datatrails. Within minutes he was headed for Bretonia space, taking a few seconds to start electronic rumours on Curacao, that would wipe a few points off OSCs share index.
He came to the neo gothic architecture of New London, and decided this would be as good a place as any to kick up a racket. He briefly pondered trying to hack Carina's personal terminal, but discarded the notion as foolish, besides he'd need a full week of preparation before he was even ready to take it on. No instead he'd go for one of Bretonia's local corps, a minor player in the scene. Picking his target carefully he hacked into the system opwned by Heuristic Technolgies, a small Cortex firm that produced simple programs and architecture for civilian use. He was careful not to do anything too drastic, but made enough "noise" that if she could notice, she would.
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
"Fastjack! Stop that!" Anne stood in the shop, scolding Fastjact as if he were a dog. Leaning on a folded parasol, her Victorian outfit jarred harshly with the modern business setting.
"Tch...you're just making messes, Fastjack. you shouldn't be so careless. I'll have to get you a new pair of breeches. Honestly, though..you've a trail a mile wide, leading straight back to Alamonet. And I like the OSC, you shouldn't be so mean....how would you like it if they spread rumors about you?"