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Techies and Their Tech - Mr.Ling - 04-11-2024
...hack.initiated...connecting.to.Noshima.Freeport.Security.Feed...decryption.in.progress...
...encoding.transmission...
...uploading.data...
Mr. Ling was sat at a table in the Noshima Freeport bar. His signature tuxedo, sunglasses, and large cigar would have stood out against the background of various unkempt freelancers, pirates, and the occasional corporate with a bad habit, but in his time with the Lane Hackers, he'd mastered the art of controlling his body language. Act like you're supposed to be there, and they'll think you're supposed to be there. He was effectively invisible to anyone who wasn't looking for him.
He took a moment to scan the room, looking for eyes that saw him. Nothing yet. He shot a glance at his reflection in the table lamp's chrome shade. The silver color didn't help his greying situation. "Man, reflections should be outlawed Sirius-wide", he thought to himself. He put the stub of his cigar out in the ash tray on the table and reached into his suit-jacket pocket for another.
He probably should have set a time with that freelancer, but he was willing to bet that problems with augments would bring him in sooner rather than later. Or, he took his time, and Ling got a decent break in for once. Win-win either way.
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Caliban - 04-11-2024
One stranger after another. Entering, leaving and entering again. There was a constant flux of customers entering the bar which lacked a clock. It didn't matter whether it was night or day. On Noshima it was always the right time to make money - or lose it. And yet among those few customers, one decided to stand by a the door for a few more seconds than usual. Average in size, hidden behind a a long, tattered coat concealing clean, cold chrome and a visor to hide the ugliness within. Transparent tubes pumping a bright orange liquid dangled under the clothes.
He didn't wear just a few augmentations. There wasn't some weird techie suit worn under the coat. The metal was all him. The man didn't even bother to look human anymore. Perhaps he knew there was no point or perhaps he merely decided to throw his humanity away in the favor of having every possible advantage in the field.
There was purpose in his steps. A hidden intent in the way in which he moved his head. He was looking for someone.
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Mr.Ling - 04-11-2024
Ling saw his cloud of error codes before he saw him. It was like a bad omen hung over him, if not a curse from a machine god or worse. His augmented eye hit it's power cap and began reducing it's processes, and once again Ling's habit of undervolting to avoid overloading came in handy. Ironically, Ling was certain this was his man because the incompatibility error hash matched the one on his communication signals. As he stood up and walked perfectly silently towards him, he couldn't help but wonder if the red text cascading from the freelancer was a warning from above...
Yeah, right. As if heaven would help a man who doesn't help himself.
Ling had mentally measured his distance. Close enough to not be overheard in any meaningful capacity, but far enough to not startle his objective by appearing out of nowhere. "You know, when you said you were "full of augments", I was expecting maybe a few internal organs and some limbs, not Dr. Auxostein's Monster", he said as he lit his next cigar. "If your ship's compatibility errors look any worse than yours, a simple OS ain't gonna fix it."
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Caliban - 04-11-2024
The mercenary's head turned. A mere thought passed his thoughts: 'I should've dressed better'. An echo replied: 'Why bother?'.
"It used to be like that." he said, brushing off the Hacker's jest with a shrug. "A few things happened along the way - had to improve. Adapt. My ship had to endure the same changes."
At a closer glance, Caliban's body didn't sport cyberware from just one producer. It reflected a well balanced blend between both Core and Outcast architecture, however some sections showed solid wear and tear, hinting that some changes were made recently. Dents and scratches ending abruptly between torn synthetic skin which revealed the myriad of intricate machinery concealed poorly underneath. It was obvious that the mercenary used to sport something much heavier than what he does now, highlighted by Biomon logs whose logs indicate a massive drop of neural load from 143% to 94%.
"People do what the must to survive in this world regardless of the consequences that might follow and I'm no different. I'm sure you understand."
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Mr.Ling - 04-12-2024
And he did understand. Everything Ling has done, merely the consequences and fallout of getting off the surface of Pittsburgh. The simple task of mitigating those consequences had put cigars in his mouth, strong whiskey in his glass, Cardamine inhalers under his chin, and cards up his sleeve. As long as you've got endurance and speed, you can always outrun the accountability for your actions. He offered a single, silent shrug in these trying times.
With a small flourish, Ling produced a Rapid Download Drive between his fingers, and offered it to Caliban. "Shardlight OS. It'll fix the communication errors between your augments. I cleaned up the heads-up display, removed most of the useless features, added overclocking, undervolting, and some presets. Kept chess and solitaire, though. Boredom kills faster than Blood Dragons."
He continued, "Though, swing by Honshu if you can, and pick up a type-CTR bio-neural emplacement. The one that is the neck brace, the series-II. Don't get the chest plate one, that thing can overheat so much faster. BNEs will reduce the nervous system strain, should keep you from immolating if your gear gets unhappy."
"Now, let's go check out your ship, yeah?"
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Caliban - 04-12-2024
Caliban glanced over the drive before picking it gently between his fingers. He nodded in acknowledgement, before the visor's integrated display lit up from inside chalk full of memory leak errors. "Thatwhyoughtaretoyoudodoing this?.ThisI'llisseeallittooinstalledeasylater today." The voicebox crackled subtly with every spoken word before stabilizing by the end of his concealed thanks.
Either completely oblivious to what he said or trying to play it off as a flaw in the system that didn't occur in the first place, Caliban turned towards the exit. The echoes of his steps were drowned by the Station's hectic atmosphere. Yeah, the ship. I guess now we're getting to the 'meat' of things, yes? - he sighed - Took up a spot in one of the less frequented hangars. I'm not a fan of all this noise.
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Mr.Ling - 04-13-2024
Ling had squinted in suspicion, but it was invisible behind his sunglasses. He had mentally dismissed the vocal errors in favor of what he saw behind them: a flurry of code that just didn't look right. He elected not to say anything. Getting mixed up in some freelancer's problems couldn't have been any less dangerous now than it was 34 years ago, and we all know how that went down. Instead, Ling simply followed him out of the bar. "Fair enough. Noise ain't home for everyone."
. . .
Walking down the hallways, he'd started cataloguing the strange bits of code. He'd noticed two particular strains: one with characters he'd never seen before, and one with horribly abnormal density. Code, to him, was like a puzzle. It was a little hard to not try and solve them. He quarantined and filed samples of both, then set up a virtual machine to begin prodding at the dense one. It was a slow, tedious process, they'd made it most of the way to their destination before he had the smallest breakthrough. The designator for the source of the dense code was "gmu:flr:sd:gvt:mk10." He would have continued trying to pick apart the code sample, but there was another cascade of information gracing his augmented eye, so he simple settled for waiting for them to get there, and for Caliban to introduce his ship.
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Caliban - 04-14-2024
The two had to push through dozens of residents before finally reaching the hangar. A final double sliding door creaked open to let their eyes dance around the intricate, traditional decorations adorning the walls. In contrast with the Kusarian influence, Caliban's Valkyrie stood out like a sore thumb. It looked like it was haphazardly put back together from a the brink of death. Shrapnel and welding marks littered the surface of the ship. Despite the polish and paint, some cuts were too deep to be repaired - or perhaps the owner simply didn't bother to fix them.
90-ARKM-N9v3 "Memento" - its internal classification. One would shudder to think of what the other two modifications were like. It housed an overclocked powercore within its circular rear which fed power into the entire ship whose internals are nothing to what the stock version of a 'Valkyrie' would have. Many of its components were high end blackmarket modifications and top shelf Core hardware. Some were openly available, and some were restricted only to those who flew the colors.
With Gammu's fall many scientists dropped down on its surface like vultures to cut, maim and scavenge all the technology they could gather. Some proved to be crazy enough to use newly found 'resources' to put experimental shielding arrays, thrusters, hardpoints and naturally required additions to make them compatible with human ships. Caliban's bird has been one foot over the line in terms of safety for some time, and it showed under the pale, green hull plating.
"There she is. I put it together from whatever I had at the time, then kept adding on it as time went on."
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Mr.Ling - 04-14-2024
To the naked eye, it was a masterpiece of vernacular military design. An artwork of necessity painted with the brush of endurance. To the augmented eye, however, it was a horror from beyond. Nothing flowed together evenly. The powercore delivered a high, coarse, unfettered yield to a set of internal equipment that demanded refined energy. Once he glanced to the external equipment, he saw a familiar dense heap of code. Ling was vaguely familiar with Core tech, and this wasn't Core tech. His attention was drawn specifically to the shielding array. It was actively modifying it's neighboring equipment. It had converted the thruster already, and seemed to be prodding at some shipboard A.I. that was mostly inactive. He began running an authentication loop, and it came back positive. He'd found gmu:flr:sd:gvt:mk10 sooner than he thought he would. And whatever it was doing was active adaptation.
Ling took off his sunglasses. One amber eye and one purple augment didn't break eye-contact with the ship, and a light spooling could be heard as he disabled the undervolting on his augment. Holograms were projected from the implant, a heads-up display of sorts, but it was quickly becoming far denser than any such display would need. As another two more layers of information began streaming, and he was sure that his failsafes were set, he began his first play. Active adaptation was always one of two things: A.I., or a really long string of else-if statements. He knew how to figure out.
Beginning as he usually does, he simply followed stray lines until their termination. It wasn't enough to gain access, but it was enough to grab the program's attention. It temporarily dismissed him as low-priority, it seemed to have realized that he was trying to confirm it's cognizance. Once it finally directly blocked him, he tracked it's source, and introduced a completely empty trojan. It reacted, first in panic, second in relief, third in retaliation, and fourth in realizing it's mistake. It tried to return to imitating a machine, but Ling had already catalogued it.
With a smirk and a raised eyebrow, he turned to Caliban. "Did'ja know your shield has an A.I.? Particularly aggressive one, too."
RE: Techies and Their Tech - Caliban - 04-14-2024
"I knew there had to be some A.I, yeah. I'm think that's what the periodic resets are for as advised by the technicians I got the hardware from. Why?" - he asked. Head slightly tilted as his HUD lit up behind the visor.
Caliban was almost impressed, if he hadn't already set expectations extremely high with the Lane Hackers. A few thoughts shot off his head as he crossed his arms with a curious look at the Valkyrie.
"Is that one of the reasons? Why the ship feels ehm...bottlenecked, per se. I know it can perform better."