《L.A.G》 Shadows Watching <0> Persistent shadows swallow the dim light of a halftone screen. A pervasive silence coated the room only broken by nails tapping on touch keys. The only light to work under was a shifting red *RENT DUE* sign glowing softly over the rooms only door, dousing the room in a bloody monotone, washing the passing time away with a monotonous routine. ¡°no no-NO!¡± Rapid works of warring reworks against climbing notes and pulsing icons of urgent red bleeding errors. Every line pushed rallying problems, falling through dormant code and isolated functions in violent waves. A corrupting cascade of errors, exceptions, and undefined variables who clawed through the depths of dependant libraries as untraceable failures amongst desperate efforts of restructuring. ¡°FUCK!¡± Three weeks of vacation, carved through in a marathon sprint to create a single elusive program. A hack built to to solve problems that stalked behind improbable circumstances, ones which seemed to be gaining ground every minute more he contemplated their loose hold over his declining stability. They called him paranoid, feeling as if every grain scattered, kicked up by hasty steps down a littered path, held a mundane moment newly lost to a encroaching forest. They were right, he knew that. The city is out to get him, he Knows that. They weren¡¯t mutually exclusive. Shots echoed from the roads below, roaring engines cut short. Light flashed though the moth bitten gap in his blackout blinds, searing his strained retinas as a thunderous bang shook the thin walls. A road chase successfully played out between two gangs no doubt, at least one vehicle now lost to the inevitable scavs. And, by the sound of the screams, a couple civvies too. This was the truth of night city. A collective dream layered lie, veritable deep gouged nightmare, wholly faded unto the masses. A Privatised Pandora. Sufferings freely distributed, Hope locked tight in neon signage. Suffer-less freedom was the right of all souls. You traded yours for stainless cold steel chains and digital crutches against mortality. Not that anyone would ever live without at least a nominal level of cyberware, certain integrations being all but mandatory. But in years of terminal advancements, where personnel had their soul mapped into databases updated with every step, you¡¯d be remiss to believe any opportunity for surveillance would slip through the gaps. They are most certainly watching. With his last creds blown on a scrapyard deck prepared solely for the honour of a now tarnished program, he was steps away from giving up entirely. Not restarting, he¡¯d rebuilt and reiterated too many times now for any hope at even the skeletal build he had carved the features down to. No, by now, there were no routes left to chase. And more importantly, no more time to do it. Sitting in the highlighted section of the terminals inbox was one solitary message from wherein he is currently employed, marked out as reply for one final stretch of days he was entitled to under his current contract.
¡®@jack7thcrockett054 You¡¯re request for remaining mandate time off will be prosseced in 4-5 business days. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. [email protected]¡¯
It was wrong, the message, everything about it. And he was understandably upset over it. Emails haven¡¯t been used in a good decade, they didn¡¯t even have an automated reply system. It was all designed to get under his skin in a way only those who knew him for years could. Oh and the age old tactic of pushing the remaining free days until after the contract renewal so a slight change in days can render the remainder as ¡®not part of the contract¡¯ certainly wasn¡¯t helping the situation. But nothing better could ever be expected by any who held the works of a corporation, titanically huge or otherwise. So time was up. Tired eyes and cramping hands tore themselves away from their logical prison as their delirium begged for just a moments rest. That is to say, he was rather very tired. *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* But such things could wait until times more suited for self hate, a breath of fresher airs would do him a world of good for the windows could not open, and AirCon cost extra. He pushed back from his desk, crushing cardboard casings from the cheapest deliveries possibly found. Ignoring the cost, the only thing lower of quality was the nutrition which would lead him to an early grave should it have the chance to replace his every meal. For now, it was the barest of acceptable substitutes for ¡®real¡¯ foods, only marginal more respectable than feeding off the black mold drywall, and only marginally less favourable. Grabbing the lone leather jacket hanging on one manually installed coat hanger, a little renovation that had cost him extra on the rent, he quickly dressed up to a more socially acceptable level, or at least what his older standards told him was socially acceptable. He would always blame his father for the 2030¡¯s aesthetics taking over his limited wardrobe. Even then he couldn¡¯t escape the two glowing neon strips running vertical down its sides, though a little colour is always appreciated. It was comforting in a way overtly large leather jackets could be as it was always possible to retreat into its depths in order to hide from either people or the weather. The lights were out already and his terminal was disconnected to any network, hopefully it would protect from any Netrunners. The door slid open to tarnished steel supports and stained walls, piles of trash lining the pathway out of the complex, a disgusting walk even if it was a short one. He supposed that living on the lower floor had that one unintended benefit. Of course the streets immediately around such a dilapidated and overlooked area held not much better under any sort of scrutiny, so all who inhabited the place decided unanimously to simply ignore it. There was a reasonably paved path, so it was that he would take. Not that he paid much attention to it any more, having taken the same steps through the same filth time and time again, simply following the rhythm of the streets for a while. It cleared his head, usually, stumbling blindly though the corporate zombies, toiling away in harsh routines days unimaginable without a dose to keep you energised. Made all life¡¯s shortcomings seem just a little closer to freedom, instead of the horrible oppressive fear that balked down over any thoughts of even a stretch of his potential. But that was not enough. No, before the city, or his own encumbering paranoia either, crushed mentally and physically into the dim flame that was his hope... or a bullet, caught him first. That was what the Program was supposed to be. It was going to solve everything when realised and more still, only... nothing had come of it. It would be called L.A.G he had decided one delirious night, a joke on the purpose, an acronym made of the word, a play on the absurdity of it all in this ghoulish city. And it would stand for Light Augmented Ghost. His feet led him closer to cleaner streets, secure billboards and armed guards. Others would find this a comfort. He was not Others. Every layer of security, bureaucracy, of power, only held a darker shadow of demons behind each corner. In here? The threats were too poor to care about, not even the shadows could afford to loiter, and the rats struggled with rent payments. So no, he would not continue toward the greener pastures, as only blood was free to fertilise them. Instead he took a sharp left, between the building, into the maze where the last husks of life roamed this city before they lost their fight to the wind. He knew them like he knew his fears, absolutely. There were problems with the idea from the start, see? He would need access to every eye he caught himself in view of, for he wished to hide from all eyes, the peoples, the AI¡¯s, the Corporate Overlords that already own a section of his senses, of his brain. But how could one account for ever make and model, for ever undisclosed new optic trial, an antique piece of tech taken for a drive to see how our ancestors once had. And after he had mastered these laws of the new world, there was still the issue of manipulating them. He need to shift data in the minds and decks of crowds to cover his tracks... misplace his positions, and give him just the edge needed to overcome any challenge. and to run all that on engraved wafers lodged inside his skull all at once, to take static code and expand its capabilities to adapt to any circumstance, and to do it all without searing his brain from the inside out. He paced faster now, step after step in increasing energy, prattling on to himself of all his hubris, the pounding of thick soles against aged stone as his habits brought him back to courts and cover he once believed his sanctuary. Any who could see him would know he was lost to the world, in his mind while his limbs marched him through the rising dawn barely reaching this deep back. It was not enough to settle him unfortunately. Wipe the optics, Okay, done. Manipulate the data, sure, why not. Go for the kill and die, because for every pair of eyes taken down there is a lens, pointing from cameras and terminal, from even the paving you walk on. And under it all is the unseen world taunting him for even daring to try. What could any man hope to achieve against seeing thermals and x-ray imaging, against sound imaging and echolocation. To hide from a city brought alive simply to track your very soul, It was Insanit- ¡°HEY!!¡± System L.A.G <1> Jack stumbled, tripping into a puddle newly formed in the rain Jack must have missed the start of. The sudden chill shocked him out of his musings as much as the blow to his temple. It had broken skin, a slow flow of blood dripping down as he pushed himself to his knees, trying to reorientate. The figure standing over him was someone he once had the unfortunate luck to call a friend. Mostly just some dumb gonk who managed to woo his way into a small time gang, but it got him an old set of gorilla arms. As Jack had just learnt, It didn¡¯t make the metal any softer. ¡°What ¡®ave I told you about comin¡¯ down to these parts again gonk!¡± A soft chuckling came form just a few feet away, and to Jack it was the call of an angel. Propped up on the back of the gonks Nazar¨¦ was a woman wearing a sleek helmet and one of the new bright red plastic windbreakers over a generic black motercycle suit. Carefull honey~, the poor lead head might become slow!¡± she taunted, miming the blow to her helmet. ¡°Ughh... lets get a move on, the rains gonna ruin my hair.¡± Her name was Hinata, and, at one point, she was Jacks output. ¡°Yeah, yeah just lets me deal with Jackie boy real quick.¡± Her current other half was a larger and bulkier man than Jack, but he was sure that due to his chrome more that it was any workouts. He was also wearing it proudly with an open jacket and tank top, no doubt to try to flex on anyone he doesn¡¯t like. Usually that meant Jack. ¡°You must¡¯ve taken me for some leadhead if your still out here daring to cross me so openly!¡± he shouted. ¡°This is your last warning. I find you again and I¡¯ll flatline you, pathetic fuck, and drag your body out so the scavs can make modern art of your corpse! Maybe there¡¯s even enough chrome on you to repair my gorilla arms.¡± he spit, ¡°Got that?¡± ¡°...crystal.¡± ¡°Oh I hope you didn¡¯t!¡± he added with a laugh. ¡°Now Ghost off!!¡± Not waiting any longer in the now heavy rain, he hopped onto the front of the bike and rather recklessly sped through the alleyways and back onto the main roads. Slightly disorientated still, and still bleeding from his temple, Jack managed to get to his feet. Walking back with his mind working a million miles an hour in both anger and despair he didn¡¯t even notice the rain soaking through his clothes. ¡®Fuck them, they want to call me slow? I¡¯ll show them slow when I put bullet between their eyes!! Oh and they¡¯ll see it coming! That¡¯ll be the worse part!¡¯ Jack thought.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡®I just need the stupid program up and running and then they¡¯ll all be fucked!... Shit! I¡¯m back at square one with this waste of a cyberdeck. ¡®Oh, it can hold 5 Quickhacks at once!¡¯ like that helps!! ¡®You can queue up two hack at once i-¡¯ It all clicked suddenly in the blueprints of his mind. Whatever that blow had knocked loose he wasn¡¯t sure but all the pieces started to fall into place on how it would be vialbe- no, easy to upturn Night City with a single hack. Though Jack cared only for revenge. If it can load up two quick hacks into its system to run... He can split the program into multiple pieces to bypass the packet size issues! Sure no one in their right mind would make a custom OS for such a delicate and brain interfacing cyberware but whata little more brain damage by this point? He¡¯s got too many people to murder in cold blood! Can¡¯t be wasting time on something as stupid as safety, besides, Jack doubt he have enough chrome to really worry about Cyberpsychosis! Jack was in full sprint, both mentally and physically as he raced back to he small apartment before the ¡®inspiration¡¯ faded. He shoved open the door to a dull room of nothing to note, just another run down rotten dump people called a home in 2070, or maybe just in Night City, but he could never afford to travel. He crashed into his seat and worked with a psychotic focus, not even his rampant paranoia could distract from that.
It has been 36 hours of straight of almost unbroken work. The rain had continued relentlessly still, but it couldn¡¯t deter him. He had somewhere to be, some people to meet. And he knew exactly where they would be waiting tonight. The code was complete, and completely revolutionary. Jack wasn¡¯t so far gone to call himself an unbridled genius, he recognised that he was simply the first one to come up with this new idea. There aren¡¯t even any problems that don¡¯t simply require more time to come up with solutions, or better cyberware but that would solve itself in time. Jack made most of his income for a while fixing up bad code and hacks, and would have continued if anything well paying didn¡¯t require either a degree or jumping head first into solo life and putting his neck out for a choppin¡¯. Some gonks tend to blame even those who worked on the hacks that flatline their family or gang, and he was not prepared to defend against some borged out psyco hunting him down daily. Jack made a slight detour to one of the last pieces of green, undeveloped plots in the whole city. It was a very personal and special place for jack, and one he only ever shared with one other person outside his family. It was his father that showed it to him, as he knew the old corpo who owned it, and it¡¯s where he would bring Jack every New Years yo watch the shows. He knew the two of them would be waiting there. Hinata had sold its existence off to her new Input about two years ago. They loved to taunt him by keeping him away from there. It¡¯s where his parents columbarium is. Both his new program and and unbridled rage heated up within him as he reached the sectioned off area. His targets were just in his view, and it was but a moment more before they noticed him too. ¡°I FUCKING WARNED YOU!¡± the first hapless sack of rot screamed, haphazardly drawing his Unity and taking aim as Jack closed in. This was his masterpiece He called it L.A.G Light Augment Ghost The name really said it all... But it still seemed so surreal. Jacks hand rested on his own Iron, an Arasaka JKE-X2 Kenshin, cost quite a lot of eddies and today it gets a real world test drive. If either side sweated from the immense tension filling the air, it was lost in the rain, and maybe if the clouds didn¡¯t darken everything the saw so much, they would have caught Jacks form flicker ever so slightly around the rain. Maybe maybe maybe... Jack could feel his cyberdeck heating up massively under the load of LAG, cooled by the rain causing the very issues with its process. He felt pure power in his veins, watching it all play out like bored god, rasing his pistol in one fluid motion unflinching. Two shots rang out in quick succession, neither from Jacks Kenshin. ¡°Well, I hated knowing you, bye b-¡± Hinata stilled eyes widening in impossible shock as Jacks form shifted like the universe had glitched, lurching forward in an instant. His Iron was pressed gently against her Inputs head, right on the same temple he had hit Jack. She didn¡¯t even register the shot until everything in his skull splashed against her. Jack took a few steps towards her as she fell to her knees, scrambling back in an instinctual fear. ¡°ah, aaah... I had no part in this! I tried to talk him out of it I swear! You must believe me!!¡° Hinata eventually gasped out though her shock and horror. He stared impassively, his own dead organic eyes into her own, cold, mechanical, pleading. *BANG* Holo Point <2> Jack thought music was obnoxious. Though he thought all modern music was, either being violently for or against some Corps with little to no in between besides a few groups that barely qualified as music. It was the type of music chosen only by the older folk trying to stay ¡®in¡¯ with the youth. Not that anyone here was particularly interested in what music was playing mind you. This was a place to drown your fears or make a few bets, nothing much else. ¡°You want anything?¡± a disgruntled waitress asked with some bite, though with how many obnoxious drunks seemed to be about tonight it wasn¡¯t all to surprising. ¡°Yeah, two Silverhands and a bottle of Conine.¡± Jack replied in kind. This place never upgraded to net ordering, the owner cited ¡®keeping its unique aesthetic¡¯ and with how full the place was it seemed to have worked out. You could also atribute that to the New Years celebrations ongoing. Jack waited rather paranoid, as was his default state, for the drinks to arrive. This was his first time in such a place as a customer, mostly because it wasn¡¯t exactly legal at his age. No one would ask mind you, local cultures really didn¡¯t care and it would be all fine by midnight anyway. ¡®It¡¯s about all the freedom available in this cursed fucking city.¡¯ The plan tonight is to make some connections with a fixer being the best outcome, but just jumping a gig with any random gonks missing a member or two was a lot more likely. Pouring some from the bottle, Jack tried his first bit of Conine. It was one of the cheapest but still reasonable drinks in the city, along with being on the lighter side. Must have just been because it¡¯s his first but he cringed a bit at the taste, with a little burn to go with it. whether that was the alcohol or whatever chemicals they use to supplement it for the cost. Oh well. Something would happen eventually. There¡¯s some quick changes he want to make to LAG, mostly how the programs are partitioned across the 5 Cyberdeck slots. He should be able to just jack into my laptop now that the codes stabilised, remove the run command temporarily of course. For LAG to work against even the most basic of merc, it¡¯d need to be invisible to pings, and other such Quickhacks and scans. Only problem is that would mean cutting off all access and most functionality of any Cyberware, any connection could be detected through ping packages alone. Right now it redirects and changes any attempt to access so it matches with LAG subversion, just that the code is spread across the 5 parts mostly at randomEnsure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡®Isolating the cloaking section is priority¡¯ Should keep him occupied. If he had to break it down, then the main functions would be a simple image recognition and generative fill, aka the ¡®Cloak¡¯, An infiltrating program directed solely at optics, that can detect the local systems, the ¡®Scan¡¯, Finally a system that handles all the many ways Jack would need their view manipulated, the ¡®Mirage¡¯. In it¡¯s current form it connects to two sets of optics with low chances of a burnout, and delays the visual information defining him the slightest amount so over a minute, their view is 2-3 seconds behind. He worked uninterrupted for over an hour while sipping some of the Conine, the slight buzz he got kept him awake for now. It was only minutes later that a young man approached Jacks table. He seemed to have some cosmetic cyberware including a strip of glowing hair and metallic details on is neck, overall he didn¡¯t look too threatening. ¡°Hey choom! Mind if I take this seat?¡± He asked leaning on the chair across from Jack. ¡°Yeah, sure.¡± He wasn¡¯t the ¡®Merc trying to fill rank¡¯ Jack was looking for, his gaze tended to stick to the terminal he was coding on so there is probably some sort of work in it at the very least. ¡®Couldn¡¯t hurt I guess...¡¯ ¡°Thanks! There¡¯s not much space left in this place, though that much should be expected with all the New Year Celebrations this year.¡± The still unnamed merc started cheerily. ¡°Ah, you can call me Holo!¡± ¡°Mhm¡± Jack replied, mostly ignoring him. ¡°The name¡¯s Jack¡± ¡°None of that nickname nonsense. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you around here before, what¡¯re you trying for tonight?¡± Holo asked, annoying grin still plastered on his face. ¡°Looking to make some eddies, maybe something more permanent.¡± Jack tried to gauge his reaction but he stuck with a poker face smile. ¡°Nova, nova... Same thing here, really. Don¡¯t got much rep, if any at all, and no team seems to want someone with only basic chrome and little experience.¡± He sighed, pouring a glass of Conine for himself. ¡°Got one hell of a gun though, real preem shit... codes all messed up though, think you could sort it for me?¡± He asked, getting down to the deets. ¡°...Get me one one of those merc teams you talked about and we have a deal.¡± Jack offered. ¡°Sweet!¡± In Jacks professional opinion the gun he unholstered was high tech as fuck, just its shell had all sorts of wiring and connections that on a closer look were fully functional. It was obviously a Smart-Weapon but of a level he hadn¡¯t seen before. There was just something about it that even an untrained eye would gravitate towards. ¡°Real Nova shit isn¡¯t it?¡± Holo said smugly, ¡°This ain¡¯t any ordinary Smart-Weapon, once you boot it up it¡¯s got a fully functional integrated VI to always have the upper-hand!¡± Connecting it to his terminal, it was just as Holo described. All the code worked just fine, but there were functions and callbacks all over the place, with the VI¡¯s neural network also being in a few separate handlers it was no surprise when he saw the comments from past attempts at clean up. There was a whole graveyard of names with various comments and attempt lists each tried before giving up. They were all dated at 5 years ago at the latest. ¡°Used to be a pair, y¡¯know? My older brother, Danish, kelped the other one from my old boss for the few months we were there. That one was even better, bordering on AI allowing it to essentially never miss.¡± Holo explained. ¡°I didn¡¯t steal this one none!! I¡¯s earned this one fair as when my boss got flatlined and ¡®Coincidental¡¯ left the door to his personal armoury open!¡± he added defensively. ¡°Don¡¯t care, didn¡¯t ask.¡± Jack had barely scratched the surface of this freakish abomination of code, but it was already looking impossible. As I worked on, an idea formed. If its twin was a powerful AI in the same form factor, then this one was probably just an unfinished, uninitialised or unoptimised version of the same weapon. So instead of spending weeks slowly unscrambling this mess Jack decided he could spend an hour or so trying to alter the VI¡¯s code to do it for him. It seems just a few minutes quiet was uncomfortable for his choom here as he quickly attempted to fill the silence. ¡°Hey! How about we head to the front and try make one of those cute waitresses our Input?¡± ¡°Not interested.¡± Holo was starting to give him a headache. ¡°Aww come on!¡±, He complained, ¡°Are you scared or something, why not?!¡± ¡°Just put a bullet in the last one.¡±