CK story

[LordofSyn]

Thought I would share it a work in progress. I know I probably shouldn't, but I have a huge feeling it will be accepted here.
I will write it as a serial and post the "chapters" here for all of us to see.
I would still like my own writing to remain mine. I could categorize it as Fan Fiction, I suppose.

I will let you decide.

plus if you want more let me know.

edit: updated story below.

[LordofSyn]

+++ please let it be known, that I have merely placed this story into the C K universe slightly.
I have also named tech, and even archetypes from games and previous writing of my own.
like a merging of my Cyberpunk mythologies, and CKs, so to speak. This is not meant to confuse, nor detract.
thanks for reading//
~LordofSyn

[LordofSyn]

This wasn't the way it was supposed to go.
The parameters didn't match, and the waveform frequency just went haywire.
Since it is not within my normal subroutine, not to mention my profession; I was hardly equipped for what happened next.
I was just a dude that found things.
…………………………
**36 hours previous



<//transcript 2119.02.03. 1035 hrs -7GMT Lx: Solace, AZ Dome 85000//>
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< Yo, it's me, JamBøt .
To those that follow, I finally de-rezzed the fractal noise under the dome in my sector. Not sure if I want to broadcast what I've heard. Not recording it anyway, just dipping into the decrypted stream now.
I am letting you all know this as they can't fight back against us all...
I am a finder. Some call us Moles, others call us Skipperz. No matter the cause, we can see the patterns in all around us. Some of us are empathic, but most of us are autistic in one form or another.
The patterns have always been there if you'd cared to look. It's not like they are hiding themselves, chummers.

I drek you not, I was in a tidy Mars system last night in fact. Regardless of what I was looking for, I can assure you, it wasn't illegal. I never care for the interpersonal issues. They could be used for sexual whims of myself or some friends I know...but no one has ever been forced. It's a moot point, hardly ever would happen...even with better odds.

I get hired by usually nameless people who pay in cred, food, even sometimes hot items. As long as I have enough to survive, I have never had need to want. Today it was grimy out. Worse than usual. The Finns were up to no good again, and someone flung a dead animal into one of the big water basins.
Political gang attack, most likely meant as a smokescreen for corporate sabotage.

I heard the M.A.R.T.yr team off in the distance. They had, what my father called the 'Announcer-[rom-M.A.S.H.' public address system. I wasn't quite sure what he always meant by that. That voice was currently ordering a group of three to surrender their weapons so they wouldn't be harmed.

Then silence.
I am sure the gangers would have surrendered if they had half a wit left after all the Head-Lozz that's been going around. Maybe they just talked quietly, but the we call them KMARTS too. After Kill Mart. They are all top of the line silenced weapons. They don't give a drek about collateral, they trauma fix any chummer they can, charge, and arrest or let people go on OR.

Medical Armed Response Teams.
Insurance paid subsidy membership fee: 2500 credits per week. Pretty hefty stuff, but worth it's weight when the Drek hits the proverbial fan.
The Corp teams are worse.
I heard the siren go off, as it always does when the come in and out. Maybe they were a little heavy this time. Who knows?.

I grabbed the 5 files I needed, plus a another 10 or so that looked juicy. Saved some nodes, and slapped proxy on a network. 
Ok,ok,ok. So I can do more than just look for people, but I usually don't.

Unless I need the money.
That's why I'm blogging  chummer, I got all the info anyone needs, and I know im getting digital crosshairs for all this Drek.
Chog it man, I need a M.A.R.T.yr membership.  I got Heat.

<//transcript 2119.02.03. 1345 hrs -7GMT Lx: Solace, AZ Dome 85000//>
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< I hate to crowdsource. It's JamBøt again. I got Yak breathing down my back. They got my pinkies.
This all started over a Damn girl. Why? Why do girls always cause all the issues? She showed up on Camden St. Last night. Not a good area. I saw her on cam, hacked the nodes from my flat, and guided her by alpha jacking the lights, monitors, and terminals to me.

Ever the stoic guardian,  especially when she was wet from being dumped into the canal and she was cold. Looked all of 60 Kg and reminded me of some cgi cat from a movie with a big green thing. Sense, of duty kind of thing, yo.

Obviously she was a little perplexed. Her body language was dramatic, and I noticed that she was wearing a shell on a necklace around her neck. I noticed the Fibonacci spiral as soon as I saw it. I was hooked and intrigued. She said she would be gone by the morning max, and only asked for water. I found some Ramen, and she showed me two packs of dots. We have all used stim patches and the occasional Crammer. But the clear tablets, she said I couldn't see. She refused to allow me to examine them, the git.
The ones she wanted me to look at were slightly green. She had a packet of approximately 200 little opalescent liquid gells in the oddest myocene shell I had ever seen. They glowed slightly. She asked me to research them. Said she would find a way to come back and pay me.

I didn't say anything, just started to gap buffer my Fairlight GalvinTactical CPU with the boosting GPU 3TFLOP. I don't play. I've been working small string A.I. too. Nothin huge I say, but modest. I had no idea where to begin. I didn't know what was inside, she refused to let me gently slice one open to further see any patterns, any clue to go on.
Instead she asked me to drink some tea with her. It took me away from spiraling out of control trying to match puzzle pieces together. Her eyes were light brown, almost caramel. And her cheekbones were so high that even her smiles lit the room.

And at once, I remembered what I lived in. Wasn't much but a Hole in the wall really. The entire loft was a long rectangular shoebox. Sectioned off by phase-enabled 3MWalls. The window at the far end. The top of the window also fed carbontubed F.O. Cables along the shaft of the flat. They had pinch points for control. Gotta love logic gates. The living room wasn't much more than a skinny couch and opposite plain chair, a tall thinnish A.I. Coffee Table. My office where I actually parked my meat when I surfed, little more than a closet, but the hardware all but hidden from view.

The colour of the walls a slight shade off the abysmal main purple of the Head-Lozz packaging...we drink tea. Soft synth and some Oldies play in the background. Sounds like gaga. Amazing, my head clears more than I can remember in recent memory, and she told me she had seen me before at the Motel 10 in D.T. she asked me then if I was a Star-nut.

"Brave Star is a mock, chum. They pretend to police, but are keeping what they can in check. It isn't much," I told her.
She smiled sweetly and then kissed me gently on the forehead. She placed the necklace next to the bag of green dots and took a nap on my plain sofa.

It wasn't until I pinched off the lights, dimming them that I noticed it.

<//transcript 2119.02.03. 1500 hrs -7GMT Lx: Solace, AZ Dome 85000//>
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< My name is James Mandelbrot. My handle is JamBøt. I used to be a Fixer. I have seen quite a lot in my 27 years, but I had never seen what I had on my coffee table before. The package of green dots, now covered by the Fibonacci Necklace were now glowing brighter than I'd ever seen anything glow, short of a mono-whip.

When I moved the necklace, the colour dimmed. I tested it 3 times. The pattern was there. I know patterns. As was the flickering of all my electronics whenever the two items got closer. The dome is too dark to know if this pattern effected more than just my flat.

To say I was intrigued now, would be like asking a Los V if his daddy is bald. I looked back at the woman on my couch. She slept through my excitement, the crazy stupid fit that made me reach for a CramShot.  Then I started looking online for the shell. No match.
Golden Mean.
Fibonacci sequence
Fractal dots
Quantum logic gates
Fibonacci spiral

And like a green light went off in my head saying GO! : I was off.
A simple nautilas shell is built by nature to be dynamic and built to code, as if assembled by a computer. In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13,...
By definition, the first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.
The shell spirals out. The Golden Mean...Cauliflower, sun flowers, shells, clouds, the human body... all of it contained this pattern. All math mumbo-jumbo. I didn't care. She didn't stir and the tea was gone. I didn't want any more water. Somehow wasn't as thirsty as I should have been.

So, I figured out more than I should. Then I started asking questions.



My stubby nubby pinkies stopped bleeding finally.
Someone please say you'll help, I'm getting sloggy woozy here.

<//transcript 2119.02.03. 2101 hrs -7GMT Lx: Solace, AZ Dome 85000//>
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< She woke up, just as I was opening the other satchel, the one that contained the clear drop pills.
" NZT /187_A.Glynn!¥ " printed in nice china blue on the side.

She screamed at me for invading her privacy. I showed her the door. She kept her little baggy of clear pills. I booted her out before she was clear headed to remember the shell or green dots. Then I let the door subroutine lapse so that the door was forced to change lock sequences.
There was no imprint on the plastic bag that held the green dots.
I opened the bag, and smelled a briny, plasticine aroma.

Now, I have been known to be a clumsy oaf before, sometimes it pays off, most times not. So I butter fingered the bag of the green dots, and they fell all over my sofa, table, and feet. I cursed aloud, and began to gather them.
I had all but one or two when the lights went out in my flat.
Brownout.
Well, almost.
The only remaining light sources in my flat came from my Smart Table, my computer rig, and the shell.
Then I noticed the small Yakashima logo reflected onto the black mirror that is my tabletop.


<//transcript 2119.02.04. 1441 hrs -7GMT Lx: Solace, AZ Dome 85000//>
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< I didn't sleep. For some reason, I didn't need to. I couldn't explain it. I was naturally amplified, the Cram had wore off less than 2 hours after I took it. I moved the necklace, glowing its green luminary signal. It repeated, in Morse code the same cycle repeatedly. It pulsed it's Fibonacci sequence up to 13 each time, and then started over. Looking it over, I noticed a small datajack next to the the Yakashima Logo. So I did, without thinking... what any of us would have done. I plugged it into my rig.
At once, instead of my splash screen, the Yakashima logo came up. I thought I was tripping on some stuzzy 'cid. Who in their right mind plugs a damn sea shell into a computer??
I did, and realized why I was in trouble.

You all know Binary. We all know hexadecimal. We know coding languages and assembly languages. This wasn't any of it. My rig was being re-written. Everything I thought I knew was all wrong. Binary was still the key, but instead of either on/off; yes/no, there was now:
Yes/no/maybe...Trinary?! (Trinary?? Wasn't that the name of a character in the Matrix?)
And the A.I. that I had built to help me with menial tasks...started to talk to me. Yes, talk. And not like a computer. ( not completely though) It explained it wasn't a ternary system. X/Y/Z is a ternary system. It was/is a Trinary system. Probability is built into the universe, and to ignore that probability and the consequent systems it permeated was akin to a Cyber Knight failing before he finds a Connector.
What it did next astounded me.

It was hacking systems on its own. It was showing me what it was doing on the SmartTable. Before I knew it, it was in the Yakashima Space Ops backbone, riding the network as though it was a natural process. Black IC bent to its whim. It flipped blueprints, documents of "national and corporate security", and even plans to build something called a "Death Star". I laughed out loud at the silliness of a name like that. Sounded like a B-grade Vid name to me.

It closed all of its connections, and showed me that Yakashima wasn't even aware of what it had done. This wasn't their design after all, the logo was put on to keep it in house. Obviously, that didn't work.
The shell, or rather, my A.I. told me that it was older than the corps.
And that I was already under surveillance. I chuckled aloud again, til it started parsing out sixteen images of different cameras around my flat. Showing very expensive vehicles showing up.

I was cornered.
My A.I. agent gave me the specs on the girl who had been at my flat, she was named Raylene Kurzweil. She lived in the Arc Tower in North End. It showed me the micro-cams in her loft. They also showed, that her entire loft had been tossed. It informed me that she was already picked up. She had squealed, apparently.

Really stupid of me to have her show up at my flat. Great job. #sarcasm

I started packing. I don't have much. The shell told me to modify what I took, and even mapped out an exit strategy. It stated that it had already modified the registry of my Condo.  It showed that I didn't live here, that rather some cyber-doc by the name of David Rollins lived here. It gave me a probability factor that I could hold off leaving for at least another 20 minutes. Then it did something I couldn't believe.
It told me to datajack into the shell directly.
I have one cyber-eye, steel grey, in the left socket of my skull. It has Time², has a gun link (never used), and low light compensation. It also has allowed me to see my connections to data terminals without the need for a display.
So, I did what it said. Obviously, I didn't have a choice.
As soon as I plugged in, the shell died. It didn't glow. At first, I was perplexed. I could hear heavy boots down the hallway, doors being banged on, sirens off in the distance. They were methodical, and chummer...I'd be lying if I said I didn't need to go change my shorts, you dig?!

Then I placed only one green dot slowly at the mouth of the shell...and little mechanical tentacles whipped out quickly to pull its 'food' in. The tentacles were translucent, and I swear; on, my rig, that it could have been NanoTech.

The shell confirmed that the green dots were like fuel, but refused to confirm any NanoTechnology. It had a weird knowledge of everything around it. How creepy is that???
It then showed me, to mix the chemicals in my house...normal everyday chemicals.
I made my first explosive, on its will. I was to blow the door as soon as they knocked...and in the confusion...sweep out the door.

As the footsteps got closer, I got a vid feed of the hallway. There weren't Yakashima execs outside. It was a damn Yakuza hit squad. Four heavily armed Mercs, and one Stag. The Stag moved too fluid to be one hundred percent human. I suddenly thought I would have to change my shorts again

[chummer]

Cool.

[LordofSyn]

Sept 2, 2011 18:44:08 GMT -5 chummer said:

Cool.

thanks. I appreciate your response.

[spectre]

I also enjoyed this. commencing the ++exalting!

[LordofSyn]

Sept 3, 2011 2:30:53 GMT -5 spectre said:

I also enjoyed this. commencing the ++exalting!

oh it isn't over.

no way chummer. still have day and a half to account for. we shall see where this goes.
oh it isn't over.

no way chummer. still have day and a half to account for. we shall see where this goes.

[Cory Trese]

I like it. However I somewhat feel like I'm reading stuff that should be in italics between long stretches of narrative.

I'm a little bit slow sometimes, so maybe I'm the only one who's having trouble keeping track of who/what is going on.

I still like it though =)

[LordofSyn]

Thanks Cory.
Since I am doing all of this on my phone (I.E. typing the story in EverNote/ Quick Office...copy and pasting directly into Opera Mini browser in the forums.

I am aware of italics, grammar issues, ** thankfully not many spelling issues, and translation issues.
This is one story, where I let the Muse take me. I didn't / haven't worked out any outlines for the plot, characters, etc.

I know, I know.

Many other writers would just pass me off as being a hack. Not following the traditional format, even for short stories...hell even serials.

As for the time I have left for the story, well I messed that up. Its not a day and a half left. Its less than 24 hours.

There are parts that I need to flesh out, and go back and make sure the context is sound.
It is supposed to have looked like a collection of blog posts...looking back, I can see rhetoric and even grammatical "tense" issues.

Once finished, I will indeed go back, and delete the 'chapter' posts, place the whole stray in a block of text { trying to keep the story length to under the 60k character limit for one post}, and present it the way I intend using the forum based text editor to assist with the post grammatical work.

~LordofSyn




edit = fixed 99% of all the issues, rehashed certain sentences, italicized the parts that sounded more like a soliloquy than a blog post...PLEASE NOTE. None of the B/I/U changes translated to these forums. I doubt I'm too technically challenged to work my phone, but I cannot make the necessary B/I/U changes to document from phone. I select the text, but once I attempt to scroll page up to hit bold/ italics/ underline... I'm forced out of the iframe box, and back to browser {as it sets up for modifying post} and the selection is gone.
read: I will have to wait to fully edit doc when I can get to a hardlined desktop!

[Cory Trese]

I'm amazed at what you guys are able to accomplish with your phones!

[LordofSyn]

Lol... I honestly preferred my Optimus T to this DROID 3 has at first.
This is the first time I've ever written a story on a phone.
.....I have been tempted to type it up on my PC, and transfer back to phone to post here. However, Proboards doesn't like the preformatting. lol. so it wouldn't really matter where I typed it up. Cory, I know how to pimp these phones/tablets out. Usually without having to root them.
this phone, for example is set to plug-n-play right into most networks. Hell it even has a DLNA inboard app. on my previous Optimus, I could control my HTPC (that I built) from anywhere.

loss of good job means loss of internet connection / wi-fi at home. temporarily.
So the DROID 3 has been my only connection upstream. an old bastid like me has to make due with what is available...the world isn't getting any easier/ cheaper chumsky. Lmao.

[djbiga]

Great start...I'm hooked! I bet your thumbs are ready to fall of though after all that typing.

[LordofSyn]

Sept 11, 2011 0:14:53 GMT -5 djbiga said:

Great start...I'm hooked! I bet your thumbs are ready to fall of though after all that typing.

thanks for the kind words. actually the DROID 3 keyboard is a beauty to work with. Fully open, the weight disperses very evenly, and holding it to type using the physical keyboard is no problem.

I am sorry for my absence, had severe house A/C issues last week. I hope to have more to add by tomorrow.

edit:9.18.11>0944 hrs -7GMT >>

**********************
ok, so I haven't added anything. yet. However, to tide you over, I request you take a look at my 2nd story thread. I have added 2 chapters from a novel I've been working on.
let me know what you think!
************************

Sept 11, 2011 0:14:53 GMT -5 djbiga said:

Great start...I'm hooked! I bet your thumbs are ready to fall of though after all that typing.

thanks for the kind words. actually the DROID 3 keyboard is a beauty to work with. Fully open, the weight disperses very evenly, and holding it to type using the physical keyboard is no problem.

I am sorry for my absence, had severe house A/C issues last week. I hope to have more to add by tomorrow.

edit:9.18.11>0944 hrs -7GMT >>

**********************
ok, so I haven't added anything. yet. However, to tide you over, I request you take a look at my 2nd story thread. I have added 2 chapters from a novel I've been working on.
let me know what you think!
************************

[LordofSyn]

<//transcript 2119.02.04. 1600 hrs -7GMT Lx: Solace, AZ Dome 85000//>
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> I had setup the homemade explosive at the door, as I hadthe been prompted. I doubted it would work. I lay on the floor with the shell in one hand, still jacked in; and the "detonator" in my other. A solidified 3M phase wall was my only protection from my own explosive. Outside, I could hear boots and someone knocking at the door next to mine. Again, I asked the shell if I was going to live...it didn't reply to me. The glowing grew more brilliant, but strangely it never got hot to the touch. The lights in my flat, the hallway, and for all I knew: the building was in a full-blown brownout.

One quick knock...and I waited.
Two more knocks, and I pushed the button.
FLOOM!!
The Halon system went on immediately, and I covered my face with my shirt, the shell working my eyes for me as I was able to move past the crew that swooped into my flat, agitated and trigger happy.
The klaxons drove me crazy as I waited down the hall from my ruined flat. The shell had me wait by the elevator shaft. The fire response team shot down the stairs and the door busted open with a startling shot that I almost had to run my hands over my torso, just to be sure I hadn't been shot. Once the last firebat was through the door, I rotated right out onto the stairs. I could smell the drudgy air that was on the streets. It tasted more coppery than normal. Hoodie over head, the shell and I ventured to the nearest data terminal.

I looked over my shoulder, and indeed my entire building was browned out. There was very little flash, and what little fire my rudimentary explosive had created was easily extinguished. The halon took care of that. The blaring cacophony of the M.A.R.T.yr wagon incoming, made me forget to dial the taxi, and even though I couldn't see any gangers now, didn't mean they weren't going to investigate the drama. The shell demanded to be plugged into the data terminal, and like a flash before my eyes, I wondered if lengthened exposure to the Nautilus would change me for the better.

I looked down to find that I had indeed plugged the Nautilus in, without realizing I had done it. It was in systems I had never seen before.

Ares Manufacturing Logistics
Stark Enterprises
Ellington Mineral Corporation
M.O.T.H.E.R.
Salish Sidhé
Aztlan

There were more, but it moved faster than any deck I've owned, built, or seen. We've all heard of vapor-ware, but nothing I've ever seen would connect that many dots with strings. I couldn't keep up. But it had opened a text file, and was dumping strings of info, lines of code. It was compiling something...
But I wasn't sure what...and time was running out.

How many Knights survive staying in one place for too long??

[LordofSyn]

I promise to conclude this story soon. My family and I are moving this week. I will need another week to get unpacked and settled max. regardless of everything...I have put this story off for too long. (it hasn't been the highest priority unfortunately )

So I leave @ this. I plan to have this story completed by the end of November max. Again, I am sorry for the absence of remaining story and for keeping it on hold this long.

Thanks for understanding.
Thomas E. Brewer
~LordofSyn