Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => Forum Games and Roleplaying => Topic started by: hops on July 09, 2017, 12:20:41 pm
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There was a time, long ago, when the word 'hack' brought to mind the swinging of a machete, clearing away the weeds and branches of a forest, rather than the wielding of wares, of blades of logic tearing through the jungle of information made law. There was a time between those two, where hacking wasn't quite as rigorous, where it was tricks and treachery rather than a true constest of mind. You are thankful that you lived in a time where it was, even if everything else sucked.
The Matrix was often conflated with the internet, but it was more than that, and yet less. Advancements in virtual reality and neuroscience allowed the brain to interface with machines, in a transfer of thoughts encoded in symbols. The Matrix, was to computer interfaces what a gun was to swords. Through a cyberdeck, a person can enter a parallel reality, relayed through controlled, consentual hallucinations or through more traditional interfaces. Even now, the laymen do not fully grasp its power.
But the corps do, and so do small-timers not wishing to drown under the tides. You are a cowgirl (the term, you never liked much, but it had more dignity than cyber-jockeys), a mercenary of the Matrix. You are very good at convincing the Matrix to do what you wanted. You have to be, or you'd be out of a job. You don't regret your choice to eschew the clean, safe life, but you also knew that as time goes on, there are more alternate timelines where you're dead, or worse. Sometimes you get very, very close to that happening in this timeline. And you're only just twenty.
Today's job wasn't anything exciting. It wasn't a run. Sometimes, when a corp needed a fresh pair of eyes with their digital woes, or pair of eyes in general for small businesses, they hire a freelance cyber-jockey. Today, you drew the short end of the stick, and the only job around was for you to root around in a fence pawn shop's database, whose proprietor wanted to trace down a month-old theft. Well, at least you verified that the theft did in fact take place. But it was like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
"Got anything yet, kid?" your employer asked you, finally, after the half hour mark. You were half-immersed, your deck connected to his SmartShelf (a misleading term, it's just an AI blackcube connected to security cameras) and staring absentmindedly at trinkets on the actual shelves while most of your mind were more or less communing with the simple AI. Nonetheless, his addressing you startled you a bit. Machine logic falling to pieces as you disengage and shifted most of your consciousness to the real world fully. This took less than a split second, of course. That was the entire point of being half-immersed while sitting in front of a stranger for a long period of time.
This job was weird. Something that was minor enough for the proprietor to not notice its absence until a month, yet important enough that he would try to get its thief tracked down. Plus, it was for sale. You were told that it was just a pair of shoes, but you knew, and your employer knew, and he also know that you knew, that wasn't the whole story.
Oh, and you have done exactly jack shit except for discreetly checking his sales history and trying to piece together the sort of man he was. You were going to get paid for this simple errand anyways so you might as well steal some info. Of course, that's not something you should tell him as answer to his question.
>_
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What do we glean from this information theft?
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Your employer would not be so daft as to connect his data to a Taeyang blackbox, but that was also the thing. A blackbox was expected to work autonomously, identifying products added and removed to the shelves. This one did not track customers, which made sense in this part of town. The sheer amount of convicted felons and IDless individuals would have created unnecessarily incriminating data.
Luckily for you, and him, it kept surveillance video up to six months. The compression get worse the further you go, but he must have been confident that the video for last month would be clear enough to identify the thief. Presumably at low-light condition if it was a break-in.
But it probably wasn't. You can't hack physical locks, which you noticed he used. Well- not without some military-grade tech, which would be overkill for just a pair of overengineered footwear. Even if it had some message or other hidden inside.
From snooping around the logs, the theft was discovered when a certain Doe in a business suit entered the store, and asked him about the shoes. That was your guess, anyways. It's not like these things had audio. It could be an attempt to trace some clandestine operations, or an interception. You have seen enough to know that you won't find anything else, and you're not sure if you wanted to poke your nose in this.
Which of course, meant you will.
Now, you believe that some of the surveillance video was faked, which made sense, why else wouldn't your employer be unable to find the actual theft? You could home in the time of theft. He could then bribe some people to look for a digital trail at that time.
Or you could somehow convince him to pay you more to do that for him.
>_
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Baby need a new pair of shoes. Ply for more dough!
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“I’ve gotten the date of theft. April 22nd. The logs of that day are faked and the originals have been wiped, and I don’t think you have photographic memory,” you said, “This is a pretty normal occurrence.”
You left out the fact that you found it particularly troubling that somebody could hack a blackbox, that only connected to the Matrix through very specialized channels.
“What? I need to know where the shoes went!” the employer said, and before he could make a mention about your alleged usefulness, you decide to keep going.
“Well, why do you think people hire cowboys for this sort of thing? Everything leaves a trail in the Matrix, and it takes someone like me to track it,” you exaggerated the difficulty of the task. When you were young and just started out (it was only five years ago!) you would err on the side of humbleness, but the truth is that in this world nobody respects that. It is better to upsell yourself, because most of the times, people can’t help but believe you.
“So you’re asking to be paid more,” he started, but not before you cut him off again. People already expect to be cut off by cowboys, so that was why you do it a lot.
“Or you could spend a few more days looking for another cyber-jockey,” you said, “Not sure why you’d want to do that.”
“Alright, fine. Here’s the money for the search,” he closed his eyes, and a card that wasn’t actually there materialized. He flicked the card to you. “Get back to me when you find the thief. You know where to find me.”
As you placated your rumbling stomach with some curry rice, you thought about the job again. It wasn’t really something that someone of your station should be doing, but that’s what being a cyber-jockey is about. Someone’s gotta do the drudgery, and the newbies are too stuck up to do them.
It wasn’t as if the job was actually that unimportant anyways. You doubt the man who contacted your employer only relied on him to find the thief. At this moment, there should be at least another cowboy chasing down the thief’s digital trails.
But, like said earlier, you’re good, plus, you already got paid, and you doubt it’s going to take more than a few hours to find the thief. A bit longer if he covered his tracks the same way he did with the blackbox, but government surveillances aren’t so easily subverted.
You have some time to kill before heading back home. Maybe take a walk, or go shopping. Or some other possibilities that arise in Rosebed City.
>_
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TEXT STORIES \o/
PTW!
> Go take a walk or other relaxing activity; list up priorities in life 'after that worry is dealt with'.
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Take a walk, get a feel for the city today.
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You go for a walk. When people say that, it usually meant through the city center. The Neon District. Even the Outer Sectors try to visit on the odd days they got extra money to burn. Your usual parts of the city only really came alive when night falls, so you might as well head for the city center.
You make a quick visit to the ATM, just to cash in the chip you got, and to sync your Virtual Wallet. That is, pay rent and bills.
It was dusk already, as it was winter. You could go for some pachinko, but your recent balance did not encourage you to the prospect. There were also the arcades. If you’re lucky you might ACTUALLY earn some money, there.
Speaking of arcades, the AR transceiver in your head correctly measured that you were not focused on any task, and a panel materialized in front of you, a chat screen.
Souprice: have you heard of the new arcade opening?
SiliconChipCookie: that’s kind of vague
SiliconChipCookie: plus, why would I care?
Souprice: it’s a vr arcade. And i hear it’s actually marketed towards GAMERS this time instead of it being a poor man’s joytoy club
Souprice: the rigs would let you run some of the more cutting-edge stuffs
You’re guessing that your friend, Soup, was trying to angle for you to come join in with him. Maybe now. Or later. You’re not sure if you should point out to him that you were busy.
On the other hand, some shoes aren’t really that big of a deal for you.
>_
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I'm a bit more curious at the job at hand now but, as said before, if it won't take us too long, might as well drop by the arcade after the job.
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+1 to passing by the arcade; we can uncover or think about more opportunities from there, if with other people. Also simulate a conversation with our buddy.
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SiliconChipCookie: i'm on a job right now, if you want me to check it out with you it'll have to be later in the night
Souprice: well duh, i'm on the job too!
SiliconChipCookie: honestly i have no idea what your hours are anymore
Souprice: really depends on how much i want to get paid that week
You could always ask Soup which particular arcade he was talking about, but that wouldn't be a very cyber-jockey thing to do. Plus, how hard can it be to find a newly-opened VRcade?
Pulling out your phone (you could keep using the AR, but you like looking at screens more), you typed in some queries. It was trivial to find the DreamZone VRCade. The site was minimal, but very well put-together. It even had a link if you wanted to visit it through the Matrix. Of course, you couldn't do much there. Not that there would be a point, since people go to arcades for the hardwares anyways. It wasn't very far from your apartment.
There were already people lined up when you passed by. You realize that you have been out of touch with the night-life of Rosebed City for a while for you to not have heard of it sooner. You sent Soup some texts to sort out a good time and blew most of your earlier paycheck on reserving two hours on two of the terminals. Hey, it wasn't like you were broke, or anything.
SiliconChipCookie: you better buy me some nice dinner afterwards
Souprice: don't you mean breakfast?
SiliconChipCookie: i already ate breakfast in the afternoon
Souprice: your sleep cycle is hella fucked
Now you have something nice to look forward too, but it also meant you better get to your task. You got back to your apartment. You didn't really need a stronger rig for some cursory lookups, but you definitely needed it to dig deeper.
Chapter 1: VivantTech
Full immersion. Your eyes open in your true abode. The Matrix.
Flying through the wires, you travel back in time. The day of the theft. The nearby street cameras saw repeated footage. That told you this much: the thief was resourceful. You were, however, more resourceful. It wasn't visuals that you wanted.
City cameras were more resistant to tampering, because they could hold traces of edits. Either the people who would tamper with the cameras were too powerful to worry about repercussions, or they would hide their tracks.
You didn't know which one it was, and the trouble was that viewing the traces would mean that you, too, have to hack into it. It would leave a trail.
But it didn't need to be your trail, not really. You pinged one of the encryption services you knew you could trust. And then, for good measure, you could mount the attack through some random schmuck's cyberdeck.
You have several choices regarding the matter. Many options. You can choose to either attack an inactive deck (it would give you greater freedom and initial stealth, but it won't be difficult to trace it back to your encryption) or an active deck (which would be the equivalent of breaking into someone's house to use their computer, WHILE they are using their computer, but it would mask your activity pretty well, although it might get your victim into trouble). You could also further decide which kind of decks you would attack. VRcades are used to being attacked, and would have strong security. Civilians would be relatively simple. Another cyber-jockey would be funny.
Or maybe you could consider other plans of attack.
>_
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Let's put ourselves to a real challenge. Skimping towards the easy stuff is for amateurs anyways and we're way too cocky for that.
Attack using an active VRcade deck.
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(Hey this is some pretty good prose btw)
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((Talking about prose, I feel like the SG format is a bit awkward for the style of this, since I really do struggle to have a strong plotline and still give options. Do you guys think I should switch to a quest style? At least then it'd be obvious what choices I am giving :P))
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(Hey this is some pretty good prose btw)
((I like it too! Just caught up and read it :3))
Do you guys think I should switch to a quest style?
You can suggest several areas or possible choices of what we can do, actually :3 That helps.
Attack using an active VRcade deck.
+1
Possibly in a place that would help you in the big picture, too.
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EDIT: Sorry, not sure why I threw a tantrum there.
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You decide to try your hand against a VRcade deck. It was almost a rite of passage for deckers to try to hack them, but your first time was a couple of years ago. You got arrested. That was the crappy VRcade, even.
But this afternoon you're pretty confident that you can deal with the new VRcade. No doubt they knew their IT. But that didn't mean they could stand up against SCC.
Being wired to the Matrix does strange things to your mind. Cowboys use this to their advantage, transcending beyond mortal understanding just to make quick bucks. It was like being high, but worse. When you come off a hack's high, it was like getting lobotomized.
Your mind always tried to comprehend what happened. They adjust information into simpler, dreamlike symbols. This time, you remembered...
...A big city. Your city, but also not. Faceless entities were everywhere. You knew Japanese, and the signs and the speech informed you that was what was being spoken, but your eyes refused to understand and your ears refused to listen. (https://youtu.be/zbYhxpq6Wpc)
One faceless being ran up to you, its porcelain mask cracked. It grasped your hands desperately.
"あなたは赤い部屋が好きですか？"
[ ] "When all is dust. I will remain."
[ ] "Bring it on, then."
[ ] "Ê–NÑ%ñX·ˆ´'•:5†ÄX"
[ ] Shove her off
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[X] "Ê–NÑ%ñX·ˆ´'•:5†ÄX"
Damn kids and their spooky copy pasta themed IC.
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One of the reasons that hacking warps the jockey's ability to recall their operation is that, for whatever reasons, injection patterns cannot be remembered by the human mind. Well- a normal human's, anyways. It was also why there are "naturals" and there are normal cyber-jockeys. As much as cowboys like to treat it as something purely to do with intellect and skills (they factor a lot, but they're not all) there was something about one's capability to bury unknowable spell-like codes within their mind.
"Ê–NÑ%ñX·ˆ´'•:5†ÄX," you uttered, but the being simply fretted at you as a burly entity advanced upon you. That was the other thing. While corps can't economically adjust their code-pattern for all their factory models on release, when they and certain other groups need extra security, they hire a cyber-jockey like you to set up a new pattern. "Warding", it was called. This further complicates the hack, but you feared that the VRcade would do this already. You tried to analyze the response, trying to sense the signature of any cowboy you might know. But no- this one was new. That could be a good thing. New often meant inexperienced.
The burly entity yells at you and points at the entity with you.
Interesting. It's time to directly interface based on the response you have received.
[ ] Stand between Burly and Fret.
[ ] Push Fret towards Burly.
[ ] Run away.
[ ] Get into fighting stance.
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[X] Get into fighting stance.
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Wait, my post didn't go through ;~; It was on "[ ] "Bring it on, then.""
Ah well.
Get into a fighting stance.
Possibly one like those ol' fighting games where you also bounce around.
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In the real world, you wouldn't call yourself a very good fighter. Your body just wasn't trained to handle the physical execution. In the Matrix, it was a different matter. New dimensions of combat open up in a virtual avatar, and some factors disappear. Soup was better than you at both, but this was a hack and not a real virtual fight anyways.
Real virtual fight.... that hurts your head. And you're in a mind-bending hallucination.
You intercede on the behalf of the scared entity. The big entity swung at you with a right hook, but you dodged under it nimbly, jabbing it on the side. A ripple in the code radiated as you interfaced with it before it swung back and decked you in the face. You staggered back a little, wiping the blood from your face. It was unlikely that this thing was a black ICE, so you don't have to worry too much about injuries. You still have to worry about getting booted out of the system, however.
Learning from its movement, you danced around the entity. Others have taken notice and have formed a circle around you two. More parts of the ICE begin to fix its attention on you. It was risky, but you were cloaked enough to not be traced back, and the attention was what you had wanted.
[ ] Attack the onlookers and start chaos.
[ ] Pay attention on the big entity.
[ ] Something else (Write-in)
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(Clarify the third one?)
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It's a quest term for writing in something else. I'll edit to clarify it.
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It's a quest term for writing in something else. I'll edit to clarify it.
Write in usually means 'if you have a plan (at times, even influenced by my other choices), feel free to write it in! If you think you can think of an action within the timeframe of acting that would be better; please suggest it! It will be taken as the character's action if people get behind it'.
Like the action I'ma write now. :P
Pay attention on the big entity, and telegraph your moves for more audience appeal. Get injured by glancing blows, then fight back with your prowess.
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It's a quest term for writing in something else. I'll edit to clarify it.
Write in usually means 'if you have a plan (at times, even influenced by my other choices), feel free to write it in! If you think you can think of an action within the timeframe of acting that would be better; please suggest it! It will be taken as the character's action if people get behind it'.
Like the action I'ma write now. :P
Pay attention on the big entity, and telegraph your moves for more audience appeal. Get injured by glancing blows, then fight back with your prowess.
And by injured, we mean feign injury.
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[X] Pay attention on the big entity, and telegraph your moves for more audience appeal. Get injured by glancing blows, then fight back with your prowess.
You put on a show for the audience. Whatever the hell that meant, since none of this was actually happening and you would likely be the only sentient being there. Maybe you were trying to inject your own code into the IC? You're not much for trying to decode the jumble that is your hack-memories.
You recalled that you let the entity 'think' it was one step ahead of you. You feigned injury as some blows glance off you. A few actually hurt, but executions can't always be perfect. The bruises weren't real, anyways.
The entity had seemed to have bought your acting. Lured into complacency, it has relaxed its guard, only to be pummelled by you. You left no breathing room as you counterattacked, resisting the urge to break character and just corrupt the thing. Your memories aren't reliable, but you were fairly sure that you did punch something.
The entity laid on the ground then, defeated. You had crouched down and traced a line on its stomach. The world froze as its body collapsed and the world began to make sense again.
Then you noticed that you now control the deck. That was a lot of work just for something so minor, but such was the lot of a cyber-jockey.
Where were you again? Oh right, the records. Actually dealing with the cameras' security was less impressive than the VRcade. You remembered the hack-memory for that had something to do with oceans. You hated oceans, even though you've never seen a real beach.
Whoever tampered with the data was vulnerable to you now, as you noted their address. The access point was currently offline, however, so if you wanted to know more you'd have to investigate the physical location yourself.
What an overkill, for a pair of shoes.
[ ] Who cares? Just report the location to your employer and get some moolah.
[ ] Cancel your plans, go investigate.
[ ] Try to convince Soup to go investigate with you. You can always use a friend who can beat up people.
[ ] You've done what you can for today. Have some fun with your friend and put this in the back of your mind.
[ ] Something else (Write-in)
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((My internets are all messy >_> and I've a whole day in being busy tomorrow))
Just report the location to your employer and report in with your friend!
Some stability first off, then we investigate later on when we have a better grasp of what's going on, I believe.