It's Hell

With standard UTF tech, when you immersed your conscious into the digital maze of a data core, it usually felt like moving through a complex maze of interconnected lines and wires. But the cyber-helmet interface was different every time you used it even with human tech and it did not surprise you at all that the Grey data core was as alien as the little fuckers were.

Instead of the network of pulsing colored lines and spokes, what you saw through the cyber interface felt more like the what the descriptions of Hell were like from the pre-enlightenment period of Old Earth. Streams of molten lava flowed all around you branching out and rejoining again like swirls of fire in a vacuum chamber, to complicate matters this world had what looked like countless number of levels each one as forbidding and exotic as the one you were standing on.

"It's not real." You remind yourself, talking through what you know about the cyber-helmet in an attempt to calm your nerves. "It's not real, its just how the interface allows your mind to interact with the data structures of the core." It helped a little and you relaxed enough to start thinking rationally. The boiling temperatures of red-hot flows would burn through any normal fire-suit but your naked body was not effected at all; looking down at your form you took in the cloven hoofs, forked tail and giant wings - a demon! You had manifested as a demon, perhaps even The Devil himself in this world that as far as you could determine was based on what church scholars had expanded upon for a thousand years as a way to terrify their simple-minded congregants.

You know from experience that the size and strength of the avatar you inhabit on these cyber forays is directly proportional to the computing power of the system you are linked through; as you spread your wings and beat them experimentally you realize this is by far the most powerful avatar you've ever become. A more careful examination of your form reveals a bull-shaped head and horns to go with the bull-sized phallus that hangs between your powerful thighs like a giant club. Usually you find yourself in these virtual worlds as a small multi-legged spider or nimble lizard well-suited to climbing along the pathways and hiding from security subroutines; this red-skinned monster could crush a bug like that without even trying.

Leaping into the air you beat your wings to easily sore into the black sky above. Flying came naturally like you've done it all your life and from this height you started to see some of the structures of the data core. Scattered about the fiery plane in almost every direction you saw high-walled palaces, stone-wall fortifications and multi-storied towers that rise impossibly high, some of them even reaching all the way to the next level above. Those fortifications are likely data-vaults where the information you need will be kept, if you can just figure out in which one to look.

The massive walls defending the data, almost certainly were the software's way of expressing the Grey encryption protocols that would keep you from easily accessing this data. From the air, you also see that you are not as alone as you thought, several of the larger towers had what could only be described as dragons circling above and scurrying like bugs along the ground you see dozens of the beings that inhabit this landscape.

A good many are as deformed and fearsome as you; part human, part animal, part nightmare, but a large number of the inhabitants of this world appear to be human, lacking clothing or weapons and doing their best to hide from you as you flew overhead. The naked females in particular are surprisingly well proportioned with soft round curves and faces easily as attractive as Lisa and Diana. You glided lower to get a better look at a trio of fleeing females and can't help wonder if the cyber-helmet chose this visualization of the Grey data core because only something this fucked-up and evil could even come close to the sick minds of the Greys. Another option that occurred to you is that this helmet has been used by Stretton's men with their twisted world-view, and the final possibility is that this virtual reality came from your own sick fantasies, and that Smith was correct, you are just a perv who gets off on this kind of shit.

Either way, you need information and here was the best chance to start getting it. You swooped down on the closest of the fleeing women and grab her by her hair, lifting her screaming body into the air you carried her off to a nearby island of black rock surrounded by a sea of bubbling liquid fire.