Looseleaf's Diary - 25 / 04 / 2120

Looseleaf's Diary - 25 / 04 / 2120

The Matrix held its breath, that long, time-dilated moment that it took for the two of us to connect, our bodies far distant to the North and West, bounced off a satellite, our link obscured, then patched into the system far from the standard user terminal interfaces.

We emerged from what our cyberdecks would have interpreted as a solid wall, onto the polymorphic tiles of a long open walkway that ran along a vast open pit. Carvedinstone was beside me, her dark, obsidian-like body nearly transparent, and mine was the same way for her. The stealth program that let us move unseen by most users still let us perceive each other, however vaguely. She was still, her eyes cast across the vast open space before us, frozen as if in thought—or conversing with Daleman.

Yet the virtual air felt close, like the darkest under-cellar of a Hobbit-hole. I studied the code around us, pushing my perceptions past the filter to see some of the streaming lines of script beneath. Elf-script, here and there a Khazdul-line that would be finance subsystems, and, worryingly, lines of Black Speech, twisted and wrong that flowed past at dizzying speed. My fingers touched the flow and I sampled the traffic in the system, mapping it with my mind.

The Black Labs system was set up like an inverted ziggurat, the upper layers represented maintenance systems, outer and inner defensive subsystems, arcology controls. Down below were progressive layers of more heavily protected data, until at the bottom, locked in IC so dark and black that it was a mere shadow...

...and the shadow opened its glowing eyes and stared right through me.

"Shit," I whispered, killing my search instinctively.

"Archaic Intelligence?" Carvedinstone whispered. There wasn't any need to whisper; the audio channel we were using was secure, but I imagined she felt it the same as I did. The goosebumps that rose on my skin, hairs rising on the back of my neck, the feeling of being watched.

"It feels more active than that," I said, and crawled up to the ledge to stare down into the pit.

Something coiled there. Huge. Searchlight eyes ran over the lower levels from a serpentine neck. Users shuffled amid the various levels, busy about their tasks. As the head swung up toward our ledge, we shrank back.

"By the Shadow," Carvedinstone said. "It's the dragon. He's plugged himself into the Matrix."

I let out a breath. "Okay. Does that change things?"

"Only if we get caught," she said. "I'm not sure what it's capable of, here. We need to get to the lower levels, plant the virus, find Bob, and get out."

Time was critical on a run. A good run could be measured in seconds. In and out, no one the wiser. Except as we made our way down, layer after layer, descending closer to the core of the system, we were monitoring the feeds from Daleman and the ex-Ranger's progress through the facility. What would normally be in an in-and-out heist became a painstakingly slow crawl through ever-increasing levels of security, tapping into the security networks to monitor—and if possible, distract—the Men and Orcs monitoring the systems as Rowana made her way deeper into the facility.

The dragon's gaze ran past us. The serpentine head seemed distracted, its gaze lingering for seconds or minutes at a time on a single spot, the whole body frozen in place. I recognized the behavior. It was the same way Carvedinstone froze when she switched her feed to monitor Daleman's progress or talk to Rowana.

"His attention is divided," I said. "Between the Matrix and the meatworld."

"Good. That means if we time it right, we can use the distraction," Carvedinstone said.

It was something that couldn't be programmed. We moved slowly through the system, creeping lower and lower through gates with strange and unknown riddles, trusting in our stealth programs and IC-breakers to slowly work through the code gates and sentries, freezing whenever the dragon's gaze swept over us. Until we could see our prize: the most heavily-guarded databanks, clutched in Legere's digital talons. Even in the Matrix, the dragon watched its hoard closely.

Then, when the dragon's attention was distracted, we dove forward. My hands delved into the encrypted cores, wary of traps. Carvedinstone froze suddenly distracted herself. My intuition prickled at that; I wondered if she and the cold-drake looked upon the same scene, through different vantage points.

Rowana's girlfriend's bar code plugged into the search program. Scans of ancient texts. Project data files.

Ancient pages of Orc and Man coupling ran past my eyes, followed by contemporary video footage of shaven pale green and olive bodies locked in carnal congress with muscled and fit Men of both sexes. I could feel the cheeks of my meat body flush as I realized this was part of the Uruk-Hai training program, the sexual indoctrination and training that would have shamed the concubines of the princes of Umbar. Tusks brushed against buttocks as tongues stretched out and squirmed against quivering holes. Soft hands cupped balls and breasts as group play was explored, taught, honed in on them...

...then the blood came. I shuddered violently as the sexual training overlapped and mingled with unarmed combat, trials with dagger and garotte, marksmanship practice with every manner of firearm ancient and modern. One moment a Uruk-Hait would be sucking a dick, and without taking it out of her green mouth she would plant six tightly-grouped shots in the center of a target, then swallow the salty load and move on to the next cock, the next target.

There was more. Indoctrination programs. Memory implants. I selected batches of files to download. My eyes skimmed the data as it downloaded. Pulses of data snaked back over the fiber-optic line and up the satlink, slower than I'd like.

Carvedinstone was whispered something on another line. I shifted search parameters, looked for Nameless Things.

I saw photos of a tentacled horror splayed out, sedated, as surgeons installed something inside of its head. I followed the keywords to other files, related projects. Pieced together what it was about. Project Goldbearer.

Superconducting Quantum Interface Detectors. SQUIDS fir short. Intended for military use, corporate espionage. Installed on an aquatic predator that could swim right up to a submarine and hack its systems right through the hull—or down into the dark pools beneath the mountains and crack the Deep Cores of the Dwarf banks. Three-dimensional simulations of small four-fingered hands atop ropey arms like tentacles, crawling forward in the dark abysses, as it sang socks that broke into the most secure datacores on Middle Earth.

Then a voice, deep and strangely accented, crackled through our supposedly secure audio channel.

"I cannot see you, little thief," it hummed. "But I know you're here..."