CP:2025 (For guesswho & Madcat)

[Madcat]

Aimee sighed as she logged off, static in her vision resolving itself into the interior of a high-class penthouse apartment overlooking the smog-shrouded, neon-lit streets of Night City, California. That run had been pure brilliance, if she did say so herself (and she did). Fifty thousand credits siphoned off in bits and pieces, filtered through a dozen off-shore accounts in half-a-dozen countries, converted into cryptocurrency, and redirected into the grey account her benefactor had set up just for the purpose.

Is it really cyberpunk if you're stealing from corporations on the behest of Corporate deadboys? she wondered as she scanned through the tracelog of the run. A few close calls with the sysops of the data fortress she had infiltrated, but nothing her Bunnies program wasn't able to take care of. By the time they realized she wasn't actually one of the thirty or forty false data-trails they'd gone chasing, she'd been long gone.

The brush with Net-Sec was a bit more worrisome, but she'd dodged through an LDL into Morocco, and from there deeper into the Web-Africa, and lost the cyber-police in Nairobi, simply fading into the background of traffic, cross-cut fiber connections and old-world cellular feedback.

She yawned. It was late, way late... but it wasn't like she had anywhere to be. She didn't exactly go to school (though she was more than supposed to), nor did she know if her parents were still alive. The last time she'd seen them, almost a month ago, they'd been trying to score blue glass off a Fixer in the harbor district. She was pretty sure they'd been spending the food money she'd scrounged up, too, so frag 'em.

A month ago, and for most of her life prior, she'd been living on the streets of Night City with her parents (she suspected) and their associates, friends, family and otherwise-extended web of contacts, a street-gang known as the Rat City Razors that had taken to squatting in a derelict warehouse. She'd been snatched off the street by a couple of heavies in business-class body armor driving an unmarked black sedan and given an offer she couldn't refuse.

Somehow, she'd been tagged data-raiding Syntheti-Tek, Inc a low-level Corp that manufactured (as its name implied) synthetic technologies, such as microchips, data-ware, and cyberdeck components. She knew that these two guys weren't from STI (a terrible Corporate name if there ever was one... don't they plan these things? Doesn't anyone in marketing actually read the internet?)... too much money stuffed into these mooks. Ten grand, easy, in cybernetics, another fifteen in bioware, not to mention the hardware each was packing. Nah, these guys were from a much bigger fish in the business world pond.

That fish turned out to be Raven-Microcyb, a much, much, *much* bigger player in the world of computers, computer technology, and all the related industries. A killer whale compared to Syntheti-Tek's guppie. Interestingly enough, these goons weren't Corporate Security... at least, not officially. They had brought her to this oh-so-nice deluxe apartment high above the filth of the streets to meet their boss. Their boss, apparently some Very Important Person in Raven-Microcyb, had made her an offer: work for him, and live a life of luxury in his penthouse.

She would have been stupid to say no, and Aimee was, for all her faults, not a stupid girl.

[guesswho]

Tawi feels, as he reads the report, that there is something wrong with the company, when CSO uses a hacker to channel money out of it, seeing as it is the one thing he was supposed to prevent. Aimee´s name is all over the report - but only for him, because he´s the only person inside this company that knows about her. Fourteen year old girl made his department look complete idiots.

With a disgusted expression on his face, he looks over the assembled security experts. Girl did her part, now he has to do his part, to make sure he can keep her. There are two sides to their deal, and if she ever gets caught, he´s dead as well.
"Right. I should fire the lot of you on the spot. God, is Freya going to ask questions..." Their ultimate boss. Even he´s a bit scared of her, but since she´s a bitch, he doesn´t really feel bad stealing from her. "You´ll start the investigation here, at this point...Nairobi looks good..." One of them tries to protest. "No, no, no, shut up." He completely agrees with the guy, this won´t lead anywhere, it´ll just make them spend lots of time pursuing radio noise. "We´ll have to change security directives. Get the plan ready by the end of tomorrow, and implement it by next week. Well? What are you waiting for? Get cracking."

When grumbling security expert leave, he allows himself a smile, knowing he chose well. It´s not about money, he´s got enough of those. But Freya will be so, so furious. He loves it, when she screams, burning with rage. The only moments when he doesn´t feel like poking her eyes out and strangling her. He packs the report for Aimee to read, along with brand new deck that is still in testing. Who better to test it, than a girl that can fool his entire department?

On his way home he stops to get some food for the two of them, and some little gift for her. He doesn´t feel exactly like a hero for plucking her out from the chaos of these street. Merely a businessman. With a bit of charity to it. He takes the elevator to his luxury apartment and finally gets home after a long day.
"Hey, kid! I´m home!" He shouts. "Great job today." While he would never, ever admit it out loud, coming home and seeing the kid is a highlight of his day.

[Madcat]

Aimee perked her thin eyebrows up to the edge of the black knit cap she almost always wore. "Yeah? I swear, I cannot believe you guys don't get hacked more often! Though, granted, I stuck to some low-sec systems... also, a few tricks I learned off an old friend. Did you know that people still put their passwords and other info on sticky notes on their monitors? Is what you get when you make people change their data every month, I guess. Quick view through a camera, grabbed a few passwords, accessed some databases and, viola, had all the credentials I needed... though, gotta admit, that monitor app on the system is a bit tricky. I had accounted for needing a password, rather than brute force, but had not figured that it would know people shouldn't be in those databases this late. Going to need to do some research, figure out a way to reset its clock, or make it think it's business hours. What'd you bring me?"

[guesswho]

He goes pale, as he listens to her explanation. The notion of someone putting his password on a piece of paper makes him want to murder. He will find out who that was.

"Right...wanna share who it was you stole the password from? I´ll need to do something about it." While he certainly makes sure Aimee can get in and out almost unnoticed, he also has to make sure nobody else does. At least some of the systems gave her a bit of trouble.

"So, what did I bring you? You´re gonna like this..." He puts the brand new cyberdeck on the table. It´s so new it doesn´t even have covers yet, just insides. "This still in development, so do me a favor, take it for a spin, alright? Should be the best thing since sliced bread, once it hits the market. But be careful and do something...dunno, easy with it. It´s not tested properly. And here´s the full report from my guys on what they found out. Aaaand, this..." Tawi digs in his bag and pulls out a large box of best icecream on the market, at least, best he could get without ordering it up front.

"Enjoy. I´m gonna get changed, be right back." In his room, finally gets out of the infinitely annoying suit he wears every day and into comfortable home clothes. He goes out to balcony for a cigarette, thinking about how he´d love to have the skills of this wonder child. All he ever got from trying to hack something was a headache.

[Madcat]

Aimee sat up, folding her legs beneath her on the couch as she looked between the cyberdeck and the ice cream. She decided that the ice cream should be enjoyed first, before the deck... though not too much sooner. She popped the plastic spoon out of its recyclable-paper wrapper and dug in, slurping several spoonfuls before the brain-freeze forced her to set it aside.

She rolled about on the couch, slamming her head into the cushions, moaning in a faux-British accent "Fookin' 'ell 'arry!", rather overdramatically bemoaning the headache induced by the ice cream before it passed. She sat up in front of the cyberdeck.

"Well, well, well... wot 'ave we 'ere, then?" she said, slipping the thin plastic-wrapped fiber-link from her other deck (likewise provided by Tawi) and clicking the plug into the jack on the new one. She rubbed a bit of "trode grease" onto her temple before affixing the round, rubbery pad on this end of the fiber-link to the side of her head. She longed for the day when she could get a real data plug and neural interface... two years and many thousands of dollars yet to go, though.

She fluttered her fingers over the open-faced case, noting that the control scheme appeared to be entirely mind-controlled or holographic-projection, though the latter function wouldn't be installed until the case was. She thumbed the power button and let her eyes go blank as her field of vision filled with slick, high-resolution CGI, with floating objects and icons that clearly represented the various tasks and functions of the system.

She accessed the set-up menu and spent a few minutes synchronizing the deck with her personal brainwave, and then brought some apps over from her other deck, downloading a few from various online storage sites and anonymous stash-points. With a bit of tweaking, the menu of the deck had taken on a decidedly less-savory appearance, filled now with the logos and images of various punk bands, a few electro-goth effects, and a few burning cars and trash cans. Those were usually where she threw apps and programs, but the highway lined with burning cars that seemed to stretch off into the neon-lit distance was her path to the internet.

Still, it being a new deck, and almost empty of programs, she decided to play it safe and connected to the apartment's wi-fi, hitting the public data fortress for the tower, and taking a virtual tour of an apartment flat that didn't actually exist, guided by a chipper, professional-looking real estate agent that didn't actually exist, either. Aimee was impressed, however, by the deck's ability to multitask. She swapped quickly and cleanly between the VR tour and her own Creator program, which compiled VR constructions. The tour continued, and, as she already knew how to crack the apartment tower's net security like it was nothing, spent her time spray painting the walls of the sample apartment with various obscene phrases, union jacks and the names of various bands. As far as the pseudo-AI that guided the program could tell, however, these alterations to the VR were fully vetted and authorized by one "Mr. Hugh Jass, Master Code Monkey".

Someone would fix it, eventually. Maybe she could even pick it up as a side-job.

[guesswho]

Once he finishes the cig, he checks the work mail, in case on of his more agile engineers found something about the hack. There is indeed a bit more information, but nothing even remotely close to connecting him or Aimee to it. Not worth his attention at this point. When he looks out of the door, he sees the girl already having fun with the new deck. Better let her have some fun, before breaking the bad news to her. He´s got plans for her. Even now, she´s better than half his department combined, but for future use as his right hand, she´s going to need some formal education. He grins to himself. Now that´s going to be a party. Who else gets to raise his own security expert from kid? Indeed, plans to overthrow Freya are under way. He´s going to be the next boss in a couple of years.

While she´s playing with the deck, he spends half an hour with an improving book. Blood, violence and witty one liners. Not exactly brain heavy stuff, making it perfect for relax after days like this. After some time, he gets up and goes back to the living room.
"Hey, got a minute?" He´s pretty sure she´ll register him eventually. He wouldn´t have this kind of patience if she wasn´t in VR, but being yanked out of it hurts like hell. No need to cause that kind of pain, he can wait.

[Madcat]

Aimee became aware of sounds in meatspace. Sounds and someone waving a hand in front of her face. She terminated the link to the apartment wi-fi. She had already, weeks ago, configured it to ignore her completely. As far as it could tell, she was just a ghost in the machine, with no record of her ever logging in or off, and no record of the data traffic she passed through it. Whoever tried to find out what happened to the VR would have no way to trace it back to her... as far as their systems were concerned, a wizard did it.

"Huh? What's up?" she asked, blinking her eyes as her perceptions returned to the only-slightly-higher-resolution real world, "Oh, the post-it person? No idea, I just sneak peeks through the office video cameras until I see a likely candidate, zoom in, grab a screen, and enhance the image until I can read it. Seemed to have a bunch of soda cans on the desk, and one of those motivational poster calendars, but other than that I dunno. I dumped the logfile already. Just in case, you know."

[guesswho]

That will somewhat narrow down his search. Tawi nods. Motivational calendars...there´s a few of these guys. He doesn´t like any of them. There is something deeply suspicious about wageslave that tries to be motivated and happy in his job.

"Alright, thank you, it´ll make the search easier. If you read about a guy getting thrown out of the highest window, you´ll know what happened." And now to what he really wanted to discuss. "Since you´ve been here for a month, and as of today, you most definitely passed any sort of trial I´d care to set in front of you, I decided to make sure you get a serious, real education. Talent is all nice and well, but that alone won´t take you to the top."

Most kids coming from her class would probably jump at the opportunity, unless their brains were too fried by their own parents. "So we can go two ways about it. You can go to standard school, and I´ll hire some real pro hacker to help you tune your skills, or you can have your own private teacher, plus, of course, the hacker. This is is up to you." At least he can give a choice in this, if not in the matter of education itself.

[Madcat]

Aimee burst into laughter, even going so far as to actually slap her knee, but then stopped when she noted that he wasn't laughing with her.

"Wait. What? Are you serious right now? Education? You mean, like, school? I haven't been to school since, like, I think sixth year? Maybe seventh? Dunno. I mean, they kinda had schools at some of the shelters, but they weren't serious. Mostly stuff like 'here's how to get a minimum wage job' type stuff."

"I, uh, don't really 'do' school. Like... I mean, I hate people, right? So I don't wanna be stuck in a class with them all day. And I hate taking classes in shit I don't care about. If I need to know something, I just ask my crawler-bot, and it goes searching the internet for me. And if you wanna hire a real pro hacker? Hire Sean Carter. Anyone else will either be unavailable, or out of even your price range."

She could easily name ten of the world's best hackers but, like she suggested, they wouldn't work for a Corp, for any reason. In fact, most of them spent their time hacking Corps now. Some, it was true, had cut their teeth in the Corporate world before going independent. Sean Carter was an exception. No logo on his resume, no formal training and, really, no morals to speak of. Unlike certain other luminaries of the net-running world, Sean Carter (known as Ranger in IT circles) would work for anyone, for the right price. He was, it was said, not as good as Rache Bartmoss (but, then again, who was?), maybe as good as Dodger, or Spyder, better (it was agreed by most) than Smiling Bandit and XeroSource (both, themselves, really good) but also didn't hack his employers, or go mucking about in their data-forts while under contract. For the right job, and the right company, he wouldn't even hack them after the contract was completed.

Of course, there were hundreds of thousands of Corporate keyboard-jockeys. Cyber-security specialists that punched a clock in some office or another. Most of them were competent, some incredibly so, but most lacked the imaginative spirit or artistic flair that made one a true hacker... some just didn't want the late nights, the risk (anti-hacking software had evolved into life-threatening formats some five years ago) or the need to remain constantly on the move.

[guesswho]

Reaction just as he expected, but there´s no going back on this requirement, she can laugh or complain all that she want. At least the hacker was easy, so there´s that. Now to more complicated part.

"Alright, I´ll take this Carter guy into consideration. But I insist you get a teacher, if you don´t want to go to standard school. I know you can have crawler find anything you want, but that´s not all there is to it. It´s not about raw information, I want you to have other skills than just hacking and hiding from authorities." There´s a whole list of things she´ll need to improve on, otherwise she´ll be just another nerd locked in her cave, spending more and more time in cyberspace, until she makes a mistake and countermeasure fries her brain. And everyone makes mistakes from time to time.

Some might consider that a good death, but he doesn´t. He has plans, and he´ll need her for them. Or someone equally talented. If she fails, then maybe this Carter dude. Depends. He´ll need to have a word with him eventually.