“darkness” is a web series based on the novel grydscaen: dark. It follows the characters and the storyline after grydscaen: dark ends. This web series will run for a few weeks and post on the grydscaen blog. copyright (c) 2018 natsuya uesugi.
darkness – episode 2
Rom ran down the street. The dusk lit air twinkled with the fallout as he passed by a burned out window of an abandoned building, the door boarded up. He had come to the Shizuoko ghetto where the radiation levels were high. His anti-radiation mask over his mouth and nose keeping out the particules of radioactive dust. He slapped his hand on the wall rounding the corner and stopped up short in front of a dumpster. He was late to a meet. He bent over putting his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. He drew in a deep breath and looked down the alley. He called out hoping his target was around.
“Here!”
The word reverberated off the walls echoing back to him. Nothing. The alley was silent. A small dog came down the alleyway suddenly with something tied to its back with a piece of cloth. The black dog walked up to Rom and sat down in front of him. Rom leaned over and pulled the handheld from the dogs back from under the cloth and engaged it. There was a message on screen that read ‘walk forward and stop when you hear the whistle.’ The dog walked off and disappeared around the corner.
Rom interrogated the handheld which had various apps on it but everyone he tried was locked and encrypted. He watched as a location tracker appeared on the screen pointing him forward as he walked. It stopped at the end of the alley and then pointed down the corridor to the right. Rom turned and kept walking slowly. He didn’t like this game but he needed the information. He was willing to play. The corridor ended at a wall with a door. The app said go forward. Rom pushed on the door and went into the building. The walls were blackened as if there had been an explosion inside. His own handheld chimed and he pulled it out of his pocket engaging it. There was a warning of high radiation levels in the building. He figured it was residual fallout from the nuclear bomb that had gone off close by in the Zone and destroyed much of the buildings in the Echelons and leveled whole areas in the Zone to the ground. The app led him to another door. He opened it, the door creaking loudly and then it just disintegrated in front of him turning to dust. He stepped in the debris and continued forward.
The eye shine of a cat hovered in the corner in front of him. He watched it for a second and then it scampered off. Rom could hear noises. There were people in the room shooting up drugs, addicts he figured addicted to neurocyne, some of them jacked in playing ware games. He paid them no mind then came up to a wall. The app stopped relaying data and shut off. Rom looked up and scanned the room. A second later he heard a whistle to his left. He took a step in that direction. Where the rest of the addicts in the room were sitting, there was someone dressed in black hiding out under a sickly yellow lightbulb precariously hanging from a wire. The guy made a hand gesture waving Rom forward. He engaged as the guy whistled bringing his hands to his mouth.
“So you want it that bad willing to come to the fallout to get it. The Shizuoko ghetto is no joke. You must be desperate,” said the guy in a blue military coat, black cargo pants, combat boots and an optical sensor over his left eye, the typical garb for a data messenger who delivered drugs, data or messages for a price.
“How do I know you are real?” asked Rom skeptical. The data messenger smirked.
“Do I look real?”
“Maybe, you could be holo,” Rom pulled his handheld out of his pocket.
“Scan away…”
Rom lifted his handheld and loaded a DNA scanner app. He held the handheld up to the guy. The machine read nothing coming in. Rom frowned. He lifted his hand to the person and tapped the scanner app once more just to make sure. “Blowing smoke up my arse, hologram…”
The hologram in front of him disappeared and then Rom heard the whistle again. He shot a glance to the left to an open door. A hand beckoned him forward.
Rom walked to the door and went through into a dark room. The door slammed shut behind him as a blue light turned on. A man who looked liked the hologram in a data messenger outfit smiled as Rom held up the app again and scanned. This time a DNA trace came back. The person was real.
“Don’t fuck with me, data messenger,” bitched Rom. He handed the handheld back to the messenger who cached it in his pocket.
“Needed to make sure you were serious. No one comes to the Shizuoko ghetto unless they have to. Need to protect my assets,” said the data messenger and went into his pocket. He produced a silver pin drive shaped like a pen that could hold a terabyte of data and held it out in his palm. “Do the needful… Key is 56214 Alpha 6, Packrat encryption, Level 8.”
Rom took his handheld and put it over the pin drive and scanned it for viruses and checked the encryption signature. The handheld confirmed the drive had encrypted data on it. Rom opened an enigma app and then logged the pin drive into the port on his deck. His app using a specific encryption key checked the file and started decrypting the data once Rom used the right key. The data loaded to his handheld and then erased the pin drive. It took five minutes for the data to transfer. Rom raised an eyebrow when the decrypt finished. His handheld notified him the file was not complete.
“Where is the rest of it?” Rom barked angrily. He needed the data for Jester who would not be happy with him if he didn’t get the full file. The data he was seeking was a full logistic profile and Highly Confidential information on ZenZen the head of the Corporation including date of birth, cit card ID, bank accounts, tax IDs, credit card accounts, personal detail.
“You think I trust some kid who comes to the Shizuoko ghetto? You must be kidding. Pay me first,” ordered the messenger and pulled a credit card out of his back pocket.
Rom put his handheld up and pulled a red unmarked credit card out of his pocket. It held funds he had stolen on a hack he had done earlier in the day just to get to this point in the data transfer. He didn’t need this data messenger to have any more intel on him than he needed for the sale. He held out his card and the data messenger positioned his close, at the end and the two cards locked. A virtual keyboard appeared on the data messenger’s card as Rom’s chimed accepting the connect.
“We agreed to 50,000 credits. No more,” Rom insisted eyeing the data messenger and watching him closely as he tapped out the number on the virtual keyboard and put in his encryption key.
When he was done Rom typed out his key on the other end of the attached cards and waited for a second as the codes registered. The cards chimed and the credits transferred. The data messenger removed his card and went into his pocket. He held out to Rom a slip of paper.
“You want the rest of the data you go here,” said the messenger and dropped the paper on the floor. He saluted sarcastically. “Nice doing business with you.” He vanished teleporting away.
Rom leaned down and picked up the paper which simply had a single statement on it. “The Hole. Luscious Schoolboy Magazine. Second from the back. Page 24.” He didn’t want to have to play this game but the data he was after required games just because ZenZen was a member of the Triumverate, the secret organization that ruled the Pacific Territories’ Elite government. He slipped the piece of paper in his pocket and teleported to the Red Light District in Haven 15 in the Echelons.
The Zone Police were out in force as it neared curfew. Rom was only sixteen. He would have to get off the street so as not to be rounded up as a delinquent once the streetlights came on. The sun started to set over the horizon backlighting Rom’s dirty tan trench coat and grey shirt with safety pins holding the fabric together, holes throughout. His scuffed brown lace up shoes and black jeans were ripped at the knees. He hadn’t had a shower in weeks living on the streets. He saw the hosts lined up outside The Hole shop looking to pick up a John for the night. He pushed in the door to the store and was assaulted by walls of pornographic magazines. Rom went up to the gay wall and scanned the magazine covers until he found Luscious School Boy. The hacker and host Faid with his bright flaming dyed red hair was on the cover in a school uniform and a ponytail.
Rom rifled through the few copies on the wall and pulled the second magazine from the back. He stood there and flipped pages carefully watching the proprietor glaring at him. Rom was not old enough to be in the shop. The fact the proprietor didn’t make a stink about it when he had done so numerous times in the past made Rom realize he was in the right place. He looked over at the shop owner with a frown on his face who winked at him and waved him off. The store owner could get in trouble for Rom underage being inside.
Rom quickly flipped pages as other gentlemen got their fill of the porn, four men ogling the pictures of the magazines lining the walls. Rom flipped to page 24 onto a picture of Faid in a white t-shirt and shorts, bulging at the crotch with a lollipop in his mouth. There was a red data card taped to the page. Rom pulled the card out and slipped it in his pocket and returned the magazine to the shelf. He left without a word and went down Drake street and deposited himself on the sidewalk in front of the Tram eatery. He pulled a hat out of his pocket and a little change and set it out in front of him. Almost immediately someone threw him some change thinking he was looking. Rom ran the red data card through his handheld.
The rest of the data he had purchased appeared on the screen. A gold mine. Just what Faid and Jester ordered.
Raven the cyber security analyst was in his room surfing the gridscan. He was looking for any detail he could find on Jazz the informat to the Psi Faction. Gailen, the operational leader of the Psi Faction and his commanding officer had ordered him to look into Jazz and determine if he really could be trusted as an informant. With the stock market hack that tanked the economy over the last few weeks, Jazz had come into question as possibly working behind the Psi Faction’s back and having been in on it. Raven was looking for evidence of that. If he found any trace of Jazz working with Jester and being responsible in any way for the hack, Jazz’ immunity would disappear and they would haul him in and arrest him.
Raven yawned. He had been at it all night. A chat program was open. He was waiting for news from darkzero5 who he had hired as a random jet jockey to looking into Jazz and the Soul Deep. So far he had not heard word from her or received any intel. She was due to report in any second. He continued surfing the gridscan bored having found little when the chat program chimed. A message was coming in from an avatar he was connected to.
“Ping. check it…” came the avatar IceQueen15.
Raven ran a trace on the avatar and found the vicinity it was transmitting from and the IP. She was exposed allowing other hackers to sniff her. He ran the trace and clocked her to a cyber café in the Red Light District.
“Ping me on an open channel?” Raven shot back pounding the keys.
“Yeah, you think I trust you, government spook?” the avatar answered back. He knew it was darkzero5 by the profile that came up. She was on a public unencrypted channel. Raven dropped his avatar into the dark, and covered his tracks.
“What you got?”
“Pay me!”
“No dice. Info first. You know how this works,” responded Raven.
“Jazz is a Level 9. Runs the Soul Deep. Plays the government off hackers. Both sides. Burn yourself trusting him,” darkzero5 responded.
“I know that. Give me something I don’t know.”
“He is a citizen…”
Raven’s eyes got wide. What was a citizen doing in the Echelons. If other hackers found out Jazz was a citizen it would be game over. No one would trust him any more. Being a citizen was privileges. It gave you access to the glorious utopian metropolitan City and all the money, luxury or anything that you could possibly want. People in the Echelons would die to get citizenship but it would never happen. There were laws against it.
“How did you find that out?” asked Raven.
“I got my ways.”
“What else?”
“He is a blank.”
“How can he be a blank and a citizen? That is not possible.”
“Don’t know. That is all I got for you. Shove it out…”
Raven put his government issued credit card in the machine. He typed in 10,000 credits and transferred the money to her avatar. She went silent for a moment.
“Thanks,” she responded.
“I may need you again,” Raven inquired.
“Just catch me. I might bite. Next time will be higher…”
“Done.”
Her avatar logged off and disappeared from the session. Raven leaned back in the chair after disconnecting the chat application and put his hands behind his head. “He can’t be a citizen. That is not possible. I better tell Gailen.” Raven launched out of the chair and went to the Ops room to inform Gailen.
The sun set and the streetlights blazed their sickly yellow light casting sporadic shadows that flickered on the concrete. Rom watched his back as he made his way back to the Jester hacker guild. On the way there his aegis or manifestation of his psychic power started to spark around his hands. It hurt him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and gritted his teeth as he made his way to the bouncer outside. He waved his Jester hacker guild ID and the bouncer let him into the guildhall. Faid was in the back seated on a couch hovering over a laptop.
Rom came to stand in front of him then slapped the data card down on the table and shoved it over to him.
“ZenZen,” said Rom and then sat down in the chair across from Faid. He cringed as he put his hands on the table with the aegis circling his fingers.
“Good. Did the data messenger cooperate? With what he was carrying he probably played games with you.”
“Yes, annoying,” responded Rom.
Faid pushed a vial of neurocyne across the table and a hyper inject syringe which Rom grabbed up and stuck in the needle. He rolled up his sleeve and shot himself up. The aegis stopped sparking a moment later.
“Seen Jazz?” asked Faid.
“No, he has been scared ever since you brought Jester to see him.”
“Yeah, I wonder. He has been acting strange. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“He will come around. Don’t worry about it. I trust him,” said Rom and smiled.
“Well, I don’t,” warned Faid. “Watch him for me next time you are in the Soul Deep.”
“Sure. I can do that,” Rom stood up to leave pushing the chair back into the table.
“You better get back to the Packrat Sprawl. It is after curfew.”
“Going,” said Rom and disengaged. He teleported back to the underground abandoned subway.
To be continued in episode 3
