“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 a few weeks and post on the grydscaen blog. copyright (c) 2018 natsuya uesugi.
Raven pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up over his head covering his hair holding it close. The harsh breeze laced with fallout whipped around the corner and pushed against him as he ran down the street in the Red Light District. The radioactive dust glistened in the air getting in his eyes. It was early in the morning, the sun just having come up. He pulled a radiation mask out of his pocket and put it on along with a pair of round goggles shielding his eyes. He felt the security cuff scrape against his ankle as he passed a burned out building turning left past a liquor store and walked into the parking garage on his way to basement Level 4 and The Soul Deep.
He was looking for Jazz.
Wraith, the dealer was helping a customer with a drug buy as Raven eyed him passing off iodine pills and a vial of neurocyne which glowed purple in the small vial. Raven watched him closely pulling the goggles off and positioning them in his hair as Wraith brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled loud. It was a warning to all in attendance that Raven, a government operative, was on Jazz’ turf.
Raven continued down the ramp. He felt uncomfortable as he passed addicts glaring at him as he finally arrived at The Soul Deep entrance passing the spray painted sign on the wall stating he was where he needed to be. He went to the back jock rig seeing the top of Jazz’ head, tan dreadlocks peeking out behind one of five monitors. There were no jet jockeys engaged this early in the day. He would have Jazz all to himself.
“What’s up, Jazz?” smirked Raven playfully as he sat down in the chair of reckoning, the lead psi synch device and swiveled it around with his feet to face the rig.
Jazz stood up pulling his gun from under the antiquated handset coming over and confronting Raven. He pointed the gun in his face feet anchored wide ready for anything.
“You on lockdown. Why you out?” barked Jazz abruptly.
“Got some business,” Raven blinked trying to keep the upper hand.
“What? I don’t need no spook shit!”
“Got a line on ZenZen. Need intel.”
“Nothing here for you. Leave!”
“A blank is telling me to leave?” Raven laughed wresting the conversation back under his control.
“Yeah, jet. I got things to do,” ordered Jazz shaking the gun at him.
“You talk now unless you want me to spill you are a citizen to your little hacker friends Faid and Jester…” Raven raised an eyebrow trapping Jazz who hesitated, fear flashing across his face. Raven crossed his arms smiling wide and sitting back in the chair. He stared deep into Jazz’ brown eyes.
There was hesitation, then Jazz shoved the gun down the front of his pants giving in, knowing that information about him being a citizen getting out especially to Jester would cripple his reputation as a Level 9 hacker.
Jazz snapped his fingers. “I’ll play. What you need?” he shot back irritated as he walked behind the rig, took the gun out of his pants and sat down bringing up the system. He configured the psi synch Raven was sitting in for a run.
Raven clapped his hands rubbing them together jostling his mop of long brown curls on top his head, clean shaven in the back. He put his right hand down on the control panel on the right armrest of the psi synch device and typed out his five digit avatar numeric ID. “Get me ZenZen and the new iodine pill trials.”
Jazz typed the query into the rig and it came back with glowing marketing data, no dirt. The SenseNet and Corporation had their fixers ensure no data got out except what they wanted to. “Iie, betsu ni. Nothing.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Jazz, bring it…” Raven barked slapping the armrests.
Jazz reengaged going deeper. He infiltrated the Corporation through the system backdoor that every company in the Pacific Territories by law was required to have in case the government needed access. It took him about two minutes to get set and break the encryption. “In. Thirty minutes inside till the Corporation admins shut you down.”
“Hit me!” called Raven and brought his hands in front of him as Jazz kicked off the gridscan session. The virtual reality holo sphere formed around the chair as Raven engaged. A long corridor flew up in the view as Raven’s avatar raced forward. The hall was lined with doors that blinked as he flew by. Up ahead three doors flashed red. Raven’s avatar paused in front of the first.
“Which one?” Raven asked.
“Let me query,” Jazz responded and typed in ‘iodine pill trial’ on the rig. The first door went quiet as well as the third, the second door remained flashing a cursor icon leveled in front of it. A window came up on the psi synch in front of his eyes in the view. Raven touched it with his index finger and blasted through entering the virtual room.
“I’m in,” stated Raven as he looked around. There were windows and picture frames in the display, each a different data set. He could see trails at the corners and instances of cyber security drones just waiting to be activated if he made a misstep. “Got drones. Check it?”
Jazz changed his view on the jock rig into the room where Raven was and caught the dormant security drones. “Give me a minute, I’ll ghost them.” Jazz typed out a string of code and a minute later, all the security drones activated and went after a false trail Jazz put up and got them to leave the room.
“You are clear,” Jazz acknowledged.
Raven clapped his hands together and threw his right hand out to the side. The picture frames shuffled and appeared in a hierarchy. Raven spoke. “Iodine pill trial, clinical data set, deaths and mortality rates…”
The picture frames shuffled again falling away leaving only one in the view. There was a lock icon on the frame and there was binary code streaming across the image in green.
“Its got shield encryption. Someone did not want anyone looking at this data.”
“Let me try,” informed Jazz and isolated the frame changing the view. Three of his monitors on the jock rig came up with a closeup of the frame. He could see the encryption running across it. He tried a few engimas but nothing. Then he copied the file and dumped it into a dark site which had its own stolen encryption keys. He wanted to see if maybe another hacker had been able to get into the Corporation before him. Nothing came up.
“The file is locked. You are gonna have to risk it. I am not putting my tail out there for a spook.”
“Come on, Jazz. I am good for it…” Raven tried to get him to engage.
“No, on your own,” said Jazz and killed the session suddenly. He got up from the rig and came to stand in front of Raven as the holo sphere around the chair cut out.
Raven jumped out of the chair and confronted Jazz. “Why?”
Jazz hesitated.
“Out with it…” Raven yelled grabbing Jazz by the collar of his colourful shirt and pulled him close in his face.
“Its got Kaizen on it…” Jazz stated and jerked Raven’s hand off him. He turned to leave.
Raven grabbed his arm. “You mean Kaizen the Immaculate. The very first Level 9 hacker?”
“The same,” said Jazz moving to the wall and leaning up against the mirrored tables at the side of the room. He crossed his arms.
“What you afraid of Kaizen?” bitched Raven.
“You should be too… Something in there the Corporation does not want to get out. If Kaizen is on it, they hired him. The fact they even found him spooks me, spook.”
“Whatever. Jester won’t be afraid of Kaizen like you are…”
“Jester won’t even touch it,” remarked Jazz.
“Whatever,” Raven pulled the goggles down over his eyes. “Blowin’ smoke up my arse. No help at all,” insisted Raven.
Jazz pushed off from the table. “Try Hell’s Hearth. You might find him there. But be careful, spook. They find out you government, you won’t get out of there alive,” warned Jazz.
“Right,” Raven waved him off and walked up the ramp leaving The Soul Deep.
“Arsehole. He has no idea. You do not play with Kaizen…” Jazz confessed and went back to the rig.
continued in episode 6
