The Art Of Technomancy

Exploration of the Realms Pixel and Cerebral to be detailed here.

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Post by Black » Tue May 19, 2009 10:41 am

Caliburn blacks icon let out a grunt as the pain swept through him.

Thousands of miles away from Bishopville, in the third floor office of the Angel Foundation in Downtown Seattle the prone body of Mr Black did likewise.

With a curse neo-black put out a hand to steady himself. He knew that his own physical body was taking the brunt of this punishment. Before, when he’d had the cyberdeck, the deck would take some of the damage protecting his flesh from a considerable amount of harm. Usually he would pull the plug before the physical damage became dangerous.
Now though, connecting mentally with the matrix, there was no such buffer, although he had noted that he was somehow less prone to taking damage in the first place. He guessed that whatever had taken the place of bio-feedback filters were a little more meaty than before.

Black glanced at his arm as he climbed to his feet. Normally in stealth mode he appeared translucent to his own vision, and invisible to others, (he hoped). But every now and again a small random part of his arm would become solid, only to dissaappear and then a different part would appear.

Was something attacking his stealth capability? Or was there a trace program sending it’s feelers down through the matrix, back along his own signal?

Neo-Black straightened up, fighting off the hurt. As a decker he would have mentally clicked on the program icon in his HUD, now he merely thought about what he wanted and the complex form activated. Armour plates that ergonomically blended in with the predator’s image materialised on his icon, then he took a better look at himself.
Run Analyse on both himself and the node.

Alanyse Icon: (Control test - 5 to TN for his analyse complex form) 8 7 5 5 2 2

Analyse Host: (Control test - 5 to TN for his analyse complex form) 8 7 4 4 3 3

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Post by arcanus » Wed May 27, 2009 2:05 pm

Neo-Black took a moment beneath the mantle of stealth, he stood within the web of alternating red and cobalt blue beams his perception spreading out analysing his own and the nodes code.

As he stood within his virtual meditation, his awareness detected further presence, two figures stepped from the green walls.
Each was dressed in a curious camoflage armour coloured scarlet and black, each carrying firmware cannons, the beams ignored them as they swept out into the room.
GM wrote:Moderate Stun.

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Post by Black » Wed May 27, 2009 9:37 pm

"Fuck!" Black hissed at the pain in his head.
Something he hadn't got used to - the direct impact damage he took in the matrix had upon his physical body.
Considering his options he glaned at the two figures and wondered who or what they were.
Grimacing, he made for the back door.

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Post by Black » Thu May 28, 2009 7:01 am

Anger soared through Black as the predator pressed further back against the wall as he maneuvered towards the exit. It was an unnecessary gesture, he was either stealthed or he wasn't, but it seemed natural.

Who the fuck were these guys?
From his position of stealth he observed the two icons. Deckers?
Why would there be two deckers waiting here in a old fire station?
IC, yes, but deckers seemed a bit odd, even over the top.
Perform an Analyse Icon operation: (- 5 TN for Analyse complex form) 7 6 5 5 4 3 3

What did the Analyse Host Op reveal? What is the Host's security level? (Orange-4, Red-6??)

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Post by arcanus » Sat May 30, 2009 7:09 pm

Black wrote:What did the Analyse Host Op reveal? What is the Host's security level? (Orange-4, Red-6??)
GM wrote:Both are Deckers!
The surrounding system is Orange-3

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The search for self awareness begins.

Post by Black » Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:03 am

The two deckers made straight for Black and he knew his cover was blown.

Before he had chance to react and even before the two got close one of them launched an attack.

A green stream projected out from the mean looking weapon the icon carried. Within the dark stream flowed symbols of a lighter shade. Black had no idea what those symbols represented, they could have been arcane, religious or completely fictional.
Despite the fact that the blast struck his squarely in the chest, making his persona pixelate momentarily and sending feedback down through the matrix so that his 'physical self' felt nauseous and gained a powerful headache, Black thought the iconography quite clever.

Predator staggered, and began making for the exit. For some reason Black did not feel right here and he got the impression that to stay and fight was not the best idea.
Stumbling down the corridor another shot hit home but this time he felt little effect.
Then another blasted into his side making the matrix world disappear from Black's view momentarily.

A door opened between the two deckers and Black and a fireman with a huge fire-axe stepped out.
Even in his semi-dazed state Black knew this had to be intrusion countermeasures.

Cal realised there was no way he could hope to get clear of this lot without suffering some real damage, not by running for it anyway. So he turned on the approaching figures, his shoulder laser firing at one of the deckers, whilst he stabbed out with his war spear at the ice.

Both attacks hit home, the spear sending the ice whirling backwards but the laser merely fizzed on the decker's armour and did nothing to slow him.
Meanwhile his companion had positioned himself perfectly and brought a new weapon to bear firing what looked like a net gun.
The virtual mesh enveloped the predator, the utility program within it activating immediately. Black examined the mesh, and although he no longer had analysis programmes he was still able understand what the various components within the matrix were. This he realised was Trace & Burn!

He knew he only had moments to deactivate the utility whilst it was in hunting mode and concentrated his attacks on the mesh. Retractable spurs sprang from the predators wrist bracer's and he quickly sliced through the mesh, surprised at how easily he disrupted the program.

No soosn as he had escaped that then the IC was there ready to pounce.

Black initaited another attack to cover his log-off.

Predator appeared on the roof top outside the stairwell. Beaten and battered Black collapsed to his knees, his mind struggling to cope with even moving at the moment.

“Perhaps,” said a voice the made the alein creatures shoulders droop, “ypou are going about this wrong!”
Black's head cocked to one side so that he could look at the druid perched sagely atop the stairwell door.
“Thanks for that divine insight” Black sneered sarcastically. “So how would you suggest I go about it?”
“Ah, well that is for you to determine, this is your journey! I am merely surmising that your current approach, given the results may not be the correct course of action.”

“So what would you expect me to do? Waltz right in and announce myself?”

The druid grinned and gave a knowing nod. “The right will be clear to you when you get there,” he said deliberately bating the elf. “However, you could not tell them who you are until you know yourself, I think.”

“I know who I am,” Black countered. “I'm Caliburn Black.”

“Perhaps!” said the druid knowingly. “But I think not in here. You look tired,” he said suddenly changing the subject. “Go and rest.”

Black suddenly found himself logged out of the matrix completely.
It was dark in seattle, just after midnight. Cal's head throbbed so he closed his eyes and slept, determined to have another attempt at Bishopville tomorrow.

The next day, as Cal sat in a room with Angel and Drake, a Yakuza hit squad attacked.

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The White Cliffs

Post by arcanus » Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:34 am

Neo-Black stood upon a solid column of limestone, reminiscent of the homely White cliffs.
He shuddered as ice cold spray not only showered him, but passed with jarring frigidness through his form, it was shocking but also cleansing.
He turned as his audio seemed to suddenly come on line, to be battered by a horrendous screeching, turning he saw the Druid pinning one of the oily black birds to the white stone floor.
The program bird squirmed and fought but with a look of distain, the Druid held it effortlessly.
"Nasty little bird is it not!" said the Druid smiling
"So Bishopville's were its at" he continued, hauling the bird up by its kneck "Not bad code, fragmented though, tryin too hard!"

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Post by Black » Wed Jun 10, 2009 3:00 pm

Bishops ville would have to wait...

The matrix architecture of the Italian Restaurant was very well done indeed. The Predator was sat within the 'manager's office' watching a bank of old television monitors that showed the feeds from both inside and outside the restaurant. Each monitor was perched atop an old VCR, all of them had their red LED recording lights flashing, their data capture paused.

Dust motes twinkled as they floated above the lamp in the corner, the only source of lighting in the room. A fan oscillated in the corner blowing cool air about the room the breeze making his icon's dreadlocks sway.
The room even had an old lived in smell.
Black laughed in surprise at the whole feel of the place, but then guessed this was a mob place, they had enough money to spend if they so wanted.

An alarm bleeped momentarily on the manager's desk drawing Black's attention.
Looking from the stencilled label beneath the flashing amber bulb to the security cameras he saw Drake and the necromancer within the cellar.

“We're in,” came a slightly crackled voice over Black's comm link.
“Yeah, I see you,” the elf replied.

It was then that he noticed something moving near the door. He turned slowly so as not to cause any 'tremors' in the matrix that may give his presence away.
There was a figure there, an icon resembling an Aztec warrior in stylised chrome armour.
Black peered at the icon, beyond the image to the coding and saw that this was a decker.
Engaged in stealth he figured the newcomer was not meant to be here either.
The Aztec suddenly stared at Black and the predator icon tensed.
Black would swear that he could feel the decker scanning him.
“What?” said the figure, confused. “Who the hell are you?” The Aztec's sword appeared defensively in his hand.

The matrix whitened-out suddenly, all architecture gone leaving the predator and – the druid.
Predator sighed.

“Indeed,” the druid smiled. “And that question again. Just who the hell are you?”
“I've told you before.”
“Caliburn Black? And I told you before... Out there” he waved his arm about the empty whiteness expecting Black to know that he meant the physical world. “That is the name you have chosen to take, but who is Caliburn Black? Is he more that just an alias?”

“What kind of question is that? How am I supposed to know who he is if I'm him but you say he's no one?”

“That, oh confused one, is today's challenge. Most people your age have had a life time to develop, to be influenced by the things in their life, but you aren't your age are you?”

Black shrugged at the somewhat cryptic but accurate statement.

“So you have to do your developing now. Think of something or someone that influences you, inspires you, something you think could help define you.”

“Like what?”

The druid sighed. “History, your own, the world's. Heroes, music, interests, anything. Perhaps start from the beginning of your life and go from there, find what there is buried in your mind and used to become you.”

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Post by Black » Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:17 pm

“That's it. At the beginning. Always the best place to start, that!” the druid quipped with a tight lipped grin.
“Take yourself back to the very start. Think of something.”

If this was the only way Black was going to rid himself of the druid then he didn't see how he had any choice.

He thought hard about his past about the place that formed him.

The surrounding whiteness was suddenly filled with with a stark room.

Men wearing long dark coats over black stylised armoured uniforms bearing the Corporate logo of Transys Neuronet were stood to attention in a long line.

Along the rank of men walked another uniformed man, speaking in a clear strong voice.

Black, stood at the end of the row recognised the man, Task. He had been Black's superior when Black had been Cardinal. There was a reflection in the window set into the only door to the room. Such attention to detail in the matrix sculpting impressed Black.
Caliburn stared at the reflection, seeing in the return image not the alien form of predator, but his own visage when he was Cardinal.

Task was briefing the Neuronet agents on the mission they were charged with.
Black remembered it being one of his first.
What did this, Black wondered, have to do with him finding himself?
Then as Task continued his briefing the elf found it harder to think of this as a memory, and the question that had been on the edge of his mind – how was a memory of his appearing in the matrix almost like a host? - was suddenly no longer there.

He moved out with the rest of his team, their mission to seek out and apprehend a shadow-fixer whom had been supplying certain rival companies with information sensitive to TN's business.
The corporation wanted to know where he got said information.
Having journeyed across the Manchester sprawl following lead after lead they tracked the fixer down to his personal abode.

Now the team proceeded cautiously, aware that their activities could well have forewarned the fixer of their approach.
Cardinal was surprised when advanced agents reported back to the assault team that the Tango was still at home.

The operation commander, a dwarf called John Herrod, had positioned Cardinal in a fire stairwell a floor below the fixer's apartment. He planned to shepherd the fixer and his entourage towards the stairwell by deliberately leaving weak points in his assault. So the fixer would believe himself to be beating the Transys raiders but instead would be walking into the waiting arms of Cardinal and his fleet of combat drones.

The order came through over the comms to begin the assault and Cardinal knew now that it was a waiting game.
Listening patiently on the floor below he could hear the reports coming in and could tell from the building plans he had overlaid in his vision where the target was. From the sounds of it he had quite a bit of help and the Cardinal could hear the muted rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gun fire. He cursed that noise even though it was inevitable. The Transys agents were all carrying silenced weapons, but from the fixer's point of view the louder the better. The gun fire in an apartment block would give rise to acts of panic from the other occupants and then the Transys agents would have to deal with civilians getting in the way.

The stairwell was wide and the landings quite spacious, designed so that those trying to escape a fire from this floor could merge easily with those of the floors above. So often in the past, especially in older buildings, the fire escaped had become a bottleneck and been the ruin of many a life.

It made the stairwell an ideal place for Cardinal and his dozen drones to sit in wait. Six drones were stationed on the half-landing above and the other on the half-landing below alongside Cardinal himself.

The door suddenly burst open and two men quite professionally folded around the door frame into the stairwell, their sub-machineguns leading the way, sweeping the area before them for targets.
Finding none they moved in and four more armed men came in ahead of the Tango, a woman and two children. Behind them came another two men.

A yell sounded up the stairwell, echoing off the ferrocrete walls. Cardinal knew it was none of his team, probably a civilian, but whoever it was did him a favour, giving the fixer's bodyguards pause for thought. They waited on the landing, listening to the sounds and as they did so the rear guards came forward to cast their opinion, meaning that all eight were now in front of the Tango.

Cardinal activated his squealer, a little device that he had place in the rear corner of the landing. All eight of the guards reacted, some blindingly fast. So did Cardinal.

He stepped into the open at the bottom of the stairs, immediately assigning targets for his flotilla and bringing the twelve drones on line. The thrum and roar of their motors pulled the guards attention back towards the stairs, but it was too late, even for the two men whose reaction speed was phenomenal as Cardinal had assigned more than one drone to them.

It sounded like the very gates of hell were cracking open as the drones opened fire on the guards, their fully automatic weapons spewing fire and death.

After ten seconds of bedlam the fixer's bodyguards were all down, dead or incapacitated. Cardinal calmly walked up the steps, a Browning Ultra-Power pistol in each hand.

The fixer, an elf himself, cast Cardinal a pleading look but when he saw the compassion-less expression on the Transys Nueronet agent's face he knew there would be no quarter. He darted behind his wife using her as a shield, his own pistol waving at the other elf.

Open mouthed in horror she glared at both the Transys elf and her own husband.

“That,” Cardinal warned in his Scottish accent as the drones moved menacingly closer to the fixer, “will do you no good.”

“Wha? You gunna kill innocents just to get at me? That wouldn't look good in the press.”

Un-fazed Cardinal responded. “If your wife is kens of how you earn a crust then she's an accessory and therefore no innocent. And if she didnae? Well ignorance is no defence.”
With that he sent a message from his brain, down his right arm to the pistol held firmly in his grasp. The message told the weapon via the smartgun link to fire.
The single shot echoed noisily in the now quiet stairwell. The sobbing children screamed as their mother's dead weight slipped from their fathers arm.

“You fucker!” the fixer yelled still having the cowardly where-with-all to slip behind his crying kids.

Cardinal's aim adjusted to the two children ready to fire again but he paused and stared into their tear filled eyes.
This is, was, a memory he suddenly realised, but he remembered pulling the trigger. He did not recall ever having doubts.

“This was all very interesting,” announced the druid's voice from behind him.
Black turned to glare at the matrix entity.

“I too wondered what all this had to do with defining who you are, but now I see. This was you as you were engineered to be, but at the time the suppressed real you doubted your very actions as you doubt the now.”

The fixer and everything else seemed to have stopped, frozen as though this were some game on pause.
Black turned to look into the fear filled eyes of the children. “I certainly don't want to be this person any more,” he said angrily.

“That is good.” the druid replied. “Often to define who you are, who you are not you must first find.”

“Very Yoda!” Black quipped and the druid flashed his sarcastic grin.

Movement on the stairs attracted the elf's attention. The strange looking Aztec warrior from before had just stepped lightly onto the landing. He turned seeing Black and growled. “Who the hell are you?”

The matrix faded to white leaving the predator and the druid standing there.

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Post by Black » Sun Nov 08, 2009 3:25 pm

Once again the whiteness dimmed, fading to black.

Small pin pricks of light dotted an open clear sky. Stars by the thousands shining brightly.
A roar of a LAV engine sounded from below. Looking down Black saw a vast city, its lights disappearing into the distance. The roadways between the incredible tall buildings were like neon snakes in a dark pit twisting this way and that, crossing, skipping over or ducking under one another.

The LAV soared away following the route marked out by one of the snakes.

“Where the hall am I now?” Black asked the emptiness around him.
He was stood on a pinnacle of concrete at the corner of a massive sky scraper, like some dark humanoid gargoyle.

A sudden wave of vertigo swept over him, which surprised the elf as he'd never suffered from it before, especially in the matrix.
Looking down at himself he saw that he was dressed in a dark suit of body armour and a cloak flapped about him in the simulated breeze.

Then a scream from far below echoed up to him. He brought the binoculars that were in his hand up to his eyes, and adjusted the focus of the digitally enhanced image.
He saw some men harassing a woman in her car. One of them was trying to pull the door open.

Before he could stop himself he stepped off the edge of the column and plummeted towards the asphalt over 100 stories below him.

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