The Art Of Technomancy

[Black]

Necron stepped forth from the jet black pyramid.

The Domain's exit changed randomly, but The robot always knew where it was.
Choosing the right path he made his way towards the matrix....

[Black]

"Pick a card" smiled the Druid
Angry power flared from the top of Necron's staff
"Don't be foolish" a harder edge came from the Druid
Necron's eyes pouring greenbalefire narrowed, for the first time he got a measure of the druids programming, its scale and it was indeed mighty.
The cards showed pictures of locations within the flesh and blood, Necron growled in frustration "Determined little shit ain't ya" he rumbled.
His reply was that mirthful grin.

Necron returned to the part of the matrix where he had conversed with the druid.
"I have time now," he called to the ether knowing the strange program was listening.

[arcanus]

The mists form into the same celtic shoreline
"So you've time to be congenial now have ye" mocks the Druid, strolling along the path.
"So your first port of call is here!"
Necron turned to see a spherical window, it showed a picturesque LTG.
The robot analysed the location, Bishopville, Maryland.
"Watcha waitin for you igit!" the Druid chuckled and walked away, leaving the old robot to growl

[Black]

Bishopville, Maryland? What the hell was at bishopville, Maryland?

"Do I have to go there in the flesh?"

The druid shrugged. "You could do, I suppose. It's not the most well known holiday destination in the world though."

"That doesn't help!" the Necron quipped.

"I've given you an LTG, not a physical address, so what do you think?" the druid asked with a condescending smirk.
"Do you know something, Mr Black?" the program asked.

Necron turned his head slowly to the druid, the movement indicating the the druid should continue.

"I'm not sure Necron really suits you anymore. You aren't the person it was sculpted for. Just something you should think about."

With that the druid vanished.

But Necron was Black's vent. The medium for him to vent his aggression. Or at least it always had been, but Black was finding that the pent up aggression he was litterally brimming with as Cardinal rarely surfaced at all these days.
Was Necron merely an anchor to his past life? What did he really need something like that for?
But the Necron is a very capable entity, Black argued with himself. Then he admonshed himself, "No, Necron is me, he's my persona icon, that is all."

So what would better represent him? Icons were easy to alter but what should his be?

For now, he was Necron and Necron surged across the matix at lightning speed heading for Bishopville, Maryland.

[Black]

Within several seconds the ancient looking warrior robot came to an abrupt halt. He was crossing the central UCAS when he came upon a massive wall of black granite rising miles above and below his data line.
The wall was crowned in battlements and what looked like gun turrets and observation towers.
Ahead, where the data line reached the huge barrier wall was a massive gateway, closed, a portcullis down over the entrance, and guns bristling around the perimeter.
Above the gateway was a statement, and Caliburn Black got the impression it was one warning that really meant it.

CONTAMINATION ZONE. STRICTLY NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONS.
BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED CANADIAN AMERICAN STATES.

Behind the wall, Black knew, was Chicago.
As well as the physical and magical barriers that surrounded the containment zone, there was also an information blackout of the city.
As far as the government was concerned the general public had no need to know just how bad things within the zone were. With a blackout of this scale they could pretty much dictate what information entered and left the zone.

Chicago seemed a long time ago to the elf behind the Necron icon. It was there that he was reborn. Well, technically not him; Cardinal, the Cardinal that Transys had created, had ceased to be. From there emerged Sinner, the precursor to his current identity.
Caliburn Black was really the end result of his release from the clutches of his old corporate employers and ultimate freedom that he now possessed.
It was, he understood well, only a limited freedom. The man that was Cardinal could never really exist in the world, he would always have to remain in the shadows.
But there, in the darker corners of society Caliburn Black could live a life as he saw fit, making the best of things, becoming the best of things. The company agent might be gone but Black was still a professional.

There was just one last vestige of his old life remaining and, he considered as he looked on at the foreboding enclosure surrounding what he half considered to be his true birth place, Necron was in fact a security risk.
The icon had been created by Transys and was associated with Cardinal. If Necron was traced back to his flesh and blood then Caliburn Black would be revealed as being Cardinal.
It was better for his old life to be gone forever.

Glancing at the walls and the Black IC in the form of UCAS Light Combat Vehicles, and the half dozen tank-like soldiers, deckers in the employ of the military, he changed his destination, calling Silk and getting him to engage the matrix connection to Op-Centre.

[Black]

It was as though the domain knew what was coming and was resisting. As Necron entered it made him identify himself, twice, even launched IC against him.
He dealt with it easily, telling it to shut down rather than entering into combat with it, but the event made him uneasy. Why was his own system attacking him? Was it even possible for it to do so?
The answer was no. He suddenly realised that it was him commanding the system to attack him, or rather it was Necron.
The matrix alter-ego had been a part of him since his creation and was almost an integral part of his make up. However, since Chicago Black had realised that he was the only constant in his life, not his alter egos. But that almost split personality was fighting it. No, he was fighting himself. Fear drove him to rebel against his own rationale, his own acceptance that Necron, no matter how much a part of him it had become was no longer viable. In truth it wasn't even a part of him any more. That angry destructive side had gone and had been replaced with a creature of subtlety. That wasn't to say that Black couldn't be destructive when he had to be though.

Once inside the dark pyramid he made his way to the operating system and after navigating thirty two safety systems he reset the environment graphics.

Everything went black. Completely black.
Then after a few moments it went the opposite way, becoming a pure blinding white.
Orbs appeared representing the different nodes within his system. Shiny slivered globes connected by long tubes so that the environment looked much like a molecule that a junior high school student would make out of polystyrene balls and straws.
IC floated about the molecule, so many blinking red and black balls. Now was the time for him to change his persona icon.
From his position in the nucleus of the molecule Necron called up a window and began to cycle through possible new icons.

Some deckers didn't care what their icon was, changing it to suit their location, their mood or even what day it was.
To Black it was an extension of him. Now that he didn’t have or need a deck any more that fact was even more poignant.

Black thought about the various influences in his young life. Since his sojourn into the world without Transys he had taken to reading comics. There he had come across many heroes with which to draw inspiration. But how many Supermen, Batmen and Spidermen, Green Mage and Cyboids were there out there? None were overly original. But then what was these days?

This must be what a woman goes through when she’s trying to decide what to wear to the office party, he thought cynically.

Looking at himself he asked who he really was. An elf? Yes. But also a professional covert operative. A killer? Only when he had to be. Scottish? The man he was a copy of was but he wasn’t so, no.
A demon in the matrix? He didn’t know the answer to that. He also had no idea how he could enter and manipulate the matrix without a deck. What was even more confusing was the fact that he could do it better now without the deck than when he had one!!

So! Who would replace the Necron?

Ok guys; any ideas please. Feel free to enter more than one!!

[Black]

Black’s mind was a blank. Or rather, it was not a lack of anything that was the problem, it was the amount of choice he had that seemed to clog up any decision making abilities.
All his life it seemed the Necron had been his matrix alter ego. Now, given the massive, almost limitless variety of shapes and images he had no idea where to begin.

He settled back on a cold stone thrown and began pouring over the matrix brining image after image up, looking for inspiration, or even an image that would suffice.

Okay, okay, he thought, lets look at this piece by piece.

He’s an elf. That didn’t really matter much on the matrix and could influence the reaction of those he dealt with negatively.
So no elfy stuff, in fact nothing that would indicate race at all.

He’s male. Nothing bad there. No problem having a gender specific icon.

He was an ex-companyman. Another fact that had little relevance on the matrix and could again have a negative influence. However it also showed him to be a trained professional. So no corporate affiliation, but a serious icon. He would have to avoid any personas that had South American, Chinese or Japanese themes.

He was a decker/hacker. This was true and also obvious by his very being there on the matrix. Did this need to be included as a part of the icon? Not really, he decided. Merely the exquisite detail of the icon would give that away.

Also trained as a company agent he was part soldier, part spy, part assassin. So he was someone with the ability to fight but preferring to utilise stealth? I’m going to end up with a ninja, he laughed.

He liked comic books and trid films and various video games too.

Putting all those parameters into a search he let the program trawl through the millions of databases that spanned the world.

Hundreds of images came back and then, flicking through them rapidly one stood out. ‘Predator’.

He’d seen this before on some old 2D movies.
Dragging the memory forward he recalled that they were from the late twentieth/early twenty-first centuries.
They were alien creatures - hunters who came to earth to pit themselves against some of the planet’s greatest warriors, covertly of course. Utilising stealth and guerrilla tactics, the creatures would attack and withdraw before the enemy knew what had hit them.

Black downloaded the films, Predator’s 1-7, Aliens vs Predator 1-5 and watched them all, back to back. The last few movies in each franchise were in trideo and so Black was able to rip the image straight from the film.

Yes, he decided. This was something he could associate with.

That was the easy part. Now he had to figure out how to change from Necron to Predator.
Previously he would have entered the cyberdeck’s onboard system and reconfigured the iconography. But he no longer had a cyberdeck.
Now when he just wanted to access the matrix and dependant on a strong wireless connection or fibre-optic cable link he just did.
Using that theory he willed his matrix persona icon to change and change it did.

Black opened a window showing his domain CPU.
On the image, standing tall and broad was a predator, accessing the holographic consoles of the CPU, the terrain featureless and stark white.
The alien figure wore the smooth curved helmet and the rune encrusted armour as well as the stealth mesh.
Upon its left arm was a console that Black knew would facilitate interrogation of the matrix. In its belt were various knives whilst mounted upon the shoulder was the laser cannon that followed the movement of the alien head.

Black held a short staff in his right hand that with a mental decision telescoped out at both ends to become the atypical ‘Predator’ hunting spear. Two fixed spurs extended from the arm’s bracer.

Moving, the dreadlock like ‘hair’ flowed naturally.

Black smiled, although the icon seemed to have no way on conveying the movement.

[Black]

Caliburn Black spent the next few hours reprogramming the environment for his domain.
After a quick check on the individual components that made up the reality filter, he launched program.

Immediately the pure white background broke into a magnificent rainbow of pixelated colour, smoothing rapidly into the high definition virtual reality that Black had programmed. Stood where he was, within the nucleus of his domain he was now inside what could possibly be a space vessel, or perhaps some complex with high strength pressure doors over the exits.
This looked like the bridge, with consoles surrounding the compartment and a command chair on a raised dais in the centre upon which Black now sat.
The floor of the room was shrouded in a thick mist.

Black awaited the final report that came in within a few more seconds. It told him that the reality filter was working correctly and that the new environmental settings were in place.

Happy that all was as it should be he stalked from the command centre, the access door hissing open as he approached. Outside the passageway held a Geiger-esk appearance and were dimly lit.
He moved quickly from chamber to chamber leaving a swirling trail in the knee high mist. Coming to another heavy pressure door he keyed it open and stepped out into a corridor that had a vestige of natural light.

The passage opened out into the daylight showing a white, snowy vista, ragged mountain tops disappearing into the sky that was obscured by the heavy laden snow clouds.
Flakes fell from the sky continuously and a wild wind whipped it up into a blizzard every now and then.
Turning Black saw a cave mouth in the side of a mountain face, snow drifting up against one side. Narrow paths wound down the mountainsides leading to one exit or another. Most, as before, were dead ends or loops back to this domain. Only one exit would lead back to the matrix. The path was perilous and on route Black passed small guard huts that housed similar looking forms to himself. Ugly looking alien creatures, their mandible like jaws opening in threat as he approached.
As before though, the domain and its guardians recognised their master and so the creatures would lower their lances and return to their huts.

The main gate was a snow and ice encrusted arch of ancient looking stones, something that could have been there for thousands of years.
Black pressed a button on the computer upon his left forearm and activated his stealth program.
Immediately he faded away, becoming completely invisible to anyone else, and translucent to himself.

In this state he passed through the gate and into the matrix.
Without any further ado he sent a quick message to Silk to deactivate Op-Centre, and then headed for Bishopville, wondering just what it was he would find there…

[arcanus]

In the same way that a warplane discards chaff and flares, Blacks new form launched an array of Spoof and Deception softcodes, the CAS National Telecommunications Grid scanned this digital passport before allowing entry, Carolina States Regional Grid did the same. In reality this occurred in milliseconds and didn’t impact on Blacks travel time.

Bishopvilles stats appeared within his right eyes field of vision, its population was 4000 SINNed citizens, its population had reached a high in the 2020’s of 5000 before VITAS II wiped out half of its population.
Its points of interest were it being the biggest breeding area for Alpaca’s in the CAS or North America for that matter, its gardens and state parks.
Digital Black grunted at the lack of interest, it was hardly a runners haven, still something was here.

Arriving in the main street grid, he found Bishopville to be like most large town or small city grids, in that they resembled a slightly idealized version of reality, he stood on the sidewalk of main street, city halls node stood proud, while the local sheriff departments node looked like it needed some modern encryption.
The cities level of security consisted of a number of sleek chrome hounds patrolling the streets, sniffing around for illicit hackers and unwanted interest in local business grids or databanks.
Only the local branch of The Bank of CAS had any decent protection and was arguably the newest node, part from some of the retail chains, digital facias.

‘So what lies beneath’ thought Black

[Black]

Apart from all the matrix automated security, can I see any other deckers/users?

Matrix Perception: 7 Hits

His stealth complex form active, Black moved steadily down the main street, observing the meta-tags for each node for anything of interest.

Browse: 8 Hits

Having already decided where his first point of call would be he leapt up onto the roof of the police station.

From it’s meta-tags can I determine if this is local government law enforcement or if it has an affiliation with one of the corporate police agencies?

Perched atop the building the alien looking living persona began to probe the node for weak points, anywhere it might be able to gain access without alerting security.
Black could have course relied on his stealth program, but if there was a way of slipping in the back door the risk of alerting anyone was greatly reduced.