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    The Nothing's Child
    The Nothing's Child
    The Nothing's Child
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    The Nothing's Child

    By Jon M. Jefferson

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    About this ebook

    Zack, Zack Goldman, pleased to meet you. I'm a runner. I know you don't know what that is. It's better if I just show you.

    See this wire? Yeah, this one here coming out of my arm. This is my connection to the net. You probably don't know that one either. I'll get to that.

    There was a time when wireless was the way to go. Everything connected in what they used to call clouds. The world was easier then.

    Then we found true virtual reality. Jammed that shit straight into our brains. Wireless wasn't fast enough. We're talking full on change in perception of worlds here. The MMOs that people used to play were immersive, you were part of their world. Kid's play.

    The net changed all that. World Dynamics created the first neural net. A virtual world built in the user's mind. Sure, it was electronic, and computers were a key component. Hell, you have to have a deck as part of your interface. But when you are logged into the net, the physical world is the world your programming creates.

    Sure, it's all still data, nothing but 1s and 0s. It's your user interface that sets the stage and builds the world you see. Like I said, I'm a runner. In the old world they might have called me a hacker. I specialize in data retrieval.

    And I'm late. So, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisher10th Day Publishing
    Release dateMar 21, 2018
    ISBN9781386641094
    The Nothing's Child
    Author

    Jon M. Jefferson

    Jon M. Jefferson writes Speculative fiction with forays into Noir and Bizarro. His stories have appeared in the 2013 Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Anthology, and the Foil and Phazer Divide and Conquer Anthology.  A longtime fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy stories in all their forms. He has spent most of his life looking for magic in the everyday moments of life. He hails from the tundra of Southwest Michigan. The monsters in his life include his wife, two daughters and growing grand kids.

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      Book preview

      The Nothing's Child - Jon M. Jefferson

      The Nothing's Child

      A cold hiss of energy crackled through my head as I plugged into the terminal. The physical world melted away as my scripts went to work. I custom designed my deck and the apps that work with it.

      It seems pretty standard to me, but the poseurs don't get it. If you don't have scripts set to work automatically when you first jack in, you get lost in the data stream. You just left the physical world, your mind needs an anchor, something to normalize the world you see.

      Greybunny35 wants me to meet up with her. Back in the 90s, chatrooms were all the rage. You could find anything there. The Gathering Hall wasn't much different. A public space to meet up, anyone can get there. It's a bit like heading out to a shopping mall on a Saturday. At least that's what I heard anyway. The place is filled with teenagers and anything and everything is for sale.

      With all the technology at our disposal you would think finding someone wouldn't be all that hard. Thing is, if a good runner doesn't want to be found, there is no way in hell you are going to find that runner.

      I throw up a private chat and send out a beacon. Shouldn't be long before she shows up anyway. I know what you're thinking. How can I have real privacy? How do I keep from being traced, when I am wired in? 

      This is something the poseurs never seem to learn. They spend all their money buying the latest and greatest deck, something prebuilt. The runners, yeah, we know better. Custom build is the only way to go. Factory settings are a joke. Spyware comes standard on the pre-builts. The corps are watching.

      Greybunny35 stepped through the door to my private room. Always throws me off when I see her. As natural as the surroundings feel, she changes it all. My user interface is pretty straight forward. I didn't go in for the odd fantasy look or anything like that. I have always been partial to something more like the old detective serials.

      If I thought my mind could handle black and white I would code that in. As it is I see everything in living color with a 1950s slant. I don't know how she does it though. Tall, leggy, long blonde hair done up in a bun with chopsticks holding it in place. She's wearing a long red silk dress, slit up the side, all the way to the top of her thigh.

      Thing is I shouldn't see her like that. She's out of place for my user defined, virtual world. Interactions are coded by my programming. She's able to work past my visuals and assert her own. Not that I'm complaining. I like the view. But damn she has some mad skills.

      I have a job for you. Her voice is low, throaty. It makes me glad I gave up chasing net whores a while back. The things she could do to me...

      This a normal crew? Snatch and grab?

      She tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. Need you to run interference.

      Interference was a cake gig. Spend some time wreaking havoc in a corporate playground so a crew can do a real world run. But this was Greybunny. Her gigs were never cut and dry.

      They're paying 5000 over your usual fees. She didn't tell me that to entice me. She knows my fees, they aren't cheap. This is a big job and they know it, or they're stupid. Shit like that usually means big time corporate raid.

      Passcodes? Or am I making code on the fly?

      What do you think?

      Who they hitting?

      YOU CAN BREAK INTO a place without the proper codes. Sure, I've done it, but it lacks finesse. Most of the time it ends up a bull doze through the front door. Obvious, amateur hour, I don't play that way.

      If you can hook up with a good group, a group that does their homework, you don't have those issues. If they have the passcodes, all someone like me needs to do is run through the system and shut things down and erase any surveillance. But, that's in a perfect world. We don't live in a perfect world.

      Not that I am trying to say I am all that, but yeah, I have mad skills. It pays to know how to code on the fly, it pays well. This is why Greybunny35 comes to me with jobs like this. I deliver the goods and get the job done.

      She sent me the packet earlier today. It was encrypted, you don't send anything without encryption. That is the ploy. Most of the apps sniffing for the encryption are concerned with what's in the package. The beauty of the encryption we have been using, the message is in the encryption itself. If the bots break the encryption the actual message is lost to the ether.

      She didn't give me all the details, need to know. But she sent me the where and when. That would be why I claimed a spot in the local coffee shop. These places are everywhere. Jacking in is cheap, and you can stay for hours.

      The coffee shops are a strange anomaly. Cyber cafes were a passing fad. You might not remember them. They were places you could take your lap top or what have you and jack in to the cafes feed. They ran rates by the hour or something like that.

      People just didn't buy into them. And then wireless became common place. People patched into free wireless everywhere they went. You know who got smart? The people with the coffee shops. People would sit in them for hours doing whatever it was they did with the old school internet on the free wireless, all for the cost of a cup of flavored coffee.

      And the coffee shops were everywhere, still are. Meeting places in the real world where you can jack in and do all the virtual work you need to get done. The price is steeper than a cup of coffee but not by much.  I love 'em. Their trace encryption is easy to scramble. I run anonymous, a virtual ghost. 

      A cold snap and the physical world slipped away. I have some time but better that than rushing through unprepared. Universal Controls, they were hitting the R & D department. I haven't made a run through their net before, but I've heard some stories.

      Most of their defense apps are pretty straight forward. Word on the street though, they hired a

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