Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask

"That's a good point." Matej nodded, audibly cringing at the sewage infested tunnel. "Is it too late to climb back up to street level and infiltrate through there, like normal people?"

Barker stifled a laugh "...infiltrate like normal people.."

"I don't see why not." Roksana cheerily pondered "Since the surveillance system is under our control, we just have to dodge the human element, to get inside via the street."

"Wonna go for it?" Matej looked over his shoulder toward you "I'm sure there's a storm-drain or a manhole around here somewhere."

Kaylee Brown wrote:Now he stood in front of the building, across the street, surveying its perimeter. As he did so, he heard a very faint clattering coming from the fire-escape ladder to his right and saw the telltale signs of a pair of stealth-suits: two silhouettes, just barely barely visible in the rain, as it lightly hammered their hoods at their cloaks, roughly betraying their position.

If Geoff hadn't observed this effect earlier this night, he wouldn't have noticed it now either, it was that subtle. Even now, he struggled to track the figures as they descended the ladder, as they periodically faded from sight so completely, he had to strain his eyes in the dark, trying to catch even the slightest movement or disturbance in the air, created by the rare drops of rain.

He became certain however, at least two invisible figures had just descended down the ladder to street level, just a few meters to his right. And since he was standing perfectly still, it wasn't at all clear that they were aware of his own invisible presence.

Unsure whether these new arrivals are friend or foe, Geoff holds his ground for now, and simply remains where he is as he waits to observe their actions.

"I'll stay down here and keep an eye on the security. I'll hardwire in and see what else I can shut down or turn to our side. Having their own security turn against them when the time comes will give us an edge"

"See if you can get that door open as well. Smell aside, once we're on the 'make some noise' part of this mission it will be easier to lose our enemies in the sewers. Though that does mean that this entry point will likely be null and void after tonight"

Epsilon find the security system she left the wireless portion of the datapad in and reopens it. She then hard connects to it again and begins the process of breaking even further into the security system and gaining control over as much of the network as she can.

"I'll ping your data pads only if I can get the door open"

Gamma nods then address the rest of the sewer squad

"Surface it is then, let's go"

"Back up we gooo~" she purrs over the Radio with sarcastic cheer. She checks her datapad to see where in the road to come up. Preferably anywhere thats not the front door.

As Inferno obeserved the folks watching the crew, he took a bit of time to focus on each one to discern some pattern to their movements or how intense their observation was. In using his senses, he felt something at the back of his neck, and gave a look there. Seeing nothing, but the feeling still there, he spoke into his radio.

"Did the cat come back?"

Some time passed and Slasher found the sewer schematics on her data-pad, located the most inconspicuous point of exit, outside the field of view of the office building and silently emerged out of the foul cylindrical tunnels. The rest of the team soon followed.

Still perfectly invisible, you make your way to the nearest corner and observe the target office building, right across the street. You didn't know it yet, but you weren't the only one observing the scene.



A featureless, unpeculiar building of 8 floors stood just across another venue, separates from other structures by two-laned roads on all sides. It looked just like any other office building beside it, flat, rectangular and lacking decoration. A person could walk right by it and never even know, that an office complex seemingly designed for stock exchange, was actually the office of military intelligence in Sakamundu.

To your trained eye, however, the hallmarks of a spy agency were unmistakable. A subtly parked hatchback down the street with its engine off. A pair of young men smoking on the steps of the building. A woman gazing across the road on the roof of the office with a vacant expression.

Agents. The perimeter security detail. Blending in with the crowd and subtly watching for trouble. And those are just the ones in plain sight.




You take the time to observe the movement patterns of the enemy agents, but they don't seem to be moving, and show no signs of wanting to move in the foreseeable future.

The parked hatchback had its engine silenced and all lights were off, the pair of occupants inside seemed uninterested in their surroundings.

Two young men in warm winter jackets were smoking on the steps of the office building itself, they almost seemed like average men with a thousand mile stare, taking a 15 minute break from a grueling work shift.

A lone woman stood on the roof of the office building, gazing down the road with a vacant expression.



To the untrained eye, they seem to blend in with their environment perfectly. No one in their right mind would suspect them being government agents, performing a perimeter surveillance. You however, notice the subtle cues of body-language, the occasional vacant glance, the subtly masking of moving lips by a coffee-cup, as they listened to their earpiece and whispered into their hidden microphones.

It may not seem like it, but they were watching the perimeter very closely, and contrary to their laid back appearance, they were on high alert. They were professionals, and each one had most of his colleagues in their field of view.


The rest of the street was filled with civilians, about 5 of them, half-asleep and shuffling to work, or back home, at this late hour, perhaps from a party.





"Alright, lets get this show on the road." Matej whispered, as he emerged from the sewer to street level and expectantly glanced in Roksana's direction.

"...why are you looking at me, I'm not the team leader." Roksana dreamily said, apparently feeling his gaze falling on her.

"I'm not sure we have a team leader." Barker shrugged.

Matej remained silent, but his vague silhouette revealed by the occasional rain drops, seemed to show he was still facing Roksana.

The woman's demeanor changed slightly "My my... is it possible... you heard rumors of the past and thought they are linked to me?" Her tone was changing slowly. It wasn't threatening exactly, but you thought you felt a hint displeasure seeping into her voice, almost turning inquisitive.

Matej remained deathly silent. You could sense regret creeping into his body language. The batpony didn't reply. Eventually he averted his gaze, lowering his head slightly.

Roksana released a soft chuckle, but that hint of displeasure remained in her voice:
"...I'm not going to kill you, boy, even if you know who I was in my past life. But I will urge you to keep it to yourself..." her voice frosted over so subtly, you barely noticed, but you felt it subconsciously. That last part was a threat.


"That's not what I-" Matej uncomfortably shifted.

Roksana exhaled with an audible smile and playfully punched him in the shoulder:
"Relax, we're all black-marked now."



It was really hard keeping track of the woman, as she turned around and wandered off somewhere. You eventually spotted her boots displacing the water in a rain puddle, by the corner of a building, from where she could observe the enemy office building across the street:

"Alright, lets get this party started, we've danced around them for long enough." she reached for her earpiece and broadcast to everyone on the frequency:


"All units, regroup by that ugly deserted hotdog stand, in front of the office building, we're breaching via ground level. Epsilon's looping the security feed, we just need to march up and slip in right under their noses. Let's put these Stealth-suits through their paces. Move out."







(Epsilon)


Dancing a classical waltz while hooked into a USB socket by a fiber-optic cable was a bit of challenge and it took you a few tries, before you found a way to dance without yanking the cord off its socket, or have it twist into a billion knots. Trying to hack something with a wired connection was extremely uncomfortable.


You scanned the network again and let your consciousness drift into network. It felt as if you no longer had a body, only a consciousness floating in darkness, observing the building in all its three dimensions, in a way only a hacker could.

You didn't see walls, floors or windows. You saw electrical and telephone lines, snaking across the architectural structure, and everything they were connected to. Like watching an X-RAY of the building's 3D model.


You found the surveillance systems on the ground-floor easily enough, various CCTV cameras, infra-red lasers on the floors by the buildings front entrance. Various concealed turrets under the floor tiles of the ground floor, but not much else.


This surprised you. Having complete access to all the buildings systems, you expected to see more here, but there was nothing else.



You could access every piece of surveillance equipment in the building, you could turn it off or loop it, as you saw fit. You could see everything that every CCTV camera in the building saw, on every floor. But that was the only thing you could see.

You expected to find remote controlled robots in the building, but it seemed to have none. You expected to find access to the buildings alarm system, but it seemed to have no such system. You expected to get access to the buildings data-base, but it seemed to have no data-base.



It was strange.
By gaining access to this port you connected to, logic dictated, you should have been able to connect to everything in the buildings network, but there was nothing else here. Just surveillance equipment and turrets.

Every time you tried to probe the network further, looking for more things to hack, it was as if you were running into a rubber wall that bounced you right back.

With no other plan to get inside, Geoff heads over to the hot dog stand.

Gamma reaches the hotdog stand. There is a sudden notable and detectable feeling of loneliness within her at the lack of Epsilon near by. Her mind is teetering on the edge of throwing out the plan, but is just on the edge of staying true to the mission. The fact that Epsilon is still alive is the only thing keeping her from going AWOL.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A thought crosses Epsilon's mind and she focuses in on her own being. Looking for the Neurochip specifically and sending a closed loop message she hopes Shi Tong or whomever is running the Neurochip can detect. The thought is now front and center in her mind.

//Requesting Neurochip processing power to enhance hacking capabilities//

She is too focused on hacking right now, but that same loneliness that Gamma has is eating into her subconscious.

Slasher stalks across the concrete to the hotdog stand, and as she does her gaze is locked on the building. The people on the outside were trivial, with their numbers they'd all be dead in moments depending on if they could work together. Her eyes move up the building, searching windows for sillouettes and figures. Like a kid looking for a ghost in the window of a rumored haunted house.

Her tongue presses against the side of her cheek in thought as she glares at the buildings sidings looking for overhead lookouts and potential meeting rooms from outside.

Gamma steps back to be out of view of the watch and starts a hack. She breaks into the cyberware and wired technology of everyone except her team in the nearby area and sends a single command.

//Overheat//

(Epsilon)


After sending out the message to Shi Tong, you waited, as the transmission was slowly relayed out of the sewers and to who knows where the digital demon was hiding. Several seconds passed before a simple text message was sent back.


//Request denied//


Not long after, several bright red warnings flashed before your retinas. Automated ones, it seems, pre-programmed. They seemed to indicate that any attempt to interface with, alter, hack, or even examine the Neurochip, will result in self-termination.

That is to say, the Neurochip will activate, take full control of your body and make you commit suicide.


It seems Shi Tong really didn't want you messing with the Neurochip, and especially didn't want you to know how it worked.



Another moment passed, before a text message arrived to your instant messenger app, installed in your brain. The sender had Roksanas username and read:


'Whats the problem darling? A single Digital Waltz module is more than enough to hack any system on the planet.' - Roksana


You weren't sure why she suddenly sent the message, or how she even knew you were having trouble. Its possible Shi Tong pinged her and ordered her to advice you on the workings of hacking, should you require help.









(Street Level)


Examinig the office building, you notice that most floors had reflective windows that betrayed nothing happening on the inside. The few floors in the middle that weren't reflective, showed only empty corridors and hallways, illuminated by a ghostly orange light from within.

A lone figure appeared in one of them, wearing a solid black business suit and carrying a stack of papers, walked down the hallway and disappeared behind a door. The hallways became deserted again.

From this distance, you can't spot any surveillance equipment on the building, only a lone woman hung around on the roof, leaning against the guard rail and watching the street below.



And then, the tranquil silence of the night came to a screeching halt, as almost all at once, dozens of devices in the square around you short circuited loudly and blew up, emitting loud fizzling sounds, and spraying sparks and thin smoke.


Cyberware was unhackable in principle. It didn't require an internet connection and functioned purely on biochemical impulses of the brain, using liquid Tilerium as a power source. It was no more possible to hack them, than hacking a wooden leg.



The electronic gadgets were a different story. Data-pads that were de-facto computers, cellphones and radios. Smart cars, automated street lights and grass sprinklers, everything with a wireless connection and an independant powersource got swept in your very broad command and reacted, pretty violently.


All street lights blew out in a circular 20 meter radius around you, creating a neat circle of darkness in front of the office building. The sprinklers hidden in the grass patch that lined the venue popped out of the ground and fizzled with smoke furiously.

Every cellphone and data-pad blew out in a 20 meter radius, forcing the pedestrians to jolt and scream out, jerking the cellphones away from their head or digging them out of their jeans, as the devices fizzled and smoked.

The undercover enemy agents swore and tore out their earpieces, trying to spare their hearing from violent static and fizzling sparks, as the Data-pads on their forearms started to smoke.

Several parked vehicles on the street loudly blared their car-alarms for a second, before the sound grew pituful and strained, and died down, as their batteries began to smoke under the hood.

Two undercover agents burst out of their smoking vehicle, tearing their earpieces out and frantically scanning the area, their hands subtly sliding under their jackets, in a movement that signaled they were subtly reaching for firearms.

In fact every agent on the venue was now methodically scanning his surroundings now. No one drew their firearm, but you could clearly see their hands under under their jackets or behind their back, every one of the had a grip on a weapon.


The office building itself wasn't affected, standing just outside the effective firing range of the blackout, the woman on its roof who seemed bored just a second ago was now staring down the venue in concentration, her lips silently moving.


No alarms came from the building, and apart from fizzling electronic devices and startled screams and curses of the pedestrians, all else was quiet.




"Dude... overkill much?" Barker whispered over the earpiece and immediately cursed and jumped a whole meter back, as two drones just came crashing down from the sky, breaking over the pavemeant in a deafening clatter that was likely heard on the other side of the city.

Their twin rotors bent out of shape, the lenses of their cameras cracked, the 5.56 mm assault rifles strapped under their chassis threateningly laid under the smoking carcass. The black urban camoflauge and the fact you hadn't even heard the drones flying, until they short circuited and crashed, solidified the fact that those were surveillance killer-bots, automated or remote controlled, assigned to the security of the building.

You didn't even notice them until they crashed from who knows how high. Their melting chassi and broken rotors indicated they wouldn't be flying again either.


"Did you just upload Skynet into the internet or something?!" Barker grumbled, staring at the devastation.


"Move it!" Roksana called in a loud whisper:
"That got their attention! Breach! Breach now! Fast and quiet! Mow down whatever gets in your way, silencer only, we need to reach the server room before they realize the extent of our operation!" Roksana said and you saw her invisible silhouette sprint freakishly fast, in the direction of the front doors of the building, before you lost sight of her in the darkness:

"Epsilon keep an eye on those CCTV cameras inside the building!" Matej's voice came through the earpiece in a haggard whisper as he ran down the street "We need to know if they're scrambling their combat responce team and where they're headed! Guide us through the building so we can avoid them!"

"Wouldn't mind you hacking into their comms as well," Krys solemnly called, not seeming out of breath "hear what they make of all this, what they're planning."

Slasher moves relitively quickly. She doesn't sprint like Roksana, but quickly covers the distance in a half crouch half run to press herself against the wall beside the front door. She stalks forward before stopping right beside the door and looking to see of theres anyone on their way in, or out in the next few seconds. If not, and noones looking, she cracks the door open enough to sidle in and with one hand, makes sure the door doesn't slam behind her.

The warning doesn't seem to bother her. Though she takes it as gospel, such as Shi Tong said, the threat itself really has no effect. It's more like a 'don't put a fork in an electrical socket' type warning to her and not a physical threat.

Epsilon changes her perspective within the network so that she can see what the all of the cameras see at once.

"Be advised there is part of the network I can't access from my location here. Security is down, but I suspect the building itself is another closed system. I will guide you as best I can."

Epsilon attempts to hack the coms of the people inside the building and cause them to shut down.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Overkill would have been overloading the entire power grid, now move your ass bitch boy"


Gamma then breaks into a sprint as well.

Slasher wrote:Slasher moves relitively quickly. She doesn't sprint like Roksana, but quickly covers the distance in a half crouch half run to press herself against the wall beside the front door. She stalks forward before stopping right beside the door and looking to see of theres anyone on their way in, or out in the next few seconds

The venue was plunged in darkness as you crossed the road, with no street light working in a neat 20 meter circle. The civilians were swearing loudly, trying to rip off their smoking data-pads off their forearms, while the undercover agents squinted into the night, their hands resting on the grips of their weapons, still concealed under their jackets. They were actively looking for trouble now.

The faint sprinkle of rain could have revealed your position, if not for the pitch black darkness on the street and the cold, biting wind made the agents squint, not doing favors for their vision. You crossed the road, slipping right past them, completely invisible and hugged the wall, next to the main entrance of the office building.

You peaked inside through the glassed doors and reflexively jerked away, as not a second later, two men in strict black business suits burst out with a deafening racket. These two weren't being subtle, slick UMP45 sub-machine guns were grasped openly in their hands as they aimed down the laser sights and scanned the entire avenue for targets.

Their fingers were on the trigger, faces scowling and teeth gritting, eyes hidden behind black sun-glasses, even in the dead of night, which made you think that wasn't just a decorative accessory. They stopped not a meter away from the front doors and blocked the entrance, methodically scanning the street, one of them speaking into his earpiece on a language you did not understand.

They stood relatively close to the door, the tails of their business suits flapping in the wind behind them, revealing spotless white-buttoned shirts underneath. Technically, you could squeeze by them and slip into the building, there was enough room, but you'll be brushing awfully close to them and one wrong move could end up making physical contact with them. On edge as they were, something bumping into them could make them react very volatile. Your eyes once again drifted to their index fingers curled around their UMP45's trigger.


More sprinting footsteps echoed from inside the building, a lot more of them. You estimate in another 15 seconds or so, there's gonna be a lot more people spilling out.








(Epsilon)



You watch every camera in the building, near simultaneously, a feat only made possible by the full extent of the Digital Waltz module. A human brain would have failed to cope, failed to process that much information at once, failed to focus on several hundred cameras simultaneously and pay equal attention to all of them.

You, on the other hand, had the processing power of a super computer, and could multi-task easily, so long as you could maintain your Digital Waltz. Your body in the real world twirled around, over and over, performing an elaborate dance as bright strings of blue holographic light projected out of your forearms and surrounded your body.

You watched for trouble, watched for irregular behavior, watched for enemy troop deployment, their numbers and where they were headed, but you saw nothing. All the cameras displayed empty corridors or deserted rooms. A few janitors washed the floors on a late shift. One of them was emptying a trash can by the toilets.

Some guy in a cheap business suit was sitting alone in an office, pouring over some printed documents and drinking way too much coffee. A lone woman was smoking by the window on the other side of the building, with an empty expression and complete oblivion to the blackout outside.

There were no rushing feet, no heavily armed response team bursting out of the armory armed to the teeth. There was no one. All the corridors were deserted, even the corridor leading right to the front entrance of the building, where the rest of your team stood outside. There was no one rushing to the front entrance from inside the building.

Something felt odd to you, some subconscious feeling that you couldn't quite consciously explain, as you watched the camera feeds.




Refocusing your attention, you looked for the computer system that was in charge of enemy communication control and decided to flood it with white noise. If this worked, all the enemy would hear on their earpieces was static.

A few nano-seconds later, you found the said computer system... and the mother of all firewalls blocking it from your access. This wasn't some internet cafe or even a corporate level grade firewall. This was military grade, cutting edge. Top of the line, very sophisticated program. Breaking through this thing would take a human hacker 50 years to crack its algorithm.


Thankfully, you weren't human. Not in a biological sense.


But there was also no going back from this. If the enemy ever discovered that their firewall was breached, the only possible conclusion they could draw, was that a Digital Waltz module was involved. They'd know a cyborg was involved, they'd know a banned technology was used.

Shi Tong warned you to be subtle.


But he also warned you to complete the mission, at any cost.




At any rate, this level of hack would require a Deep Dive, right into the Virtual World. Human perception could never cope with hacking a system of this complexity, in what amounted to nano-seconds in real life. If you wanted to break through this firewall, you'll have to Deep Dive. Have your consciousness flow into the network and blast through the firewall manually. For you, minutes, maybe even hours will pass, allowing you enough time to understand what you're dealing with and how to break through.

In the real world, only a few seconds will pass. But in those seconds, your body will remain vulnerable to attack, in the real world. With your consciousness stuck in the Virtual Reality, you won't be able to effectively monitor what's happening to you in the real world.
Being alone, without backup in this god forsaken sewer, this was especially risky.

But if all goes as planned, only a few seconds will pass in the real world, if that. Maybe even just 1 second. What could happen in 1 second? You've already spent 10 times that long just thinking about this.


The firewall remained lingering in your vision, massive, and seemingly indomitable. For a human. If you breach this thing, you may be able to shut down the enemy comms. Maybe you'll even gain access to other systems, systems you didn't even know existed. There could be a lot of options there. And risks.


Will you Deep Dive?

The choice was a simple one and the possibility of them learning that a Digital Waltz module was involved didn't worry her. In fact, using the place she called home for so long as protection would come in handy. Make a smoke and mirrors scapegoat to keep Shi Tong away from spot light. She would still be as stealthy as possible and do her best to leave no traces and remain hidden.

Just before diving in Epsilon and Gamma exchange a few words over the coms.

Epsilon: "Entering the Abyss"

Gamma: "Don't Blink"

Then she goes forward with the Deep Dive.

(Epsilon)



Your retinas became flooded with green strings of code, 0s and 1s and calculus algorithms, things you couldn't possibly comprehend, and yet comprehended on a subconscious level, so long as you maintained the Digital Waltz.

A series of self diagnostic tests began flashing reports in your retinas one after another - a pre-launch sequence, as it were.




Digital Waltz Module - OK

Auditory - OK

Visual - OK

Tactile - OK



Deep Dive - ENGAGE





Your vision darkened and you experienced vertigo, for the first time, since you've been shoved into an artificial robot body. You'd almost forgotten what it feels like.
Strings of bring green light flew past you, creating the illusion that you were flying through a cylindrical tunnel. The sensation ended as abruptly as it began.













You materialized in a grassy field in a T pose, lost balance and rag-dolled to the ground. The experience extremely disorienting, it felt like you just physically teleported to another location. A flood of new senses assaulted you, visual, auditory, tactile.

The grass felt uncharacteristically soft at your touch, wet with morning dew. The wind quietly howled in your ears, the sky was cloudy and dark.

You made it.

You're inside the enemy network.



This is what the local system administrators designed it to look like, to anyone with a hacking rig. The advances in electronic technology allowed programmers to create entire worlds in the virtual space, separate networks with separate rules.

This one seemed to be fashioned after a medieval setting. Only the flowing data streams that periodically fell from the sky like rain or waterfalls, indicated this to be a virtual space.

You looked around. A massive castle stood not too far away, surrounded by mighty, near impenetrable walls. How ironic of them. The networks firewall was fashioned to look like an actual castle wall. And the treasure at the heart of the castle, would be the administrator system privileges that allowed you full access to the network, allowing you to seize control of everything in the enemy building.


Its time to get to work.
First, you'll need to write a virus program to breach the firewall. Shouldn't be too difficult after you examine the firewalls code. For a Digital Waltz module, hacking something like this will take just a few seconds.

The problem was, you spotted sentries on the castle walls. Four soldiers in medieval armor, dressed as knights. Anti-virus programs. They'll likely react if they detect something amiss.

Perhaps its best to start by writing a virus program to dispose of them first.


In this virtual world. Your imagination was the limit. You could create a weapon that looked like anything, and did, pretty much anything. The only catch was, you were expected to follow the rules of the local network. A medieval castle would presume medieval weapons. Abiding by the local aesthetic would help you mask your movements better, so your presence in the system won't be easily discovered.

You could disregard this rule, of course, and create whatever you wanted. But the more aggressive the changes you made, the more massive they were, the more attention they would draw.

Create something too big, too outrageous or too devastating, and every local programmer and anti-virus app will be alerted to your presence.

The best hackers were usually the most subtle, those who barely left a footprint in the system, after their voyage, so no one even knew they were there.

Time to get to work.

Slasher glares at the guards.

Not because they were trying to find her, thats expected. No. Something else guides her fury.

Trigger discipline.

The deer shakes her head, disgust crossing over her face as she watches the guards sweep their weapons over their buddys with fingers on the trigger.

All it would take is a bump to the hand and a small storm of bullets might rake one of the guards down, causing an accident, and a scene.

Or...

The deer smiles wide as she carefully steps forward, and sticks a foot out just above the closest guards ankle to trip him and cause an 'accident'. The touch might be enough fo him to pull the trigger at nothing, if not, the fall certainly would.

And if anyone got seriously hurt, clutz here would be to blame.

Inferno walked along with the group, with a pace not too fast or concerned. Definitely faster then walking, but not like he actually felt the pressure of the situation.

"Silenced attacks, you say?" He inquires. "Count me out, got only a shotgun and my fists. Maybe a little more if I'm feeling the heat."
The way he said heat was almost wistful.
"Anyway, call me when you need force, I'll bring the fireworks."

Epsilon summons forth a set of ghosts and sets them to possessing the Anti-Virus programs. The Anti-Virus programs would not die, but they would also not be able to react or interact with anything in the network. Essentially acting as moving statues. The time from Epsilon entering the system to her leaving would also be deleted. Detecting what would essentially be a 1 to 2 second memory blip would be nearly impossible to discover unless someone was actively looking for it.

(Street Level)

Inferno wrote:"Silenced attacks, you say?" He inquires. "Count me out, got only a shotgun and my fists. Maybe a little more if I'm feeling the heat."

"Well don't just stand there looking pretty, break someones neck!" Barker's gravely whisper echoed through the earpiece "You can do it quietly, can't you?"

Slasher wrote:The deer smiles wide as she carefully steps forward, and sticks a foot out just above the closest guards ankle to trip him and cause an 'accident'. The touch might be enough for him to pull the trigger at nothing, if not, the fall certainly would.

The two agents in expensive black business suits stood their ground, scanning their environment while aiming down the sights of their UMP45 sub-machine guns. They were waiting for something, and you soon realized what.

Close to 10 more agents were storming down the hall, toward the buildings main entrance, equally dressed and armed, their black sun-glasses once again standing out in the dead of night, making you think there was more to the accessory that just aesthetic.

The square was about to get real crowded, real fast. Hearing their colleagues approach, the two agents already outside began moving forward, still aiming down sights. Slasher stuck her foot out and tripped the nearest one.


The man was so taken aback he completely lost balance. Reflexively trying to spread his arms out to cushion the fall, his palms became entangled in his weapon. His muscles flexed and he crashed onto his stomach, right on top of his weapon that violently discharged a spray of some 8 bullets that peppered the street in a wild arc, three of them catching one of his own undercover agents in the back.

The man in civilian clothing released a startled shriek, fell to his knees, drawing his handgun in the process, then blacked out and fell face first on the ground, his pistol still clutched in his grip and firmly visible to bystanders.


A second of dead silence followed, before a cacophony of panicked, angry shrieked filled the venue. Every civilian screamed uncontrollably and rushed away, ducking low and covering their heads, sprinting into the maze of back alleys as fast as their legs carried them. The undercover agents drew out their guns and began barking something in a language you did not understand. Their pistols were aimed at the agent who fired the shot, then began scanning the venue for targets, they could not understand where the shot came from and didn't even conceive it could've been caused by friendly fire.

Only the two agents by the front of the building knew what happened. At least in part. Both of them stared in complete shock at the scene, taken aback by how such a grievous accident could have happened to professionals like them. The one who remained standing eventually roared something in bewildered anger and his partner, who remained lying down on his stomach, completely stunned by what he'd just done.

His confusion didn't last long however, he jumped back to his feet and immediately aimed his submachine gun, right, at, Slasher. His sights settled dead on her head. The moment lasted for a fraction of a second, but it felt like an eternity, before his gun swayed slightly left and right of her head.

He couldn't actually see her, but he either felt, or saw, something. He was desperately and angrily screaming into his earpiece, aiming his gun dangerously waving in the deer's general direction.

His partner, a unicorn scowled and snapped his fingers, in a very casual way. Whatever his partner was screaming, he wasn't taking him seriously. A faint glow surrounded the unicorn for a moment and his horn briefly lit up with a yellow light.

You're not sure what spell he cast, perhaps a mage would be able to tell, but the man became rigid. You couldn't see his eyes behind the shades, but his bodylanguage indicated he just entered fight-or-flight mode. He looked taken aback, perhaps afraid.



You could see him reaching for his earpiece and the muscles on his neck began to tense, as he prepared to shout something over the radio, just as the first 2 of the 10 agents began bursting out of the building's main entrance, running in two perfect rows.








(Digital Fort)




You twirled in place several times, performing a very complex and highly choreographed dance, as blue strings of light surrounded your body. And as you danced, digital ghosts began to materialize from the ground up, build pixel by pixel in real time, as if they were made from transparent, miniature legos. Once the dance sequence completed, the phantoms hovered there, a few centimeters above ground, looking like withered transparent corpses, cloaked in white, torn robes and old rags.

Their blind unseeing eyes zeroed in on the centries on the castle walls and the ghosts drifted up, floating up to the anti-virus programs and flying into their bodies, possessing them, altering their code. The knights of the walls emitted distorted, digital screams of panic and pain, as their whole bodies contorted, their armor modified, becoming withered, rusty and old, before they turned into corpses themselves, moaning faintly and shuffling along the wall.


Looks like it worked. The sentries will ignore you now. And there seems to be no response from the digital castle. No raised alarms, calls or shouts. It seems your presence and actions have gone unnoticed.

All that's left is breaching the castle wall. The firewall of the network. Behind it, somewhere deep in the castle, laid the treasure, in a metaphorical and literal sense. He who possesses the treasure, posses the administrative privileges of the network, and can do pretty much anything.


All that's left is designing the best program for breaching the firewall.

As Gamma sprints she does a quick check to see if anyone was stupid enough to leave their wallet exposed or obvious. Only if she is 100% sure and with the assistance from her claws Gamma snags as many wallets as she can on the way to the entrance. Concealing them as she takes them.
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Epsilon summons an extension ladder, sets it up, and climbs to the top of the castle walls. Just before getting off the ladder she carefully looks around to see if there are anymore threats to worry about.

'Good ol' panic' the deer thinks to herself even as the barrel of the Ump hovers over her head. Her smile never leaves, and it grows wider as it becomes clear she might getting away with it. The adrenaline of being so close to spotted and potentially being shot was always the best rush.

A coworker shot down by one of their more veteran forces. Quite the sad news story thats sure to rocket up through the ranks of office gossip, and one poor guard whos life is now likely in shambles.

Her eyes lock onto the casting unicorn. she concidered if he had cast something that may have revealed her. If he did she supposes she'll be living up to her new name in a moment, and the "Causing a massive scene by assaulting the building" might be coming sooner rather then later.

"The gutters might run with more then just rain tonight..." she thinks to herself. Her fists close, waiting for the guard to call her out. "Call it out... do it... give me a blood bath... all your buddy's are riiiight there... I have a surprise for you if you do..." she bites her bottom lip murder on the edge of her mind. She arches ready to pounce. If the guard CAN see her, its becoming very clear that he's going to be first.

Slasher continues waiting though, waiting for the guards to file out and really take in their situation for a moment. Her eyes flick over each face now, looking for their secondary objective.

That long knife scar would be a dead giveaway if he was coming down with the group of guards, though she didn't really expect him to be in this arriving group.

She waits for the last guard to file out before slipping through the open door as it closes behind him.

(Street Level)


The undercover agents on the street were too agitated and alert to pickpocket. Examining their clothing you couldn't see an obvious wallet on them, and the chance of them pulling a gun on you was too great. The civilians were another matter, as they fled, you manage to slip two wallets from them, and as one of the agents was shot, you had the chance to more or less thoroughly examine his still breathing body, as he lay on the ground and found a very compact waist wallet, concealed under his shirt. Promptly making a surgical incision with your claw, you cut through both the shirt and the wallet, nicking its contents, as the man laid moaning in pain.

You couldn't tell what exactly you looted yet, you'll have to examine the contents later.






The Unicorn's muscles tensed, as he stared in Slashers general direction in panic. He clicked his earpiece, turning the radio on and managed to scream only the first syllable of whatever word he was going to shout, before his brains flew out in a spray of blood and skull fragments, as a high-caliber bullet ripped through his forehead from behind, and continued sailing forth, striking the concrete wall of the building some 15 centimeters above Slashers head.




Krys fired the shot. The cultist had crouched behind the agent and shot him near point blank, crouching so the bullet trajectory wouldn't hit Slasher. His rifle was silenced but at this distance, it still sounded like a hammer striking metal.

Time seemed to slow down for a moment, as the obvious reality began to sink in, the enemy agents receiving final confirmation that they were under attack, and the other members of Schwarzesmarken taking a step back to appreciate this blatant exposure of their stealth mission. Then everything erupted in chaos.


Three shots rang out almost simultaneously, and three agents went down. Perfect head-shots. Roksana, Matej and Barker must have had them in their sights for a while. Among the dead were two undercover agents standing by the hatchback car, and the guy who tripped over Slasher, their heads exploded like watermelons, as they were shot from completely different directions.


You made a mental note of enemy numbers.

One last undercover agent stood with his pistol drawn, taking aim in Krys' generation direction, his face completely distorted in rage and poorly hidden panic and horror, at witnessing the slaughter of his colleagues. He's about to open fire.


The woman on top of the building, ran off, disappearing from sight, screaming inaudibly into her earpiece.


The 10 agents charging from inside, toward the front doors, didn't even wait to exit. They just opened fire. With the front doors wide open, a consistent hail of bullets sprayed out, massacring the avenue in front of the building. They were firing blind, mostly. Krys's silhouette performed something that resembled a Capoeiran flip called 'Kick the Moon', before his form faded from sight entirely, dodging the hail of bullets by the tails of his stealth cloak.

Watching the slaughter of their colleagues outside, the agents decided to bunker down inside the hall of the building. Two agents in front dropped down to prone positions and opened fire. Two agents behind them dropped to a crouch and fired above their heads. The other six took cover inside the hallway behind various trash cans, potted plants and cabinets, staring down the hall through the scopes of their rifles.

The only one out of cover was the undercover agent still outside of the building. He screamed in panic, wildly discharging his handgun in the direction where Krys vanished. His bullets starting to fly too close for comfort to where Inferno was located.



"KRYS WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" Roksana barked over the earpiece, as her silhouette sprinted toward Slasher and hugged the wall behind her.

"The mage used Heightened Senses." The cultists voice replied in complete tranquility "He felt Slasher's presence and discerned we were using cloaking technology. He was about to report it over the radio. He had to be silenced."

"You had no right to make that call, you're not the leader of this outfit!" Roksana roared, sounding livid for the first time.

"Neither are you." Krys simply replied.

"YOU BLEW OUR COVER YOU MORON!" Barker yelled, not bothering to stay silent, as a deafening hail of bullets flew out of the hallway.

"He was going to blow Slashers brains out. I had no choice." Krys replied in the same calm voice, just barely audible over the gunfire "The enemy knows they're under attack, but not that their enemies are invisible. We must maintain that trump card for as long as possible. Silence anyone who discerns our capability."

"Guys, that's enough! Save the after-action debrief for later!" Matej yelled, smacking against the wall behind Roksana:
"We need to steam-roll through these fuckers and get to the server room asap, before they lock down the building! You're equipped with flash-bangs and frag-grenades on your belt! Lob some down the hall and breach the building! Don't forget your cybernetics!" he yelled over the racket.

Two of the agents inside the hallway ejected their magazines and began reloading, while two more continued to fire. The hail of bullets diminished by half but never stopped.

(Digital Castle)


The ladder materialized before you rather quickly, once again constructed from blue pixels, bit by bit, until it was high enough that it reached over the wall. You began climbing. Digital wind blew at your hair, making the locks of your hair occasionally get into your eyes, obscuring your vision, as you made the 25 meter climb.

The grass lands behind you seemed endless, stretching into the horizon as far as the eye could see, or, as far as this sand-box world went. They must have been using some sort of illusion on the edge of this map, to make it seem like the world had no walls, no barriers, but it obviously had to have them, this was a digital construct inside the local sever, it had limited space.


The undead knights shuffled back and forth atop the wall, moaning and groaning periodically, as they shot blind glances at you with their milky blind eyes, but made no move to intercept you. Just as you were about to reach the edge of the wall and hop over its edge, the wall suddenly and very abruptly extended itself upward, adding 5 more meters of brick wall atop the old.

The undead knights atop the wall didn't seem to notice, that the walkway they used was now 5 meters higher that it was a second ago. They just continued their shuffle.

You watched this for a moment, before your subconsciously willed the ladder to extend even higher, making it 5 meters longer so it could reach the new top of the wall. But just as you climbed up to the edge, the wall extended again, adding 15 more meters on top of itself.




That wasn't supposed to happen.

Computer programs had no ability to adapt. They were just code. Working exactly as pre-programmed.
If a hacked found a loop-hole in that code, the program was powerless to close it. If the program knew there was a loop-hole to begin with, it wouldn't have left it open.

In this case, climbing over the wall, was an unintended loop-hole. It was a vulnerability that local programmers haven't foreseen. You should have been able to climb over the wall.

But the wall extended itself. Not once, but twice.



It adapted. It noticed the vulnerability, just as you were about to exploit it, and closed the loop-hole. Computer programs are dumb in general. They only do what the programmer coded. They don't point out faulty code, they don't point out loop-holes or vulnerabilities, they don't point out the programmers mistakes and inefficiencies in the code. Programs don't provide feedback. They don't adapt.

This one did. It reacted too quickly and too cleverly. Almost as if it were alive. It didn't make sense.

From behind cover Gamma checks in on her control of the cameras. Swapping through them to see if anyone else was alerted to the situation and if they where headed this way as back up.

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Epsilon pauses on the ladder as she thinks on the situation. The entire security system from the sewer tunnel to now had been strange. A theory crossed her mind. A Plume of Dusk inside of a network instead of a body was crazy, wasn't it? Could also have just been security was upgraded since the Digital Waltz information was made more or less public to a degree.

She pushed the thoughts down and went on with a second plan. Very simply, she would cause her own form and that of one of her undead servants to swap physical places. If that didn't work she was also working on plan C. Summoning a bunch of era appropriate cannon's that where aimed at the wall.