(no subject)
about 600 words, and finally finished the scene that's been plaguing me for days. Curious about a couple of "infodumps" and whether they read that way.
He scrolled through his project at a frantic pace. Usually, the faster he went, the more it flowed. Going slowly required too much thinking, but if he didn't give himself time to think, some part of his subconscious did the work. It was effortless that way, and generally more likely to be correct.
Today, however, it wasn't working out that way. Jared couldn't get his mind off Calliya, no matter how many times he went through hive.mind.prj. He knew he wasn't the smoothest with women, but he'd never let a pretty face totally overwhelm him like that before. His ability to control his actions, even when his body disagreed, was something he prided himself on.
But Calliya had taken away that control in a matter of seconds. She hadn't even had to try very hard. Now he couldn't trust himself.
He needed to talk to Kailen, which was another concern pressing on him. What had she been insinuating? That Kailen was dead? If so, was she claiming to be responsible, or did she know who did it?
"Load Zapbot," he said. It was possible to bring the program up without vocalization, but with his concentration so windswept, he didn't want to deal with the inevitable errors.
ping
"Search: Kailen Tabuch. Target: 72 hours."
Insufficient parameters
Even speaking out loud, he'd made a mistake. How did he screw up a simple fo-search. "Search: Kailen Tabuch. Target: 72 Hours. Spec: All Activity"
Searching Infonet.
Jared closed his eyes, counted to three, and then re-opened them. The lines of code were replaced by his bedroom, which was slightly less familiar. Vertigo struck him suddenly. He'd been pacing while he progged, not lying down, although he knew better. Now he paid for it by losing his balance and falling. His head struck the soft mattress, but his knees were not so fortunate, banging against the carpeted floors.
Darkness welled up in the corners of his eyes, like a shadow threatening to swallow him. The familiar sensations of alternating heat and chill raced up and down his spine, and for a terrifying moment he was completely paralyzed.
How long? He wondered, afraid to access the time for fear of another bout of what he called the rushes. Unsure of what caused them, they always happened if he worked too long while standing. Perhaps it was as simple as dehydration; his mouth was certainly dry afterwards. He was afraid to visit a physic, or even allow the medical probes to examine him too closely. There was too much left to do for him to have a serious illness.
No light came in through the windows, but that was meaningless. Most days the smog was so bad the sun barely got through, if at all.
When the worst of it had passed, and he was only feeling a vague sense of weakness and light-headed, he got up and crossed the room. Turning on the faucet, he picked up the gourd and grimaced at the insides. He'd failed to rinse it out after previous use, and the grinds inside had a layer of fuzzy mold growing on top. He tossed this in the waste disposal unit, and opened the cabinet to get a fresh gourd. That was the second one he'd ruined, and they weren't easy to get.
Mat`e was a goblin drink, and trade with goblins was uncommon. Only a select few people had permission to leave the city, and all outside goods flowed through them. The goblins hated and feared humans, which made things even more difficult. That very few people properly appreciated mat`e was another limiting factor. Luckily, the goblins had grown accustomed to certain refined metals, and humans had no other source for some more popular goblin drugs.
Since mat`e was legal, it came into the city in the effort to smuggle in the illegal recreational substances. The mat`e paraphernalia, however, like the gourds from which the drink tasted best, were in even lower demand. Jared paid dearly for them, and was constantly managing to ruin them.
He opened the glass canister, and scooped out enough of the crushed, brown leaf to fill about three-quarters of the gourd. Sticking the filter-straw into the grounds, he covered the top of the gourd with his hand and flipped it upside down. This allowed the finer particles to settle on top, where they wouldn't get sucked up the straw. The water from the faucet was at the perfect temperature, just below boiling, and he filled the gourd the rest of his way and headed back towards his bed.
He was taking his first sip when Zapbot's message blew through his mind like an explosive. Search Complete. Jared spilled the hot liquid all over his hands, the clothes and carpet. Muttering to himself, he set the gourd down on his empty night-stand and stripped off his clothes.
Wrapping himself in the single blanket on the bed, he sat down on the edge of it and finally took a sip of the restorative drink. Almost instantly he felt his mind clear and the weariness lift from his body. The stimulating effects were slightly more powerful than the coffee he was forced to drink at Council, but felt more wholesome as well. After a second sip, he set the gourd back down and stretched out on his bed. He wouldn't take any chances at having a second bout of the rushes today; with his mind finally settled, there were a lot of things to do. He directed his thoughts, and a grey wall covered in text filled his vision.
The majority of what Zap had turned up was from three days ago, and fairly mundane. Posts and mails that Kailen hadn't even bothered to encrypt. Zap was a good bot, and had managed to turn up a few things which had been anonymized, but carried enough of Kailen's signature for him to recognize.
These "anonymous" messages turned out to be mostly business, a few political. Jared would normally have respected Kailen's privacy, but these he went through word by word. Nothing unusual showed up until he got to the last two messages.
One had been sent to a private node, which Zap hadn't gotten the address of. It would have been missed entirely if Kailen hadn't used a proxy. Proxy nodes were wonderful from keeping sensitive material from getting traced back to you. Unfortunately, because they were generally the nodes of unsuspecting businesses or individuals, they often cached whatever passed through them. Kailen must have been in a hurry, or not worried about anyone actually reading his message, because he hadn't hacked in to delete the cache afterwards.
Jared skimmed over it once, and almost went on to the last message. It was fairly innocuous, the address of a bar. Kailen wouldn't worry about something like that being in a system's cache. But, why did he go to the trouble of anonymizing and encrypting something like that?
Calling up another program, Jared asked, "Last contact: Kailen. Incoming OR Outgoing."
9: 56, Fool's Day
He checked the timestamp on the message. 12:51 Gold Day. Just hours after the last time he'd been in touch with Jared.
Saving the bar's address to memory, he opened the very last item. It wasn't a direct mailing, or post, but some sort of sensorial broadcast to the infonet. Jared hesitated to open it. Generally, things of this nature occurred as the result of a mistake. Someone accidentally triggering a release of their crystal's recording of whatever was occurring in the brain. But Jared feared Kailen had encountered something that frightened him, something he wasn't sure he'd survive. Only the inexperienced made mistakes like that. If Kailen had sent out such a broadcast, it was because he didn't have time to send another kind of message. If he opened the file, he would experience everything as Kailen had.
Bracing himself, he activated the file. A black and white image filled his mind. It was blurry, and Jared felt intoxicated. After a moment, the image resolved slightly. He appeared to be lying on his side, looking at a pair of boots. The floor beneath him appeared grey, but that could have meant dozens of colors. He couldn't make out if it was carpet, tile or cement.
"Leave me alone!" The voice was Kailen's, but sounded strange, like his mouth was full of rocks.
"Give us the codes. Don't fuck around," The owner of the boots answered. It could have been a man or woman.
"I told you, I don't have them," This time Jared understood why the voice sounded strange. He felt the jolt of pain in Kailen's mouth and understood his teeth had been broken in.
Kailen didn't get his hands up in time to block a second kick to the face, and sharp pain shot through Jared's head as his jaw was broken.
"Reddy P, the bastard is broadcasting. I'm picking up parts of it now. He must be sending to everyone on the 'net." This voice was definitely a woman's. "Finish him. We'll analyze his crystal."
The third kick brought blackness. File end. Jared shivered uncontrollably. Sensory sharing was overwhelming, but experiencing the murder of his best friend tore him apart. Eventually, tears came, and afterwards sleep plagued with nightmares.
He scrolled through his project at a frantic pace. Usually, the faster he went, the more it flowed. Going slowly required too much thinking, but if he didn't give himself time to think, some part of his subconscious did the work. It was effortless that way, and generally more likely to be correct.
Today, however, it wasn't working out that way. Jared couldn't get his mind off Calliya, no matter how many times he went through hive.mind.prj. He knew he wasn't the smoothest with women, but he'd never let a pretty face totally overwhelm him like that before. His ability to control his actions, even when his body disagreed, was something he prided himself on.
But Calliya had taken away that control in a matter of seconds. She hadn't even had to try very hard. Now he couldn't trust himself.
He needed to talk to Kailen, which was another concern pressing on him. What had she been insinuating? That Kailen was dead? If so, was she claiming to be responsible, or did she know who did it?
"Load Zapbot," he said. It was possible to bring the program up without vocalization, but with his concentration so windswept, he didn't want to deal with the inevitable errors.
ping
"Search: Kailen Tabuch. Target: 72 hours."
Insufficient parameters
Even speaking out loud, he'd made a mistake. How did he screw up a simple fo-search. "Search: Kailen Tabuch. Target: 72 Hours. Spec: All Activity"
Searching Infonet.
Jared closed his eyes, counted to three, and then re-opened them. The lines of code were replaced by his bedroom, which was slightly less familiar. Vertigo struck him suddenly. He'd been pacing while he progged, not lying down, although he knew better. Now he paid for it by losing his balance and falling. His head struck the soft mattress, but his knees were not so fortunate, banging against the carpeted floors.
Darkness welled up in the corners of his eyes, like a shadow threatening to swallow him. The familiar sensations of alternating heat and chill raced up and down his spine, and for a terrifying moment he was completely paralyzed.
How long? He wondered, afraid to access the time for fear of another bout of what he called the rushes. Unsure of what caused them, they always happened if he worked too long while standing. Perhaps it was as simple as dehydration; his mouth was certainly dry afterwards. He was afraid to visit a physic, or even allow the medical probes to examine him too closely. There was too much left to do for him to have a serious illness.
No light came in through the windows, but that was meaningless. Most days the smog was so bad the sun barely got through, if at all.
When the worst of it had passed, and he was only feeling a vague sense of weakness and light-headed, he got up and crossed the room. Turning on the faucet, he picked up the gourd and grimaced at the insides. He'd failed to rinse it out after previous use, and the grinds inside had a layer of fuzzy mold growing on top. He tossed this in the waste disposal unit, and opened the cabinet to get a fresh gourd. That was the second one he'd ruined, and they weren't easy to get.
Mat`e was a goblin drink, and trade with goblins was uncommon. Only a select few people had permission to leave the city, and all outside goods flowed through them. The goblins hated and feared humans, which made things even more difficult. That very few people properly appreciated mat`e was another limiting factor. Luckily, the goblins had grown accustomed to certain refined metals, and humans had no other source for some more popular goblin drugs.
Since mat`e was legal, it came into the city in the effort to smuggle in the illegal recreational substances. The mat`e paraphernalia, however, like the gourds from which the drink tasted best, were in even lower demand. Jared paid dearly for them, and was constantly managing to ruin them.
He opened the glass canister, and scooped out enough of the crushed, brown leaf to fill about three-quarters of the gourd. Sticking the filter-straw into the grounds, he covered the top of the gourd with his hand and flipped it upside down. This allowed the finer particles to settle on top, where they wouldn't get sucked up the straw. The water from the faucet was at the perfect temperature, just below boiling, and he filled the gourd the rest of his way and headed back towards his bed.
He was taking his first sip when Zapbot's message blew through his mind like an explosive. Search Complete. Jared spilled the hot liquid all over his hands, the clothes and carpet. Muttering to himself, he set the gourd down on his empty night-stand and stripped off his clothes.
Wrapping himself in the single blanket on the bed, he sat down on the edge of it and finally took a sip of the restorative drink. Almost instantly he felt his mind clear and the weariness lift from his body. The stimulating effects were slightly more powerful than the coffee he was forced to drink at Council, but felt more wholesome as well. After a second sip, he set the gourd back down and stretched out on his bed. He wouldn't take any chances at having a second bout of the rushes today; with his mind finally settled, there were a lot of things to do. He directed his thoughts, and a grey wall covered in text filled his vision.
The majority of what Zap had turned up was from three days ago, and fairly mundane. Posts and mails that Kailen hadn't even bothered to encrypt. Zap was a good bot, and had managed to turn up a few things which had been anonymized, but carried enough of Kailen's signature for him to recognize.
These "anonymous" messages turned out to be mostly business, a few political. Jared would normally have respected Kailen's privacy, but these he went through word by word. Nothing unusual showed up until he got to the last two messages.
One had been sent to a private node, which Zap hadn't gotten the address of. It would have been missed entirely if Kailen hadn't used a proxy. Proxy nodes were wonderful from keeping sensitive material from getting traced back to you. Unfortunately, because they were generally the nodes of unsuspecting businesses or individuals, they often cached whatever passed through them. Kailen must have been in a hurry, or not worried about anyone actually reading his message, because he hadn't hacked in to delete the cache afterwards.
Jared skimmed over it once, and almost went on to the last message. It was fairly innocuous, the address of a bar. Kailen wouldn't worry about something like that being in a system's cache. But, why did he go to the trouble of anonymizing and encrypting something like that?
Calling up another program, Jared asked, "Last contact: Kailen. Incoming OR Outgoing."
9: 56, Fool's Day
He checked the timestamp on the message. 12:51 Gold Day. Just hours after the last time he'd been in touch with Jared.
Saving the bar's address to memory, he opened the very last item. It wasn't a direct mailing, or post, but some sort of sensorial broadcast to the infonet. Jared hesitated to open it. Generally, things of this nature occurred as the result of a mistake. Someone accidentally triggering a release of their crystal's recording of whatever was occurring in the brain. But Jared feared Kailen had encountered something that frightened him, something he wasn't sure he'd survive. Only the inexperienced made mistakes like that. If Kailen had sent out such a broadcast, it was because he didn't have time to send another kind of message. If he opened the file, he would experience everything as Kailen had.
Bracing himself, he activated the file. A black and white image filled his mind. It was blurry, and Jared felt intoxicated. After a moment, the image resolved slightly. He appeared to be lying on his side, looking at a pair of boots. The floor beneath him appeared grey, but that could have meant dozens of colors. He couldn't make out if it was carpet, tile or cement.
"Leave me alone!" The voice was Kailen's, but sounded strange, like his mouth was full of rocks.
"Give us the codes. Don't fuck around," The owner of the boots answered. It could have been a man or woman.
"I told you, I don't have them," This time Jared understood why the voice sounded strange. He felt the jolt of pain in Kailen's mouth and understood his teeth had been broken in.
Kailen didn't get his hands up in time to block a second kick to the face, and sharp pain shot through Jared's head as his jaw was broken.
"Reddy P, the bastard is broadcasting. I'm picking up parts of it now. He must be sending to everyone on the 'net." This voice was definitely a woman's. "Finish him. We'll analyze his crystal."
The third kick brought blackness. File end. Jared shivered uncontrollably. Sensory sharing was overwhelming, but experiencing the murder of his best friend tore him apart. Eventually, tears came, and afterwards sleep plagued with nightmares.