Sugarcane

"Pinging Birdy Gardiner," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. Seconds later, the handsome face of Birdy is superimposed over the swarming crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that stream past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. \n\nHe looks apologetic, despite being on the receiving end of the call.\n\n"Hey, hey there. Good to hear from you again."\n\nBirdy always appreciates smalltalk.\n\n"Birdy. You're looking lovely as ever."\n\n"I'm trying a new matte foundation, covering up the scar."\n\nThe chrome underside of the cheekbone still shines through despite the low-res imagery of Mobili, but you don't say anything impolite.\n\n"I've got a favour I need to call in. Can you get me a download on the Netherfield acquisition."\n\n"Netherfield? Nothing has come through for them since we talked last week."\n\n"It's happening tonight, Birdy. I need any runner you can spare, now, otherwise I'll have to make it myself."\n\n"Ah, okay. Give me a moment, let me check the runsheet."\n\nA few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\nBirdy comes back. "I'm sorry L, but there's no-one available tonight."\n\nYou know this means you'll be making the run yourself. It's probably best not to drag Birdy down with you, but you could really do with the cast support.\n\n"I need to run this tonight."\n\n"No chance. Just sit on it for the night, wait for a third-party headline."\n\n"Can't do, Birdy. You know that. If Netherfield is getting bought out--"\n\n"Then you need to be there when it does. I know." The man sighs, his microphone peaking and causing a slight rattle in your ear. "Alright, give me an hour to deck in. Channel E-B-0-9-hash-4."\n\n"Thank you."\n\n"Don't die before then." Birdy disappears from your reticule, are you are [[immersed fully|Brighton Street Northwest]] once again in the swarming parade of suitcasesand rainjackets.

\nSubmit\n0, 1, 2 Evidence - Editor in Chief dismisses story\n3 evidence - story is relegated to gossip panel\n4 evidence - full story breaks\n\n\n**Make sure all failures are zapped and tagged**

You take the key, and inject it into your console's routing software. Quickly, everything fades from view. You're disconnected from the network, from your console, even momentarily from your ocular modules. Your environment becomes white, but pleasantly so, with a warmth and bouyancy that you find comforting.\n\nWhen your vision returns, you are already walking back east along DerbyX. Your logger console is a familiar weight in one hand, in the other you hold <<if $dappers gte 1>><<$dappers>> open and empty dapper cap packets<<else>>the coarse paper note with two names written<<endif>>.\n\nA note - digital - waits for you in your cubicle home.\n\n//DARCY: Thankyou.//\n\nA quick check, and your credit balance has been added to by magnitudes. Enough to make sure you can live a comfortable life south of the Derbyshire Exchange, perhaps enough that you need not work for the Bennet Press again.\n\nWith shakey fingers, you type, //And if I don't accept?\n\nDARCY: Your presence alone was threat enough to stop Charles from making a rash decision. You suffered no ill consequences, and have reaped profitably from your endeavour. No further action is required. There is nothing left to accept.//\n\nYou never hear from the AI again, but perhaps that's for the better.\n\n\n<center>''The End''</center>

With a rush, an exhilaration never met by any other substance, you gather the documents you've collected, and attached to your article copy form, submit the story to your editor-in-chief at Bennet Press.\n\nThe escape home is a haze, but you wake up intact, functional, and with <<if $dappers is 1>><<$dappers>> dapper packet still intact.<<else if $dappers gte 2>><<$dappers>> dapper packets still instact<<else>> the coarse paper note firmly clenched in your hand, to the ping of your work channel.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $evidence lte 2>>The summary of the DM is all you need to know: //Pitch rejected//. Undoubtedly there's some flowery apologies inside, but that doesn't matter now. The transaction has past, the Bingley firstborn's foray into the slums of Kentshire are now as shadow, and you have one more strike on your performance sheet to live up to.\n\n<center>''The End''</center><<else if $evidence is 3>>The small message is a credit recipient-invoice for a four-line column piece.\n\n"Gossip!" you yell, throwing whatever's at hand at your console screen. You want to shout and scream more, but there's nothing left to say.\n\nAnother paycheque. Another story lost to doubt and social appearances.<<if $backup is "Birdy">>\n\nA second ping pops up, distracting you from tearing apart a second fireblend cable.\n\n//Hey partner. I know we were onto something good. Sorry they didn't see it. Keep my cut; the excitement was gratification enough. -BG//\n\nWell, at least Birdy had fun.<<else if $backup is "Marianne">>\n\nA second ping pops up, distracting you from ripping the rubber lining of your coffee splashback.\n\n//Unjust relegation. Could have at least been a half-page. Expect my cut by starfall.//\n\nYou wonder how much of a gossip square paycheque Marianne would expect, if she'd even understand the scale of chump change involved. Undoubtedly she'll mistake it for a transaction fee and will forget about the whole thing within the week.<<else if $backup is "Solo">> You unscrunch the small scrap of paper, and reread the two names.\n\nC-BING\nNetherfield\n\nThere was something there. Maybe one day you'll learn why you were, too.\n\n<center>''The End''</center><<endif>><<else if $evidence gte 4>>The headline you pieced together splashes across your console screen.\n\n''BINGLEY CAUGHT IN KENTSIDE TUMBLE''\n\nThe copywriters who fleshed out the article don't quite get all of the details right, but what does it matter? The story is out there now, and C-BING, one of the largest, mightiest, infallable NDAX 20 is caught with its pants down dallying with a Kentshire fabrication factory.\n\nYou have no doubt questions have already been asked, and stock have already been renegotiated and devalued. Points and counterpoints will come up through the following weeks, but at the end of it all, this is the story that broke it.\n\nA third message appears discretely above the article.\n\n//DARCY: Contented?//\n\nYou hit a single key, and walk away from the console.\n\n[[Y|Submit Y]] / [[N|Submit N]]<<endif>>

"Pinging Birdy Gardiner," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. Seconds later, the handsome face of Birdy is superimposed over the swarming crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that stream past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. \n\nHe looks apologetic, despite being on the receiving end of the call.\n\n"Hey, hey there. Good to hear from you again."\n\nBirdy always appreciates smalltalk.\n\n"Birdy. You're looking lovely as ever."\n\n"I'm trying a new matte foundation, covering up the scar."\n\nThe chrome underside of the cheekbone still shines through despite the low-res imagery of Mobili, but you don't say anything impolite.\n\n"I've got a favour I need to call in. Can you get me a download on the Netherfield acquisition."\n\n"Netherfield? Nothing has come through for them since we talked last week."\n\n"It's happening tonight, Birdy. I need any runner you can spare, now, otherwise I'll have to make it myself."\n\n"Ah, okay. Give me a moment, let me check the runsheet."\n\nA few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\nBirdy comes back. "I'm sorry L, but there's no-one available tonight."\n\nYou know this means you'll be making the run yourself. It's probably best not to drag Birdy down with you.\n\n"Alright Birdy, thanks for checking."\n\n"You'll leave this alone, right?" he says, handsome face creasing with concern. "It can wait 'til I can get Nova or XZY online."\n\n"Bye bye, Birdy," and you [[disconnect|Brighton Street Northwest]] before you have to lie.\n\n<<set $support to "Solo">>

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a [[wife|Start 2]].

<<set $backup to "Marianne">>"Pinging Marianne," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. You wait the recommended length of time, and disconnect.\n\nMoments pass in the crowd. You feel pushed, pulled, jostled as you wait.\n\nWait.\n\nWai--\n\nThe VoxMobili purrs once more. "Undisclosed ID."\n\n"Accept it."\n\nThe masked face of Marianne pops up in your view, superimposed over the crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that streams past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. A lit cigarette in her hand, the stretch of skin dripping from her arm.\n\n"My little faceless friend," says the mask. "To what do I owe the ping credit?"\n\n"Netherfield."\n\n"A reputable consortium."\n\n"Can you gate past?"\n\n"Why would I want to do that, my little dove? That is a law-abiding and tax-paying entity."\n\nIt wouldn't do well to reveal your tip, but you need to bait Marianne to run for you. [[C-Bing|Marianne Truth]] is a big drawcard news item, but maybe you have [[something else|Marianne Bribe]].

With a rush, an exhilaration never met by any other substance, you gather the documents you've collected, and attached to your article copy form, submit the story to your editor-in-chief at Bennet Press.\n\nThe escape home is a haze, but you wake up intact, functional, and with <<if $dappers gte 1>><<$dappers>> dapper packets still intact<<else>> the coarse paper note firmly clenched in your hand, to the ping of your work channel.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $evidence lte 2>>The summary of the DM is all you need to know: //Pitch rejected//. Undoubtedly there's some flowery apologies inside, but that doesn't matter now. The transaction has past, the Bingley firstborn's foray into the slums of Kentshire are now as shadow, and you have one more strike on your performance sheet to live up to.<<else if $evidence is 3>>The small message is a credit recipient-invoice for a four-line column piece.\n\n"Gossip!" you yell, throwing whatever's at hand at your console screen. You want to shout and scream more, but there's nothing left to say.\n\nAnother paycheque. Another story lost to doubt and social appearances.<<if $backup is "Birdy">>\n\nA second ping pops up, distracting you from tearing apart a second fireblend cable.\n\n//Hey partner. I know we were onto something good. Sorry they didn't see it. Keep my cut; the excitement was gratification enough. -BG//\n\nWell, at least Birdy had fun.<<else if $backup is "Marianne">>\n\nA second ping pops up, distracting you from ripping the rubber lining of your coffee splashback.\n\n//Unjust relegation. Could have at least been a half-page. Expect my cut by starfall.//\n\nYou wonder how much of a gossip square paycheque Marianne would expect, if she'd even understand the scale of chump change involved. Undoubtedly she'll mistake it for a transaction fee and will forget about the whole thing within the week.<<else if $backup is "Solo>> You unscrunch the small scrap of paper, and reread the two names.\n\nC-BING\nNetherfield\n\nThere was something there. Maybe one day you'll learn why you were, too.<<endif>><<else if $evidence gte 4>>The headline you pieced together splashes across your console screen.\n\n''BINGLEY CAUGHT IN KENTSIDE TUMBLE''\n\nThe copywriters who fleshed out the article don't quite get all of the details right, but what does it matter? The story is out there now, and C-BING, one of the largest, mightiest, infallable NDAX 20 is caught with its pants down dallying with a Kentshire fabrication factory.\n\nYou have no doubt questions have already been asked, and stock have already been renegotiated and devalued. Points and counterpoints will come up through the following weeks, but at the end of it all, this is the story that broke it.\n\nA third message appears discretely above the article.\n\n//DARCY: Contented?//\n\nYou hit a single key, and walk away from the console.\n\n''Y'' / N\n\n\n<center>''The End''</center><<endif>>

To the dismay of Netherfield Fabrication Ltd. employees were they to find out, access to the payroll module in the financial department are as unsecured as a outer Core food chain's wireless access point.\n\nThere's nothing at play in this database of names and wages. <<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Remember we're here at the respect of these abiding employees. We're here for the corporation details, not individual personals."<<endif>>\n\nThe only potential lead that comes up in the entire server is a single folder with two documents. When you send out a cursory ping, a primitive AI program pops up. A GoSS-IP crasher, whose defensive measures amount to a password recovery system enforced by a three-part quiz. <<if $backup is "Marianne">>\n\nMarianne sighs. "I thought we were dealing with professionals. This is immature, even for a Kentside operation."<<endif>>Despite the simpleness of the program, it has effective lock-down tha would bar your entrance until a server reboot, a drastic measure you cannot afford to do.\n\nIf you're lucky, the admin will have set some logical questions. If not, then you'll just have to hope for luck.\n\nYou send out a cursory ping to the program, which it cheerfully accepts and replies with a bubbly dialogue box.\n\n//GoSS-IP 8.2 Freeware | Buy TODAY! :D\n\n1. South of the DerbyX is which shire?//\n\n''Kentshire'' | Harbourshire\n\n//YaY!!\n\n2. Which family mansion is famously located above the Andante Data Centre in the Core?//\n\nCollins | ''deBourgh''\n\n//You are on fire! Is it the shoes?!\n\n3. <<if visited('Handout1')>>What was the name of that guy who flipped you off on the DerbyX?<<else if $backup is "Birdy">>What's Birdy's tailor's middle name?//<<else if $backup is "Marianne">>//What is the name of craftsman whom made Marianne's mask?//<<else>>//What is the name of Bingley's firstborn, of whom you are interfering?<<endif>>//\n\nCherubic | ''Charles'' | Chunkon\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Shit," says Birdy, decorum for the moment forgotten. A dozen more boxes zip through your vision as he, too late, puts up a dozen more defensive measures.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>You hear a ragged breath from Marianne on the other end of her feed, but that's the extent of her reaction.<<endif>>\n\nRegardless of what you previously thought the extent of a GoSS-IP box could do, its insight into your operation shows that your presence - perhaps even your tip - is compromised.\n\nThe box sits quiet a moment, before a dozen pop-up dialogues, bedecked in sparkles and animated cats, pop-up all throughout your vision. You close all but one with some nominal gestures.\n\n<center>//YOU COMPLETED MY QUIZ :: 2 LEGIT 2 QUIRT :: :D :D :D\n\nIf you enjoyed using the GoSS-IP 8.2, why not consider donating to ''[redacted for your protection]''?!\n\nmeow//</center>\n\nYou close the obtuse popup, and proceed past the unlocked AI through to the folder. Inside, the two documents don't turn out to be spreadsheets as you anticipated, but two sets of identical email receipts.\n\nOf note, two names tend to come up most decidedly often.\n\n"Charles Bingley and J.Bennet," you repeat out loud.\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>"That's just unseemly of Chuck, really," sneers Marianne, but she doesn't offer any further comment.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Those are some strangely disproportionate penpals," notes Birdy. "No offence intended, L."<<endif>> If nothing else, it's a detail you secure in your logger for addition to the story, and revert back to [[root level|Netherfield Admin]].<<set $evidence += 1>>

The Derbyshire Exchange is a deep alley, along which runs a single railtrack. DerbyX looks very much like the rest of the city, but the ideological battle that rages on one side of the line to the other is as palpable as it is absurd.\n\nBoth sidewalks are bidirectional to allow for travel east and west along both sides, so that the folks unfortunate enough to walk on the side of Kentshire don't stain the pavement of the Core-side Lambton perambulators.\n\nNo one makes mention of the fact that the light railtrack edges 4 inches to the south, putting it firmly within the territory of Kentshire, thus subjecting all commuters otherwise neutral to the connivings of social inequities to a taste of "slumming it".\n\nThe DX Link car passes four times in your walk along the windy alley. Each time, the holographic ads along the cart sides fritz and fritter when they hit your proximity, unable to land their delicately programmed analytic hooks into your identity.\n\nTwo-thirds of the way to Netherfield, the pedestrian stream is vaguely interrupted by an immoveable mass in the centre, diverting the Kentshire westbound foot traffix in a small arc around it. As you go to slip past, a hand reaches out from the mass.\n\n"Spare a cap, jack?"\n\nStrange that the streetsweepers missed this panhandler before the tripeak rush. You could stop to help, and figure that tonight's sequence couldn't get any stranger.\n\nYou grab a hold of a single dapper cap and flick the sealed packet to the mass of polymer fabric and grime.<<set $dappers -=1>> "What's your poison, feller?"\n\n"Swigcasts, man, those damn swigcasts. They cut me off with a zap, but I just got to have one more." The sealed bag disappears into the begger's huddled form. "Always one more. Damnation on an addict's tremors, I say damnation on Chuck's tremors."\n\n"Take care, right?" you say, and start to walk away.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">> Your Vox beeps softly. "That wasn't your last cap, was it?" asks Birdy, concerned.\n\n<<if $dappers lte 0>>"It was. Why are you spying on me, Birdy?"\n\n"You hadn't channeled in yet."\n\n"It hasn't been an hour."\n\n"Well, it's up now. Remember, E-B-0-9-hash-4."\n\n"Thank you, Birdy."<<elseif $dappers gte 1>>"It's alright, Birdy. I got more."\n\n"Good. Not that you'll need them. But just in case."\n\n"Is that channel up yet?"\n\n"Sure is, L."\n\n"Channel soon, Birdy."\n\n"Roger."<<endif>><<endif>>"Hey, hey jack!" says the beggar before you get too far out of range. You stop and turn to see what he has to see, but the mound of dirty material and matted netting flips you the bird and runs off, disappearing into the pedestrian stream.\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>"You deserved that," purrs a voice in your ear.\n\n"Still your verbiage, Mary."\n\n"7-J-I-ampersand-bang-P is up when you've finished playing Robin Hood." The Mobili goes quiet once more.\n\n<<endif>>A cart trundles along the railtrack, headed west. A smiling face looks down at you from the advertising panel, frowns, and the ad blanks out for a brief moment. When the dental marketing comes back up online, the cart is already further [[west|DerbyX2]] down the DerbyX than you can see.<<set $tracer to true>>

"Pinging Birdy Gardiner," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. Seconds later, the handsome face of Birdy is superimposed over the swarming crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that stream past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. \n\nHe looks apologetic, despite being on the receiving end of the call.\n\n"Hey, hey there. Good to hear from you again."\n\nBirdy always appreciates smalltalk, but expedient needs can outweigh niceties.\n\n"Birdy, I need a download on the Netherfield acquisition."\n\n"What acquisition? There's nothing come through the--"\n\n"It's happening tonight, Birdy. I need a runner, now."\n\n"Okay, let me see who's on the runsheet. We might get you a gater this late notice if you're lucky."\n\nA few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\nBirdy comes back. "I'm sorry L, but there's no-one available tonight."\n\nYou know this means you'll be making the run yourself. It's probably best not to drag Birdy down with you.\n\n"Alright Birdy, thanks for checking."\n\n"You'll leave this alone, right?" he says, handsome face creasing with concern. "It can wait 'til I can get Nova or XZY online."\n\n"Bye bye, Birdy," and you [[disconnect|Brighton Street Northwest]] before you have to lie.\n\n<<set $support to "Solo">>

''Transfer Completion: 100%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: Contact//\n\nBoth tags from the file and the worm hit your console in parallel, and a white light flashes through your retina.\n\n<<set $tracer to true>><<if $dappers lte 0>><<display 'Zap Out'>><<endif>><<if $dappers gte 1>><<set $dappers -= 1>>Instinct alone makes you reach for the sealed packets of dapper caps in your jacket. You pop the cap in your mouth, the chemical dissolving with an acidic aftertaste of iron and bile. Slowly the white fades from your eyes. With your vision returns the feeling in your hands and feet and face; you hadn't noticed the sensations leaving you, but like a warmth you regain full control of your body.\n\nYour logger's diag wipes the worm from your console's OS, and your transfer box is left with just the heavy constitution documents, within which you have the evidence of stock option tamperings by the Netherfield board.<<set $evidence +=1>> You hit the escape back to the [[Netherfield Admin Block|Netherfield Admin]].<<endif>>

The DCTV feeds show every possible angle of the squat tower's floorplan, every glass plating wall showing the smoggy sidewalks and alleys outside. <<if visited("Loop Entry")>>Warily you note your hunched outline squat in the shadows of the delivery depot, but the DCTV sensor reticule passes right over your indistinguishable blob with barely a blip in its diags.<<endif>>\n\nPulling the security audit reports from the second basement router is going to be difficult to start with, as these auditing routers tend to be robust to start with. Once you start poking for potential entrances though, your fears escalate.\n\nBlocking the authentication handshaker, your only way through, is a Knightbreaker AI.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"What is //that// doing here?" says Birdy, the surprise evident over his feed.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>"Well, I'd say this is all the evidence you'd need of something nefarious and outsourced extant in Netherfield," says Marianne.<<endif>> A notorious sentinel amongst the Core corporation security cliques, it's more known for its playfulness than effectiveness. Someone with more resources than the Netherfield board left this here, and left it to be found.\n\nThe Knightbreaker activates as your console's pings hit the handshaker firewall, and prepares it's first move. The horsehead rears back aggressively, looking to push it's full weight down on your code. \n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>[[Light Defence|Heavy Attack Through]]\n[[Moderate Defence|Heavy Attack Through]]\n[[Heavy Defence|Heavy Attack Block]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>Here, let me give you a boost. Remember, you can only use each protocol once."\n\n[[Moderate Defence|Heavy Attack Through]]\n[[Moderate Defence|Heavy Attack Through]]\n[[Heavy Defence|Heavy Attack Block]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>"Ugh, games. I //despise// games. Let's get this over and done with."\n\n[[Light Defence|Heavy Attack Through]]\n[[Heavy Defence|Heavy Attack Block]]\n[[Heavy Defence|Heavy Attack Block]]<<endif>>\n

<<if $backup is "Marianne">><<set $transfer to 100>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">><<set $transfer to 93>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">><<set $transfer to 80>><<endif>><<set $flagboy to 98>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>[[Wait|Worm7]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>[[Wait|Worm7]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>Your finger hovers over the [[escape|Netherfield Admin]], but Marianne tuts at you.\n\n"The Flagboy is prone to stumbling at moments of import. Patience, dove, and [[watch|Worm7]]."<<set $evidence += 1>><<endif>>

<<if $backup is "Marianne">><<set $transfer to 100>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">><<set $transfer to 100>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">><<set $transfer to 93>><<endif>><<set $flagboy to 99>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>[[Wait|Worm8]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>"See, what did I tell you? We have your evidence, let's [[go now|Netherfield Admin]]."<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>The file hits your console and you [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]]. The revision history on digital constitutions will hold more than enough telltale changes wording and ammendments to make an intention of a buyout evident.<<set $evidence += 1>><<endif>>

<<if $backup is "Marianne">><<set $transfer to 66>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">><<set $transfer to 60>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">><<set $transfer to 54>><<endif>><<set $flagboy to 51>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n[[Wait|Worm5]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].

<<if $backup is "Marianne">><<set $transfer to 83>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">><<set $transfer to 76>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">><<set $transfer to 67>><<endif>><<set $flagboy to 76>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n[[Wait|Worm6]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].

<<if $backup is "Marianne">><<set $transfer to 32>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">><<set $transfer to 30>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">><<set $transfer to 28>><<endif>><<set $flagboy to 22>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n[[Wait|Worm3]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].

<<if $backup is "Marianne">><<set $transfer to 49>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">><<set $transfer to 45>><<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">><<set $transfer to 41>><<endif>><<set $flagboy to 36>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n[[Wait|Worm4]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].

The firewall is barely a glitch to hop around, and engineering a login credential with Director Lucas' quadpad registration, you crack an opening into her personal network.\n\nThe network is a mess, an unadministered, cluttered disarray of locally stored databases, text files, credential keys and holiday snaps.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Looks like your place, L," quips Birdy, trying to lighten the moment after the extrenuating encounter with the slicer gate only moments ago.<<endif>> You find little of note, and are just about to back out and return to the admin network root when a stray folder hidden in a console's Installed Programs library catches your eye.\n\nA liability waiver, electronically signed by Charleen Lucas, thereby negating //all rights of Netherfield Fabrication Ltd. to hold damage, court and responsibility against TruFind ADWS ND-Ltd in the installation of security softwares as required from time to time//.\n\n"Ugh, gross," you mutter, macroing a copy of the file to your console and deleting your subsequent preview data. The evidence sits safely on your logger console.<<set $evidence += 1>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>\n\n"C-Bing is really doing this on the expedient," says Mariane. "TruFind are neither cheap nor thorough, but they turn-around like no one else in the business."\n\n"Can you trace a definitive contract link between TruFind and C-BING?"\n\n"Already on the way," she says, and no sooner has see finished, you recieve a TRANSFER COMPLETE notification. You add the hard contractual evidence in addition to the waiver to your secure synch folder.<<set $evidence += 1>><<endif>>\n\nYou don't find anything else of value here, although a selfie of Charleen with one Sr. Collins on a skiing trip in the .JP HAKUBA resort seems like an interesting piece of photography to keep just in case. You back out to the [[Netherfield Admin root|Netherfield Admin]].

<<set $transfer to 15>><<set $flagboy to 8>>''Transfer Completion: <<$transfer>>%''\n//Flagboy Proximity: <<$flagboy>>%//\n\n[[Wait|Worm2]] or [[jack out|Netherfield Admin]].

You hit the key, and in an instant see the slicer gate overrides the firewall and streams down your logger's line. The console in your hand beeps once before the impact of the slicer's downstream attack hits the UI superimposed over your natural vision.\n\n<<if $dappers lte 0>><<display 'Zap Out'>><<endif>><<if $dappers gte 1>><<set $dappers -= 1>>You fumble in your jacket for the plastic packet, pop the seal and throw the cap in your mouth. Your eyes instinctively close, but the UI remains visible.\n\nThe slicer gate's attack hits your console, and the sheer onslaught of data smashes into your head. You feel dizzy, and a dull pain starts to emanate from the top of your nose, but you maintain consciousness.\n\nThe dapper cap wears off at the tail end of the slicer's attack. The stinger at the end of the code whips across your logger's OS, and it feels like a slice across your right eyeball.\n\nAnd then the data is gone.\n\nThe firewall sits quietly in front of you, a simple block to step around and into the administrative entrance of the [[Netherfield administration|Netherfield Admin]]. In the distance, you watch as a tracer with your console's MAC0 address flees the battleground and disappears deeper into the network.\n\nThe pain in your eyeball remains.\n\n<<set $tracer to true>><<endif>>

You feel the data siphoning into your head. Your eyes start to cloud over with alphanumerals, your fingers twinge with static, your ears feel as if they're being burned out from the inside.\n\nIt's only a mater of moments, and then it all goes black.\n\nBy the morning, your jacket, your logger pad, your UD credits are all missing. When you wake up - if you wake up - all you'll have left is the bare coveralls left to contain your decency, and a slip of paper with two names whose transaction has been and gone without you.\n\n\n<center>''The End''</center>

"Pinging Birdy Gardiner," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. Seconds later, the handsome face of Birdy is superimposed over the swarming crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that stream past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. \n\nHe looks apologetic, despite being on the receiving end of the call.\n\n"Hey, hey there. Good to hear from you again."\n\nBirdy always appreciates smalltalk.\n\n"Birdy. You're looking lovely as ever."\n\n"I'm trying a new matte foundation, covering up the scar."\n\nThe chrome underside of the cheekbone still shines through despite the low-res imagery of Mobili, but you don't say anything impolite.\n\n"I've got a favour I need to call in. Can you get me a download on the Netherfield acquisition."\n\n"Netherfield? Nothing has come through for them since we talked last week."\n\n"It's happening tonight, Birdy. I need any runner you can spare, now, otherwise I'll have to make it myself."\n\n"Ah, okay. Give me a moment, let me check the runsheet."\n\nA few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\nBirdy comes back. "I'm sorry L, but there's no-one available tonight."\n\nYou know this means you'll be making the run yourself. It's probably best [[not to drag Birdy|Birdy Single Run]] down with you, but you could really do with the [[cast support|Birdy Support]].

Regencypunk

"Pinging Marianne," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. You wait the recommended length of time, and disconnect.\n\nMoments pass in the crowd. You feel pushed, pulled, jostled as you wait.\n\nWait.\n\nWai--\n\nThe VoxMobili purrs once more. "Undisclosed ID."\n\n"Accept it."\n\nThe masked face of Marianne pops up in your view, superimposed over the crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that streams past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. A lit cigarette in her hand, the stretch of skin dripping from her arm.\n\n"My little faceless friend," says the mask. "To what do I owe the ping credit?"\n\n"Netherfield."\n\n"A reputable consortium."\n\n"Can you gate past?"\n\n"Why would I want to do that, my little dove? That is a law-abiding and tax-paying entity."\n\nIt wouldn't do well to reveal your tip, but you need to bait Marianne to run for you. C-Bing is a big drawcard news item, big enough to get Marianne on board.\n\nYou whisper the name.\n\nThe mask remains silent for a moment.\n\n"That would be a significant merger," she says eventually.\n\n"Are you interested?"\n\nA few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\n"I wouldn't miss this for all the red beans down Xenjin Alley. Channel 7-J-I-ampersand-bang-P in twenty."\n\n"Counting on it."\n\nYou both [[disconnect|Brighton Street Northwest]].

The walk isn't pleasant, but necessary. Boot to sidewalk is the only transaction left that isn't tracked, itemised and receipted by the analytic data centres of the Core.\n\nA few minutes out from Netherfield and you can already spot the estate; all glass panelling with an obtuse front angle that makes for an awkward pentagon. It's a statement in a sidestreet of otherwise rectangular structures, but a statement lost on it's Kent-side location.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Are you there yet?" pipes Birdy.\n\n"You know I am," you reply, noting the swivel of a domed camera from a half-empty sushi train. You reach into your jacket and find your logger pad. One of the few models left with analogue keys, you tap the familiar channel code.\n\nThere's a brief feeling of a sound not played, and then your eyes open wide. UI layers over your vision, with the coy face of Birdy smiling in the top right corner.\n\nIt's hard not to bump into people with your vision so cluttered, and you have to apologise to a number of walkers-by before you reach tagging distance of Netherfield.\n\nBy the number of geotags sticking out from the Netherfield estate, you can see Birdy's already been doing some scouting. You quickly skim the tags, and note the two entrance ports he's fav'd. "A slicer gate, Birdy. You want me to go through a slicer gate."\n\n"It's that or fudge our way through the static port."\n\n"That could take days."\n\n"Or it could take minutes if we get lucky. So what'll it be, L? [[Slicer|Slicer Entry]] or [[static|Static Entry]]?"<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>Once you're within tagging distance of Netherfield, you reach into your jacket for the familiar feeling of the analogue keys of your logger.\n\n7JI&!P\n\nThere's the brief sensation of a sound not played, and then two elements of UI superimpose themselves over your vision. You can feel, more than hear, Marianne in your head.\n\n"Your interface is... minimal," you remark.\n\n"I need you focused," she replies. You imagine the mask licking its lips.\n\n"So what are my options?" you ask, unsure of how to read the modified geotags Marianne has dotted around the Netherfield building.\n\n"There's a slicer honeypot, which is out of the question. A static port which we might be able to snag, otherwise we can try a loop entry on the employee console by the insulation pipe on the building's south side."\n\n"Static port could take days to decode."\n\n"Don't be so dramatic. At worst, we'll lose two hours."\n\nThe [[loop bug|Loop Entry]] is the safest option, but if Marianne has a way to get through the [[static port|Static Entry]], you could be inside their core database in minutes.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">>You need to get within touching proximity of the building before you can even find any physical ports you might be able to access the Netherfield admin network. \n\nOn the south side of the building, hidden behind a compactor is an insulation pipe that has an employee console you can jack into and attempt to hack with a [[recursive loop bug|Loop Entry]]. It'll take a little while, but you're guaranteed an entry.\n\nAlternately, along the west wall above the delivery depot is a signal relay unit. It looks firewalled, and the fact that's out in plain view could mean there's a nasty surprise inside for anyone foolish enough to try, but [[access from here|Slicer Entry]] would be much, much quicker than trying to bug out the employee console.<<endif>>

<<set $backup to "Birdy">>"Pinging Birdy Gardiner," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. Seconds later, the handsome face of Birdy is superimposed over the swarming crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that stream past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. \n\nHe looks apologetic, despite being on the receiving end of the call.\n\n"Hey, hey there. Good to hear from you again."\n\nBirdy always appreciates [[smalltalk|Birdy Smalltalk]], but expedient needs can [[outweigh niceties|Birdy Query]].

//DARCY: It is unjust for you to continue. You do yourself no favour, and bring no pride to your benefactors in your conduct. Cease and desist further investigation.//\n\nThe signature trace from the cmd box is unmistakable as that of a Corelinked AI; a unique intelligence capable of processing a dozen petaflop processes in a second. It's rumoured only three exist in the core, each with an entire data centre dedicated to its individual operation.\n\nWith nervous fingers, you reply, //Was the tip yours?\n\nDARCY: An incentive waits for you; a reward beyond your means. I am dishonoured at having brought myself to engage someone of your class, and blame only myself at the hurt it brings you.//\n\nThe key sits silently below the cmd box, waiting for you to [[eject|Darcy Out]].\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>Meanwhile, you notice the minimal overlays disappear from your vision.\n\n"Marianne?"\n\nA feed of the masked face comes into view, sans cigarette. "Sorry petal, but that's a heavier engagement than you let on. Consider work up to now done pro bono. Don't knock on my door again. Long health."\n\nAnd like that, your backup is gone.<<set $backup to "Solo">><<else if $backup is "Birdy">>"What was that?" asks Birdy, more than a little excited. "Do you know what that was? Oh man, we're in trouble," he says, though his emotions betray his verbiage. "L, you're in cahoots with a Corelinked!"\n\n"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" you ask.\n\n"I never thought I'd ever see one, let alone run with one in action," blubbers Birdy, ignoring your sentiment. You feel it's best to mute him until he's had his moment.<<endif>>

"Pinging Marianne," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. You wait the recommended length of time, and disconnect.\n\nMoments pass in the crowd. You feel pushed, pulled, jostled as you wait.\n\nWait.\n\nWai--\n\nThe VoxMobili purrs once more. "Undisclosed ID."\n\n"Accept it."\n\nThe masked face of Marianne pops up in your view, superimposed over the crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that streams past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. A lit cigarette in her hand, the stretch of skin dripping from her arm.\n\n"My little faceless friend," says the mask. "To what do I owe the ping credit?"\n\n"Netherfield."\n\n"A reputable consortium."\n\n"Can you gate past?"\n\n"Why would I want to do that, my little dove? That is a law-abiding and tax-paying entity."\n\nIt wouldn't do well to reveal your tip, but you need to bait Marianne to run for you. C-Bing is a big drawcard news item, but maybe you have something else.\n\n"Favour for a favour."\n\n"My dear, you are a streetlogger. What could you ever do for me that I can't obtain elsewhere?"\n\n"I've got paper."\n\nThis takes the mask's interest. A few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\n"How much?"\n\n"Four by three."\n\n"Used?"\n\n"With the tip on Netherfield. Deck in, it's yours."\n\nThe cigarette-holding hand scratches the mask's nose.\n\n"Add options on your next two corridor runs, and we're square."\n\n"Deal," you say, expecting you probably don't have the life expectancy to be in a position to call any more runs after tonight.\n\n"Well then. Channel 7-J-I-ampersand-bang-P in twenty."\n\n"Counting on it."\n\nYou both [[disconnect|Brighton Street Northwest]].

Brighton Northwest doesn't slow down for you. Carts pass the light trackrails every two minutes, packed from door to door with the dulled colours of inner-city commuters. Pedestrians are corraled to the centre of the sidewalks as lines of trendy tripad riders zip along the edge between concrete and rail.\n\nAbove, smog and deadlock. This city exists in a perpetual state of traffic jam.\n\nC-Bing: a futures division of Boswick Agri and the 7th corporation to fix it's estimates in the NDAX quarternion evaluation alpha; a corporation whose futures estimates are now futured stocks themselves.\n\nThere's two reasons, and two reasons only, that their administrative mail clerk would look up the name of Netherfield Fabrications UNSS Ltd.;\n\n>>1. An executive of C-Bing is looking for a family business to act as a shell for a discrete trade operation; or\n>>2. The mail clerk looked up the wrong delivery ID by accident, the 12 second miscalculation causing a deficit of 2,500UD in the interns efficiency evaluation.\n\nYou wouldn't have been bothered with a tip for the second, which means the three-seat board of Netherfield are to receive an unexpected cash injection and loss of corporate deeds tomorrow morning.\n\nThis isn't necessarily newsworthy in and of itself. Buyouts of this scale occur with such regularity that they are simply an occupational hazard for any entrepreneur foolish enough to get sentimentally attached to their operation. The C-BING Acquisitions team would file papers tonight, and the Netherfield executives would receive notice to clear their desks by 8:04am, any disappointment mitigated by the eight figure credit newly hardwired into their personal accounts.\n\nThe point of worth here is the proximity of Netherfield with the Derbyshire Exchange, a railtrack thin edge that bifurcates Lambton Southside with the starting decline of suburban Kentshire. This would mark the furthest claim outside the city Core Central made by C-BING.\n\nFor an economy that trades on signal and code, the physical location of a corporation's estates is as much a statement of its politics as it is of its equity.\n\nC-BING, a corporation that can afford to buy estates along the Core - any estate along the Core - is looking for a discrete transaction south of Lambton.\n\nThe impropriety is outweighed only by the degree of fallout to ensue, should you make C-BING's intention of acquisition public before the transaction is completed.\n\nThis is big credit running. A scandal that could cause entire sub-AXs to crash and bottom out.\n\nYou could be putting yourself in the firing line of some dangerous people. The story had better be worth it.\n\nThe [[Netherfield|DerbyX1]] estate is an hour's walk down the DerbyX. You'll need a physical deck on point so as to not wake up any portscan diags; remote jacking is not a possibility for this. Which means you'll also need some [[dappers|Slim Jims]], in case things go south; the one in your case may not be enough.\n\n<<set $dappers to 1>>\n<<set $AI to 0>>

In the market that all commodities are a digital concern, the act of writing becomes the leisure of not even the wealthy, but to those individuals whose NDAX net worth reaches a level of abstraction that to the street-level provincial they appear to approach as close to infinite as godly.\n\nThe handwriting, legible and neat, reads two names.\n\nC-Bing\nNetherfield\n\nThe street roars around you, electric and neon. There's no sign of the girl who planted the note in your hand; she disappeared into the tightly packed crowd within the moment it took for you to register the unfamiliar touch of coarse paper in your hand.\n\nThe message is not a surprise, but the form of it dizzies you.\n\nYou [[may need help|Call Backup]], or you can [[take the lead alone|Brighton Street Northwest][$backup = "Solo"]], but regardless how you proceed, this crowded street will not wake the same in fourteen hours when confronted with the headline already forming in your head.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a [[partner|Start 3]].

You take note of Director Charleen Lucas' vehicle registration, and direct your logger pad to an administration port on a router on the fourteenth floor.\n\nThis port appears to be an entrance to an isolated network, complete with it's own wireless protocol, address mapper and data core. Setups like these are familiar in third-tier and lower corporations, wherein should the rest of the company's network falter, the director and any admin with access can continue contingency operations.\n\nAs is evidenced by the rest of the network setup, the financial outlay spent on security is within the limited means of the minor Netherfield estate.\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>A single slicer gate sits in front of the hardware firewall, installed more as an intimidation measure more than anything else. Prying employees are likely to beat a hasty retreat with one look at the vicious software, and most runners wouldn't consider the risk of a physiological injury worth the gain of accessing a Kentside director's personal drive.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>"A slicer gate," says Marianne. The defensive software sits in front of the hardware firewall, installed more as an intimidation measure more than anything else. Prying employees are likely to beat a hasty retreat with one look at the vicious software, and most runners wouldn't consider the risk of a physiological injury worth the gain of accessing a Kentside director's personal drive."Tell me, little bird, you're not afraid of a scarecrow, are you?"<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Ugh, a slicer gate," says Birdy, crestfallen. The defensive software sits in front of the hardware firewall, installed more as an intimidation measure more than anything else. Prying employees are likely to beat a hasty retreat with one look at the vicious software, and most runners wouldn't consider the risk of a physiological injury worth the gain of accessing a Kentside director's personal drive."This is dangerous, L. Is this story worth the meat danger?"<<endif>>\n\nYou had the opportunity to back out, but this is your only chance to have a shot at Lucas' personal files. You steel yourself for the hack, and launch your injection.\n\nYou watch your injection feed, a single line of digits streaming towards the slicer. Every once in a while you have to change direction, change velocity, change language, but the slicer adapts too quickly to your console's input. <<if $backup is "Marianne">>"That gate is mutating too quickly for a Kentside operation," your hear Marianne muse. There's a minor adjustment in the heads-up UI in your vision, and the slicer starts to morph slightly slower. "See if you can make your reaction better," she says unkindly, but the adjustment does the trick. With seven more strings, the gate is split in half and dissipates, leaving the firewall [[wide open|Lucas Console]].<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>"This is bad, this is bad," Birdy mutters to himself, obviously forgetting his feed is still live. Boxes flash all around your vision, but your string injections can't seem to keep up with the pulsing mutations of the slicer. Your fingers fly around the logger console, tapping at keys that, once familiar, are starting to feel as alien as your own face in the mirror.\n\n"Birdy," you murmur, starting to sweat.\n\n"You've got it, you've got it, you've got it," he chants, and in a flash the slicer disappears. You don't have time to stop the last three strings from pinging against the firewall, which are absorbed and lost in transit.<<set $tracer to true>> Where they will end up, you won't ever know.\n\nThe representation of the firewall in front of you sits wide open, and ready to [[step around|Lucas Console]].<<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">>You try to keep up with the morphing gate, but your fingers slip, letting too many mistakes through. \n\nData charges towards you.\n\nThe console in your hand beeps once before the impact of the slicer's downstream attack hits the UI superimposed over your natural vision.\n\n<<set $tracer to true>><<if $dappers lte 0>><<display 'Zap Out'>><<endif>><<if $dappers gte 1>><<set $dappers -= 1>>You fumble in your jacket for the plastic packet, pop the seal and throw the cap in your mouth. Your eyes instinctively close, but the UI remains visible.\n\nThe slicer gate's attack hits your console, and <<if visited("Slicer 9")>>once again<<endif>> the sheer onslaught of data smashes into your head. You feel dizzy, and a dull pain starts to emanate from the top of your nose, but you maintain consciousness.\n\nThe dapper cap wears off at the tail end of the slicer's attack. The stinger at the end of the code whips across your logger's OS, and it feels like an injection into your eardrum, sharp high frequency piercing through your ear to the centre of your forehead.\n\nAnd then the slicer data is gone. All that remains is the block of firewall, waiting to be [[bypassed|Lucas Console]].<<endif>><<endif>>

The nice part about accessing the static port is that you don't need to be so physically close to the building. Standing a couple of doors down, you watch as the advertisement server fails to identify you and starts remedial blocking.\n\nThe static port sits active behind the advert distribution pipe, adding noise to any encoded data that passes through, making the decryption process all but impossible without the static's key, which would be locked away in the advertising company's own network, which has nothing pertaining ot access of the Netherfield estate.\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>"It's just a fuzzy roadblock put there by someone else," says Marianne in your ear. "Not important, just a nuisance."\n\n"Just a nuisance," you echo. "So what do we do?"\n\n"If you were with anybody else, my dear, you'd just have to brute force it. However, you are partnered with a professional."\n\nA fourth piece of UI pops up in your top left periphery. It looks like a character profile, and slowly different aspects of demography start to fill out.\n\n"We're going to seed a decoy identity for the server to harpoon, inject an unencoded hookshot, and wait for the chain to pull us in."\n\n"That sounds too easy. Why wouldn't everyone do this?"\n\n"Because nobody is stupid enough to let any form of data go about naturally decoded. And no one has a hookshot small enough to sit in a single line."\n\n"Except you."\n\n"Except me."\n\nThe profile completes; a blond girl, twenty-one, likes surfcasts and craftworks in iron and alloys. Charlotte. There's a complete history to the profile; social links, medical history, education, and half a dozen credit receipts.\n\n"That's a thorough piece of fiction."\n\n"It's enough to get us through."\n\nYou watch as the profile is targeted by the advertising server, and not a second later a hologram appears along the glassy exterior of the building facing the DerbyX. Amongst the hundreds of other ads being served, it's not even noticed.\n\nBack on your logger, you watch as Marianne's single line of simple text is hooked by the server and dragged inside. It humps erratically through the static port, as various scanners and gates check for the string's authenticity. At each check, no key is required to decode, so it gets shunted further down the line.\n\n"How long is this going to take?"\n\n"Patience, little bird."\n\nYou sit quietly, away from the passing pedestrians and zipping tripads. The string is lost to your logger console now, and none of Marianne's UI shows any status of the hookshot code.\n\nExcept ten minutes later, your logger beeps twice. You check the pad's screen, and can't help but be impressed; in plain view, a keypass for the authentication protocal between the advertising server and Netherfield's administration network.\n\nIn a matter of keypresses, [[you're in|Netherfield Admin]].<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>"This is a remote network, Birdy, owned by a third party advertising distributor. How does this get us into Netherfield's admin block?"\n\n"In a round-about fashion, it's true," says Birdy. The sweat is starting to run his foundation, staining his crisp white shirt collar. "But a guaranteed in. Promise."\n\n"So what's the play?"\n\n"Brute force the static port. Distributed denials from a dozen or so remotes, and we'll inject you past the whole thing when it stalls."\n\n"This is going to take to long."\n\n"It's this, or the [[slicer|Slicer Entry]], L. And that's too dangerous."\n\n"Alright, let's make a start then."\n\n"Already streets ahead."\n\nYou try to see through the overload of information popping up in your vision, and can see that Birdy has indeed already been pinging the advertising server since you started the conversation. All there is for you to do now, with finger hovering over your injection deploy button, is [[wait|Static 1]].<<endif>>

//DARCY: You have not removed yourself from our current disposition.//\n\nYou type at the logger carefully. //And you, neither, provide relief of your presence. Of your principal interest, you bring me here to separate this merger. Were I to forget your true constitution, your character would still ward me of relief for your company.\n\nDARCY: And that is your opinion of me? That I enter my own protocol, and yourself, of inferiority of standing, with willful glee into indulgent subtefuge?\n\nI do.\n\nDARCY: Then please, take leave, that neither of us have any need to hurt the other any further.//\n\nThe [[disengage key|Darcy Out]] waits on you patiently.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>You hear a sharp intake of breath from Birdy. "This is getting dire, L. AIs don't walk away like that."\n\n"Neither do you, Birdy."\n\n"True that," he says with a sigh. "So, what's next then?"<<endif>>

The signal relay flashes nervously as you hover over it. The climb above the delivery depot was easy, although you had to sit tight as a couple of employees stumbled out of the dock and disappeared into the darkness of the estate next door.\n\nYou pull out your logger, the chunky little pad that has given you your breaks, your career and your life. The base OS of this model has been unsupported for nearly a decade now, and the hack upgrades you pay for are getting looser every year.\n\nYou scan for the relay on your logger, note the firewall is on overwatch, and prep your logger console.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Okay, L. This shouldn't be too bad. Have a cap ready, and watch my feed."\n\nOn the far left of your vision, a stream of key data pours down to your feet. Every once in a while, a single digit is highlighted white, available only for a glancing peripheral moment. Your fingers automatically tap out the sequence Birdy is sourcing for you, and piece by piece you see the slicer gate start to retract and decouple from the unit's firewall.\n\nYou keep it up for twenty, thirty, fourty key strokes, but soon the concentration becomes to much. Was that an M? Was the brack left or right?\n\nThe gate is almost completely decoupled when you miss a line.\n\n"Birdy, was that a nine or q?"\n\n"I don't know. I can't read this stream, I'm just forwarding it." The key stream slowly trickles to a single line, with no more glyphs highlighted. "That's it I'm afraid, L. That's all I got. This is too dangerous. It's not too late to jack out and try the [[static port|Static Entry]]."\n\n"I'm sure it was the q," you say, your fingers subsequently hovering over the [[9|Slicer 9]] and [[q|Netherfield Admin]] keys.\n\n"Slicer keys generally trend away from lowercase, but trust your gut. Keep a cap handy in case."<<endif>>\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>You begin the sidestep around the firewall. The port blocks are active, but lazy. The overwatch protocol notes your feints past it, but it's not until you make a serious attempt to bypass that the real nature of the [[beast|Slicer 9]] is shown.<<endif>>

Knightbreaker: ''Moderate Attack''\n\nThe AI makes piecemeal work of your code; where there are flaws, it punches through, and where there are no flaws, it wreaks the structure so that more holes show.\n\nEach strike through your code is a physical hit to your chest, your face, your neck. You struggle to keep your eyes open as the onslaught continues.\n\n<<set $tracer to true>><<if $dappers lte 0>><<display 'Zap Out'>><<endif>><<if $dappers gte 1>><<set $dappers -= 1>>Your hand scrunches up, and without knowing you had one in your hand, you pop the dapper cap into your mouth. Iron and bile, and the pain doesn't stop, but you can open your eyes again, your UI overlays slowly coming back into focus.\n\nIn time to watch the Knightbreaker reel back for one last haymaker.\n\nYou wait for the impact, wondering if your console will withstand the sheer pressure of data being forced through it.\n\nBut nothing comes.\n\nThe 3D model sits static, motionless. No more code. No more jabs and feints.\n\nA lifeless intelligence waiting to be unplugged. You oblige it, and hurry past the authenticator into Netherfield's [[security server|Security Server]].<<endif>>

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a merger.\n\n[[Regencypunk|Streetside]]\nby Anthony Sweet

The index of your VoxMobili is extensive, but there is a vast chasm in who is [[effective|Marianne Backup]] and who you can [[trust|Birdy Backup]].\n\nUnfortunately, the length of each sub-index is not as populated as you'd like. There's stil an option to break this story [[alone|Brighton Street Northwest][$backup = "Solo"]].

As you scan through the root index of the Netherfield network, a simple command line appears in your vision. A quick diag shows the cmd box untracable.\n\n//DARCY: There's no need for you to take this any further. You have performed your role dutifully. You may leave now, that you minimise your suffering unduly.//\n\nWith the message is a key; a disengage that could wipe every trace of your having ever been on the server. All it takes is [[one click|Darcy Out]], and it's like this engagement had never happened.\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>"What was that, dove?" asks Marianne innocently.\n\nYou feel it's best not to reply, and instead take your next step.<<endif>>

The cmd box from the //DARCY// AI has not returned. With it, so has the disengage key disappeared.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Guess it's too late to ask for a second chance?"\n\n"Guess so," you say, keenly aware of the missing AI from your overlay.<<endif>>

The interface of the GoSS-IP blanks out briefly.\n\nThen, over the course of two minutes, your console's real estate is spammed with a continual wave of popups. You deploy a runtime blocker and start the labourous task of shutting each individual box, depicting health supplements and promising more followers and wondering how you got by with such little girth.\n\nAt the very end of it all is one last, bespeckled, dialogue box.\n\n//oh nooooooo youz didn't make it\n\nthat's too bad//\n\nThe GoSS-IP has since hardlocked this entire server. The only way to get it back up is a hard reboot, of which you don't have the time or resources to manage without giving yourself away.\n\nAll that's left to do is return to the [[Admin Block|Netherfield Admin]] and hope you have better luck elsewhere.<<set $tracer to true>>

.passage:not(.transition-out) {\n\ttransition: none;\n\t-webkit-transition: none;\n}

With a rush, an exhilaration never met by any other substance, you gather the documents you've collected, and attached to your article copy form, submit the story to your editor-in-chief at Bennet Press.\n\nThe escape home is a haze, but you wake up intact, functional, and with <<if $dappers gte 1>><<$dappers>> dapper packets still intact<<else>> the coarse paper note firmly clenched in your hand, to the ping of your work channel.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $evidence lte 2>>The summary of the DM is all you need to know: //Pitch rejected//. Undoubtedly there's some flowery apologies inside, but that doesn't matter now. The transaction has past, the Bingley firstborn's foray into the slums of Kentshire are now as shadow, and you have one more strike on your performance sheet to live up to.<<else if $evidence is 3>>The small message is a credit recipient-invoice for a four-line column piece.\n\n"Gossip!" you yell, throwing whatever's at hand at your console screen. You want to shout and scream more, but there's nothing left to say.\n\nAnother paycheque. Another story lost to doubt and social appearances.<<if $backup is "Birdy">>\n\nA second ping pops up, distracting you from tearing apart a second fireblend cable.\n\n//Hey partner. I know we were onto something good. Sorry they didn't see it. Keep my cut; the excitement was gratification enough. -BG//\n\nWell, at least Birdy had fun.<<else if $backup is "Marianne">>\n\nA second ping pops up, distracting you from ripping the rubber lining of your coffee splashback.\n\n//Unjust relegation. Could have at least been a half-page. Expect my cut by starfall.//\n\nYou wonder how much of a gossip square paycheque Marianne would expect, if she'd even understand the scale of chump change involved. Undoubtedly she'll mistake it for a transaction fee and will forget about the whole thing within the week.<<else if $backup is "Solo>> You unscrunch the small scrap of paper, and reread the two names.\n\nC-BING\nNetherfield\n\nThere was something there. Maybe one day you'll learn why you were, too.<<endif>><<else if $evidence gte 4>>The headline you pieced together splashes across your console screen.\n\n''BINGLEY CAUGHT IN KENTSIDE TUMBLE''\n\nThe copywriters who fleshed out the article don't quite get all of the details right, but what does it matter? The story is out there now, and C-BING, one of the largest, mightiest, infallable NDAX 20 is caught with its pants down dallying with a Kentshire fabrication factory.\n\nYou have no doubt questions have already been asked, and stock have already been renegotiated and devalued. Points and counterpoints will come up through the following weeks, but at the end of it all, this is the story that broke it.\n\nA third message appears discretely above the article.\n\n//DARCY: Contented?//\n\nYou hit a single key, and walk away from the console.\n\nY / ''N''\n\n\n<center>''The End''</center><<endif>>

A quick detour is worth the added protection of some more dapper caps. It's all too easy for an overzealous barrier guard code to stunlock a runner who gets caught out; pop a dapper cap and you'll have to jack back in, but at least you won't suffer the nerve damage.\n\nThe storefront is barely tall enough for you to walk into, a crouched hovel of electronics and cigarette smoke and glitchy pornography.\n\n"Dappers," you say at the counter, making sure not to touch anything.\n\n"Got two left," says the man behind the counter, not taking his focus from the tiny screen to the side. Slouched over, his flabby warty skin grating up against the mesh singlet, he resembled more bullfrog than anything else. The vidcast, although indiscernable from the static, makes some unsavoury biological noises.\n\n"Both," you say, and leave the UD credits just out of reach on the counter. \n\nThe bullfrog deigns to look up at you from his vidcast, and uses a hookstick to drag the credit notes across the counter. "Third box on left from the Vox stand."\n\nYou hear a latch unlock further back in the store, and a display box opens.\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>Your Mobili beeps delicately in your ear.\n\n"Dove? What are you doing in that slimeball's front? We don't have time for friendly visits."\n\n"Dappers," you say.\n\n"You don't trust me."\n\n"Precaution."\n\n"We're not starting on the right foot, petal. Channel's open when you get there, try not to waste my time any further."\n\nMarianne disconnects.<<endif>>\nYou grab the caps, still sealed in their contamination bags, and [[hurry out|DerbyX1]] of the store before you hear any more unpleasant noises from the counter vidcast.\n\n<<set $dappers to 3>>

Knightbreaker: ''Heavy Attack''\n\n<<set $tracer to true>><<if $dappers lte 0>><<display 'Zap Out'>><<endif>><<if $dappers gte 1>><<set $dappers -= 1>>The horsehead smashes through your piles of code, and you feel the physial pressure of it hitting your heart like a strike to the chest. The Knightbreaker code keeps on hammering at your pitiful attempts to defend, each jab of the 3D model and each string of code a painful blow to your torso and face.\n\nIt's only once the AI backs off that you get the chance to reach into your jacket for a dapper cap. It increases your focus, but the pain lingers as if every blow were real.\n\nSeeing that your connection isn't yet down, the horsehead rears back, and swings wildly to your left.\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>[[Light Defence|Light Attack]]\n[[Moderate Defence|Light Attack Overdefend]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>[[Light Defence|Light Attack]]\n[[Moderate Defence|Light Attack Overdefend]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>[[Light Defence|Light Attack]]\n[[Heavy Defence|Light Attack Overdefend]]<<endif>><<endif>>

Knightbreaker: ''Heavy Attack''\n\nYou pile up junk code before you, strings upon variables upon integers, in an attempt to stop the rush of the horsehead. It doesn't look enough, it can't be enough, but the Knightbreaker snags on a strong few blocks of functions and rebounds back into the arena space around you.<<if $backup is "Birdy">>\n\n"Hah hah! Good show, L. Don't let him feint you out, these AIs are better at mind games than you'd think. Endurance is the key to knocking out a Knightbreaker." You can't help but notice the buff he provided moments ago has already timed out.<<endif>>The horsehead code eyes you for a few moments, and swings wildly to your left.\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>[[Light Defence|Light Attack]]\n[[Moderate Defence|Light Attack Overdefend]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>[[Light Defence|Light Attack]]\n[[Moderate Defence|Light Attack Overdefend]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>[[Light Defence|Light Attack]]\n[[Heavy Defence|Light Attack Overdefend]]<<endif>>

Knightbreaker: ''Light Attack''\n\nThe Knightbreaker's attack goes wild, and you barely need to do anything other than place some sample code in the way to fend of the charge. <<if $backup is "Birdy">>"There should only be enough charge in this AI for one more attack; it would have used up a lot of it's juice in that first big punch."<<endif>>\n\nThe Knightbreaker code cycles for a few moments, and then flares, charging its final desperate attempt.\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>\n[[Moderate Defence|Moderate Attack Block]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>[[Moderate Defence|Moderate Attack Block]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>\n[[Heavy Defence|Moderate Attack Block]]<<endif>>

"Pinging Birdy Gardiner," the VoxMobili purrs in your ear. Seconds later, the handsome face of Birdy is superimposed over the swarming crowd of rainjackets and fabricated downhats that stream past you, eager to get out of the smog and drizzle. \n\nHe looks apologetic, despite being on the receiving end of the call.\n\n"Hey, hey there. Good to hear from you again."\n\nBirdy always appreciates smalltalk, but expedient needs can outweigh niceties.\n\n"Birdy, I need a download on the Netherfield acquisition."\n\n"What acquisition? There's nothing come through the--"\n\n"It's happening tonight, Birdy. I need a runner, now."\n\n"Okay, let me see who's on the runsheet. We might get you a gater this late notice if you're lucky."\n\nA few moments pass. A hologram of you pops in your peripheral as you walk, a better you in clothes more expensive by a magnitude of careers. The face of the holo is buzzed out, and soon a red cross slashes across the indeterminable face and the holo shuts down, dissipated into the sidewalk.\n\nBirdy comes back. "I'm sorry L, but there's no-one available tonight."\n\nYou know this means you'll be making the run yourself. It's probably best not to drag Birdy down with you, but you could really do with the cast support.\n\n"I need to run this tonight."\n\n"Not smart. You should sit on it, wait for a third-party headline."\n\n"Won't do, Birdy. If Netherfield is getting bought out--"\n\n"Then you need to be there when it does. I know." The man sighs, his microphone peaking and causing a slight rattle in your ear. "Alright, give me an hour to deck in. Channel E-B-0-9-hash-4."\n\n"Thank you."\n\n"Flip you then." Birdy disappears from your reticule, are you are [[immersed fully|Brighton Street Northwest]] once again in the swarming parade of suitcasesand rainjackets.

Unsurprisingly, the bookkeeping department for a Kentside metal fabrication company has barely the security required to keep a greenhorn out, let alone an experience streetlogger such as yourself.<<if $backup is "Birdy">>\n\n"Undoubtedly relying on the outer infrastructure for protection," says Birdy, reading your thoughts.<<endif>> Through this financial division, you find a shared server to hook through to legal, and within moments yours browsing employment contracts and OH&S regulations.\n\nIt takes a little time, but <<if $backup is "Solo">>with some effort<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>with some bruteforcing from Birdy<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>some minor adjustments from Marianne<<endif>> you crack through to the corporate structure documents.\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>"Look for the stock options," suggests Marianne. "Those offers take twelve hours to regulate."<<endif>> You browse swiftly through the folder structures, looking for anything related to internal stock offerings.\n\nIt's not until you shift your search briefly to the company consistution that you find the ammendments you've been looking for. A quick read through the revision data on the files show there's been a lot of activity, with remote access from all three directors of Netherfield plus any number of contract legals editing, adjusting, reediting and generally disagreeing on the backbone of the company.\n\nYou prepare to macrocopy the files, and it's only once you start to delete your preview data that the flag shows up.\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>"Ah," she says.\n\n"Ah?" you repeat, watching as a worm starts to form around the transfer request between the network drive and your console.\n\n"It's a Flagboy worm. It'll activate when we start the transfer. Fret not, it won't reach us," she says. Her voice sounds breathy through her mask.\n\nYou watch as the transfer of the heavy corporate documents starts, and the worm creeps it's way in tandem towards your console.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Worm incoming," says Birdy, and a range of boxes and flashes flit around your vision. "A Flagboy. We'll have to give this transfer a boost if we're going to beat it. Prepare to bump out as soon as the file's in your grip."\n\nYou watch as the transfer of the heavy corporate documents starts, and the worm creeps it's way in tandem towards your console.<<endif>><<if $backup is "Solo">>A worm starts to form around the transfer requests between the legal network drive and your console. You hit the transfer confirmation, and the worm begins to move in tandem with the heavy corporate documents, slipping upstream towards your console.<<endif>>\n\nAll you can do now is [[watch|Worm1]], with your finger hovering over the [[escape|Netherfield Admin]] route.

<<set $evidence += 1>>The security server proves less than interesting. Details of employee hours, administrative flushes and firewall control are all available at your fingertips, and it all looks as messy as you'd expect.\n\n<<if $backup is "Birdy">>"What were you hoping to find?" asks Birdy.\n\n"A system either so dirty we literally stumble over something, or so clean we could see the face of the flash cleaners in the server reflection." You pound at another folder, and find only timesheets of some OH&S officers for the 2nd storey factory floor.\n\n"Guess we're not that lucky."<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>"Everything looks in order here," says Marianne, unimpressed with the bout against the Knightbreaker.\n\n<<if visited('Loop Entry')>>"Hey Marianne, what was the ID on that dismissal case we used the loop program for?"\n\n"G. Wickham. ID #2556437."\n\n"I've got his dismissal papers here. Look who just asked for a profile reference yesterday."\n\n"Hunter and deBourgh," Marianne reads aloud. "Well, that //is// interesting."\n\n"Is Hunter the second or third tier defence lawyer for C-BING?"\n\n"Fourth, but that's neither here nor there. We've a critical find for your story there, dove."\n\nYou agree as you macrocopy the profile reference for safe-keeping on your console.<<set $evidence += 1>><<endif>><<endif>>\n\nA stray file catched your attention; the decryption keys for Netherfield's credit pipe. You put it back, fully aware that toying with information that vital is taking too many liberties, but something makes you bring it back to view a second later.\n\nYour brain finally processes what the OED software in your retina module picked up in your periphery before.\n\n"Priority transfer access to the Bingley Holding Trust," you read aloud.<<if $backup is "Birdy">>\n\n"All downstream access."\n\n"To make sure Netherfield plays genially, no doubt."<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>\n\n"Time gated for 8:00 to 8:02 tomorrow morning," notes Marianne, skimming the document faster than you. "That's quick work, even by Central Core standards."<<endif>> \n\nThat should be a nail in the coffin of any doubts your superiors might have of a transaction between Netherfield and C-BING. The question is, do you have enough evidence to prove a merger? It's hard not to let doubt play at you as your back out to the [[admin network block|Netherfield Admin]], your secured console folder one more document heavier.

Anthony Sweet\n//a danRAGE production//

<<if $tracer is true>><<set $AI += 1>><<endif>><center>''You have <<$evidence>> piece<<if $evidence lte 0>>s<<endif>><<if $evidence gte 2>>s<<endif>> of evidence.''\nHit [[Submit|Submit]] to transmit your story to HQ.\n<<if $AI is 3>>Or you can do as Darcy asks, and [[leave|Darcy Out]].<<endif>></center>\n\nThe ''Netherfield Administration Block'' network sits before you, a hundred channel exchange through which every piece of inconsequential data from this small Kentside alloy fabrication business is analysed, audited and redirected.\n\n<<if visited("Netherfield Admin") lte 1>>Somewhere in here you'll find evidence of tomorrow's merger. \n\nYour logger already has the story body pre-notated from your walk here; all you have to do now is find the proof and submit the copy back to your office headquarters, ready for the morning edition.\n\nNetherfield's security is in line with it's means; adequate to stop the local scriptkids, but nowhere close to corporate Core-grade facilities. You walk the halls of the network, a phantom finding only open doors before it.\n\n"So, where to start?" <<if $backup is "Solo">>you whisper to yourself.<<endif>><<endif>>\n\n<<if $AI is 2>><<display 'Darcy 1'>><<endif>>\n<<if $AI is 3>><<display 'Darcy 2'>><<endif>>\n<<if $AI is 4>><<display 'Darcy 3'>><<endif>>\n<<if $AI is 5>><<display 'Darcy 4'>><<endif>>\n\n<<if visited("Employee Payroll") lte 0>>Standard procedure would be to first [[check payroll|Employee Payroll]]. <<if $backup is "Marianne">>"C-BING might tip their hand early and credit a cleaning crew in advance of tomorrow morning's operation."<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Remember your horse in this is neutrality," says Birdy. "You only need the evidence, not data on some shmucks food cheque."<<endif>><<endif>>\n\n<<if visited("Director Lucas") lte 0>>A quick targeted search of the vehicle parking audit shows that only [[one of the three company directors|Director Lucas]] has visited the premises in the last week. <<if $backup is "Marianne">>"It doesn't mean much in terms of operation, but we can at least use the utility's rego to mirror force her access console."<<endif>><<endif>>\n\n<<if visited("AX Assessment") lte 0>>There's a chance, albeit small, that this merger has been in due diligence for longer than two hours. If so, Netherfield's [[AX stock holding structure|AX Assessment]] would have seen some activity.<<endif>>\n\n<<if visited("Security Audit") lte 0>>Then there's the tried and tested [[security audit|Security Audit]]; the cleaner the feed, the more it stinks. <<if $backup is "Birdy">>"Take care here, L. We haven't seen any of C-BING's code yet, but if they were to leave a vanguard anywhere, it'd over this."<<endif>><<endif>>\n\n\n

Knightbreaker: ''Moderate Attack''\n\nYou form your shield of alphanumerics and glyphs, and the Knightbreaker thrashes against your fortification, unable to find an opening to get at you.\n\nAfter moments, the cycles powering the AI run out, and the entire program, 3D model and all, is left static and immovable.\n\nAll that's left is to unplug it, which you carefuly oblige it of.\n\nA peculiar, albeit an incredibly dangerous, piece of software to use given the circumstances. It's hard not to wonder if there's a larger game at play here as you proceed safely through to the [[Netherfield security server|Security Server]].

The employee console is grimy with dirt and iron dust. The logo - Netherfield Fabrication Ltd. - wavers as you tap through to the employee login screen. <<if $backup is "Marianne">>"Unfortunately going this route means you have to have a physical presence on site," says Marianne. "But it is safest."<<endif>>\n\nYou try not to think what might happen if someone comes across you jacked into the console, and start the loop recursion program.\n\nYou watch as your logger cycles through potential employee IDs, at first determining parameters - length, characters, restrictions - and then starts a loop of input trials.\n\nYou have to wait forty-five minutes until the logger hits the sweetspot. ID #2556437, belonging to a G. Wickham, relieved of employment three days ago for improper behaviour and minor theft. It's a risky entry, as any human eyes over the system log might note the return of a discharged employee, but it's a safe entry into the employee network, which is just a hop, step and a jump through to the [[admin network|Netherfield Admin]]. <<set $tracer to true>>\n\n<<if $backup is "Marianne">>Despite the minimal interface Marianne is broadcasting to you, you barely notice slight red box that briefly flashes in your vison.\n\n"What was that?"\n\n"Nothing to concern yourself with, dove. Leave it with me." The red box disappears from view as quickly as it came. You can't help but feel a little more vulnerable than you did forty-five minutes ago.<<endif>>

Knightbreaker: ''Light Attack''\n\nThe Knightbreaker's attack goes wild, but you stack up a considerable number of strings and integers just to be safe of a counterattack. <<if $backup is "Birdy">>"There should only be enough charge in this AI for one more attack; it would have used up a lot of it's juice in that first big punch."<<endif>>\n\nThe Knightbreaker code cycles for a few moments, and then flares, charging its final desperate attempt.\n\n<<if $backup is "Solo">>[[Light Defence|Moderate Attack Through]]<<endif>><<if $backup is "Birdy">>[[Light Defence|Moderate Attack Through]]\n<<endif>><<if $backup is "Marianne">>\n[[Light Defence|Moderate Attack Through]]<<endif>>