Neon Black

Nameless

In the neon pulse of Mecropolis, a single wrong digit could unravel a life.

A keypress was a heartbeat, and the space between each stroke was the distance between life and death.

A nameless security breacher's heart raced as he dove deeper into the virtual labyrinth, alarms blaring and lights flashing in his mind's eye. The job was supposed to be a simple digital smash-and-grab at a food industry corporation's headquarters, but unexpected obstacles had slowed him down.

His fingers danced over a security terminal, launching a custom attack virus that tore through layers of high-tech network security like tissue paper. Nameless was a net-diver of the highest caliber, the kind who could slip through firewalls like a whisper. Years of experience had honed his instincts to the point that he could sense security protocols even before his gear registered them. In the abstract labyrinth of the digital world, he moved like a shadow, rarely leaving a trace and always ready to counter-attack. He could pick apart encryption with a finesse that felt almost surgical, cutting clean holes through layers of corporate security that would take lesser divers hours to crack.

As he navigated the network in a virtual space, he couldn't help but wonder what secrets the food corp had been hiding beyond his intended target. He spotted intense security measures that hinted at something far more sinister than a simple corporate data theft job. With each passing second, his fear grew; the odds of emerging unscathed were falling. Yet, he might have feared disappointing his job fixer even more, for there's no easier way to develop a bad reputation or destroy a good one.

Site security approached, and he didn't need to be jacked into the security net to know; he could hear them trying to break down the door to the room he was in, a room he had remotely locked them out of. He wondered how they could have found him, and could have figured it out if he had had time to backtrace the logs. He had simply gotten sloppy somewhere along the way, and they had pinpointed his location to the access node he breached. He wouldn't let himself live this down, as he was his own harshest critic, and neither would anyone else in the sec-breaching community. If he hadn't been so careless, he could have hidden his errors, but regardless of any actions at this point, it was inevitable; everyone would know. The net would know.

The security forces were making progress on their own breaching efforts. Efforts he was fully capable of hearing in the real world around him, even though he couldn't move in it while breaching security nets. What was real anyway? He had always found more comfort in the digital space, which was just as real to him, with very real consequences for sloppiness. He could disconnect and run for it, yet he hadn't obtained his prize. He couldn't afford the time to scan the layers of the network and knew that with his luck, he would be bound to hit a microbe. He knew he could handle any digital security microbe a network could throw at him, but was that his overconfidence speaking again? He hadn't seen a security microbe yet but knew at least one pod had to be floating out there in the netspace, waiting to infect him. Or at least try.

A sharp, psychosomatic pain at the nape of his neck told him he had found one, or rather, one had found him. He had been distracted and let it sneak up on him. Code had begun to inject itself into his netspace form. Even though it couldn't pass into his physical body, it could still trick his brain into all sorts of illusions, some even deadly. His microbarriers auto-deployed and were vastly stronger and easily capable of handling the intruder without his direct intervention. The microbes released from the attached pod fizzled and died. Too easy? He thought, as he sighed in the physical world and his muscles tensed up. In the netspace, he saw another microbe pod swimming his way. The last one had been just a floater, testing the space and looking for intruders. He watched as the pod released a torrent of microbes. As swift as an electric current, he erected an offensive force field to not only block the onslaught but also disable them as they came into contact with it. He called the virus 'Ice Cold' and smirked as the defeated microbes fell like digital raindrops dissolving into the void—his domain.