Chapter 115: Jailbreak?

  AbyssNet Article from NCundercover, titled: ‘Who is Dreadwire? The Masked Rebel with an Arachne.’

  New California is no stranger to having a few mercenaries walking in daylight. But how often do you see one swing past your car running away from Yuzhou Aerodynes in the middle of the Pleasure Lanes? We’ve all seen the videos, people all across the world have given those clips of Dreadwire millions of views. And honestly, I don’t blame them.

  Talk about a debut! We got reports saying he even blew up two Aerodynes like they were scrap-shodded and glued together! Now, officially, my sources say this isn’t the first time he’s made an appearance in the city, that he popped up before as a Vulture and got into trouble at Little Requiem before disappearing…

  But everyone who had interacted with him is now dead. I tried, I really tried to get the deets, but turns out the man is as deadly to gangs as he is to the corporations… which raises the question? Who is he? Where did he come from?

  And what does he want?

  All I know is that I got my eyes on him, it ain’t every day that a Gold pops up and changes the city as we know it. Yuzhou’s put one hell of a bounty on him, putting him straight in with the big leagues of the city’s underworld. Who knows what sorts of things he did to get so much hate from them… but I’m fucking rooting for him. We need more people like him giving the corporates a bigass middle-finger for the world to see, and what better way than thieving from them and taunting their ass in the middle of The Pleasure Lanes.

  August 31st

  Ripley

  So… holding cells were not the most comfortable place to sleep in. There weren’t that many beds, so either you had to fight for one, pay for one, or just be scary enough that nobody took one from you.

  Fortunately for me… I chose the right identity. One of the guys who I identified as a Metal Heavens rookie stared at me with wide eyes. “Y-you’re a Black Dragon of ‘Masa’s?”

  “That’s what they have designated me as, yes.” I tried to hide my smile behind the most stoic of stoic faces possible, my mind scanning through Long’s Implant to make this believable. One of my new Protocols from Database, Consciousness Link, significantly improved my ability to scan memories. “Designated by none other than The Bladedaughter?”

  They jerked away from that, the Bladedaughter was Muramasa’s second-in-command, her entire body was weaponized at every inch — and she wasn’t known to play nice. I saw images of her in Long's memories,

  “Why are… you here then? I didn’t know this place had the big guns!” One of the younger inmates shivered at the sight of me.

  “Yeah! I was just jaywalking!” Another shouted.

  “Me? I just stalked my ex!”

  “Whatever…” Groaned one large brute tagged with the insignia of a mid-level gang known as Blindside, before trying to devour me with a menacing glare. “He don’t look all that tough, who did you Shardware? Your mother?”

  “With pride.” I smiled back. “I mean… yours looks like it was sewn on by synthed up Operator who got his parts from Riverside’s gunk.”

  “Oh hell no! I got mine done by Harold Anderson! You know who he is?”

  My eyes tingled a bit with mischief. “Ah, would you believe it if I said everything he works for is to surpass my own Shardware?” Of course, I was referring to my Pseudo-Silver Claw and Arachne.

  “Pssht. You don’t disrespect my man like that!” The big brute heaved his way near me. “We settle this the hard way, now!”

  “Oh…” I’d already seen what the hard way was, and I couldn’t be happier. “Let’s do it.”

  ———

  He survived the arm wrestling match for all of ten seconds. I cheated of course, sending faint dribbles of Gold into my arm, but who cared, it gave me a bed to sleep in.

  Not that I wasn’t getting much sleep in the first place.

  Goliath, I hadn’t forgotten about it. It had reached a 100% Link yesterday, and the nanites were coursing through me steadily.

  All five micrograms.

  Goliath Nanoswarm

  Integrity: Silver V

  Energy: Iron II

  Grade: Silver I

  Capacity: Iron I

  Amount: 5 micrograms [1000 Nanites]

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Current Status: Inactive

  Available Procedures: Organic Conversion; Biological Destabilization; Nanite Auto-Replication

  I wasn’t eager to activate it right now, it would literally begin chewing through my bones to begin making more of itself. It was disappointing in a way to see how little Capacity it took. Though, I wasn’t complaining right now. When working on the ranges of nanometers, 1000 nanomachines was a relatively miniscule number.

  In fact they were just a little larger than viruses, although I suspected I could figure out a way to modify them so that I could have an array of various subtypes with individual purposes.

  I chuckled, here I was thinking to myself of how to use these nanites, when for all I knew, R0N1N would just take them for himself. Still, I hadn’t lost hope yet, Twilight was out right now trying to get into contact with Mirage… hopefully soon I’d be able to get some real info.

  ———

  September 1st

  Database Updates have been compiled… [Open summary?]

  That was what I awoke to, besides a throbbing headache, naturally I opened the list of updates, they sprawled endlessly. Most of it was a heavy increase to the integrity of my Neuroframe to protect it from intrusion, others had to do with rates of learning and processing of information, some had to do with… diverting my knowledge towards a seed?

  Shardware Dataset enhancements; Combat Dataset enhancements; a Dataweaving Dataset creation; Nanomachine functionality, their creation and structure data; improved visualization of memories; improved automatic decryption of downloaded data; reduction of overstimulation… the list went on and on.

  If I were to truly summarize it: I was able to think and remember more about the most important facets of my Development; increase the natural protection and intrusion of my Implant in regards to foreign data; a whole slew of information regarding nanobots, their visualization and function… and being able to piece data back together. And… huh.

  Three new protocols, as I’d expected, but there was an odd one out.

  Protocol: Defragmentation allows the Adapter to piece together corrupted or incomplete sets of data according to their current knowledge of the topic.

  Protocol: Nanomachine Reprogramming allows the Adapter to reprogram their internal Nanites without the usage of external equipment.

  Protocol: Information Seed was brought upon by the union of multiple Source Fragments and the aspect of a higher intelligence. The Adapter can selectively feed Warpcode and their data into this seed inorder to manifest new intelligence.

  The first two, I could more or less understand. It was the last one that I lacked any idea of. Focusing on the protocol however…

  Information Seed Tier: 0

  Development: 32%

  Current Focus: Data Mimicry; Persona [Twilight]

  Sub-Features: None

  So it was something to grow? Well, literally, it was a seed. Although why was it focused on Twilight? Or at least… why did it say it was the union of multiple Source-Shard Fragments? Was it Ms. Himiko or… Twi- no, that was impossible.

  I had seen Elsa’s Features before.

  Moving my thoughts past that incredibly stupid line of thinking, I decided to toy with a little bit of what having a Database Feature meant. While I also wanted to try out Shardweave, I wasn’t sure now was the best time since it seemed to be heavily dependent on my Warp Energy’s Grade. These other guys were already having nightmares thinking a Bronze Tier II was sleeping next to them.

  So for now, I began to settle on figuring out what my Datasets could do.

  September 2nd

  Still no contact with Twilight, so I was getting a tad bit worried, but I didn’t dwell on it too much. She could handle herself, she had protected me from a Gold Grade DataShield made of Fire Warpcode after all.

  In the meanwhile, by the Founders was having a Database function fun. It was like having an endless supply of hologames in your head that you could reprogram at a moment’s notice. Each Dataset was a catalog of all my memories regarding the specific topics they were created for.

  The Shardware Dataset obviously contained all of the stored information regarding blueprints and theorems, but it also contained visual recollection of almost any procedure I had done before. When combined with Scrapyard, it was an insane boost to my cognitive faculties with just how much I could tinker without needing the metal in my hands.

  The Combat Dataset allowed me to replay all my previous bouts seamlessly, as well as containing detailed information regarding the various maneuvers me or my enemies had performed. Whereas the Dataweaving set let me exactly analyze the modifications I’d made to Feature Links and Implants, allowing me a holistic approach to the topic in a way I never quite learned the intricacies of.

  Still… It was all just a distraction.

  Seriously, where the hell was Twilight?!

  September 8th

  Another week passed by and my delves into my head went from a mere curiosity to an escape. This couldn’t be good, Twilight or anyone really should have been able to contact me, but here I was all alone, unsure if my temporary stay here would become permanent once they find some bogus claim to tie me to.

  Or worse, a very real claim of Black Dragon Long’s crimes. I’d seen some of them now, with Defragmentation, the longer I connected to a BUG, the more I was able to peer into the depths of it’s coded memory. His blade held up to the throat of a child, threatening their father to pay his debt, selling away living beings to the mercy of brothels and Shard-slaving operations, killing my — his — father to prove loyalty towards The Bladefather.

  I shuddered, I didn’t know if the isolation was getting to me, but strangely I was feeling more and more compelled to try and test out the nanites. It was sheer will and hope that kept me going, it was only this odd feeling that Twilight was still with me through that Seed of Information which sated me.

  Steps drowned out the quiet chatter of my cell, heavy and pounding, we’d learned those were the boots of a uniformed officer. Which meant someone was coming in, or going out.

  I was prepared for the worst at each passing day, but then when I saw the face of who entered… I wasn’t sure what to think.

  “Diana?” I blinked at the silver haired woman who was certainly more…

  I stopped myself from thinking those thoughts, I had a girlfriend. Several.It was just, she might not have looked all that different but the way she carried herself, the glint in her eyes was sharper, the air tingled at her appearance and her very presence in reality seemed more profound. Albeit, the natural beauty she’d been born and mutated with now had an appeared more enigmatic, like scars had etched their way and were pulsing into me like a devouring flame.

  Fire. I could feel it burning within her.

  Alright, maybe I was a bit crazy… but her hair definitely was more floaty, right?

  “I’m here to take you out, Ripley.” She looked… displeased, but also strangely anticipatory as she spoke those words.

  “Ripley?” One of the inmates asked in confusion. “Isn’t that Black Dragon Long?”

  I awkwardly laughed back. “Just another one of my many aliases, now keep hush or I’ll use my Necrotium Blade on you when you’re out.”

  The prisoner shut up at that, and I fumbled my way through the door as Diana opened it. She was quiet as she walked ahead of me, the distance between us was tense — like static was building.

  There was a lot we had to talk about.

  some sort of trouble together.

  Blood and Steel, their stories largely don't intersect. The answer for that is simple, I wanted both of them to grow into their respective identities as Dreadwire and Silvereye individually at first, for them to have wildly different experiences after getting powers from the same monster and ending up at completely different points yet still in paralleling one another.

  Thunder and Webs, where their relationship is a focus.

  Blood and Steel was an Origin story. The rest is the shit I wanted to write about.

  really cool. I'm writing Act 3 of Thunder and Webs right now and its got me kicking my feet up in the air and laughing like an evil maniac at 3AM.

  The Clash of Blood and Steel echoes in Thunderous Omens, woven upon Webs of Lies.

  And with it, shall come The Eclipse.

  Act 3 starts at 110 chapters. (0_0)