HULO DENI. I CHAINGED MY MIND. THE PLACE MY FREND TOOK ME WUZ ONLY FUN A LITTLE WILE. THEN IT GOT SCARY. I WANNA COME HOME AND FROSTY SEZ ITS OK. HE SEZ HE'S SORRY THE RESONANTS DIDN WERK AN I CAN STILL BECUM AN OTAKU AN GET JACKED IF I CHAINGE MY
MINE LATER. FROSTY WILL EVEN LEMME TAKE ANY TOYS HOME I WANNA. WILLYA COME GET ME? PIPSQUEEK
PS DONT MESS UP FROSTY NONE, OHKAY? HE'S STILL MY FREND.
The image on screen stopped strobing and settled on the laughing digipic of Pip.
"Resonants?" Deni echoed. "What the frag did that wirehead do to her?" It had to have been something to do with computers. When Deni had seen Pip ten minutes ago, she was troded up and eyeball-deep in the Matrix. Something must have happened to her there.
Deni felt like turfing the MatrixPal on the floor and gutter-stomping it with the heel of his boot. Fraggin' thing. It was what had gotten Pip in trouble in the first place. But instead he gritted his teeth and stabbed out a reply with one finger. I'M COMIN PIP.
As he finished, he heard Alfie's bike rumble to a stop outside his door.
"Come on, Kali," he told the black dog. "We're gonna bring Pip home."
Epilogue
›»(Hmph. Well, that was a waste of time. I can't see anything wrong in there. Whatever the glitch was, it seems to have disappeared as soon as I accessed the Seattle RTG.)‹«
– Captain Chaos (09:57:05/03-19-60)
›»(CAP! WELCOME BACK, MAN! WE WAS FREAKIN'!!!)‹«-Angus (09:57:12/03-19-60)
›»(What the frag you shouting for, Slater?)‹«-Captain Chaos (09:57:21/03-19-60)
›»(You disappeared, Chaos. For more than eight minutes.)‹«-Mom on the Run (09:57:38/03-19-60)
›»(! what? Just a sec' while I check my datalog.)«‹«-Captain Chaos (09:57:52/03-19-60)
›»(It's true, CC. I entered the Seattle RTG thirty-three seconds after you did, and have a great big hole in my log where the details of the run should be. Someone or something wiped my deck, starting at the precise instant I entered that RTG and ending at 09:57:01. Even worse, they also wiped my memory. MY memory, not the one on my deck. And as you and I both know, memory is all I've got, chummer.)‹«
– Renny (09:58:26/03-19-60)
›»(Sounds like someone fragged you. And not in a fun way, neither. Uh-huh.)‹«-Pervo (09:58:30/03-19-60)
›»(Are you back in our shadowfiles AGAIN, you git? Go on back to your sleaze sites.)‹«-Mom on the Run (09:58:42/03-19-60) »XSounds like you got iced, chummer. Sounds like a LOT of people got hit with IC. I can't say where I'm working at the moment, but let's just say it's a LARGE corporation. 'Round about 09:48 PST-and never mind what the local time was-our deckers started to come down with the screams and shakes, one by one. Took me a while to scan the fact that the one thing they had in common was that they were all accessing the Seattle RTG. The suits upstairs panicked- they were worried that maybe a second arcology had gone into meltdown and was going to glitch up the whole system. But everything was cool. Except for the poor fragger we jacked out. I'll always be haunted by his screams…)‹«
– Grunge Monster (09:59:36/03-19-60)
›»(My boss thought it was a repeat of the Crash of 2029. You should have seen the Vancouver Stock Exchange when the news got out. Just two minutes into it, and the stock of all of the 'puter corps was in the toilet. But the market is starting to rally already. And my boss is tearing out her hair, wishing our brokers hadn't panicked and sold, just as prices hit rock bottom. Oops. Boss lady's coming. Gotta run.)‹«
– Psylocke (10:00:03/03-19-60)
›»(Hey, any corp war's gotta have its casualties. Whoever planted this virus really knew their stuff. I just wonder who's at whose throat, now. I thought the big boys had declared a truce.)‹«
– Merc (10:00:11/03-19-60)
›»(Screw you, soldier-boy. My girlfriend just DIED. Frag you all. Frag the corps. Frag whoever planted this virus. I'm gonna find him and take him down so HARD…)‹«
– Bung (10:00:20/03-19-60)
›»(Anyone else notice that the glitches seemed to cluster around the Underground News Net? It's all part of the master plan. A test run. Take down all communication, but leave the ork sites up and running.)‹«
– Truthseeker (10:00:51/03-19-60)
›»(Yeah, we roetas are behind everything, huh? Your "Great Metahuman Conspiracy" is wearin' a bit thin, twinkie-brain. I don't suppose ya noticed that EVERY news net was still up and running, throughout the crisis? Data was still comin' through, loud and clear. It was just the DECKERS with the hot hardware got their hoops in a loop.)‹«
– Angus (10:01:40/03-19-60)
›»(If it was a virus, who was behind it?)‹«-Mom on the Run (10:01:55/03-19-60)
›»(Who or WHAT is the question.)‹«-Captain Chaos (10:02:01/13-19-60)
›»(Are you thinking what I'm thinking, CC?)‹«-Renny (10:02:27/13-19-60) »›»(By "what" do you mean one of the corps? Well, I could tell you boys which one it AIN'T. Except that I can't tell. Except to say it doesn't start with an "R." An "M" or an "F" maybe, but definitely not an
– Grunge Monster (10:02:42/13-19-60)
›»(!'m thinking the same thing, Renny. Something "artificial.")‹«-Digital Dawg (10:03:14/13-19-60)
›»(You're way off, chummers. It was a virus, plain and simple.)‹«-Inchworm (10:03:49/13-19-60)
›»(How do you know?)«‹«-Angus (10:03:57/13-19-60) »›(Take a browse through the KSAF in basket. The pirate news station received a message at 09:45:00 that I think you might find interesting. Looks like someone had a little advance warning of what was about to be uploaded to the Seattle RTG exactly two minutes later.)‹«
– Inchworm (10:04:10/13-19-60)
›»(The worm's got that right.)‹«-Scoop (10:04:15/13-19-60)
›»(A virus! Told ya so!)‹«-Merc (10:04:24/13-19-60)
›»(What do you think, CC? does it scan?)‹«-Renny (10:04:43/13-19-60)
›»(Could b
– Captain Chaos (10:04:52/13-19-60)
›»(! still think there might be an artificial intelligence behind all this.)‹«
– Digital Dawg (10:05:09/13-19-60)
›»(That's just wishful thinking, Dawg. There's never been a single shred of evidence that conclusively proves the existence of AIs,)‹«
– Red Wraith (10:05:28/13-19-60)
›»(Or the existence of God. Or the existence of Dawg. Gimme a break!)‹«-Merc (10:05:38/13-19-60)
›»(Well, something weird went down on the Matrix today, that's for sure. And I DO SO exist, Merc. As for God, however…)‹«
– Digital Dawg (10:05:50/13-19-60)
›»(We may never know what really happened. Not if everyone caught up in the glitch has a hole in their wet-ware memory as big as mine.)‹«
– Captain Chaos (10:06:07/13-19-60)
›»(Someone's got to know the answers. We've just got to keep looking until we find the right file.)‹«-Renny (10:06:14/13-19-60)
›»(Don't viruses leave behind a distinctive signature, just like chemical explosives? You wanna find out who bombed the Seattle RTG, check the signature. I'm guessing terrorists, now.)‹«
– Renny (10:06:29/13-19-60)
›»(See? Merc agrees with me. It WAS the orks.)‹«
– Truthseeker (10:06:40/13-19-60)
›»(Oh shut up, conspiracy clown. As for me, I'm leaning toward the corporate war theory. It's starting again, same place as before. Seattle.)‹«
– Slater (10:02:52/13-19-60)
›»(Hey, what are you guys talking about? My deck was glitched. Did I miss something interesting?)‹«-Retro (10:07:00/13-19-60)