Drone Memory Bank - Chrome fanfic

For the attention of: Mr Jones
Subject: Extraction from the memory banks of “special” service drone 314159

Below is a sample of what the above named drone was carrying in its memory banks. A snapshot of the drone has since been placed in the secure server, and the drone has been returned to factory settings. As yet, we have not worked out a reason why this drone “chose” to keep this recording, which it seems to have picked up from an abandoned mobile phone. The drones did their job and erased all evidence of these non-person terrorists, but this drone kept data in memory. Sample follows:

Is it working? Testing, testings? This is Barry Cooper, chip id 09112010172859. These are my last words.

They just appeared out of nowhere. Just like the forks. I don’t know if anyone will ever see this. I don’t know if anyone will ever know I existed. Everyone else is dead or dying. I’m dying too. Speaking my final words into an ancient mobile. Thank whatever’s up there, apart from the SOL, that it has a record function. I’d be phoning out, but network is down. Everything’s down. We’re screwed. I’m hiding in one of the warehouses. I don’t care about making this little noise. They’ll find me. I’m fucked.

They came out of nowhere. Ping! Zap! Straight into existence. And they were tooled up for slaughter. Even our best shots bounced off. Maybe if we’d had time we could have mounted one of the big guns... What does it matter any more? Our gang is over. Our dream of living independently from Corp control is over. It dies with us.

We did take one of the bots. If they even were bots. Someone chucked a ‘nade straight at one. Lodged right in it. Didn’t do us any good. It blew up into a shower of forks. Forks everywhere. Forks impaling all of us. Forks of death.

Everyone I know, knew, is dead or dying. Everyone who knows me is dying.

Is that? It is...

COME ON YOU BASTARD! SHOOT ME AND HAVE IT OVER WI...



Internal Memo

For the attention of: Mr Jones
Subject: RE: 314159

I have gone through said drone’s snapshot. I can not find a reason for it logging this recording. Further to removing records of unpersons I have authorised this snapshot be securely wiped. I have called 314159 in for hardware testing. It is possible, but unlikely that the error lies in there. Continue monitoring the drones for abnormal behaviour. Should another go the same way then bring it offline and return it to my office immediately. My office shall make the snapshots and dissections.

IC writeup of Chrome 31/10/10

BBS.....................................
Date:1/11/10
Handle: EvilTux

Hey guys of the net-within-a-net. I wanted to believe that there were no more psychers, but I’m trying to work out another explanation for what happened yesterday. Maybe you can come up with another explaination.

There’s a marketplace I’ll hang out in sometimes. Owned by a corp but in the middle of a gang-owned quadrant. We’ll see how long that lasts with the current wars going on...

From my perception, this is what happened. A voice came from nowhere, saying nonsense about a toad being inside a newt. Whatever that means. Then a fork pattern appeared on the floor. Arrow of forks pointing to the door. Naturally I tried to get a snap for the BBS, but it didn’t appear on camera. Neither did the one in the corridor. Neither on my eyes, or the *cough* other security cameras around there that were just too easy to control. This was weird. When the eyes were acting as eyes, the arrows were there. When they were cameras, they weren’t. If you want I can send you some pictures of an empty floor, but that shows naff all. Also, no net presence on these ones, unlike other fork appearings.

Some other people in the marketplace saw the forks. We went investigating. We were lead to a warehouse in what amounts to no-man’s land on this floor. Other people from the marketplace were asleep on the floor there, and very soon so were we. I awoke feeling very aggressive. I felt compelled to fight. The others were there. Naturally I first took down everything in the room with a net-presence. Unfortunately, that meant that I knocked a buddy unconscious. I fought melee after that, and definitely used the charge on my cyber-arm. My ballistic armour was knackered, and I lost a fair bit of blood. I thought it was lights out for me.

Then, we all awoke in the marketplace. WTF. 2 minutes had passed on the clock since we saw the initial forks. There was no evidence that any of it had happened, except that we all remembered it happening. My armour was as it was, including the little personal touches that one’s armour gets after so much use. My cyber-arm was fully charged, and there was nothing on the logs about having used a charge. My deck had definitely not been in a fairly decent battle on the net. (Oh man, I even had cool custom animations to go with the combat that I’d been working on.) People who had done some shooting had the same clip in their gun with the same number of bullets.

The pass out and the fight I can understand. Sleep and frenzy drugs of some description. Would have been really strong though. I got a caffeine gland a while ago. I find it makes the code flow more freely. It’s the freaking coverup I can’t stand.

And get this. 1k went into my account when I woke up. Untraceable account. Whoever did this, they’re loaded.

Someone went back to the warehouse. I followed them on the cameras I could get into. Which meant that I couldn’t follow them into the warehouse. Some outsider chick, so, you know, crazy as hell. Which isn’t surprising since they say it’s hell outside. She didn’t pass out and start fighting people, but she did meet a chap called Alfred. Who absolutely didn’t know anything about the strange goings on. Yeah, right. Then she was ranting about going outside to find brains in jars to give to him.

Speaking of brains in jars, one did turn up that evening. There’s an outsider who gets random stuff from outside to sell inside. Sometimes he comes to our humble marketplace. He had 1 item, which was strange for him. A brain in a jar. Photos attached. I’m not sure what these connections are, but I’m guessing archaic since they’re from outside. It was being kept at roughly the right temperature, or at least our new MedEvac guy said so. I bid on it, but it got a bit rich for my tastes and went to a guy who fences stuff. Nice chap actually. Probably made a decent profit on it. Anyway, if it’s similar to what other people have claimed about brains in jars, then it’s best far, far away from me. And probably best kept far away from a mainframe. I’ve heard claims that they’re basically the important parts of psychers, preserved for whatever reason.

Some writing appeared on a wall as well. Mirrored and barely visible this time. And a different wall. It said “Help” and “Ouch”. Pictures attached. Identifying features removed, but timestamp remains. We weren’t sure what it was about. Someone suggested the brain in the jar was trying to talk, but I think the timing was wrong for that.

The battle between Shadow and BTR rages on, and this arcology and this floor know it. Some “lost and confused” drones entered our marketplace. First a Shadow, then a BTR. They weren’t both online at the same time. Generic scouting and massive uploading happening. If someone wants to overload these IPs with crap, it’d be appreciated . Meh, they’ve probably ditched them by now. Anyway. We didn’t appreciate the idea of their battle entering our area. So we staticed the drone off the net. Not many deckers in our little marketplace. We were being friendly, that time. Phone calls to the owners went out to see if they wanted them back and if they’d like to not send drones into our turf. Shadow collected theirs. The BTR one melted. It actually looks rather cool. Photos attached. Shadow offered to buy the BTR one. Since we’re playing it nice and neutral (even though Shadow are kicking BTR’s arse on our floor) we declined.

Over the night, more drones. One is off the net permanently, but awaits dismantling. Might be something interesting under the hood. Might not be. Some generic delivery drones. Some delivered grenades. So I spent the rest of the night playing with a mainframe, security cameras, crappy pattern recognition libraries. Seriously, anyone got a half decent pattern recognition library. With even half-complete documentation. I want an early warning system on those sorts of drones entering. One took a turret to the face. Hack turrets for fun and profit. Just make sure there’s a good shield between you and the turret. And don’t hack my turrets. They’re my turrets.

So yeah, rest of the night was spent looking through various cameras. But then, decks and cybereyes are so much better than a monitor.

So. Anyone got a sensible explanation for the battle royale, or shall I work on the assumption that the psychers really do walk among us?

Anyone recommend a decent pattern recognition library so those damn drones won’t be delivering grenades when I’m trying to have my lunch? I lost my drink in the process.

I’ll be sticking around the BBS a while. Got to do something while my code compiles.