Randall's Story

"In 2011 the United States of America declared hacking to be an act of war. The hackers, naturally, responded. For the lulls. The USA effectively started a war on its own citizens. The hackers found every opening, every weakness and exploited them.

Most people didn't care either way. Some of the infotainment and faux news tried to paint the hackers in a negative light. The Free Press, for such a thing still existed in those days, went at the civil liberties angle. Some loved pointing out that a hacker with an approximate budget of zero credits had a better security system than a bank or government which literally printed their own credits.

However, when the hackers almost unleashed nukes, Joe Public was calling for blood. Computers became restricted devices. Any software that wasn't approved became banned. Approved included filing nice, long log reports and sending them to The Man. Approved included closing the source.

This was enforced through several means. One of which was closing off the 'net to anyone who wasn't using an approved system. Those who cared about Freedom tackled this problem from several angles. This was their nature. They didn't have the rigid corporate structure. One solution was to create a free 'net. There's rumours that it caught on, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. Another solution was for a Free system to pretend to be a brain-dead, locked down system.

The Corps still haven't learnt that security through obscurity doesn't work. Especially when you have some clueless users, and coders working on time constraints. Little by little, Free systems looked on the 'net like legit, brain-dead systems.

The Man decided that this wasn't just a software problem, and attacked the hardware too. Some of the builders of legit systems enjoyed this massively. They got monopolies on hardware and software. Even when you handed your credits over, they still owned the system you bought. They dictated what you put on it, what you took off it and how you used it.

An underground market emerged in obsolete hardware. If you tickled it just right and did the right incantations, it could get online. Or do some damage to the mindless boxen. Some people hacked together new hardware, to try to keep a fast box that was actually good.

The charities and organisations that have always fought for the rights of the user were eventually labelled as terrorist in nature. After all, they fought for the right of every person to have their finger on the big red button, as The Man and the infotainment put it.

Some disappeared in the night. After that, others did their own disappearing act, with whatever resources they could gather. Rumour has it that Stallman, one of the mightiest hackers (not cracker) of the time, still lives on in a ROM construct somewhere in the wilderness. They say that he grabs pages he wants from the 'net by sending a mini-program off to grab the text and email it to one of his many email addresses. He's had a few near misses with the Avatar A.I.s, they say, but never been caught. They also say, that he's working on the ultimate Free system, project GNU, something he's been doing for almost a century now.

That's where we fit in. We're not free in this system. Not by any means. The box in your head, in your eye, in your hand, how much control do you really have over them? If you can't root it, it's not yours. Not really.

We could do with a guy like you, want to fight for the users with us?"

A private message from a theoretically non-existent account. Randall was hooked. He joined them, became a terrorist in the eyes of the state. Because he cared about people and the way society had gone.

In time he found The Marketplace. It was good for the odd job which paid well for risking your life at the hands of thugs, Corps and EarthFed. Not that there's much difference between the three...

One job went a bit wrong. Too many people were going to split a fixed payment, for something which 2 people could easily do. So 2 people went off without the rest of the group to do it. So the rest of the group called some contacts to get these 2 into trouble. Randall very nearly died in the process. Aries Corp picked him up, fixed him, upgraded him a little and owned him.

Randall panicked. He was another cog in the machine now. He could help the cause where he could, but contact with them was impossible now. They could be watching at any time. So he got the coded message of "agent dirty, no more contact" out to them. In the form of a weirdly worded personal ad, if anyone cares.

He hit back eventually. Got a job with someone from Free Each Arcology Movement, Europe. Helped to trigger a massive backlash against the corps. He even played a critical part. The team broke into an Aries office, connected to one of the mainframes and took files that proved that Aries and Titan were the same company. The Movement already had info on Organitech experimenting on people so the anti-corp feeling was rising in the Leeds-Bradford arcology. Some got kicked out or went on lock-down for a few weeks. Though, in the end, nothing really changed.

In that time, he learnt to code under Splice. Splice was building a mini-empire. As far as anyone could tell, he was building this empire to Do Science. Splice paid the tuition, and Randall gave Splice a cut of the profits. There was even a cot and food in the deal.

Randall bought himself a few upgrades, and eventually got the money together to upgrade the lab, or his own knowledge. He put this to Splice who said that upgrading the lab would be better, and promised him the keys to the lab in his will.

Time passed. Splice's empire grew. He even had turrets installed, which Randall set up on the network, and gave himself a backdoor. If another lock-down happened, then it could be self supporting, as long as the generators kept running. And 3±1 fusion reactors will keep the L-B arcology going for long enough, regardless of the politics happening. Eventually Splice was assassinated. Ronin really was a good assassin. And never seen again after that.

So, as promised, Randall got the keys to the mainframe, and a few other shiny things. He and another had inherited Splice's empire. Another decker, in fact. I suppose they can be best described as keeping things ticking over, until Randall really fscked things up.

I don't think I need remind my beloved reader about the forks that appear in the marketplace. One day, a chip appeared in the marketplace. A skill chip in fact. Someone touched it, and was temporarily paralysed. Randall held it with his cyberarm (one of his shiny upgrades) and didn't get the paralysis, so he decided to investigate further. His microscope wasn't seeing anything too exciting in the chip, so he hacked together some hardware to plug it into the mainframe. Big mistake.

People who touched the chip a few times started being very happy. The mainframe became very happy and started singing the Ring Cycle. It seemed to have every intention of completing all 48 hours of it. And doing nothing else except being happy and spreading the happiness. A hard shutdown was too late. It had got into the local network. A few angry phone calls from the neighbours, a few tanks ready to move in, and it was time to disband shop and leg it. Move down a few floors, turn credits into tradable resources, and go down a few more floors for a while. Possibly come back up in a few months to a vaguely safe job in the Corp. Or, you know, find your way back up a few floors as recycled protein in the hamburger patties.

Doesn't matter now. His game is over.