C:\> C:\>cd slayers C:\SLAYERS>cd virtual C:\SLAYERS\VIRTUAL>dir Volume in drive C is CEE Volume Serial Number is 186D-18F1 Directory of C:\SLAYERS\VIRTUAL . 03-24-99 9:52p .. 03-24-99 9:52p IMPRO EXE 10,002 05-20-99 6:14p FANFIC ZIP 584,874 05-20-99 11:17p PRESENTS TXT 2,591 02-26-98 3:02a -------- --- 2 02-26-98 3:02a CHAPTER 1 ??????? 05-22-99 1:09a CHAPTER 2 ??????? 11-16-99 1:50p CHAPTER 3 ??????? 12-09-99 7:34p FILE_ID DIZ 411 12-09-99 7:36p 8 file(s) 597,890 bytes + 2 dir(s) 9,192.05 MB free C:\SLAYERS\VIRTUAL>type file_is.siz File not found - file_is.siz C:\SLAYERS\VIRTUAL>type file_id.diz @X0F SLAYERS VIRTUAL CYBERPUNK ELSE [04/??] @X0C컴컴컴컴컴컴컴| |컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 @X09 .---------------------------------. @X09 | this episode by CMC-H | @X09 | cracked by stefan gagne | @X09 | indie distro by improfanfic | @X09 `---------------------------------' @X0E컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� @X0B @X0E[wIN95/98/NT/DOS]컴컴컴컴컴컴컴[Dec 1999] C:\SLAYERS\VIRTUAL>type chapter.4 Part 4: Fun and Games in the Meat Machine Rezo walked slowly. His blindness was no hindrance to him, or his aims. Not that there was much stopping him now- he had 'Das Meisterwerk', as he called it, well in hand. It was only a matter of time before he obtained the codes from Lina Berkowitz'- or should that be Inverse's?- head? No matter. The worms were lean and athirst. And he felt that he really ought to stop downloading bad novels, if he was going to end up thinking like that. ***** Lina was lost. She was somewhere in the MUD that she'd been asked to raid. After she'd dealt with that debugger, whoever he was, he'd released some sort of dragon. The thing was still full of bugs, in the worst ways.It had no hit points, and so was unkillable. The software it had been based on had the nasty effect of fritzing all dampening software. She and Amelia had had to cut and run, and they'd got split up. Where was Amelia? That. thing out there was too big and nasty for her to take on on her own. Lina knew that she had to distract the thing. Or straightforwardly kill it. "Lina? It is you? Lina Inverse?" Outside, the thing. howled. Lina saw, as she turned, that there was someone else hiding in the cave. "Who're you?" "I'm Zel. I'm a hacker too. I never thought I'd meet up with you." There was something familiar about the kid. Grey eyes. purple hair. one of any number of Goths she'd seen. She shrugged, mentally. He could be anyone. ***** "She is remarkably well under. Stop the drip." "Are you sure, Zelgadis? Maybe I ought to have a look." "No need. The drug will last long enough to allow us to get the information out of them. The computer has already identified the codephrase." "I would have thought that we would have had a much more troublesome time identifying it." Zelgadis looked a bit sheepish. "Actually, it's one of two possibilities. We believe that it's either 'Dragon Slave' or 'Eclipse'. One of those two. But we're not sure which one." "Dragon slave?" ***** "Lina! Lina! I got it!" Amelia ran onwards, trying to find where Lina had got to. Lina had ICQ'd her with the information that the dragon was still about, so she ought to just try to find the archive they wanted. She felt a little silly, running around with what looked like a giant yellow C-clamp, and she didn't know where she was. This was obviously part of the MUD, but which part? The dungeon that she'd just blown apart had been hiding the files, yes, but now she had no idea where she was. Something howled in the distance. That must be where Lina was. Only thing. why hadn't she killed it yet? ***** ". so that's how I ended up here." Zel looked puzzled. "But you're the Uber-hacker! You're the one who burned sites across the globe! You're the one who caused the PLO's secret base to random fire it's entire missile stock into the desert!" Lina looked embarrassed now. "I didn't know I was there. I thought I was hacked into the Armageddon server." "You were a games freak?" "Yes. That's why I ended up doing this. I started looking into Games, learning how to reorganize them. set them up so I could do better. and that's how I got into this." "I see. Say. don't you have some super-program that you can use to kill that thing out there?" "What?" "Come on, all super-hackers have them! They all write their own attack programs for their own defence." "." Lina had to think about this. She was sure that she'd seen this guy around somewhere. And that there was something wrong. This headache was killing her, for a start. Oh. sod it. Lina leapt up, and charged out of the cave, looking for something big and scaly. "DRAGON SLAAAAAVE!" **** Zelgadis jumped in his seat. "Jesus H. Bomb!" Rezo 'looked' down at him. "What is it?" "I just found out what the Dragon Slave is. I've never seen an application like it. I can run you a feed of the visuals." Rezo jerked as the detail was dumped directly into his visual cortex. "Good Lord. did our systems copy that?" "I believe so. We also have enough verbals to reproduce the password." "Good. Are they stored in the system?" "Yes. It will take an hour or so to get it up to scratch, though." "That long? I would have thought that it would be almost instant." "Rezo. with all due respect, your system was designed for pure verbal commands. This is verbal patterns inferred from brainwave and Avatar programming. It will simply be a case of putting the sounds together." Rezo nodded, slowly. "I see. You are right, my nephew. I should have thought of that." "So what are we to do with these two?" "Kill them. Quickly and with a minimum of fuss." Zelgadis disconnected himself, and flicked his wrist. Two contacts came out of his wrist, which he lightly touched to the pad that was strapped across Lina's head. ***** This headache was getting worse. Worse than ever. and she thought that she could hear words coming through the pain. A voice. Whose voice? And then she realised who the boy was. Zelgadis. She'd raided this place last week. This place didn't exist any more. What was going on? ***** "On second thoughts, Zelgadis, don't kill them. We may need them later." Zelgadis removed the contacts, and powered down the charge he'd been building up. The pulse would have burned out most of her CNS, when directed through the pad. Her death would have been passed off as an accident online. But they were to be kept. A telltale blinked, drawing his attention to a nasty fact; one that he'd hoped would not have come to pass for quite a while. "Rezo- she's trying to leave the construct." ***** Lina was FURIOUS. In fact, she was absolutely hopping mad. Not only was she not online, but she was now remembering exactly what they'd done to her before sticking her in this place. They'd stuck a needle of some sort in her- and into Amelia- and hooked her up to a drip. And if anyone was good at screwing with meatware, it would be Rezo. R. P. Rezo. Possibly he had something to do with her mother. "AMELIA!" There was a strangled yell from some distance away. Surely Amelia could look after herself? Online, yes. But maybe not in here. Not with all the things that Rezo might have put in. She quickly ICQ'd Amelia- or whatever it was that worked here. It would certainly be monitored by Rezo. So she didn't say much- only what she knew, and what He knew she knew. ***** Gourry was worried. He'd seen the monsters, and knew that something was wrong. And NOONE, no matter how friendly or concerned, would strap a person into something that looked like a chair belonging to a mad dentist. "Mister Gabriev?" It was the white-coated man who he'd seen earlier. His head ached from the light shining in his eyes. Why couldn't they have repositioned that? "Um. I don't need a dental checkup. I had one a couple of weeks ago." "Your teeth are the least of your worries. Just tell us. what is this? It's not just a tennis racquet. We can tell that." This might be nasty. More and more trays of equipment were wheeled into the room- and none of it seemed to have anything to do with dentistry. And come to think of it, he hadn't seen any Novocaine or gas. Oh. now he remembered a few things. Films set in the Second World War. Gourry thought through the panic that he began to feel welling up. *What to do? This strap feels a bit loose. If I raise my arm like this.* The leather on his left arm creaked, groaned and tore. It was quite spectacular. Spectacular enough to horrify the technician into paralysis long enough for him to get the other arm free. After that, it was all academic what they intended. ***** Amelia wasn't in trouble. No, she wasn't in trouble. It was just that this trap in the MUD was decidedly nasty. It was a man-eating plant. sort of. It looked like a normal bush, bat as soon as she passed the thing, it lashed out with all its branches-cum-tendrils and had her completely wrapped up. And it was good against spellcasters. It had her mouth wrapped, so she couldn't say a word, not could she use her 'sword'. She was stuck more firmly than a spoon in year-old jam. "Oh, There you are!" Lina, in her standard garb, pulled out of nowhere what looked like a massive weed-whacker, and cut the thing off at the base, with a little grunting; she had to avoid the tendrils as well. They stood no chance against the blades and whirling wires of the tool. "Lina?" "Mmmm?" "How did you have one of those on you?" "Virtual Garden programme. Great fun for hours." Amelia nodded sagely; at least, she would have done if she could nod sagely. Instead, she nodded cutely, with a touch of sugar rush in there as well. "So, Lina, how are we going to get out of here?" "I don't know yet. But the best thing to do is start blasting." "YES! And let the forces of evil and assorted nastiness know that the Slayerz are not to be trifled with! We will use our considerable might to knock down this edifice of evil and nastiness and show them that might and right and goodnmmmph." Lina pulled her hand away from Amelia's mouth. "Enough." ***** Gourry walked down the hall. His knuckles still hurt from the little fight he'd been forced into. Nice dentists didn't lunge at people with IV stands. He didn't like what he'd had to do, but he'd had to do it. At least he'd got his racquet back. If he was right. and he was, at some things. then Lina and her friend had been taken down here. 'Down Here' led to an elevator, with a security guard sitting at a desk beside it. "Excuse me?" "Yeah? Whaddaya want?" The guard didn't bother looking up. He was too busy watching the continuing insult to intelligence that was the state of World Wrestling. Gourry saw the screen for a second; it seemed like the Pantyliner (or whatever he was called) was taking a 'beating' from the Chocolate Shadow (or whatever HIS name was). Gourry didn't like wrestling. Tennis was much better. Tennis was very, very useful. "Excuse me, a friend of mine came in here a few hours ago. I'd like to see her please." "What was her name?" "Lina Berkowitz, and she was with her friend Emollient, I think." The guard gave Gourry a strange look. "There's noone called by that name here. Just go on home." "They came in with someone called Zelgarden, or something." The guard looked straight at him. "Get lost. No more warnings." Gourry tried to scowl. He had a feeling that he should be wearing a black trenchcoat for this, but his brown jacket would have to do. "No. I'm not leaving until I see her." The guard drew his gun. "Go." Gourry waved his tennis racquet. "I don't want to have to use this." The guard stared. "Son, whatever you may think you can do with that, I can just shoot you. Now go." Gourry apologised silently, and clouted him across the face with a magnificent backhand. The guard, old and flabby from years of tobacco use and drinking, fell backwards, catching his head on the desk. Gourry looked around, and walked towards the elevators. ***** "Mister Zelgadis?" "Yes?" "We have a problem. The other guy that we brought back with us us is in the URK!" Zelgadis had the man by the throat, and was throttling him lightly, staring with absolute fury right into the man's eyes. "WHY didn't you put him in a more secure area?" "He. he seemed so stupid- so unintelligent- I thought we didn't need to! I didn't think he'd be a problem! He's a tennis instructor, for God's sake!" Zelgadis snarled, and threw the guard across the room. His eyes flashed, as they caught the light, turning to two nondescript MiB's by the door. "Fourteen and seven- go and deal with him." They nodded, and strode out the door, in perfect step. ***** "DRAGON SLAVE!" Another blast of corrupting code flew through the void. The whole place was totally trashed, and still neither Lina nor Amelia could find a way out. "Oh, this is nuts. There's GOTTA be a way out of here!" "Hey, Lina?" "Yeah?" Lina's headache was really bad now. She had fuzzy patches in front of her eyes that didn't seem to want to go away. "I've got an idea." "Let's hear it." The princess of Sugar can't get us into a worse situation than we're already in. ***** Gourry was heading along the top corridor when they stopped him. They marched towards him as a pair, raising their arms as they approached. Gourry really didn't like the look of the little tubes that seemed to be jutting out of their wrists. So he hit them with his tennis racquet, tearing the glasses off one of them. Tearing the skin from his cheek. Gourry knew that there should be blood when someone was cut like that, and maybe bone. Not plastic and dull metal. "You have three seconds to cease all activities before we throw you off the premises." Gourry raised his racquet into a ready position. "Not until I've seen Lina." "Have it your way." They raised their arms again, and a series of small cracks rang out. Gourry, rolling aside, squeezed his racquet just -so-, and the end fell off, replaced by a long, golden, shimmering beam. "Nice try. Wrong calibre." The two cyborgs looked at each other, and twisted their wrists. Swordblades erupted from their palms. "Let's dance." Gourry parried the first slashes, removing the blades from the cyborgs. Quickly, they tried shooting at him; again, they missed. They collapsed within seconds, neatly bisected. Gourry stood in a pose that struck him as being heroic; to everyone else, it was just stupid. ***** Zelgadis snarled at the screen, and motioned to the door. The sensor picked up his movement, and opened, just as Gourry was about to knock. "Gourry Gabriev, I believe. And your interesting sword." "That's right. Now let Lina and Amelia go." Zelgadis shook his head, and pulled out from behind him a thin tube, with a ballooned knuckle-guard. "I'd like to study your Hikari no Racquet, as we've only just got it right," he said, flicking a switch. A similar, but bluer blade sprang into being with a buzz. "This is a phased-pulse laser emitter. And I believe that it's every bit the equal of your blade." Zelgadis placed his feet carefully, and put his left hand behind his back. "Shall we begin?" ***** Lina and Amelia came to, slowly. Lina's headache was killing her; and she was mad. Partly because she hadn't thought of the trick Amelia had used herself. Amelia had said that as a computer was monitoring their communications, if they sent an encoded command via ICQ, the computer ought to try to decode it and let them out when it executed the command- if they sent the right command. And it had worked. They were here, in the flesh, feeling slightly groggy from the drugs, and glowering at a technician. "Go away," said Lina, swaying slightly. "Before I do something you regret." The technician scarpered. "Now," she said to Amelia, who was downing a bottle of water, "Let's get out of here." ***** Rezo was looking at the disk that held all he wanted. SHAB-R. The virus that destroyed so much in such a short time. He listened to the vocal construct. "Eclipse." It was such a musical voice. So pretty. Just like her mother's. And, judging from the EEG readings, the research had paid off. There seemed to be an automeme in her head, ready to pop. Rezo carried the computer carfully up to the roof, where he climbed into a helicopter that was waiting. He would leave his nephew/tool to hold off the intruder. ***** *klishzzt* "You have a good style, Mister Gabriev. Why have you not personalised your sword?" "I don't need to." *krsssst* Zelgadis and Gourry paused, face to face. Zelgadis had his sword stuck above him, horizontal; a classic parry. Gourry was sweating, with his sword resting against his opponent's. "Well, I always liked the sabre, so I had mine adapted. You would do better to get yours modified into a Katana handle." "It would ruin the balance of the racquet." Gourry blocked a blow to his neck, and knocked Zelgadis back, just as he heard a voice yell behind him. ***** Lina couldn't believe it. They were STILL in a construct! Gourry and Zel were fighting with energy swords, while they struggled to get out. It was too much. "FLARE ARROW!" The bolt slammed into Zelgadis, knocking him over, setting his clothing on fire and knocking him out. Then everything went black. The last thing she noticed was the headache had become a crawling sensation. ***** Gourry grabbed Lina, after putting his sword away. There would probably be a car he could drive downstairs; there was time to get away. He hoped. Neither of them thought about Lina's computer. End Part 4. Authors Sicknote: Well, after a few problems, it's here. I got it done. My first Impro! Wai! Hopefully I've left things open enough for the next writers to go on; and dropped a few ideas. Just so you know, an automeme is a bit of the brain that operates independently. This may be developed upon or not. I hope that noone decides to make Rezo Lina's father; that would annoy me. Thank's for reading this, and I'm sorry about the ending, but I'm no good at endings. Not so much cliffhanger as treewobbler, I'm afraid. Second notes: Yeah, I cleared up the continuity. Sorry about that.