by D L Young
Normally, following your opponent in a datajacking contest was anything but a winning strategy. It was the kind of thing rookies tried sometimes, when they lacked the confidence or experience to come up with their own plan for beating the simulation’s puzzle. Fall in behind your opponent, watch where they went and what they did, replicate their tactics, and hope you could win the race to the finish line. Maddox had seen it work once or twice, but only when the winning competitor had screwed up, making some major mistake in the simulation’s endgame. It wasn’t likely that Blayze, who possessed obvious skill and no shortage of confidence, would make such a blunder.
The objective was a dataset locked away inside an archive, deep within the IT department’s partition. The one who jacked the dataset and made it out of the DS first, undetected, would be declared the winner.
He stayed locked onto to her, watching as she called up a simple wire-cutter, the app visualizing as a pair of cartoon scissors. A moment later she’d cut a hole in the DS’s outermost perimeter, a thin, semitransparent security barrier. Maddox admired her quick, neat technique, like a seasoned thief calmly snipping her way through a chain-link fence. As she passed through the gap, her smiley face avatar rotated around and stuck out its tongue at Maddox, prompting derisive laughs from her crew.
Cheeky little shit, he thought, though he was more amused than offended as he followed her through the opening. He stayed close, matching her pace as she slowed to a crawl, approaching the DS’s core with prudent caution.
The geometry of the central cluster’s partitions rose before them, a dense array of cylinders and cones and spheres. Each partition glowed and pulsed, all of them connected by weblike strands, the visual representation of the DS’s interconnected data network. The strands thrummed, oscillating with the flow of huge amounts of information.
Maddox spotted the IT partition, a tall obsidian pyramid near the core. Blayze apparently spotted it too, rotating her avatar to face the pyramid and then heading straight for it. As they approached, Maddox still following, architectural details emerged. The simulation’s creator had apparently been an admirer of ancient Egypt. At the base of the IT pyramid sat a pair of replica sphinxes, covered in a skin constantly shifting graffiti art. The pyramid itself had a smooth exterior, oily and black, with each of its triangular surfaces connected to its neighbor by a raised ridge filled with intricate carvings, indecipherable glyphs of some ancient language.
A collective gasp came from the suite as intelligent sentries, hundreds of them, blinked into existence on the pyramid’s surface.
“Jesus,” Tommy said, marveling at the sight. “You see that? Look at all of them.”
They were kind of hard to miss. The sentries covered every visible surface of the pyramid. They visualized as scarab beetles, in keeping with the theme, scampering about, bumping into one another as they searched for intruders.
For the first time since plugging in, Maddox felt a stab of genuine worry. There were so many. It was like walking up to a hornet’s nest someone had kicked a moment earlier, or suddenly realizing you were standing in the middle of a minefield.
Outside of a watchdog AI, intelligent sentries were among the most difficult security programs to deal with. The main problem was their adaptability. You could instruct ISes to do any number of wide-ranging activities. You could have them patrol a datasphere along a predetermined route, looking for specific threats. Or you could station them along known weak spots like a border guard watching for illegal crossers. If you preferred the hands-off approach, you could turn them on and set them free, letting their adaptive learning algorithms figure out where your DS’s vulnerabilities were, and on their own they’d come up with strategies to shore them up or defend them.
On an actual job, you could take time to track IS behavior, get a feel for their operating parameters so you could come up with ways to fool them. But this wasn’t a real job. In a face-off contest you didn’t have the luxury of a long, ponderous preparation. In a face-off contest, time was the enemy. Whoever took longer lost. So you generally had two choices. You could take a quick-and-dirty scan and hoped it uncovered something useful, which took time. Or you could say fuck it and improvise, hoping your instincts and skill could get you through.
Blayze went with the fuck it strategy. Her avatar suddenly zoomed forward, straight for the hornet’s nest.
Maddox followed. She was a cocky one, this kid.
As the next pair of minutes passed, Maddox realized he was wrong. Blayze wasn’t cocky. She was, he corrected himself, but she wasn’t only that. She was good. Impressively good. Far better than what he’d witnessed last night against Tommy. He stayed close to her, watching as she distracted a group of ISes with a cloned avatar, sending nearly half of the sentries chasing after a ghost and clearing a large section of the pyramid’s outer wall in the process. What had she seen to make her think that might work? She might have been in this particular simulation before, or even many times, but the IS parameters were randomized with each session, so for her to distract so many on the fly was nothing short of remarkable. This Blayze had legit top-drawer skills.
He kept close, following her through the gap she opened up in the pyramid’s shell. Once inside the partition, she took a quick scan and recalibrated her data profile to offset the partition’s passive countermeasures. It was a move that disguised her from detection, like an art thief changing into a security guard’s outfit after gaining access to a museum’s inner corridors. Maddox did likewise, mimicking her every move, every adjustment.
“Boss, you can’t just copycat the whole time,” Tommy whispered, so close Maddox smelled curry on the kid’s breath. “She’ll leave you in the dust.”
“Trust me,” Maddox said, then turned his face away. “Jesus, Thai for breakfast?” The kid had to have an iron stomach.
Momentarily distracted, Maddox nearly lost track of Blayze’s progress. She’d already found the target dataset and nicked it, prompting claps and hoots from her companions. Christ, how fast was she? Back in the suite, he felt his palms dampen with worry. Maybe his chosen strategy had been a poor one.
Too late to change it now, boyo.
I know, Roon, I know.
The dataset visualized, comically, as a cartoon bag of loot with a dollar sign icon. Blayze’s smiley face avatar didn’t waste time with snarky comments or taunting gestures, speeding past him with her bag of loot in tow. He chased after her, subvocalizing a command as soon as they exited the partition.
“What is that?” someone asked.
“What did he just pull out?” another voice said.
A moment later someone recognized the visualization, an old-fashioned police siren, rotating twin beams of light.
“It’s a goddamn beacon!” one of the crew shouted.
The suite’s onlookers murmured in confusion.
Speeding away from the pyramid, Maddox one-eightied his view, finding exactly what he’d expected but still unnerved by the sight of it. Alerted by the beacon, dozens of ISes detached themselves from the IT partition and shot straight for him. The prey had just waved a flag at the predators, daring them to chase after him…
…and after her too.
“The hell are you doing?” Blayze said in his ear. “You have any idea how fast those things are? If they get us both, I win.”
“Is that what the rulebook says?” Maddox asked, even though like any datajacker he knew the generally accepted thinking. If they didn’t get out clean, whoever had the target dataset in hand would be considered the winner.
“There isn’t any rulebook, old-timer.” The ISes had already cut the distance between pursuers and pursued by half. In another couple seconds they’d be on top of him.
“There isn’t?”
“No, there isn’t,” she snapped.
“I’m glad you see it that way.”
Under the table, he kicked her hard in the shin. The girl yelped in pain and Maddox heard fumbling, knocking noises, as if she’d fallen back in
her chair.
In virtual space he accelerated and reached the smiley face, calling up the second app he’d smuggled in: a pickpocket executable. Appropriate to its stealthy nature, it didn’t visualize as anything, visible only as a blurred smudge. The app made short work of the dataset, stealing it from Blayze like its real-world analog lifting a wallet from a distracted tourist. The app then loaded the stolen goods onto Maddox’s temp storage.
From the suite, an eruption of cursing and accusations of cheating were hurled at him from the irate girl and her crew. Inside virtual space he placed the beacon on the girl’s avatar and rocketed away from her milliseconds before the ISes reached them.
“You bastard!” she cried. “You cheating bastard!”
From a safe distance he watched her zigzag like mad, barking profanities as she tried in vain to outmaneuver the IS horde. It would only take a minute for her to remove the sticky beacon from her avatar, but they both knew she didn’t have that long. Within seconds the ISes caught her, and Maddox watched with satisfaction as the smug little smiley face disappeared under a swarming attack.
A stunned silence fell over the suite as Maddox cruised leisurely past the outer security perimeter, carrying the dataset. A blinking checkerboard flag on the suite’s monitor declared him the winner.
“Got to hand it to you, Blackburn,” a voice said. “You’ve still got it.”
Maddox removed his trodes, blinking as the suite materialized around him. Behind Blayze stood Dezmund, his hands coming together in a slow clap.
“A little devious,” he said, “but well done.”
“Thanks.”
The girl ripped off her trodeband, furious. “He cheated!” She slammed the trodes on the table. “This is bullshit.”
“There’s no rulebook,” Tommy said, happy to remind her. “You said it yourself.”
The girl’s face reddened, her lips pressed tightly together. She looked to her benefactor for support. “That was a dirty trick and you know it!”
“Yes, it was a dirty trick,” Dezmund agreed. “It also worked, and that’s all that matters.” Then he spoke louder, to everyone. “And just so we’re all clear on this,” he announced, nodding to Maddox, “the old man’s running the show on this one.”
As the girl’s features wavered between shock and humiliation, a small part of Maddox felt sorry for her. A very small part.
6 - Blayze Doesn't Serve
The room fell silent as Blayze glared at Dezmund. Her peers shifted their anxious gazes between her and her benefactor, waiting for her reaction. An explosive tirade? A punch in his face? Quietly they stood, waiting but not knowing what was coming next, which suited Blayze fine. She liked being unpredictable. There was an advantage to that, to keeping people off-balance. Not that she was interested in what her ass-kissing half-talent peers might have been thinking at that moment. It was the old datajacker’s reaction she was interested in, and she liked what she saw: smug satisfaction.
“Can I speak to you for a minute?” she hissed at Dezmund. She stood up quickly, knocking the chair backwards to the floor and stomping out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
***
A minute later, Dezmund and Blayze were alone in the suite at the end of the corridor. The one he’d rented just for the two of them, where no one else was allowed to enter.
“Christ, my leg hurts,” Blayze said, locking the door. She bent over and rubbed her shin.
“You need some ice?” Dezmund asked.
She stood back up. “It’s just a little bump. Tricky son of a bitch, your old buddy.”
Dezmund grinned at her. “Not as tricky as you, though.”
Two seconds alone and Dez was already kissing her ass, already settling into his rightful place.
“Made a good show for the old man, didn’t I?” she said. “The little girl throwing a temper tantrum.” The kick had actually been helpful in hindsight. The sharp pain had made her performance all the more convincing.
Her shin still throbbing, she strode across the room, knelt down and slid a large suitcase from under the bed. “I’m all wired up,” she said, heaving the case on top of the bed and pressing her finger against the bio-reader. “I need you to help me relax.” Latches unlocked with a click. She opened the lid, pulled out a black silk bag, and threw it at Dezmund.
He held the bag gingerly and stared at it, his expression unsure. “Right now?” he asked. “I…I’m not sure it’s the right time—”
“Are you suddenly in charge of the schedule?” she interrupted.
He lowered his head like a good little bitch. “No, I’m not,” he murmured. She felt a tiny stab of pleasure at his obedience. Then as he removed the cuffs from the bag and quietly held them out to her, she felt another.
A minute later she had him naked and spread-eagle, hands and feet bound and chained to anchors in the door frame she’d had installed the day before. A black leather mask with eye and mouth holes and a built-in trodeband covered his head. If only his crew could see him now, she thought.
Across the bed lay an assortment of paddles, canes, clamps, gags, and coils of restraining rope. She reached for the nipple clamps, relishing his gasps and the way he winced as she attached them to his body.
“He bought it,” she said, running a finger down the center hairline of his stomach. His nipples were flat and distended in the clamps. “You see the look on his face?” she said. “Maddox bought the whole thing, didn’t he?”
“Yes, mistress,” Dezmund whispered, careful not to raise his voice. Her little bitch knew better than to speak in anything but a deferential whisper. “You were very convincing.”
She tugged lightly on the small chain connecting the clamps, eliciting a small groan from his little bitch mouth. “I thought so too,” she said.
He muttered something so low she couldn’t make it out.
“What was that?” she asked, tugging a bit harder on the chain.
“I said he’s smart, though. We can’t underestimate him. We’ve got to be careful.”
“You have doubts?” she asked, still holding the chain, her face close to his. “Doubts about what we’re doing? Doubts about me?”
“No, mistress,” he insisted. “Not about you. I’m just worried this could backfire on us. I, ahhh…”
A stiff jerk on the chain silenced the little bitch. “Let me do the worrying, all right? Everything’s going exactly to plan.”
The head-to-head datajacking contest hadn’t been part of the plan, of course, but she’d found a way to make it work, to twist the unexpected challenge to their purpose. Dez had stupidly agreed to let the old jacker run the breach strategy, and she knew if she didn’t push back, if she didn’t play the resentful upstart, Maddox might become suspicious. Inside the simulation, once she’d felt the sharp pain in her leg, she’d known what Maddox was up to. So she’d played along, pushing backward in her chair and making a show of losing control, then throwing an irate fit in the aftermath. A pretty decent performance, in hindsight. And the old jacker’s apparent victory, on her home turf and in front of her crew, had undoubtedly stoked the man’s ego. That had been the icing on the cake. When men were impressed with themselves, they couldn’t see clearly. They were much less likely to feel vulnerable. Right about now the old jacker was feeling exactly how she wanted him to feel: confident and powerful.
Pretty much the opposite of Dez at the moment, she mused inwardly as she released the tension on the chain, letting it dangle loosely. Her little bitch exhaled in relief.
“Forget about him,” she said.
“Yes, mistress,” Dez said, lowering his head further.
She ran her hand over a VS deck on an end table, gesturing up a menu. She swiped through scenarios until she found one that suited her mood. A second gesture loaded it. Dezmund drew in his breath as he plunged into his new reality. She moved over to him, watching him squirm and twitch.
“Besides,” she said, “we couldn’t back out even if we wanted to, right
?” She reached out, grabbed him by the balls, and squeezed. “Right?” she repeated.
“Ah, ah!” he cried, though still managing to keep his voice low. “Yes, yes, yes, right, right. You’re right.”
She held him a bit longer, savoring his discomfort, then finally let go. He let out another long, relieved breath.
Stepping back, she ran her eyes over him with immense satisfaction. She had him under complete control. And not just here, but everywhere. Every business decision he made, every aspiring datajacker he hired or fired, every dollar he earned and spent, even every piece of furniture he selected for his condo. There wasn’t a decision in Dezmund Parcell’s life she didn’t make for him. How masterfully she’d worked him, first getting his attention with her jacking skills so he’d hire her, then gaining his trust over time. He’d opened himself to her, and she’d played him like some musical instrument, tuning him and plucking his little bitch strings until he sang the way she wanted. The way he wanted, too, deep down. Some served, some ruled. It was the way of the world.
Her mother had served, taking countless men into her bedroom, day after day, year after year. She’d earned less in a year of turning tricks than Blayze made in one datajacking job. Her brothers and sisters had served too. Working long hours at shit jobs for a pittance, their lives hardly any better than some dolie layabout who sponged off the system. When you served, you always had a boot pressing down on your neck. You lived poor and died poorer. And you never saw life above the City floor. Blayze had promised herself long ago she’d never let herself end up like everyone else in her family. She’d find a way to be the one giving commands, not obeying them.
And she’d kept that promise. With patience and cunning, she’d installed herself as the invisible puppet master of the City’s most prestigious crew. Unlike Dezmund, she didn’t give a damn about the trappings of power, about infamy or the adoration of her dim-witted peers. She cared only about possessing power and wielding it. Which made theirs a perfectly symbiotic relationship. One was the private power, the other was the public face. One was the dom, the other was the sub. One ruled, one served.