No Rest 4 Wicked Botniks Chapter 23

Isaac Shinseki #9: The Reality

Tyler B. Morrison

Feb 28, 2024

Available for iOS and Android

NO REST 4 WICKED BOTNIKS

CHAPTER 23 Isaac Shinseki #9:

The Reality

Isaac screamed, howled, and thrashed away from the Nightmare Shade, hitting his head on the mustard-yellow plastic roof of the holo-capsule bed. A tiny vidscreen above flashed angry red kanji, romaji, and code numbers.

Isaac coughed and finally breathed. Just a Dream. Thank God! Isaac hacked out another painful cough and read the vidscreen’s display. Oh Shinto. Fuck!

He opened up the capsule bed and fell out of it with an awkward roll and then bounded toward his most precious machines. He found the source of the real smoke, the real fire almost immediately.

His Bulwark. His authentic TI Bulwark Box. It was better than off the shelf; he had bought it second-hand from a street dealer and gyppied it up to his own superior specs at home. The box protected all his active connections to the old school nets: the Westernet; the Nihonnet; the Vladnet; Texnet, the Oznet; Euro; Brazil; Arab, Farsi; Freenet, Safenet, Southnet… you name it. All of it.

By default a Bulwark was supposed to connect to one ‘vice and protect his privacy and his access to all things net on that ‘vice. With a top-of-the-line Bulwark, he could safely connect to the most slippery, spidery, booby-trapped zones of the still-existing nets: the old-school memescapes, the new Enterwebs, the Outerwebs, Hell even the word-of-mouth platforms, back channels, and fetish arenas, where the real zealots and scum congregated... NullNVoid, Whimper, 9Ham, the fucking MonoCells, and even 3Y3-D13, or “Eye-Die” (supposedly the most depraved and revolting ‘nography ever uploaded, not that Isaac would know).

All of the old concat grids, everything that could be sliced the old-fashioned way, that was what a Bulwark protected. Whatever the old GenGlows were calling it these days: the archaic damn ‘puter plumbing. Whatever.

But Isaac had fitted his Bulwark with a RAPID adaptor to sync it up with all his other networking ‘vices, including the damn operator sling and the Akita Machine Terminal he had created and installed Cassie on, not to mention his fucking RedSun 120 E...And… and...and...

The Bulwark Box had completely overheated due to strenuous intrusion attempts. It had finally surrendered to hostile slicers and practically exploded in a shower of sparks and tiny plastic bits and even smaller toxic fumes. His first and perhaps best line of security had been completely compromised. If Cassie was active at the same time on the nets or in the Zero...if, if she wasn’t…

He stood frozen for several seconds, the thought I AM DEAD I AM DEAD screaming inside his head, vying with the EEP EEP EEP EEP alarm sirens for loudness and supremacy.

Then some Punk instincts kicked in, killing the scared inner Otaku. The same Mind Melters lyrics came to him for the second time that night: Fight, Fuck, or Slice. And Slip away to Live Again to Fight, Fuck, or Slice.

He grabbed the very last of the Pharma-C powdered sheen and just gummed it all. No time to make a Commie Cola. It may have been a momentary tactical error, but the strategy was probably sound.

His vision blurred and then flared. His heart skipped a beat and then began rapidly humming-birding. Isaac grabbed onto the useless stupid sofa-pool for support. Sweet Jesus YES!

The young rational Otaku mindset was reasserting itself, even in the wake of that giant mega-upper.

This was not good. This was not even bad or horrible, either. This may have been the worst thing that had ever happened to him, ever. Worse than the Turk’s beatings, worse than his father leaving him when he was nine.

Worse than...

...No. Not worse than Mom’s illness...

...It could still be a close second, though.

Riding the roaring adrenal high, he fought down his fears and rushed over to his command consoles, not bothering with the Gizmo goggles or MMI gloves. He needed to check on Cassie desperately, and he needed to assess the damage and find the source of the trouble so he could learn if the door was about to be kicked down. And if so, by whom.

Isaac fired up the monitors on all three of his distinct command-engines: his RedSun, his Medved, and his Tophat, starting on the right. The RedSun contained the Machina display and housed most of Cassiopeia’s net-memory and defenses. When the screen first lit up, it showed white nothingness, as usual; the Machina was just refreshing.

Had he still been jacked in before he went to sleep? Was his engine’s unique Zero-Code still active? Was Cassie’s? The whiteness didn’t give him any of the answers he wanted. It was a blizzard inside the idea of a thing existing and not existing at the same time in the same place in the same way. It was…

And four agonizing seconds later, it showed something useful, and he had control. He typed as fast as he could, having to delete and re-enter functions and commands what seemed like a dozen times due to typos produced by the combination of stress and sheen levels.

And then he had the first bit of info he needed. Cassiopeia was still on and intact, and she had cauterized her code’s connection to the Bulwark right before it busted. Good. Thank God! He breathed a sigh of relief. First battle lost, but it was a dignified retreat then, not an abject slaughter. There might still be time.

Maybe...

Isaac checked the logs and determined the slicers had crashed his security over six minutes ago. He didn’t have time to figure out who was behind the intrusion. His gut told him that Harry Hoyle had not broken his word, so he probably had not sent his men fishing for Isaac. That left angry Russians, or maybe law enforcement, or hell, maybe law enforcement on behalf of angry Russians. He was sure as hell not going to stick around to find out.

He had to get out of here. Isaac had to vam, get gone and get lost. Now. He was six minutes behind his enemies, and counting. Depending on where the slice had originated and who was trying to locate him, actual boots with actual guns could be busting down his door any minute now. The visions from his nightmare came back to him: gangsters and botniks holding weapons and torture devices, all marching toward his precise location. The nightmare could become a reality, and soon.

As much as Isaac wanted to bolt that very instant, he still needed to grab some equipment, get as much usable and portable tech as he could lay his hands on in the next few minutes. But he had to prioritize. The EEP EEP EEPs kept reminding him he was out of time.

First things first. He had to save Cassie; he would not lose her after all his hard work. He grabbed a large data shard, plugged it in, and began the process of offloading Cassiopeia’s code. The estimated time to completion was just over two and a half minutes. Isaac shook his fists impotently. He wanted to scream again.

Instead he grabbed a gym bag and started scrounging around for the tech he could salvage within that time. It amounted to a carry-deck, a minidecker, and a palm porter. None of them were nearly as powerful or versatile as any of his command-engines, but they were all a hell of a lot smaller and easier to tote. He also grabbed some spare clothes, and the last of his hard cash. Just under five hundred Yenbucks. Not a lot of Tokyo dough, but it would have to do for now. He would need to slice some poor schmuck’s bank account to bolster his finances. But that was tomorrow’s problem.

Isaac wished he could toss a few weapons into the bag, but the fact was he didn’t own any. Weapons were going to the top of the list of items he would have to acquire after his escape. It was past time to be armed.

A happy little ding announced Cassie’s offload was complete. Isaac retrieved the data shard, placed it carefully in his pocket, and zipped up the gym bag and shouldered it. Against his better senses, he checked the monitor’s read-out one more time. It had been almost ten minutes since his Bulwark had died. If he stuck around any longer, he might be joining it.

Isaac shivered and walked to the door. He unlocked it and walked outside. He locked the door again, as if that would make any difference. He could still faintly hear the alarms from his programs muffled on the other side of the door. Vam, Isaac! Get out of here!

He forced himself to keep to a fast walk, not to run. He craned his head around this way and that every few seconds, but he didn’t see anyone in the courtyard besides a couple of vagrants. He walked away from the apartment complex, still looking over his shoulder. When he crossed the street, Isaac paused for a second. A part of him wanted to know who was after him, even if it put him in more danger.

But then a group of cars roared from down the street and stopped not thirty feet away from him. It was an armored motorcade. The cars jumped up onto the curb. Immediately, men rushed out of the cars. Men with guns. Isaac held his breath.

Their backs were to him. None of the six men looked at Isaac. They began walking briskly toward his apartment complex.

Isaac shivered and finally breathed again. What was he thinking waiting out here? He had to escape. Get the fuck out of here, Isaac!

Isaac turned and walked away, into the shadowed neon night of Envy City.

END OF CHAPTER 23