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Of all the systems on the World Wide Web, she had to walk into mine.

Okay. That’s just a line. Nobody “walks into” my system. My User employs some serious security, and you don’t just waltz past the Guard—her whole host of system-defense measures. You can try, of course. Some have. The thing with the Guard is that they doesn’t mess around. Some security programs will repel you and then send you packing. The Guard will send you packing, too—right to that big Recycle Bin in the sky. No questions asked, no warning shots fired. A derezzed program tells no tales. Your User won’t even know what happened.

I don’t know my User’s name. She’s careful that way. Almost to the point of fault; bordering on paranoid, even. But that’s why she’s good at what she does.

You might say she’s the one who does the dirty work. She’s never stolen anyone’s identity herself. But she sells information to the people who do, which is almost the same thing. We don’t really know what they do with the dirt I dig up, though, so there’s a sense of detachment and I don’t think it keeps my User from sleeping at night (“night,” of course, is subjective; it’s more common that she works most of the night and sleeps much of the day, and besides, in our 24-7 global world, on the ‘web it’s always day somewhere. And since programs don’t sleep, it’s all the same to me).

So sure, she’s obsessively guarded. It works out for her. When those sloppy schmucks whose pictures you see on the news go to jail, my User’s the one moving in on their territory. She makes the news sometimes too, of course. You know those other news stories you see, where some company discovers months later that they were robbed of information but they’re not sure exactly when or what and they never track down where it went? That is how my User works. And that happens, of course, only when they figure out anything’s been stolen at all.

She calls herself Sekhmet, and that’s all I or anyone on the ‘net know her as. No doubt she has some other name; I hear Users do (and heaven knows those Facebook people openly use theirs all the time, and do so to post the most interesting—or incriminating—things; it sort of takes the sport out of what I do, really—makes it too easy. My User agrees with me on that point, except when the rent is overdue again). But if she does have another alias, I’ve never had any inkling what it might be.
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There are a lot of ways to get into a server you’re not supposed to be in. Subterfuge is preferable. Explore the weaknesses and loopholes, and slip in when whatever program they’re using for security is somewhere else. If really necessary, a diversion can be created to keep Security busy, but that has the potential to get messy and it’s better not to give them any inkling that something is amiss at all, even if you make the diversion look like it’s something within their own system that’s gone buggy. Putting a security program on guard about anything is never a good idea if you can avoid it.

You can break your way in with brute force, but this is generally to be avoided at all costs. That’s messy with a capital M, and nobody but amateurs who don’t care if they get caught do it. They’re usually the political ones who want their actions out in the open. Or maybe just the ones who want to go out with a bang. There’s a lot of collateral damage involved, it takes a lot of time, you need a lot more resources, and of course you have to make sure not to get killed yourself (though I hear some of those programs are only too happy to sign on for kamikaze missions).

When you get in, you can pretend you belong there. On big systems, this may be feasible. On smaller systems, everyone knows everyone, and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. At any rate, this too is a last resort when you simply cannot keep your presence a secret.

If you do get caught, you also have a few options. You can run and hope they don’t pursue the matter. This is probably usually the wisest option, especially if you’re good at cleaning up after yourself (I am). You can fight; this might be worthwhile if you already have what you came for, think you have a good chance of winning, and know they won’t be able to track you. Or you can try to pay them off. This is tricky—you have to be a good judge of character. It’s a bad idea to offer if they’re not actually on the take. If they are, you have to decide if you’re going to give them what you promised, get the hell out of there, and trust them not to sound the alarm… or do you kill them anyway and hope nobody else can find out enough to come after you?

Once, I thought I was a goner when they were almost on to me…until I discovered somebody else was sniffing around there too. Unfortunately for him—but fortunately for me—he wasn’t nearly so well-written as I am. Tossing him to the lions was easy, and they took the bait and assumed he was the only one. He never knew what hit him, so he couldn’t tell them he wasn’t alone in trying to hack info (or he would have squealed like a faulty case fan—as I said, he wasn’t well-written). With or without me, he never would’ve made it anyway.


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“Effigia, she wants you,” [shell program] said. I hopped on my cycle and headed over to the I/O tower to await my instructions. Today she was sending me to the servers of some company that did data-storage. This might be interesting. There was reason to think that whatever user authentication programs they were using, in conjunction with their security software, worked against each other to disable some function and created a crack that could be exploited. They didn’t know about this hole…but they would find out soon enough.

I headed over there post-haste, to see that my User was not the only one who had this idea. Apparently rumors had been flying. Two programs had arrived ahead of me… but at least my pride was saved by the fact that it was obvious they hadn’t beaten me there by much. One arrived steps ahead of me and I merely knocked him to the side. He turned in anger until he saw who it was, then gave way and hung back. I knew what that was all about—he thought he was going to let me make the breach and then follow me in. He was about to find out otherwise. I turned to him.

“Look, you hoping to piggyback in here after me?” He was hesitant to answer. As he was about to deny it, I took a step toward him, focusing on the ground and nodding slowly as if I were considering it. So he didn’t expect my fist to slam into his face, and he hit the ground, out cold. I addressed his unconscious form.

“I don’t care if you do, but not until after I’ve got what I want. You can take whatever you fancy once you wake up, but your User’s going to have a hard time selling it.” I quickly changed my appearance before I went any further. Now I had dark-blond, medium-length hair pulled back in a ponytail, nondescript hazel eyes, and a face that looked young, wearing plain and simple black with courier-type stripes across the sleeves. In other words, entirely innocuous.

The other program was already at the door, poking ineffectually at a security keypad. I stood back and watched him for a few moments; he obviously didn’t really know what he was doing; he couldn’t run combinations fast enough to make a dent. Finally I spoke up from behind him.

“You might as well give up. You’ll never get it before they figure out you’re here.” He’d been so intent on what he was doing that I startled him and he swung around, pulling out his disc.

“This is my hack. I was here first. Go find somewhere else.”

I heaved a sigh and grabbed my own disc.

“If you fight about as well as you break into servers, then you’re wasting your time right now.” His answer was to whip his disc at me. I ducked and it flew past me harmlessly.

“Not a bad arm,” I commented. I actually meant it. Unfortunately, this only infuriated him further, and once he’d caught his disc he stepped toward me. We grappled briefly before a slash of my disc through the air derezzed his throwing arm and his disc dropped to the floor amid a mess of pixels. He stared down at it with a mix of surprise and horror, then back at me.

I bent and retrieved his disc, and re-affixed it to his back.

“Go home,” I advised. “Tell your User to put in a bit more work on your code unlocker.” He gawked at me for a moment more, then turned tail and ran. I rolled my eyes and turned to the door.

My fingers flew over the keypad, trying different combinations of code numbers. Finally, after a few hundred thousand possibilities, I heard an affirmative beep and a click as the door unlocked. I opened it a crack and slipped through quietly. Two security programs were standing watch.

“Who are you?” one of them demanded to know. I held up a file folder.

“Just a cookie,” I said.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

“It’s usually my site’s policy for me to deliver them myself,” I asserted. The security program frowned.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, just let her take it,” the second program said.

“That’s not the way we work here,” the first countered.

“It’s just a cookie.” The second program turned to me. “Is that a verification file for one of our server’s clients?” I was about to roll with it and answer in the affirmative when the first program spoke up again.

“I ask the questions here. It’s my server.” I presumed this guy was with the security function of the server itself.

“Would you quit taking that attitude with me? I work here too. And if it’s user auth, then that’s my department.” This must be one of the user authentication programs.

“Look, nobody asked if we wanted you guys shoved at us, honing in on our territory. We were doing just fine until they installed your group. Now it’s fine to have you working with us, but don’t think you’ll be taking over. We’re still in charge. You’re just contractors.”

“Since when does being a contractor make a program a second-class citizen? Plenty of systems use only contractors for all of their security, thank you very much.”

I just raised my eyebrows and gaped at them. Yes, my User was right about this system. I got the feeling this particular conflict was an old story. But I could laugh later. While they were distracted, I started edging past them to go see what I could dig up. They barely paid me any mind as they argued; the system security program waved me away absentmindedly as the user auth guy got in his face. As I walked quickly in the other direction, I could still hear the confrontation escalating as additional programs from both sides entered the fray, some of them trotting right past me to get to the action.

“I bet you started out as a low-grade firewall!”

“What?? You couldn’t begin to understand 128-bit encryption if they gave you a manual!”

“I bet your User isn’t even Red Hat certified.”

“Your User probably works a help desk!”

For this job I went to see the Guard. Specifically, a pair of programs dedicated to brute-force security assault. I’d never really required their assistance before, but this was a special case.

“Ram, Hallagan. I need your help. I need you to hit a door for me.” The two were as different as night and day, except that they were both big. Ram was a bit stockier, Hallagan a bit taller. Ram’s hair was brown and cropped in a short buzz cut; he looked relatively clean-cut (or as much as someone can whose sole function is beating down doors). Hallagan’s appearance was darker; his black hair was done in a spiky, punk-type style, his intense eyes were such dark brown as to be almost black, and tribal tattoos twined around his wrists. But as different as they seemed, they were a great team.

“Will you look at that,” Ram cracked with a grin. “Effigia needs help.” Hallagan studied me coolly.

“It’s not often there’s a system you can’t get into. There’s a catch, right?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so. This job is different. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“How is dangerous different?” I explained it to them. They just looked at each other. I didn’t know what passed between them, but I did know they weren’t partners for nothing; they didn’t always have to speak to communicate.



They were coming. The important thing was getting the information to Sekhmet. And I already knew we weren’t both going to make it out of here. Shit.

My decision took a split second. Fuck, developing scruples was a bitch; I much preferred self-preservation. I handed the folder to Xarily.

“Get the hell out of here. NOW. As fast as you can if not faster. Go, don’t stop, don’t look back, don’t engage anyone you see, no matter what happens. Just run like hell and get this to Sekhmet no matter what you have to do.” Her eyes were wide.

“What are you going to do?”

“Make damn sure you get there. GO.” Thank St. Isidore she was smart enough to do exactly as I said without argument. Now to do what I’d said I was going to do.

There was no way to get out of this now. I ran anyway. That would buy time. It wasn’t long before they caught up with me; I heard the search ship coming before I saw it or they saw me. I knew it couldn’t be the only one out there looking, and hoped Xarily didn’t run into any.

I knew there was no escape once they spotted me, but there was no way I was going down without a fight. They’d get me in the end, but I wasn’t about to go gently into that good night; there was going to be some damage to them too if I had anything to say about it.

There wasn’t much of a point in trying to conceal who I was for this one. It would take a miracle to get me out of it, and I didn’t believe in miracles.

My grenade nearly took down their ship. Yeah, I bet they weren’t expecting that. It isn’t out of empty hubris that I say I’m one of the best in the business, and not just when it comes to being sneaky. I can defend my tracks when necessary, and my User built in a few tricks most others didn’t think of. By the time a few had rezzed up jets, my shield was out [and whatever badass weapon I give her that I haven't figured out yet].

I took out quite a few before a good shot from one of the jets derezzed part of my leg. I flung my disc anyway on the way to the ground and one more of them dissolved into pixels.

They weren’t gentle when they grabbed me. Shit, these were some mean-looking motherfuckers. If they went up against the Guard, I wouldn’t know who to put my money on…and that was saying something. I’d always managed to evade programs like this in the past. That wasn’t something I could afford to do this time. I had to give Xarily room to get out of here.

One yanked me to my feet. My damaged leg buckled, so he dragged me along by one arm.

[they take her to the head of security in the system]
“Who are you? Why are you here? Who is your User?” he barked. I said nothing. A lackey smacked me across the face. I spit on him in answer (this made easier by the gap left by the tooth he’d just knocked out), never taking my eyes from [head of security]. [head of security]’s eyes narrowed and he asked again; this time my silence earned me a vicious kick to my damaged leg and I saw stars from the pain as I went down. One of his underlings handed him my disc. No problem there; I wasn’t stupid enough to carry my real disc when I went out on these things and he wasn’t going to find out anything from the fake decoy I carried; it couldn’t even hold information and was merely a weapon. He quickly discovered this fact, though no doubt he wasn’t surprised. Any halfway-decent hacking program would be equipped the same and there was no way he didn’t already know I was more than halfway-decent.

“You don’t have to make this so hard for yourself. We could use someone like you here; it’s a waste to let you die.” He gave what I suppose would pass for a sort of chuckle to someone of his ilk. “Grenades. You don’t see that every day.” I was still on the floor, though I had pulled myself into a sitting position and they had let me. I didn’t stop glaring at him. There was a 50/50 chance he was in earnest—the other possibility was that he’d learn what he wanted from me and kill me anyway. I knew because it was precisely the position I would’ve taken in his shoes. I was pretty sure he knew he’d be a fool not to take me if he had the chance, though; the way he looked at me told me he’d seemed to get a pretty good bead on my abilities. Which was probably also why he wasn’t surprised when my answer was to tell him to go fuck himself, and why he was aware that that ended the conversation and it was pointless to continue to try to convince me…no matter what means he used. He gave me a “suit yourself” shrug and turned away, which was obviously a familiar cue to his assistants and I watched him retreat as they quickly moved toward me.

“See what you can get her to tell you. Once she’s dead, find her associates,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “I’m not sure this one came alone, nor that she didn’t already find whatever she was looking for.”

I knew they weren’t going to make this fast or easy. I closed my eyes and hoped Xarily had gotten out.

They sure as hell didn’t learn anything from me.

This story is amazing! I really enjoyed reading what you have posted

As far as names go, that is my weakspot for sure LoL But, I always liked the names Rela or Relay, Calbrenna, Elle, Simone, Sydney, Star to name a few

If these don't work maybe it will at least give you a good spin-off of one of them