Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 27, 2021 18:26:30 GMT
Vastris System: Geledan Vastris Space
“Hello there, how may I help you today?”
The clerk was very polite, her neatly pressed suit fitting her body well as she stood behind the large exotic wood counter operating the holographic in front of her. She dealt with appointments mostly, high ranking appointments given over to business deals and major meetings between clients. Of course, she had no idea about what went on behind those closed doors, it was just her job to help show such individuals around. The three large elevators behind the front desk were the golden gates, the way in to perhaps one of the most important centres of cyber technology, commerce, and digital VR construction in the galaxy.
And it was all hidden by a lush paradise.
The ocean world of Vastris had already been considered a beautiful location, and the arrival to such a place had been an extremely pleasant one. Down from the orbital facilities that hung low above the world the small island chain which held much of the visitor and guest holding areas was purely artificial, constructed from scratch and held up by immense pillars and pylons which stretched kilometres down to the sea floor. The race who had evolved here had no need for dry land, but it was a common courtesy for many of their clients who came to organise and arrange deals to enjoy themselves in a lush tropical environment reminiscent of much of the galaxies ‘ideal’ get away areas. The group had been brought in via sleek corporate shuttle, flying over a beautiful sandy beach to land amidst palm tree surrounded landing pads outside of a well-constructed and artistically designed visitor centre, a large and imposing rendition of a volcano towering over it from behind.
The interior had been just as lavish, plants and artwork, the latter depicting successful job completions lined the rooms, with plenty of glass to let the sunlight in. Waiting areas contained soft and comfy sofas while a small cafeteria catered to any food or drink requirements for corporate individuals. Still it was the clerk at the front desk who was the first true obstacle to get around, the orbital arrival had been easy but now they looked the part they had to play the part. The Vasitiu were one of the most technologically capable in terms of cyber and virtual areas, and this was their home world. While it was a treasure-trove of information it was also an alien planet with much of the ocean floor deep below and covered in servers, an inspiration for the House of Asterions newest construction on Lost Star, its own artificial oceanic ecosystem having been designed and constructed by the Vasitiu themselves.
If they could pull this off, it would be one step closer to a goal they had pursued for countless generations.
"We're here for a meeting," a gentle-spoken, raven-haired man responded, reaching with professional stature towards his breast pocket. The suit he was wearing was beyond immaculate - infrastructural machinery with its own impossibly thin layer constantly operated undetectable air jets or micro-scale flexible armatures to remove any visible dust and detritus from the black and grey surface, patterned to have a not-quite-noticable vertical striping that nonetheless exacerbated his perceived height.
"Alan Petrov. The rest of the information is on the card."
As he elaborated, finishing with a smile, he presented a calling card that bore a string of common characters along with a fractal geometric background where the majority of the information was stored - security codes, time and date of the meeting, the requesting party, and a seed for Alan's parties' one-time pass code.
Flanking him was a handful of other humans, all dressed similarly, and one - evidently not in the mood to at least put on a polite face - bore externally-visible cybernetics, with an angled line crawling up his right hand and reappearing in a much more complex form including a visor line that intersected his eyes horizontally.
“Ah yes Alan Petrov I have you down here fantastic” The clerk took the card and waved it over a segment of the desk. More holographic details came up, most individuals would not care about such, but considering the nature of the guests a great deal of security data scrolled across the displays indicating just how protected this place was. There was a couple of tense moments that seemed to stretch out before the woman smiled and handed him back the card.
They had made it past this barrier too.
“Excellent thank you very much, if you would just proceed to the left hand elevator and make your way down my colleagues will see you there thank you for your time” She nodded politely and gestured with her arm to the left hand elevator.
The elevator itself was extremely lavish, spacious to the extreme almost several potted exotic plants were in each corner, and paintings were hung up on the sides over intricate wallpaper designs. Of course, the Vasitiu themselves cared for none of this, the aquatic species being totally unable to come near the surface, totally evolving the need for crushing pressures and deep-sea regions. This had been constructed by client companies for their potential clients leaving the Vasitiu to do what they did best. Extreme deep-sea intricate bio computing infrastructure. Something which had created the House of Asterion and the Rhizomes themselves.
As the elevator descended it played the typical trendy tunes on the Ancnet at current, likely taken by some algorithm on Pigify to choose the best liked songs. Soon they were well underneath the artificial islands and two small windows in the doors showed the receding light as they travelled into the depths of the ocean below. Thankfully it did not take long to arrive at their destination. Another purpose-built underwater city structure which the Vasitiu used to interact with their clients and show off their work firsthand. With a jolt the elevator doors opened revealing a huge arching vaulted ceiling and an elongated room. It was just as ornate as the elevators and no doubt made to impress the extremely wealthy clients that came here. Waiting benches lined much of the centre and at the end was another desk manned by what appeared to be an AI with two hulking Rangvald made security drones standing behind it. Still in between the vaulted segments and pillars were huge transparent panels allowing those within the room to look out across the blackness of the ocean floor at the lights and glow of the artificial server ecology in all its glory.
Alan gazed out along the facility below as he and his party walked to the next desk. While is subconscious true-self worried about timing, security, and authenticity, the personality controlling the facial expressions and behavior of his body took the time to wonder about just how much effort that nations like this must put out in order to attain such feats, like multi-hundred meter sightlines underwater such as this. Returning his gaze to the desk, it was partially concerning that they were putting their armed defenses on display at this point, though the comparison between the Rangvald drones and the proprietary AI construct was almost appropriate given the disconnect between the decorum of the structure and the choice in elevator playlist, he thought, using the amusement from the concept as the cause for the genuine smile he put on as he approached the AI receptionist, introducing himself once again and preparing to present whatever it was that the machine asked for.
The two security drones tracked the group as they made their way further in, the targeting units slowly swivelling to keep them in perfect position. They did not move otherwise, their frames kept perfectly still as the group made their way across the polished marble floor and up to the beautifully inlaid desk, fillagree gold at every edge curled into leaves and intricate designs. The AI itself was a fractal holographic, ever changing and ever moving and pulsed as the gaggle approached revealing a soothing voice.
“Hello. You are here for meeting 67-42B. Please present your ID” the security ident was quickly scanned, a simple beep coming up on the desk. One of the military drones seemed to twitch then, its targeting eye jumping from one member of the group to the other deliberately and slowly before moving to the AI on the front desk.
“I am sorry bu-“ The AI stopped mid-sentence as another calmer beep this time signified the ident had been cleared.
“You are free to pass, have a pleasant day” the two drones both went back to idle as a door opened to the right. The corridor beyond was much less decorated, far more utilitarian in appearance compared to the grand door on the left. From schematics shown and extracted from the backdoors and the Ancnet this way was the service routes for deeper access to the main server locations and control systems.
Something clearly wasn’t right.
From the very moment the combat drone began responding, the parties' true minds came to the forebear, sending the constructed false ones screaming and confused into their chips once more. Steely-eyed, they analyzed the situation - Alan in particular now grimacing and closely observing the construct and its guards. Without needing a command, the heavily-modified individual walked around and to the rear of one of the drones, looking it up and down.
"Remote breach complete. Very little seems out of place - we have very clean operating benefactors, and it's definitely not a trap on part of the owners," He said, turning to gaze down the utility hall. Not a soul in sight. "I do suggest we take advantage of what we're being offered."
"Fine."
Alan turned and walked around the desk, the entourage's number three and four moving to take up the front of the group as they began walking down the hall that they had no expectations of gaining access to so soon.
The combat drones and the AI did not respond despite the close inspection, only one of the drones sensor pieces still seemed to track them slowly as they made their way into the service corridor that was clearly never meant for guests.
An ever present hum accompanied the individuals as they proceeded, it was a vibration that came through the very walls as the titanic semi organic processes for keeping the server units going went about their business just below and around where they moved. No windows were located in this section, just a whitewashed corridor with lots of cables and detailed boxes indicating power and data transfer reserved for the current guest facility. Finally, they approached a segment with a large bulkhead, designed for compression and water ingress resistance it was locked however a quick fiddle with the security pad on the side was enough to gain access. Still no alarms went off.
Ahead was a small server stack room, the server towers seemed to be for this guest facility, but no doubt had major connections to the treasure trove below at least to give them some idea of where to look. Each stack was immersed in a free-flowing waterfall of liquid nitrogen and there were around 12 stacks in total, each around three stories tall and with countless lights blinking out from the ice that encrusted them. Huge cabling and coolant lines criss crossed the room and each stack had a single access station just in front of them as the room held walkways and more to the various levels to branch out to other bulkhead corridors.
Only two maintenance drones were visible as the group entered the room, the temperature dropping drastically within moments.
The analyst among the party only lingered about the access panel to the room ahead for a moment, and only to create a multi-point profile in an attempt to establish the nature of the presumed breach that allowed them this opportunity at all. The two escorts split to the side, beginning to screen the halls between the building-sized servers. Alan walked directly forward, looking about the room, taking note of the myriad details presented by anything from the construction to the technology present.
"Quite a bit of data for a meager guest facility," He commented to himself. "Get us a network map."
The analyst once again changed position, this time moving to the closest stacks' access point, making a physical connection this time. He tapped about the screen in co-ordination with a direct link via a wire, and a concerned look crept across his face.
"I would say the firewall was embarrassingly easy to bypass, but that would be a lie. It's entirely disabled at this location."
“Ah yes that would be because of me”
The voice was that of a man who could be heard before they saw him. Walking out from behind one of the servers stacks up ahead the two escorts saw him first. Dressed in an immaculate suit with long black hair and a rather lean face replete with dark makeup.
“Do not worry, I am not going to report or shoot you. Had I wished to I could have directed the defences here. For all their worth the guest facilities here as you say, are easy to bypass” the man stepped forward towards the group, as he did so two others followed him. Both were quite medium sized gentlemen, but both wore pitch-black suits with dark fedoras covering most of their pale faces. Both surveyed the group carefully, escorts likely.
Even as the man stepped forward the analyst had gotten the data they needed. The disabled cybersecurity let him practically straight up open the map file for not just this facility but the organic living network below and pinpoint exactly where they needed to get to with perfect clarity. The maintenance drones still didn’t even bother acting.
“Forgive my manners. My name is Dib, here on a rather interesting Business enterprise. Judging by your motives and presence in this room to my invitation I am going to guess you are all rather interesting hmm?”
Alan walked out to a position relative to his own escorts similar to that which Dib took to his, taking a deep breath and looking down his nose at the very-obviously-out-of-place individuals that had breached the location just ahead of his own party, a subtle, yet still visible, cybernetic eye taking in any minute detail that it could. Admittedly, there was very little. He would have almost preferred the extra hassle of going through the motions himself rather than have such an anxious encounter.
"Interest is based off of any number of subjective criteria," He first responded, with the party escorts elegantly loosening up and into more responsive resting postures. "My name is Alan. Per pre-op endeavors, this place is supposed to be very, very secure... for you to have not only gotten through the defenses here,"
"but also below," The security analyst entirely seamlessly interjected as he, too, walked out to the face-to-face meeting,
"You're either an insider at the location or incredibly capable. You've already attested that the first isn't true, and we haven't so much as seen you among guests, much less staff, in years of surveillance, so I'm keen to believe you. I won't bother asking what your business here is, but we both know you wouldn't have revealed yourself if you didn't want something."
“Oh indeed, but I have a very wide range of criteria I assure you” Dib responded with a slight nod of his head. His two escorts having finished their surveying of the analysts as one returned their heads to look straight forward, as if giving them no heed.
“It is a pleasure to meet you Alan. To answer your question, I am indeed very capable at what I do. As I am sure you all are as well.” He took a few steps forward, putting his hands together so the fingertips touched before he smiled. His walk was incredibly purposeful, like a cat every motion seemed calculated and designed to give off a particular vibe or illicit a particular emotion. It was clear this man was very good at what he did in the vein of manipulation and control. And yet he also gave off a cold aura, something that tugged to make it seem like he wasn’t entirely human Afterall.
“You are very astute, I like that. When your team arrived here, I was interested to see how you would set about your work. I couldn’t help myself but watch and observe and now here we are. Simply put we are both here for something particular no doubt, something intrinsic to particular plans and ploys which we have no reason to divulge to each other. There are many things in the systems below that are valuable, but one stands above all others, The root code of the Rhizomes.” He took an almost melodramatic pause.
“I suggest we pool our collective abilities and retrieve it together. We get in, acquire it and get out, then we go our separate ways. Things are always easier with more people”
Alan narrowed his eyes very, very slightly, mildly concerned by the entire image before him. It had to be more than coincidence that two organizations had both simultaneously undertaken operations to achieve the same goal, at the same time, through the same methods... For likely wildly different purposes. After several moments of thorough consideration, the slightest hint of approval and admiration seemed to manifest itself in his expression.
"Very well. I would generally disagree with your statement, but so much as meeting each other here is proof enough that we can adapt to the others' modus operandi. You were here first and have the most up-to-date intelligence; have you already established an optimal route to the target?" Alan asked, his eyes seeming to change somehow as he looked "inward," consulting an operational map that they had prepared beforehand and kept up-to-date as the mission proceeded.
Dib moved his head to one side.
“A shame you disagree with the overall principle I believe in but it is of no matter, differences only make things more interesting” He smiled “I have planned out a route yes, it will not be easy however. The Vasitiu are no amateurs when it comes to both cybersecurity and actual physical security. As such I recommend us taking the original guise that we came here for. We came to observe and negotiate deals with these people, I suggest we do so as we originally intended”
He gestured for them all to leave down the same way that the team had entered, back towards the AI assistant and the security drones.
“Come, let them get us deeper to where we want, its easier that way” Dib and his two bodyguards began to walk back towards where they had come, surprisingly all three walked in perfect unison, their steps, their swagger and even how they balanced was uniform. It appeared as if they were the same entity. As they all left the server room having recovered the layout data the bulkheads were closed behind them, their electronic locks appearing to come back online as if they had never taken their detour.
A short moment later they were back into the guest room, the AI assistant and security drones not noticing them as they left the side access corridor until it closed.
”Ah I do apologise for the wait most honoured guests. Mr. Onyx you may proceed, as may your grouping honoured representatives of Jesto Engineering” The AI gestured to both Dib and the team, Dib smiled and bowed politely before the door which they had originally been told to go down slid open once more, revealed a well decorated corridor that led to yet another elevator.
“They will expect to meet us below, from now on we will be within the bio-server city. Be on alert, their systems are formidable, if you have any dampening or distraction software to avert the gaze of watchers use it. Oh how it has been too long” He breathed in deeply as they stepped into the much larger elevator.
Alan was positively entranced with considerations related to his newfound, if likely temporary, allies, even as he and the rest of his team allowed their now-rebooted personality chips to regain some amount of clarity in standby mode. The party gave the reception assembly little recognition after their newfound revelations, more intent on following behind Dib and his fellows with their own form of co-ordination, but not quite anywhere near the same synchronicity as the mysterious trio.
The electronics specialist nodded in response to Dib, steeling himself as the elevator began to move downwards. "Beginning remote breach," He silently notified his partners via their internal communications network, confirmation pings barely having enough time to respond before a follow-up message came through. "Per our recon and our new acquaintances' warnings, I can confirm that the level of protection is formidable. The acquired system map has assisted in establishing limited control over security, though. Will utilize per necessity."
The elevator was a very modern looking design meant to impress various executives and more who came here for their deals. Four metallic glass windows looked out across the ocean floor which was now rapidly coming up to meet them, glowing lights even through the gloom and murk could be seen spread across as far as the eye could see, like the fluorescent deep sea creatures of myth the complexes and the strange things that moved about them gave off an eerie otherworldly feeling.
As the elevator descended the electronics specialist could feel the systems surrounding him, it was like one giant spiderweb of light initially, of super high bandwidth lines shining brighter than the sun with endless spindles coming off them into all sorts of zones. Rapidly the dataview input was reconstructed to be far more user friendly, creating a virtualised digital city before him, with towering star scrapers and titanic lanes of traffic coming In between the huge buildings, representing server stacks and data transfer points. Security was ever present represented by smears of red light that patrolled data pathways or dull red barriers that represented firewalls. Dib in this digital realm was like a knot of black light, inhuman and quite disturbing.
Dib pulled out a piece of gum from one of his pockets and began to chew it, turning to smile at Alan who for a brief moment could swear there was something inside Dibs eyes before he turned away.
“Here we go friends” Dib spoke aloud as the elevator came to a stop, the doors opening to reveal a beautiful bio-organic garden. Pulsing walls and ceiling made out of partially transparent materials showed biological veins sharing spaces with massive fibre optic cables and fountains and flowers were spread across the open room, a waiting garden filled with the resident Vasitiu, the aquatic species moving around with their flippers and more as they went about their business. Almost immediately as the doors opened, they were met with a synthesised female voice.
“Ahh Mr. Onyx and Jesto Engineering representatives, welcome to our great city. I trust the trip was pleasant yes? Your meeting with Akkaron is on time, I am surprised that you seem to be travelling together would you like me to merge your two meetings to save time?” The female Vasitiu seemed to bow and flex as she spoke.
"Certainly, Mr. Onyx and mine seem to have similar enough interests that it would be beneficial," Alan responded with a warm smile, all reservations evident in his body language suddenly melting away as contact with live hosts began again. The tech specialist had once again handed control of his body over to his personality chip, in order to maintain an active monitor on the electronic dimension of matters. As it was, he was mildly more concerned with the curiosity that was Dib's presence within the information landscape anyways.
"I usually prefer to be early, and stated as such when scheduling. As such, I would like to offer my apologies," Alan added to the response, giving a curtsy representative of business cultures of the northern reaches of the Golden Cross.
The female bowed once more as Alan spoke, the aquatic species was extremely well known for its polite social etiquette when dealing with other species. Although it wasn’t quite known if this was actually something that was inherent to their species or as part of some kind of xeno business model to help get contracts and friends. Dib nodded in agreement, letting Alan take the lead.
“It would most certainly be more time efficient, and Jesto Engineering have much that could help my own endeavours” Bowing once more the synthetic voice returned.
“As you so wish, you do not have to apologise, we can merge your two time slots to compensate for such. In which case you are right on time, please follow me” The Vasitiu turned around with a flop, moving over to a group of spider looking machines before mounting one and it coming alive, its little legs allowing the aquatic individual to move much faster in air environments rather than desperately hauling herself at distance.
As the clanking of the machine led them further down a pulsating corridor Dib seemed to smile as he chewed his gum. The virtual world of information seemed to indicate they were moving towards a large processing node, it appeared like a well lit up office, with hundreds of individuals working away on data input. Eventually the women brought them into an enlarged room, fitted with numerous seats and with plenty of doors which looked almost like bivalves leading into various rooms. Dataflow was strong here as huge thick veins of fibre optic ran across the walls and ceiling.
Several individuals were sat waiting, a ZYPHER representative, what looked like a CSA businessman and even an entourage from Aluminaria.
“Please have a seat, Akkaron will see you shortly” in a moment she was gone, and Dib turned to the group.
“Akkaron is a data processing hub AI that deals with all customer, ingoing, and outgoing contracts. While we are good, we need someone on the inside. That means during this meeting we will have to try and infiltrate and compromise Akkaron so he will assist us in getting around here undisturbed. Do you think you have such capacity to do so?”
"I most certainly do," Alan responded, his eyes drinking in the incredibly brazen display of infrastructure in the room. His behavior was significantly altered now that his personality balance had been optimized for the context offered. Instead of hands clenched into fists at his sides, one arm casually rested its hand in a pocket at navel height. Instead of reactive, planted feet at a slightly wide forty-five degree angle, his legs posed closely together as one heel tapped the floor. His head tilted at a comfortable angle with high chin, as opposed to the low carry he displayed before. He moved to sit, and each of his entourage alike seemed just a hint more lackadaisical than they had before they entered public spaces again. The E-war specialist rubbed his temple as if nursing a migraine.
"I think he's already on it, actually," Even his vocabulary had changed.
The network map was entirely useless for practical purposes at this point. Each glowing tracer line snaked its way about the structure with fractal strands fusing and unraveling almost at random to tell who what and when, wherever they were in the building. Given the quarry was an AI, however, matters with meta navigation were heavily simplified - even if he didn't posses the network map. The first hurdle here was a simple communications security buffer, probably to monitor incoming and outgoing communications. A very lucky purchase a year prior had offered another agent, and by extension the Oligarchy at large, awareness and experience with this - but going further was new ground, despite being so shallow.
"How deep do you think it goes?" he asked ambiguously.
Dib grinned “Good I like your straightforward confidence. As for deepness, likely all the way”
As they took their seats Dib seemed to fully relax, crossing one leg over the other arms splayed out across the backs of the chairs, his two guards simply stood silently to one side as Dib continued to chew his gum. He watched the E-War specialist closely, his piercing eyes fascinated as if watching someone work their trade for the first time.
It was true, the network map in this segment was useless, it was likely trying to navigate a ball of chaotic string, only if that string ball was the size of a planet. So much data flowed through here to individual clients and more, even on the very outside looking in company names and more were flying about the public domain. Still the monitoring system which watched the communications in and out was swiftly dealt with by the specialist, the program that they had bought from the agent was bang on the mark, easily able to run the right complex key to allow them to pass and gain access.
“Very nice” Dib said quietly, as if by watching the specialist physically he could see what the man was doing in the virtual world “We have 10 minutes before we meet the AI avatar in person, if you can break it before then excellent, if not we will take a more direct attempt” But Dib believed the man could do it. Bypassing the communications monitor and firewall the virtual world looked like a river delta, fast flowing currents were everywhere but they didn’t need a map to see Akkaron. It was the centre of this nodes data input and output, shining like some tendrilled star throwing out flares. Navigating to the AI would be the easy part, breaking into its routines would be slightly more problematic.
Streams and streaks converged rapidly as the ultra-slow perception of the network proceded; in reality, the specialist had more or less instantly crossed the distance between the buffer for the wider network and the first of the security measures directly protecting Akkaron, but Leistunganos equipment did, in fact, have some minor features for operator comfort. This time there was no lucky purchase, no prior experience with this specific phenomena. AI breaches had been done before, but they were always very stressful - especially from unknown sources. There was no physical world analog to the amorphous locks that served as the gateways into the AI. He traced the network back - he hummed in reality, still rubbing his skull - and monitored the other traffic as it passed through the initial firewall. Some items passed seamlessly through the AI gates, while others, linking with other signals and files, failed the checksum validation and had to return to the firewall.
That was the key, hitching a ride. The question was a matter of observing the process now. The words of the stranger-turned-impromptu-ally were comforting enough as far as supportive comments, but weren't useful on a practical level. And AI matters were very practical. His seconds-long mulling over the matters of the room in reality was long enough to make the digital reconnaissance bearable, and he had gleaned the secrets of the re-validation system. Quickly, he stapled his signal to another, sending a check back to the firewall, and in a quick one, two, three, the hitchhiking maneuver was complete, bouncing between the AI gate, firewall, and back to the gate, this time passing through.
Now what challenges awaited?
He was in.
The firewall had been hopped, it was like crossing the surface of a star, and the gleaming brightness of the internals were open to his full advances. No more major internal firewalls existed, only smaller ones which kept individual segments protected and under constant traffic flow management. It was like watching the universes most elaborately and manically designed highway with so many roads and junctions that it would take millennia to drive them all. For one electronics expert it would take eternity to unravel the AI fully, thankfully there was only one place he needed to go. The core.
The core programming was just as clear internally as Akkaron had been externally, a constantly shifting Euclidian shape which exerted control upon the flow of surrounding information and with its own large information highways going in and out. There were no direct firewalls here, in a way Akkarons core was far more organic, while one would no longer have to worry about normal anti hacking measures like firewalls or antivirus systems they did have to worry about its more capable immune system.
The access was easy, shifting from infolane and infopacket to another to ride the flow of data to where was needed. But now it was patrolled, globs of data represented by red cloudy energy prowled along the info lanes close to the core, analysing data and simply erasing those which did not meet proper standards, at other points the data lanes dispersed leading down several paths, all whose directions seemed somewhat hazy no doubt false decoy entry ways which led to certain discovery.
Akkaron seemed well protected, but Dib was confident in his new found allies.
More and more and more ID and encryption checks. The breacher rubbed his forehead as if bored in reality, but within his compartmentalized consciousness it was taking all of the mental exercises to keep himself from crippling frustration... it wasn't as if combat counter-stimulants worked on personality chips, and Alan wasn't equipped with the C3 assets that permitted easier control of a teams' soft systems. Under the restriction of minimal cybernetics in the interest of increasing their already-high odds of avoiding detection at check stations, the members of the unit had all simply been selected after years of observation by Shadowblade command specifically for this mission. And what a mission it was, put into perspective.
With as many of the signals coming in being attempted breaches, telling by the volume that disappeared when "passing" through the visualized countermeasures, it may have seemed odd that this system hadn't been breached by brute force by now, but the entirety of Vastris' systems and security staff, not to mention general ancnet security offworld, offered such unprecedented digital defensive depth and adaptability that a signal may have been marked as suspicious a half-hour before it ever reached the planetary network. Indeed, upon inspection, the volume of intercepted signals seemed to wither as much of it was marked as redundant, backup, or follow-up packets to a precursor access request. Issue was, a lot of these were heavily encrypted themselves, and he did not have the time to be zipping across the galaxy to get the encryption seeds just to ride it back to where he was. Of course, that had even been one of the organizations' failed older attempts to breach.
He switched to thinking in terms of hardware; conventional computing was easy enough to visualize, and quantum computers could be simplified by thinking of them in an abstract sense, with less set in stone. And the quite brainlike quantum systems of Carnaith were just familiar enough.
He called upon standard breach protocols for Carnaithian CIGO datacenters, some of the more infamous regular missions that were undertaken by Leistunganos, and retrieved a set that successfully penetrated the systems of a station in their capital some time ago. He took his "hands" off of the effort and let the miniature AI core in his physical brain stem take over the high-intensity realtime adaptation of the protocol.
As the breacher implemented the protocols which had so famously been part of the data heist in Carnaith space one of the Vasitiu came over to the group.
“Akkaron will see you now” She smiled. Dib grinned and stood up watching the Breacher in real and cyberspace as the adaption was completed. In a fraction of a second in cyberspace the data packet seemed to quantum blur between two data routes. One sped off into the unknown and disappeared, pursued by several of the assault defences, the other sped into another info corridor and within a moment passed into Akkarons main internal programming. Dib suppressed clapping out loud as the groups physically made their way to the little room where a small table was present. They took their seats, the focus of the Breacher clearly still elsewhere.
A hologram of ever shifting tiles appeared at the table.
“I am Akkaron, welcome Mr-“ It seemed to stall for a moment, a tiny glitch playing out across the holographic feature.
“I am Akkaron. What do you so desire” Dib grinned.
“Very well done my friends. We officially have a way in. Akkaron I would like a full entry method for cyberspace deep dive, no longer than 15 minutes. I would also like us protected by your encryption and pass code systems and a full plotted route to our destination at the central vault” The AI complied immediately, the chairs in the room which had been attached to the floor seemed to lie back slightly and extend numerous jellyfish like bio-mechanical tentacles.
“We will enter the cyber realm fully, data bandwidth is faster this way. The full heist will take no longer than 15 minutes realtime. Once completed we will exit this facility” Dib, who didn’t seem to need the tentacles snapped his fingers “Let us begin”
Alan's personality had returned to his more pragmatic true self the moment they crossed the threshold into the meeting room, and even he allowed himself a narrow-mouthed grin. He offered a rare physical sign of congratulation to the breacher, briefly and slightly pressing the top of his fingers against the very focused mans' upper arm. "Prime effort, Max," he uttered as the cybersecurity expert's mind came back into the real world for but a moment. The sight of the specialist was a total change to what he had been just moments ago, with confused eyes blinking as he nodded and let out a very stressed breath before diving back in with a clearer, faster connection.
"Hybrid operations are always so chaotic," one of Alan's other escorts commented in contrast to what an outside observer would see as a very smooth operation yet so far. The team, minus the other escorting guard - who waved the biomechanical limbs away - linked in, their amorphous metal datalinks having long adjusted to the industry standard port for this sort of work, as opposed to Leistunganos' endemic design. As Akkaron's tendrils established their connections, the team was greeted with the imagery of their specialist making out everything he could of this newest breach.
“They are but they are also the most… fun…”
The comment of Dibs was half faded as they transferred into the purely digital realm. Of course they didn’t have their conventional bodies there, and their drop in point was deep inside Akkarons core. Dib was clearly present, a dark smear on the endless lights and energies which zipped all around them, and so too were his bodyguards, smaller versions and much less pronounced but they were present, clearly able to deal with the cybernetic.
The route that Akkaron had mapped them would see them bypass most of the every day data infrastructure and take them right to the vault. The Hijacked Ais codes would get them past the first 3 layers of security, but after that the final two would purely be for their own skill and merit to get inside. While the heist would be only 15 minutes in the real world, in the cyber world they could spend hours here without issue, the bandwidth speeds allowed incredible processing times and it was clear this place did not skimp on data speed infrastructure.
“Think of all the data here that could be used… So much prime weaponry, but it is only natural that the most powerful be the most guarded, I could spend days in this place purely out of amusement” Dib remarked as they ascended through the same route that the breacher Max had infiltrated, casually linking in to a main dataline and letting themselves be carried to their destination, the fractal city of lights and data flying all around them.
"I could spend days here merely performing reconnaissance," Max plainly retorted. Notes on this organization's network architecture were almost just as valuable for future purposes as the target of today's operation. In the absence of time necessary for that, though, he instead took notes on Dib and his compatriots - the interlink rendering seemed to outright fail when attempting to display their signatures. That was curious, as in Leistunganos experience, self-masking that aggressive usually triggered network security faster than using out-of-date signatures. Maybe they wanted him to breach so they could hide their information from him? At the very least, he was proficient in compartmentalizing his conscious thoughts from what he transmitted in neuro-computational communications.
"But we're here for one particularly precious prize, Aren't we?" Alan refocused. Almost there.
"Oh yes very much so" The strange virtual presence of Dib outstretched a hand with which to point, only it wasn't a hand and he wasn't pointing. Abstract concepts here overlapped in ways that aided linear consciousness so that those who delved into the virtual realm here didn't have mental breakdowns in trying to process non-linear existence. Still Dibs form was anything but human, and constant smudge and blur of both visualised form and virtual netcode distorted what his avatar was here, a non conherant blob of abstract concept.
Still where he pointed they began to move, taking the same information corridor that the breacher had gained entry through the group both moved impossibly fast but also didnt move at all. It was like being in an elevator, only moving extremely fast and totally transparent. Other code and information flowed around them, split off or was deleted, but they were carried along to their destination. Akkarons own code and signature kept them safe, several times the blood red forms of antivirus and sentient processor analysed their datapacket, clearing it within the system as they went through several logic gates and were redirected through critical relays. Even the brief data they could see in proximity was worthwhile, at least selling for SIGEC, but Dib or whatever he was didn't seem to respond or care. Slowly but surely, due to the sheer scale of the network they inhabited, they came towards their prize.
It was a monumental black cube, like an event horizon inside a network of almost impossible light and activity. Webs of code and network data surrounded it, with only one entry and exit point. The data layers below were equally contained, it would be a true task to get in. But before they had even arrived one of the sentient data scanners had been attracted to them, and this time it was not leaving. Clearly it had detected something wrong.
"That could be a problem" Dib remarked.
"I was under the impression that Akkaron was the central intelligence here," Max worriedly elaborated. "The other measures were advanced enough that I had assumed there weren't any tricks left here. That was obviously a folly."
"Are there any ways to bypass it?" Alan asked, the breacher already projecting his signature back along the line.
"I'm working on that. Luckily, we have partitions on the neural beds - we won't be personally harmed if this goes south, but if this is what I think it is - a remote intelligence node - then we'll have to worry about physical security on poorly-understood terrain."
The Leistunganos group's commander looked to the amorphous, abstract hazes that were Dib and his party - "You wouldn't have anything to show off, would you?"
“You are correct, this segment is its own system. A remote network inside the network. Akkarons code could bring us into the initial regions but my previous intelligence forays here never found the inner layers. We will have to improvise.” Dib shifted a moment.
“I can use some of my own measures here yes, but while my methods are very powerful the Vasitiu are well versed in them. If I use my capability, I may give us away, it may be prudent to save some of my own toys for the inner security layers when it will be too late for the security network to stop us from acquiring what we need. However,…” As the scanner program came in this time to actually open the data packet and destroy whatever executables were inside Dib reached out with his hand again and tapped the scanner.
It backed off, immediately darkening in its appearance before splitting itself in a burst of fuzzy pixels. Both scanners then peeled off, splitting again and this time targeting whatever datapackets were nearby. As they exponentially replicated and started to destroy segments of dataflow the diversion was set.
“It won’t be long until the security defences deal with that little trick” They continued on until the first data entry point, it was like a physical circular gate, ringed with ever shifting code and nodes for security programs.
“Run Akkarons code, this first line should get us in” Dib gestured, even as a dark swarm expanded behind them attacking everything it could, the security systems outside of the dark cube now mobilising to counter it.
"On it," Max promptly responded, the fractal destruction expanding rapidly behind them. In but a moment, incomprehensibly quickly in real time, Akkaron had begun completely overriding the doorway. In that same time, however, the backup security had become active; the fuzzy disruption had begun to ebb as if a heartbeat, fighting between the corrupted code - not unlike a cancer - and the pure security raging on fronts and in salients that lived for femtoseconds at best. The way was almost completely authenticated - It was tense, though, as much like reality, cures for cancer had been discovered long ago.
"Progressing inwards," Alan said, decompressing the buildup of stress as the black fuzz behind them thinned into a cloud, then a fog, and a mist before finally disappearing almost simultaneously with the latest breach.
"This is a new subdivision, right?" he asked the breacher.
"I'd like to think so, but the last one wasn't clear until we were almost kicked out anyways. With that stunt they've probably got security tickets at every internal and external support desk and response team there is, given how deep we are... but we're not evicted yet."
“It won’t be long until they come down here themselves. As good as we are, they too known their digital code, they will realise they are physically compromised and will find us in the mortal plane” Dib was looking around even as the authentication was completed. As the group passed into the blackness and it dissipated behind them the next line of defence sat ready.
While the first had been a complex logic gate and firewall system the next one was an ever-shifting fractal of code. It constantly rewrote itself, changing algorithms and even coding language as it shifted chaotically, Akkarons coding would not help them here. As much as they didn’t have time, they would need to brute force the code pattern and decrypt it to pin it down and then access.
“Clever. No way in other than to brute force, and by doing so reveal exactly where our location is. If we break into this it will require much of our attention, and when we do, they will know exactly where we are In reality. My guards can cover us, but we will not have much time to grab what we need and then leave the facility. Are you ready?” Dib turned to the group. He held up one of his digital hands and then placed it into the ever-shifting fractal mass that was the ‘door’.
As he touched it some of the fractal mass where he made contact stopped shifting and turned a deep purple, veins branched outwards, slowly but surely, sometimes being pushed back but trying their best.
“I need you now”
"Cross-linking," Max acknowledged, shortly followed by Alan's own contribution to the effort. "Stabilizing the system."
The two made their own connection to the gateway, red veins of frozen code manifestations branching from the contact points - breaking faster than Dib's, certainly, but the two of them just about matched his skill.
Only a matter of minutes had passed in real-time. Streadfast as he was, guarding was the worst combination of stressful and boring - an unnerving limbo that was the reason most clandestine appointments were so short. But he hadn't moved. He sat, briefcase at the side of the un-connected networking seat, and observed. The quite organic motions of the cable limbs were all but filtered from his attention.
But then he saw it.
A millisecond-long blink of a camera's re-boot cycle before the command to not manifest could execute.
He leapt from the seat, opening a wall panel and severing the connection before scanning the rest of the room's structure. He couldn't tell - his eyes fell on the briefcase.
He rushed to it, and with a smooth motion, the case fell off of a lightweight, complete-composite PDW. In the same motion, he had spun and trained the muzzle on the doorway…
Dib seemed to twitch as the chaotic codework of the doorway solidified piece by piece, the three individuals calming the algorithms as they pooled processing power and solved equations piece by piece. A conventional computer, even a powerful quantum one, would take decades to crack into this, but Dib and the Leistunganos team, were from a different mix. They could handle processes at near impossible rates, and every single ounce of that was needed here.
Even as Dib felt the commotion in the mortal plane, he did not break concentration. If they gave this even a fractional way back in it would undo all their progress in but a blink of an eye. It was an aggressive program, one he couldn’t help but admire, it was well coded too and honestly a work of art. It was extremely good, but they were better.
With a chime the last of the chaotic mess was solidified and the program simply disappeared. The gate was opened and very quickly they stepped into the blackness beyond. The final gate awaited them, but clearly, they had been discovered.
“We must do this as fast as we can. I think its time to use my capabilities now fully, no point in hiding them know they know we are here” Dib strode up to the final logic gate, the huge vault door was not a program, it wasn’t some firewall or piece of software designed by the best programmers in the galaxy. An avatar waited there for them, it was human, surprisingly and her dark skin and various robes waited for the team, her hands braced. Dib was taken a back a second.
“Nir Aoa. Leader of the Nivosist Correctors. What a surprise they managed to save your incredible mind from the ruins of Yulunarch” Dib hissed. Nir merely smiled.
“It was only a matter of time since your kind came here to take something worth protecting. Your aware I won’t let you pass yes?” Dib merely nodded.
Back in the room the doors had already been locked, Akkaron was being directed to try and overcome any security measures of getting in and Dibs two guards had taken positions. Their own two monstrously oversized pistols were out and pointed at the door, muffled noises and shouting could be heard outside. Finally a dull red glow began to appear near the edge of the door.
Alan's manifestation stood with mouth agape in awe; the reputation of the Correctors in their entirety preceded them, and it was only by a complete fluke that they hadn't posed more of a threat to APP operations during the war than they did. He wanted to start asking questions, get a neural scan, anything to learn from such a legendary figure in his field. But his expression changed to that of pragmatic sorrow; the objective Aoa protected was worth more - so very much more - than any collection of information he could glean from but one messianic figure.
Max stepped forward tentatively, looking the famed Nivosist leader up and down. "At the absolute least, we now know the root of our consistent failures," he uttered.
In the room, the worrying glow had exploded into a fountain of sparks almost as quickly as it had first appeared; its path slowly crawled up the doorway, reminiscent of far too many tropey movies yet so very agonizingly anxiety-inducing. There was no reason to have any nervous tics here, from the completely pre-readied weapon to the simple fact that they were blocked out regardless.
“Indeed, our failures have their explanation” Dib sneered at the form of Nir who merely took a step forward.
“I will try keep her busy, you attempt to break the last gate and find a whole in her neural net. Any assistance you wish to give me while doing so would be appreciated” For once Dib actually seemed threatened, like finally he had faced something which he was uncertain he could defeat. The man they had moved with finally dropped the pretence of his appearance too. His digital body seemed to pixelate into nothing, revealing an inky black mass of corrupted data and the faint outline of a squirming black ring.
Purple splotches seemed to appear all around the thing that was Dib as they streaked towards Nir, always replicating, sometimes jumping between code pathways. They changed colour occasionally to black as they mirrored the systems ability to defend itself, Quantum worms. Fabled in their capability as Dib threw off any kind of subtlety, he had demonstrated so far. But he was not fighting some AI program.
Nir seemed to flood herself with bright searing code, strings pulsing outwards the counter the worms, shattering each other as they both attempted to smash their way through each other’s virtual existences. Alarms were going off now, in the mortal plane and the virtual one. They did not have much time.
”Go. Get in” The distended, utterly inhuman voice coming from Dib was directed to the team as Nir bared her teeth in pain and anger.
As the sparks flew across from the door the laser cutter once actually through began to make quick work of the obstacle, and soon a large section of the door was on the brink of collapse. The two guards of Dib said absolutely nothing even as the door plate finally buckled and collapsed. Within moments one of Dibs guards had pulled a grenade from out under their pitch black suits and rapidly tossed it beyond into the room.
Cries and shouts were heard as it detonated and one of the guards used the chance to stand out and fire into the group breaking in. They were made of Vasitiu in armour, using their mechanised leg platforms as well as several human and other species guards all in power armour and with weapons. One went down to the burst but they quickly returned fire, threatening to hit those within the room who were still connected.
Max grimaced in the real world, dropping his own guise on the digital landscape and replacing it with a much more loose collection of data manifestations. Ignoring the spectacle going on next to the trio, the silvery form sprinted for the last data gateway that protected Nir's mind and the root of the rhizome. But a round grazed his chest, tearing his suit open and momentarily tearing his attention away from the network in a far-too-similar fashion; He gasped, eyes dilating before he forced his consciousness to maintain his depth; He took the moment to inject a countermeasure and sabotage worm into the security network before going back to breaching, using a simultaneous attack with every method he could apply from the journey so far.
The malware multiplied and spread from its deep-seated hold, even in the face of high-alert countermeasures, just barely escaping a mid-execute partition. It spread into comms networks, generating audio artefacts, digital hallucinations, false messages. It breached electronic optics, giving false targets, spoofed views, and - particularly insidiously - scrambled any security response's HUD and IFF in a second-long whiteout, marking thermal signatures of their fellows as hostile in the face of an infrared smoke grenade pitched by the Leistunganos soldier in the room... among his other contributions, of course, was a burst of micro-HEAT rounds from his weapon as the other infiltrator disconnected and retrieved their own firearm.
Alan watched as Dib's advanced tools did their work, Taking readings and injecting what gleaned information he could into his own inventory before adding to the duel with a targeted brute force attack along but one as-yet unused pathway between herself and the infiltrators... before splitting off to help Max.
The last gateway was before him as Max got to work. With the rush of combat both virtual and physical flying all around him his methods were all put to good use. The last barrier was not like that of a normal program, but of a living mind. The speeds involved in the split-second processing and keeping up with that were phenomenal, even with Maxs incredible upgraded virtual interface and capability the mind he was fighting was backed up by virtually the entire Vasitiu network and it seemed to outpace him at every turn. Every attempt to bypass was stonewalled, every attempt to brute force hack was thrown off as the program attempted to brute force attack his own mind and any worms deployed were simply eradicated by impossible firewalls.
The final gateway seemed insurmountable. And yet, every time Dib and Alan got a moment of upper hand in their fight, the gateway seemed to freeze, as if its processing power was being fully eaten up and diverted elsewhere. It was in these moments that Max made his progress, getting a foothold in key partitions of the neural network and overcoming any return brute attacks in the moments of quietness. With Alan lending his assistance the two managed to stabilise and hold such advances even when Nir managed to gain the upper hand and fight back to evict them from her own network.
Dib himself never let up, his attacks and those of Nir on him were relentless, their forms grappled virtually even as the armies of code danced and annihilated around them. With Dib practically taking up every iota of Nir’s attention the brute force attacks by Alan were giving them the diversions they needed to keep breaking. A little point of data incursion here, a small executable installed there. It was all adding up, nearly there.
Nearly there.
The firefight dissipated into chaos as the malware affected the security force and the infrared gas was let loose into the room. The shooting became much more frantic as they attempted to engage anything in the room. One of Dibs guards took a round to the left arm, going slack immediately the man did not seemed to flinch or care as he stabilised the pistol with his right and took two more shots. However, things were getting dicey.
Especially when a grenade rolled into the room from the breach, not an explosive grenade.
An EMP grenade.
Some things just weren't easy to predict or prevent. The guard in realspace tracked his weapon over to the device and fired at it, but luck was against this; the rounds missed critical components and the weapon discharged, the Leistunganos personnel slumping just that additional bit more in the link seats. Momentarily, it was a massive problem - after all, the shock of brain-death was distracting and incredibly difficult to overcome. Moments of silence pervaded the personnel who had been linked up as the troops in the room returned to prior engagements.
"How long do we have?" Alan coldly addressed Max, a tinge of worry palpable.
"A few minutes. Worst-case scenario, our bodies will make it out of here by nature of the chips, but I don't want to see what happens if we're trapped here."
"Then I'll do my best."
Alan's efforts redoubled, summoning upon Akkaron's resources now that the assailants "outside" had been occupied and his own wetware being torn from him. All manner of actions describable as one pleased as feints, strikes, and parries engaged with Nir as Max Scrounged what he could from loose assets this deep into the network to resume his breach.
Nir seemed to stab at Dib and the black mass seemed to howl in pain as a searingly bright code segment was used like a knife. Still, she could not capitalise on the attack as Alan directed Akkarons own assets to covering Dib. The AI was vast and powerful, and for a moment actually held Nir back, countering her effects as Akkaron itself vied for the same processing power of the whole network that Nir was also using. But a moment later Nir got the upper hand, the AI which oversaw much of the Vasitiu network was brought low and then utterly deleted, the network architecture shuddering with the huge data purge. It had been compromised and Nir had no qualms about excursing it from its virtual existence. The network would be compromised, but better to kill a cancer than let it spread.
As Nir finished Akkaron and turned to Alan Dib struck, even wounded clearly his form punched a strangely tendril looking projection into Nirs data avatar, right into the neck. Nir screamed as blackness began to fight its way outwards and in moments her processing power was focused on deleting it. It was all Max needed.
With a final stalling of Nirs processing power Max undid the last algorithms and unlocked the firewalls. Immediately he was transported into an empty space. There was silence here, encased in its impenetrable shell a single file of code hung before him, it was criminally small size wise given what it was, and it looked like any regular code text file one might download from a basic email. So much effort, just for something so hilariously simple, and yet with it, they could get one step closer to their goal. He just had to grab it and get out of here.
Dibs Guards took up the slack as one poured several rounds into the first soldier who tried to enter the room. They had to get out fast now they had the objective, and the rounds kept coming.
"I have it." Max stated calmly, in the face of things. He maintained his behavioral conditioning, and stared in disbelief at the little file in his "hands." He quickly duplicated it, a trivial motion given its nature, and sent the copy to Dib's shadow, still piercing into Nir. "Redirecting Nir's assets to clearing us a way out of here. Get yourself unplugged before your brain fries."
"Dib, will you be making it out?" Alan inquired, his consciousness already being escorted back to his body by the digital infrastructure they had navigated so aggressively. "I would dearly like to conduct further business, should fate allow it."
In the room, the two Leistunganos soldiers leveled their guns at the door once more, aggressive image-enhancing measures making otherwise-serpentine silhouettes into easy pickings through the gunsmoke-clogged doorway. They paced their shots, powerful as they were - they were not carrying a significant amount of ammo, after all.
The file was so easily copied it was almost hilarious.
However upon its giving to Dibs shadow the black mass seemed to convulse before in a single act, Nir was sent screaming into multiple programs. The cyberspace rumbled as the massive vault they tried to get into now shifted and changed. They had the very root code, and Dib was going to use it.
“I will indeed be withdrawing. I suggest you decouple and escape now, I will have total control of their systems momentarily.”
The incursion of security hardware which was coming to reinforce Nir simply ceased to exist as Dibs formless shadow seemed to spread all across the network. Things were being rewritten simply because they could be. Even in reality as one of Dibs two guards finally went down to overwhelming gunfire the two Leistunganos men were not next. The gunfire continued, but this time it was coming from outside the room.
Finally two Rangvald security drones entered the room, guns smoking.
”The way is clear. Withdraw at once”
It appeared Dib had taken control of the security systems. And yet his body did not wake up.
”My body will remain as insurance of our success. I will exfiltrate over data export. Now go”
The three Leistunganos personnel gasped awake, the guard that had followed them in faltering and outright falling out of her bed, scrambling to grab her briefcase gun. Alan shot upright, getting on his feet immediately, moving to help Max up.
"You heard our good friend," He said, eyeing the downed guard. "Time to exfil."
The group mustered quickly, the guard that had already been in action moving out of the door and sweeping the area as the remaining trio began running out.
The interior of the waiting room was a mess, full of bullet holes and cracked glass with some water leaking in from the ocean above. Alarms were going off everywhere as the facility was briefly rocked by an explosion. Still they ran through the corridors they had came, organic bulkheads opened up for them as Dib controlled the system, and bodies lay where they had been gunned down by security systems. It would likely take months for the Vasitiu to recover from this although with the root code stolen, it was likely they never would.
Finally making it to the elevator and reception there was a gunfight still ongoing as the security systems engaged several paid soldiers, but their focus was on survival, not the exfiltrating team.
Once more rising through the elevator it did not take long for the facility below them to appear utterly damaged with an orange glow from numerous locations. But it was the sudden underwater explosion that got the main focus. The location being where they had been, it appeared that Dib had destroyed his physical form in order to utterly purge any evidence physically of their presence or attack. He seemed to have it all figured out.
Nothing barred their exit from the elevator or in the guest entry ways, workers had been gunned down as Rangvald drones stood sentinel, totally subsumed by Dibs control. Finally they reached the surface, and the idyllic beautiful tropical islands.
"Do you require transport off world?" The text message came to their connections from Dib.
Even the lobbies above had been vacated, a single boat seen sprinting away out of however many escape transports there were, as rangvald robotics engaged with the security up here. Simultaneously with Dib's message, the signature streak of a high-velocity atmospheric entry could be seen. The feeling of relief eked its way into Alan's mind as he watched the firedball flare out, entering a more direct approach to the facility.
"That's a negative," he responded plainly. Some moments passed, the silhouette of the shuttle coming into view.
"Thank you."
“Hello there, how may I help you today?”
The clerk was very polite, her neatly pressed suit fitting her body well as she stood behind the large exotic wood counter operating the holographic in front of her. She dealt with appointments mostly, high ranking appointments given over to business deals and major meetings between clients. Of course, she had no idea about what went on behind those closed doors, it was just her job to help show such individuals around. The three large elevators behind the front desk were the golden gates, the way in to perhaps one of the most important centres of cyber technology, commerce, and digital VR construction in the galaxy.
And it was all hidden by a lush paradise.
The ocean world of Vastris had already been considered a beautiful location, and the arrival to such a place had been an extremely pleasant one. Down from the orbital facilities that hung low above the world the small island chain which held much of the visitor and guest holding areas was purely artificial, constructed from scratch and held up by immense pillars and pylons which stretched kilometres down to the sea floor. The race who had evolved here had no need for dry land, but it was a common courtesy for many of their clients who came to organise and arrange deals to enjoy themselves in a lush tropical environment reminiscent of much of the galaxies ‘ideal’ get away areas. The group had been brought in via sleek corporate shuttle, flying over a beautiful sandy beach to land amidst palm tree surrounded landing pads outside of a well-constructed and artistically designed visitor centre, a large and imposing rendition of a volcano towering over it from behind.
The interior had been just as lavish, plants and artwork, the latter depicting successful job completions lined the rooms, with plenty of glass to let the sunlight in. Waiting areas contained soft and comfy sofas while a small cafeteria catered to any food or drink requirements for corporate individuals. Still it was the clerk at the front desk who was the first true obstacle to get around, the orbital arrival had been easy but now they looked the part they had to play the part. The Vasitiu were one of the most technologically capable in terms of cyber and virtual areas, and this was their home world. While it was a treasure-trove of information it was also an alien planet with much of the ocean floor deep below and covered in servers, an inspiration for the House of Asterions newest construction on Lost Star, its own artificial oceanic ecosystem having been designed and constructed by the Vasitiu themselves.
If they could pull this off, it would be one step closer to a goal they had pursued for countless generations.
"We're here for a meeting," a gentle-spoken, raven-haired man responded, reaching with professional stature towards his breast pocket. The suit he was wearing was beyond immaculate - infrastructural machinery with its own impossibly thin layer constantly operated undetectable air jets or micro-scale flexible armatures to remove any visible dust and detritus from the black and grey surface, patterned to have a not-quite-noticable vertical striping that nonetheless exacerbated his perceived height.
"Alan Petrov. The rest of the information is on the card."
As he elaborated, finishing with a smile, he presented a calling card that bore a string of common characters along with a fractal geometric background where the majority of the information was stored - security codes, time and date of the meeting, the requesting party, and a seed for Alan's parties' one-time pass code.
Flanking him was a handful of other humans, all dressed similarly, and one - evidently not in the mood to at least put on a polite face - bore externally-visible cybernetics, with an angled line crawling up his right hand and reappearing in a much more complex form including a visor line that intersected his eyes horizontally.
“Ah yes Alan Petrov I have you down here fantastic” The clerk took the card and waved it over a segment of the desk. More holographic details came up, most individuals would not care about such, but considering the nature of the guests a great deal of security data scrolled across the displays indicating just how protected this place was. There was a couple of tense moments that seemed to stretch out before the woman smiled and handed him back the card.
They had made it past this barrier too.
“Excellent thank you very much, if you would just proceed to the left hand elevator and make your way down my colleagues will see you there thank you for your time” She nodded politely and gestured with her arm to the left hand elevator.
The elevator itself was extremely lavish, spacious to the extreme almost several potted exotic plants were in each corner, and paintings were hung up on the sides over intricate wallpaper designs. Of course, the Vasitiu themselves cared for none of this, the aquatic species being totally unable to come near the surface, totally evolving the need for crushing pressures and deep-sea regions. This had been constructed by client companies for their potential clients leaving the Vasitiu to do what they did best. Extreme deep-sea intricate bio computing infrastructure. Something which had created the House of Asterion and the Rhizomes themselves.
As the elevator descended it played the typical trendy tunes on the Ancnet at current, likely taken by some algorithm on Pigify to choose the best liked songs. Soon they were well underneath the artificial islands and two small windows in the doors showed the receding light as they travelled into the depths of the ocean below. Thankfully it did not take long to arrive at their destination. Another purpose-built underwater city structure which the Vasitiu used to interact with their clients and show off their work firsthand. With a jolt the elevator doors opened revealing a huge arching vaulted ceiling and an elongated room. It was just as ornate as the elevators and no doubt made to impress the extremely wealthy clients that came here. Waiting benches lined much of the centre and at the end was another desk manned by what appeared to be an AI with two hulking Rangvald made security drones standing behind it. Still in between the vaulted segments and pillars were huge transparent panels allowing those within the room to look out across the blackness of the ocean floor at the lights and glow of the artificial server ecology in all its glory.
Alan gazed out along the facility below as he and his party walked to the next desk. While is subconscious true-self worried about timing, security, and authenticity, the personality controlling the facial expressions and behavior of his body took the time to wonder about just how much effort that nations like this must put out in order to attain such feats, like multi-hundred meter sightlines underwater such as this. Returning his gaze to the desk, it was partially concerning that they were putting their armed defenses on display at this point, though the comparison between the Rangvald drones and the proprietary AI construct was almost appropriate given the disconnect between the decorum of the structure and the choice in elevator playlist, he thought, using the amusement from the concept as the cause for the genuine smile he put on as he approached the AI receptionist, introducing himself once again and preparing to present whatever it was that the machine asked for.
The two security drones tracked the group as they made their way further in, the targeting units slowly swivelling to keep them in perfect position. They did not move otherwise, their frames kept perfectly still as the group made their way across the polished marble floor and up to the beautifully inlaid desk, fillagree gold at every edge curled into leaves and intricate designs. The AI itself was a fractal holographic, ever changing and ever moving and pulsed as the gaggle approached revealing a soothing voice.
“Hello. You are here for meeting 67-42B. Please present your ID” the security ident was quickly scanned, a simple beep coming up on the desk. One of the military drones seemed to twitch then, its targeting eye jumping from one member of the group to the other deliberately and slowly before moving to the AI on the front desk.
“I am sorry bu-“ The AI stopped mid-sentence as another calmer beep this time signified the ident had been cleared.
“You are free to pass, have a pleasant day” the two drones both went back to idle as a door opened to the right. The corridor beyond was much less decorated, far more utilitarian in appearance compared to the grand door on the left. From schematics shown and extracted from the backdoors and the Ancnet this way was the service routes for deeper access to the main server locations and control systems.
Something clearly wasn’t right.
From the very moment the combat drone began responding, the parties' true minds came to the forebear, sending the constructed false ones screaming and confused into their chips once more. Steely-eyed, they analyzed the situation - Alan in particular now grimacing and closely observing the construct and its guards. Without needing a command, the heavily-modified individual walked around and to the rear of one of the drones, looking it up and down.
"Remote breach complete. Very little seems out of place - we have very clean operating benefactors, and it's definitely not a trap on part of the owners," He said, turning to gaze down the utility hall. Not a soul in sight. "I do suggest we take advantage of what we're being offered."
"Fine."
Alan turned and walked around the desk, the entourage's number three and four moving to take up the front of the group as they began walking down the hall that they had no expectations of gaining access to so soon.
The combat drones and the AI did not respond despite the close inspection, only one of the drones sensor pieces still seemed to track them slowly as they made their way into the service corridor that was clearly never meant for guests.
An ever present hum accompanied the individuals as they proceeded, it was a vibration that came through the very walls as the titanic semi organic processes for keeping the server units going went about their business just below and around where they moved. No windows were located in this section, just a whitewashed corridor with lots of cables and detailed boxes indicating power and data transfer reserved for the current guest facility. Finally, they approached a segment with a large bulkhead, designed for compression and water ingress resistance it was locked however a quick fiddle with the security pad on the side was enough to gain access. Still no alarms went off.
Ahead was a small server stack room, the server towers seemed to be for this guest facility, but no doubt had major connections to the treasure trove below at least to give them some idea of where to look. Each stack was immersed in a free-flowing waterfall of liquid nitrogen and there were around 12 stacks in total, each around three stories tall and with countless lights blinking out from the ice that encrusted them. Huge cabling and coolant lines criss crossed the room and each stack had a single access station just in front of them as the room held walkways and more to the various levels to branch out to other bulkhead corridors.
Only two maintenance drones were visible as the group entered the room, the temperature dropping drastically within moments.
The analyst among the party only lingered about the access panel to the room ahead for a moment, and only to create a multi-point profile in an attempt to establish the nature of the presumed breach that allowed them this opportunity at all. The two escorts split to the side, beginning to screen the halls between the building-sized servers. Alan walked directly forward, looking about the room, taking note of the myriad details presented by anything from the construction to the technology present.
"Quite a bit of data for a meager guest facility," He commented to himself. "Get us a network map."
The analyst once again changed position, this time moving to the closest stacks' access point, making a physical connection this time. He tapped about the screen in co-ordination with a direct link via a wire, and a concerned look crept across his face.
"I would say the firewall was embarrassingly easy to bypass, but that would be a lie. It's entirely disabled at this location."
“Ah yes that would be because of me”
The voice was that of a man who could be heard before they saw him. Walking out from behind one of the servers stacks up ahead the two escorts saw him first. Dressed in an immaculate suit with long black hair and a rather lean face replete with dark makeup.
“Do not worry, I am not going to report or shoot you. Had I wished to I could have directed the defences here. For all their worth the guest facilities here as you say, are easy to bypass” the man stepped forward towards the group, as he did so two others followed him. Both were quite medium sized gentlemen, but both wore pitch-black suits with dark fedoras covering most of their pale faces. Both surveyed the group carefully, escorts likely.
Even as the man stepped forward the analyst had gotten the data they needed. The disabled cybersecurity let him practically straight up open the map file for not just this facility but the organic living network below and pinpoint exactly where they needed to get to with perfect clarity. The maintenance drones still didn’t even bother acting.
“Forgive my manners. My name is Dib, here on a rather interesting Business enterprise. Judging by your motives and presence in this room to my invitation I am going to guess you are all rather interesting hmm?”
Alan walked out to a position relative to his own escorts similar to that which Dib took to his, taking a deep breath and looking down his nose at the very-obviously-out-of-place individuals that had breached the location just ahead of his own party, a subtle, yet still visible, cybernetic eye taking in any minute detail that it could. Admittedly, there was very little. He would have almost preferred the extra hassle of going through the motions himself rather than have such an anxious encounter.
"Interest is based off of any number of subjective criteria," He first responded, with the party escorts elegantly loosening up and into more responsive resting postures. "My name is Alan. Per pre-op endeavors, this place is supposed to be very, very secure... for you to have not only gotten through the defenses here,"
"but also below," The security analyst entirely seamlessly interjected as he, too, walked out to the face-to-face meeting,
"You're either an insider at the location or incredibly capable. You've already attested that the first isn't true, and we haven't so much as seen you among guests, much less staff, in years of surveillance, so I'm keen to believe you. I won't bother asking what your business here is, but we both know you wouldn't have revealed yourself if you didn't want something."
“Oh indeed, but I have a very wide range of criteria I assure you” Dib responded with a slight nod of his head. His two escorts having finished their surveying of the analysts as one returned their heads to look straight forward, as if giving them no heed.
“It is a pleasure to meet you Alan. To answer your question, I am indeed very capable at what I do. As I am sure you all are as well.” He took a few steps forward, putting his hands together so the fingertips touched before he smiled. His walk was incredibly purposeful, like a cat every motion seemed calculated and designed to give off a particular vibe or illicit a particular emotion. It was clear this man was very good at what he did in the vein of manipulation and control. And yet he also gave off a cold aura, something that tugged to make it seem like he wasn’t entirely human Afterall.
“You are very astute, I like that. When your team arrived here, I was interested to see how you would set about your work. I couldn’t help myself but watch and observe and now here we are. Simply put we are both here for something particular no doubt, something intrinsic to particular plans and ploys which we have no reason to divulge to each other. There are many things in the systems below that are valuable, but one stands above all others, The root code of the Rhizomes.” He took an almost melodramatic pause.
“I suggest we pool our collective abilities and retrieve it together. We get in, acquire it and get out, then we go our separate ways. Things are always easier with more people”
Alan narrowed his eyes very, very slightly, mildly concerned by the entire image before him. It had to be more than coincidence that two organizations had both simultaneously undertaken operations to achieve the same goal, at the same time, through the same methods... For likely wildly different purposes. After several moments of thorough consideration, the slightest hint of approval and admiration seemed to manifest itself in his expression.
"Very well. I would generally disagree with your statement, but so much as meeting each other here is proof enough that we can adapt to the others' modus operandi. You were here first and have the most up-to-date intelligence; have you already established an optimal route to the target?" Alan asked, his eyes seeming to change somehow as he looked "inward," consulting an operational map that they had prepared beforehand and kept up-to-date as the mission proceeded.
Dib moved his head to one side.
“A shame you disagree with the overall principle I believe in but it is of no matter, differences only make things more interesting” He smiled “I have planned out a route yes, it will not be easy however. The Vasitiu are no amateurs when it comes to both cybersecurity and actual physical security. As such I recommend us taking the original guise that we came here for. We came to observe and negotiate deals with these people, I suggest we do so as we originally intended”
He gestured for them all to leave down the same way that the team had entered, back towards the AI assistant and the security drones.
“Come, let them get us deeper to where we want, its easier that way” Dib and his two bodyguards began to walk back towards where they had come, surprisingly all three walked in perfect unison, their steps, their swagger and even how they balanced was uniform. It appeared as if they were the same entity. As they all left the server room having recovered the layout data the bulkheads were closed behind them, their electronic locks appearing to come back online as if they had never taken their detour.
A short moment later they were back into the guest room, the AI assistant and security drones not noticing them as they left the side access corridor until it closed.
”Ah I do apologise for the wait most honoured guests. Mr. Onyx you may proceed, as may your grouping honoured representatives of Jesto Engineering” The AI gestured to both Dib and the team, Dib smiled and bowed politely before the door which they had originally been told to go down slid open once more, revealed a well decorated corridor that led to yet another elevator.
“They will expect to meet us below, from now on we will be within the bio-server city. Be on alert, their systems are formidable, if you have any dampening or distraction software to avert the gaze of watchers use it. Oh how it has been too long” He breathed in deeply as they stepped into the much larger elevator.
Alan was positively entranced with considerations related to his newfound, if likely temporary, allies, even as he and the rest of his team allowed their now-rebooted personality chips to regain some amount of clarity in standby mode. The party gave the reception assembly little recognition after their newfound revelations, more intent on following behind Dib and his fellows with their own form of co-ordination, but not quite anywhere near the same synchronicity as the mysterious trio.
The electronics specialist nodded in response to Dib, steeling himself as the elevator began to move downwards. "Beginning remote breach," He silently notified his partners via their internal communications network, confirmation pings barely having enough time to respond before a follow-up message came through. "Per our recon and our new acquaintances' warnings, I can confirm that the level of protection is formidable. The acquired system map has assisted in establishing limited control over security, though. Will utilize per necessity."
The elevator was a very modern looking design meant to impress various executives and more who came here for their deals. Four metallic glass windows looked out across the ocean floor which was now rapidly coming up to meet them, glowing lights even through the gloom and murk could be seen spread across as far as the eye could see, like the fluorescent deep sea creatures of myth the complexes and the strange things that moved about them gave off an eerie otherworldly feeling.
As the elevator descended the electronics specialist could feel the systems surrounding him, it was like one giant spiderweb of light initially, of super high bandwidth lines shining brighter than the sun with endless spindles coming off them into all sorts of zones. Rapidly the dataview input was reconstructed to be far more user friendly, creating a virtualised digital city before him, with towering star scrapers and titanic lanes of traffic coming In between the huge buildings, representing server stacks and data transfer points. Security was ever present represented by smears of red light that patrolled data pathways or dull red barriers that represented firewalls. Dib in this digital realm was like a knot of black light, inhuman and quite disturbing.
Dib pulled out a piece of gum from one of his pockets and began to chew it, turning to smile at Alan who for a brief moment could swear there was something inside Dibs eyes before he turned away.
“Here we go friends” Dib spoke aloud as the elevator came to a stop, the doors opening to reveal a beautiful bio-organic garden. Pulsing walls and ceiling made out of partially transparent materials showed biological veins sharing spaces with massive fibre optic cables and fountains and flowers were spread across the open room, a waiting garden filled with the resident Vasitiu, the aquatic species moving around with their flippers and more as they went about their business. Almost immediately as the doors opened, they were met with a synthesised female voice.
“Ahh Mr. Onyx and Jesto Engineering representatives, welcome to our great city. I trust the trip was pleasant yes? Your meeting with Akkaron is on time, I am surprised that you seem to be travelling together would you like me to merge your two meetings to save time?” The female Vasitiu seemed to bow and flex as she spoke.
"Certainly, Mr. Onyx and mine seem to have similar enough interests that it would be beneficial," Alan responded with a warm smile, all reservations evident in his body language suddenly melting away as contact with live hosts began again. The tech specialist had once again handed control of his body over to his personality chip, in order to maintain an active monitor on the electronic dimension of matters. As it was, he was mildly more concerned with the curiosity that was Dib's presence within the information landscape anyways.
"I usually prefer to be early, and stated as such when scheduling. As such, I would like to offer my apologies," Alan added to the response, giving a curtsy representative of business cultures of the northern reaches of the Golden Cross.
The female bowed once more as Alan spoke, the aquatic species was extremely well known for its polite social etiquette when dealing with other species. Although it wasn’t quite known if this was actually something that was inherent to their species or as part of some kind of xeno business model to help get contracts and friends. Dib nodded in agreement, letting Alan take the lead.
“It would most certainly be more time efficient, and Jesto Engineering have much that could help my own endeavours” Bowing once more the synthetic voice returned.
“As you so wish, you do not have to apologise, we can merge your two time slots to compensate for such. In which case you are right on time, please follow me” The Vasitiu turned around with a flop, moving over to a group of spider looking machines before mounting one and it coming alive, its little legs allowing the aquatic individual to move much faster in air environments rather than desperately hauling herself at distance.
As the clanking of the machine led them further down a pulsating corridor Dib seemed to smile as he chewed his gum. The virtual world of information seemed to indicate they were moving towards a large processing node, it appeared like a well lit up office, with hundreds of individuals working away on data input. Eventually the women brought them into an enlarged room, fitted with numerous seats and with plenty of doors which looked almost like bivalves leading into various rooms. Dataflow was strong here as huge thick veins of fibre optic ran across the walls and ceiling.
Several individuals were sat waiting, a ZYPHER representative, what looked like a CSA businessman and even an entourage from Aluminaria.
“Please have a seat, Akkaron will see you shortly” in a moment she was gone, and Dib turned to the group.
“Akkaron is a data processing hub AI that deals with all customer, ingoing, and outgoing contracts. While we are good, we need someone on the inside. That means during this meeting we will have to try and infiltrate and compromise Akkaron so he will assist us in getting around here undisturbed. Do you think you have such capacity to do so?”
"I most certainly do," Alan responded, his eyes drinking in the incredibly brazen display of infrastructure in the room. His behavior was significantly altered now that his personality balance had been optimized for the context offered. Instead of hands clenched into fists at his sides, one arm casually rested its hand in a pocket at navel height. Instead of reactive, planted feet at a slightly wide forty-five degree angle, his legs posed closely together as one heel tapped the floor. His head tilted at a comfortable angle with high chin, as opposed to the low carry he displayed before. He moved to sit, and each of his entourage alike seemed just a hint more lackadaisical than they had before they entered public spaces again. The E-war specialist rubbed his temple as if nursing a migraine.
"I think he's already on it, actually," Even his vocabulary had changed.
The network map was entirely useless for practical purposes at this point. Each glowing tracer line snaked its way about the structure with fractal strands fusing and unraveling almost at random to tell who what and when, wherever they were in the building. Given the quarry was an AI, however, matters with meta navigation were heavily simplified - even if he didn't posses the network map. The first hurdle here was a simple communications security buffer, probably to monitor incoming and outgoing communications. A very lucky purchase a year prior had offered another agent, and by extension the Oligarchy at large, awareness and experience with this - but going further was new ground, despite being so shallow.
"How deep do you think it goes?" he asked ambiguously.
Dib grinned “Good I like your straightforward confidence. As for deepness, likely all the way”
As they took their seats Dib seemed to fully relax, crossing one leg over the other arms splayed out across the backs of the chairs, his two guards simply stood silently to one side as Dib continued to chew his gum. He watched the E-War specialist closely, his piercing eyes fascinated as if watching someone work their trade for the first time.
It was true, the network map in this segment was useless, it was likely trying to navigate a ball of chaotic string, only if that string ball was the size of a planet. So much data flowed through here to individual clients and more, even on the very outside looking in company names and more were flying about the public domain. Still the monitoring system which watched the communications in and out was swiftly dealt with by the specialist, the program that they had bought from the agent was bang on the mark, easily able to run the right complex key to allow them to pass and gain access.
“Very nice” Dib said quietly, as if by watching the specialist physically he could see what the man was doing in the virtual world “We have 10 minutes before we meet the AI avatar in person, if you can break it before then excellent, if not we will take a more direct attempt” But Dib believed the man could do it. Bypassing the communications monitor and firewall the virtual world looked like a river delta, fast flowing currents were everywhere but they didn’t need a map to see Akkaron. It was the centre of this nodes data input and output, shining like some tendrilled star throwing out flares. Navigating to the AI would be the easy part, breaking into its routines would be slightly more problematic.
Streams and streaks converged rapidly as the ultra-slow perception of the network proceded; in reality, the specialist had more or less instantly crossed the distance between the buffer for the wider network and the first of the security measures directly protecting Akkaron, but Leistunganos equipment did, in fact, have some minor features for operator comfort. This time there was no lucky purchase, no prior experience with this specific phenomena. AI breaches had been done before, but they were always very stressful - especially from unknown sources. There was no physical world analog to the amorphous locks that served as the gateways into the AI. He traced the network back - he hummed in reality, still rubbing his skull - and monitored the other traffic as it passed through the initial firewall. Some items passed seamlessly through the AI gates, while others, linking with other signals and files, failed the checksum validation and had to return to the firewall.
That was the key, hitching a ride. The question was a matter of observing the process now. The words of the stranger-turned-impromptu-ally were comforting enough as far as supportive comments, but weren't useful on a practical level. And AI matters were very practical. His seconds-long mulling over the matters of the room in reality was long enough to make the digital reconnaissance bearable, and he had gleaned the secrets of the re-validation system. Quickly, he stapled his signal to another, sending a check back to the firewall, and in a quick one, two, three, the hitchhiking maneuver was complete, bouncing between the AI gate, firewall, and back to the gate, this time passing through.
Now what challenges awaited?
He was in.
The firewall had been hopped, it was like crossing the surface of a star, and the gleaming brightness of the internals were open to his full advances. No more major internal firewalls existed, only smaller ones which kept individual segments protected and under constant traffic flow management. It was like watching the universes most elaborately and manically designed highway with so many roads and junctions that it would take millennia to drive them all. For one electronics expert it would take eternity to unravel the AI fully, thankfully there was only one place he needed to go. The core.
The core programming was just as clear internally as Akkaron had been externally, a constantly shifting Euclidian shape which exerted control upon the flow of surrounding information and with its own large information highways going in and out. There were no direct firewalls here, in a way Akkarons core was far more organic, while one would no longer have to worry about normal anti hacking measures like firewalls or antivirus systems they did have to worry about its more capable immune system.
The access was easy, shifting from infolane and infopacket to another to ride the flow of data to where was needed. But now it was patrolled, globs of data represented by red cloudy energy prowled along the info lanes close to the core, analysing data and simply erasing those which did not meet proper standards, at other points the data lanes dispersed leading down several paths, all whose directions seemed somewhat hazy no doubt false decoy entry ways which led to certain discovery.
Akkaron seemed well protected, but Dib was confident in his new found allies.
More and more and more ID and encryption checks. The breacher rubbed his forehead as if bored in reality, but within his compartmentalized consciousness it was taking all of the mental exercises to keep himself from crippling frustration... it wasn't as if combat counter-stimulants worked on personality chips, and Alan wasn't equipped with the C3 assets that permitted easier control of a teams' soft systems. Under the restriction of minimal cybernetics in the interest of increasing their already-high odds of avoiding detection at check stations, the members of the unit had all simply been selected after years of observation by Shadowblade command specifically for this mission. And what a mission it was, put into perspective.
With as many of the signals coming in being attempted breaches, telling by the volume that disappeared when "passing" through the visualized countermeasures, it may have seemed odd that this system hadn't been breached by brute force by now, but the entirety of Vastris' systems and security staff, not to mention general ancnet security offworld, offered such unprecedented digital defensive depth and adaptability that a signal may have been marked as suspicious a half-hour before it ever reached the planetary network. Indeed, upon inspection, the volume of intercepted signals seemed to wither as much of it was marked as redundant, backup, or follow-up packets to a precursor access request. Issue was, a lot of these were heavily encrypted themselves, and he did not have the time to be zipping across the galaxy to get the encryption seeds just to ride it back to where he was. Of course, that had even been one of the organizations' failed older attempts to breach.
He switched to thinking in terms of hardware; conventional computing was easy enough to visualize, and quantum computers could be simplified by thinking of them in an abstract sense, with less set in stone. And the quite brainlike quantum systems of Carnaith were just familiar enough.
He called upon standard breach protocols for Carnaithian CIGO datacenters, some of the more infamous regular missions that were undertaken by Leistunganos, and retrieved a set that successfully penetrated the systems of a station in their capital some time ago. He took his "hands" off of the effort and let the miniature AI core in his physical brain stem take over the high-intensity realtime adaptation of the protocol.
As the breacher implemented the protocols which had so famously been part of the data heist in Carnaith space one of the Vasitiu came over to the group.
“Akkaron will see you now” She smiled. Dib grinned and stood up watching the Breacher in real and cyberspace as the adaption was completed. In a fraction of a second in cyberspace the data packet seemed to quantum blur between two data routes. One sped off into the unknown and disappeared, pursued by several of the assault defences, the other sped into another info corridor and within a moment passed into Akkarons main internal programming. Dib suppressed clapping out loud as the groups physically made their way to the little room where a small table was present. They took their seats, the focus of the Breacher clearly still elsewhere.
A hologram of ever shifting tiles appeared at the table.
“I am Akkaron, welcome Mr-“ It seemed to stall for a moment, a tiny glitch playing out across the holographic feature.
“I am Akkaron. What do you so desire” Dib grinned.
“Very well done my friends. We officially have a way in. Akkaron I would like a full entry method for cyberspace deep dive, no longer than 15 minutes. I would also like us protected by your encryption and pass code systems and a full plotted route to our destination at the central vault” The AI complied immediately, the chairs in the room which had been attached to the floor seemed to lie back slightly and extend numerous jellyfish like bio-mechanical tentacles.
“We will enter the cyber realm fully, data bandwidth is faster this way. The full heist will take no longer than 15 minutes realtime. Once completed we will exit this facility” Dib, who didn’t seem to need the tentacles snapped his fingers “Let us begin”
Alan's personality had returned to his more pragmatic true self the moment they crossed the threshold into the meeting room, and even he allowed himself a narrow-mouthed grin. He offered a rare physical sign of congratulation to the breacher, briefly and slightly pressing the top of his fingers against the very focused mans' upper arm. "Prime effort, Max," he uttered as the cybersecurity expert's mind came back into the real world for but a moment. The sight of the specialist was a total change to what he had been just moments ago, with confused eyes blinking as he nodded and let out a very stressed breath before diving back in with a clearer, faster connection.
"Hybrid operations are always so chaotic," one of Alan's other escorts commented in contrast to what an outside observer would see as a very smooth operation yet so far. The team, minus the other escorting guard - who waved the biomechanical limbs away - linked in, their amorphous metal datalinks having long adjusted to the industry standard port for this sort of work, as opposed to Leistunganos' endemic design. As Akkaron's tendrils established their connections, the team was greeted with the imagery of their specialist making out everything he could of this newest breach.
“They are but they are also the most… fun…”
The comment of Dibs was half faded as they transferred into the purely digital realm. Of course they didn’t have their conventional bodies there, and their drop in point was deep inside Akkarons core. Dib was clearly present, a dark smear on the endless lights and energies which zipped all around them, and so too were his bodyguards, smaller versions and much less pronounced but they were present, clearly able to deal with the cybernetic.
The route that Akkaron had mapped them would see them bypass most of the every day data infrastructure and take them right to the vault. The Hijacked Ais codes would get them past the first 3 layers of security, but after that the final two would purely be for their own skill and merit to get inside. While the heist would be only 15 minutes in the real world, in the cyber world they could spend hours here without issue, the bandwidth speeds allowed incredible processing times and it was clear this place did not skimp on data speed infrastructure.
“Think of all the data here that could be used… So much prime weaponry, but it is only natural that the most powerful be the most guarded, I could spend days in this place purely out of amusement” Dib remarked as they ascended through the same route that the breacher Max had infiltrated, casually linking in to a main dataline and letting themselves be carried to their destination, the fractal city of lights and data flying all around them.
"I could spend days here merely performing reconnaissance," Max plainly retorted. Notes on this organization's network architecture were almost just as valuable for future purposes as the target of today's operation. In the absence of time necessary for that, though, he instead took notes on Dib and his compatriots - the interlink rendering seemed to outright fail when attempting to display their signatures. That was curious, as in Leistunganos experience, self-masking that aggressive usually triggered network security faster than using out-of-date signatures. Maybe they wanted him to breach so they could hide their information from him? At the very least, he was proficient in compartmentalizing his conscious thoughts from what he transmitted in neuro-computational communications.
"But we're here for one particularly precious prize, Aren't we?" Alan refocused. Almost there.
"Oh yes very much so" The strange virtual presence of Dib outstretched a hand with which to point, only it wasn't a hand and he wasn't pointing. Abstract concepts here overlapped in ways that aided linear consciousness so that those who delved into the virtual realm here didn't have mental breakdowns in trying to process non-linear existence. Still Dibs form was anything but human, and constant smudge and blur of both visualised form and virtual netcode distorted what his avatar was here, a non conherant blob of abstract concept.
Still where he pointed they began to move, taking the same information corridor that the breacher had gained entry through the group both moved impossibly fast but also didnt move at all. It was like being in an elevator, only moving extremely fast and totally transparent. Other code and information flowed around them, split off or was deleted, but they were carried along to their destination. Akkarons own code and signature kept them safe, several times the blood red forms of antivirus and sentient processor analysed their datapacket, clearing it within the system as they went through several logic gates and were redirected through critical relays. Even the brief data they could see in proximity was worthwhile, at least selling for SIGEC, but Dib or whatever he was didn't seem to respond or care. Slowly but surely, due to the sheer scale of the network they inhabited, they came towards their prize.
It was a monumental black cube, like an event horizon inside a network of almost impossible light and activity. Webs of code and network data surrounded it, with only one entry and exit point. The data layers below were equally contained, it would be a true task to get in. But before they had even arrived one of the sentient data scanners had been attracted to them, and this time it was not leaving. Clearly it had detected something wrong.
"That could be a problem" Dib remarked.
"I was under the impression that Akkaron was the central intelligence here," Max worriedly elaborated. "The other measures were advanced enough that I had assumed there weren't any tricks left here. That was obviously a folly."
"Are there any ways to bypass it?" Alan asked, the breacher already projecting his signature back along the line.
"I'm working on that. Luckily, we have partitions on the neural beds - we won't be personally harmed if this goes south, but if this is what I think it is - a remote intelligence node - then we'll have to worry about physical security on poorly-understood terrain."
The Leistunganos group's commander looked to the amorphous, abstract hazes that were Dib and his party - "You wouldn't have anything to show off, would you?"
“You are correct, this segment is its own system. A remote network inside the network. Akkarons code could bring us into the initial regions but my previous intelligence forays here never found the inner layers. We will have to improvise.” Dib shifted a moment.
“I can use some of my own measures here yes, but while my methods are very powerful the Vasitiu are well versed in them. If I use my capability, I may give us away, it may be prudent to save some of my own toys for the inner security layers when it will be too late for the security network to stop us from acquiring what we need. However,…” As the scanner program came in this time to actually open the data packet and destroy whatever executables were inside Dib reached out with his hand again and tapped the scanner.
It backed off, immediately darkening in its appearance before splitting itself in a burst of fuzzy pixels. Both scanners then peeled off, splitting again and this time targeting whatever datapackets were nearby. As they exponentially replicated and started to destroy segments of dataflow the diversion was set.
“It won’t be long until the security defences deal with that little trick” They continued on until the first data entry point, it was like a physical circular gate, ringed with ever shifting code and nodes for security programs.
“Run Akkarons code, this first line should get us in” Dib gestured, even as a dark swarm expanded behind them attacking everything it could, the security systems outside of the dark cube now mobilising to counter it.
"On it," Max promptly responded, the fractal destruction expanding rapidly behind them. In but a moment, incomprehensibly quickly in real time, Akkaron had begun completely overriding the doorway. In that same time, however, the backup security had become active; the fuzzy disruption had begun to ebb as if a heartbeat, fighting between the corrupted code - not unlike a cancer - and the pure security raging on fronts and in salients that lived for femtoseconds at best. The way was almost completely authenticated - It was tense, though, as much like reality, cures for cancer had been discovered long ago.
"Progressing inwards," Alan said, decompressing the buildup of stress as the black fuzz behind them thinned into a cloud, then a fog, and a mist before finally disappearing almost simultaneously with the latest breach.
"This is a new subdivision, right?" he asked the breacher.
"I'd like to think so, but the last one wasn't clear until we were almost kicked out anyways. With that stunt they've probably got security tickets at every internal and external support desk and response team there is, given how deep we are... but we're not evicted yet."
“It won’t be long until they come down here themselves. As good as we are, they too known their digital code, they will realise they are physically compromised and will find us in the mortal plane” Dib was looking around even as the authentication was completed. As the group passed into the blackness and it dissipated behind them the next line of defence sat ready.
While the first had been a complex logic gate and firewall system the next one was an ever-shifting fractal of code. It constantly rewrote itself, changing algorithms and even coding language as it shifted chaotically, Akkarons coding would not help them here. As much as they didn’t have time, they would need to brute force the code pattern and decrypt it to pin it down and then access.
“Clever. No way in other than to brute force, and by doing so reveal exactly where our location is. If we break into this it will require much of our attention, and when we do, they will know exactly where we are In reality. My guards can cover us, but we will not have much time to grab what we need and then leave the facility. Are you ready?” Dib turned to the group. He held up one of his digital hands and then placed it into the ever-shifting fractal mass that was the ‘door’.
As he touched it some of the fractal mass where he made contact stopped shifting and turned a deep purple, veins branched outwards, slowly but surely, sometimes being pushed back but trying their best.
“I need you now”
"Cross-linking," Max acknowledged, shortly followed by Alan's own contribution to the effort. "Stabilizing the system."
The two made their own connection to the gateway, red veins of frozen code manifestations branching from the contact points - breaking faster than Dib's, certainly, but the two of them just about matched his skill.
Only a matter of minutes had passed in real-time. Streadfast as he was, guarding was the worst combination of stressful and boring - an unnerving limbo that was the reason most clandestine appointments were so short. But he hadn't moved. He sat, briefcase at the side of the un-connected networking seat, and observed. The quite organic motions of the cable limbs were all but filtered from his attention.
But then he saw it.
A millisecond-long blink of a camera's re-boot cycle before the command to not manifest could execute.
He leapt from the seat, opening a wall panel and severing the connection before scanning the rest of the room's structure. He couldn't tell - his eyes fell on the briefcase.
He rushed to it, and with a smooth motion, the case fell off of a lightweight, complete-composite PDW. In the same motion, he had spun and trained the muzzle on the doorway…
Dib seemed to twitch as the chaotic codework of the doorway solidified piece by piece, the three individuals calming the algorithms as they pooled processing power and solved equations piece by piece. A conventional computer, even a powerful quantum one, would take decades to crack into this, but Dib and the Leistunganos team, were from a different mix. They could handle processes at near impossible rates, and every single ounce of that was needed here.
Even as Dib felt the commotion in the mortal plane, he did not break concentration. If they gave this even a fractional way back in it would undo all their progress in but a blink of an eye. It was an aggressive program, one he couldn’t help but admire, it was well coded too and honestly a work of art. It was extremely good, but they were better.
With a chime the last of the chaotic mess was solidified and the program simply disappeared. The gate was opened and very quickly they stepped into the blackness beyond. The final gate awaited them, but clearly, they had been discovered.
“We must do this as fast as we can. I think its time to use my capabilities now fully, no point in hiding them know they know we are here” Dib strode up to the final logic gate, the huge vault door was not a program, it wasn’t some firewall or piece of software designed by the best programmers in the galaxy. An avatar waited there for them, it was human, surprisingly and her dark skin and various robes waited for the team, her hands braced. Dib was taken a back a second.
“Nir Aoa. Leader of the Nivosist Correctors. What a surprise they managed to save your incredible mind from the ruins of Yulunarch” Dib hissed. Nir merely smiled.
“It was only a matter of time since your kind came here to take something worth protecting. Your aware I won’t let you pass yes?” Dib merely nodded.
Back in the room the doors had already been locked, Akkaron was being directed to try and overcome any security measures of getting in and Dibs two guards had taken positions. Their own two monstrously oversized pistols were out and pointed at the door, muffled noises and shouting could be heard outside. Finally a dull red glow began to appear near the edge of the door.
Alan's manifestation stood with mouth agape in awe; the reputation of the Correctors in their entirety preceded them, and it was only by a complete fluke that they hadn't posed more of a threat to APP operations during the war than they did. He wanted to start asking questions, get a neural scan, anything to learn from such a legendary figure in his field. But his expression changed to that of pragmatic sorrow; the objective Aoa protected was worth more - so very much more - than any collection of information he could glean from but one messianic figure.
Max stepped forward tentatively, looking the famed Nivosist leader up and down. "At the absolute least, we now know the root of our consistent failures," he uttered.
In the room, the worrying glow had exploded into a fountain of sparks almost as quickly as it had first appeared; its path slowly crawled up the doorway, reminiscent of far too many tropey movies yet so very agonizingly anxiety-inducing. There was no reason to have any nervous tics here, from the completely pre-readied weapon to the simple fact that they were blocked out regardless.
“Indeed, our failures have their explanation” Dib sneered at the form of Nir who merely took a step forward.
“I will try keep her busy, you attempt to break the last gate and find a whole in her neural net. Any assistance you wish to give me while doing so would be appreciated” For once Dib actually seemed threatened, like finally he had faced something which he was uncertain he could defeat. The man they had moved with finally dropped the pretence of his appearance too. His digital body seemed to pixelate into nothing, revealing an inky black mass of corrupted data and the faint outline of a squirming black ring.
Purple splotches seemed to appear all around the thing that was Dib as they streaked towards Nir, always replicating, sometimes jumping between code pathways. They changed colour occasionally to black as they mirrored the systems ability to defend itself, Quantum worms. Fabled in their capability as Dib threw off any kind of subtlety, he had demonstrated so far. But he was not fighting some AI program.
Nir seemed to flood herself with bright searing code, strings pulsing outwards the counter the worms, shattering each other as they both attempted to smash their way through each other’s virtual existences. Alarms were going off now, in the mortal plane and the virtual one. They did not have much time.
”Go. Get in” The distended, utterly inhuman voice coming from Dib was directed to the team as Nir bared her teeth in pain and anger.
As the sparks flew across from the door the laser cutter once actually through began to make quick work of the obstacle, and soon a large section of the door was on the brink of collapse. The two guards of Dib said absolutely nothing even as the door plate finally buckled and collapsed. Within moments one of Dibs guards had pulled a grenade from out under their pitch black suits and rapidly tossed it beyond into the room.
Cries and shouts were heard as it detonated and one of the guards used the chance to stand out and fire into the group breaking in. They were made of Vasitiu in armour, using their mechanised leg platforms as well as several human and other species guards all in power armour and with weapons. One went down to the burst but they quickly returned fire, threatening to hit those within the room who were still connected.
Max grimaced in the real world, dropping his own guise on the digital landscape and replacing it with a much more loose collection of data manifestations. Ignoring the spectacle going on next to the trio, the silvery form sprinted for the last data gateway that protected Nir's mind and the root of the rhizome. But a round grazed his chest, tearing his suit open and momentarily tearing his attention away from the network in a far-too-similar fashion; He gasped, eyes dilating before he forced his consciousness to maintain his depth; He took the moment to inject a countermeasure and sabotage worm into the security network before going back to breaching, using a simultaneous attack with every method he could apply from the journey so far.
The malware multiplied and spread from its deep-seated hold, even in the face of high-alert countermeasures, just barely escaping a mid-execute partition. It spread into comms networks, generating audio artefacts, digital hallucinations, false messages. It breached electronic optics, giving false targets, spoofed views, and - particularly insidiously - scrambled any security response's HUD and IFF in a second-long whiteout, marking thermal signatures of their fellows as hostile in the face of an infrared smoke grenade pitched by the Leistunganos soldier in the room... among his other contributions, of course, was a burst of micro-HEAT rounds from his weapon as the other infiltrator disconnected and retrieved their own firearm.
Alan watched as Dib's advanced tools did their work, Taking readings and injecting what gleaned information he could into his own inventory before adding to the duel with a targeted brute force attack along but one as-yet unused pathway between herself and the infiltrators... before splitting off to help Max.
The last gateway was before him as Max got to work. With the rush of combat both virtual and physical flying all around him his methods were all put to good use. The last barrier was not like that of a normal program, but of a living mind. The speeds involved in the split-second processing and keeping up with that were phenomenal, even with Maxs incredible upgraded virtual interface and capability the mind he was fighting was backed up by virtually the entire Vasitiu network and it seemed to outpace him at every turn. Every attempt to bypass was stonewalled, every attempt to brute force hack was thrown off as the program attempted to brute force attack his own mind and any worms deployed were simply eradicated by impossible firewalls.
The final gateway seemed insurmountable. And yet, every time Dib and Alan got a moment of upper hand in their fight, the gateway seemed to freeze, as if its processing power was being fully eaten up and diverted elsewhere. It was in these moments that Max made his progress, getting a foothold in key partitions of the neural network and overcoming any return brute attacks in the moments of quietness. With Alan lending his assistance the two managed to stabilise and hold such advances even when Nir managed to gain the upper hand and fight back to evict them from her own network.
Dib himself never let up, his attacks and those of Nir on him were relentless, their forms grappled virtually even as the armies of code danced and annihilated around them. With Dib practically taking up every iota of Nir’s attention the brute force attacks by Alan were giving them the diversions they needed to keep breaking. A little point of data incursion here, a small executable installed there. It was all adding up, nearly there.
Nearly there.
The firefight dissipated into chaos as the malware affected the security force and the infrared gas was let loose into the room. The shooting became much more frantic as they attempted to engage anything in the room. One of Dibs guards took a round to the left arm, going slack immediately the man did not seemed to flinch or care as he stabilised the pistol with his right and took two more shots. However, things were getting dicey.
Especially when a grenade rolled into the room from the breach, not an explosive grenade.
An EMP grenade.
Some things just weren't easy to predict or prevent. The guard in realspace tracked his weapon over to the device and fired at it, but luck was against this; the rounds missed critical components and the weapon discharged, the Leistunganos personnel slumping just that additional bit more in the link seats. Momentarily, it was a massive problem - after all, the shock of brain-death was distracting and incredibly difficult to overcome. Moments of silence pervaded the personnel who had been linked up as the troops in the room returned to prior engagements.
"How long do we have?" Alan coldly addressed Max, a tinge of worry palpable.
"A few minutes. Worst-case scenario, our bodies will make it out of here by nature of the chips, but I don't want to see what happens if we're trapped here."
"Then I'll do my best."
Alan's efforts redoubled, summoning upon Akkaron's resources now that the assailants "outside" had been occupied and his own wetware being torn from him. All manner of actions describable as one pleased as feints, strikes, and parries engaged with Nir as Max Scrounged what he could from loose assets this deep into the network to resume his breach.
Nir seemed to stab at Dib and the black mass seemed to howl in pain as a searingly bright code segment was used like a knife. Still, she could not capitalise on the attack as Alan directed Akkarons own assets to covering Dib. The AI was vast and powerful, and for a moment actually held Nir back, countering her effects as Akkaron itself vied for the same processing power of the whole network that Nir was also using. But a moment later Nir got the upper hand, the AI which oversaw much of the Vasitiu network was brought low and then utterly deleted, the network architecture shuddering with the huge data purge. It had been compromised and Nir had no qualms about excursing it from its virtual existence. The network would be compromised, but better to kill a cancer than let it spread.
As Nir finished Akkaron and turned to Alan Dib struck, even wounded clearly his form punched a strangely tendril looking projection into Nirs data avatar, right into the neck. Nir screamed as blackness began to fight its way outwards and in moments her processing power was focused on deleting it. It was all Max needed.
With a final stalling of Nirs processing power Max undid the last algorithms and unlocked the firewalls. Immediately he was transported into an empty space. There was silence here, encased in its impenetrable shell a single file of code hung before him, it was criminally small size wise given what it was, and it looked like any regular code text file one might download from a basic email. So much effort, just for something so hilariously simple, and yet with it, they could get one step closer to their goal. He just had to grab it and get out of here.
Dibs Guards took up the slack as one poured several rounds into the first soldier who tried to enter the room. They had to get out fast now they had the objective, and the rounds kept coming.
"I have it." Max stated calmly, in the face of things. He maintained his behavioral conditioning, and stared in disbelief at the little file in his "hands." He quickly duplicated it, a trivial motion given its nature, and sent the copy to Dib's shadow, still piercing into Nir. "Redirecting Nir's assets to clearing us a way out of here. Get yourself unplugged before your brain fries."
"Dib, will you be making it out?" Alan inquired, his consciousness already being escorted back to his body by the digital infrastructure they had navigated so aggressively. "I would dearly like to conduct further business, should fate allow it."
In the room, the two Leistunganos soldiers leveled their guns at the door once more, aggressive image-enhancing measures making otherwise-serpentine silhouettes into easy pickings through the gunsmoke-clogged doorway. They paced their shots, powerful as they were - they were not carrying a significant amount of ammo, after all.
The file was so easily copied it was almost hilarious.
However upon its giving to Dibs shadow the black mass seemed to convulse before in a single act, Nir was sent screaming into multiple programs. The cyberspace rumbled as the massive vault they tried to get into now shifted and changed. They had the very root code, and Dib was going to use it.
“I will indeed be withdrawing. I suggest you decouple and escape now, I will have total control of their systems momentarily.”
The incursion of security hardware which was coming to reinforce Nir simply ceased to exist as Dibs formless shadow seemed to spread all across the network. Things were being rewritten simply because they could be. Even in reality as one of Dibs two guards finally went down to overwhelming gunfire the two Leistunganos men were not next. The gunfire continued, but this time it was coming from outside the room.
Finally two Rangvald security drones entered the room, guns smoking.
”The way is clear. Withdraw at once”
It appeared Dib had taken control of the security systems. And yet his body did not wake up.
”My body will remain as insurance of our success. I will exfiltrate over data export. Now go”
The three Leistunganos personnel gasped awake, the guard that had followed them in faltering and outright falling out of her bed, scrambling to grab her briefcase gun. Alan shot upright, getting on his feet immediately, moving to help Max up.
"You heard our good friend," He said, eyeing the downed guard. "Time to exfil."
The group mustered quickly, the guard that had already been in action moving out of the door and sweeping the area as the remaining trio began running out.
The interior of the waiting room was a mess, full of bullet holes and cracked glass with some water leaking in from the ocean above. Alarms were going off everywhere as the facility was briefly rocked by an explosion. Still they ran through the corridors they had came, organic bulkheads opened up for them as Dib controlled the system, and bodies lay where they had been gunned down by security systems. It would likely take months for the Vasitiu to recover from this although with the root code stolen, it was likely they never would.
Finally making it to the elevator and reception there was a gunfight still ongoing as the security systems engaged several paid soldiers, but their focus was on survival, not the exfiltrating team.
Once more rising through the elevator it did not take long for the facility below them to appear utterly damaged with an orange glow from numerous locations. But it was the sudden underwater explosion that got the main focus. The location being where they had been, it appeared that Dib had destroyed his physical form in order to utterly purge any evidence physically of their presence or attack. He seemed to have it all figured out.
Nothing barred their exit from the elevator or in the guest entry ways, workers had been gunned down as Rangvald drones stood sentinel, totally subsumed by Dibs control. Finally they reached the surface, and the idyllic beautiful tropical islands.
"Do you require transport off world?" The text message came to their connections from Dib.
Even the lobbies above had been vacated, a single boat seen sprinting away out of however many escape transports there were, as rangvald robotics engaged with the security up here. Simultaneously with Dib's message, the signature streak of a high-velocity atmospheric entry could be seen. The feeling of relief eked its way into Alan's mind as he watched the firedball flare out, entering a more direct approach to the facility.
"That's a negative," he responded plainly. Some moments passed, the silhouette of the shuttle coming into view.
"Thank you."