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skonen_bladesIt was a total systems crash.
Jake’s smoking eye-holes were stinking up the place with the smell of roast pork. I felt the heat coming off of his head from across the room. His skull had been turned into a toaster oven.
He was jacked in when the viral power surge came tunneling down the wires, sniffing out any components that it could overload. Biological or silicate, it didn’t care.
Christmas lights, we called victims like Jake. Someone always got tagged. The time it took for them to cook was the time it took for the rest of us to hurriedly jack out. There was no way for skill to compensate for it. Some people claimed premonition but really, that was just superstition. Vegas talk.
Life expectancy with the raiders wasn’t high but the pay was great and the thrill was undeniable. It was Russian roulette for hardcore professionals.
The defense programs were mobile now. They’d find us and attack us, sometimes weeks after a run. No warning.
Poor Jake. But last week it was Kathy. The week before it was Forna. If I don’t stop this job soon, it’ll be me. Most people average six weeks before turning into a Christmas light and I’d been here for nearly three months.
I just couldn’t stop.
Standing there, looking down at Jake’s sizzling face, I understood why.
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Jake’s smoking eye-holes were stinking up the place with the smell of roast pork. I felt the heat coming off of his head from across the room. His skull had been turned into a toaster oven.
He was jacked in when the viral power surge came tunneling down the wires, sniffing out any components that it could overload. Biological or silicate, it didn’t care.
Christmas lights, we called victims like Jake. Someone always got tagged. The time it took for them to cook was the time it took for the rest of us to hurriedly jack out. There was no way for skill to compensate for it. Some people claimed premonition but really, that was just superstition. Vegas talk.
Life expectancy with the raiders wasn’t high but the pay was great and the thrill was undeniable. It was Russian roulette for hardcore professionals.
The defense programs were mobile now. They’d find us and attack us, sometimes weeks after a run. No warning.
Poor Jake. But last week it was Kathy. The week before it was Forna. If I don’t stop this job soon, it’ll be me. Most people average six weeks before turning into a Christmas light and I’d been here for nearly three months.
I just couldn’t stop.
Standing there, looking down at Jake’s sizzling face, I understood why.
tags