[Story]Shadowrunning.

[Dartz]

A bit more. Some Jet/Ford twee.... introducing one of Ford's skills (And relatives). And Daisuke + Alita.

The Dead Bang! shooting range at Marsbase Sara was almost unique in that it allowed practice with live, real-steel weapons. Buried underground, it was a hundred meter long alleyway hewn straight from the Martian bedrock.

In a laneway towards the end, Ford Sierra adjusted her shooting glasses, reloading her customised Beretta. The walnut grips were moulded for her hands.

Behind her, Jet was busy adjusting her own smartgun systems. "...she actually called me a bitch."

"You'll get used to it." Ford assured her with a mischievous grin. "Soon you'll even start carrying a handbag. "

Jet scowled, before pouting, then switching to a strange grin. "It's not that...." she paused, then held up her hand "Well, mostly not that. It's just, the first thing I thought.... " she sniggered. "I just couldn't stop laughing."

Ford raised an eyebrow, "What was it.?"

Jet inhaled a deep breath. "Do ah look like, ah Biitch,"

Ford smirked. "That's Southern hick, not Samual L Jackson,"

Jet shrugged, "Well you know what I mean. Anyway...." she trailed off. She plugged the receiver for the gunsight into the socket under her ear, taking a deep breath as the drivers loaded. She blinked, checked the signal was good, then smiled.

Ford brushed a few strands of hair off her brow. Her hair always reminded Jet of Bourneville chocolate with it's burnt brown colour and high sheen. It was too bad she never let it get any longer. Ear protection was unnecessary thanks to a set of artificial ear drums

Still, with a pair of shades on, Ford projected an aura of almost effortless cool. With her Berretta gripped firmly in both hands... left on grip, artificial right for support. She used her right leg to brace herself and took aim through the sights.

Exhale slowly, and squeeze.

The gun snapped 5 shots downrange, with a pause between each for a breath. Ford smirked at her partner as the score came up on the board above.

"Now beat that,"

Jet raised her handcannon of a pistol in one swift motion. An electronic crosshair pinpointed the exact impact point of the bullet before she fired. Target in the centre, pull the switch.

Jet's pistol fired like a bomb going off, Smoke and flame and destruction and dust flying with every shot. The ranges computer totted up the score.

"Heh, not a problem," she shrugged laconically, making the pistol safe. The slide had locked back, thick smoke rising from the chamber.

Ford planted her hands on her hips, glaring up at her partner.

"Cheater,"

"It's not cheating. It's hardware," stated Jet.

"What, you afraid of a fair contest then?"

Jet's expression soured. "For me, a fair game is pretty bloody unfair,"

"Hah!" Sierra snorted. "Because you know you'll never beat me over iron sights."

Judging by Jet's expression, that was exactly it. Ford decided to sweeten the deal a little.

"Tell you what. You win, and I buy you a custom KoFen avatar... and let you spec it. I win, I buy you a custom KoFen avatar..." her grin widened. "...and I spec it. And you have to use it publicly," And finally, the cherry on top, "I'll even use your gun,"

Jet looked dubious at first, wondering just what her partner had in mind. The first thought was something pink and frilly, but that sort of Senshi candy just didn't suit Sierra...unless she really wanted to make Jet suffer.

Still.... she'd be using Jets gun. That put her at the disadvantage.

"It's a bet," Jet extended her hand.

Sierra gripped it hard with her artificial hand.

Getting the targeting system off Jet's pistol wasn't hard. It really was little more than a camera gunsight, a laser rangefinder, a lightweight processor and a transmitter, clamped to the top of the barrel were a scope normally went. Adjusting the original iron sights was a little trickier with some of the radiator fins on the barrel getting in the way, but Sierra could do it.

The hardest part was just holding the damn thing steady. Even using her mechanical arm to brace it didn't give much benefit. The trigger pull was so high, it actually hurt her finger.

The first shot she fired, she swore that somehow she'd shot herself. She felt the gun go off rather than heard it, recoil nearly tearing her arms from their sockets. Gritting her teeth, she let it fall back on target. The next was that little bit easier, followed by another, then another, then on until she'd emptied the magazine.

"Phew," she exhaled as she put the gun down, feeling all tingly all over. The score came up on the board above.

87 points

"Do I see a little excitement?" Jet snickered, looking down.

Ford crossed her arms with a scowl. "Just take your shots Jet,"

Jet took her pistol from the bench and slipped a new magazine home before releasing the slide to chamber the first round. Line target up in the sights and squeeze the trigger. Lather, rinse repeat. Jet's powered actuators made it seem effortless, her shooting that modified Deagle like Ford might shoot an airsoft gas gun.

"Easy," she smirked.

The scoreboard had other ideas. ‘82', it declared

Jet's expression said it all. How the hell did that?

Ford beamed. "Well, technology is no replacement for sheer skill, is it?"

Jet looked down at her, wearing a bitter pout. "But I had it dead on,"

"But you didn't adjust them right for your eye," Sierra told her. "I know your eyesight's so much sharper than a normal humans, I bet you didn't compensate for that, did you?"

"Never fired with iron sights before," Jet defended.

"Well don't feel bad," Ford soothed. "I learned from the best. My aunt Rally could shoot the hammer off a gun at 50 yards with a pistol like this." She held up her own Beretta.

The cyborg looked dubiously at her partner.

Sierra just smiled victoriously, "See, What did I tell you? Going shooting is the perfect way to relax after a tough day. It's the great American passtime,"

Jet could only answer with a wistful sigh.

----

"Ow!" Daisuke yelped, "Too tight,"

"Sorry," Alita backed off.

The tech rubbed at his shoulders where his girlfirend had been leaning.

"You know, you wouldn't have this problem if you got cybered," She said, wearing a playful pout. Her breath tickled his ear as she leaned in, smelling of steel and oil, her faux-leather bodysuit and whatever it had been that she'd had for dinner. "The AR-13 body doesn't have an AI yet..."

"I like meat. Makes me soft to hug," he smiled. Alita pursed her lips. Daisuke seized the moment and pecked her right on the lips... just a quick surprise kiss. "And because you would kill me if I did that in a cyborg body," he added with a goofball grin.

Her purse deepened into full blown octopus lips, those ruby eyes glaring right into him for half a second. Those lips were the reason Daisuke built her in the first place. In her daily body, she was achingly cute.

"And that's why I hope I don't forget you when I get my memory back," she smiled at him, bright and wide.

"I would not worry about that," Dai responded flatly, looking away at his work.

"Well, I'll see you in the morning," she said, "G'night Dai,"

"‘night, Achan,"

Alita closed the workshop door behind her, Daisuke heard it clang shut followed by the hiss of its safety bladders pressurising. He was alone in the workshop, surrounded by his equipment. Most of it was salvaged from a dumpster somewhere, refurbished, enhanced and then pressed back into service.

Most of it wasn't pretty.

But, he felt far more proud of it than he did of some of the newer gear thay'd bought after Battle Angel. Daisuke prided himself on being able to do a lot with very little. Grunthal had started as a bunch shipping crates concreted in under an overhang in the rock, before the new parts were tunnelled out during the war. He built the AR's using scrap parts... a production series of AI gynoids, each of them capable of sharing parts.

Sure they weren't anywhere near as elegant or ‘advanced' as the other builders.... but they were robust, and could be fixed by anyone with a decent working knowledge of mechatronics. They were also damned fun people to be around....

He smiled on that thought, tinkering with an arm ripped off of Zwolf in sparring match earlier in the day. Zwolf still managed to win.

He smiled at that, feelingly oddly paternal about that.

Another part of his mind was trying to picture what it would be like if it was his arm. To have a body like that... he'd be lying if there wasn't something of an allure to it. Who was it again that said an un-cyber'd cyber-tech is like a mechanic without a drivers license?

Daisuke didn't care. He had his reasons for remaining fully human. He'd gained an extra one seeing how bothered some of the others were by this hack.

His computer terminal chirruped.

Speak of the devil.

The analysis was done. And about time too. Even Grunthal's computers were top-of-the-skip models. They really should've replaced the lot, rather than order that shuttle. But, Daisuke'd been outvoted on that one.

Oh well.

He collated the data, and started to type.

----

To: "Cybernet.tech" (undisclosed recipients)
From: "Dai-kunV" (edo.daisuke@zalem.grunthal.fen)
Subj: SCC Radio plugin vulnerability exploited in wild. ‘Ghost Hack'
Time

Hi all

I assume you have all heard about the robbery a few days ago here on Mars. 2 Kunstler involved were remotely disabled using a hack of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's software radio plugin. Hardware logs attached do confirm this.

It appears that they used the vulnerability discovered a couple of weeks ago in the chip driver. It meant the system was hacked even before their protection software had a chance to act.

More disturbing however, is the hack was used to erase their biological memories. I did not believe it myself at first but neural map scans show a strong discontinuity when the Kunstler involve are asked about events surrounding the raid. The timing of the raid maps up to the damaged memory.

One, Jana Hall, was hacked on three separate occasions. Twice on overflights of the attacking convoy and during the attack. Jana did not notice the first two. After the attack, she believed it to be a head injury until the Patrol investigated and found no injuries.

Also, it can be seen in the attached data that Vankos scans at the time of the attack show the exact same patterns. A penetration using the radio driver, which is somehow used to erase the memory.

I am sorry our analysis cannot go any deeper, our equipment is quite old. We cannot tell how the erasure was performed, just that it was. We cannot tell if it can be reversed either.

A good number of us are very worried about this. And we need a patch for the SSC plugin fast.

Kind Regards
--Daisuke Edo

--------------------------------------------
Mk 1 Homo Sapiens. Just because it is old. Do not throw it away.

----

The response to his mail was pretty much exactly what he expected. Grabbing a can of Red Bull, he settled in for a long night.

And scratch for what we're planning will be discovered, courtesy of HRogge

finds that the attempt to patch the vulnerability is failing. Source code looks clean, then when it compiles with some bad commands... doing a test for a buffer overflow wrong in a few particular places. The compiler has been specially adapted by the cyber confederation for writing secure drivers for cyber-modules.

An analyze finally finds a group code fragment of the compiler responsible for the binary output. They look right on the first look... but checking the parts by some specialist for the machine language of the chips used for the cyber modules reveals some strange binary commands being used in places where there are obvious different and more correct choices. The result is a slightly wrong security check in some patterns of code. Very difficult to exploit until you know specifically which patterns to look for.

Something that's obviously deliberate, and can eventually be traced back to whoever was responsible for adding it.

This also makes it a troubleshooter matter, and gives Jet someone to go after. Also figure we can find who he's leaking this to, we'll find who developed the techniques for the hack... and be able to take them down.

EDIT: Googledoc link where this is being put together. Any additions or suggestions, feel free to drop by.
http://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6e ... -68M&pli=1#
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?