Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Printable Version

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Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-12-2015

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Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-12-2015

The atmosphere was dark and debaucherous—so not a word—at best, and disgustingly wrought with all manner of grime at worst. The tiny hole in the wall had lighting that flickered, bar stools that didn’t match, and a floor that hadn’t been moped with clean water in at least a week. But no one ever came to a shithole like this for the ambiance; not even the undergrowth of the Underground. Like any dingy corner in an alley, or sometimes a wall for that matter, you came for the privacy.

Or, if you were like Rage, you came to take easy money. Not because you needed the money, no, but because there was just something really satisfying about taking hard earned credits from people who hated losing.

It wasn’t anything special, the billiards table. Nothing glowing or electronic, oddly enough; just you run of the mill wooden and felt covered piece of old school gaming equipment. It wasn’t in the best condition, but it did the job as much as the cue she was leaning on while she waited for her competition to take a shot.

Chrome-ivory depths eyed him as he leaned over the table and narrowed his eyes on the cue ball. A few breaths left him—in and out—before he snapped the rod and… scratched.

Lips only a shade darker than her ghostly skin curled into a smirk; long ebony lashes lined in kohl lowered halfway into something sultry. “Too bad, luv,” she said as she cocked her hip, making the red leather ensemble dully reflect in the bad lighting further.

He scowled, but didn’t reply. Only waved his hand for her to go and stepped aside.

Tossing silver-white translucent strands over her shoulder she stepped forward and eyed the table. She could have had the game in the first shot, honestly. But doing that got people wondering—questioning. And as much as she loved to piss the living shit off of just about anyone, it wasn’t always safe to do it that way. There were, after all, better routes to get her jollies off.

She just needed to get two balls in; her solid green and the eight. Trouble was—would be for most people—that the six was on one end of the table and the eight on the other. Another smirk curled as she set the calculations too work. Mechanisms clicked and shifted behind her eyes; screens popped quickly—complex math that couldn't seen by anyone by her. All of this happened in one breath, only what she could see; in the next—crack. Before she righted herself fully and shook unbound hair back over her shoulders both ball were hitting pockets, the cue ball rolling to stop near a side rail.

“An’ that’s game, luv,” she told him from across the table, legs spread under her just enough while the billiards cue sat in front of her—butt on the floor. She wondered, briefly, if he’d accuse her of cheating. It wouldn’t be the first time, but most people did because they were sore losers. Not, you know, because she actually—kind of—cheated. Ohhhh… but he was right pissed; pissed some five foot six shorty in combat boots and leather had worked him over in a game he was allegedly great at. Well, or so the prat had been boasting about an hour ago.

“Bitch,” he spat.

“Dirty mouth,” she scolded with a tsk and a shake of her finger. “But it won’t get out out o’ givin’ me my due, pet. Credits?” She came around the table then and held out her hand, curling her fingers for him to do so in the universal sign for ‘pay up’.

The minute she saw a vein pop above his head was the exact moment she knew it was all going to go south—not that she minded. Joy cackled in her chest like a tiny troll on speed as his arm shot out to hit her or grab at her. More calculations wound in front of her eyes as she lifted the billiards cue and took a step back at the same time. Her stature was short enough that she just had dip down slightly before jabbing the stick upward and forward—into his stomach. He crumbled briefly, coughing. And then….

…shit. Apparently Beefy and Pissed had friends. And they weren’t exactly great odds, she found as she eyed the number crawling off their bar stools and from corners--as more calculations wove. Well... they weren’t awful odds for her, but she didn’t fancy licking a few wounds by the time she got home. It’d all heal, but it wouldn’t feel good in the meantime.

Rage chucked the stick, smiled, and gave a salute. “Well, it’s been fun, ducks—but I really ‘ave to run.” Even as she spoke her wired mind was making connections, following networks—back lines and darknet—before hooking right into the power for the joint and frying the shit out of their systems. Before the first once tried to pounce the lights went out, sparks alit from machines, and taps for drinks sprayed. In the chaos she jerked to the window she’d spied earlier and slipped out onto a fire escape. And then it was one ten to twenty foot jump or another off various structures—pipes, oversized wires, and even a cruising hover car whose driver cursed loudly from within. And it wasn’t until she reached a ‘street’ that she took pause before running off.

Ah… no pay out. Didn’t matter though, she thought with a smile. The look on his face had been worth it. As she slowed down another concrete encased pathway she went about cleaning up her jaunt through cyber space with relative ease. The pigs might show up and she sure as shit didn’t need anyone tracing her signal ever; especially not over something as silly as a bar fight that didn't happen.

Now that it was all over she was stuck thinking of what to do next. Wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel like grabbing a drink somewhere else. Maybe a club? Dancing could be interesting. She hadn’t danced in at least a week. Something popped up in her peripheral vision from one of the little screens—a reminder that something had finished.

Oh! Yes! She’d forgotten about that before the game. The notifications had been set to sleep until she was done. She ran through the code quickly, looking for errors as she leaned back against a brick wall. When she was finished she smiled—grinned something of a Cheshire grin.

“Your turn, luv,” she whispered as she sent the virus to his system and lit up a smoke. It was really anything awful; nothing he couldn’t manage. But it would probably be annoying as all fuck trying to shut it down—the looping a loud song that hijacked the volume he had on any speakers. The laughing image of a pixelated Robin Goodfellow in renaissance-wear would appear on his screens until he disabled it. How long would it take? Five minutes? Maybe?

She laughed softly before continuing on her way, gloved hands tucking into her red duster. And just for a finishing touch, when he did finally manage to disable it, she’d shoot some text to his screen reading: Miss me, Fate? Tell me my fortune? Good bait; she'd enjoy his retort. All the while, just to make sure she was clouded in her veil of secrecy, she made sure to disable cameras for all time it took her to pass them by and look like they'd blipped--glitched for a pass of second—among other things. No need to give him a visual while he could trace her; while she was letting him.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-12-2015

Fate was lost. The rhythm of code, the pacifying splay of green characters coursing through his implants while he sought to shore up a security hole and data sponge for a little non-profit somewhere in the upper sphere of Osiris, had sucked him under for an unknown period of time. It could have been nearly a day for all he was aware of his surroundings.

In cyberspace the only thing that mattered was the job, but he was still--mostly--flesh and blood. He knew his limits. Fate had sensors set for reminding him to eat. They were discrete to prevent distraction during more difficult jobs, so if he missed those checkpoints then he had more dire emergency measures. In case he got pulled in too deep and became temporarily unable to take care of that pesky eating and drinking thing. Thus far it hadn't come to that. He was still mobile, still lived outside his tech.

It was getting harder, given that the majority of his contact with the living came through the machines.

Easier than another hacker would've had it though, since Fate had only gotten the implants and ports he needed, rather than becoming so much more machine in the name of efficiency.

Efficiency was only as fast as the machines could process, after all. Sometimes even enhanced human speed was too fast.

Like now.

The clog of detritus in this particular non-profit's system told him they'd never, ever had a checkup, not even a basic spam filter. Everything that uploaded freely, junk tagged in the background on emails or message programs or comm calls or just general tech network hookups...it slowed his progress down and made running through acres of code less tranquil than tedious. He triple-checked each string of data for what should and shouldn't be there, cleaned it with care, and set it to rights within their stores.

Finally satisfied, he tucked in the final strand and sent through pay coords when suddenly a hideous spout of code gushed through his own systems. It clogged his sensors on one side and followed through on the surface of his connection, stabbing his ears with one of the most slanderous sounds he'd ever laid ears on.

"Drekked-up batch of slop!" he yelped, along with a few more unintelligible phrases as he surfaced from the job in a sputter. Fate yanked his headset off and pumped the emergency disengage on the cable that disappeared into his neck port.

Which helped only marginally, as the cable slithered to the floor, the music stopped coursing directly into his cortex. Instead, it pounded into the open air of his workspace. Into his bones, vibrating his fingers as he typed.

Who--?

It really shouldn't have been a question. There'd only ever been one creature who'd dared--repeatedly--to wreak havoc on his systems, and his picture, his sign, the calling card of a trickster was plastered wall to wall on his monitors. Nor did Fate now need to ask why. This particular menace simply...menaced.

"Is it possible to playfully menace? I'm pretty damn sure Badfellow's playfully menacing..."

Fate whipped through the security functions on his white grid and chased the code. If he didn't cut off the ear-bleeding sounds...he cursed. The thumping beat had caused his left eye to twitch, which his implant had read as a command, subsequently opening a new subroutine.

"Son of a spaceworm!"

Two more, definitive taps, and the code dumped, the music stopped, and his ears rang with the sudden stark silence. Fate swiped heavy strands of burnt orange behind his ears. After a long breath, he gathered them together with a handy cable tie.


"I know you didn't just taunt me."

Hazel eyes, one glinting with distant tech, squinted at the message that used every monitor on his display as it scrolled across. He growled softly.

"I KNOW YOU DIDN'T JUST TAUNT ME."

Jolts of irritation and remembered games with this particular fiend shot through his veins and a smile curved his lips. Carefully, he followed the trail Robin had left. Watched as the man's physical presence was shielded even as the location was clear. Tapped onto his data line...and set up a return volley of his own. "If it's a fortune you want..."

Blinking, he called up a list of previous clients--ones who weren't prone to killing...it wouldn't do to have such a lovely opponent lost for good--found one with a healthy account, and funneled.

Funds flooded down Robin's line, using his signature image to tag it. The missing creds would point to a very specific thief.

Unable to play this particular hand without a guilty conscience, Fate padded the trap so if Robin decided to take it as an offering rather than a ploy accessing the funds would immediately transfer them home--and start alarms screaming in the immediate vicinity.

Possibly also alerting the heat.

And giving him time to beat his nemesis to the cameras for once.

Maybe.

>>A fortune?
>>You'll have a drink on me.
>>Also:
>>Next time try jazz.
>>You owe me new ears.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-12-2015

As she tiptoed in a circle down the alley she waited; she tipped her head up and blew smoke rings, one hand tucked still into her duster pocket. While she waited she did a quick search online and more tiny images appeared in front of her eyes. “’Mmm… that song works.” It hummed at first, clearing eventually so that she could hear it like one would in the background while they drove. It was then that she exited the alley and entered into a crowded party district full of life and lowlife. Bright lights and more pretty cameras. Direction bedamned, she just kept going about wherever seemed the most interesting. All the while that wired mind of hers cracked and hacked camera feeds so she could better watch her step—long transparent strands reflecting every glowing sign like a disco ball.

Despite the crowds, and more habit than anything else, she still blipped cameras. He might, if anything, might be able to follow her based on the camera blips, no? That actually made her grin around the smoke. Give him something to chew on, yeah?

She gasped in sensual glee when a notification popped up. The jolt to her brain had his mitts all over it, and—not for the first time—she regretted not truly being able to flirt with him. Didn’t need to spook him if he thought she was a super gay dude poking at keys. Wait… unless that was his thing? She frowned, stopping long enough to contemplate this.

….Nah.

As she took a long inhale and continued on her way, exhaling a plume as she open the notification. She blinked once, barked laughter, and then grinned like the short little imp that she was. Ohhhhh… but what to do with this? Licking was out of the question, no matter how delicious his little loves bites tasted to her circuits—living and undead.

While she was thinking she watched as he fed text before her eyes. Such pretty text. She wanted to poke it, but it would look a bit odd—probably—for someone going about their way poking at the air in front of them. The again, someone would likely assume she was just pissed drunk or drugged—or both.

It was a good thing she didn’t like money much. It was nice most of the time for things. But if she did love money she’d have probably taken his bait. As it stood…. she was just trying to figure out how to up the ante. She hadn’t brassed him off badly enough to scare him off. He was still being catty and cute. Plus, there way the super sexy way he just… sent things. Like he’d been caressing the lines. Was it weird she could sense that? Naaaaah.

So no taking the bait… but how to… hmmm… She tapped ash off her smoke and jumped effortlessly onto a concrete barrier and went on her way. Only when she got to the end did she snap her fingers and in the process flick away her cigarette into a muddy pool of cesswater.

On the matter of the money, though tricky, she sent back. And then she quickly created new accounts, transferred her funds, and wiped that trail along with her calling card—but not before dumping a few thousand or so creds into the offended party’s account with a small fabricated apology on behalf of an automated system response. She set up a trail that dead ended in some tiny system’s accounts several light-years away so it wouldn’t follow back to her. She’d be quite surprised if anyone actually went to all that trouble to check; they’d have to actually send a ship out, only to discover the place was a cold as balls ice mine; and by then they'd never find her trail. And hey, blame the tech, right? No harm no foul. At least the client wouldn’t have anyone to fault it on but a system glitch.

And then… Ha.

It wasn’t practical; it wasn’t even mean, really. Not compared to what he’d done to her—tried to do. But She did it anyway because she liked pulling his string. She’d rather be pulling on his cock, but someone like Fate took—deserved—more effort. Especially considering he’d taken the time to keep playing with her. And so, she flooded his feed with gay porn ads—that would roll down his screen and make it nigh impossible to overcome. Text, ads, images, audio, and then some. You know... cause she kinda wanted to see what he said of the gay theory. Of course, this required some effort that made her just a wee bit vulnerable. Thus, she made sure to slip between a dark alcove before sending it—just between the camera views. She could have made them move their line of sight, but he’d have probably moved them back.

When he cleared it out the shit, next would come:

>I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
>Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier

She paused, wondering how he’s take the quote before continuing the text feed.

>I was hoping for something like, “Love is favorable between the hours of noon and six tomorrow; your lucky numbers are 13, 4, and 29. ”
>Glenfiddich?
>Jazz I can do.
>Not so horny then?

And then she sent him not just music this time, but a music vid. Playful? Perhaps, she mused as she bit her lip from inside the alcove and waited until she could resecure herself from the cams.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-12-2015

Fate didn't bother to stick around and wait for the results. His locating software had found "Robin Goodfellow" but it was highly unlikely the other man would make a mistake with how well-timed the camera blips had become. He could guess trajectory, try to get ahead and get a look, but what would be the point? Fate didn't need to see him to know where he was just now--and Robin Goodfellow seemed to have a knack for letting him know when he was around.

Besides. His stomach was growling.

He checked the timestamp on his implant and groaned. He'd been under a long time. Nutrition was priority one--even above the game. Fate shoved back his chair and headed for the blender. Tossing in his usual protein shake ingredients, ice, and even adding a bit of imported cocoa--none of that synthetic crap--he pressed the pulse button. Poured it in the tallest clean glass available. Walked it back to his chair. Took a sip.

And then barely kept said sip from spewing onto the HUD he'd draped over the arm of his chair.

"Okay." Fate shook his head slowly, baffled by this turnabout. "Okay, obviously that went sideways."

This wasn't destructive; not in the least. Spam could do nothing more than appear on his system, autocleansed as it went, though whatever Robin had concocted--could he not think of a word that didn't have "cock" in it?--seemed to be replicating faster than his system felt like keeping up. It was far less annoying than the opening salvo--though that might have been only because he wasn't in the middle of a job--and gay porn, besides? This definitely felt like it'd been meant to be a...a present.

Trying to determine if anything he'd sent over the wire could have been construed as flirtatious enough to receive such a comeback from the other man, he sighed. Pretty damn much anything could have a "tone" in the Net. Just about the only way he was going to resolve it would be to drop into audio comms with the incorrigible Robin Goodfellow.

He was loathe to do it. But certain things had to be made clear.

After he cleaned all the crap out of his system.

Fate downed his shake and slid back into his chair. He absolutely did NOT shop from whatever wares Robin was selling. And somehow, he was going to have to break it to him gently...and then of course there was the matter of revenge. So maybe less gently and maybe very direct. Naked lady porn might send the right message...

He stopped trying to come up with plans when audio began to flood the room again. This time choruses of deep voices and manly, desperate moans had him stabbing frantically at buttons without his usual grace, just to make it STOP.

"Oh stars, why??" he grumbled as he finally scrubbed the horrors from his machine. He ran an extra check in the background as he winked open a folder and loaded one of his favorites to help cleanse his brain of the man-on-man imagery. "Just to clear the palette. Before I figure out how to let him down easy."

Only one would do, and it had four women and 12 breasts.

But before he could enjoy it, more text scrolled across his monitors.

The cheeky bastard was quoting old Earth texts that rhymed--poetry for universe's sake!--and sending him gay porn.

Definitely flirting.

Just how in stars was he supposed to respond to that passage...oh, wait. Fate grinned as he nodded to the pace of the passage in his memory, recalling how it ended.

This wouldn't require audio at all.

>>So you're...
>>...into roleplaying animals with your men, then?
>>Hate to break the news but
>>I'm not that kind of bedfellow, Badfellow.

"In for the shutdown," Fate said, sliding his glass onto the minifridge by his desk and then firing off a few of his favorite vids before catching up on the messages Robin had typed while he'd been busy amusing himself with his own replies and sharing classics from his own porn collection.

The smile on his face widened. Then, despite considering Robin might be one of those crazy ones, far gone enough to have sent him a video of himself jacking off to something sultry from Earth circa 1920, he clicked Play.

And then he laughed.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-12-2015

When she was certain all the information was done transferring she slipped out of the alcove and went back to business as usual—making cameras turn at times, following their timing to avoid them entirely, and blipping as she went along. She didn’t know how well he was ‘jacked-in’, but Rage was nowhere what he’d comprised himself of from a young age; which might have seemed to be a disadvantage. She had a few components in that cute little skull of hers—extras in her eyes for the screens. But, mostly that was just to boost what she already was—a technopath. Her brain did a lot of the talking with machines, had conversations in the form of code and equations. Ask her who her best friends were and she’d like tell you anything with a circuit board and enough electricity to turn on and speak.

Programs were fun to talk too as well; they were branded by those who made them. And she loved reading their streaks of code like one watched hour-long dramas on vids. Every hacker, programmer, and idiot with a keyboard and open notepad on his desktop or data pad—etc—had a unique signature; a touch. Some were softer than others and some were down right…. eck. But Fate’s… heh. Smooth; smooth as clean oil over warm gears.

What made it more fun was being able to sniff him on a line at the drop of a hat. Her mind was always on the net, the darknet, or hooked into something. It was second nature; as easy a breathing. And since that incident a few months ago it had been hard to shake that sensation. It was a little like finding something hidden in a picture; you’d hardly noticed it before; however, once you’d noticed it, every time after that you couldn’t help but look there first.

It was hard not to flirt with him. She’d easily reduced herself to that little boy in school who hit the girl he liked, put gum in her hair, and hid spiders in her desk. Well, in the old anecdote about that little boy... Schools hadn’t been like that since long before she’d been crafted in a tube, after all.

She made her way into a lower section and away from the party district, following another alley and dropping deeper into Duat. A set of stairs and short jaunt found her in a tunnel; abandoned route for bullet trains and whatnot. It wasn’t super dark and random openings above her let in light from the city sparsely.

She was about to send him another note, not dealing with the wait very well, when she got another notification with his unique taste. Instant grin; instant glee. She opened it quickly and read the screen that popped up. She laughed, glad he’d caught it—knew the quote well enough. He could have done a search, but somehow she doubted it. And she was happy her theory was proven right. Not gay. She didn’t even try to stop herself from doing a little dance over that before responding.

>Badfellow? Ha.
>Not my first choice for a nickname.
>Needs more badassery; badassery like Batman riding a velociraptor.
>Jacked in, jacked off, online, offline: I like my fucking without the fur.
>Gets caught in my teeth. Gets caught in my tech.
>Not as bad as 120c temps on hardware, but still bad.

She hesitated after those rows of text, thinking of a few other snarky comments when he sent the porn. Not surprising—tits and a lot of them. She grinned further as she hopped over a few puddles, knowing it was his way saying ‘no homo’.

>TnA? I’d say thanks, but porn is free.

She stopped walking again, stopping under a dark archway with a slip of light from topside. As she lit up again she considered… how far was she taking this game? No she knew. All the way. Deciding to be utterly not cautious—mostly because it was her nature to live right on the fucking edge without falling—she sent him a zipped file with half a dozen photos of her. In the nude in very naughty positions. Not classy at all. Raunchy, really—one of them with a dildo in her mouth.

Yeah, it’d be worth it. Totally worth it if she ever got to see him beyond smooth text on a screen. The look on his face... that was worth more to her than all the money topside combined on three planets was to anyone else.

Question was… would he share it? She wasn’t worried if he did, bang up job she did of staying dark. she mulled it over even after she sent them and just shrugged.

Worth it.

>For your collection.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-13-2015

Amused beyond reason that his nemesis would choose to cross wires with a video that involved cats and everybody wanting to be one just as Fate was accusing him of bestiality--AND IT WAS JAZZ--Fate sent far more of his personal collection than he actually intended. Still chuckling. And then he realized his move shouldn't have continued down the line of retort...but rather left retaliation station.

Robin could definitely take that as more flirting.

Fuck.

He scrubbed at his cheeks and slumped back in his chair as more messages fired back to his station. Flirting? Not flirting? Gay? Not gay? Maybe Fate was the one with the obsession.

Worse, he couldn't seem to stop himself from a response.

>>Only my dearest friends get velociraptors.
>>Caught in your tech?

Visions of a few of the hard-cased bounty hunters he knew--literally half machine constructs--blurred with more horrifying imagined scenarios where some furry alien or another could leave behind hunks of fur in between ballbearings. Fate closed his eyes and it was NOT better.

>>Nevermind.
>>I just realized I don't want to know how you found out these magical things.

Except...he did. Want to know things, that is--not the dude's stance on fucking bunnies. Robin was a puzzle, too damn swift at tech for his own good. And he'd just validated one of Fate's suspicions.

Robin was wired.

Not the typical off-grider's tech, not something external, not something that needed to be plugged in or simply triggered off wireless signals from say, a wrist comm. Oh no. Whether an implant or biological hook-in, and no matter how good he was at hiding it, Robin's status on the network would at least have a shadow. A space, however microscopic, where the man himself thought he was safe as could be. Having that confirmed opened new doors for his next volley; it meant he could dig deeper, get more personal.

"Ha ha," he chortled, "the game is afoot!" even as he fired back

>>Quality porn is NOT free.
>>Time is money.
>>You're looking at thousands of dollars in research hours.

and stuck both feet in his digital mouth.

"Terrific. Bastard's making me sound like porn's my day job. Probably wants it on record to screw up my bids at future clients." He punched a few more keys and blinked to send the next round of messages through. "Seriously though. Free random porn? I have my pride. My collection's more akin to bottles of vintage wine with tits."

Something to be incredibly proud of, in Fate's mind.

>>Not that that's all I do.
>>But you know that, given you've been nosing into my junk for an eternity.
>>But you know that, given you've been nosing into my jobs for an eternity.

FUCK.

He thought the mistype had been erased before it'd been sent through, but if Robin was hard-wired, the line would be far, far shorter--recalls of data could fall short of the mark. He shoved a panel and two tablets to one side before his forehead hit the cool surface of the desk.

"Okay," he murmured against the plastic, "got too cocky.  Just need to distract him. Push that one waaaay back."

Gripping his HUD in one hand, he slammed it over his head and then blinked rapidly,composing a playlist of horrors...the kind that, especially if one had been enjoying porn, would be suitably disconcerting.

>>I apologize; my personal collection probably isn't your cup of tea.
>>I do lots of things. Exercise, read, short walks on virtual beaches.

Why the fuck was this prank coming out like a dating video? Fate's ear clunked on the desk about three times before he continued,

>>Not that it matters, given our relationship.
>>But I didn't want you to have any hard feelings.
>>Don't go away angry. Just go away.

He sent it all at once, looped it, burrowed it deep into Robin's trail, and locked it to autoplay. It was merely the start. Things would get worse once he determined just how wired--

"Stars have mercy." Fate's eyes widened as he removed the HUD and sat back to witness the zip file unfolding over his screens like a display of the galaxy's most wanted posters--except these were a whole different variety of wanted. His jaw dropped as the last centerfold-quality print slid into place.

That settled it. His nemesis was utterly confounding.

Was this still part of the game?

More?

"What's changed?" he wondered aloud, because his head was too full of code to leave room for cohesive thought some days, and hearing something other than tech was necessary for sanity.  No matter that everyone else said talking to oneself meant one had already left sanity in some star-trail or another. "What's so different about today that he's practically handing his contact info over on an engraved plate?"

Because the images...the metadata...it was so light a trail as to have been stored personal to Robin himself. Far from cultivated porn. Porn with a personal touch, even.

>>Well, now I feel bad.
>>All those vids and you finally give me an actual present.
>>Fucking hot.
>>Could use some more angles from the ground, up.
>>Since there aren't any, I'll merely not send more audio-visual entertainment.
>>For now.
>>You know, rather than saving you from my menacing ways.

The query regarding his sexual preference resurfaced. A girlfriend, perhaps? Images from his personal datastores...he had to have taken them himself. Whatever the case, it certainly crossed a line they hadn't screwed with in their past encounters. He found himself shifting from 'annoyance' territory and firmly toward 'intriguing plaything' and even slightly toward 'whimsical encounter' considerations. Fate tapped the network nearest his last known location and frowned as he began to dig into any and all recent activity where Robin had been involved. It would serve him right if he fell for the bait and got sucked into an illicit job offer or some sort of kinky proposition.

But he HAD been invited, after all.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-13-2015

Had she known he’d liked her musical animated cat video she would have been tickled pink; as it stood, she was left waiting around a wee bit once more—wondering what made his mind tick and only getting crumbs. She wasn’t really patient when she wanted something, but she refused to ruin the eventual fun—the fun that would be more satisfying given all her teasing and tugging. ‘Cause that’s what it was… like a slow stroke on her—.

Notification. Smile.

Rage exhaled smoke as she leaned back into the metal arched wall, still staying out of the light slipping in. As she inhaled and drew the fag away from her lips, next performing a French Inhale, she read his lines of text. Hmmmm… It was difficult to read between the lines without a voice, but Rage was fairly good at it most days. Most. But Fate chatter wasn’t just any chatter. Still, it made her snort and smirk as her eyes traveled to the left and she turned on her night vision in the tunnel briefly.

>You type before you think.
>Most people just speak before pulling an all-stop on their mouth.
>Typing takes effort.
>What does that say about you, Fate?

Indeed… what did it say? If he was dumping out thoughts before actually filtering them... It implied typing was akin to speaking for him; which, in its own way was fucking sexy as hell. She didn’t even care what that said about her; she was the nutcase fantasizing about just receiving a string of text from someone because how it felt coming off the line.

And then came more text. She turned off the notification filter and tweaked her settings so whenever he sent her something—at the very least text—it popped right up. She rolled her eyes, still smirking, wondering if she should go back to moving. It wasn’t a comfortable den—the dilapidated bullet train tunnel, but it was a private one for now.

>There are things in life, you know?
>Like eating shit.
>You don’t need to try it to know it’s a ropey idea.

She waited again, thinking perhaps she shouldn’t have slipped in the word ropey. It had been intentional, leaving him a few breadcrumbs. He’d either think she—he—was a fan of old Britishisms, or he might think ‘he’ was Brit ‘himself’. Not that she was… so much… meh. She’d decided she was and thus she was. For very legitimate reasons; legit for her, anyway.

Ha! She laughed out loud at his next string of text.

>Foot stuck in your keyboard?
>I’m a five star pervert.
>No judgement here.
>And time is time.
>Money is need; not want.
>Better things to buy in life with time an effort rather than creds.

Which was totally true for her. But he didn’t need to know all the details right away. She had more fun letting him assume things. She just wished she knew all of what he assumed. But that would require making herself significantly more vulnerable to him—like a two way door. And she wasn’t ready for that yet. Not because, you know, fear; more like, hijinks would end.

Screens popped up on her visuals, overlapping—five of them. At first they all screamed together—making her wince visibly. She resisted the urge to cover her ears; too human and wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.

“Alright,” she muttered aloud over the noise with a smile, “that’s no’ ‘alf bad.” Instead of shutting it all off she made it so a few vids paused. And then she watched them all in what she considered the proper order of text with them.

She opened her mouth to laugh, but stopped short; her face fell into dramatic worry.

“Shit… is ‘e gay?” In the closet? Was he flirting with her, thinking she was a guy? Bi was out; he’d already said he wasn’t into dick. Clearly, this playlist argued otherwise. Maybe he was playing a different game? Teasing her? She’d love the idea more if he knew she had tits and very wet pussy.

No! No! No! She refused to believe that the man’s overabundance of girl-porn was somehow his way of compensating for denial! She stomped her cigarette out in a fit of brief childish anger that didn’t amount to much but girlish pouting. She slumped against the wall—sighing once. And then she jerked, eyes widening as more text appeared—as if she’d forgotten he might send more.

A smiled bloomed across her face and she laughed—chuckled—gleefully as she read ‘actual present’ and ‘fucking hot’. Bloody hell, but what she wouldn’t have given to see his face when he opened the files with a response like that.

Couldn't be gay. Bi maybe. Not gay.

As her laughter died down and she reread the text several times like an overexcited schoolgirl, she considered her next course of action. He hadn’t reacted to the gay porn spam quite the way she imagined; it hadn’t been as bad as his bank-account hack job though. She bit her lip and considered what else… he had to be intrigued by now; at least as intrigued as she was.

It really would be the easiest thing to just hack right into all his hardware, talk to his devices like the pets they were, and do something drastic… but… it also placed some weak spots in her defenses.

And then it hit her, like a lightbulb going off. Bam!

Screens popped up—layers—in front of her eyes as she wrote the code. Words, numbers, symbols, threaded along her visual like a cascading waterfall. And when it was done, she sent the newly born little devil with a giggle just after her next line of text:

>Wish granted.
>Effort and time?

The virus would grab a hold of his system, this one a little more complicated that the first she’d sent. It would slip into files, go through back doors, only to escape somewhere else were he to chase it. The temporary damage it would do was simple enough: repeatedly change the language settings on his computer and keyboard output. Were he to type to anyone else but her, it would come out as gibberish—half in French, half in some alien language, parts of it in Latin—hell, Sanskrit. Cause why not?

But she wasn’t going to be a total bitch about her love bite; she had promised a reward in a roundabout way. Were he to kill the bug a gif image would come on his screen her of getting off with a toy—the final moments of lower lip biting, vibrating mess with a lovely angle of her legs spread and her back arching while the front balls of her feet pressed into a plush mattress that looked more like a cloud than a bed.

As she awaited his response she began walking again—deeper into the tunnel as she mapped it with old city blueprints on another screen. There had been a cave in, but she could probably get through. And thus she the night vision back on and whistled.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-14-2015

"What does he want?"

The question rattled off his tongue and repeatedly around the inside of Fate's head as he scrolled through the less system-invasive responses from the other man. Was Robin just closer now than he'd been before? A local trip instead of code sent from planets away?

>>It says my brain is sexy.
>>To the ladies.

He couldn't ask outright why Robin had chosen today to get in close. That would end the game.

"Ropey. Right." One rust-colored eyebrow popped upward as a clearly accented response flitted through. Slang, but not the typical station jargon, not the kind of slang that poured accelerate over half the letters and left them behind to die in a blaze of their former glory. That was...refreshing, he decided.

>>Riding a velociraptor feels like it also may fall under that heading.
>>What with all the eating people tendencies the historians and dramatists go on about.
>>Unless you aren't people.
>>Then it's--
>>Are you people?

He was right...Fate did tend to type like he talked, unfiltered and open. And this was exactly why he tried not to engage with anyone other than machines or his agents--very few of whom he could call friends. It had the possibility of giving away weakness instead of surface sarcasm and amusement, and might clue a true, dangerous enemy into where to find him, and how to hurt them--him. He didn't think Robin was an enemy. Hadn't from the beginning, however annoying the upstart had been as he infected his workspace.

>>Only 5? How disappointing.
>>I could get whatever I want with enough time and effort.
>>But it'd be shady effort, if I wasn't paying fair.
>>Difference between thieving and fixing a problem.

Fate's research was turning up nothing of consequence. Robin was just too good at not being seen, as if he were flitting beside the world but not in it.

Which was impossible, if he was people.

Code seemed to come from quite close to his chest, though--and Fate could use that, wrap him in it, blind whatever sensors...

With the next message he got from Robin though, Fate noticed something wriggling through his connections. Sliding straight into the language grids, riffling through folders with little interest than just to move along. He followed it, absently checking the folders and blanching as filenames came back in ancient Greek, blinked then displayed in alien characters instead. Attempting to reset them made the code itself come out in French. And then put it on a loop.

He growled and chased the viral little nuisance, noting the triggers on his outbound keys kept rotating, useless.

He switched to chasing it through his implant interface, his eye twitching and blinking rapidly even as he typed to Robin with one hand and slid the cord into his neck with the other simultaneously.

>>Oh, this is cute.
>>You've given my circuits an LTD.
>>Language Transmitted Disorder.
>>I hope this is sending to you in cuneiform.

"And just in case it has," he added aloud, queuing a range of recording software to pick up the audio clip, "this is definitely effort and time. Not hard effort, just annoying effort. I keep having to change what language I'm typing commands in as to get it to bounce. So yeah. Cute. But not as cute as I can be."

Audio fired off in a flash.

It was more than cute. It was, to put it mildly, bits of hardcore sex wrapped around more sensual coding then draped around his circuit boards like the finest of riddles. And he was going to get ahead rather than following, anticipate it, trap it...and one day soon he was going to do the same to the stud behind it--really teach him a lesson.

A few more minutes lost and his knuckles punched the stop command. The wriggly bit of code dissolved.

And then indeed, like the stars-granted wish Robin had taunted, was Mr. Goodfellow's girlfriend again, all--

"--juicy and inviting and spec-taaaac-u-lar." Fate's jaw dropped for the second time that day. "Moons-bless. That's--"

Rendered speechless in appreciation, he squirmed in his chair.

"Also fucking hot. Robin, my man, I don't even know what to do with that. Store it in my favorites, I guess. Wallpaper, because it's not like there's workplace eti--FUCK!"

He snapped off his mic. He'd still been hooked in to the recording subroutine. Though he ordered a scrambler toward the file Fate watched helplessly as the code trail for that second audio disappeared after the rest of the data he'd sent Robin. Far, far too late to block that one from going through.

So much for subtlety. Privacy.

Class.

Fate sighed and stared at the metadata again, at how very close of a chase Robin was leading him into. "Just like his playful little virus. I just wish I knew what he wanted!"

No, he couldn't ask outright.

A more roundabout way was the only recourse.

The location ping was clearing up again, and Fate thought he just might have a way to force his foe into admitting his aim, without having to actually ask the question. Make him squirm, make him ask for what he needed...and stars, he absolutely HAD to do so without the plan in his head twisting up like a kinky sex game involving code instead of cables...WITH A DUDE.

His forehead hit the desk a few times before he settled in and began weaving the code for the more complex plan. Robin might be disappointed his volley would take extra precious minutes in returning, but what had he said? Effort? Time?

Wishes granted...

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-14-2015

She was itchy to light up another smoke; it was a habit born out of anxiety when she had nothing to do but wait. But he didn’t take long this go. More text was popping up, much to her delight. How cerebral you are…

>As all brains should be.
>It would certainly broaden my someone-to-fuck options.
>And the quality.

It wasn’t quite agreeing with him, but more of a general statement with a few added personal details she couldn’t help but slip in. But damnit... it was hard not to fire off something more sensual; something like, ‘Is that code-lingo for your cock? Because I’d love a nibble. Or five.’ More like her and less restrained.

Stop being twitchy, she chastised—as if it would work.

>You think? Definitely ropey, that idea.
>You’re deviating—rambling.
>Do your ladies also find that sexy?

She did.

Hm… that was a touch difficult to answer. Was she a people? A person? She was biting her lip again as she hopped up on a crumble of debris and prance-jumped from one ‘mountain’ to another like some kind of fairy queen in red leather instead of sheer satin.

>I think I am.
>Kind of.
>Got a heartbeat, at least.
>Ha.

It wasn’t enough to really give him the answer he probably wanted, but it would be enough for now. Did he think she was pure machine? Some kind of living and breathing code wading the wires and poking at him? He had to know she wasn’t, not after she’d saved him some serious issues that first time months ago. His people hadn’t seen her, but she had been real—doing something beyond cleaning up the circuits. But, yeah, there were ways around that too. Bots and other creatures with grasping hands and things to do dirty work.

>Is it? How many do you think I should have?

…Kinda flirting again?

>True.
>I guess that makes me less than noble.
>I’d rather dance on the edge, rhythm in my skull, trying not to fall.
>Getting high on endorphins—on how it unfolds.
>Do you like to dance?

Not too flirty. Hopefully.

She stopped walking when she came to a square platform covered in a metal top. Deciding to pop a squat—as she was thoroughly engaged enough for keep out of trouble—she pondered his comment about ‘being fair’. Rage couldn’t say she really played fair, but she did place her own restrictions. It wasn’t as much fun if there wasn’t a challenge involved. Fate, thankfully, posed his own challenges.

She fell back on the flat metal top, laughing again as his text appeared on her screen. Her black leather vest top rode up in the process, revealing a little white tummy without a belly button. Her eyes shut with mirth and she grinned all the more.

>It’s not.
>I know what I’m doing.
>And if you can’t get rid of it.
>You could always ask nicely.

She was about fire off more text when he did something totally unexpected. Something had her heart skipping a beat and her insides turning to absolute mush—molten metal, hot, gooey mush. Had she not been lying down she would have just barely been able to catch her own footing.

And he just kept talking—ABOUT HER.

“Bloody flyin’ fuck,” she groaned even after he shot off an irritated fuck at his own mistake. She didn’t even laugh, too busy trying to calm her dirty nympho tendencies—trying not to blow the whole thing by just opening up an audio channel and asking him if he wanted to have ‘phone sex’. Or hell, hook up to a line with her and just have a go at in a virtual world. At least until she could convince him to let her drop in, or have him drop in on her.

Dangerous thoughts, but unavoidable. She liked riding her adrenaline junkie edge coated in sex, sin, and sometimes explosions.

Her fingers twitched and she stopped short from just fingering herself while listening to a loop of his voice. Maybe later. Maybe when she wasn’t busy flirting-not-flirting with him. Still, she sighed as he legs squeezed together.

>More?

—she couldn’t help but ask, secretly wanting more of his voice saying shit without a valve or filter. About her. About things he could do to her. Anywhere.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-16-2015

Fate typed with his usual flippant speed and devious attention.

>>Animals and brains.
>>Such progressive sexual preferences, good sir.

He grinned as he answered the next set, languidly sliding his fingers over keys. He'd certainly never had any complaints in the department of attentiveness, but it wasn't until after he'd fired the response over the Net that he wondered if Robin would think it a measure of overcompensation.

>>I'm not rambling.
>>I'm thinking with my fingers.
>>So yeah, I assure you that kind of connection gets a lass
>>right where I want her.

Hungry and on the edge. Keening for more.

Stars, this conversation was fucking strange. If Robin had been a woman, it'd be harassment of the best sort--and teasing besides. But he wasn't, and instead it was just unfortunate that he couldn't keep his hands to himself when it came to restraining his keystrokes.

>>Met a few gadgets with a pulse.
>>I'd appreciate it if you weren't one of those.
>>Dudes sending me gay porn is quite enough.
>>Having a toaster send me porn of any variety
>>might leave a scar.

He didn't really think Robin could be all machine. But he'd needed to fish, needed to see if enough clues came back to help him weave his trap around the other man. And each response he sent out, each time he got one back, he came that closer to pinning Robin's location, setting another thread of his digital net into place. He wove loosely, intending that Robin would see through it until it was too late to realize the grid of code had been crafted to interlock completely. One pull on a single key strand.

>>10 stars.
>>That's the dream.
>>But with pics like those lying around you've got to be selling yourself short.
>>At least a 7 on the perv-o-meter.

He should have said no to any kind of dancing, should have condemned mere playing about a field that Robin could have had real impact in and that Fate so often sent his agents to do real good in the worlds.  Despite his efforts though, Fate was too easily led into conversation to stay at a distance. Instead, he typed like the only sense he had was the sort that thought lighter fluid on a blaze was a good idea.

>>If the song's right.

And then he added:

>>And if you're talking actual dancing and not whatever it is THIS IS
>>only if the hypothetical partner is equipped with the right parts.

Before tying it up with a bow.

>>Like, say, the parts from those centerfolds.
>>And not a cock.

Why did he open his mouth? At least with his keystrokes he had a chance to recall lines--however slim. And Robin's response. A taunting 'more'. It could have meant anything from wanting additional voice recordings because each one might help ping Fate's own location, to asking if he wanted more drool-worthy porn of that woman--and wouldn't she be pissed if she ever found out her private pics were being used in some bizarre hacker chess match without stakes--to genuinely wanting to hear him continue those thoughts.

All of the above was also an option.

Fate rolled his shoulders back and straightened in his chair. "Enough. I don't care how top-notch a hacker he is; today's game is done. This snaps shut, he'll either tell me what the deal is or run away to piss me off another day..."

>>No, I don't think so.
>>You've had enough for today.
>>But if you choose to dance a little more...

Fate wanted something more than riddles; something to tell him if Robin was leading him into a corporate sort of trap, if he needed help out of a sticky situation, or if he really was just having him on for a merry game of taunts and teases and tricks and exchanges of perverted media.

A little more honestly...

The net strands were woven and began to close in as he narrowed to Robin's trail, the metadata too close to the source to be anyone but his foe. When Fate found the man stationary, atop an unfinished maintenance shaft--an oubliette of sorts--he finally knew where the trap would end. Still, he continued drawing the strands tighter, until they were slick enough to suddenly draw taut, to blind sensors and circuits and Net protocols all at once.

>>...there is a way I'll stay on the line.

Fate wasn't sure what the impact would be on the other man's implants, but it wouldn't be pleasant. If he was more wired than flesh and blood, it could even be painful. A less wired hacker would find his way out of the coded net and untangle himself eventually. But some were so tuned in that utter silence of code would be a physical blow.

>>Bet you can't guess what it is...

He didn't want it to go that far. Didn't want Robin to be hurt--nor to keep him from ever hacking his way out of the trap. So in case shutting down everything meant tearing away another hacker's ability to breathe, the tiniest concession was made, a virtual safeword: he also concealed within the woven strands a single lifeline...directly to his comms.

It was a risk. But then, this whole game had been, always was.

>>so I'll let you think about it.

Then Fate tugged the trap shut, whipped the metal top of the tube, watched the signal plummet, and slid the paneling back into place like a lid on a can.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-16-2015

Her eyes closed, shutting off the darkness and the night vision—blocking out the arching metal and concrete ceiling above her that had half crumbled into patched in places. She placed her hands behind her head to create a pillow, content to read lines and lines of text as she gently slid her teeth over her upper lip this time—tugging it in and letting it pop back out.

Progressive? He really had a knack for twisting her words—catty is what it was. She chuckled as he sent the next. Thinking with his fingers brought about too many equally catty responses she could quickly shoot off without thinking much. But she didn’t, throat tightening with restraint as she considered.

>And where would that be?

….Cause she really couldn’t help herself.

>Be a pretty advanced toaster.
>Someone would have to be lazy
>to have to want their toaster make toast
>and send gay porn—any porn.
>Or… maybe they just like burnt cock for breakfast.
>Or maaaaaaybe the toaster they’ve got a hard on for does.

…Now she was rambling, making herself laugh at him—at her. No, not classy at all. In all honestly, it was a bit nerdy—the kind of shit someone would say when, like Fate, they were thinking with their ‘keystrokes’.

And then he was complimenting her again. About pervy things—about pics he thought was of some woman on her hard drive—Robin’s. Ignoring the fact that he thought she was a dude, it was the kind of thing Rage considered sweet.

>I’ve only given you an inch.

He could think that argumentative—defensive, or he could think it a taunt… or maybe more flirting. She went on smiling wondering, beyond the veil of their connection, what he was thinking that didn’t slip out involuntarily.
>You’re rambling again.
>What if there isn’t any music?

—she sent, because saying ‘Can you send me a pic of yours?’ was pretty gay based on his last reply.

She sighed wantonly as more text rolled behind her eyelids, white on a black screen. She frowned genuinely, sitting up as he sent ‘You’ve had enough for today.’ She pouted and brought one hand up, fingers touching her lips. Shit… was he cutting her off? Was she going to have to wait another week to start over again and maybe get back to this place?

No, wait…

She was so focused on what he was trying to say, mentally reaching for more with a knit brow, that she didn’t notice what he was doing on the other end of the line with all that metadata she’d been leaving him. It had been intentional, sure; she liked leaving breadcrumbs for her wire-tapped crush. But, what happened next was not exactly something even she could anticipate.

Which said a lot.

Or, maybe she was too drugged on what was pedaling that she didn’t think to care.

Her eyes widened first, her whole face going into shock, as her mouth opened in a gasp. Long transparent strands and red leather flapped about her body as she was tugged down by gravity. When the darkness came as she cut through the muted and moldy air, her tech went haywire—spouting off warnings and red alerts for her to do something before she damaged herself. Because even a fall this far without careful analyzation would do damage.

“Buggerin’ fuck!” she snapped as she twisted in the air, calculations and equations appearing to provide answers. She moved her body so she could hit one side of the metal tube with the sole of her boot for leverage, then another, slowing and cushioning her fall. When she hit bottom she bent her knees, alleviating the impact further with a fanged growl that couldn’t be helped.

Well… that was different. Certainly more physical than she’d expected.

>Like to give me a work out do you?
>Touche, wanker.

It would sound affectionate in her head. The idea of him beating off had no negative connotation to her. But he might construe the text, if he translated the slang, into being a little snappy.

After the reply, Rage immediately did an examination of where she was. As screens popped up analyzing further, see-through and wrought with colorful letters and numbers, she reached out. Leather gloved digits met with metal—thick hard ass metal. Something skipped in her chest as she went around—all the way—looking for an obvious exit.

It didn’t occur to her to try and climb out. Wouldn’t.

Anxiety prickled at her subconscious and her throat tightened as she stepped back. Ivory-chrome depths rippled and her hands began to shake. As her heart rate sped up, pounding an erratic rhythm too fast and odd to be human, her back hit a wall. And then she jumped, gasping loudly before placing both hands on either side of her head.

Closing in…. closing in…. nonono…!

Carefully constructed security measures and tiny bits of tech in her body went… silent; they died entirely and no longer offered protection. No firewalls against the camera feed in her eyes; against the nanotech working in her body and jetting through her veins trying to figure out what the problem was so they could repair it; and no firewall against all of the memories that flashed through her mind and were made into actual broken images for him to see on his screens—half scenes of a lab, of people white coats, of bubbling fluids surrounding someone in first person in a tube. And then just a blur of darkness. Chaotic audio bites were sent to him of people spouting orders in London English, of people talking mutely about prospects and possibilities; then came words like ‘disappointment’ and ‘failed experiment’.

A woman’s crisp English voice said over all the others on an audio bite, “They want us to start over. Disable and dismantle the subject. I want her in the incinerator by nightfall.”

It came in a like a stream: unfiltered and choppy, likely overloading his system with data and pain. Worse than the viruses he’d sent. Fear, fear, and more fear; it all latched onto the last connection she’d had—the one with him—unable to stop. Her mind flooded, becoming whatever the system could translate to on tech, screens, and audio.

She lowered, knees bending and drawing up as she sat—arms curling around them. Her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw flexed. She pressed her eyes into her legs, her bangs a tumble over the top of them.

She didn’t mind the dark; it was when the dark didn’t have a horizon, but a barrier without exit, without a way to be seen through with her tech, that it all came back. Too much time, too many days, too many hours aware and poked at—confined, confined, confined.

She was choking on it; choking on the walls they threatened to squeeze her bare.

“Fate…” her accented soft voice whispered, not entirely there, not entirely knowing she’d called his name over the open channel—because she wasn’t rational enough to know it was open.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-16-2015

>>Nice try.
>>Hacker etiquette, chum.
>>I don't give away trade secrets.

Robin's toaster commentary made Fate chuckle despite himself. At least he seemed to have the same problem with toasted cock a l'orange as Fate did. "Heh...Cock and jam. Breakfast of toaster-obsessed androids everywhere."

Sadly, the chuckle died an abrupt death as his next response blinked onto the screen. Oh no, he didn't just say...Fate recoiled from the workstation in disgust. Hadn't he made his preferences transparent as a fucking piece of glass? Or were Robin's own preferences just that aggressive?

>>We've been over this.
>>I honestly thought I'd made myself clear.
>>But I'll try again.
>>I want NO inches from you. ZERO INCHES.

He settled back in to work until the next response made him pause. No music? Fate tapped his chin with a finger. Even before his first implant at 5 he'd always been prone to fascination--getting wrapped up in data or projects or just thoughts in general. Nowadays there was never simply nothing. Coding, sex, side project tinkering, getting lost in a job so deep he had to have those damned emergency protocols for it, he was always dancing to Something.

>>There's always music.

He laughed aloud when the trap sprung and Robin fell. "Get out of that, playboy." Even though temptation made his fingers wiggle, Fate didn't reply when the angry retort flew at him, figuring he'd let the other hacker stew. Either Robin would reply with what he actually wanted, why he'd contacted Fate in the first place, or he'd dig himself out and the game would be over for now. The next round would be a little more amped, and Fate would be prepared for it.

But what happened next made his lungs seize. The videos slamming onto his screen threw him backwards in time. The night he rescued a girl from the hands of Perseid Group, rescued her from torture, pain, the fate of science--of becoming a girl twisted, an experiment in another corporate cog and one that could have sundered worlds. The night of such near-failure he still had nightmares, still had the ghastly dreams that he'd never even mentioned to the now-woman who'd become his closest friend. Code came screaming into his system, blew through the open port and crashed through his firewalls, and it wasn't like any virus he'd ever encountered, unlike any virus ever.

This feed...it lived. Breathed.

Fate plugged in, nearly swallowed under as the panicked sights and sounds washed over him like a tsunami, memories swimming in the flood. Logic took a long time to settle in. At least he assumed it'd been a while before he could more reasonably pick apart the untamed code, because his muscles felt like they were screaming from holding still so long in his own panic. But logic DID indeed settle, and Fate hauled in a heavy breath. Robin couldn't know about Sascha. Nothing existed to tell him. To tell anyone. Fate had erased all evidence of the night, the research, the tests, everything had been obliterated by his own fingers. And these screens, they weren't Perseid.

"Son of a corporate slag..." he cursed as he tried to parse together the footage, so much like memories.

The metadata he dug into was so raw: unfiltered, undoctored.

Original. Personal.

"They want us to start over. Disable and dismantle the subject. I want her in the incinerator by nightfall."

He froze, struggling to understand, to come to terms with what was happening. Was this the reason Robin had called?  A job that hinged on someone else's files, their horrifying past? Was it current? Or...

The hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end as a woman's voice filled the room with HIS NAME, not part of the files, not memory, NOW.  The agony within was so intense it was all he could do to keep his eyes from watering. No, this...this was no game.  

Something had gone very, very wrong.

He cleared his throat when he stood, dread coiling low in his belly even as he hovered over his desk like getting closer to the screen would somehow bring him physically closer to that terrified voice. "Robin? If you can hear me...say something"

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - Blade - 08-17-2015

Gasping breaths became borderline hyperventilation, would eventually become so entirely. Arms wrapped about her legs wrapped tighter. Her heartbeat was in her ears, lungs in her throat as she rasped each pull for oxygen.

For a time she couldn’t hear anything but larger portions of what Fate was seeing in data; what was given to him was sporadic, cut with what would have been akin to razor scissors. Fear of something larger than herself did that; did that to anyone.

Every bit of her shook like a freezing kitten as more flashes came—as walls rolled in around her; tighter and tighter and tighter. Glass walls surrounded her in black, walls she pressed against while crying to be set free, pounding against to no avail until she was hoarse and choking on amniotic-like fluids she couldn’t actually choke on.

“S-stop…” she got out, sputtered—begged, before she drew in a larger breath.


It flittered on the edges, his voice—pushing through all that swallowed and rubbed raw her insides. But it was enough to tug like a lifeline.

“Not… r-real…” she said aloud to herself more than him. She tried to slow her breath beyond the flashes, beyond what broken chaos she sent through to his system involuntarily. She needed reality; needed something other than what her mind conjured with tech and augmented with her innate ability.

“T… Talk to me, Fate.” If he kept talking to her… maybe, maybe she could find a way out of this; out of the walls… the memories…

She forced her eyes open and lifted her head. A camera feed would pop up on his largest monitor—hers. Rounded steel walls would greet him as they greeted her. Her chest seized, but she latched on to repeating memory of his voice asking if she was there. He’d see her transparent screens as they popped up, as her mind and tech wound a tumble of numbers she had a hard time comprehending—data about the shaft; about how to potentially get out based on her physical parameters thus far; about how to get out based on percentages involving distance, speed, resistances, physics, and then some.

>wallswallswalls

—her mind fed in text to his screen.

>can’t breathe
>can’t think
>make it go away
>can’t
>closinginclosingclosingin

It became an endless stream of uncontrolled, unfiltered, and fearful thoughts—hers.

“Help…” she whispered this time, closing her eyes tightly and opening them once more. It was hard to look, but she had to—had to stay here and not too submerged in her own head and what it conjured.

---

Wicked, Wanton, and Wired [Closed] - danixiewrites - 08-17-2015

The voice came again, broken and jagged as a thrown bottle. Fate funneled the video and audio to a secondary server to keep himself from being overloaded, and as soon as it eased he found his mind able to think. Facts clicked together to form a more cohesive picture even as he tempered the flood of data pouring toward him. This data, from an observer, a victim, had been about a woman, it was definitely a woman's voice on the line, and the taunting photos...the data all pointing to one thing:

Robin. Not, in fact, a dude. Robin. In trouble.

"Hey there," he spoke again, his humor abated for the moment as he tried to talk her through the storm of data. He wasn't sure if the fall had jarred Robin's tech or if something else was going on, but he tried to keep his voice as gentle as a blanket draped over one sleeping in the cold. "I'm not doing anything--it's coming from your system."

It dawned on him that she must be staring at the same collection of data--the horrifying images likely swimming in front of her eyesockets like so much ambient pain. Her own past? Did she have a built-in memory cortex? "Hey, I'm here. I might not be there, but I'm real. Okay? Are you hurt? Is that what's going on? Did some circuits get knocked loose? Tell me what's happening, Goodfellow."

He could send down a medbot, could operate a tech transient from here. What he couldn't do was physically get her out of the hole. Yet. It was going to take time to locate an android to appropriate. But at least he had a location, a personal grip on her, even if he didn't have eyes. Which reminded him that he needed to reroute a drone to her location.

And then he suddenly had eyes--just not on her. Whatever tech she had was pulling up on his screen without his permission, still bereft of sense enough to blast through.

He was really going to have to fix the overly familiar way she had with his tech.

After he fixed THIS.

"Deep breaths, little minx. Slow and deep." She might not be little, but she was definitely a tricky bit of technological demon. It sounded good to him, anyway. He wished he had eyes on her instead of the walls though...all he had to go on was the pictures she'd sent.

And who knew if..."Stars, if those pictures were her...and damn it anyway but she's a woman...that puts our playdate in an entirely different perspective, now, doesn't it?"

He blew out a harsh breath of his own as he realized he'd done it again. Hoped she wasn't offended. Guessed if she weren't as panicked, she might have given him a piece of her mind. After all, multitasking in both perv-land brain and helpful reassurance mode wasn't exactly a winning combination.

She might not have noticed at all, in fact. Fate frowned as text overlaid the dim metallic background of the tube. Repetitive and less like keyed text...more like she was transmitting directly. Calculations? Of what? If he wasn't so focused on pulling pieces into place to fix the situation, he'd have jumped on them out of sheer curiosity.  Had she accidentally given him access to her brain? Was she wearing an HUD? Whatever she was doing...it was fascinating.

Not helpful. I know it's not helpful. Less admiring, more doing SOMETHING, moron! Figure. It. Out.

More text, messages this time instead of a data overlay, and more specific, layered in panic and scrambled by fear.

"Oh." He gasped aloud as he read what were essentially her thoughts, heard her plea, and realized what had happened. Like his own occasional issues with the outside world, Robin must have had something similar with enclosures. Enclosures like the one he'd thoughtlessly dumped her in, ones that triggered memories. "OH. Fuck. FUCK."

The command streamed to his console through his datajack and the top of the tin can tube snapped open.

"Okay. Robin, hey. How about you look up for me? And just breathe. Yes?"

---