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As she opened the door, Charlotte Simone wondered whether she knew what the hell she was doing. She was a smart girl, with the best possible education available on the streets, that is, experience and luck. Why was she trying to do something as utterly dangerous and stupid as this?
Then she remembered the feeling of flying and all doubts melted away.
Elbowing her way into the press of bodies, she searched for Miro. Loud music was playing and the club was full of people, so locating the Slovakian was difficult. Finally she managed to get a glimpse of him, leaning to the counter. As she tried to get closer to him, she accidentally stepped on the boot of a local motorcycle ganger, who then proceeded to call her with some of the most vulgar words of the English language. After some more pushing, Charlotte succeeded in dislodging herself from the crowd and walked towards the place where she last saw him.
There were only two constants to Charlotte's life. One was Lily, the other was Miro. They had a strictly professional relationship, helping each other out whenever needed. It had been Miro's money that bought her and Lily out of the poverty of the landfill and given them a stable, if small, income.
While Charlotte and Lily had to provide for themselves with jobs as waitresses and such, Miro dealt in information. He located customers willing to pay for a given morsel of data and then employed people to get it for him. The methods used by these men varied between library searches and espionage, and they covered a very diverse areas of the information superhighway. Therefore, when, for the first time in her life, she needed something illegal, Charlotte knew who to call.
Stopping only to straighten her jacket a bit, she sat on the stool next to him and tapped on his narrow shoulder.
"Charlotte, my dear, the night suits you," Miroslav Kravda said.
"Cut the crap, Miro. Do you have what I need?"
"Naturally, but are you serious about this? I think it's a bad idea."
"I've been through this with Lily, and I'm sick of it. Just give me the damn thing. I can handle myself, Miro."
"For your sake, I hope so. I really do."
Miro slid his hand inside his coat. When it came out there was a small black envelope, which he gave her. Charlotte kissed him on his pale cheek and turned to leave. The last thing she heard him say was an ancient blessing of his country, which he frequently applied to any kind of distress. Without looking behind, she waved her hand for goodbye.
Back in her apartment, Charlotte took off her coat and threw her bag to a corner of the living room. If she was going to do it, she'd better do it before Lily came home. That was why she hurried to her bed and pulled a featureless black box from under it. Barely controlling her breathing, she unlocked it.
Within... there was the universe, another world of binary data, virtual realities and computers. There was the Net.
Back in the nineties, thirty years ago, logging in to the Internet had meant using a keyboard and a mouse. Ten years ago it had meant gloves and VR goggles. Today, it meant neural interface, linking the machine and user into one. For this purpose the cyberdeck or cybermodem, as it was officially called, had evolved, a device for transforming human thought into computer signals and the Internet into a virtual reality.
With the change in technology, came also a change in people, as was common with all large innovations. A new breed of criminal evolved, to take advantage of the possibilities of virtual reality systems. They were called Netrunners.
Charlotte had undergone the neural link procedure six weeks ago. The interface points were on her right wrist, two metal circles with tiny holes in the middle. It had hurt a like hell for the first week, but then the pain had faded away into a mild soreness that should stop in about a month. Five weeks ago she had logged in for the very first time.
She had been hooked by that quick peek, just circling around the public areas as a bright spot of light, and from that point on she knew that she wanted more. She needed to push the envelope, to go to the very limits of cyberspace. But she couldn't do that alone. She needed someone to teach her. And that's where Miro and his information network came in.
Right, time for the real test. First she opened the envelope, made of some bizarre Japanese carbon fibre, and read the short message inside. Now she had a destination. Charlotte sat cross-legged on the floor, opened the case and pulled out the chrome disc embedded in the black foam that line the inside. Then she took the thin cables from a pocket in the lid and connected them into the deck and then on to the link points on her wrist, causing a barely noticeable twinge of pain.
"System power at eighty-six per cent, line clear and ready," said the deck in a soft voice, delivered straight to her brain via the auditory nerve.
Slowly, Charlotte Simone closed her eyes, extended her left arm and brought her index finger down on the round button that had the simple text "GO".
As her ears filled with static and she felt the now familiar sensation of falling into nothingness, her lips contorted themselves into a dreamy grin. Then she opened her eyes again. There it was. The electron sea, the desert of reality. A plane of green grid spread out to infinity. Large multilayered towers of blue light defied gravity before her. They were the data systems of the Korean cartels, shielded with programs able to give you nightmares for the rest of your life. They tapped inside your dreams, looking for things you dreaded and then they turned them against you in the most horrible ways imaginable.
The place she was heading was in an almost deserted area of the Net, far away from the busy virtual shopping malls and recreational simulations in the city centre. They were designed for the regular people, Charlotte thought. She was not one of them, blind slaves of the money machine, whiling their lives away between work and imitations of life, the pale and atrophied ghosts of dreams.
The journey to the mysterious destination seemed to take half and hour, whilst in reality, only a little under ten seconds passed. Time was not the same here. When she finally arrived, Charlotte looked around in puzzlement. Nothing. Only the boundless grid of green neon, as far as eye could see. In the far horizon she could see the outline of the city, surprisingly similar to the real thing. The same buildings that dominated the night sky of the real world were here as well, their enormous video screens advertising cheap commodities for the faceless masses.
"Serendipity," she said, remembering the password specified in the letter.
It seemed that a cloud of transparency shifted aside and the virtual building appeared from behind it. It was not particularly massive or impressive. It had a curious cubical shape and its wall were black and sleek, like marble. On the side facing her, Charlotte saw a portal open in the structure. Awe-struck, she walked inside.
She found out that the place was a lot bigger on the inside. The walls and roof disappeared to the gloom. Light was provided by tiny spotlights mounted on the walls. She turned, only to see the pathway in the wall vanish into nothing. Sighing, she advanced. Inside the cube there were thousands of black towers, each one of them representing a memory bank capable of storing millions of pages of text. She was not there for them. On the distance, there was a brighter light. Without seeing any viable alternative, Charlotte walked towards it.
The source turned out to be a small terminal, illuminated by a larger spotlight. This was not what she expected. There should be someone here. The place shouldn't feel deserted. It wasn't right. To her growing surprise, Charlotte noticed that someone had put a small yellow piece of paper next to the keyboard of the terminal.
Please press Enter, it said.
Someone knew she was coming, and had probably watched her all the way from the door. This did not come as a surprise to her. If the rumours about the power of the owner of this system were founded, it was only the tip of the iceberg.
Noticing that her hands were shaking, she pressed the button. Everything around her blurred and then changed form. Gone were the memory banks and spotlights. The floor under her feet changed texture and turned into a comfortable carpet. The walls turned into stonework and the spotlights transformed into a massive chandelier, capable of supporting a hundred candles. Charlotte found herself to be standing inside a massive dining room fit for a king.
There was a massive table filled with a meal unseen in the court of any earthly ruler. It was a massive feat of woodwork, with skilled engravings lining the legs. Would have been a massive feat, Charlotte reminded herself. It wasn't real. The decor leaned toward dark gothic with suits of armour and battle axes on the walls.
"Enjoying the place, are you?" a voice asked from the far end of the table.
It scared the hell out of her. Only barely suppressing a scream, she turned her face towards the speaker, who, she was sure, hadn't been there a moment earlier.
He was there now, sitting in a comfortable-looking chair and leaning to the table. She noticed that he was a middle-aged white man, with long hair sculpted in ash-grey dreadlocks that went well below his shoulders. His nose was narrow and straight and the eyes with which he considered her were blue and sharp.
Strangely enough, the man's style of dress was not appropriate for its surroundings. He wore a brightly coloured shirt with one of those insanely complex collars the French were so fond of, as well as a pair of purple hand-dyed jeans.
"Well, are you?" the man said and stood up.
"It's very... gothic."
"I know who you are, and you know who I am, so there is no need for formal introductions," he continued, closing the distance.
"You... know my name?"
"Of course, Charlotte. Of course we know. Your friend, Monsieur Kravda, was very discrete in his research, but, alas, not discrete enough. We have followed you ever since the meeting in the club."
"We?"
"Yes. Nemo and myself."
At this point Charlotte noticed a gust of wind that seemed to emanate from every direction at once. With the wind, black fog flowed into the room and formed a pillar, about as high as a man and made of smoke curling around itself.
"Welcome, Charlotte Simone," a thin voice said from the pillar.
"Are you Nemo?"
"Yes."
"Are you an AI?"
"Yes."
It was unbelievable. The man in front of him was Marc Nicolas Jospin, better known as Overlord. He was the thief against whom no lock could hold, a surfer in the ocean of raw data. There were twenty confirmed reports of his attacks, all against big corporations and all causing untold damage, both financially and in loss of face. Some rumours also indicated that the man had his own Artificial Intelligence, a sentient computer capable of logical reasoning. They were true.
"So, tell us something. Why you have come to me?" Jospin asked and took the last few steps towards her.
She noticed that each of his dreadlocks was tipped with a small metal blade, shaped like an icicle and apparently razor-sharp. They made a small plink every time he moved his head.
"I want to be like you. I want to be a Netrunner."
It was impossible to fully describe Jospin's expression upon hearing her answer. His smile froze for a moment, then returned, but with a considerably nastier edge. He shook his head, causing a series of tings from the tiny blades.
"You?" he asked. "Have you got what it takes?"
"I am willing to try."
"Running the Net requires a certain kind of mind, Mademoiselle Simone. A mind that can bend, a mind that can accept the unreal, accept the fact that none of this," he waved his hand at the room, "is really here."
After having said this, he jumped up. And did not come down. Jospin remained in the air, his body straight and hands extended to the sides like a crucifix. Without any apparent effort, he slowly pivoted around himself, so that his black leather shoes pointed directly upwards. Then he fell down. To the ceiling.
"Can you do it?" Nemo asked, the smoke outline shifting with the words.
"Just watch me," she answered, closing her eyes.
She didn't jump. Instead she simply floated up, smoothly releasing the grip of the gravity that existed only in her mind. When she risked another look, she was standing on one of the walls. Next to her foot there was a painting of some long-dead French king. She smiled at Jospin, whose face remained emotionless.
"What do you think? Shall we give her a chance?"
"Yes. She has potential. It would be a great shame to waste it," Nemo replied.
"All right. I'll give you a shot. If you're up to it. There's no backing down after this point," Jospin said and jumped from the ceiling and landed next to Charlotte, in defiance of physics. "And I warn you, your life will never be the same again."
After saying this, he extended a hand, covered with a black leather glove.
"I'm in," she said, taking it.
It turned out to be the best decision Charlotte Simone ever made.