Johnny's Soundscape (Post Soundtrack)
~ Under the electric lights, we all find illumination... ~
snap-pop
He sat at the massive, almost imposing desk, rolling his wrists until that familiar sound emanated from the joints, all the little bones grinding together before releasing in that ever so wonderful-yet-painful way. He been at it all night yet again, tippity tap-tapping on all the buzzing, humming, and beeping electronics scattered in front of him. The sound of a keyboard clicking away was more familiar to him than the sound of his own breathing. Yet, he was one of the few in the galaxy that really excelled at what he did. To him, slicing into a system wasn't just a survival trait, it was an artform. A delicate dance between human and machine. Synapses and Circuitry, signing a duet together in a wonder harmony of synthetic-organic fusion.
Still, even he had to take a break once and a while, retreat back into meatspace with the rest of the galaxy. Pulling his headset off, he laid it down on desk, reaching over in fluid motions to grab a can of whatever caffeine pumped swill he had laying around. At this point, taste wasn't even something he consciously registered. Hell, sleep itself annoyed the kark out of him. But such was the way of things. Of course, that was when it happened. A faint buzz off his TX-17. Scooping it up from the far side of the desk, he slid a finger over the release trigger, glasteel screen extending as he tapped a few times.
//incoming.message
//encryption... 14.7 moderate, init
sapphire.protocol.exe
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//sapphire.protocol.exe running at 99.8%
//link established
Crezzle:
G3m, my boy. Been a while. Thought you might have forgotten about me.
GemCyph3r:
Heya, Crezz. No, just been busy.
Crezzle:
Aww, G3m, don't go hurting my feelings now. It's time to pay up.
G3mCyph3r:
Ok, ok. Give me 3 rotations and I'll have your creds.
Crezzle:
One rotation, and only because I like you, G3m. Don't be late. You know what happens if you're late.
G3mCyph3r:
I know, Crezz. I know. Have I let you down yet?
Crezzle: Not yet, and pray you never do.
//connection: terminated at source
Johnny set the Deck down, and sighed, leaning back into his chair. He supposed this was bound to happen. He'd been a hermit so long now, that he honestly lost track of time way too easily. Stupid, on his part, but thankfully, he had a few aces up his sleeve. After a few moments, he grabbed the Deck again, and began the rhythmic tippty-tap he did all too well.
He needed creds, and he needed enough to cover Crezzle. Which was a lot. Of course, he knew what this meant. Corp raid. Someone low enough ont he food chain to give him some burn time, but high enough to have what he needed cred-wise.
And that's when he landed on AstCorp. He had been poking around there a couple weeks back, just exploring, looking for opportunities should they present themselves. Tonight's victim: one Lachlan Dowe. Rumor mill had him pegged, and Johnnyboy figured he'd make an easy target. After all, scuttlebutt was that he was about to find himself at the bottom of the barrel soon enough. Then again, he could get deets on just about anyone and anything when it came to the corpo scumbags and the stuffed shirt shizheels that worked for them.
Like a surgeon, he sliced his way through AstCorp's backdoors, blazing through their subnet like thermonuclear wildfire. Yet, he barely made a sound, so to speak. His footprint was barely even noticeable except for normal AstSec traffic. Weird, however, that whoever they had on-duty at the keys tonight seemed to be non-existent. Logged in, for sure, but no activity. Odd, but Johnny had biz to take care of. Finding Dowe's directory in the subnet was easy. Through the Force, he made that Deck absolutely sing in hands, his physical speed almost three times faster than most could manage.
"Boom goes the dynamite."
There it was, his personal datapad's access point. 128bit encryption. He sliced through it like a lightsaber through durasteel. A few more taps, a quick scan, bam. Willay Bank. Account #6443091. Password... accepted. Hot damn, that's a lot of scratch! Johnny thought. And like a black hole, he sucked it all out in less time than it took a couple synapses to fire off in his head. Funds... routed. Took a little bit, and as he was about to cover his tracks, he noticed a second ping off the account.
"...huh?"
Johnny's brow furrowed, and he watched as AstCorp's subnet began lighting up like Coronet City at nightfall.
"Holy sithspit... Another Slicer? Shiz! Not kosher, not kosher at all!"
Closing his eyes for just a moment, he let the Force flow through him, guiding his fingertips across the glasteel screen of his deck like an absolute supernova of speed. He'd engineered this thing for such instances, but it had been a long time since he'd actually made use of it in such a manner. Wouldn't last long, might fry a few circuits doing so if he wasn't careful. And thankfully, he managed to to get out before anything could be traced back to him.A few flashing characters on the screen confirmed that. As far as AstSec would be concerned, he was a 14 year old girl on Corellia. Slugheads.
"Still, who in the everloving..." he muttered.
Swiveling over to his main rig, he checked the ping, and implemented a few programs he'd kept as a fallback to trace, or at least get an idea. After a little while, he realized that whoever it was that had seemingly piggy-backed him was here. On Nar Shaddaa. Son of a bantha, he really just headbutted another slicer on Nar Shaddaa. The odds were astronomical that he'd be in the same subnet at the same time, for the same reasons. Force be dammed, this was too weird to just let go of.
//CryptNet Access
//Init CryptAccess Protocol
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//Logged
Johnny sent a message out through the CryptNet, to a forum he knew ever single slicer, netrunner, gangster, and other scum kept an eye on. The message was simple.
//
Your timing is really lachlan and your funds are really dowe. - G3mCyph3r