Capture-fl4g.mov (Ask)

[Jen]

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While the rain fell hard on the streets outside, thumping electrifying music boomed through the enormous makeshift club, once shipyard, as neon lights flashed across the tall walls of the once abandoned building as people shouted, cheered and danced.

A couple of weeks back there had been chatter on the darker parts of the HoloNet of a non-stop five day party, it was to be set in one of the large abandoned shipyards of the Undercity and by day five, the venue would disappear just as quickly as it had appeared. The spontaneous nature of the event had been attracting a lot of attention from those lucky enough to hear about it on the net and in the slicer community; many were looking forward to the prospects of the Capture the Flag tournament that would take place during the course of the party.

Four days ago, the party and tournament had started and while many had crashed from intoxication or overdoses hours or days ago, for others the party was only just starting properly.

“Don’t touch our fecking net, you nerfpoodoo!” Jennifer, a twenty something year old half-human girl shouted from behind her glowing datapad monitor at a dazzled Rodian partygoer that stumbled towards her groups table, crashing into it, its hands almost touching the black triangular box that sat on the table, as it tried to gain its footing.

Throughout the hangar, every 3-man team that was participating in the final of the capture the flag game had been dedicated a square of tables situated on a slightly raised platform, allowing them to not be in too close proximity to the other partygoers, even though it did not quite always work as intended.

With what almost resembled a growl, Jennifer turned her round sunglass hidden gaze away from the Rodian, the light from the monitors reflecting in the shades. Transfixed, she stared intently at the two screens in front of her as she surveyed the wall of complicated code one of them was filled with, her left hand searching for an unopened can of soda on the cluttered table. Carelessly she knocked empty cans and food containers onto the floor in the process, their fall muted by the deafening music that filled the shipyard.

Finally discovering a fresh one, she popped it open and stuffed a mixture of brightly hued pills into the can before taking a long sip, her voice a shout once more as she spoke to the two boys that sat on either side of her, both also behind a computer, furiously typing on their associated keyboards. “Joe! Fry them whenever, yea? While the zero day is still there! They may be morons, but they'll find it eventually!” She yelled, using a heavily tattooed arm to wipe her mouth before her long fingers was back typing.

“Almost ready!” The brown maned boy replied, his voice hoarse from shouting.

The capture the flag event pitted slicers against each other in a stressful information security competition. Each team with their own network to protect while they had to crack into their opponents networks and retrieve the needed data for points. The Nar Shaddaa underground had been known for its talentful and competitive scene, but what was demonstrated tonight was on another level entirely. On a large projection on the far wall a holoboard displayed each teams scores...

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[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

There! Wait...

The thought must have crossed his mind a thousand times as he typed furiously away at the keyboard to access to new sets of code in the hopes of finding some well disguised weakness in their opponents wall of encryption. The lines of numbers and characters could have driven anyone else insane, or at least frustrate them enough to stand up and leave the table, but so far he and his team had made short work of the first few layers of security that one of the opposing groups had set up to stun their efforts. His eyes hurt, his fingers ached, but the adrenaline kept his digits going faster than they had ever gone before.

He had arrived on the planet only a few nights before, just in time to partake in the beginning competitions that had been set up on and advertised on the less traveled trails of the HoloNet. The odd mix of the music and haze of smoke that came with the addicts wherever they went had sent his head into a spin when he had first arrived, but the glowing monitor seemed to be enough to tear him away from the mind altering affects of such a gathering. The pounding music, the smell of alcohol, and the shouts of over a dozen teams of techies with nothing better to do had made the atmosphere of these abandoned hangars into an event that many would remember, but deny. The gathering was a far cry from what he was used to under the banner of the clans where you would have been lucky to find a man able to type his name into a console, let alone delve into the coding that made a datapad function. It was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, he had never had a shortage of work to do for his brothers and sisters, and the money coming from clients across the sector had allowed him to live a bit better off than the average keyboard jockey.

Nar Shaddaa never failed to impress him, and when he had first heard of the competition, he knew that he would have to attend to prove something to himself. Could he stand with the best the galaxy had to offer? Well... He hadn't been knocked out yet.

"You work slow, Chakdath!"

There it was, another taunt from the Quarren who sat just behind him. They were it, the team that had been more or less stumping his own team for almost the entire tournament after the few who were unprepared had been ejected in the early stages. Their coding was flawless, and Marcus was a bit ashamed to admit that he had passed on some of the work at attacking their systems off to both of his Rodian comrades. They were brothers, funnily enough, and before the 'battle' had began, he had a great time trying to decipher their fast quips of speech before they broke into heavily accented basic to explain the situation to him. It hardly mattered, their work was great, and it had saved them more than a few times against their previous rivals, a team goggled Jawas who had been a comedic spectacle before they had gotten their wrapped hands to the keyboards.

Suddenly, he saw it. A break! And he would be damned if he let it slip by again. They had been taunting him, letting him get so close, only to hide it in another bath of code to be navigated through to get another chance.

"Open! Open! Get that slip or we're done!"

They might have been a bit quirky, but those bug-eyed boys sitting around him sure knew their way around a console. In seconds they had snagged a weak link in the chain left open by the team of Quarren who had been so arrogant as to taunt them a third time. It was close, and the next flag on the board in their favor was bittersweet as another team pulled ahead almost immediately. He drew his gaze away from the monitor for in short intervals, gazing across the lifted stage to one of the last teams that remained. Their captain, or at least thats how he would describe her, worked away at the keys like nothing he had ever seen before, and the coordination she had with her admittedly skilled team mates was unmatched. He had avoided pressuring them too much in the intermediate stages, quickly learning what happened to those that had, but if they let it go on much longer he knew that they would soon be blown out of the water if it became a one on one.

Their were still three teams engaged, the Quarrens having been effectively knocked out, and now Marcus began to press the defenses of the superstars who were surrounded by empty cans of QUOSH! and other foodstuffs. His first few attempts were simple stabs into their firewall, pressuring it, seeing how far he could get before it would react and negate his coding. The only problem being that he knew she and her mates might soon realize he was doing it.

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

“Launching.” Joe, the wheelchair bound boy exclaimed, his voice cold and factual despite his need to yell over the booming music in order to be heard. His penetration attempt he had been programming was executed just moments after, directed at the network of a team comprised of three Caarite at the other side of the room.

Jennifer glanced up from her screen, her attention momentarily occupied as she heard one of the pig like Caarite squeal and in frustration push its console away from itself in such rage that it crashed hardly onto the floor below. Jennifer smiled slightly, though somewhat strained, in response to this and directed her sunglass covered eyes towards the scoreboard, apparently, just moments before the Caarites had been fried, another team had gotten their plug pulled, which left only two teams in the competition, hers and another one.

After taking another sip from her pill-diluted soda, she was back in the fray of things, talking rapidly with her teammates as they began to poke at the security systems build around their opponent’s network. Being a skilled cryptographer and server architect meant that during these events Jennifer often took the position of Defender, fixing the pre-programmed security vulnerabilities that the event organizers purposefully had left in each team’s network.

“Yo, confirm that it’s box 22 that’s doing that, yeah?” Jennifer asked, her face a contorted frown as she spotted the stabs at their firewall, her attention hard at work at creating sophisticated logic bombs hidden within other areas of their database.

“Correct, Phoenix.” Joe, otherwise known on the HoloNet as J03, answered as he together with their teammate Ivan, a Berchestian, began to spam Marcus’ team or as they called them; B22, with even harder pokers, an indication that preparations for a vicious brute force attack was underway.

The purposefully careful stabs were negated by the overly complex defense protocols blocking entry and banning the addresses the attacks came from, not allowing them another try at their dedicated ports. Obviously, one could just always alter their supposed address and while such a feat was, no hard thing for those gathered at the event today, it still took time from the contestants, time that could be used on other more important matters.

With the music thumping in the background, Jennifer turned in her seat and leant towards Joe’s second screen to analyze their opponent’s network data they had managed to gather, her gaze accidently going past the screen for a moment and landing on the pair of Rodians and single Human that was their adversaries. She had seen the pair of rodians before, once or twice at another event, but the Human was a new face, his excellent performance having already stirred murmur among the spectators. With her eyes still hidden behind the pair of round sunglasses that sat fashionably on top of her long nose she removed her eyes from the team and moved back towards her own screen.

What a keen eye would soon notice was that despite the heavy protection that her team had established around their network, it took a lot of the computers power to keep it operational, dedicating a lot of its processing power even to the most harmless looking attacks.

Another perhaps much too noticeable thing regarding the network of Jen’s team was that a hole had recently been created, a layer of security having been lowered around an entrance into their network…

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

Marcus felt another adrenaline filled rush flow through his body as yet another team was disqualified. The team of Caarite hadn't been an issue for them, seeming to focus much more on the team that now remained just across the stage. It seemed to be the fate of everyone who attempted to break the defenses of that girl and her time. It was nearly unbelievable how quickly some of the teams had been eliminated when they made the effort!

The sudden accented chattering of one of his team members drew his eyes back to his monitor which now was overflowing with denied access notifications. The addresses of all of the probing files had clearly been blocked and now it would be a matter of time to reset them to new identities. Using individual identities for the probes had been a mistake, if he wanted to make them well and able again, he would have to reset each identity one by one. It could take minutes, and in this type of competition, minutes might as well have been hours. No, he would have to go on the defensive.

"You guys hit them, I'll lock it down!"

The brothers had been split in their priorities earlier on, one choosing to focus on setting up their own defensive structures to combat the tendrils of code coming from the opposite set of machines. It had worked well enough to begin with, but with Marcus' computer largely out of action when it came to pursuing any type of attack into their network, he was all too eager to bolster the defenses that had already been set up by Ralf. By the time he had the overview in front of him, the flaring evidence of attacks at even their most core systems came as a surprise. Whoever was behind these incursions either knew something they didn't or had found all of their protective measure trivial... And he only hoped it wouldn't be the latter.

Whilst he set about ridding the system of corrupt security programs and other faulty precautions, the two Rodians took up the attack with a heavy fist. Jen's network was being defended flawlessly, but that small opening hadn't been missed by the Rodians who now began to focus on it completely. It was risky, and with the possibility of their own addresses being discovered and banned from the system, they had opted to take largely the same addresses so they might be able to switch them out a bit more quickly if they should be discovered. The attack consisted of several lines of code being implanted into the command files of the opposite machines, hoping to confuse the computers at the other end of the stage just enough that it might begin to run programs that were useless and power consuming.

In the best case scenario, their machines might even flicker and turn off due to the power being drawn from the attacks at their own boxes, but one could only hope for that. If Jen and her team happened to notice it, their only hope would be to begin deactivating programs on mass to keep their rigs from cluttering with lag from the heavy load of systems being run.

On the other hand, Marcus found that he must be defending against two coders as well as numerous systems would be attacked simultaneously leaving his fingers to scramble in every direction to coutneract the damage they had done and set up new lines of defense that might just be able to save their flags. What her team mates might well have noticed however is the fact that his own addresses still remained the same, choosing not to pursue the effort that it would be to convert them to new sets of numbers. It was not as if they could turn his own security system against him...

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

Shouting and feverish typing was continued to be heard from Jen herself and her friends around her as they attempted to keep track of what all six players in the game was currently doing in order to counteract the efforts taken against them.

Their adversaries offensive efforts had despite being halted for a couple of seconds as their firewall had been tested, taken a new turn as they tried to safely navigate the directory from where the network had remained exposed. The idea of leaving their defensives open at certain points had come from some old warfare tactic Jen had once heard being discussed on a holovision show while she was recovering from a hangover. The tactic went that every great fortress needed an opening, that way, the owner of said fortress would always know where to anticipate the enemies attack.

This, more or less followed the same principles. Some files within short reach of the security flaw would to the desperate, or most competitors for that matter, look promisingly enough like it could contain the flag of the cracked network. However, if anyone dared to open the file to inspect it, they would find that without extremely quick thinking, they would risk a fork bomb cluttering their screen, starve their computers resources and make anyone in front of it unable to do anything of value on the machine.

However, while the Rodians would eventually stumble upon one of the baits, they also used their time on something else much more unexpected, feeding the system with unnecessary executions, putting stress on the already overworked computer and in turn defenses. Jennifer had to work quick to stop their access to the roots systems, being able to deny them access to advanced privileges for now, but the scripts themselves still cluttered the system and with much stress, she tried to handle the buzzing machines.

“Yeah kark this. Closing down outer shell layer in 3!” Jen yelled to her group, Joe answering almost immediately “Compiling, wait a sec!”

On her right he began to type even faster than he already was, aided by a pair of cybernetic hands. For the last past minutes he had been busy creating malicious software, something he was especially good at and with the help of Ivan, he managed to launch the brute force just as the Jennifer turned off a protective layer on her machine to make sure the circuits would not fry. Their intention being to force their way through the encryption and work the network from inside out.

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

The team of Rodians would have indeed fallen for the trap very easily and it was only after one of the brothers begin to curse in his native language did the other fall back and delete his presence that had come so near to tripping one of the traps left behind by Jen in their immense network of security files. It was a near catastrophe, and Toj, the smaller of the two, had nearly lost his machine to one of the fork bombs that had been left behind so skillfully by their defensive programmer. It was salvageable, but only just, and it was unlikely that they would have the machine back in working order by the time the competition had ended. With a short glance to the now disappointed alien, Marcus shouted the only encouragement that he could.

"Do what you can!.. I think I have them on the ropes here..!"

It was an effort at the impossible to stop the ceaseless attacks from the opposite table, and being a man down certainly hadn't edged the odds into their favor whatsoever. The burden of the attack once again fell upon his shoulders as he typed quickly away at his own keyboard to change the identities of his programs. Ralf would take over the defense of their systems, and his short alarmed shouts only gave Marcus reason to believe that they were being attacked, and hard.

Blast it all!

Their team had indeed been able to gain access to their security programs that had been left up by the brothers when they had switched control over to Marcus, and now havoc was being dealt as they scoured their files for the flag. Marcus watched for only a few moments as Ralf attempted to stem the advances of the intruding programs, but he knew it would only be a matter of time now.

His best shot was to pick up where the twins had left off, and as one layer of their security fell to the repeated spamming attacks, Marcus began to target what systems he could to bring down the last few layers that were still hiding the flag. This time, he would launch several logic bombs into their compilers, hoping to scramble whatever codes they were writing up that were affecting poor Ralf so direly, though it was a bit of a fifty fifty. On one hand, they might well be able to stem and even cease the other team's attacks if they were unable to write any proper codes for a short while, and it would give Marcus time to change his addresses once again before the final search for the flag, but on the other hand it would leave his current addresses very obviously open and available to restriction.

It was certainly close, and the odds were not in their favor...

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

Yells, voiceless in the presence of the booming music and partygoers was heard from the other site of party floor as one of the Rodians had been hit by the fork bombs, successfully reducing their adversaries team count to two. It was a low blow move, but everyone knew that in tournaments such as these you did what you had to do to come out on top.

The bliss of success was short lived however, moments afterwards a shout of frustration was heard from J03, his voice coarser than ever “It won’t karking compile!”

Since the attack had begun, Joe had continuously been writing new variations of attacks to keep their enemies defender occupied while Ivan searched the network where possible, but now, with their writing program being haltered it seemed like that other tactics would be needed. While he could have attempted to repair the damage dealt, he knew that he didn’t, they didn't, have the time and instead he would have to search manually.

“I’m switching to inspect with you guys!” Jen announced to the team, their quick glances at each other sharing the same surprised look. “Never karking mind our server now! They’re down one player and only got one defender from the looks of it. Let’s just ram these karkers and get over with it!” She shouted, the back of her tanktop moist from sweat as she brought up the schematics for the enemy network to do specific searches of the enemy network.

While this meant that any defenses active on their own network wouldn’t be repaired if attacked, it also meant that they would search for the flag with all available force against a single defender. A roaring sharp pain was starting to grow in Jen’s stiff neck and with the prospects of getting away from the deafening music, she was not sure how many more hours she could take of this competition.

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

One could cut the tension with a knife as the contest approached completion. Marcus only had to look to his Rodian comrade to see the look of anguish on his face with the incoming attacks. They were coming in hard and fast, the work of more than just two opponents, and the dreaded realization that the entire opposing team was now on the offensive was almost too much for the young alien to cope with. But in his struggle, Marcus would have to find opportunity. Surely he could do some damage if they refused to leave even one person to focus on the defense of their own network, and switching over to defend against the increased attacks would only be a losing battle with almost no point.

With Ralf struggling to defend what little security measures they still had in place, Marcus set to work attacking the now abandoned systems. Sure, his work was now unimpeded and he could move much more quickly through the banks of data that concealed the virtual flag, but it would all be pointless if he could not work faster than the three who now scoured their data banks for the hidden goal. It was very much a race to see who could locate the flag more quickly, and the opposition would have a much easier time of it with three people on the offensive. Nevertheless, Marcus typed away more aggressively than he ever had before, moving past each decoy and junk file that remained in his path, though he hardly knew where to begin looking when he finally began to breach into their core systems.

The music only matched the intensity of the final assaults, and in its' escalation one could barely hear the shouts from the both of the teams that knew the end was here. Pitching tones and dancing lights only served a distractions from the monitor that displayed differing and adjusting lines of coding, all yielding disappointing results. He knew it had to be here somewhere, but just as soon as he thought that he might have found a break in the system, it only lead to more files that clearly were of no use. In the end, the advantage would lay with that mysterious slicer across the way, and her fully operational team. Perhaps if the circumstances had been different, they might have performed better, but with one machine down and only just now emerging onto where the flag may have been hidden away within the banks and stores of files, time had simply not been on their side.

It happened rather unexpectedly, and with an audible sigh and groan from Ralf who finally took his fingers away from the board to rest them on his cheeks. The score read out the victor, and surely enough, they had been beaten. The cheers of throngs of dancers who had been paying little attention to the event as a whole now rung out loudly as the board flashed and let out a tone to signal the success of [member="Jen"] and her team. In his own mind, however, he felt no anguish. It had been a good challenge, one that had sent him reeling, but that was the nature of the event! Even he, though sweaty and annoyed, let loose a few claps at the way of their opposition.

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

The response that ensued from the team, once they had been declared the winners, took little consideration for the other slicers still present, the winning team's yells, insults and proclamations rude, loud and aloof in the heat of the moment. Following the pattern, in a celebratory act, Ivan, the pale bald near-Human stood from his seat and grabbed Joe, lifting him out of his wheelchair, raising him in his arms like you would with an infant, celebrating the teammate that had found the flag.

Similar playful acts continued for the next minute or so, eventually kick starting the party at full roar as Ivan dived into the crowd in front of him. Jen, or Phoenix as the scoreboard had referred to her as, on the other hand had seemed somewhat reluctant to let the atmosphere get the better of her, despite having laughed heartily at the shenanigans and even stood on one of the tables at one point to kick her half-empty can of soda at the crowd. Once Ivan was gone and the crowd was no longer paying attention, she turned to Joe, now back in his wheelchair, to give him a handshake and fist bump before he left the party, her other hand pressed against the side of her tattooed neck, the sharp pain not subsided yet.

She seemed lost in the moment for a second after as she stood there alone, her free hand slowly grabbing her black leather jacket and tossing it over her shoulder, her gaze scanning the different consoles of each team until she reached the table where Marcus’ stood, giving him a small upward nod in a greeting before making her way towards him after a brief moment of consideration.

“Yo! Never seen you aro-…” She tried to shout over the noise from the mass of dancing bodies and resounding music that was played throughout the giant shipyard, a smile on her pale face. She tried again, louder this time. “Are you new-!..” She dropped off mid-sentence once again, the music intensifying at just that moment. She laughed, though the laughter was silenced by the music and instead of attempting to speak once more, she decided to gesture towards one of the long durasteel staircases that led up to the makeshift longue and bar. Inviting him to get away from the noise.

Hopefully, they would serve something to ease the pain up there.

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

It was easy to understand why the former contestants might have been angry at the winner, they had all been competing after all, but Marcus didn't take any part of it. For him, the night was largely over. He had made it to the final rounds after all! Him! For many, it would have meant much more to win it all, and even though it was certainly no official contest of one's ability at a keyboard, there was little doubt in his mind that he had been competing against the galaxy's best. With that knowledge came the realization that he had finally gotten his name into the net!... Well, either that or the bounty board for throwing a few mediocre Trandoshans out in the earlier stages of the semi final... But this was by all means a good thing! It meant more contracts, more trust, and most importantly, more funds.

He and the Rodian twins went their separate ways, and, in an effort to reach the bar for some much needed time away from a screen, he heard a few shouts over his shoulder coming from the massive convulsing pit that was the dance floor. You could hardly see through the crowd, and in the small gaps that formed between the dancers as they shifted from left to right and everywhere in between, he caught sight of someone that had become familiar to him in only the last few hours. Familiar was a bit of a strong term, but they had certainly been introduced well enough in the competition.

The rhythmic thooming of the base largely drowned out what she had called to him, but he could see the gestures well enough. It was on his way, and who knew? Perhaps she wasn't interested in just selling him death sticks like the last few who had flagged him down.

He gave her a nod of confirmation, and began to head up the durasteel stairs that rose above the shaking crowd who's sole care remained in the music that blasted away from the speakers. It was a feeling that he hadn't gotten to experience much in his youth, the vibrations of the club scene. The whole building felt alive, and in a strange way, he was glad to be apart of it. He had been told many times by his friends at the enclave about these places, but it hadn't been until recently that he had actually found himself stumbling through them. Perhaps it just wasn't part of his culture?

Soon at the top of the stairs, he looked for a more secluded booth, finding a fair few that still remained unoccupied under a few dimmed lights.

Wonder what she wants...

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

As they had entered the dimly lit bar and longue area, Jennifer glanced the room briefly before she slowly moved towards one of the free spaces, stepping over a half-dried, crusty pool of vomit and crushed cans in the process.

It seemed people had used the area to crash, some seemingly having passed out in chairs while others, tired from festivities downstairs, sat around tables and talked. The party from downstairs could still be heard through the walls, a faint beat from the bass heard in the background. It was not much of a bother to anyone however, the area playing music of its own, still synthesized from electronics, however much softer and mellow in tune and nature. Giving very much needed variation after hours of hard pumped noise.

Reaching the booth, Jennifer tossed herself into a couch, leaning back into the cushion with a sigh of obvious exhaustion, giving her neck a last squeeze before she let go of it, grabbing a crumbled up package from the pockets of her oil stained trousers and putting one of the long cylinders the package contained, a deathstick, between her lips.

It was much easier to make out her actual features once this close and in lightning that did not flicker excessively. When the Mandalorian had settled by the table, he would despite the round sunglasses that covered Jennifer’s aureate in color eyes notice that she was not entirely Human. She was of half Ryn descent. Such ancestry could be assumed based on her slim pale features, but also other striking characteristics such as the sharp nose of hers and her long fingers, though it perhaps was little to go on for one that was perhaps not too familiar with the species.

Other than this, Marcus would find that she was covered in tattoos where visible, that being her hands and arms as well as neck and shoulders. If he knew the native language of Nar Shaddaa, he would be able to make out the text that covered the front of her neck, it spelling out ‘slicer’ in huttese. The other tattoos were mostly decorative or heavily speederbike gang, prison or syndicate related. If he had any knowledge about such tattoo culture, he would discover she had once been in the higher echelons of a criminal syndicate, specifically the Red Ravens, judging from the birds on her shoulders.

As she had lit her own deathstick she silently offered one, tossing the almost empty package onto the table, the luminous liquid inside the cylinders swishing about.

“That was one hella tourney, eh?” Jennifer asked, her accent oddly melodious as she talked: “But you know, mount a scratch monkey and CTF’s are whatever... Anyway, never seen you around before. You aren’t a Suit, are you?”

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

Marcus eyed the the small package of death sticks and mode no move for them, quite content to lean back on the makeshift seat that the booth had been provided. It really was incredible how quickly the organizers had been able to make this abandoned hole in the wall into a fully functional club. Sure, insects scattered across the floor in search of their next meal, usually consisting of up-chucked alien grub or some encrusted splatter that sat next to the bar, but it wasn't like this gathering was going to last forever! Soon they would all disappear before the Hutts got curious, and all that would be left would be the remains of one major party. Beer cans, cheap metal dishes, everything that the patrons were provided through the night was eventually abandoned on the floor. It was a sty, and it was simply grand.

When she had sat down, Marcus hardly knew what to make of what he saw. She was a humanoid of course, but none like he had ever experienced. Her face was thin, almost gaunt, but she still held the distinctive features that would mark her as a human... Or at least near to it. From where he had been sitting at the terminal, he had hardly gotten a glimpse of her besides the head that came just above the monitor to gaze over at him once in a while. Up close, she was certainly unique. He could understand the tattoo that ran across her neck easily enough, his father had taught him a bit of huttese during their travels together, but he had never fully picked up the language. The others were a mystery that he couldn't solve. Most of it had to be gang related, and it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to him if she had some sort of protection in here... Maybe waiting for him to slip up? Well, he might as well be on his best behavior.

His curiosity only grew when she first spoke, it was almost as if she were half singing whenever she opened her mouth. It was different than any accent he had ever heard, and one that had to be unique to her species, whatever, that might be. He found that he liked it, certainly a change of pace from hearing the high pitched wines of those two Rodians who had since disappeared into the throngs of people that still convulsed on the floor below.

"I guess you could say I'm new, I don't make my way down here much anymore."

It was true enough that clients often kept him offworld, and since he had been able to prove himself a competent enough slicer both within the ranks of the clans and at the side of many a bounty hunter, he was proud to keep a comfortable apartment, all be it a bit small, on one of the upper level towers.

"A suit? Not since I last checked... Can't remember the last time I wore one if i'm honest. And I hope you weren't planning on blasting me at this booth?"

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

“I probably wouldn’t do that.” She smiled, grabbing what most of all looked like a jumbled mess of wires and electronic parts from her trousers, lighting up the screen of the datapad, poking it as she talked. “I would slug you instead. Joe, you know, the guy that was on my team. Big mane of brown hair, wheelchair. Yeah? He won’t go near me when I’m carrying one. You never know who have modified the electronics; it could blow up in your hand.”

She grinned somewhat, blowing out a cloud of cyan smoke before she looked up from the device in her hand, the other holding her deathstick. “The bar’s completely ripped, but there is a Dragon’s Kitchen just down the road. Want any?” She turned the screen in case he wanted to check out the menu. The Fierce Dragon Kitchen was a smaller noodle and assorted foods chain that operated on Nar Shaddaa, not well known, but it was definitely one of the better places considering the price category of the food. According to her screen, she had so far ordered a noodle beef soup and a can of beer. “You’re paying for yourself by the way.”

She had to admit that he was intriguing. It was obvious he was not just another hoodlum slicer that might as well have been a vampire due to their lack of contact with sunlight. He bore the distinct marks of a man with a muscled physique and he had that glint of awareness in his eyes she had seen so many bodyguards and mercenaries carry around with them. However, he had made it to the finals in a quite competitive capture the flag tournament and the type of person she would have classified him as usually, actually never, showed up to such events let alone go that far in one.

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

"Glad to hear it, if you shoot as well as you type I might be in real trouble."

In the back of his mind he had doubted that she would just bring him over to the booth to blow him away, unless he had read the wrong signals, she was more likely to talk to him than anyone else in this hole. The fact that she had contacts in here shouldn't have been a surprise to him, most of the people here must have been regulars! Or as regular as one could be to events like this. Gaining access to this community would be a major boost to both his own confidence and his job security, and he had no intention of mucking it up by giving anyone the cold shoulder. His only true hope was that he hadn't appeared a complete dolt at the tournament, and although he had made second place, he doubted anyone was impressed.

"Sure, let's see..."

He checked out the small screen of her pad for only a few seconds, scanning the menu of anything he might find interest in before bringing up the page on his own data pad that had been tucked within his jacket. It certainly seemed like it would have more appetizing food than anything the 'bar' could dish out at the moment, and he was more than willing to place his own order.

"I wouldn't expect you to. I hope I don't look that cheap!"

He eventually selected what he could infer was some sort of noodle dish with chicken and some sort of... Spice? Either that or the noodles were just off color in the picture.

From what she had said to him so far, he could hardly gain any sort of handle on who she was besides the winner of the competition. Was she a friend or a foe? No dice there either. HE was half tempted to walk off and leave the situation behind, not believing it to be much worth his trouble if she planned on dragging him off into the streets and mugging him outside of the view of... Well there was no security force... Oh what the hell? He would just have to give this a shot.

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

“The opposite.” Jennifer answered; her eyes, hidden by her sunglasses, fixed on her own datapad. She typed for a short while before she turned off the screen and put the device back into one of her pockets. As she did so, it would become clear to the Mandalorian that she did in fact carry a slugthrower, the distinct shape of a pistol grip seen by her belt, the rest of the device hidden by pouches and smaller cases that was attached to the belt.

“You look too ‘not-cheap’ to be here, actually.” The slight, almost teasing smile of hers was seen once more as she took off her round sunglasses and placed them on the table, her aureate gaze seperating from his as some drunkards crashed into a table nearby, provoking a pair of boys with mohawks to yell at them. She followed the escalation for a while until a large shark on legs, a karkarodon, stopped the fight.

“But… Anyway, I’m Phoenix. Run channel C311, E6401 and a few other main chats. Basically coded the CryptNet entirely by myself. If that tells you anything." She turned her head back towards Marcus, her golden eyes focused on him, staring as if she was attempting to figure out what was going on behind the eyes of his own. Eventually however, she broke eye contact, deciding to be more interested in the smoke in her tattooed hand.

“So… pretty good performance out there. Obviously-“ She blew air out of her nose, her grin widening, obviously humored by the thought: “-you were complete on edge, man. Jumping back and forth on defense like someone had put your hard drive into a microwave.” She took another puff from her cigarette, blowing out a cloud of smoke, her voice a tad more serious:

“So why haven’t I heard of you until now? What’s your handle anyway?”

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

"The... The CryptNet?.. You coded the Cryptnet?"

Marcus might not have been so surprised if he had met the girl in another setting. Even one just a few levels above this makeshift heap. He had downloaded the browser off of some shady part of the Holonet a few years back, only beginning to mess around with it when he had no real idea where to look for jobs that might not find their way onto the advertising boards of the main domains. Since then, it had be come an essential part of his work and he had thought little about who had really taken the time to make it. Now that she was sitting just across the table blowing puffs of cyan smoke into the already clogged air of the bar. If his obvious new interest in her hadn't been highlighted enough by the stuttered sentence that had sought to confirm the confirmed.

"I use the thing everyday... You're saying you coded it all by yourself? Jeez, I never did stand a chance in that competition, did I?"

The revelations didn't stop there. Once she had given him her "name" and the multiple boards that she had either created or belonged to, he soon came to realize that she was the author of more material used by slicers than any other! What compounded his surprise was the fact that he had thought all of these names to belong to different authors! Maybe they had been working together, or maybe they were just competing on the small market that slicers made up on the Holonet, but he never once thought that it might be all one person! As she puffed out yet another cloud, his lips formed into an apologetic smile. Perhaps he had been cold... Too cold to seem interested.

"I'm Marc. I don't think I have ever met you on a board; Handle's, M4C3R. You know you should really lead with the whole, 'I programmed everything you know' deal!"

​

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

Creating the Cryptnet had not been a straightforward task; it had taken countless months of painstakingly precise coding, researching and a heavy amount of credits used on its initial setup. Even though she liked to attribute herself as the sole maker, it was not the precise truth. A group of her friends, or whatever the equivalent could be called down here, had helped. However, no one counted and with her as the driving force behind the project, there was not any reason for mentioning the help she had gotten. At least not according to herself.

“There’s a difference between CTF tourneys and just regular programming. It isn’t as fast paced just sitting at home and chilling. You got much more time to think about the smart solution then.” She slurred, the deathstick hanging from the corner of her lips, a wisp of cyan smoke constantly floating towards the ceiling from the orange glowing tip of the stick. “But check, you probably didn’t.” She answered, the hint of a grin playing on her lips despite the matter of factly tone of her voice.

After having blown out another cyan cloud and having removed the deathstick from her mouth, she looked towards him once more, nodding once as he mentioned his name. “Bold move, man. Giving me your real name and all, but sick handle. Somewhat a play on Marc, but sounds like Maker. Cool thinking dude.” She nodded a few times, mostly at herself as if confirming that the handle did indeed make sense. Realizing the deathstick was almost entirely burnt out she squeezed the last bit of the deathstick into the table in front of them, leaving a blackened mark on its surface and extinguishing its glow.

Afterwards she glanced at him briefly with the golden eyes of hers before her gaze moved towards a spot behind him as a tiny droid with an abnormal long head slowly trudged its way towards them. It had seen its fair share of brutality, its painting fainted and its frame scratched. It also bore the Dragon Kitchen logo on its chassis. Jennifer ignored it for now, continuing to talk: “Hmm.. I usually don’t just go out and brag. Needed to see if you were cool first. People change you know. Anyway, so definitely never seen you on a board. So are you new to the scene, or have you done anything I might recognize you by?”

Eventually, the odd droid reached their table, its one eyed head swirling between the two before it attempted to place a plastic bag with their food on the table, its arm stretching to reach it.

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

"Thanks, It really was sort of a spur of the moment choice but it turned out alright."

At the time of its creation, Marcus hadn't ever really considered his handle to be cool or unique, but as it came to represent who he was becoming in the world, he had taken the slightest bit of pride in it. Admittedly, the CryptNet had never been a tool that he had used often for posting up unique program designs or other applications for the slicing community. Hell, a few years ago he had only been beginning to delve into this world. His first encounters had been mixed experiences with other slicers that threw techniques at him and he had managed to make something of them in the real world, but he had never actually gotten to the point where he was writing codes to put up of his own. That would have to come soon, if for no other reason than the fact that his credibility was next to nothing to the other's who were looking around for new talent.

The real truth of the matter was that he had been hoping to get some experience in dealing with other slicers through the tournament. Sitting across the table from the winner of the tournament stood as proof that he had accomplished that goal at the very least. If there was anyone that could teach him anything about the finer points of the job, she could.

"I haven't really written a lot of my own stuff, but I have been contracting myself out to use the things I've found on the net. Mostly private military work too, nothing too bad... I guess I came out here to see what I was up against, Y'know?"

He was sure that this, 'Phoenxi', had seen her own fair share of slicing for some of the big Corp's and Military orders that fought for supremacy around the core worlds, and as he reached out to grasp the food containers from the bot, he had little doubt that he was sitting across the table from someone who had made her own name from nothing as well. It was often the case in the underground, as children from the upper levels scarcely ever grew up to head into this sort of work.

"Pays the bills better than what I was getting on Coruscant, and by far. Which one is yours?"

[member="Jen"]​

 

[Jen]

“So you’re a little bit of a script kiddie, eh?” She joked, spreading her arms in a shrug as she leant towards the food containers at the same time. “Well, the beer is mine.” She said, grabbing it and placing it on the table in front of her, taking a closer look at the boxes afterwards. “They should really put some stickers on these… Hmm…” She pulled one of them across the table towards herself, opening up the lids, steam pouring from the now opened box. Inside a whole lot of green onions as well as two eggs could be seen floating on top of the noodles. “Yeah, this one’s mine.”

She took some time to check her various pockets of her trousers and jacket, however eventually she found enough credits to pay the droid with, handing them to it. With the scraping noise of metal and a sudden ring from a bell, a cash register like box popped open from the droids stomach. Carefully it placed the payment in it obviously being able to count that it had not received enough money for the entire order as it continued to stare at the two.

“Eeeh, where were we.” She begun as she snapped a pair of chopsticks apart: “Uh, oh yeah. Um, yeah, totally. We all need to start somewhere. But get that coding locked down, you can’t grab the big gigs without knowing how to code your own stuff. But for sure, the slicer scene here is much better than Coruscant. A total dump that place. Used to live there actually.” She started to break apart the eggs, mixing them with the noodle soup: “But military work? The thought of you doing that kind of stuff actually passed my mind.”

She opened her beer can with a sizzling pop.

“Cheers, dude.”

[member="Marcus Lok"]​

 

[Marcus Lok]

The sudden ping of the droid had caught his attention as it still demanded the fee for the carton that he was well on his way to popping open. Unlike the Ryn across the table, he had opted for something a bit more unique. The name on the listing had been too unique to pass up, and even though it was bound to a be a horrible knock off of one of his favorite drinks back home, he pulled the rather large can of Ne'tra gal from one of the refrigeration holsters of the rusted old unit and deposited his own chips into the droid's disjoined fingers.

"I've written a few things that make the job easier, but nothing like what I've seen on the net. Most of it's specialized, certain factions seem to use the same security boards for every monitor in their space, and that's all the better for us, 'eh?"

A slight smile would crack across his face as he popped his own can open and brought it slightly into the air to return the favor.

"Cheers."

The first few gulps were easy to get past, but soon enough he felt the odd after taste of manufactured, artificially enhanced flavor crawling down his throat and he put the can down. It wasn't bad, close as close could come in a can from a sidewalk chain on the smuggler's moon. He took the chopsticks in hand, and snapped them just as she had done, though he was obviously much less accustomed to using them. He fumbled to get them right in his hands for a few seconds before he finally remembered how that Atrisian chick on Ord Mantell had shown him how to use them for something other than a back scratcher. Soon he was well into his meal, and he could hardly complain! The best food often came from these corner joints, and he had just found a chain he might be frequenting a bit more on his trips to the undercity, as often as those might be.

"Y'know, I never really was a fan of this kind of food, but it's growing on me. You live On-Planet?"


[member="Jen"]