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The Jackrabbit-
The mind of Jay Ethelon was broken
decades ago by the man who became Talon. As the delirium worsened, he has become a darker, deeper man than those
days, with an undiscovered secret that has made him the victim of attempts on
his life. There was a time when his friends were his everything, but times have changed.
A year and a half has passed since Jackrabbit stepped away from the OWF. A betrayer in their midst broke their little gang apart, and the Jackrabbit now stands as the weapon of an unlikely ally- the scheming Tero Haber.
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Vanilla-
The girl who calls herself Vanilla has
felt misunderstood her entire life. The Jackrabbit was the first person since
her sister Cassie that Vanilla could finally feel comfortable with.
But when her ex-boyfriend proposed to her, the Jackrabbit did something unthinkable. Vanilla betrayed her friends for reasons unknown, and this has led her to a homeless life on the streets- lost, alone, and broken. |
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Stevie Guile-
For nine long years, Stevie put his
personal life, and his own identity, aside to join the lunatic Jackrabbit on
the road, protecting him from the endless organisations trying to enslave him.
But when Vanilla betrayed them, Stevie was forced into hiding. An encounter with the omnipotent Hive-Mind has left Stevie reeling, and out of his depth in a war he only thought he understood. Once again returned to the Zero People faction, Stevie has one goal- to track down the Jackrabbit. |
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I�d been
out of the game for a while, but I didn�t think it had been that long. I�d hidden myself away in the
world�s most generic office block, using the name Stevie Mills to be the
world�s most generic worker drone. Forget mainframe sub-interfaces, the only
interfacing I�d been doing for two years was with an Excel spreadsheet. But I�d
kept on top of my extra-curricular activities, and in my down time I�d cracked
a few firewalls open, done a few of your base-line datasteals.
Nothing deep, just keeping my toes wet. I�d hijacked the office network and
overwritten a few of the IT guys� protocols, just to show myself I still could.
Resisted the urge to include a dick joke on their network names. Just. So when I
came back to the Zero People�s new cells, I didn�t expect to discover that I�d
become the Grandpa Joe of the keyboard warriors. Well, that�s just it, these
kids aren�t even using keyboards anymore. I�d seen
the new kits in use at the cell, big clunky looking headsets that the guys
would shove their faces inside. Ask me, they look ridiculous, flailing around
with these boxes on their faces, like they�re trapped in a Jigsaw contraption. I hit the
ignition button, listened to the humming die as my electric Fiat 500e came to a
halt. Yes, the car is yellow. It�s my gimmick, alright? I�d been PMed the location of this warehouse by one of the Zero
People techs, and had decided to be early to scope the place out. I don�t do
late; I don�t like panics or surprises or being on the back foot. Another of my
gimmicks. I clicked the unlock button, popped the doors open, and stepped out.
The gravel crunched under my boots as the door pushed shut behind me. The
warehouse couldn�t have seen use in years. The foliage was overgrown, moss had
begun to crawl up the hardboard walls, roof tiles broken on the ground, the
automatic door locked in position somewhere between open and closed. The
construction was shoddy, not a labor of love to begin with, but neglect had
left it a barely standing shack. The foundations had remained strong despite
time and the elements, defiant to the last, and a bastion for people like us
who took a little pleasure in places off the map. I tapped
the inside pocket of my grey overcoat, just to make sure the keys were in my
pocket. They were, and the car made a blip
blip as it locked shut behind me. I began the
trek across the gravel path leading up to the warehouse, ducked under the gate
in one fluid motion before catching my sleeve on the gate and stumbling into
the warehouse like a drunk clown. Two shafts
of light from a broken first floor window illuminated the large open space,
cardboard boxes rotted away to nothing, fodder for the slugs and maggots,
plastic pales and wooden crates remaining, dust covered, abandoned like
everything else. I checked
my wristwatch, the glow illuminating my face in the darkness, and confirmed
that- yes, I was early. I began my routine survey, checking the corners,
checking for power sockets, checking for anything that seemed amiss. Nothing
seemed amiss, this place was dead. A perfect hideaway, not unlike the dozens
and dozens I�d taken the Jackrabbit to when we ran from the impertinent doctor,
Libor Radnik. Or when we�d ran with Vanilla from the
madman Tero Haber. We seemed to do a lot of running back then. I�d
stopped running the day I handed back my badge to the Zero People. Figuratively
of course, secret underground activist groups don�t hand out badges. And I�d
found peace. Peace away from the high speed chases, away from the insane
man-child wrestler, away from the omnipotent psychic with visions of war. Yeah,
seriously. But the
peace ended the day NLW returned. The day I set out to find the Jackrabbit
before it was too late. I was
rescued from my musings by the lights flickering to life suddenly. Bulbs that
hadn�t been alive in a long time, restored to their luminance, fluorescent
beams breaking through layers of grime and dust. The warehouse, once a small
dark box, became a vast expanse of dilapidation in front of me. I put up a hand
to shield from the sudden brightness, squinted towards the door way where I
heard a laughing. Laughter took me back aways. �Hey hey, topman!� I heard the kid before I saw him from around the doorway. �I jumped the power relay, got it punched up
quick-time.� I saw a
younger me enter the warehouse, clad in brown leathers, shirt tucked in
underneath. I figured he�d come on a bike, most likely. Dangly bits of�
something... hung from his wrists beside a touch screen embedded there. A
smattering of shadow lined his lower jaw, and that trendy hairstyle the kids do
now, shaved around the edges, slightly floppy on one side. He�d foregone dye
though, a small mercy. �Stevie Guile,� I offered by way of introduction, as the
kid crossed the warehouse in my direction, a bundle of cables and kit under his
arm. �Seph,� he replied back, �Seph Nexus.� I raised
an eyebrow at him, like really? �Hey, don�t hate,� he replied, acknowledging the look, �like Guile is your real name?� Fair
point. �Sorry
about the cloak-n-dagger, keepin� this low, feds
heavy in this state.� �Yeah, I know� I said, �This isn�t my first rodeo, Seph.� �Maybe not the way you rodeoed, but we
don�t cowboy anymore Steveo. This is the new shit.� Seph held
up the bundle of cables, and I recognized the black box, the Jigsaw contraption.
This is why Jed had set up this meet-and-greet. He�d never say it to my face,
but the old man thought I was out of touch, losing pace. �So this is� uhm� virtual reality?� �That�s the street name, sure. Kids playing
�Craft on these kits. But we�re repurposing, ghosting these bosses. Flash the
OS and we go in clean.� Okay,
maybe a little out of touch. �I�ve never�� I start to explain. �I�m au fait� he cut me off, and apparently he was. �You�re a virgin. It�s tiptop, we�ll just
hook you up gentle. All the same as what you�re used to, still knocking
firewalls, cracking ports, blocking the antis. But in here you don�t write it,
you feel it, topman.� �Alright, yeah. Yeah. Feel it�� I repeated, Seph already moving around me,
giving me a gentle nudge out of the way to gain access to one of the power
ports behind me. He brushed the dust off the plastic casing and inserted
something, a black plug with a single port, in which there was some kind of
flash drive. It blinked to life, small blue LED flickering in defiance of the
darkness from the already-failing lights above. Seph
didn�t connect the black box to anything, but a similar blue light flickered on
its side, so I guessed it was connected wirelessly. I felt like a mannequin,
just standing there hands in pockets, watching this kid set up the gear around
me. Finally, he squared up to me; the box in his hand like a gauntlet, I felt
like he might slap me with it. �This is the set- Rift, Vive, it makes no
difference, we white-wash them all the same. It�s custom ware, our own OS, it�s
like...� he was
searching for the word, �an interface,
topman. It�s an interface, cleaner than a stream of dots and slashes. No
keyboard shit, just the ware. Job that takes you thirty, we do it in five with
the set.� �Alright, yeah, sounds cool� tiptop,� I say, immediately wanting to throw up in
my own mouth �I got this�.� I nodded,
feigned enthusiasm, hands out of pockets now, showing willing. �It�s safe?� I add quickly. �Yeah, we can pull you from this side. Anything
goes pear, you just go offline. Worst we seen is a headache, the firewalls
getting smarter, they starting to fight back with sims- uh, simulations- it�s
real in there. Not real out here, but you tell that to a topman who�s logged,
right? So he goes ape, they show him shit to really rattle his cage, and he
comes out all epilepsy, total mindfuck right?� �Right,� I say, not right at all. He was connecting
up some hoop-looking things, plastic, black like the box. �Happens one in a mill�. No fear here
though, Steveo, this is trial run city. Closed loop. We�re
just putting you in with another guy from back home, he�s logging on a twin
kit. Virgin too, name�s Jenson, gonna hit you up online. Like a PM, but� you
know� in your head.� He handed
me the black box, the headset, like that was all he needed to say, and began
strapping those hoop things to each of my wrists. Already, I was longing for a
mouse, keyboard, laptop screen. What the hell was wrong with a laptop screen? I
lifted the set to my head, instinctive like putting on a mask, a heavy mask
with no eyeholes and a blinking LED. The darkness engulfed me and somewhere I
heard Seph saying �You�re online, topman�
and then there was nothing. * * * People
flocked to disasters like flies to shit. Vanilla had witnessed her share of this,
seen enough friends OD during her teenage years. Everybody wanted to know
someone involved. To be a piece of the activity. People who hadn�t given a fuck
for ten years before were suddenly the lovers, the best friends, the cousins
twice removed. Time evaporated, past disputes became forgotten; all for a bit
of the attention, some first-hand information. Vanilla resented
the hypocrisy, had hated the attention seekers. She had been content to cross
another name off the list, another unspoken goodbye, and life moved on. Spyke
had been the most recent tragedy in a long line, another person Vanilla had
turned her back on and walked away from. It was how she�d survived, how she�d
gotten this far. The �flies�
had found a nice steaming new pile as she approached the apartment block. She�d
been heading in the direction of the last NLW show, their second Rebirth show, when
she�d seen the commotion. The blue cascade of emergency lights, the thick
yellow tape to cordon the area. Pigs in suits blocking the corners, squad cars
in a queue, a regular cacophony of calamity. Probably a stabbing, a shooting
maybe, Vanilla figured. �It�s one of
them,� she�d heard an officer say, �A
Fatebreaker Incident. It�s on the news already.� She
continued on her path past the apartment, caught her reflection in the car window,
a hooded skeleton stared back at her. Dark eyes, fraying hair, cheekbones gaunt
and loose skin at the neck. She scowled at it, the demon haunted her everywhere
she went, and continued on her path. Jackrabbit had been there, facing an old
nemesis in Nick Perry. Been and gone. What did she hope to find at the arena?
Echoes of the past, perhaps, calling her back? What would she say to him, her
wrestling champion, her �Rabbit? �Forgive
me� or �fuck you�, they both felt
pertinent now. Would he save her, or would she save him? �The ice-cream girl?� The
child-like voice startled her from her musings, jolted back to reality. She
glanced about her, looking for the source of the words. Memories on the wind,
drowned out by emergency sirens. She found
him sat by one of the police cones, huddled up tight, a blanket draped around
his shoulders. A small boy, ginger hair and freckles. Not who she was hoping
for. �I saw you. In here,� he said, and brought a pale hand to his temple,
pressed it there. Vanilla had frozen on the spot, regarding the unusual child
cautiously, like a stray offered a bite. Her stomach had long ceased growling
at the thought of food. �Is he yours?� the boy asked. She
narrowed dark eyes, and began to move past him. Strange child, sent to taunt
her. �Can you make me forget?� his tiny voice, a plea. It brought her
back to him, but she kept the hood of the vehicle between them, a safety
barrier. �Who- who are you?� she asked, the only question she could think
of. Pointless. �Ricky. Howard.� �Ricky Howard� right,� Pointless. �I�m Vanilla.� �Can you fix me?� he asked, clambering to his feet, blanket
still around him, hope in his lost eyes. Misplaced hope. She took a step back
instinctively. �What is... wrong?� �I remember them all,� Ricky said, both hands at his temples now.
�That�s� that�s good� she said, unsure, feigned smile. �Sometimes memory is all we have.� �No,� he said, voice stern, adult suddenly. �I want to forget. I don�t know them, but I
do. I never loved them, but I do. Who are these people?� �That�s�� She glanced around, maybe somebody else
could intervene here, with this child now madder than he had seemed. Nobody.
Alone again. �They�re not mine. Monica. Erica. Casey. I
remember it all. Did I kiss them? Did I marry them? These aren�t mine, these
are his. Sometimes I�m me, sometimes I�m him, sometimes I forget which is
which. Am I me? Am I him?� �Who?� �Howard�� Ricky
shuffled towards her now, tiny zombie, arms outstretched. What did he want from
her? She had nothing to give. �Yeah, I� sorry kid, I don�t�� She had tried to help before. She had
tried to help Jackrabbit, failed. She had tried to help Cassie, and for what?
Who had she helped? She had thrown it all away, and why? Vanilla no longer
helped. Vanilla no longer felt. �But you can. I saw you when he came. I
saw you, the ice-cream girl, so dear to him, the liar, the friend, the
betrayer�� The echoes
of the past. Calling her back. �What� did you�?� �That�s how he saw you. The man that came.
The man that made me be Howard. The man that took his memories.� Someone
else had lost memories once. Spyke. Andrew. He�d forgotten everything about her
in a single instant, his mind wiped clean of a hundred days and nights, his
life becoming a nausea of contradiction in one blinding moment of passion and
rage. The passion and rage of the Jackrabbit. ��Rabbit?!
�Rabbit did this?� * * * At first I see darkness, and hear only a
hum, static electricity. Then a woosh and it�s all
around me. I feel like opening my eyes, though they�re already open, staring at
blazing orange columns and tessellating pillars of light. Wires like wildfires
streak from each, tails of crimson. Silhouettes, hundreds of them- thousands of
them. Shapes like people, miniature, like tiny hand-held people rising up and
down and all around me. I spin on the spot, no floor beneath my feet. More
hand-held people, their features lost into pulsating blue-grey blurs. I reach
out to touch them, but I have no hands. Somewhere I�m conscious that I am staring
into the inside of big black box in a derelict warehouse. But the hand-held
people begin to rush past me, a torrent of flying ant-people. I duck out of the
way instinctively, but they go through me like ghosts. My heart is going ten a dozen,
beating away in some other realm. The shapes are growing, miniatures become
midgets, midgets become people, walking alongside me. Featureless silhouettes
going about their day, ignoring me as I wander aimlessly amongst them in a
pitch black world. One jostles me, though I feel nothing, and I spin again. They�re
closer. Surrounding me. Engulfing me. My feet give way beneath me, though I
have no feet, no floor to fall to, just a black embrace. �Keep it straight, topman. Focus on the script.� The script? It�s the kid�s voice,
somewhere in this void, but it makes no sense to me. What script? Nobody gave
me a script! I stagger to my knees, probably,
surrounded by the crowd of digital phantoms. Here but not here. The script?
Like script language. Programming code. The silhouettes are code, just an interface
like everything in here. I see the wildfire wires; connections between systems.
Pillars of software hubs. Columns of databases. I see the users, like
silhouettes, a hundred jockeys riding this trip. With this understanding I begin to apply
some basic logic, hacking stored information, like a screen without a screen.
Dots and slashes. >//ident.users Names, identities blinking to life in
front of each silhouette, little hovering name badges. AcaoHet,
Shano2k939, Erlkindred, 5h4d3y, K1tten2309. Names
without faces, shadows in a light show. I feel something nudging against my
conscience, an incessant buzzing in the mind. No, a signal. A ping. I embrace it, answer the call. >ping.accept[] One shadow puppet from the crowd is pulled
towards me, its companions receding into the darkness, retreating to the fire
tower. >user.0Jenson0//pmaccept The silhouette gave way to dark features;
eyes, hair, skin a harmony of brown. �Stevie Guile.� I say, quickly adding �First time too?� �Yes. I guess they
never heard of the phone?� �Right!� I reply, lamely. I�m distracted by the
plethora of information about Jenson that is leaping from his� avatar, known
facts floating around him like gnats. I idly swat at his birth date, and watch
it blip out of existence. �I have sought you for
some time, Stevie Guile.� �Sought me?� I thought this was just a random meet-up,
just trialing the VR interfaces. I�m instantly on guard, on edge. I have been sought too often before, and it has never
ended well for me. Or those I cared about. Jackrabbit. Vanilla. Mom. �I have some questions
for you,� Jenson
says plainly, �Just questions� he
adds, sensing my hesitancy even through this simulated avatar. �Well I don�t know if
I have answers. I�ve only just� god, I�ve
never met
you.� �No, but you know me
better than you think. My name is Jenson�� He offers a hand. It�s not his hand
though. No hands in here. �I know your damn name;
I�ve got your family tree floating in front of my fuckin� nose. Who are you?� �I once travelled with
The Enigma.� �Talon.� There�s a nice I never wanted to say
again. The fighting philosopher, the bigoted bully. He called himself �The
Hunter�, but the only thing he hunted was ways to bend you to his agenda. Jenson nods, crossing his arms on his
chest. I sense his own discomfort at the name from the body language, guess
that stuff isn�t so easily hidden in this interface. I wonder suddenly how much
of myself I�m giving away. Information highway indeed. I unfold my arms. �Why the fuck would I
want to share anything with one of Talon�s lackeys?� �I�m not what I once
was. I�m with you now, Zero People.� �You�re infiltrating
us!?� I swing at him, fist aimed at his head. Knuckles
penetrate his nose and eye socket. Scatter his temple into fragments. The shards
slide along the flat of my forearm, ping off into the expanse. I stagger
forward past him. Jenson�s face reconstructs itself instantly, and I
rubber-band right back to where I was stood, facing him down. Nothing happened.
�Chill Steveo, Jens is cool.� Regaining my composure, I ignore Seph�s voice in the sky, and begin to formulate an attack
in a language this place will understand. >//deconstruct.user/0Jen_ �I�m
not infiltrating,� Jenson says quickly, perhaps guessing at my intent. �I left him behind. I need your help.� �Why would I help you?
How could I help you?� �I need to find the
Jackrabbit.� I snort, and somehow that translates just
fine in the web. #snort, I guess. Find �Rabbit?
You and me both, buddy. �It�s
not that easy,� I say, reaching up to adjust my yellow tie only to remember
it�s not there. Nothing is here. Jenson stands silhouetted against the blazing
databank behind him, a dark shade from a dark past, asking for my trust. I
couldn�t give him what he needs, even if I�d wanted to. Would that I could. His
goal is my goal, to bring the Jackrabbit back home. But that goal is a long way
off now. �Why not?� he demands, and I turn my back. A lattice
of criss-cross datastreams
snake by. �Because he left us!� I yell into the night, and my voice seems
to flicker the data snakes. They continue their journey, unabated. My voice
goes soft now, my pain bare. �He�s with
Tero Haber now. He�s with the Council.� >//end.session[] * * * Tero Haber
hated books. In a world where the entirety of human knowledge and understanding
could be accessed at the press of a button, why on earth did people still
insist on storing information on pieces of dead tree? Mindless baboons. He sat in
a pile of torn up, hand-written garbage. The information he�d been finding in
here was worth less than the ink it was written in, and to a man with the
financial backing of The Council of Knowledge, that worth wasn�t much. The
dithering old crone must have spent years of his infernally long-lived life
putting his pointless thoughts down in writing. Tero had read about a string of
romances, romances about as sordid as an episode of Silicon Valley. If the
information Tero sought wasn�t in these dusty old tomes soon, he was going to
fire the man who�d provided the intel. No, he was going to fire the man who
provided the intel and get all of his
family members fired from their respective jobs, too. He had risked exposing
his newest prize to make this room available to him, after all. Tero
glanced at the bookcases through his shades, which he had refused to take off
inside the house because he might get dust in his eyes. He had regular
ophthalmology appointments and wasn�t going to jeopardize months of hard work for
the sake of some books. There must have been a dozen bookshelves in this tiny
low-rent apartment block, like a rotten library, and he�d only cleared half of
them. The other half he�d shoved a bunch of dumb candles against. He reached
up to the Bluetooth receiver in his ear, clicking it on. There must be somebody he could hire to come
and read these books for him. In fact, if he got a bartender to come do it, he
could sup a Hyldeblomst cocktail whilst the man read the tomes to him. That
would improve this miserable affair. The door
creaked open, frustrating Tero once again at the lack of automatic doors here.
A figure entered, and Tero prepared to launch into a tirade about distracting
him from his elderflower beverage. The man
entered, a mass of muscle and unkempt blonde hair. Behind him, a set of steel
chains dragged along the floor, making dull thuds as they ran across gaps in
the floorboards. A conspicuous orange mask, the image of a tiger, sat at odds
on his hand. �Mr. Ethelon, must you insist on keeping
that?� The
Jackrabbit entered the small room, surveying the mass of torn pages lying
around Tero. His eyes flitting to the mask draped over his balled fist. �A trophy of a valiantly fallen prince,� he said, his voice deep in contrast to
the higher pitch of Haber�s Scandinavian inflection, �I keep the past close, where I can see it. And the Happy Kitty�. meeeeoowwwww� is a thing of the past.� �Well,� Tero replied, �it�s unsightly.� He diverted his shaded eyes from the whiskered
cloth, glancing once again to the books around him. He clucked his tongue,
tutting heavily, before launching one of the books in Jackrabbit�s direction,
clearly aiming to miss. �They�re useless!� he insisted, �You brought me useless scraps of papyrus!� �The books were your prize,�
the Jackrabbit replied coolly, �Scribbles
and doodles for boys and girls. Not for me, I have grander visions. I did your
work�� �Yes yes, and I
got you back into that little wrestling thing of yours, didn�t I? And I met all
of your demands relating to those urchins you travelled with.� The Jackrabbit
laughed, the noise echoing around the small room. Tero stood, kicking at the
books and righting his shades. �Shackles,� Jackrabbit corrected suddenly, laughter
abated, and seemingly his addressing Nick Perry�s tiger mask, still on his
hand. �The shackles on my feet. You
removed the shackles, released the Fatemaker, allowed me the rebirth necessary
to buckle the NLW.� �Yes yes,� Tero waved a hand in circles,
dismissively. This conversation did nothing for him, gained him none of the
information they�d come here for, and got him no closer to gin-based cocktails.
�And now I have you, my willing puppet,
and what a fine job you made of old Howard. But you�re a fool if you think-� Tero found
the Jackrabbit suddenly a lot closer than he was expecting, that damned tiger
mask inches from his face, the holes that were its eyes somehow piercing into
him. �Personal space, personal space...� he insisted. This accursed room was much
too small to move around the six-foot man imposing on him. He puts up both hands
to keep the Jackrabbit back, but it was in vain. The man had a hundred pounds
on him. �Willing puppet? Fool?� the Jackrabbit�s breath was hot on Tero�s
face, he could almost feel the temper radiating from the man. �I didn�t... I didn�t say fool, Jay, I said�
I said �friend�� Friend. Now, with
the accent you may have�� �Friends and fools, fools and friends.
Lines blurred down the middle for me, Haber. So which is it? Am I your foolish
friend or your friendly fool?� Not
waiting for a reply, Tero suddenly found his personal space returned as the
Jackrabbit moved briskly across the room, muttering to the mask. Tero
straightened his cotton shirt, ignored the ketchup stain on the chest, brushed
off his chinos, bought a moment. He knew this man would be a wild-card from the
moment he began to hunt him. A valuable wildcard, an asset, but a wildcard all
the same. Like all assets, he just had to understand the data, discover its
critical pressure points, manipulate that information, position it in its
place. �Well� friend�� Tero clicked his earpiece, enabled dialer
options, began to ring through to his bartender. He addressed the Jackrabbit as
the dialing tone began in his ear. �I
have another job for you.� Jackrabbit
straightened up, almost to attention; that was good. Tero valued attentiveness
in his assets. �Yes, immediately� Tero said down the earpiece, �Bring me a Hyldeblomst too.� With that
taken care of, he turned back to the Jackrabbit. �Now what was I doing? Ah yes, your job. I
want you to break that girl. Break her into tiny little pieces, leave her mind
a shattered husk. When you�re done, I don�t want her to even know left from
right.� �Girl?� he asked, those calculating blue eyes
narrowing a little. �Yes, what was her name now? Candy? Sugar?
Oh yes, that�s right� Vanilla.� *
* *
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