Stephen downed another cappuccino and looked back to his self-designed deck, 2,000,000,000 eurobucks! Stephen smiled at the thought of that much money, whoever his new employer was they had a lot of money. He began transferring the info to the more portable computer. Money was one less thing to worry about when this job was done-if he survived it. Stephen had been assigned to make a run on a small corporations R&D and install a Highlighter virus for future runs. He put the deck into his backpack and made his way through the crowded cafe into the even more crowded streets.
Stephen made it back to his new Bolt-Hole around 7pm, (the last one had been the recipient of an Urban Renewal (corp operations have been using a lot of dynamite lately). Stephen put a pot of coffee in the microwave and plugged the cortical stimulator into his temple. In a flash Stephen found himself in the virtual mainstream of the net.
Lights and pieces of data swirled around the intruder, Stephen searched his memory chips and activated Stumble Through Wilderspace. As the opening to the corp database appeared his prep activated and Stephen found himself being hurled in every direction. An ICE program began to assert itself upon Stephen's approach. Stephen made sure his Self-Modifying Code Program was running on full power and continued through the swirling virtual corridor. The ICE turned out to be a scrawny little Chihuahua. Stephen smiled to himself remembering his friends thoughts on the Proteus Hellhound. Almost to cute to kick, almost.
"Ouch!, You little booger, get off!", the Hellhound program disintegrated as it hit a wall. Steve's foot throbbed some, but it wasn't even irritating, he continued on. Stephen came to a Datacomb wall, laughed to himself, and gasped. Three Liches lined up infront of the wall. Liches were the meanest kind of Black Ice. Stephen looked in his memory for a "Killer" Ice Breaker, he came up with a Loony Goon. Uh-oh, he thought as the ICE began to advance. Stephen looked for any other programs worth using, Skullcap, Clown, and Self-Modifying Code!
Stephen said a prayer to himself and crossed his fingers. The Self-Modifying Code re-asserted itself into a seldom used Black Dahlia. Dahlia hit the first Liche head-on causing it to explode into little crystals of information. The second Liche advanced only to meet the same fate. But Dahlia stopped at the third one, Oh-no, thought Stephen, I'm spent on bits. He scrounged up just barely enough memory to keep the run from ending, the Liche had one subroutine left. Stephen activated his Skull Cap and prevented the psychological damage to his brain.
It was at that moment he remembered about the Datacomb. Please let me have a strong breaker..., he thought. A Ramming Piston shot past Stephen causing the largest explosion ever witnessed to the Runner. Stephen whipped around to see a back-up runner advancing with a Highlighter program activated.
"Bosses faith in you fell short when you didn't save enough bits for a Wallbreaker.", commented the other runner.
"You're welcome, you don't have ANY bits left. I had to deal with three Liches. If it weren't for me, you'd be nothing more than a drooling vegetable.", Stephen shot back.
"Three? Liches? Is the boss paying enough?"
"Hell no, I was about to use a Dropp when I hit the Liches."
The new runner glanced towards the freed information, "Whatever that agenda contains, it's big."
"First let's install the Highlighter, THEN you can take the bloody agenda.", resolved Stephen. Stephen jacked out, and the roomy Bolt-Hole came into view. He had let the other runner liberate the agenda, Stephen didn't want to risk the possibility of a Tag ambush. Two-Billion eurobucks had been moved to his account just seconds ago. Life was about to get good.
Wilson jacked out with the information from the agenda. This was going to make him verrrrry rich! What Wilson didn't know was that Trojan Horses sometimes take the form of agendas. The bomb under his desk hit 0:00.
Four miles away, Stephen sat back and downed another cappuccino.