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XL-Story: The fall of Tech Haven

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Chapter 30: Wires

Postby Lisa Merlins » Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:12 pm

From the high hills, Husk observed Marcus Blade being captured by the occupants of the APC. He swore to himself and opened a com-link to Brammers.

“Sir, they got Marcus. An APC just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Dammit. Give me a location on that convoy of APC’s. Defence teams are on their way to the Twilight Guardian Entrance. ETA 1 minute.”

Husk looked south. There was now a wall of sand blocking any view. They had done a good job of covering their tracks, as the ten APC’s was nowhere to be seen.

“Shit. Sir I’ve lost them. They kicked up a good sandstorm.”, reported Husk.

“Ok get back to Syncon lab, and get those people who are there out.”

Brammers remembered Tricia was at the lab. “Husk, please take care of Tricia.”. He did not like asking Section 2 to be responsible for the life of his Fiancé, Tricia. That job he felt was ultimately his, but he was left with little choice in the current situation.

“Yes Sir. Kolesar, get running.” Husk knew what he had to do. He started running down the hill with Kolesar not far behind him, towards the lab. As Husk ran he waved and pointed to the two girls to get down below.

The two green haired girls, Tricia and Siona saw Husk waving his hands madly in the air. “We better get down below. Something is up.”, Tricia calmly said. Siona nodded, and they started making a run for the lab underground entrance.

The two girls opened the heavy door, and climbed down the ladder inside. Less that thirty seconds later, they heard the door above being closed. Husk and Kolesar climbed down.

“What’s happening?”, Tricia worriedly asked.

“Dam Admin. They are going to raid the Dome, and they got Marcus.”, replied Husk.

“We better get back to the Dome then.”, said Siona.

“That’s a negative. Brammers is getting a defence team together.”. Husk realised he had said too much, when he saw the very worried look on Tricia’s face.

“Look if he’s going to fight. I’m fighting next to him.” Husk realised it was going to be near enough impossible to stop Tricia. She started making her way to the Genrep that had just recently been placed in the lab underground. She opened the controls, and then hit with her fist.

“No! They haven’t connected this Genrep up to the main network.”

“Look. We are safe for the moment; the security on the door will stop them from getting in. My orders are to keep you all safe, and there is no way I’m letting anyone go back up.”

Tricia sighed. “What about the meantime? Surely between the four of us we can wire up a Genrep?”

Kolesar looked at the Genrep. “Erm no cable?” Husks walked up to the Genrep and pulled it away from the wall along the floor. The unconnected cable fell out of the back. Kolesar, Tricia and Siona all looked at Husk.

”What you looking at me for? I know everything about big guns, security and tactics, but for Crahn’s sake don’t ask me to wire up a Genrep.”

Kolesar, Tricia and Siona all got to work on wiring up the Genrep.
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Chapter 31: Defence positions.

Postby Lisa Merlins » Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:21 pm

Brammers opened the Faction channel on his com-link. “Killer, Ressi, Garyu we got a situation. City Admin raid.”. He then switched to the private Phoenix channel. “All section 2 to Sector 1 entrance, grab every clip you have, we have a raid on our hands.”

He jumped up to the go-guardian and opened it. He grab the few remaining drones that he had available, and looked around for his power armour. It was no where to be seen.

“Damm.”, and he started running though Fallen Angels HQ to the entrance. Outside he saw [TgR]Killer, with his clan members. “How many sir?”

“Ten APC’s spotted so far.”, replied Brammers. [TgR]Killer looked grimly at Brammers. Hiro Blackstone ran past Brammers leading most of Section 2, who was struggling to get their armour on, and their weapons loaded.

“Lets go!”

[TgR]Killer and Brammers with a force of forty Fallen Angels ran through a deserted Sector 1 of the Dome. On the way, he heard Garyu shout on the faction com-link that eXo was on route to sector 1. Brammers stopped at the nearest Twilight Runner, while the rest of the force ran on towards the main Dome entrance.

“Where are the Guardian?”, Brammers asked the runner urgently.

“They are at Military Base.”, replied the lone runner.

“Let them know City Admin are here.”

“Ohh…ok sir!”

“Trust the Guardian for bad timing.”, Brammers thought to himself, they had to go on a raid of their own and leave Sector 1 undefended. If Marcus’s report of ten APC’s was correct and if they were all full, that meant a force of at least sixty runners, or worse case, sixty Elite Storm Bots. Sixty runners the small Fallen Angels force could just handle, but sixty Elite Storm Bots, this was going to be a case of Droms to the slaughter.

He carried on running towards the Dome entrance where all the runners were taking up position to defend the Entrance in sector K14. He spotted Hiro Blackstone loading a Moonstriker, and his Wife Maggie Blackstone casting buffs to everyone near her.

SanityIsLost came up to Brammers. “Dude they have a group of ten APCs holding position south in this sector, and they have successfully evaded the DoY defence units.”

This was turning into a nightmare. How did they get past the DoY bots so quickly?

“Ok everyone, get in position and keep a free mind. They may have taken our old home, but they are not going to take this home. Let’s get those bastards and…”

Brammers stopped speaking. There was a faint eerie screeching sound in the air. Brammers recognised the sound, but before he could shout out a warning to everyone, someone managed to shout a warning before him.

“KAMIKAZE DRONE! TAKE COVER!”

Everyone dived for cover as the screeching sound got louder.

ooc: Final part later tonight or tomorrow evening!
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Postby sanityislost » Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:21 am

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet nice one dude, Go CA rawr!

SiL ..:..
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Re: Chapter 26: You got mail

Postby garyu69 » Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:22 pm

Lisa Merlins wrote:The first message subject read “XXX I’m your hot pepper girl – get me the way you like it.”, and the second subject read “Cheap Black Dragon Viagra – the real hard stuff!”

Spam she thought. Garyu69 was not going to need those messages.
Yes....... spam...... thats what it was :oops:


ooc: Awesome story
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Chapter 32: Lost Angels

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:19 am

Brammers and SanityIsLost jumped over the edge of the entrance platform, as the screeching sound got louder. It was a ten foot drop to the sand of the desert, which was littered with empty crates and rubbish.

SanityIsLost managed to land feet first, however for Brammers the landing was a little painful, as Brammers landed front first, on top of an old crate. The crate crumbled as Brammers fell on it, and an old booze bottle inside the crate also broke. Brammers was not going to be happy fighting, smelling of powerbooze gold, yet alone having to put up with the wooden splinters.

The screeching noise stopped, and a Kamikaze drone half buried itself, noise first in the sand right in front of Brammers’s head.

For a longest second that Brammers could have ever known, he looked at the Kamikaze drone’s glowing propulsion drive, trying to scramble up and get away. SanityIsLost pulled Brammers backwards away from the drone, while Maggie Blackstone casted a shelter, deflector and heal on both of them from the entrance platform above. The chances of surviving a Kamikaze drone explosion at point blank range, even with buffs, was close to zero. Maggie knew this, but she wasn’t going to count the odds.

Then the glow of the drone’s propulsion drive faded. By this time Brammers and SanityIsLost had got ten feet away from the deadly drone.

“I think the rigger lost it.”, shouted Maggie.

SanityIsLost and Brammers turned around. Sure the drone was now lifeless. Brammers looked more closely at the drone. He then spotted something white wrapped around the drone.

He carefully approached the drone, just in case it was a nutter rigger was controlling it. He knelled down and slowly he dragged it out of the sand. Wrapped around the drone was a white cloth, which Brammers started to unwrap from the drone.

“Dude does that droner want to surrender?”, asked SanityIsLost staying ten steps behind Brammers.

”I think he does.”, said Brammers as he finished unwrapping the white cloth, which had markings on it.

“APC’s still holding position, we are in position to fire when they get in range.”, shouted a voice from above.

Brammers unfolded the cloth, and laid it out. On the top was a badly drawn out bird, which almost resembled the Phoenix logo and below the logo, the words “Phoenix Ltd” was written. He turned the cloth over.

”Helius code 200172-2100-PBH - Good morning Sir.”

Brammers knew only two people knew that code. He was one of them. He sprung up. “Hold fire. Do not fire unless fired upon.” He ran around to the ramp to the entrance and to the top of the ramp. He waved the white cloth as high as he could. One of the APC’s in the convoy moved slowly forward towards the entrance.

[TgR]Killer looked at Brammers who was very puzzled.

“Sir, the APC is now in range, shall I fire?”, shouted an TgR Gentank holding a anti-vehicle rocket launcher.

[TgR]Killer looked at Brammers, “Negative, just keep it locked on target.”, replied [TgR]Killer. He sure hoped Brammers knew what he was doing.

The gunner on top of the APC locked the 30mm cannon into the safe position and raised his hands in the air to surrender. Slowly the APC approached the ramp and stopped ten feet away. The engine on APC turned off, and a door opened. A monk stepped out, which Brammers recognised.

“Marcus? What the hell is going on?”

”Boss, this is a convoy of lost Fallen Angels who request re-registration with the faction, and also there are some City Admin runners who seek political asylum.”

A familiar looking female poped her head up from the driver’s seat and waved. “Morning Sir!”

“Sedna!”,greeted Brammers.

The gunner on the top of the APC removed his helmet. Brammers blinked as he recognised the GenTank as one of the missing House DoY members.

“Mario! You are alive!”, shouted a ecstatic female in the background. Another runner stepped out of the APC.

“Morning sir, can I have my drone back please?”

“Morpheous! You are alive!”, said Brammers joyfully.

“Indeed sir, my report will be presented shortly, but sir we have ten APC’s full of members of Fallen Angels who was captured by City Admin at Tech Haven. There are also some City Admin runners who are seeking political asylum. They helped us escape from City Admin.”

Even though their was no official Fallen Angels Runner Council, Brammers wasn’t sure if he still had the authority. “I will grant that.”, replied Brammers.

Morpheous tuned around and waved the other remaining to come towards the entrance. Each APC started to approach the entrance slowly, and in the cases of where the APC’s cannon were manned, the Gentanks locked down the cannon and raised his hands in the air to show no hostility.

All the APC’s stopped at the entrance, and all the runners got out. Most of the runners was from House DoY, and there was also a few eXo and TgR members as well. For nearly everyone it was a reunion of lost members of Fallen Angels. In the sea of runners, Brammers could not spot any more Phoenix runners.

“How many from Phoenix in this convoy?”, Brammers asked Morpheous.

“Just me and Sedna sir. I regret we didn’t pull Lisa out of Gravis uplink before City Admin raided. Wraith was with Allure when myself and Sedna escaped from Gravis. They helped us escape, but they never came through the Tech haven genreps. I don’t know if they are alive or dead.”, reported Morpheous.

”We better tell Garyu when we have re-registered your Fallen Angels citizenship. Allure is an eXo member.”

Morpheous nodded as the crowd of runners started to make their way inside of the Dome. Brammers remembered something. He opened his com-link to Husk to hear arguments in the background.

“No, that wire goes there!”, shouted a female voice.

“Husk?”, Brammers said.

“Sir! Everything ok?”

“Indeed it is. The APC convoy was full of our runners. It’s safe to come out. Sedna and Morpheous are back!”
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Chapter 33: Lost message

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:24 am

Freeman Abt certainly wished he had taken the day off. He had arrived for work in the Fallen Angels HQ, to see a line of runners waiting at his desk. Brammers, [TgR]Killer, Ressi and Garyu were there waiting for him to arrive.

“Morning Free minds!”, he greeted.

“Morning Mr Abt. A convoy of lost Fallen Angels has just arrived. Can you re-register them all with the faction please? Most of the clan leaders are here who will vouch for them. As for the runners seeking political asylum, myself and the last elected vice chairperson will grant them on an case by case basis.”

“Ermm…ok, new rules came into force a week ago. All runners who seek political asylum must have a supporting clan.”

”That’s not a problem Mr Abt.”

“Ok then, so who’s first?”, said Freeman looking at the long line.

After about an hour Freeman Abt had processed nearly everyone. A few runners proved to be difficult, when they found out their clan leader had gone missing. Some runners were also independent Fallen Angels, and Brammers had to pull a bit of weight with Freeman Abt to get them re-registered them as a Fallen Angel.

Brammers came over to Morpheous and Sedna who had been busy looking around the Fallen Angels HQ.

“Ok is everything ok?”, ask Brammers

“Yes Mr Brammers.”, replied Sedna.

“Right then, I better show you to the temporary Phoenix HQ. Let me warn you, it’s a far cry from our Tech Haven HQ. Follow me.”

Brammers lead Morpheous and Sedna to the outside of Fallen Angels HQ to sector 3 of the Dome.

“Hmm look like a bomb hit the Dome of York.”, commented Morpheous.

“You are not far wrong Morpheous. City Admim…Ouch dam interference on faction chat.”, complained Brammers, adjusting his com-link.

Sure enough there was a loud burst of noise on the faction com-link channel.

“Beep Boop Beep Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop BeepBoop Dat Beep Boop Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Beep Beep Boop Boop Dat Boop Boop Boop Beep Beep Beep Beep Boop Beep Boop Boop Beep Beep Beep Boop Boop Dat Boop Beep Boop Beep Boop Boop Boop Beep Dat Boop Boop Boop Boop Boop Beep Boop Boop Beep”

“The technicians will filter it out in a sec. Erm you two ok?”, said Brammers looking at Morpheous and Sedna. They were both looking at each other in astonishment, as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

“Sir, that is Lisa!”

Now Brammers was looking at Morpheous and Sedna in astonishment. “How is that possible?”, he asked.

“That was the same sort of sound pattern she used in Gravis uplink to communicate to us before we was raided.”, Sedna explained.

“Can we decode it?”, asked Brammers.

“Doesn’t need decoding sir, it needs translating. I’m on it right now.”, said Morpheous grabbing his Hacktool.

Morpheous pressed a few keys on his Hacktool, and a processing message came up. Then after a few moments a message came up that read “Tachhevan brodga stirega arae sox” He looked puzzled for a moment, before he called up a matrix display and swapping a few letters around. This time, a more readable message was displayed.

“Techhaven bridge storage area six”. Morpheous showed Brammers. “That’s the translated message, but I don’t have a clue where that is.”

Brammers looked at message. “I don’t either.”. He opened a channel on his com-link.

“Husk, have you heard of anywhere call Techhaven bridge storage area six?”

“Erm no sir, but I think the codestreamers may know, want me to ask them?”

“Please do, and get them to Phoenix HQ immediately. We may have located Lisa.”

“Sir?! Erm yes Sir, see you in HQ in five minutes.”, replied Husk. Brammers closed the com-link. “Lets go.”
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Chapter 34: Mission planning

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:28 am

Around the table of Phoenix HQ sat Brammers, Marcus, Husk, Sedna and Morpheous, waiting for the rest of the Section 2 codesteamers to arrive. Marcus was looking on his RN terminal for a map.

“Hmm, boss. I can find a Techhaven Bridge in the hacknet map, but no mention of storage area six.”

“Hold on Marcus, we may as well wait for the experts to get here.”

Upstairs on the second floor, the doors creaked open, and three runners entered. They made their way down to the meeting table.

“DarkHalo reporting sir.”, replied the lead runner. The other two runners sat quietly down.

“Ok then, do you know where Techhaven bridge storage area six is?”, Brammers asked DarkHalo.

DarkHalo looked sharply into the air. “Techhaven Bridge, yes. Storage area six no. However there is an area labelled infected storage area six. Could be the same thing.”

Husk thought for a second. “Sounds like the best place to start.”

“Indeed. Ok then, I want you and the rest of the codestreamers to head their and find Lisa Merlins. She’s one of our missing members.”. The other two quiet runners started to wince.

“Sir, it’s very dangerous at the Techhaven Bridge. No hacker has made it out of their without suffering serious NT. Also these two hackers are still in training. I hate to say it, we need more hackers if we are even to attempt to get there.”

“NT?”, asked Sedna.

“Neural trauma.”, replied DarkHalo.

Morpheous coughed. “Erm, I’m a hacker as well, and so is Sedna.”

“You are Morpheous? Didn’t you crack the I.R.S. Kansas City D-Base?”, asked DarkHalo.

“No that was cracked by someone called Trinity. I cracked the Tangent inner core.”

“WOW!”, said DarkHalo. “Sir I think we can do it, and we just got hold of some new multi-link software version 1.2”

“Oh cool, can I have a copy please?” Morpheous said.

“I take it we have a go?”, Brammers asked.

“Yeah we do. Oh hang on, you two have jacked into the Hacknet?”, ask DarkHalo.

“Yes we have, quite a few times, but we lacked the software to get anyway far. Mind you it's been fun causing problems for City Admin.”

“Hmm…we better try the software at the first travel-zone. Mr Brammers, I think we are ready.”

“Ok then, get her back, and be safe…in there.”
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Chapter 35: Into the hackers world

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:36 am

Morpheous, Sedna, DarkHalo and the other two Phoenix codestreamers got up and headed upstairs to the Genrep. One by one, they opened their hacktools and activated the connection program, that all hacktools had in them. The connection program had been built into all hacktools for years. However like many things, it was one of things that didn’t work. That was until a few months ago, when a hacker was messing around a genrep and tried the connection program.

The hacker thought someone was smoking something dodgy near him and he had been on a mind-trip of a lifetime. Then stories started to spring up about the newly discovered hacking world, and fights between daemons and corrupt packets was starting to become the topic of discussion at faction bars. What no-one could explain was how or why people could travel in a virtual world.

As soon as the five Codesteamers arrived in the virtual world, which was labelled Fallen Angels DNS, they started taking the path to the outer networks. All five runners glowed a orange colour, and it was very difficult to make out who was who, as they looked identical, except for Sedna. The only comment she made about her orange virtual appearance was that her ass looked big, which made the other four male codestreamers crack up laughing for a few minutes.

They arrived at the connection node to the first Travel Zone. “Ok everyone ready?”. All five codestreamers initialised their multilink software. White weapons with four pulsing spikes morphed out of their hands. Next their defence program initialised and all of them heard a buzz of a shield falling into place.

”Lets go.”. The five codestreamers morphed through the connecting portal to the travel zone.

DarkHalo looked around. Ahead of him he could see a white control console, and the platform forked into a T shape. At the end of the forks, there was transmitting nodes which sent narrow streams of data that seemed to go on forever. Below them there was a green dot map of what appeared to be the desert regions around the Dome of York.

“Right keep an eye out for packets. Hmm we are lucky today. Nothing about so far…”

“Up there!”, Sedna shouted. She aimed her hack-weapon and fired. Four white pulses shot out from her weapon and hit the DOS packet. It whistled and shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Phew…Nice shooting, and that new software works well.”. DarkHalo said to Sedna.

Morpheous walked up to the console, and pressed the glowing white button. A screen slid up from behind, and displayed a routing table.

Code: Select all
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.192.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 node1
0.0.0.0         192.168.192.250 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 link1
212.67.198.0    0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 node2
0.0.0.0         212.67.198.254  0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 link2


“Hmm you got the IP’s for the next hops? If you do I think we could re-route links to a different uplink, and save time getting to the Tech Haven bridge link.”, Morpheous asked.

“Not a bad idea Morpheous. Here let me call up the addresses.”. DarkHalo opened his hacktool. “Try 192.168.96.0”

Morpheous opened his hacktool and linked it into the console. He pressed a few buttons, and the hacktool beeped twice. Morpheous shook his head.

”Nope not working. Got another one?”

“Only the multicast IP 239.0.0.0 which takes us to the Tech Haven Bridge-link nodes, but if we use that one it’s possible the connecting links will drop while we are halfway across. Trust me, it does happen. It seems that the link runs out of data. If that happens and we are on the dataflow, all five of us are going to need medical treatment for NT, which I can assure you is not pleasant.” The other two runners looked a little worried.

“What the treatment or the NT.”, asked Sedna.

“Both.”, replied DarkHalo.

“Ok I have an idea.”, said Morpheous. “The problem with multicast, is there is never enough data to keep it open before it reverts back to it’s unicast link. But with a few parameter tweaks we can cause the data to be repeated and turning off the compression helps.”

“Turn off compression? Never though of that one. Ok let’s do it.”, replied DarkHalo.

Morpheous and DarkHalo set about altering the routing tables using their Hacktools. For a few brief seconds the flowing data steams, stopped and the green dot world rotated. Then the flowing data streams shot back out from the flat transmitting nodes on the platform, but they were a lot wider than before.

“Right let’s go, we don’t have much time. And keep running!”, shouted DarkHalo.

All five codestreamers jumped onto one of the flowing datastream, and started to run. The datastream flowed so fast that the platform disappeared very quickly into the distance. Sedna wondered if she could feel the wind in her hair. Then she remember that this world didn’t have hair or wind. She started to think what it would be like to have hair in this world. Then she noticed the datastream she was running on was slowing down. Sedna realised she had been thinking too hard, and stopped thinking. The datastream picked up speed again, and she then noticed the other four codestreamers were a fair way in front.

She looked down to see the green dot map of the wastelands, which was falling away from her and moving very slowly. The she saw wastelands coming back up again. They was past halfway point, but she noticed the fat datastream starting to slim down, as it was starting to run out of data to carry.

Onwards she pressed on, and the datastream got narrower and narrower. Where was the other side, Sedna asked herself for a brief second. Then out of nowhere she was standing on a blue platform, with the other four codestreamers. She turned around to see the datastream fade out of existence.

“That was close, Sedna what slowed you down?”, ask Morpheous.

“I think I thought too hard.”, replied Sedna.

“Well we need to keep our thinking down in the next node, as beyond that connecting node is the Tech Haven Bridgelink. Think for too long, and you will really have some bad NT. Ready?”, asked DarkHalo. Everyone nodded, and entered the next portal node to the Tech Haven Bridgelink.
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Chapter 36: Tech Haven Bridgelink

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:41 am

Inside the Tech Haven Bridgelink there was a series of blue platforms that ran around a small lower centre platform. Connecting the small lower was a set of linking platforms, which had some slow moving data conducts. All five code streamers looked around. Morpheous could see two very large white shapes moving in the distance, and there was a high pitch beeping noise. The two large white shapes moved slowly around the platforms as if they was on a patrol.

“What’s that in the..”, he began to ask.

”Shhh.”, whispered DarkHalo. “They look like pings of death. Infected storage area four is through that connecting portal.”

Morpheous looked over to where DarkHalo was pointing to. The portal node was on the platform below them. Morpheous waved his hand to tell everyone to get down to the next level. One by one that jumped down to the next level, and quietly sneaked to the connection portal, stopping when they heard any beeps which where coming from the pings of death. Before they entered the next connection portal, all the codestreamers re-initialised their shields.

On the other side, there was a long blue walkway towards a platform, on the platform there stood a motionless multicoloured person. DarkHalo looked. “No, that can’t be an RI?” The person was glowing red where her hair was, yellow on her face and hands, and blue for the rest of her body.

“That looks like Lisa to me.”, said Sedna.

Out of sight a white shaped slowly moved to her side. “Intruders detected – deploying countermeasures.” The ping router daemon changed shape into a more aggressive looking shape.

“Great.”, replied Morpheous, as he levelled his weapon at the Ping Router Daemon.

“One intruder identified as RI5 Four intruders unidentifed. Welcome RI5 – Countermeasures cancelled. Awaiting command.”. The ping router daemon returned to its former shape.

“Ehh?”, replied Morpheous. All the other four codestreamers looked at Morpheous. Carefully and slowly Morpheous approached the Ping Router Daemon.

“List available commands.”, Morpheous commanded.

”Error 404 file not found.”, replied the ping router daemon.

“Ok…”, Morpheous looked at the motionless Lisa. “Wake Lisa up.”

”Error 500 Command not reognised.”, was the reply.

“Sounds like it been damaged.”, commented DarkHalo.

“Yeap…this could be tricky. Ok restart.”, said Morpheous.

”Select program to restart.”, replied the deamon.

“Now we are getting somewhere. Restart ping router daemon.”

”Cannot restart ping router daemon – corrupt data detected. Available programs for restart are RI6 and RI5”

“What’s program are they?”, asked Sedna.

Morpheous looked at DarkHalo. “What did you say about Lisa when you saw her.”

“I said she looked like a RI?”, replied DarkHalo.

”Hmm, and this ping router daemon thinks I am RI5. So perhaps Lisa is RI6?”, said Morpheous. He thought for a few seconds. What if RI6 was something deadly to them all?

”Sounds logical, but what one of us, or something else is RI6. What would the effect of restarting one of us do?”,asked Sedna.

“Tricky one.”, commented DarkHalo. “Look if you want to take the risk of restarting RI6 or Lisa, I’m in.”

“Me too.”, said Sedna. The other two codestreamers nodded.

Morpheous looked around. “Ok here we go.”. He took a breath. “Restart RI6”.

For several seconds nothing happened everyone looked around looking puzzled. Then the ping router daemon replied to Morpheous's request. “Error – cannot restart a stopped process.”

“Ok then. Start RI6.”, commanded Morpheous.

“Command succeeded.”, the ping router daemon replied.

Everyone looked at Lisa. She remained motionless for several seconds.

“Be Safe.”, Lisa said. Then she moved and looked around her. “Erm, the danger passed?”

Morpheous looked at Lisa. “What danger?” Lisa looked at Morpheous. “I don’t recognise you or anyone, but you sound like Morpheous.”

“Gold star for you. We come to get you out.”

“Oh thank Crahn for that!”, Lisa replied. “Who else is here?”

“Sedna, and the rest of the Phoenix codestreamers.”

“Codesteamers? Has Mr Brammers created a new sub-section in Phoenix in the last two days?”

“Erm I don’t know, I only got back to Phoenix a few hours ago. Look we got to get you back to the real world. Lets go.”
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Chapter 37: Pings of Death

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:48 am

Lisa and the five codestreamers, headed towards the portal connecting the storage area to the Techhaven Bridge. They all passed through the portal. DarkHalo looked up to the platform “Ok we need to get up there...Oh shit!”

The two pings of death had spotted the group of runners, and were heading towards them at high speed. The first ping of death fired a white pulse that make a deafening beep sound.

Morpheous did a gravity-defying jump to the platform above that lead to the exit. Lisa took a run and performed a gravity-defying somersault to the platform above. The second ping of death fired it’s weapon. The other four codestreamers tried to leap to the platform, but they only managed to grab the edge of the platforms with their fingers. Lisa and Morpheous pulled up Sedna, and then DarkHalo. However the two white pulses hit the other two codestreamers, and they faded from existence.

“RUN!”, shouted DarkHalo. Lisa, Sedna, Morpheous and DarkHalo started running as fast as they could towards the exit portal. The two pings of death started heading towards the group and firing volleys of white pulses at them. Each pulse hit the platform, blowing segments of it into thousands of pieces. They passed through the portal to the other side, as the two oversized pings of death collided with the small portal.

Morpheous pressed the button on the white console to get the routing table up. “Quick get that uplink rerouted Morpheous.”, said DarkHalo. Sedna looked at the circular portal that was stopping the pings of death getting through. Then it started to get bigger. “They are going to come through any moment now!”

“Nearly there…”, replied Morpheous as he used his hacktool on the console controlling the uplink.

DarkHalo turned to Lisa. “Whatever you do, don’t think, just run.” Lisa nodded, as she saw the circular portal was now three times it’s original size. A datastream shot out from the node in the platform. “Now!”, shouted Morpheous, as he jumped onto the datastream and disappeared rapidly into the distance.

Lisa, Sedna and DarkHalo jumped onto the datastream as the two ping of death broke through the portal, and shot a volley of white pulses across the path of the datastream, but they all missed. However the two pings of death had not given up. They both flew onto the high speed datasteams.

DarkHalo looked behind him to see two white shapes in the distance slowly gaining on them. “Shit they are on this datastream and catching us.” Sedna looked down, the green dot map was getting bigger which meant they was past halfway point. Lisa looked straight ahead and just kept running. She was not going to look down or behind her.

Lisa landed first, to see Morpheous rapidly entering something on his hacktool. Sedna and DarkHalo then arrived on the platform.

“Keep going, they are a few seconds behind us....Too late.”, shouted DarkHalo. The two pings of death where meters away from the platform, as Morpheous pressed a key on his hacktool.

The datasteams disappeared, and the two pings of death hovered in mid air motionless, just a few metres from safety. The pings of Death shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Phew.”, breathed DarkHalo. “That was close, and I’ve never known pings chase runners before.”

“Can we just get out of here before any more decide to come?”, Lisa asked.

“Yeah sure. We are heading towards the DNS and then out, it’s safe there.”, replied Morpheous.

Lisa, Sedna, Morpheous and DarkHalo passed though the portal connecting the uplink to the Fallen Angels DNS. Morpheous was looking puzzled. “RI5. Why did the daemon call me that?”

“Well I was labelled RI6 here.”, Lisa replied.

“RI?”, asked Morpheous who was now completely confused.

”Morpheous, this is going to take some explaining, even I have a hard time understanding this world.”

The four Fallen Angels arrived at the exit Portal. “Here we are, the exit to the real world.” DarkHalo stepped through and evaporated in a white flash.

Lisa smiled, “Home sweet home.”. She stepped through, and appeared at the Fallen Angels HQ Genrep. Confused she looked around, as Sedna and Morpheous appeared from the Genrep.

“Erm this isn’t Tech Haven.”, she commented.

“No it’s the Fallen Angels HQ in the Dome of York.”, replied Sedna.

“Seems a lot has happen in the last few days that was gone.”

Sedna thought for a second, and then realised that was not going to be easy to explain. “Erm Lisa you better come to the Phoenix HQ I think there is a lot to explain.”
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Chapter 38: New home

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:52 am

Lisa sat back in the chair in shock, after listening to what had happened to Tech Haven, Phoenix and the Dome of York. “Three months have passed?”, exclaimed Lisa.

“I’m afraid so.”, replied Brammers.

“I’ve only been gone…erm it feels like a day or two. RI4 put my, what he called my real intelligence in, erm… I guess sleep mode. He said it would be a day before the data-links were reconstructed.”

Brammers, Husk and Morpheous looked at each other.

“Husk when that noise on the faction channel start?”

“Two weeks ago I think.”, replied Husk. Lisa looked worried. “Is my body ok sir, and what about the other two Phoenix members.”.

Brammers picked Marcus’s medical report. “The only comment he said was activity on your Temporal Lobe is a little higher than your last baseline. Other than that, he’s given you the all clear. As for the other two codestreamers, they just got some minor headaches.”

“What noise on faction channel?”, Lisa asked.

“Your code that you used to send messages from Hacknet.”, Morpheous replied. “And next time can you use a code that our computers can recognise?”

“It was Morse code Morpheous. Don’t tell me you had a hard time translating it?”

Morpheous cringed and slowly nooded.

“Just as Morpheous and Sedna turned up when they did. Everyone has been dismissing that noise as a channel fault.”, commented Husk.

“Erm I didn’t send any message on the faction channel. The last one I sent was at Gravis uplink, while you two was in the control room.”

“Then who sent your location? What happened before RI4 put you in sleep mode.”, quizzed Morpheous.

“Well he had a ping routing daemon, which would recreate the paths to a genrep, once the danger had past, said it would be a few days.”

“A ping routing daemon? Hmm I can only guess the reason it took so long was the program didn’t work or got corrupted. It was a nasty job getting to your location.”, said Morpheous. “I can only guess it had some problems making a safe route so it sent a message.”

Morpheous, Sedna and Husk engaged in a debate about the new Hacknet world, but when it was clear that the debate was going to go on for a long time, Brammers asked them to have their own meeting about it.

“What about the Phoenix store, did you get who blew that up?”, asked Lisa.

“No we didn’t. Any information we had is lost in Tech Haven which is under City Admin control. Now that Fallen Angels is back unto a decent size, I will spare resources to find out who did it.”

“May I take charge of that investigation?”, Lisa asked.

“Well since you got down to the bottom of the Tangent conspiracy, the Skull Cult, and many others I can’t think of anyone else better to do the job."

Lisa nodded, she wasn’t feeling too happy about losing three months of her life.

“Oh one thing. Your Holy Lighting Spell. Or I should say spells.”. Brammers walked over to the go-guardian and got out the two identical spells that were recovered. He handed them to Lisa.

She carefully examined them, and felt them. “You say they are 100% identical? Well this one feel like mine and the other one doesn’t.”

Brammers raised an eyebrow, “How can you tell the difference?”

Lisa shrugged, “Call it our sixth sense. We have ways of telling who the spells belongs to by feeling them. Can I hold onto the other one?”

“Sure.”, said Brammers. “Now is there anything else before we wrap this meeting up?”

Everyone nodded. “Ok then lets call it a day. Now there is a party in a few hours down in the Fallen Angels Bar, to celebrate the return of lost angels. And Lisa - welcome back.”

Lisa smiled. “Thank you sir.”.
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Chapter 39: Fallen Angels Bar

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:56 am

Lisa arrived at the Fallen Angels bar, to hear the sound of The Krodigy beating out, and lots of loud cheering and shouting going on. She could see a lot of the members from House DoY dancing and some were engaged in a drinking game. Someone shouted “Wait! Wait! Wait!”, and the small crowd started laughing. She looked around to see if she could see any of her friends about. She first spotted saw Marcus Blade and SanityIsLost at the bar.

“Hey Lisa Chick!”, greeted SanityIsLost. She held out a long spiff. “Like some?”

Lisa smiled and accepted her offer. “Why not, I think I need it after the last few days...or months!”

“You know I could tell you how unsafe that stuff is. But I’m not going to. Hmm I better go and speak to the other half before she drinks herself silly.” Marcus went off to find Ressi.

“Hey dude, you heard the news about Marcus and Ressi?”, SanityIsLost asked Lisa.

”No? What news?”

“They are going to get married next week.”

Lisa looked at SanityIsLost.. “I’m not pulling your leg Lisa”.

”I believe you Sil. Still if they want to get married, I’m not stopping them. Now where are Killer and Garyu?”, She looked around, and if they could have not timed their entrance more perfectly, she saw them both enter the bar. [TgR]Killer spotted Lisa, and Garyu waved.

“Hey Lisa.”, shouted [TgR]Killer.

“Killer babes!”, replied Lisa. [TgR]Killer walked up to Lisa and pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Lisa. “I’ve had this in my pocket for the last three months.”

”Nail Polish!”, smiled Lisa. She gave Killer a hug. “You know how to make me happy don’t you.” She opened the top and started to apply some polish to her nails. She turned her nails in different directions to the light to see the colour change between gold and black.

“What you think?”, She asked, smiling.

“Put some more on!”, said Garyu excitedly. Lisa applied the polish slowly and carefully to the rest of her fingernails.

“Oh my god, Sex!”, shouted Mario who had just arrived in the bar to see Lisa painting her nails.

“Hey sexy Mario! Guys, lets get drinks in.”. Lisa, Mario, Garyu and Killer headed towards the Bar, to join a large group of Fallen Angels all drinking away.

Brammers smiled as he saw Lisa and everyone heading to the bar. He was happy to see a lot of very happy Fallen Angels. He felt a pair of warm hands slowly wrap around his body. “What a day honey, but it turned out just right sweetie.” Brammers turned around to face Tricia and smiled. He then kissed her.

“It has indeed. Hmm, you fancy a few drinks and slipping away early?”, said Brammers giving her another kiss.

“How about we slip away now honey? I’ve got some wine waiting in our apartment.”, smiled Tricia.

Brammers smiled. Quietly and unnoticed Tricia and Brammers slipped away, while the rest of the Fallen Angels continued to drink and dance the night away.
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Epilogue

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:04 am

Lisa walked into the Temporary Phoenix HQ located in the Dome of York. Although everyone in Phoenix had tried to clean up the mess before moving in, the matter of covering up the old messy walls was one task that obviously got missed. She was pretty sure her nail polish would not come close to painting the whole store.

As usual she was late for work, but it seems everyone in Phoenix was late that day, as she was the first one in. Before heading downstairs to the main office area, she looked at the quietly buzzing genrep. She wondered how long it would be before she would trust a genrep again.

Slowly Lisa wondered downstairs, and found a RN terminal. She sat down at the desk and pressed a few keys to open a new file.

She typed in “Phoenix store bombing.”, and then sat back in the chair in deep thought. Whoever was responsible for blowing up the Phoenix store, and left her stranded in the hacker’s world for three months was going to feel the wrath of her Fire Apocalypse.

* * *

The male Diamond Real Estate runner sat down at the table in the Pepper Park Sector 1 café. A dark female runner appeared from the shadows of the bar area and sat down opposite the male runner.

“You are risking a lot coming here, with City Admin crawling around.”, he said to the female runner.

“Look boy, this sector is my home I know where to hide when City Admin come running in this sector.”

“All I can say it’s about bloody time you turned up, I’ve waited 3 months for this payment.”

She threw on the table a cashcube. The male runner picked it up, and examined it.

“Hey bitch, this is only a payment for 5 million nc’s. The price agreed was 10 million nc’s”

She sharply leaned forward, so that she was staring at the runner right in the face. “You only got the job half done. Your job was to destroy Phoenix and kill Brammers. And Brammers is still alive not dead. Consider yourself lucky that I paid you at all for destroying Phoenix, considering they seem to be still trading. Tangent was going to pay me a 5 million bonus for knocking off Lisa Merlins, but since that bitch turned safe and well a few days ago, they cancelled the payment. Anyway, our business is your pleasure, until next time.”

She got up and started to leave.

“Before you go I’ve got something that you may be interested in.”

“Make it quick boy, as the next thing you will see is my gun. I am not in a good mood.”

“Well being in Diamond real estate has its perks. You see when City Admin took over Tech Haven they get us to re-assign the keys and clear out the apartments.”

She raised her gun. “I said make it quick, I don’t want to hear about your underpaid day job.”

“Well one apartment had some items in it you may be interested in. A love letter from Tricia to Brammers and a key to Mr Brammer’s personal Reveler, presented to him by Mr Craig Diggers. I could sell the apartment key for quite a discount.”

She lowered her gun and considered the opportunity.

“How much you asking?”

“To you, a low price of 10 million nc, this key is after all quite priceless.”

She raised her gun. “You are a bastard you know.”

* * *

The door opened to the Fallen Angels Bar, and Brammers called in on his usual morning call for his cup of El-Farid coffee, before heading to the Phoenix HQ. He saw Leroy the Barman cleaning up the mess from the party, which has lasted well into the early hours.

“Good Morning Mr Brammers Sir. The usual?”, greeted Leroy heading back towards the bar.

“Yes please Leroy, not too strong. I drank a little too much yesterday.”

Leroy nodded and switched on the coffee grinder and put in the beans in. He turned back to Brammers.

“Yeah I can see that. The HQ is full of Angels with sore heads today. I see you guys are advertising again.”

“My head is also sore…Erm advertising?”

“Well for a start I see you brought the advertising space above my bar.”

Brammers blinked and looked up. Sure enough the Phoenix logo blazing above the bar on the display, except for a few differences. There was a border around the logo, and instead of saying Phoenix Ltd it said Phoenix NC.

“That’s not quite our logo, and I certainly didn’t order any advertising space.”

“Then whose advertising is that?”

“I don’t know Leroy.”
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Credits

Postby Lisa Merlins » Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:05 am

The Fall of Techhaven. Written by Lisa Merlins, Brammers, Katherine Mayer and Morpheous.

Story based on the official Neocron 1 Storyline.

Story editor: Lisa Merlins

Storyline graphics: Husk.

Story hosted by: THN (The Tech Haven Network)

Special thanks to Katherine Mayer, and Morpheous for their excellent chapters.

Hi to Marcus and [TgR]Killer for PM’ing me and asking to be included in the story, and Apologies to anyone who got missed out.

Coffee supplied by: Sainsburys and Morrisons.

Thanks to everyone on DoY Teamspeak, Phoenix Vent, and the Techhaven Network for their support and comments. I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

No Droms where harmed in the writing of this story.

Lisa Merlins will return in “Rising from the Red Sand.” Exclusive on the THN. (Coming soon)
Lisa Merlins
Phoenix Public Relations - Member of the 1st Paladin Order.

"Painiting all my nails purple"
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Postby garyu69 » Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:58 am

:'-( its finished

Fucking excellent story though.


[EDIT] ARGH! I should sleep
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