Shooting stars

“You said this was a simple repair job.”

“It is. You’re just impatient.”

Zaron generated a doorway in the middle of the dataspace to slouch against. Ahead of him at the summoned command center Charge worked at a hundred times the speed Zaron operated at.

“It’s been half an hour.”

“Ten minutes outside the dive. And you process data as slow as my nana walks.”

Pushing off from the frame, Zaron wandered closer, bored out of his skull. “And you’re sure this will net any foreign data the next time we’re hacked?”

Charge sent out half a dozen commands that reshaped the digital space around them. “Our mainframe has been successfully hacked five times over the past three months.”

“And fourteen unsuccessful attempts.”

Charge grinned. He cycled through a scroll of screens. “Someone finally reads my reports.”

Zaron would have chuckled if at that moment a chill hadn’t crawled up his back both in and outside the dive.

“… Make that six times.”

“Huh?” Charge frowned and brought up a full system scan. “You might need your hardware checked.”

“Scan it again.”

If it had been anyone else Charge would have protested, but after a second to reset the program he started another check. “… See? We’re the only on – Oh, shit. There.” He pointed to a screen that showed a dark-haired female avatar filtering through data between thousands of layers of encryption.

“How is that possible?”

Zaron frowned. “Run her SIN. I’ll go purger her.”

Charge started an analysis of the woman and any possible points of entry to the closed Koshari server.

Zaron opened up a data portal and transferred his body up to the level of the intruder. In his right hand he generated a massive rifle and executed an environment protocol. The towers and massive vaults of information became a city with walls he could move on command.

“I don’t see her.”

“She’s paused three blocks ahead.”

“Paused?”

“I don’t know, man! She’s not moving!”

Zaron ran his tongue over his teeth. “Seal her exit.”

Charge’s voice had turned wooden. “We… we have another problem.”

Zaron’s avatar sprinted ahead. “Naturally.”

“Her SIN is wrong.”

Zaron rounded the corner. She wasn’t paused, only waiting for him. Standing in the middle of the street, brown hair cascaded down her back, and past her shoulder he could see her casually tucking away information. “How is her SIN wrong? No alarms are going off.”

Silence filled his ears for several seconds. “Because Vana Hazard has been dead for ten years.”

Sucking air through his teeth Zaron leveled his weapon at the woman. There was no pause, only the smooth motion of his finger pulling the trigger to execute an eradication virus.

The woman identifying as ‘Vana’ looked at him then. Her green eyes glittered with mischief that he recognized, then the virus slammed into her avatar. What should have been a violent and swift erasure of the intruder, however, transformed into a shockwave of ones and zeros that ripped apart the surrounding buildings. Vana’s body exploded at the same time into a million stars that shot forward, the force throwing Zaron backwards and raining celestial lights past his head before disappearing.

“Zaron! Zaron?!” Charge shouted over the com. “Shit, man what happened? Where did she go?!”

Zaron stared up, dazed as the city around him disintegrated into shimmering showers of code. “…Charge.”

“Yeah, man?”

“Let’s… Let’s keep this one between us.”