Kill Script

[Helix]

An alarm buzzed, a leaky faucet dripped, somewhere a little girl screamed, and an explosion filled my awareness. The same dream again...or was it a memory trying to resurface? When the dreams had first started, they had disoriented me. Now they were a familiar companion every night when I slept. Barrier Gate, Fontana, Ithica, it didn't matter where I laid my head, they always came back.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a time staring off into space. Mornings were not my ally...or had they been in a previous life and this was just my new incarnations relationship with them? I had no idea. I had no memories past two years ago. In 832 I woke up on Roppongi Station in the aftermath of...whatever had happened there. I'd lost my right arm and a good chunk of my shoulder in whatever had happened and got a good dose of radiation for my troubles. The amnesia, I was told, could be permanent or the memories could come back in time. Two years in however, and I still had no recollection of the events that led up to that day. I accepted the fact that I might never know what happened.

I'd spent a year or so backtracking my own history and found my name was "Sloan". No references to a last name, just Sloan. I dug deeper and didn't find much of anything other than a name. When I checked out of the hospital on New Tokyo, my belongings had been confiscated by the Kusari Police claiming they were contraband. Thankfully, they had cleared me of any involvement with the explosion and due to my prognosis, had elected to not press charges with the understanding that I never enter Kusari again. Not even if you paid me, whatever had happened there lead to the spiritual death of the man I used to be.

I wandered for a while, eventually finding myself at Leiden in Galileo. There, I stumbled face first into my past life. A man mentioned he was glad to see that I had survived the incident onboard the station. Another individual approached me and asked about a job I was supposed to have taken care of. As I wandered the station, more people greeted me. It would seem that this was my home at some point. After a while of this, it became apparent I had no idea who I was. The station administrator was patient enough with me to explain a bit of my past. I was a Lane Hacker aboard Leiden and apparently, I was fairly good at what I did. He explained that I had taken a "job" at Roppongi and told him that I would be back in a few days. I never found out if my job was related to the explosion or not. I just hoped that I wasn't involved.

I reached out to the end table with my good arm and unplugged my prosthetic one from the charging port and connected it to the terminal which extended out from where my shoulder blade used to be. The arm paired just as it always did and once again, I had two arms. I made a metal note about the flex lag. One of the servos was more than likely acting up again. I'd need to find a bench in one of the bays to take a look. Working on the arm was always a pain. I'd have to do it one handed, but the benches had some automated features that would allow me to do some work on it without the need for another person.

I opened my small terminal deck I took stock of the messages that had come in while I slept. There were a few open requests from other Hackers in the area and some simple tech requests from others. I spent a couple of hours responding to messages addressed to me as well as filling a few requests from the job boards.

A message popped up titled "Sloan" without metadata on who it was from. Even still, I knew who it was from and had my suspicions confirmed when I opened the message. I groaned aloud as I read it.

Code:

Sloany,

Need your help. Bay C7 in 20?

-'byte

Frostbyte, the bane of my existence. A self-proclaimed genius, her attempts to get in my good graces were less innocuous and more blindingly irritating. I deleted the message and continued onward with my tasks. Hopefully she would take the hint...as it turns out, she didn't. Another message popped up.

Code:

P.S. I have the missing servo from your arm. I took it last night at the bar so you'd have to come see me. On a side note, you drink too much.

I stared at the message for a good 30 seconds in disbelief. That was why it was acting up! I looked up from my terminal at the wall in front of me in a rage so blinding that I was completely calm.

"I may actually kill her this time." I said aloud as I pushed my chair away from the desk and stalked out of the room with murder on my mind.

---

"Chaos is the loom. Order its thread. I weave neither. I am the hand that snaps the loom, so the thread may learn to dance."