Salutations for those who allowed to browse that datavault, and appreciation for what you do here. I'm known around currently as 'Eraser' - that's how Ageira labeled subject.062 in the project I recently managed to leave. Once my dedication will become evident to the bosses, I will be callsigned as 'Oddjob'. I also got my Dagger, and appropriate ID and IFF signatures. ++
Hey, that's some neural-bandwith you got here. In Lower-'Hattan you have to pay 500 creds for quarter-hours to have such. Mind if I use you computing capacity to run a routine scan on my augmentations here while I log my journey? The recently sustained damage and the EMP made my kino-wires twitchy, and I'd need a firmware upgrade to my carnal interface since the last one I downloaded on Allentown feels buggy and makes my head hurt. Hope there is no battery-leaking. So is that ok? Ok.
So I mentioned Lower-'Hattan before. Locals call it The Hole. I grew up there. That's a place where the fittest survives, and fitness is decided by reaction time, aim, usefulness and gangs to back you up. I grew up there as a Shank. Thug, as Highers call us. Most akin to me are killed about the age of twelve down there. I was lucky. There was a hacker-girl. Luce. And she was looking after me and my chrome. Sweet girl. Well, she was not a Hacker like you, with capital H, just the Techbrain of a gang. The job-description contains more dabblery cyber-butchering than actual hacking - neural interfaces are rare down there, not to mention access points. But if someone is skilled enough to keep a small gang's augments running and fetch in them the occasional fiber-muscle or retinal affix they manage to scavenge (or tear out), he won't have to worry about safety down there.
Well, neither Luce was worried, but she was torn apart by an explosion one day along with the most of the gang. I was lucky, since next day I managed to sneak in and get the remains of her gear and body. That was the start of my carrier. I mean we knew Luce has her nanosurgery-kit in a briefcase, but noone expected what a goldmine of know- and skillsofts she did possess. (I have to add that down there noone realy cares about chips, most of them is simsense porn anyways, and that's not even as good business as selling synthweed). Also while I was studying her collection was the first time I saw the icon of the tradelane segment with the lightning in it. I associated that sign with 'high-quality smuggled software'.
So with all those hards and softs, I started my own establishment. Some people (that wanted to <strike>lick my</strike> show their respect) even called me 'Doc'. Not that such needs a degree down there, if you know how to install a simsense-deck without making much carnal damage, you are one. And with Luce's skillsofts, it wasn't too hard. More importantly my official status slowly turned from a common 'Shank' to a well respected 'Bagman'. That's a term for 'Biotechnician' down there from a habit of them what I won't describe now.
So I started have fame (in a Lower-'Hattan way), what mostly meant many shanks to back me up for their monthly maintenance. And I also started to have concurrence and enemies. I won't mention here how careless I was when they caught me, it's enough to say that a pair (yes the whole pair) of real rheinlandish Zeiss Cyberoptic 816.delta eyes down there worth more than a crate of Ageira Mag-Rail rifles - with enough goons to handle them. I was trapped, EMP-d and sold to the Highers.
As you might already know, the Liberty Government can only prosecute it's citizens who possess an ID (what -by a recent study- might be about 30-40% of the total populace). The rest only causes a bureaucratic nightmare when caught what they usually circumvent with selling the unregistered subjects into the mines of 'Pitts, and log them as life-sentenced. Now that's not an option for a so-called 'cyber-psycho' (the word was in my dossier I stole, I guess it means 'Shank'). Ageira solved the problem I meant, by buying me out for a re-socializational project. That didn't mean much more than to utilitize well equipped, useful but dangerous elements of Liberty that they capture in various high-risk jobs. The loyalty factor was granted by implanted cranal-bombs. Bit of an AS 700-ish solution, but it's effective, especially when you see your fellow inmate trying to run towards the dock followed by a splatter of his brain. They decided to train me for an escort-pilot (since one of them had the not-so-bad idea of having me out of arm-reach of anyone worths more than a thousand creds).
I spent two years there, working for the Highers, getting their shipments to safety. My flight-comms was disabled all the time, and my ship was logged as 'AI-controlled'. Sweet. What they didn't expect is a Hacker (note the capital H) who found a fighter without comms suspicious, as he broke into the system to contact me. By the Lane and Lightning denotation I knew I have a benefactor, and after a brief a conversation I knew where do I belong. Also I have been provided a way out.
By his instructions I built a small EMP device what did block the implanted bomb's signals, but didn't fully disable my motoric functions. That got me enough time to rip that crap out from my head, and I managed to keep conscious enough to plant it on a locked bay door, and as expected, it blew up once I turned the magnet down. I crawled to some straflea that some kid forgot to lock, launched, killed the engines and fainted.
Since I'm awake, I follow the code sent to me by the Lane and Lightning. And now here I am, tinkering with all the Higher equipment you have here, studying the extraordinary softs you make. To tell the truth, I can't care less about the equality of common people, freedom of others and such. But you have all the hardware I could wish for having revenge on the people wanted to suck me dry, and install me as some upgrade. Let me have the tools, and I'll be more loyal to your cause than any idealist geek.
![[Image: eraser2.png]](http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy192/evangelist_85/eraser2.png)