Music rocked through the crowded club, washing over the tightly packed bodies surging like thumping waves. Vinzent flowed through the crowd, his figure twisting between the dancers as he made his way across the dance floor. He was on fire tonight, working his particular brand on digital magic on everyone within range, controlling what they saw so that they never saw him. He zoomed in on his targets, a small group of Japanese college girls dressed in lolicon, who were in turn scoping out a small group of college boys and giggling to each other. With his Angel gone Vinzent made sure to see what people really looked like before turning up his gear’s overlay. The boy’s were using AR Masking. Maybe boys wasn’t the right word, Not a single one of them in the carefully sculpted herd was actually younger than seventy. There was a momentary pause as Vinzent wondered just how good their Masking was. If one of the boys was lucky enough to take home a lolicon girl, would she feel the aging skin, the sagging flesh, or would her Angel take over and adjust the sensory data so all they felt the hard tight abs of a college bro?
He tagged the girls’ Angels, one after another, feeding them a virus that would would slowly rot their protective IC. He slipped over to the bar, waving down the bartender. He came over to take Vinzent’s order and mixed it slowly, his antique cybernetic arm whirring under its cheap pink plastic skin. Vinzent picked up his drink, a dirty martini, and digitally transferred the payment.
Turning back to the dance-floor, he mentally scanned the progress of his virus while he raised the martini for a sip. The glass remained poised at his lips as a text window popped up in his HUD, demanding attention. The window ballooned open as he focused on it.
BLOCKED USER: The man in the warehouse… Why did you unjack him?
Vinzent felt a finger of ice crawl up his spine. He scanned the room wildly, looking for anything out of place. The window blinked again.
BLOCKED USER: Your pulse rate is too high, there is a non-zero chance of a coronary infarction if you do not calm yourself. I am not the police. Please, answer the question.
Still wide-eyed, he mentally typed, “To open his eyes. Why?”
Across the club, the lolicon girls were hanging on the arms of the college boys now, sipping at drinks the boys had kindly purchased for them. The hack wasn’t finished and the boys were making their move. Instinctively he shook his head, trying to refocus on nothing but the chat window. He had to focus now, BLOCKED USER might say he wasn’t the cops but that didn’t mean anything. There was a lot worse on the street. The bastard could have been some corporate Sam out for house cleaning after Vinzent’s gag on the man.
BLOCKED USER: Your motives were good, but his mind could not handle the reality you revealed to him. He was of use to me, but is no longer functional. As I no longer have an easy entry into his company, I need to make a new one. That is where you come in.
Vinzent’s eyes narrowed. He responded to the message with the universal Credit symbol and a question mark. The mystery man responded with a number with a rather large amount of zeroes.
“I think we might be able to come to an agreement,” he responded in the chat window. “What do I call you?”
BLOCKED USER is now known as ARCHIMEDES.
The chat session terminated and a map marker appeared on Vinzent’s HUD. He set the martini glass back on the bar and started to wend his way through the crowd toward the exit. Almost as an afterthought, he triggered the second stage of the virus on the Lolicon girls’ Angels.
“Good luck getting laid tonight, Gramps,” he thought as the girls started screaming in the club behind him.
