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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andrew D. Gable" data-source="post: 707027" data-attributes="member: 4144">Deus RubumSeptember 6, 206011:30 PMThe three bikes roared up the drag towards Queen Anne’s Hill and Dr. Kaminsky’s house. The lights of fishing boats shone from the black waters of Puget Sound on their left. The houses got nicer as they moved on, the litter on the street was seen in lesser amounts and the practically omnipresent gangers were nearly absent."I think this is it," Ghost said as he pulled his bike along the curb.  Plunkett and Rasta followed his lead, keeping to the shadows as they scurried towards the house to avoid the near-constant Lone Star patrols in the area. Last thing they needed at this point was for the cops to get involved. They hunkered down and scurried into a wooded area flanking Kaminsky’s home (or more specifically, his garage) and squatted behind a tiny ridge of earth and trees, screwing silencers and sound suppressors onto their weapons.  Rasta’s cybereye whirred slightly as its lenses magnified the facing garage wall."We’ve got a door here," he said softly - well, softly as a troll can - as a Lone Star cop passed by. "Plunkett, you take it." The ork flickered and vanished as the effects of an invisibility spell cast by Ghost settled on him, and he moved across the small strip of lawn to the door. Keeping to the shadows, he examined the door for a moment and spoke into his internal radio. "Looks like there’s an alarm on the door. I’m gonna try to disable it. Keep your fingers crossed." Unlike Plunkett, the B&E equipment he handled was plainly visible to Rasta and Ghost - hopefully, any passing Lone Star patrols couldn’t see them.  After a few moments, the door swung open. The troll and the elf slipped across the lawn to enter the darkened garage.Once inside, Ghost spoke the words that dispelled the invisibility shroud around Plunkett, as the ork turned to push the door shut.  "Nice car," Rasta said, admiring Dr. Kaminsky’s black Eurocar Westwind 3000 as they made their way to another door. This door swung open with ease and the three runners made their way into a hall, from which broke off four doors - two on the north wall, two on the south. At the far end of the hall was an ornate foyer.  One of the northern doors led into a living room, from which a staircase led up. "You stay here and keep a look out for company," Plunkett whispered to Ghost. The elf nodded and put up an invisibility cloak over himself. As his form vanished, the ork and the troll nodded at each other and crept up the stairs.At the top of the stairs they were faced with a short hallway leading past two doors to end in a third door. Sensing their quarry, the troll and the ork moved to the door at the hall’s end. Concentrating on listening, they detected the sounds of… activities that would distract people from an infiltrating troll and ork. Rasta grinned.Then abruptly, the sounds ceased. Both of them spun as one of the other doors swung open and a thin ork, evidently of Asian stock, walked out. With his bright red skin and long ivory horns, he possessed a vaguely diabolical cast. He looked at them and smiled. And kept smiling as Plunkett fired a burst from his Smith & Wesson Thunderblast.In retaliation, the oni shot his arm out and thrust his palm at Plunkett, who suddenly felt as if a wrecking ball had smacked into his chest. He gasped for breath as Rasta unloaded at this newcomer with a shot from his Mossberg. The slugs fell to the ground harmlessly before they ever reached the oni.Then a frying pan smacked the oni in the head, and he crumpled like a rag doll. The form of Ghost shimmered into existence behind the unconscious oni. "Thing about oni," he said. "They get all hyped up on making themselves invulnerable and forget about the obvious." Rasta grinned as he turned about and kicked down the door. Ghost ran over to Plunkett, still doubled over, and slapped some stimpatches on him. The troll, elf, and staggering ork entered into the bedroom. A brown-haired man with a heavily receding hairline sat on the bed, his arm around a blond woman who clutched a sheet to her chest. "Dr. Daniel Kaminsky?" Ghost asked. "Of Renraku?"The balding man said nothing, but simply glared at them."We’re investigating the shutdown at the Arcology. We were led to believe you’d know something about it."Again a stare. This time Rasta spoke up."Look, let me tell you how it is, mon," said the massive troll, cracking his knuckles menacingly. "We ain’t on nobody’s side but our own. So if you got info you ain’t sharin’, feel free to do so. We ain’t gonna tell nobody."The man considered these words - and a nearly 10-foot troll preparing himself to deliver a beatdown is definitely something to take into consideration. "I work for Renraku, yes.""In what capacity?" Ghost asked."A consultant on security systems. Specifically for the Arcology.""We want to see your computer room," Ghost said.Dr. Kaminsky threw on a bathrobe and tossed one to the woman. "My wife, Diane. Diane, join us down in the computer room in a moment, will you?"Kaminsky led them out of the room, pausing over the groggy oni crumpled on the floor. "This is my personal bodyguard, Kan." He spoke to Kan and helped him up. The oni bowed to the runners and went into the bedroom of Dr. Kaminsky’s son.Kaminsky led the runners down the stairs, through the living room and across the hall to a sealed door. Kaminsky punched a combination into the numbered keypad beside the door, and the maglock unlatched. "It’s a shame I need this sort of security," he muttered. The door slid aside to reveal a room decorated with a heavy Asian theme, the computers in the room giving off a slightly bluish glow. Kaminsky pulled out a chair and sat at one of the desks, and gestured around at other chairs, motioning the runners to be seated.The doctor asked Diane to close the door when she appeared, and opened a text file. Words appeared in the air above the trideo projector hooked up to the computer. "This is the last project I was working on with them. When we began work on Deus Rubum in 2053, it was just a highly secure and top-of-the-line corner of the Renraku grid. Like other security systems on the Matrix, it was self-sufficient to a degree."Renraku recruited some heavy talent for the next stage. We added all sorts of other utilities to Deus, integrating administrative software and even systems similar to those used in a rigger’s vehicle interface. We were creating a wholly self-sufficient Matrix construct - an artificial intelligence."Sherman Huang, CEO of Renraku North America, decided that we should try using Deus to help administer the Arcology project, even though myself and several others disputed this. Why entrust something as big as the Arcology to an unproven system? But Huang was insistent, and soon all plans for any human element went out the window. Deus was to be given exclusive administrative control over the Arcology. "When the Arcology was finally completed in 2059, we all know what happened. As to what’s happening… well, I can’t say for sure. Though if I had to take a wild guess, I’d say Deus is mixed up in it."Ghost gave Dr. Kaminsky a copy he had made of the coordinates chip. "Can you check this out? It’s coordinates to a spot on the Matrix, a point of apparent interface between the Arcology and the outside." Kaminsky nodded and popped the chip into his cyberdeck.He blanched and jacked out, flinching as the shock of the boot hit him. "Well, I can tell you one thing, boys. It’s definitely Deus.""What’s it doing?" Plunkett asked."Apparently feeding the specifications of itself into a databank on the main grid," Kaminsky said, gradually getting control of himself. "Trying to make copies of itself. Self-propagating. If you don’t stop it, the Arcology shutdown will spread out to the rest of the Seattle grid. The 2029 crash all over again."</blockquote>

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