Prologue
The alarm woke me.
I groaned, rolling over to hit the snooze button on my comm. unit, but still the beeping continued. My mind tired I growled and hit the snooze again, but still it beeped. Then it hit me, the alarm that I was hearing.
I was being hacked
I leapt from the bed, hastily grabbing my comm. from the dresser as I went, I stumbled down the stairs too small for my large feet to my main comm. unit. My crashing footsteps disturbing the huge hell hound in the corner of the living room. I growled and logged on. A virus, tapping in from the hard-line.
Shit
I pulled the hard-line cable from the wall, hoping to slow its progress, but it was too late, it had been given plenty of time to download, but I had no idea if it had set up an outbound signal. I typed furiously trying to build firewalls, the virus smashing through them as quickly as they were built.
I switched tactics. I burnt files, destroying years of work before the virus could get to them, the enemy made of numbers and figures crashed through each barrier, copying files. I hit my personal comm., brow sweating with the effort to keep up, this bitch knew my game.
"Tor?" a voice on the line answered "Do you have any idea what time it is over here?"
"Clearwater has been compromised" I growled
" . . . shit . . ." the line went dead
The virus hit me harder, locking out my keyboard I was now helpless, and could only watch as the virus ripped through the files. I had no other choice
I smashed the comm. unit, breaking the casing apart in my hands to get to the hard drive. That went into the microwave to fry the drive, the discs sparking in the heat. My personal comm. beeped.
"It's gone Tor"
"How much did they get?"
"Enough" came the answer
"What about . . ."
"She's fine" the voice interrupted "her file is gone, but they didn't get chance to copy it. They got yours though" he said "just the contacts and basic info"
"And the deck?" I asked
"Some are gone, but the rest seem to be safe" the voice said "I'll let those that have been copied know to lay low" the voice waited patiently for my thoughts "You need to make yourself scarce for a while" he prompted
"Do we know how?" I asked, the microwave now catching fire
"I have my suspicions, but nothing concrete" said the voice "where will you go?"
I pondered that for a moment "the less you know the better" I decided "Call Amm, tell him the problem" I said hanging up. A light slender creature jumped from the kitchen table to my shoulder, curling his tail around my neck, I idly scratched his huge ears.
They'd gone after Clearwater, a direct shot. The work had been good too, the player knew my style and what my system was capable of. That meant someone I knew, or at the very least someone who knew about Clearwater. Only a handful of people knew about it, and most of those were dead. I sighed and clutched the crucifix hanging around my neck.
"You enjoy testing me" I murmured to Him
I was going to have to go into hiding for a while, what was worse I wouldn't be able to tell her. She would insist on going if she knew, but it would be too dangerous, the further she was from all this the better. I'd make the few calls I needed then disappear.
She was going to be so pissed at me.
A/N: Hi peeps, thanks for reading, this is the start of the latest story from our Shadowrun games. If you're new to my work you might want to read back on some of my other stories as it will make this one have a lot more sense. I'll put the reading order in my profile, I recommend at least reading the Chicago campaign. But if not then hopefully there's enough back story fill ins for you to enjoy. As always feel free to PM me with any questions.
Enjoy! xx