Andy- 'Download'

Who: Andy
Where: SpaceCorps Intranet
When: minutes before Enlightenment launch
<snip>
Andy pulled away from the Texan's grip and diverted his gaze to a
nearby life-support system, the very system that kept his own body
alive. Potential strolled past him and pulled up the comatose
janitor's hand, the Masterkey sloppily inserted into the palm. He gave
the cleaner a small nod, waiting for the man's word.
The Australian sucked in a deep breath. "Make it happen."
</snip>
The transition was not altogether pleasant
Putting it abstractly, it was in many ways like being thrown in front
of a 747 engine with wire mesh covering the front. His mind was
blurred, his senses assaulted while others where stripped away.
The Cleaner slowly awakened to the world around him. What a perfect
analogy. Awaken, as it would be the last time he would ever know.
He sucked in a deep breath and felt the world around him. Some senses
where diminished to the point of uselessness. Olfactory senses meant
nothing now. You can't smell or taste data but you can certany see,
hear or even 'feel' it in this form. Only he noticed an extra
sensation, a 'tugging' if you could call it that.
Andy immediately deemed it to be a sixth sense that was bestowed upon
him by the Masterkey, or potential, or the care bears- whatever.
He noticed a tug just in front of him. Andy flipped his arm out and
activated (he thought) whatever it was he was meant to be doing.
Within a second the Janitor's eyes filled with the visual
representation of the digital world he had been able to so readily
tear apart and rearrange at his will. He had once wondered what it
would be like to see it as he did in real life. Now he wished he could
only take such a though back.
The Porn... my GOD the Porn!!
Andy immediately forced his eyes shut and felt around with this newly
discovered 'sixth sense' of his. A heavy tug came from his right. In
between the floating images of debauchery he noticed a chute towards
his intended destination, a way to the transmission decks.
With a slight shove off an image that he didn't take time to identify
he flew through the gateway ala superman.
Within a half second he came to his destination.
The transmission deck computers were a vast cavalcade of information
going all over the place. Packets of data streamed by him one
particularly large block, almost mini-van sized, whizzed past his
left. The tug behind his navel followed it.
'A transmittion to the Enlightenment...'
The electronic Hacker's mind worked overtime; if he tried to hop on
now he could overload the transmittion and cause it to be discarded as
junk data. Best case, he'd have to restart from the Masterkey, worse
case, he'd die before his mission was complete.
Well, at least he'd have lots of pretty smut to look at.
That tug wasn't getting any lighter.
With a running start, Andy leapt and burrowed himself into the data
block. His hands raked and tore through the data in attempt to dig
himself in.
The janitor wasn't entirely sure what had happened but he had managed
to compress his own mental avatar into what the data had meant to have
been. Like replacing a parcel's contents but keeping the packaging he
effectively became a Trojan program.
A long pause of silence followed. The 'sixth sense' of his had
quietened down quite a bit and was now only the awkward positioning of
his limbs around him.
What was happening outside was something he could've only dreamt of.
While he didn't feel anything, Andy was certain that his very being
was being sliced up and rearranged from each post it was being sent
from within the space corps intranet.
Then that tug came at a record intensity.
'Just when I had gotten comfortable.' The Janitor grumbled. The tug's
only response was to feel like someone had put a fishing lure into his
gut and wrenched on it; and Mike Tyson was on the other end.
Andy barely noticed that his arms had snapped out and began tearing at
the packaging in front.
With a final kick, the digital minimum-wage worker fell
arse-over-teakettle out from the data block.
His eyes did his best to keep up while his body twisted to the whims
of the sixth sense that guided him.
Jumping into crevice after his pulling muse, Andy's eyes flicked back
only to see his large block obliterated in a flash of soundless data
fragments. The hacker's mouth fell open at the realisation that if he
hadn't done as the sixth sense had asked he'd have been annihilated by
the virus scanner just a moment ago.
Andy floated for a time in this little hidey hole he'd found aboard
what was undoubtedly the Enlightenment.
There wasn't much he could do. Any attempt to move from this spot
would likely trip the very subsystems he was trying to avoid. The last
thing he wanted to do was to end up like the horse he'd came in. There
was no going back now. Failure meant it was all for naught.
The janitor pressed up against a wall, his eyes closed from mental
exhaustion.
For a while Andy wondered how it had all came to this. His
subconscious flickered over the past. Over and over again his short
life flashed past him.
He allowed himself a self-indulgent thought, wondering if anyone would
truly care if he had died.
Andy knew the answer, didn't mean that he had to like it.
~~
Who: Andy
Where: Enlightenment
When: The beginning of the Krylon assault
After what had felt like years, Andy's eyes flicked open.
The sixth sense in his gullet gently roused him from his programming
hibernation. While the tug was only gentle at first, the rising
pressure ensured that it was only being polite as the Hacker regained
his wits.
Looking back out to the where over a day ago he'd hitched a ride into
the hologramatic ship's computers.
Hordes of aggressive data overwhelmed the virus scanner. While the
human technology prevailed bravely at first, the Krylon eternity code
was not to be denied as it quickly rewrote the very basis of what the
anti-viral program was meant to be. Soon it spread into the firewall
systems too; the ship now had nothing regulating what was going inside
or outside the ship.
Now it was only fit to be an overly intrusive security program that
asked wether the user really, in fact, wanted to copy and paste a file.
Fortunately for Andy, this was both their greatest weapon and their
undoing. The fragments of eternity codes already inside of him caused
the Krylon data to pass right over him.
Unfortunately for the Krylons, Andy's little 'sixth sense' had already
installed a similar yet subtle Krylon counter measure (immunisation if
you will) against the infection for vital subsystems amongst the
ship's systems.
Except for the hologramatic avatar database, what were the chances of
them wanting to delete *that?*
Now that they'd taken down the anti-viral and set up a transmission
stream... The hacker had a clear shot at transmitting back. After
all... they needed to know how the battle was going.
A single Krylon program turned away from the attack group and prepared
for the turn to wherever the little bastards where coming from. Andy
got to his feet and quickly drifted over to where the program prepared
to jet off. The second it did the Janitor latched onto its visual
mid-section and hung on for dear life as it shot itself back to the
Krylon mother craft.
Andy took a single look back from his Krylon ride. The Enlightenment
was a steadily shrinking almond against the background of space. His
eyes suddenly widened as he noticed the ship's firewall snap back into
operation. From that second on all Krylon transmissions towards the
ship fizzled out like cicadas hitting a bug zapper.
'Must've just been my presence...'
The Janitor turned away from the craft, tightening his grip around the
robotic program. All the while Andy reminded himself that it's not gay
if it's a robot, you're out to save the world and you're not looking
the other bloke in the eye.
<To be continued>
OOC: Second last post