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Corporate Takeover
I'm up in the nosebleeds, among the skells and the repo-punks, the jack-outs and the cyber-pros. People this far away from the arena floor aren't interested in watching the match live, they're here for the buzz, the noise, the atmosphere. I have to admit it is intoxicating, but I have badder fish to fry. I turn my attention to the vid-screens showing Super Nashwan taking on the Turbo Hammers far below me in all their spectacular bone-crunching glory.
My eyes shift out of focus as I access my hyper-cortex modem, scanning the crowd for open ports or breakthroughs I can easily de-ice. I need a distraction. This match is the last of the season between two giants; Nashwan have been leaders for almost the entire season, with the Turbo Hammers challenging them both on and off the arena floor ever since their star centre-forward Midia defected to Nashwan.
Midia is on good form tonight, she's already broken two jaws, an arm and scored twice against her former team-mates, keeping Nashwan barely ahead of the Hammers, but I need a more physical distraction and I find it in the almost-empty RAM of a spectator with open ports into his brain. I purge the useless spong, lobotomising him instantly before downloading the ghost image of a famous 21st century terrorist and subliminally triggering a command that sends him stalking off towards the private boxes.
After that it becomes a race to hack into either of the gorillas that are protecting the Eurocorp executive in his private box overlooking the arena. I throw ice pick after ice pick at their defence walls with each attack fire walled off or subroutined away from their cores. If I can't get in before my little hacked ghost shows up trying to murder his way in then I may miss my opportunity altogether.
Down on the metal deck of the arena the steel ball has been thrown with enough force to paralyse one of the substitutes and the med-bots are dragging his body off the pitch, vaporising the blood spill as they go. The crowd is jeering and screaming, whipped up into a frenzy and Midia takes a free throw just as my hack attacks break through and I appropriate the mind of a Eurocorp personal bodyguard.
Through the eyes of this body man I grunt at my colleague, indicating the approaching spong with murder in his eyes. My colleague goes for his pistol and cuts the spong off at the knees, burning both legs clean through at the shins then moves closer to vaporise his head. Meanwhile I lumber the hijacked body through the scanning fields of the doorway and approach my "boss", doing my best to control it without giving away that I am an illegal occupant.
A tackle on the arena floor between the goalie and a midfielder leaves the path open for Selene, the Nashwan left winger who slams another goal home with seconds to spare, kicking the crumpled goalie with one steel boot as she charges triumphantly past him. Nashwan have secured the title for another year and I'm on the brink of closing my lumbering brute's hands around the Eurocorp exec when the second bodyguard slips into the seat beside my host body up in the nosebleeds and crushes my larynx, leaving me and the gorilla vegetables both.
Oct.18.2006