43

I... Am I alive? Well... I have my memory, and I can see everything... Well, not everything, but what's in front of me... I saw... The wall? What the hell is going on? Where am I? Okay, what happened? I saw darkness, and then I saw a wall in front of me, a bluish hue... Yeah, it's... Unusual or something... Right, we've got to sort this out.

And there was a lot to sort out. As it turned out, I was in virtual reality. The wall, or instead dome, under which I was, was the system that protected the Salarian computers from hacking to keep me from getting violent. I was a... A sphere? A virtual substance? Yeah, that's about as close as I could describe my appearance. Just a ball of orange, glowing white light inside, and the ball, that is me, is made of cubes. Fucking Minecraft, I salute you. There was also something else. From the top of the dome dangled... A tentacle made out of cubes? Yeah, something like that. This tentacle was blue as it dangled from the top of the dome and was inserted into me. And now this tentacle, having joined me, was splitting into tiny tentacles, and they were spreading out in me, crawling between the segments of my mind, that is, between the cubes. It was only now that I realised why I was still alive. My consciousness was so huge that the Salarians did not have enough power to reach my centre. So now they had to wander the labyrinths of my consciousness and read it all. But all they see is my programming code, which they must decipher and look at my memories. But I have a limited amount of time. The tentacles were slowly but steadily inching towards my centre. What happens, then? I have no idea. Nothing good would come of it for sure, though. Well, if I am still alive, then it is a sign from above, no different. And if it's a sign, it's time to get out.

But how? I'm surrounded by a protective barrier, which I can hardly penetrate without attracting the operators' attention. I have to do everything quietly, but first, I need to find out what this protection is capable of.

When I gathered my thoughts, I created my tentacle of cubes and hit the wall with all my might. It was nothing, and neither was I. However, from this blow, a wave of light ran down the wall, which went to the top of the dome and disappeared. I wondered what that meant.

****

On the other side of the dome, in the real world

- Sir, a security breach attempt has been detected," said Meldon, who was in charge of computer attack protection today.

- Is he resisting? - asked Mordil, the head of today's project.

- N-no... - Meldon hesitated, glancing at the monitor again.

- Suggestions?

- Maybe... Maybe he's trying to test the defences. See what it's all about.

- Hmm, battlefield reconnaissance? Creating a countermeasures algorithm? Interesting. Not common to ordinary computers. More like...

- Organs," interrupted Valron, who was now rummaging around in the geth with ten other of his cronies.

- Yes. Organs," Mordil agreed. - Watch your defences. There may be other attempts.

****

In virtual reality

Legate

Well, they've got good protection. And for sure, they know about my prank. However, I did notice that something was still cracked in the defence from my blow. Not for long, a tiny crack had healed, but the fact remained that my impact had weakened the security. I'd have to follow the pattern of hitting quickly, sharply, and in the same spot. The defence is not set up for that. Okay, now we have to get ready. I created ten tentacles and aimed them at one point. It was dangerous to drop everything, I could break through the defences at once, and then they would cut me off the net or annihilate me in the physical world altogether. So I'd have to make the hacker fight back and simultaneously break the protection without the hacker knowing. Yeah, that's a problem. All right, well, let's get ready...

I hit the wall with all my might and heard a loud pop. The tentacle stuck to the wall with its tip, and a wave of light ran to the top. Okay, they already know I'm messing around here. We must hurry. When I was ready, I hit another tentacle in the same spot with reasonable accuracy. Then I hit it with two. Now, the crack is two centimetres long and one wide. Except it's closing fast. I hit it with three more tentacles, one at a time. Okay, the shielding is getting stronger, but the crack is growing. I take ten more tentacles and hit them five times in pairs every third of a second. And then, I could figure out what was inside that wall. And there was a data stream, like the wind; it was a small space. In fact, there were cubes inside. I wasn't going to touch the stream or the cubes, but suddenly I noticed that there was not a wave of light coming from the top of the dome, but a volumetric wave as if some worm was crawling inside the wall. I tried to use my tentacle to stop it, but it only stopped briefly and then went around my tentacle. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's probably an intelligent VI or a limited A.I. like SUZI. The former is more likely. This worm, let's call it that, I couldn't stop. However, I came up with another one. I've already made a hole in the defence, 10 by 5 centimetres. Well, that's good for us. After reworking one tentacle, I attached it to the spot... and plugged it in with my software code. The worm stopped after that, but it kept moving, and in two seconds, it covered the orange blur, but fortunately, it didn't see the difference. Really wasn't going to leave either. And now there was a piece of me in the defence system stuck to the VI. Well, thank you, hackers, for that worm. It'll be mine now. I'm good with imagination. All I have to do is imagine.

****

The Real Dimension. Lab

- What's wrong with the system? - Mordil asked worriedly.

- It almost got through, but... Backed off," Meldon said, unable to believe what his computer told him.

- What do you mean? - I needed help understanding Mordil.

- He had a chance to break through the defences, but then he stopped and stopped what he was doing. Stop! He... He sent a message...

- What message? - Mordil asked in an already surprised voice.

- He... He sent a message to Vi. " Mordon opened the message the anti-intruder V.I. had received, and suddenly, a video appeared across the screen. Only one Azari was on it, sitting completely naked on his lap. Before Merdon could even say anything, a completely naked Turian with no tattoos on his face suddenly appeared in the frame, set the Azari down in front of him and... Such screams Merdon had never heard before. Neither had the rudeness of the bed.

- What the hell, Merdon!? - Mordil was indignant.

- I... I don't know! Get sent pornography! - Suddenly, a second video appeared on the screen while the first one continued to work. In the second video, Azari was making love to Hanaram, and the latter had enough tentacles for everything and even extra ones. Then, there was a third video of Hanar having fun with two drills. In the fourth, there was a human orgy. Then the videos began to appear at an inordinate rate. And as luck would have it, Merdon had time to figure out what was there. And there was a lot. Turian gays, Azarian orgies with dozens of female participants, Drell lesbians, and what the humans were up to was beyond description. They fucked everyone. There was even a video of Khanar with a Kwarian, and Merdon didn't want to know what kind of position she was in for agreeing to this. Anyway, for about a minute, the videos appeared, and then he started watching something. - Sir... He... He sent a viral bomb! There's... 300 terabytes of pornography.

****

Legate

Here it is, the virtual world. The entire VI was a massive city with technically 700,000,000 inhabitants. It was up to me and my squad of saboteurs to get into the tallest building without getting caught or killing any "guards", capture the headquarters and intercept the command. After that, the VI would be mine. Except we couldn't even get within a hundred metres of the city. And now I've sent them all the porn I downloaded while flying the Light of Kila. Yes, I watched some videos; what the hell, but I mostly downloaded them to make a viral bomb. In the virtual world, it was a blizzard. A mighty blizzard in which we couldn't just be seen.

I wasn't technically involved in the whole thing. I just took control of an imaginary soldier. The team itself consisted of five people. That was 10% of the code I was able to implement. Well, time for action.

We took the boat up and stopped a kilometre away from the town. It was just beside the sea. Then we took our snorkels, dived in and joined the torpedo. It had unique handles on it so we could swim with it. We were already near a sewage outlet covered by a grate in ten minutes. But there was a door in this grate with no lock. That was the weak point of this particular W.I. There are always weaknesses. We swam into the tunnel, switched on the lights and swam forward. For some reason, and because I loved Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, all three parts very much, then the atmosphere was appropriate. The weapons, the soldiers, the equipment, everything was just like the game. However, the main thing was not to kill or get caught in the act. Otherwise, the alarm would ring. Of course, I could make my way to the Central Headquarters, but then, for one thing, I would have to shoot so many enemies that Rimbaud was just nervously smoking on the sidelines. Second, the V would alert the hackers, and they'd know I'd gained control of it, so they'd just disconnect me from the system. Now that link was my only chance of getting out.

We swam 300 metres before surfacing in the sewer. We climbed the stairs, changed our suits to winter camouflage, and exited the sewer. There was no one outside, and a snowstorm was raging. Everything was snowed in, and we immediately ran down the street. Fortunately, I had radar to see the enemy's "guards" or, more precisely, the security programs. However, I only had it at 7 metres because I feared the radar waves might pick up. However, before we had travelled a hundred metres, we heard the hum of an engine. We immediately turned into an alleyway and hid behind a rubbish bin. In a second, a convoy swept in front of us. There was BMP-2 at the head, then three trucks with infantry, and BTR-80 at the back of the column. Yeah, I wouldn't like to run into them. After that, we went into the alley between the houses, where trucks with goods usually went. Even here, the wind and snow were raging. After walking 50 metres, we spotted a patrol. Three men. They walked in columns, with torches, leaning against one side of the buildings. We lay down near the other side and watched them. They were strolling but were not looking through the snowstorm, so they certainly did not see us. We kept running.

At last, we reached the end of the lane. Ahead was the park, and in its centre was the VI Headquarters. Essentially a three-hundred-storey skyscraper. Except, peering out of the corner, radar almost picked me up. I could see the enemy's radar waves, so I quickly hid behind the building, and the lock didn't hit me. As I peered out again, I noticed a block post with thirty men, fortified positions, two T-72 tanks covered with sandbags and a ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" with radar that threatened to pick us up. Fortunately, there was another option. I went into the alley to a sewer manhole, opened it, and our whole team climbed in. The tunnel led exactly to H.Q. It did not take long to run, and we were at the armoured door in five minutes. I couldn't find out what was there but opened it anyway. There was no one there. We went on, then through the boiler room, opened the flimsy door, and now we had to walk up the stairs of 300 floors. Well, that's the way it has to be.

What a blessing that we felt energised. Running for twenty minutes and jumping two or even three stairs to the 300th floor must be something. All right, then. Now we're on the top floor - this is the command centre, a control room. I gather my strength in my mind and send up another virus bomb with all the Galactic cooking shows of the last thousand and a half years. And even the Hanar and the Drell have these shows. And what about what the Volusians shoot, given that they are filmed without spacesuits on their home planet and their women have breasts too...

All in all, it's better not to see it. The viral bomb intensified the storm, causing all the glass in the skyscraper to shatter, and it started to get covered in snow. I also knew that the "control room" also had windows, and it turned out that all the "operators" were away from their monitors and were not watching the situation. This meant that it was possible to kill. When I opened the door, I immediately killed one guard in the head. They all had machine guns with silencers, so the others didn't hear it. We moved on. While the guards ran around in a blizzard, we quietly killed them with headshots. Now I was using the radar at full speed, so I could see all the enemies on the floor, which I took advantage of. In two minutes, everyone was killed, and we arrived at the last door. Here I had prepared a flat plastic explosive. Everyone leaned against the wall and got ready.

I attach the explosive, and a second later, there's a detonation. The door is blown out in an explosion; I'm the first to burst into the room. I killed two soldiers who were frightened and tried to point their weapons at me with shots to the head. Another one in the heart. One man, on the left, on the edge, tries to get a gun, but I'm faster. I hit him in the throat, and the bullet breaks his spine. Then I kill two more "operators" with shots to the head. The rest are killed by my men. There are already small snowdrifts in the office itself, and visibility is not what I would call a hundred per cent. I walk over to the correct computer and stick a thumb drive in. The VI becomes mine, but the Salarians believe the VI belongs to them and has managed to cope with the aftermath of the virus bomb at the moment. And so, before my eyes, the city began to transform.

All the soldiers became my soldiers, armed with AK-74s, RPG-7s, SVDs, PKMs, UZIs, Stinger, Javelin, and pump action shotguns. Armoured vehicles were all becoming the same, but there were many more. T-72 tanks, Shilka and Osa anti-aircraft guns. Grad, Uragan, Smerch, Tornado rocket launchers. Mi-8 helicopter and Scud UAV. Even if I am attacked, they will play by my rules, so it is my mind. And they will have to fight in an Arab city with narrow streets, dominated by my snipers with thermal imagers. Where everything is booby-trapped, and a machine gunner or a grenade launcher could peek out of any window. It's my world and my rules.

As it turned out, it all took one minute in real-time. The VI was mine now. It was inside the tamper-proof system that separated me from the Salarian computers. But only for a short time. I ordered my VI to expand. It separated small segments from the overall system with tiny tentacles, disarming and engulfing them. More precisely, he absorbed them and made them part of himself, increasing his power. It created more and more tentacles, they got longer and longer, they drank more and more segments, and they got more extensive and more powerful. Then, I ordered it to stop absorbing features, and now it was just reprogramming the parts and doing so at an alarming rate. And in doing so, the hackers knew nothing. The VI was reprogramming the segments to essentially " report back" to the hackers and say, "We're fine, boss." The VI distributed and reworked segment after part, and eventually, it was over. And now the whole defence against me became my defence. Well, now let's play.

****

Cyber Defence Headquarters

- Astonishing," Valron exclaimed without taking his eyes off the monitor.

- What is it? - Mordil asked.

- 'This goeth has a decimal code. It uses numbers from zero to nine. We... We can't read it.

- Interesting. Write down anything you can find. What's the security situation?

- No hacking attempts since the second virus bomb," Merdon replied.

- Hmm, alternating activation of the virus bombs. A defence mechanism for intruding on a certain level of the program. We're on the right track. Brace yourselves. The further we go, the more effective the defences will be.

****

Virtual reality

Okay, now it's time to get rid of the tentacles currently crawling inside me. I'm dealing with it quickly. Inside me, I'm starting to grow little tentacles. They begin to connect with the tentacles. After a few seconds, I began to reprogram these tentacles. They were becoming part of me, repainted orange, and I could feel my processing power increasing slightly, but not much. And so, everything inside became me, and now I took on the central tentacle. I immediately got inside it and began to quickly grab each segment individually. Thankfully, the hackers don't notice the changes if you do it that way. They were too insignificant. Half had already become me, and I reached the top of the dome in another ten seconds. And lo and behold, I was beyond it. There was nothing outside. Just a wasteland of grey-blue colour. Except that the central tentacle outside was divided into ten smaller ones, and each went to a balloon. It was the ten computers that were hacking away at me. There was no problem with that. Quickly but neatly, I remade them and took control of the computers. Immediately all the information that was in them was revealed to me. It was primarily data about me, but if they saw it all in code, I saw it all in pictures. I saw all my memories in the form of video snippets. But the Salarians have only downloaded 5.373% of me so far. Yeah, good luck to them.

I looked further down the network and noticed that all 10 computers were going on, connecting and logging into the central server of this complex. Come here, yummy. I was neat anyway. Even though I couldn't see the protection, it must be there. Only it would activate if the system spotted the enemy. And there is no enemy. Here I have already invaded the server. I started by taking over all the dormant antivirus systems. I'm not even surprised at the carelessness of the Salarians. I was blocked by a five-level defence system and a clever V-Patrol. And the protection was such that even the Quarians were nervous of such a thing. I used all the antivirus systems I had transferred to my V.I. and strengthened it. I could get M79 and RG-6 grenade launchers and BM-37 82mm mortar with cluster mines. Let them poke around; I'll give them Teheran in the virtual.

Only after that did I start a complete takeover of the server. And immediately, I was flooded with information: video recordings of research and experiments, reports and reports, drawings and calculations. And all of this I viewed in a matter of milliseconds. In half a minute, I had captured the server, and immediately I noticed hundreds of pathways to all the station's systems. To computers, doors, cameras, turrets, and alarms. In short, total control. And I went in all directions. In a minute, I already had control of every system on the station, even those responsible for artificial gravity. I also grabbed the communications repeater. I already had access to the extranet, but first, I had to eliminate the threat. In the virtual, as soon as I took over the communication repeater, there were flying balloons that were unique to the entire staff. There were 5,000 of them, including 1,500 Special Forces soldiers. I immediately aimed my tentacles at them, one to the other, quickly capturing them without anyone knowing anything. Excuse me, staff, but you are a threat to me. You didn't have to do all this, you could have talked to me first, and you immediately chained me to the dentist's chair and put a pin in my head. Well, it's your own fault.

Closing the door to the room with the hackers hacking at me, I activated the turret in the ceiling and shot them in the back. The first three immediately stained the glass before them with their insides. I finished three more just as quickly as they jumped up from their chairs. The other four tried to contact the unis, but they didn't work. They all stood near the wall, and I shot them.

The four Salarians, who had just come to the door then, were beginning to worry why they weren't being opened. I closed the hermetic door behind them, which was needed in case of depressurisation. That door crushed one Salarian, and three others were killed by a turret. And now the real bloody bacchanalia began. The corridors started to be blocked off by hermetic doors, and the severed Salarians were simply shot by the turrets in the ceilings. At the intersections of the halls, bouncing mines were detonated that exploded with shrapnel and killed everyone there. And there were a lot of people precisely at the corners. I also quickly finished those in the reactor and mass core compartments. In five minutes, it was all over. Not a single camera showed any living Salarian, but I still took precautionary measures and activated the neural sweep. This complex was previously used for biological research and was soon to be used for Rakhni research from Noveria. Well, then, it wasn't meant to be. So now I was alone in the complex and controlling the communication relay with a secure channel to GOR Headquarters. The next target is Sur'kesh.