Chapter 42: The Deep Dive I

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Chapter 42: The Deep Dive I

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The faint light of dawn sneaked in through the windows of X's Japantown apartment.

The natural light of dawn illuminated the small apartment, not that it needed much light.

The several lights coming from X's devices were enough of a source of light, the apartment's personal computer, laptop, and tablet, all were lit up.

X had his interface plug linked to his laptop, writing some scripts while taking sips of tea.

He surprisingly slept all night, getting plenty of rest. He had to before deep diving into the Net.

Still, he woke up early as usual, prepared some water and let it boil while he showered, then made himself some tea, and got to work.

It wasn't time for a deep dive just yet. There is still some work to be done on his cyberdeck.

Remember that a cyberdeck is just an operation system. It's a foundation on which you can build either a small house or a skyscraper.

X focused on fortifying the cyberdeck's security by installing an advanced firewall, creating a first line of defense against hostile programs.

Rather than relying on standard protocols, X coded custom layers that target specific ICE threats, such as Hellhounds and Bloodhounds, which are notorious for tracking and burning intruders.

Each subsystem within his cyberdeck would have its own isolated firewall, so if a section is breached, the damage would be contained.

With these shield layers, his deck should act like a digital fortress, equipped to hold its ground in heavily defended networks.

X also developed custom daemons; specialized programs designed to suit his unique tactics and objectives.

Custom daemons could range from stealth programs to bypass alarms without detection to adaptive attack programs capable of breaking through evolving ICE defenses.

Cloaking his digital presence would be another priority, allowing him to remain undetected as he moves through data streams.

X installed signal dampeners and deployed chameleon cloaking protocols, which can continuously alter his digital signature, masking his activities in hostile networks.

This constant, low-level scramble of identifiers would make it difficult for automated security or rival Netrunners to pinpoint him.

In addition, he installed decoy daemons that can act as digital bait, distracting enemy ICE long enough for him to complete his missions.

X went through the cyberdeck's ICE again, reviewing it and looking for vulnerabilities.

There are always vulnerabilities. If you found none, then you've just not looked enough, so X kept trying to crack his personal ICE again and again.

If he succeeds, he fixes the vulnerability and tries again. The process seemed to be unending because often, the mere act of fixing a vulnerability creates another.

He had to work for hours and hours to finally make something he considered to be good enough.

"Let's begin," X took a deep breath as he stood up before his suit, a heat-resistant hybridweave netrunning suit.

It's a specialized piece of gear designed to protect Netrunners from both environmental and digital threats.

It's constructed from a blend of advanced synthetic fibers and heat-resistant materials.

That allows the suit to provide a lightweight yet durable barrier against high temperatures, shielding its wearer from burns or overheating during extended cyberdeck sessions.

To support connectivity, many hybridweave suits integrate signal amplifiers and noise-reduction features.

These components enhance the Netrunner's signal strength, improving reception and clarity, especially in areas with heavy interference.

The suit reduces digital noise, optimizing the deck's performance and enabling smoother, faster network access during complex hacking tasks, even in crowded or compromised network environments.

It's a requirement for most Netrunning jobs, so X put it on and rested on his Netrunning chair, tailored for comfort during extended sessions; reclining and adjusting his neural interface until everything felt seamless.

"Alright, Y. Get ready to capture everything you see. Z, organize the intel as it comes in and keep track of the traces," he said aloud, addressing the other personalities that dwelled within him.

With a slow exhale, he jacked in.

He may have only one cyber eye, but he needn't another to see the deep Net. He can rely on his cyberdeck which can project everything through his neuro-link interface.

The lights in X's home dimmed as he settled into his rig, slipping into netspace for the first major dive of his career.

As he initiated the connection, the world around him melted away, replaced by a pulsing, neon abyss.

Stepping through the threshold of real space into cyberspace, X felt a cold rush ripple over his skin, like a plunge into a cold pool where gravity was little more than a suggestion.

Reality dissolved, replaced by a darkened landscape bathed in faint, pulsing red.

It felt as though he'd stepped into a digital sea, an endless horizon stretching out in sharp three-dimensional clarity, reminiscent of the world seen in Tron, but tinged with Night City's grim glow.

The moment he entered, X felt the Net's weight; a peculiar density, as though he was walking through thick fog.

Shapes materialized around him in the form of angular data paths and nodes, massive, semi-transparent structures stacked like looming towers in a spectral city.

The quality of each object's rendering varied, blurring at the edges or sharpening depending on the available bandwidth of the Net's current.

Data streams flickered past, like light trails in a blood-red haze, carrying coded information to and fro in the constant flow of network traffic.

Each step was strange and surreal. His avatar, a digital construct of his form, felt both weightless and solid, like moving in zero gravity but with the added clarity of enhanced awareness.

The floor was an endless, translucent plane, a red-tinted grid stretching out as far as he could see, rippling underfoot as if it had a life of its own.

Around him, faint outlines of distant nodes and pathways glowed dimly in the red mist, hinting at the vast network beyond, hidden just out of reach.

Structures materialized around him in intricate three-dimensional forms, as though he'd stepped into a city crafted entirely of glass and neon, alive with the pulsing hum of data streaming in every direction.

The Net stretched out before him, vast and unending, a matrix of translucent towers, spiraling conduits, and shimmering corridors.

Data streams flowed like rivers of light, weaving between the towers, each thread carrying untold amounts of information to destinations far beyond Japantown.

X took it all in, marveling at the raw beauty of the Net, the sheer scale and elegance of its architecture.

Everything was fluid, yet fixed; malleable, yet powerful. Just being here made him feel alive, like he was tapping into a force few ever truly understood.

"This is where I belong," That thought rose in X's mind.

Ahead, Japantown's network loomed, taking shape as a series of fortified nodes connected by pathways that resembled dimly lit highways, twisting and stretching into the distance.

The outer edges were littered with nodes representing public surveillance feeds; small, dark-red spheres scattered along the grid.

They resembled watchful eyes, each one marking a security camera hidden in Japantown's streets.

X felt as if he was floating, cautiously approaching them, walking the unfamiliar Net... It all felt real.

Reaching out, his fingers touched a stream of data. There was an impact, if ever so slight.

The data scattered around, only to refocus itself again and continue on its way.

I am now a program. The world around me is a system. I can maneuver through that world however I want.

For example, if I give the command, I can teleport. It was instant, just as instant as the speed at which he makes commands; how he appeared hundreds of meters away.

And he didn't stop, he skipped around, seeming as if he glitches around the Net to appear elsewhere; though only staying in Japantown.

I can even do this. What he did was raise his arms, from which an endless tsunami of data flowed everywhere, so much so that it glitched a nearby camera for a few seconds.

X wasn't using any of his prepared daemons or scripts. It's his mind that's writing random data, releasing scripts the limit his brain could handle.

From what it appeared like, X's limit seemed to be unnaturally high, and the amount of control he had seemed to only be getting higher as he familiarized himself with the process.

X halted the process and started just looking around, his eyes soon falling upon a high Net architecture in the distance.

There, he appeared, at the very top, his illusionary eyes wide as he observed the entirety of Japantown's Network system.

He carefully scrutinized each and every packet of data. Though they were encrypted, he could learn something from them, from the traces they left him; to map out Japantown's Net Architecture.

X closed his eyes and basked in the sensation of what felt like absolute power, enjoying the breeze of data passing by him, and the wind sparking from collisions of data.