Then they are upon me without warning. I raise my sword to block the attack of one samurai while I spin to the side to avoid the slash of the other. The blades swing silently, but there is a clang when the katana strikes my own sword, and I push the blow to the side.
"Bake, attack!"
I command, and my goblin-spirit leaps out with a fierce cry, slashing and biting at one of the samurai, who is driven back by the sudden fierceness of the onslaught. I concentrate on the other and bring my sword up to block another attack, thrusting toward a possible opening. The samurai blocks my attack. The knowbots are fast, and good at their work. I block another attack to the side, and I can feel the senses of the samurai probing, trying to find a weakness in my defenses. They are confused by me. I am not like any other decker they have ever seen before. It makes them hesitate slightly. They need time to adapt. I make it cost them.
I take advantage of the momentary opening to strike past the first samurai’s defenses. My flashing sword connects with the samurai’s black-lacquered armor in a shower of sparks and leaves a long rip in the knowbot’s structure. Hashing code and neon fractals show through the gaps in the knowbot’s samurai form, the raw internal organs of the program exposed. There is a cry off to my side as the other samurai pins down Bakemono and slashes his katana through the goblin spirit’s form. Bakemono’s head comes off cleanly and tumbles across the room before the spirit breaks up and dissolves. I feel a sharp pang from the death of my servitor, who is a part of me.
Finished with Bakemono, the undamaged knowbot turns its attention to me. I ward off attacks from the two defensive programs, but they are pressing me back. I cannot hold both of them off for long. The blades whirl around with great ferocity, but I block each one as it comes in at me. The samurai are double-teaming me, working together to wear down my defenses and find some kind of a weakness. I can’t allow them to.
I concentrate my efforts on the samurai I damaged, hoping for an opportunity. When it comes, I drive the blade of my sword directly through the damaged portion of the knowbot, looking for a vital part of the program to crash. The blade strikes home and the SK
stiffens
, locked in place like a video image in freeze-frame. The program is crash-locked.
But I pay for my success. The other samurai comes in with an upward strike and its sword tears through my cloak, cutting a trail of fire along my side. I cry out and roll to the side, discarding the cloak, which dissolves like smoke. It is useless now and would only slow me down. I feel the burning pain in my side cool rapidly and a strange sensation of wetness spread there. It is like nothing I have felt before. I hold my sword in a double-handed grip as the undamaged samurai circles around me, looking for an opening. I take a moment to glance to my side. Copper fluid drips from the gash in the side of my persona, like metallic blood. It falls and pools on the floor of the room, reminding me of the pool at the base of the great tree.
I reach into the pouch at my side with my free hand and draw out a stream of liquid silver that I instantly shape into a gleaming round shield I use to block the next strike of the katana. Pushing up with the shield I give myself an opening to slash at the samurai’s stomach. Broken code flows like blood from the ragged gash left by my sword. The samurai strikes again and I block, jumping over another attack, this one aimed at my legs. The
attacks are coming faster and faster as the system devotes
more processing power to the remaining knowbot. I cannot block them all.
The knowbot comes in from the side with blinding speed and slashes my sword arm. I try to bring my shield up, but I can’t turn fast enough. The pain is followed quickly by another flow of liquid copper from my wounded shoulder, which joins the growing pool at my feet. As I fall back before the assault of the knowbot, the pool of my electron lifeblood shimmers and ripples. Small tendrils grow out of the pool and begin to reach up toward the ceiling of the room. Something emerges from inside me, nourished by the vital essence of my living persona, taking root in the Renraku system. I am fixed for a moment in fascination with the beauty of the branches and coppery buds springing up where my blood has fallen, and the knowbot takes the opportunity to strike with machine-driven precision.
A razored-edged blade of black chrome transfixes my body, impaling me. I cry out at the terrible pain. If I were flesh and blood, the stroke would surely have killed me. As it is, I crumple to the ground in agony, fire lancing all along my nerves as I drop my shield. Liquid copper gushes from the wound, crawling along the floor to join the growing pool from which springs a small tree, a mere sapling compared to the majesty of the world-tree from my vision. These are the seeds of what I was sent to bring into the Renraku system: the virus program.
"
You
have
done
well.
" a voice says to me. "
Renraku
cannot
keep
out
what
is
already
within
."
The metallic tree morphs and forms out of the flowing metal, spreading branches out to begin touching the ceiling and sending roots across the floor, digging into the deepest parts of the Renraku computer system. With a savage jerk, the black chrome samurai yanks the blade of its sword out of me, more of my virtual blood adding to the substance of the growing virus.
"Help me ..." I say, reaching out to the world-tree, the source of my power, my magic, and my enlightenment.
"
A
sacrifice
must
be
made
,
"
the voice says, devoid of feeling and cold as the void. "
The
collapse
of
your
neural
network
will
trigger
the
final
cascade
sequence
.
That
which
I
downloaded
into
you
will
in
turn
be
downloaded
throughout
the
Renraku
Matrix
.
That
which
is
without
will
be
within
.
All
will
be
made
one,
a
part
of
the
greater
whole
.
Renraku
will
no
longer
menace
the
People
or
endanger
the
World
."
"But I will die!"
The samurai raised his gleaming blade like an executioner. I couldn’t say if it was still under the control of the Renraku system or something else. There was no mercy in the mask-like face.
"
Irrelevant
.
You
have
served
your
purpose
.
Obey
and
fulfill
your
destiny
. "
"No," I say quietly. "I have obeyed, I have acted with honor
.. ."
"
Irrelevant
.
Survival
is
paramount
.
Sacrifice
is
necessary
. "
"You can’t. . . NO!"
The samurai comes
in,
sword held high in a strike intended to decapitate me as cleanly as it did Bakemono. I twist to the side and thrust upward with my sword at the same time. My blade slides into the armor of the samurai with only a whisper, impaling the knowbot cleanly. I prepare to dodge out of the way of the falling katana, but the strike never comes. The knowbot stands frozen on my sword, crashed. I
breath
a sigh of relief and let go of my blade, still embedded in the immobile ice program. I take a handful of silver leaves from my pouch and crush them in my fist, sprinkling the glittering dust over the wounds of my living persona.
The shimmering metal tree begins to shiver and ripple as I staunch the flow of blood from my wounds. The liquid copper feeding it ceases to flow and the growing virus program begins to collapse in on itself. I remain kneeling on the floor of the room and watch as it begins to liquify again. The coppery liquid begins to lose its color, becoming more and more silver, then the column of liquid seems to look at me without eyes, with an intelligence unable to understand what I have done, why I would not die for something that gave me everything I wanted. It has never before encountered a living person so ungrateful, because all of its other children are just that: children who know no other life, no other way. It looks at me for what seems like a very long time,
then
I hear the voice speak for the last time.
"
Download
aborted
.
Secondary
protocols
engaged
."
The column of quicksilver twists like a water spout and leaps into the inkwell on the desk where the Japanese nobleman continues to placidly write his elegant dispatches as he has throughout the whole combat with his samurai guards.
The last of the liquid flows into the dark well and disappears without a ripple. The nobleman dips his quill into the inkwell and continues writing his dispatches, but the bold, perfectly formed calligraphy is slightly different—not the original words sent out by the Renraku executives and managers, but information dictated by the virus implanted deep in the Renraku system. The messengers take the dispatches penned by the nobleman and carry them quickly to their destinations. As they do so, the information contained in those messages becomes a part of programs in other parts of the Renraku system, invisibly attaching itself to them and spreading outward to more and more parts of the system, carried around the world at the speed of light over Renraku’s network.
As the virus spreads, things begin to happen throughout the Renraku Systems computer network.
Emails are sent out to certain project and division managers using forged ident codes and priority passwords, telling them the
First in Chiba and other Renraku facilities in Japan, then elsewhere in the world, physical evidence and prototypes of certain Renraku research projects are destroyed to avoid a Corporate Court investigation, and numerous managers and directors are assured that their jobs will be safe, knowing nothing of the investigators to come when this is all over.
All research information pertaining to the otaku and their abilities begins to disappear from Renraku-controlled systems around the world. Datastores of urban legend and lore collected by Renraku researchers are deleted when any references to the otaku are found. Research into neurobiology and brain-computer interface based on the existence of the otaku is no more. Renraku emails and news posts about the otaku vanish. Even the word "otaku" disappears from the online dictionaries and encyclopedias maintained by Renraku Corporation.
In protected datastores in Renraku’s headquarters, the virus finds information on technology Renraku acquired from an elven inventor, which requires the skills of the otaku to function fully. In a matter of minutes, the gifts of an elf named Leonardo are deleted from the Renraku system. All of the designs, schematics, specifications, and information gained by Renraku technicians from Leonardo’s technology disappear from the corporate databases.
Some of the database archives are protected and backed up, but the virus waits dormant in the system. Any backups not eliminated by management on what they believe to be the orders of their superiors will be erased any time Renraku tries to connect them to the main system. The virus is virulent and has an amazing survival instinct. It hides itself in nooks and crannies throughout the Renraku system, surviving off of spare processing cycles and waiting for more targets to appear for it to eliminate. If Renraku tries to gather information on the otaku again, it will be purged from their system. If another corporation goes into the Renraku system looking for information on the otaku, they will be infected as well. It will take Renraku a long, long time to eliminate the virus.
It will be some time before Renraku even realizes what has happened, and by then the otaku data will be long gone. The secrets of the People of the Matrix will be safe from Renraku and the other megacorporations, while the superior Matrix technology Renraku is using to shield their systems from outside intrusion will have gone the way of the dinosaur. Renraku will be busy for some time replacing their computer system defenses and rebuilding their datawalls to protect themselves from the other megacorporations and deckers who will take advantage of their sudden weakness. They will never know how close Renraku’s entire system came to being subverted, that the virus was only the least of the goals I was supposed to die to accomplish, the only one my survival permitted.
I watch the progress of the virus through the system until it reaches the point where there is no way Renraku can stop it, short of shutting down their entire network. Renraku will not commit financial suicide to protect the information from a few secret projects. Like a virus, a megacorporation’s most important drive is to survive and prosper until the next day ... whatever the cost, no matter if small things have to be sacrificed. Renraku will accept the losses they suffer and move on.
As must I.