Zoo City Part 59

>>SysRun: Pluslife >>Plugin/Cnapce: run .

>>Pluslife/Cnapce online >>Enter Pa.s.sword

My mates, both IRL and streaming, always say that a persona's pa.s.sword needs to be special and private. Something different for every account or prog. Something that no one will ever be able to acci-hack, especially not some low-tech lifejock with a score to settle with people like me. Yeah, I run my plugins on the bill of some big daddy corporate, but show me a half-cooked simp that wouldn't do the same d.a.m.n thing if the contract msgd their way.

So yeah, pa.s.swords. I have a dodgy memory on the best of days, popping pills just to keep my focus, which makes my having several pa.s.swords for my lives a lost cause. So, I keep one pa.s.sword. One, easy to mem, pa.s.sword. It's a joke really, how it came about.

>>Pa.s.sword: @nother

From my days of misspent youth. When a prog asked "Enter another pa.s.sword" for sec-proof reasons, I did. I entered "@nother" pa.s.sword. I was a clever little s.h.i.+t. Now I am stuck with it. For all my progs and accounts. SIM, CV, Grande...Pluslife. Especially Pluslife. My "@nother" life.

>>Pa.s.sword accepted >>Welcome! to Pluslife, user Cnapce

Pluslife. Where I work. The bigwig queue-cutters and chequechasers that keep me fed and roofed IRL hired me. Some kind of experimental prog that they needed beta'd. Beta'd? More like Omega'd at this point. Two years of running this deal for them, and do I know anything new about the prog? Nope. Not that I care. I'm never jonesing for black-makt s.h.i.+t, my weekly install keeps me sony. I have a roof over my n.o.b in both lives, all paid up and looking sw.a.n.k.

All I have to do is find the users on my daily lister, that's all. The corp feeds me the IDs of Pluslifers and I use this topline tech to hack them out and get my avvie to where they are. It is a sugar deal, really. I get all the time in the box as I want, so long as I'm surfing around for these users, and I get to see the net from all over. Last week I was sifting the code for some user in Kenya handled "And3rson" and I spent most of a day checking Ken-makt. Got a sweet deal on some Twarez for my ma, too. Then And3rson happened by the shopsite and I pulled his plug. The next day, I was in Oslo, skiing the pixel moguls and searching out "Doktor_Mow". They are both disconnect now. That's my gig. Adminning the people on my lister. I sever the links. Go ahead. Call me a wager. Call me a corporate b.i.t.c.hcat. The money is good, and now I don't have to run quests and odd-jobs to get it. And my SIM don't know any difference.

I never know exactly what they did, my listers. I get brief notes, that's all. Illegals, rot-users, corp-debtors, hacktavists or fragged SIMs. But srsly, who cares? I find 'em, meet 'em, then fry 'em. The warez I get to use is toplined now, designer nano, on-site support? What else can a user ask for?

Oh, wait. Today's lister is cooked and inboxing right now.

>>Lister 08.099/

>>>User ID: CS44 (delinquent account) >>>User ID: cranque (suspected hack) >>>User ID: Malessa77 (account sharing) >>>User ID: LthreethreeT (account sharing) >>>Location: Sydney

Sydney? That's the f.u.c.king tops. I've never been. Well, IRL anyways. A good four-pop like this should take me most of the week. Let's see. We get to start off with what? A delinquent account. Old user, probably. They stop paying their bill, get defused, whatever. Their avatar was logged in when they went DQ, so now I get to go clean up the server.

So. Sydney. I'm going to need to blend in. Jeans. Plain s.h.i.+rt. Floppy hat... no, brimmed cap. Yeah, now I look good. I might as well be an outbacker. Well, Pluslifed, anyway. And now, I'm going down under.

>>Cnapce/port >>Dest/Sydney//117.CS44

My apartment pixellates, unfocuses, then refocuses like a bad edit in streamcast. I don't get it. Pluslife can afford to make the experience perfect for everyone, but you snag up some admin rights and you get total a.n.a.logue naush. Oh well. The refocus has me, or my avvie anyway, in the parking lot of some makt. I pull up the tag cues, and suddenly my... uhm... target for lack of a better term... flashes above a guy sitting in his auto. CS44 (afk) glows in blue above his head. Here I go. Time to earn my keep.

I pop on over to the target. He is looking ahead, totally zomb'd out. He isn't in there anymore. Probably hasn't paid up in weeks. Well, it's the cycle of life...or, Pluslife. Time to do my thing.

>>Cnapce: User ID CS44. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been...

I lean in, close to his vacant ear. Not that he knows anything that I'm doing, but it makes me feel like a real leet.

>>Cnapce:...terminated.

There is a brief flutter of static and little mister CS44 gets the pixel flush treatment. In a flash I'm looking at an empty ride. One down. Three to go. I love this job. It's one part gamer, one part world traveller, and one part serial killer. All digi, all the time. Yeah, there's urbans out there that blog about Pluslifers offing themselves IRL when they lose their Plus, but that's just mythchat. I mean, this is just a game. Just a prog. Well, I guess it is my life... you know, my job. But srsly? Sure, I wouldn't know what I could do without this gig, but if I do my job right, I don't need to think about it. Speaking of which...

>>Cnapce/port >>Dest/Sydney//133.cranque

Another pixel s.h.i.+ft, another backdrop. Where the h.e.l.l am I? It's low-res, off the streets, but still Sydney. No furniture, not even a digicot. My tag cues are still up, and the bright blue cranque tag floats right in front of me. Nothing beneath it. He should be right here. f.u.c.kin' hack job. These are my least favourite marks. Aggro backdoor coding f.u.c.ks. All of them.

>>cranque: What the h.e.l.l, bro? How R U in my codex? Ralphie, izzatu?

>>Cnapce: Ya, where R U?

>>cranque: Sidedoor, s.h.i.+ft-alt-7.

Arrogant black-hatters. They always give up the goods. I punch the sideline hack, the door appears, and in I go. The side room is nothing but copy-cut-paste codes. All vintage gear and stolen merch from around the Net. Two other users are sitting with the tagless cranque. They plugout as soon as my avvie pops in. They know.

>>report:TyTy >>report:Angel0fDeth

Cranque looks like most Pluslifers. He's the perfect height, built like a streamstar, and covered in perfect-image tattoo script. Another perfect body in a perfect world full of perfectly happy perfects. You'd think this would be enough. But no. Hacks and cheats don't think so.

>>Freezeplug/Cnapce: cranque >>cranque: Wait! No! Cmon man, dont do this. What do U want? Ill code it! Cmon!

The look on his face is priceless. I can just see this pimple-facer sitting in his mom's bas.e.m.e.nt, desperately trying to back out of the prog, frothing and sweating and popping a nervous chub about getting caught. But it is no use. Time for a little admin-play.

>>Cnapce: User ID cranque. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been...

>>cranque: Nononononononononononononononononononononononono!!!!!!!!!1111111 >>Cnapce: ...terminated.

Another one bytes the dust. Lesson taught. Now go tell your mom that her funds have been wasted and her SID is tagged for possible disconnect. f.u.c.ker. There is nothing I hate more than a user who cheats the prog. Especially in Pluslife. I mean, for some users this is their escape from the smog and the static. A place to look good, get out and party, and do it without shaving a single whisker. Cheathacking here is just wrong. Dirty pool. Loaded dice. To me, it's no better than those old nano'd runners on Moxy making all the little kids cry. Cheaters should be sterilised.

Okay, so I get to cheat. But it's my job. Not cheating. Admining. Which, if I want to keep rolling this style, I need to get back to.

>>Cnapce/port >>Dest/Sydney//186.Malessa77

The s.h.i.+ft is a good one. From the dark of the hack-house to the sunny yellow40 of a suburb footie-family cottage yard. This place is a typical hab in Pluslife. Single floor flat, pastel b.u.t.tery siding, HanselGretel s.h.i.+ngles, and even a whitewash picket fence with a fun little gate. It even has a coded inbox with her name on it. Cla.s.sy s.h.i.+t, this is. It isn't often that I have to go G.o.dmode on someone who can afford Homes & Gardens digi-rose bushes and two Prada topiary dolphins. This is no scam-shack. This is a Pluslife homestead worth taking a screencap of. What the h.e.l.l is Malessa77 getting binned for? Account sharing? Srsly? That is just sad.

Account sharing is when someone else uses a user's pa.s.sword to check accounts, mails, msgs and even move code around in their Pluslives. Most of the time it turns out that somebody stole somebody's @nother, or hacked their way in, or whatever. n.o.body likes having an unwanted avvie running around in their Pluslife, so they report their ID, and management puts them on my lister. Like Malessa77 here. And then it is the end of them.