Fringe of the Darknet

[sw4fun]

Fringe of the Darknet (closed)

Skidplate sat in a dark corner booth of a shitty little dive in a forgotten part of the Verge. The beer was bad and the company was worse but when looking for discrete privacy this place couldn't be beat because nobody looked at anybody else let alone talked to anybody else. Hell the waitress barely talked to you even to get a drink. Of course he wasn't there to drink he was there to work. The one other advantage of this place, if you knew how to do it, was the darknet access.

A slender cord ran from behind his ear to a small console in his lap which was itself connected to a jack under the table. His unnatural purple eyes were unfocused as he maneuvered through the darknet. He could see the bar behind the icons and images of the darknet but they were blurred as all his focus was on slicing into a small corporate network. As he worked sweat formed under this short black hair and began to trickle down his face. His fingers began to fly over the console and had any of the other patrons looked over into his booth, not that anyone would, they might have mistaken the motion for masturbation. Indeed it was a kind of self-flagulation as he sliced deeper into the network.

After nearly an hour he slumped back against the worn vinyl and his eyes refocused a bit. It actually took a moment to readjust to the bad lighting after the brightness of the network. His t-shirt was clingy to his skin from the sweat and he noticed that his beer was warm when he took a swig to clear the cloying taste from his mouth. None of that mattered though because he had made a successful slice. He looked over at his friend in the booth with him and smiled.

"We got the information. Now we just need a buyer."

This is a closed thread

 

[HotKittygirl]

Calling this place a dive was a little too nice. It was like a dive took a shit and this was the part that got stuck on the bottom of a boot and tracked into the linoleum floor. The beer was watered down and probably poisonous and most of the people looked and smelled like they hadn't bathed in a good month or two.

It took at least three cigarettes to block the stench, even then it was a hard fought battle. More often than not she was apt to blow smoke in someone else's face but at the moment she wished she could do it to herself. Coupled with the freak with the purple eyes who looked like he was furiously masterbating in her booth, well, things were looking awfully dim today. Not that they ever looked bright, the sun wasn't a welcome friend in these parts or so it seemed like. Of course the ever present clouds of pollution didn't help. Plush lips pursed about the butt of another cigarette as Em took another drag, the cherry tip smoldering a brilliant red in the dim light for a brief moment. With an exasperated sigh she released a billowing cloud of smoke and watched it with glazed over chocolate brown eyes drift towards the ceiling.

Em was far from your typical street rat that inhabited this establishment. Most had that haggard, tired look on their faces, defeated and aged before their time. There was nothing defeated or aged about this one, her pretty little face held a rather massive amount of cockiness, which was probably the reason why the waitress didn't want to talk much to them. Her hair was wild and short, sleek black and swept over her brow, with a shock of violent purple across the bangs. The rest was left wild, almost spiky places. An attire of leather and denim clung to her svelte, shapely frame, hints of elaborate tattoo work seen on her forearms and mid-drift when she shifted her place in the booth. A pair of seemingly overly large boots, tattered and scuffed, rested against the table as Em sat perched nearby the furiously working man. She'd give him the occasional side long glance only to find nothing of interest there, with another sigh she'd take another puff and another drink. The smoking and the booze never concerned here, while they might shorten her live span there were far worse things out there that would sharpen it far more effectively and at next to nothing in price.

“Took you long enough.” She said throatily after he disengaged himself and came out of that darknet induced coma. Without a glance she kicked her feet off the table and started to push up. “Well let's get this party started. I'm itchy and tired of sitting here.”

 

[sw4fun]

Grabbing his console his slipped it into a beaten up nylon backpack which he flung over his shoulder. Slipping out of the booth the contrast between Em and he was stark. Where she was solidly build he was wiry, though not frail, he was pale without being pasty, and his clothes looked more worn. He wore a dark green surplus jacket over a faded t-shirt and dark pants along with well worn jump boots in desperate need of polishing.

He had not worked with Em before but her protection services came recommended from some business contacts he had. It wasn't that he couldn't take care of himself but when doing the deep darknet work like this he had to do it in unsavory places and having someone watching to make sure no one interrupted him was important. His normal security guy was on the other side of the country when this opportunity came up and so he had ended up contracting Em to take his place.

Reputation aside he wasn't overly thrilled with her as a choice. Tank, his normal guy, was a cybernetic marvel who just screamed go the fuck away by appearance. In the occasional fight he had typically been able to end it quickly without resorting to gun play which would so often make this work... messy. Em, in his opinion, had a nice figure and was not terribly intimidating on the surface aside from her scowl. At her size though he was worried she would invite trouble rather than push it away. Alas though he needed her and hadn't had the time to be choosy.

Walking out of the bar he did admire that along with her size she had a nice figure and he stared at her ass for a second. It was nice but he also was not going to mix business with pleasure.

"We need to head over to Sherka's. I know a few people there who can help find a buyer. This is my crowd so stand there and be quiet. They don't know you and the only reason they will trust you is because you are there with me. Got it?"

 

[HotKittygirl]

Em had more of an athletic, dancer type of build. She was sleek and lithe, graceful and confident in her movements, though there was no denying the definition in her limbs; a push over she was not. While she might not be as physically intimidating as someone bristling with over-sized cybernetic parts and gizmos, people only made the mistake of underestimating her once.

Em moved with a sultry grace, her legs kicked out in front of her and she landed with only a slight rustle of her attire, a few violet bangs fell out over that all too beautiful visage. Well, maybe she could be considered beautiful if she didn’t wear that perpetual scowl. One thing Em didn’t do was play around, the look on her face made that much evident with but a glance.

Her hands swept out over her hips, the jaded jeans riding low on the shapely curves and offering just a hint of the undergarments underneath. There was also no denying the flash of steel under her short leather jacket, a pistol holstered under her arm. As Em stood she offered a little stretch, arching her back and causing her already tight fitting t-shirt to strain just a bit more against her modest bust. The cigarette dangled precariously between her lips, the tip still smoldering. With a light grunt she followed after the man as he made his exit, taking the lead as was her want, if only to give a subtle glance about. The view from behind was just as appealing, a firm backside that tensed and jostled with each step. For the most part she was unconcerned with exactly where they were going or what they were doing. It wasn’t until he finally spoke at length that those slender brows arched and that scowl was replaced with an incredulous look. It was brief, almost a double take before the scowl returned and Em reached up and plucked the cigarette from her lips. She let the smoke billow out as she calm to a halt and turned on the balls of her feet.

“Lookit,” She started, the cigarette dangling in her grasp as she took a step closer and closed the distance between them. “I dunno what kind of meathead you worked with in the past but…talk like that gets you more than pouty looks and insulted pride. Next time you wanna throw orders around you might wanna re-think the tone and wording there…” It was almost a growl as she spoke, an undeniable challenge as the subtle anger flickered in those deep brown eyes.

 

[sw4fun]

He stopped in his tracks and looked at her with a flicker of anger in his eyes.

"I don't throw around orders I give direction because on this job I am the fucking boss because I hired you got it? You have almost certainly never been to Sherka's before so why don't you swallow the attitude and listen. Sherka's is one of the major darknet slice clearing houses. The only people that go there have been invited and you only get invited if you are a slicer. The muscle are not the clients and Sherka doesn't take well to fights in his joint. You may be little Ms Badass here on the Verge but there you're shit. You're shit because Sherka has not one, not five, not ten but over fifty bouncers on premise at all times. These aren't bouncers like that hackjob back in the dive. These are all off-duty cops or corporate security."

He looked at her to make sure she was listening.

"Get it, Sherka's sells the shit we steal from the government and the corporates and they look the other way that their guys moonlight for him. If you speak-up at a bad time or mouth off to the wrong person they will never find our bodies. So lets pretend I know how to keep us alive over there and you are a good little girl who wants to earn her percentage and shut your mouth when I tell you too."

He almost spit the last few words at her to make his point. Damnit he missed Tank. That guy knew what was what. This little piece of ass was just pissing him off. He moved to walk around her and hail a cab to get them to Sherka's.

 

[HotKittygirl]

If Em was paying attention to the little rant, those brown eyes made no indication. It was the kind of look one had when they were tuning out someone in a conversation, even as her lips twitched slightly to the right. The cigarette flickered in her grasp before she brought it to her lips and took another deep drag before she let it filter out through her nostrils. Instead of initially retorting she flashed something that was akin to a grin, more of a brandishing of gnashed teeth.

Em was never known to have good sense or anything resembling control. She had a temper, a pretty bad one and in the face of such a challenge the only thing that she could do was react. She let him ramble on and get to his stopping point before she simply snapped. It was a flash of movement, quicker than an eye could really follow. Em was wired for speed, not some hulking mass of muscle and machine. She knew how to hit and where to strike; a single well placed blow could do more than a flurry of wasted movement. And thus she struck as he turned to hail the cab, her left hand snapped out to backhand slap him across his cheek. The moment behind the blow was something fierce, more than such a svelte frame should allow.

“Next time you call me little girl I’m wearing your fucking tongue as a necklace,” She said smoothly, the cigarette jostling with each word she said. “Now you play nice or they’re going to be scraping you off the curb in about ten seconds. Your money ain’t worth shit. If you think I won’t rub your face off on the concrete then you obviously weren’t told of me properly.”

 

[sw4fun]

He took the shot to the face and stumbled a bit as she caught him to hiss in his face.

"Your money ain’t worth shit. If you think I won’t rub your face off on the concrete then you obviously weren’t told of me properly.”

"I was told you had a temper and I see they were right. It doesn't change the basic dynamics of this situation. Added to which how much protection work is out there for those that beat up anyone they are trying to protect? Now you can either let me go and we can be on our way or you can stand here with your pride and a reputation in shambles. Which would you prefer?"