Glitch'd - Ch.6 - Dead Links (Patreon)

"Welcome to Buffer Overflow," Glitch smiled as she looked me over.

I was still blushing furiously from the effects of my drink as I scrambled to sit up, but before I could respond the delver turned her attention to my catkin companion.

"Hey null," she greeted them. "Good to see you again. How come you never bring your sisters around here anymore? I'm going to start to think they don't like me."

The nyanby was still under the effects of their digital catnip drink but they seemed to sober up at least partway. They were definitely still feeling it though, based on the lopsided grin they flashed the other delver. Meanwhile I was sitting up straight by that point, with my tail wrapped around on my lap where I could idly stroke my floof. And I found myself staring at Glitch's new avatar. Or more likely this was her normal av, I assumed she only wore the 'Glitch' one when she was out committing digital crimes.

She still appeared like a normal human, which put her in the minority in this place. She looked a bit older than before, somewhere in her mid-twenties rather than eighteen or nineteen. She was taller now too, standing around one-sixty-five or one-seventy centimetres, up from the roughly one-fifty centimetres she was before. Her jet black hair was shoulder length and straight, rather than the short messy neon green look she'd been wearing when I met her yesterday. I couldn't say much about her eyes in this shape, they were hidden behind a pair of opaque black aviator-style sunglasses.

The rest of her outfit followed a similar aesthetic to what she'd been wearing during our first encounter. She had black military-style boots, rugged-looking loose black jeans, a black nylon web belt, and a tight dark grey tank-top. All that was underneath a large black duster-style coat that hung open. The only things missing were the old-school cyber deck on her wrist and the antique HUD lens in front of one eye. Although I realized the opaque sunnies could easily do the trick, and it was possible she had a deck hidden under her coat.

"Sorry Hex," null replied in a very laid-back tone. "Nothing against you or the club. 'S just that nil and NaN got into a beef with Flip, an' he's almost always hanging out here. Tha's why they haven't been 'round lately."

"Yeah I heard about the beef," Glitch, or Hex apparently, replied calmly. "You know the rules though, if Flip tried anything in here he'd be kick-banned before he knew what hit him."

The catkin grimaced, "Same goes for my sisters though. An' they don't wanna risk it."

The other delver nodded once, "Fair."

"Still," she added as her attention shifted back to me, "I can't help feeling a little disappointed that you'd bring a corpo in here before your own sisters."

Just like that I went from feeling quiet embarrassment and curiosity to being wary and anxious. My nerves weren't helped any by the way null seemed to completely sober up in an instant. The sloppy smile and relaxed attitude vanished as they sat up straight and looked very serious.

"Wisp ain't no corpo," they stated firmly. "She takes their money and pretends to work for them, but she doesn't buy into their bullshit. I swear it Hex, Wisp is one of us. You know me, no way I'd ever bring a narc here."

Glitch was still watching me, and I caught the one raised eyebrow. With the opaque glasses hiding her eyes I couldn't really get a feel for what she was thinking though. Meanwhile my companion finally got around to the introductions.

"Sorry Wisp," null apologized. "This is Hex, she's one of the club's admins. I didn't know you two knew each other? I guess maybe that happened on the job?"

The other delver responded for me, "Wisp and I had a little run-in a while back. We were on opposite sides of the fence, that's why I was surprised to hear she was visiting Buffer Overflow. TeeCee told me you vouched for her."

"She also mentioned Wisp's new pronouns and avatar," Glitch added as she looked at me once more. She made a show of checking me out then smiled, "Even cuter than the old smoke puff. And congrats on the new pronouns."

Just like that I was blushing again, especially since she had to know just how new the pronouns were. She could probably guess that only came about because of the new avatar, and that she was almost entirely responsible for both.

"Uh, thanks?" I mumbled as I found myself hugging my tail to my chest yet again for some reason. It definitely didn't have anything to do with the way I could hide my face behind the thick soft floof.

"So are we good?" null asked the admin. "If not we'll leave right away. Neither Wisp or I want any trouble."

Glitch finally nodded, "Yeah we're good. Tell you what null, go get yourself another drink. On the house, to make it up to you. I noticed you purged the first one when I showed up."

"Take your time and enjoy it," the black-hat delver added. "I'm going to have a private chat with Wisp if you don't mind? I'd like to get to know her better outside of work. For my own peace of mind, so I'm sure she really is one of us."

The nyanby looked at me and asked, "That ok with you? Hex is ok, but if you start feeling threatened or just get uncomfortable all you have to do is log out. Then you can log back into our clubhouse again."

"Log out?" I gulped, as I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice. I hadn't logged out in ages, and had no intention of returning to meatspace now. "Why can't I just route myself out to a public mesh portal?"

null shook their head, "Part of the club security, only one link in and no links out. It's a dead-end server. Only way back to the rest of the mesh is relog."

"What?" I gasped as my anxiety shifted to growing panic.

Before I could freak out too hard Glitch gave me a reassuring look, "Don't sweat it Wisp. You're safe here, I'll look after you. null go grab your free drink, I'm going to take your cute little foxy friend here into the office for a conversation."

"All right then," the catkin nodded as they got to their feet. "See you later Wisp, and don't worry. You'll be ok with Hex, she's one of the good ones."

Then they gave the admin a look and added in a warning tone, "You better look after Wisp. She's not just a friend, she's family. Mess with her, you're messing with all three triplets. And nobody wants that kind of trouble."

I found myself staring at null while my emotions churned. I had no idea they and their sisters felt that way. Hearing them say I was part of their family hit me right in the feels, especially since my own meatspace family were long gone.

The black-hat delver replied in a solemn voice, "You have my word null, Wisp will be safe with me."

null smiled, apparently satisfied. Then they turned and headed off in the direction of the minotaur bartender.

Meanwhile Glitch looked to me and made a beckoning gesture, "C'mon Wisp. I'm sure you have plenty of questions, so let's go somewhere where we can talk in privacy."

"And don't worry," she added quietly. "You won't have to log out when we're done. There's a back door."

"Thanks," I mumbled, followed by a little sigh of relief.

With my ears up but my tail drooping down anxiously behind me I followed the other delver towards the back of the club. We passed by that old terminal where I'd typed my message, then through a doorway I hadn't noticed before. That led to a short dark hall, and finally into a little room at the end.

Glitch called it an office, but it was a lot more like the triplets' little clubhouse. There was a large sofa and a couple big comfy-looking reclining chairs, but nothing like a desk or any of the usual office decor. My host took a seat in one of the recliners, so I hopped up onto the sofa across from her then sat crosslegged with my tail on my lap again.

"So," I asked uneasily, "Hex huh? I guess that's your civilian handle? Or an alias?"

"It's actually a nickname. It's short for my full handle, which is 0x1badc0ff33," she replied with a smile.

"No way!" I stated as my eyes widened. Unlike her Glitch handle, I'd actually heard of this one. "You're One Bad Coffee? You're the delver that cracked the Vatican's private mesh and dumped all their secrets into the public realm?!"

She laughed, "Yeah, that's me. You'd be surprised how rare it is to hear someone actually get it right the first time. Most wannabes insist on pronouncing the 'hex' prefix. Or they just read out each digit, 'zero ecks one bee' and so on."

"Or one time my name caught an undercover corpo AI masquerading as a delver," she added with another laugh. "I gave it my handle and it addressed me as '118,879,223,603' if you can believe it!"

It took me a half second to make the connection, then I found myself grinning as well. "Of course! It was probably coded to use decimal notation when it interacted with people, and it took your handle as a literal integer."

"Exactly," Glitch nodded in agreement. "Anyways I got tired of introducing myself then having to point out that the hex was silent, so I turned it around and went with Hex as a nickname instead."

My smile faded a moment later as another thought occurred to me. "So wait. You're an infamous black-hat hacker, who's secret public identity is an even more infamous black-hat hacker?"

She shrugged, "What can I say? I love my job so much it's also my hobby."

"Although I've actually retired my Hex persona from active hacking," she added. "Now I hang out here, help run Buffer Overflow, and do a bit of mentoring now and then. When I feel the need to get my hands dirty, that's when I break out the Glitch avatar."

I asked, "So I guess I should be referring to you as Hex then? Glitch is the alt, Hex is your main?"

Her tone and expression were serious as she replied, "When we're in private you can use either. But in public, please stick to however I'm presenting. And please don't try and expose me. I doubt any of my regulars would believe Glitch and I are the same, but I really don't need the added scrutiny."

"Of course," I nodded. "I'm curious though, why you want to keep that a secret? I'd think you'd be even more popular with your desired clientele if they knew you were actually Glitch."

Hex shook her head, "Not worth the hassle. I don't need fame, don't need fortune, and I definitely don't need the notoriety. If people knew where to find me I'd have an endless stream of fans and wannabes following me around everywhere."

It only took me a second or two to imagine what that'd be like. She'd probably end up having to create a whole new identity and start over, just to get some peace and quiet.

While I was thinking about that Hex changed the subject, "Anyways you're here for a reason. Your message said you have questions, about those files I gave you yesterday?"

"Right," I nodded again. "I've probably got a hundred questions, but I'm sure you're busy so I'll stick to the most important ones first."

She gestured for me to begin, so I took a deep breath then hit her with the top ones.

"Is digitization real? Do you know anyone who's done it? Is it safe? How do you ensure your digital freedom, when you're just data without a meatspace citizenship to back you up? How can you guarantee you won't end up trapped on some corpo server? For that matter how can you ensure the integrity of your own code? What if someone gets their hands on your data and starts messing with it?"

"Ok stop there!" Hex laughed as she raised her hands in a 'surrender' gesture. "That's enough Wisp, let me start answering a few before we get too far down the rabbit hole!"

"Sorry," I grimaced.

Her expression became serious again as she began answering them, "Yes digitization is real. Yes I know a few individuals who've done it. Safety is relative, nothing's perfect, but it's safe enough. Or those who've done it felt the benefits far outweighed any risks."

"As for the security and integrity of the data," she continued, "We have a number of mitigation strategies, but in general terms they come down to redundancy and physical security. Some digitized individuals own their own servers, physically located in countries or locations where authorities or landlords aren't likely to interfere with them."

She added, "I'm not going to tell you all the secrets, some of this information is only available to folks after they've joined the club."

I frowned, "How can a digitized person own a server? How do they pay for electricity, or the connection fees to access the mesh?"

"Being digitized doesn't mean you can't own money or property Wisp," Hex replied. "It just means you can't get back to meatspace to visit your stuff in person. You can still have a bank account, you could even still work if you wanted. As long as your job is something you can do through the mesh, I mean."

"Huh," I nodded slowly. Then I asked, "I don't suppose you'd tell me if you were digitized yourself?"

She laughed again and shook her head, "Nope. Not telling."

I figured as much, but she had to know I assumed she was. Based on how much she knew about it and how she talked, she certainly gave the impression she'd already 'joined the club' as she put it.

So I moved on to my next set of burning questions, "How'd you get your hands on that old paper anyways? Did you know Desrosiers or Sachs?"

"Or um," I hesitated a moment before springing the question, "Are you actually one of them? Out in meatspace I mean? Are you Sachs?"

Just like that Hex's smile faded and her mood shifted to something much more serious. She stared down at the floor for a few seconds, then slowly shook her head.

"No," she stated softly. "I'm not Sachs, nor am I Desrosiers. I knew them though, probably better than most. That's how I knew about the paper, they gave it to me. Along with the rest of their work, finished and unfinished."

She looked up at me and gave me a sad smile before asking, "Can I trust you to keep a secret, Wisp?"

"Yes," I nodded without hesitation.

That sad smile remained on her face as Glitch admitted, "Sachs and Desrosiers were my parents."

** This chapter was brought to you courtesy of Camille, who commissioned it! **