In an obscure corner of the Infinite City, a black disc appeared in midair, perpendicular to the ground. It widened from ten centimeters to a meter, then a cat with a rope around it popped out of it.
After a minute or so, the cat was dragged back into the disc.
In another part of the Nexus, the black disc appears again. This time, the cat has what looks like a weighty old transformer from a consumer appliance tied to it. The disc shrinks, then *pop*s into nothingness.
The cat meows plaintively at the passersby, exerting the psychocoercive force that only a cat can muster. A man stops to start untieing the creature, when the black disc reappears. A pair of hands takes the cat and transformer back through the disc.
As the disc closes, a motherly voice can be heard: "Tim, what are you--". The voice is cut off as the disc pops out of existence.
The black disc opens in a well lit alleyway. A scientific instrument starts to flow out, then suddenly stops halfway. The disc closes, and the instrument is cleanly cut in half, as if it had been constructed that way.
Then the mysterious disc reappears.
The pair of hands reaches out to take the cleaven instrument. The arms and hands are almost skeletal, nearly just bones with skin stretched over. One wonders how the hands manage lift themselves, let alone what has been appearing from the disc.
The disc closes once more.
The light in the room emanates from three computer terminals. Wall to wall equipment makes it look smaller than it really is. The only clear parts are a path, and a clearing at the wide end of the room.
There is a ramshackle arrangement of wires and untidy black boxes duct taped to the wall. Some of the wires are taped together, and are strung over to a computer box, which is resting on an old organ. There is a thick carpet of paper on the floor. Interestingly, the paper has obviously been walked on, but they are still remarkably clean.
The thin, emaciated teenager whose hands have been seen protruding from a black disc gets up from a worn office chair that is now on a permanent tilt backwards. He smiles, stretching the skin over his lips and chin.
"Soon.... soon..."
He pulls on a pair of jeans, and a red polo shirt as well. He belts the loosely fitting denim trousers.
The thin teen walks over to the wall, scrutinising the convoluted layout. He carefully untapes a box, and moves it fifty millimeters. Shambling over to a terminal, he pauses.
"Muuuum!", he yells, surprisingly loudly.
"Yeah, Tim?", his mum replies. "What is it?"
"Don't come in for a few hours, please?", he yells again. //Otherwise she'll decide to have a look around, and fiddle... and then I'd have to walk back home.//
"Alright, dear", his mum says encouragingly. "Don't get into things you shouldn't!"
"Yes, mother", Tim says under his breath, grimacing. //As if mum could define those things!//
He sits, and types some commands. His typing style is a rapid, self taught touch type that sounds like a woodpecker convention. The green text is turned up very bright.
He pushes off on the castor chair to a shelf along a corridor of clear carpet. The woolen material is a surprisingly nice looking floral print. He grabs a purple and black wallet, putting that, keys and some electrical equipment into a well used black backpack.
Spinning around, he pushes off with his feet again to the terminal.
*enter*
The contraption on the wall starts to hum, slightly. A bare circuit board's LED's light up.
The black disc opens with a harsh scratching, like fingernails over a blackboard. But from this side it is transparent.
//That's strange...//, Tim thought. //Oh well. I've tested it.//
The scene through the street is of a run down inner city block, then after that it incongruously becomes a Terran 1920 style neighbourhood. //What better way to test it? Ten seconds to Rinaldo's, instead of thirty minutes!//
Tim reaches over to another terminal, and starts a program he has written. It starts to probe, compromise and "own" a particularly intriguingly obscure Nexus Internet node.
He starts towards the wall.
* * *
The black disc opens near the neighbourhood of Rinaldo's Restaurant, just outside it. There is a scratching noise as it opens, and slices a small fox in half just in front of the hind legs. Little blood flows, as the disc cauterises the arterial cuts. The creature scrabbles frantically.
A dark, shadowy room can be seen through the disc, this time. An actinic green glare floods out from it, framing a skinny teenager. //Here we go//, Tim thought.
He stepped forth, passing through the disc. As he is halfway through, he places his right foot on the ground, then the leg crumples as he loses all feeling in it. "What the? No!", Tim shrieks as he falls through the rest of the way and feels his left leg die to his senses too.
He sees the mostly dead fox and screams.
The computer is busily cranking through the routine attacks that Tim has coded. It has run out of options.
It buzzes Tim on his remote equipment.
******
Tim rolls over, his useless legs tangling up. He rears himself on his arms. "Nooo!" //That cat!//
The cat, unwilling scout of many experiments, looks evilly at him. His mum has joked many times about the intelligence of this cat, and now Tim doesn't doubt it. //The bit rotten thing has all our base emotions too!//
It noisily urinates on the bottom, controlling, portal black box.
The disc swirls, like water travelling down a toilet, and vanishes with a blue crackling of sparks.
Tim slumps. Dragging himself to the side of the dirty street, he leant his head against the wall. "No cellphone, no way of getting hold of mum...."
He pulls out his remote terminal for his computer, to take his mind off the life changing, life devastating accident.
"Strange. A node that my program hasn't broken...", Tim muses. //A challenge!//
He buries himself in the Nexus Internet for five minutes, trying various methods of computer crackery. "Hah! What an old..... I can't believe it!"
A passer by pauses, to look at this skeleton waiting to die. "W-what?"
"Vulnerable to prediction packet attack.... that is sooo old!", Tim jubilantly replies. All nervous 'wires' have temporarily been sidetracked to the screen and the keyboard. He never feels anything when he's in deep crack mode. //Everything is practically normal...//
He explores this new box, after placing some backdoors and hiding them as best he can. A new challenge awaits -- this network is very secure....
Jabjab.
"MOVE! Kid, this is our territory! Spaz!"
A rough voice jerks him out of his dreamy reverie, and tears start to his eyes as he hears the oft-spoken condemnation. He puts the gear back in his back, and drags himself down the street to Rinaldo's.
He bumps down the stairs, and onto a chair. "Huh! If I wait to be seated, they'll look right over me..."
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