Morning came online, stirring the grey matter and lifting the fog. But, Mender7, a.k.a. Douglas Mackel, wasn't having it. Or, at least wasn't planning to. His neural feed slinked soothingly through his synaptic gaps, making the most of the dark sleep; dormant patterns of light and the simulacrum of subconscious sounds, dead to the world. Would that the world be dead to him. Truce.
Mender's clandestine domestic network overrides kept the Wonder Bun 4 unit's single window permanently shuttered against the light of day and night. Strictly speaking, this was against WB4 policy. Residents of Wonder Bun 4, or rather the units themselves, were programmed to capitalize on select timed-exposures to daylight. Something about balancing solar ingestion against the abundant, some might say excessive, consumption of energy by the residents within. But Mender7 wasn't about to capitulate several hours of useless squinting for an hours worth of solar reclamation. As far as he was concerned, the sun could slag off. He knew for a fact that his building, particularly his side of the building, had no solar efficiencies. Why art of the reason he choose to live here. The other reason was that Red corps had the slackest security protocols more related to disinterest than availability. Rheds were usually not-interested in keeping up with the Bhads and Gents. The BnG. And so for Mender7, bypassing their low-sec stemlines made it easier to remain unnoticed.
Memetic patterns of light and sound folded their way through his cortex. His mind was at rest. Then it all stopped. Flatline.
Mender7 sat up, activating his real eyes and ears. The shutters over the window retracted noiselessly up into the window flashing, letting the flat grey light - unwelcome and unappreciated, yet so characteristic of this side of the building at any time of the day or night, spill into the room.
By itself, it wasn't that big a deal. Power fluxion was commonplace, especially in this sector, in this building. Mender had made improvements to his unit's state-sponsored domnet; sub-routines that anticipated these inconvenient deficits and usually re-deployed before missing a beat. However, as Mender sat listening, he didn't hear his unit's power coming back online. His private grid was humming away, protecting his personal data. But his subs, conditionally deployed, should have reinstated by now. The conditions were present.
He looked again at the window. The shutters weren't coming back down. The grey light was still coming in. Something was wrong.
As he listened, shifting his conscious perception from the internal and virtual to the external and real. He saw he had a new message. He couldn't not see it. Scrolling across his living room on the state sponsored holo-feed hung three completely unambiguous words:
**No Feed Detected**
Mender toyed with the notion that perhaps he had been hacked. But, that was impossible. Not that his unit had been hacked, but that HE had been hacked. He checked his personal firewalls. All intact. All systems go. So, this was a public thing. His personal data was safe, his real PD. But somewhere, some advertiser was already queuing adverts for products and services based on the suspension. His fake PD was unassuming and predictable; a blue-collar technophobe living in the lower rent shade of WB4. Any minute now his box would be full of subject lines carefully crafted by corporate algs:
100% uptime for Douglas Mackel!
Your convenience is our delight!
We got your back!
The need for feed!
He sighed. No longer fearful, just annoyed. Perhaps someone had focused in on the buildings stemline and had a little fun, shutting down the more immediately accessible and vulnerable units. Easy to verify. He grabbed his glasses. Visual relics of a bygone era jammed with enough HUD capabilities to replace the public repo. He focused one of his private terminals to verify if it was just his, or if his neighbors had lost their feeds too.
It wasn't difficult. Cheap units come with cheap assumptions. His building actually had foam paneled walls. Wonder Bun 4 was frugal if nothing else. No modern developer serious about security would ever consider installing such a dumb barrier as foam and still believe the information living behind it's walls was secure. But that's the charm of Rhed living.
It took Mender about five minutes to remove the panels after moving in. Another five to tap the feeds connecting the four adjoining units to the main stem, and then about 4 weeks to replace his unit's panels with hi-sec synth and then cover them with the foam panels. He lost about 3" in all directions, but his unit was secure as hell. And, with a few other minor adjustments, he could monitor his neighbors at will. Not that he had a reason too, usually, but he could.
He dialed up PD collectors for the Nawasaki's. They were an unobtrusive, fourth generation family with some ties to the old country. They lived in the flat above his. They were oblivious to the value their personal data was fetching on the market - as boring as it was. They could have upscaled their income by just filing a claim on their PD and collecting the royalties. But they raised Bonsai trees in-between session of an apparently never-ending tea ceremony. Literally that is all they did. They had the state holo for their news. They didn't know, or care, that Wonder Bun 4 authorized collectors (disclosed in the fine print on every lease agreement) to constantly mine residents' activities and turn around and sell it all to the highest bidder. Half the residents in the building offset their rent through PD royalties. The other half had no idea.
It was no surprise to Mender why they bought the clothes and food they did. The advertisers knew everything about the Nawasaki's. Hitting them at all the right moments when their propensity to need/buy was at its highest. Delivering ads designed to feed their ancestral aesthetic while delivering solutions to an immediate need. The Nawasaki's collector blinked into existence on the HUD.
Nothing to see here.
Mr. Nawasaki sat at his table, hands folded in his lap, staring at the potted tree before him. A pair of small, surgical scissors lay perpendicular to the edge of the table before him. Mrs. Nawasaki, equally still, kneeled at her own table, watching a tea pot. A quick thermal shift in focus showed Mender that the pot was hot, probably mid-steep. If there had been a power outage, they might not even notice. Such was the blissful ignorance of their ascetic habituation.
These behaviors were no-sooner conducted by the inhabitants than they were recorded, collated, tagged, and sold to the highest bidder by the Wonder Bun 4 Housing Authority. In just a few minutes, as Mrs. Nawasaki's arthritic knee was starting to protest, the holo would spin up a timely advertisement for padded floor mats, displaying a variety of floral patterns in the Ukiyo-e style. A pair of traditional, folded-steel scissors with an acute fold at the tip for trimming hard to reach branches. That's all it took. A few well-placed winks at the holo and the mats would be bought, the scissors packaged, and all of it delivered to WB4's service lobby (if they hadn't already) with a personalized note addressed in shūji calligraphy.
As Mender was making predictions about this system of exchange, the Nawasaki's feed blinked on with an offer for a Traditional Ukiyo-e Tea Cosy and a Bonsai Tools Table Mat.
Close.
The fact that the Nawasaki's feed was still active meant there probably wasn't a problem with the building's domnet. Mender7 dropped focus and concluded that this was a unique problem for him. His mind started cataloging the various reasons why his service would be blocked. His bills were paid, his paperwork was solid. His Collector Simulation Intercept generated enough ambiguous personal data to convince all agencies that his unit was occupied by a tradesman with mild data usage. Nothing unusual for this neighborhood. If anything, the Nawasaki's profile was more suspicious than his.
Mender tried a manual reset. He tried logging in to the WB4 Housing Authority domNET Helpline... all dead. His box had one message in it. He focused on it.
***************ATTENTION***************
M(r./s.) d_Mackel,
This Notice of Suspension, in accordance with the Articles of Regulation for Virtual Reality Subnet Autonomy (Section 92.C/Article 5-1), is hereby warranted on the grounds of an alleged Breech of Contract (reported anonymously), and, pending optional investigation, can not be resolved by petition or pardon, until said approved investigation has come to satisfactory completion.
Suspendees may conduct, or retain, 3rd party research related to self-investigations pursuant to Article 5-16 (VRSA 92.C), but must have said retainers authorized and approved by an active Appellate Governor. Under no circumstances will VRSA privileges be reinstated for the purposes of self-investigation to suspendee. Violation of Suspensions Under Review will result in a permanent suspension hearing and a mandatory 2-year commitment to offstem habitation.
Upon receipt of this transmittance, confirmed through retinal verification, your VRSA privileges are suspended indefinitely. Personal data will no longer be collected, traded, or accessible during suspension. If you are in need of financial stability during your suspension, you may report to the Office of Offline Welfare for nutrient disbursements and temporary shelter services.
Thank you, have a nice day.
Elna
VRSA.192.168.1.2—M42
Assistant Deputy Superintendent of Probationary Notice
Rhed Sector Regional Office for Subnet Autonomy
***************END***************
As soon as he had finished reading "autonomy" the feed went dead. All of it. Not a single electron blinked in his visual field, real or virtual. Someone had shut it all down. Even his private net was dark.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there in real silence. But, eventually, in the back of his mind he knew someone was at the door.
Ordinarily this would have been determined by the holo-feed lighting up with all sorts of credentials, profile images, sonic signatures, and various other forms of digital authentication. But the feed was dead. Instead, there was a sound. This was the first time Mender had ever heard this sound. At least, he'd never noticed before now. His door was making a noise. It had a physical buzzer.
Funny, that.
Mender's clandestine domestic network overrides kept the Wonder Bun 4 unit's single window permanently shuttered against the light of day and night. Strictly speaking, this was against WB4 policy. Residents of Wonder Bun 4, or rather the units themselves, were programmed to capitalize on select timed-exposures to daylight. Something about balancing solar ingestion against the abundant, some might say excessive, consumption of energy by the residents within. But Mender7 wasn't about to capitulate several hours of useless squinting for an hours worth of solar reclamation. As far as he was concerned, the sun could slag off. He knew for a fact that his building, particularly his side of the building, had no solar efficiencies. Why art of the reason he choose to live here. The other reason was that Red corps had the slackest security protocols more related to disinterest than availability. Rheds were usually not-interested in keeping up with the Bhads and Gents. The BnG. And so for Mender7, bypassing their low-sec stemlines made it easier to remain unnoticed.
Memetic patterns of light and sound folded their way through his cortex. His mind was at rest. Then it all stopped. Flatline.
Mender7 sat up, activating his real eyes and ears. The shutters over the window retracted noiselessly up into the window flashing, letting the flat grey light - unwelcome and unappreciated, yet so characteristic of this side of the building at any time of the day or night, spill into the room.
By itself, it wasn't that big a deal. Power fluxion was commonplace, especially in this sector, in this building. Mender had made improvements to his unit's state-sponsored domnet; sub-routines that anticipated these inconvenient deficits and usually re-deployed before missing a beat. However, as Mender sat listening, he didn't hear his unit's power coming back online. His private grid was humming away, protecting his personal data. But his subs, conditionally deployed, should have reinstated by now. The conditions were present.
He looked again at the window. The shutters weren't coming back down. The grey light was still coming in. Something was wrong.
As he listened, shifting his conscious perception from the internal and virtual to the external and real. He saw he had a new message. He couldn't not see it. Scrolling across his living room on the state sponsored holo-feed hung three completely unambiguous words:
**No Feed Detected**
Mender toyed with the notion that perhaps he had been hacked. But, that was impossible. Not that his unit had been hacked, but that HE had been hacked. He checked his personal firewalls. All intact. All systems go. So, this was a public thing. His personal data was safe, his real PD. But somewhere, some advertiser was already queuing adverts for products and services based on the suspension. His fake PD was unassuming and predictable; a blue-collar technophobe living in the lower rent shade of WB4. Any minute now his box would be full of subject lines carefully crafted by corporate algs:
100% uptime for Douglas Mackel!
Your convenience is our delight!
We got your back!
The need for feed!
He sighed. No longer fearful, just annoyed. Perhaps someone had focused in on the buildings stemline and had a little fun, shutting down the more immediately accessible and vulnerable units. Easy to verify. He grabbed his glasses. Visual relics of a bygone era jammed with enough HUD capabilities to replace the public repo. He focused one of his private terminals to verify if it was just his, or if his neighbors had lost their feeds too.
It wasn't difficult. Cheap units come with cheap assumptions. His building actually had foam paneled walls. Wonder Bun 4 was frugal if nothing else. No modern developer serious about security would ever consider installing such a dumb barrier as foam and still believe the information living behind it's walls was secure. But that's the charm of Rhed living.
It took Mender about five minutes to remove the panels after moving in. Another five to tap the feeds connecting the four adjoining units to the main stem, and then about 4 weeks to replace his unit's panels with hi-sec synth and then cover them with the foam panels. He lost about 3" in all directions, but his unit was secure as hell. And, with a few other minor adjustments, he could monitor his neighbors at will. Not that he had a reason too, usually, but he could.
He dialed up PD collectors for the Nawasaki's. They were an unobtrusive, fourth generation family with some ties to the old country. They lived in the flat above his. They were oblivious to the value their personal data was fetching on the market - as boring as it was. They could have upscaled their income by just filing a claim on their PD and collecting the royalties. But they raised Bonsai trees in-between session of an apparently never-ending tea ceremony. Literally that is all they did. They had the state holo for their news. They didn't know, or care, that Wonder Bun 4 authorized collectors (disclosed in the fine print on every lease agreement) to constantly mine residents' activities and turn around and sell it all to the highest bidder. Half the residents in the building offset their rent through PD royalties. The other half had no idea.
It was no surprise to Mender why they bought the clothes and food they did. The advertisers knew everything about the Nawasaki's. Hitting them at all the right moments when their propensity to need/buy was at its highest. Delivering ads designed to feed their ancestral aesthetic while delivering solutions to an immediate need. The Nawasaki's collector blinked into existence on the HUD.
Nothing to see here.
Mr. Nawasaki sat at his table, hands folded in his lap, staring at the potted tree before him. A pair of small, surgical scissors lay perpendicular to the edge of the table before him. Mrs. Nawasaki, equally still, kneeled at her own table, watching a tea pot. A quick thermal shift in focus showed Mender that the pot was hot, probably mid-steep. If there had been a power outage, they might not even notice. Such was the blissful ignorance of their ascetic habituation.
These behaviors were no-sooner conducted by the inhabitants than they were recorded, collated, tagged, and sold to the highest bidder by the Wonder Bun 4 Housing Authority. In just a few minutes, as Mrs. Nawasaki's arthritic knee was starting to protest, the holo would spin up a timely advertisement for padded floor mats, displaying a variety of floral patterns in the Ukiyo-e style. A pair of traditional, folded-steel scissors with an acute fold at the tip for trimming hard to reach branches. That's all it took. A few well-placed winks at the holo and the mats would be bought, the scissors packaged, and all of it delivered to WB4's service lobby (if they hadn't already) with a personalized note addressed in shūji calligraphy.
As Mender was making predictions about this system of exchange, the Nawasaki's feed blinked on with an offer for a Traditional Ukiyo-e Tea Cosy and a Bonsai Tools Table Mat.
Close.
The fact that the Nawasaki's feed was still active meant there probably wasn't a problem with the building's domnet. Mender7 dropped focus and concluded that this was a unique problem for him. His mind started cataloging the various reasons why his service would be blocked. His bills were paid, his paperwork was solid. His Collector Simulation Intercept generated enough ambiguous personal data to convince all agencies that his unit was occupied by a tradesman with mild data usage. Nothing unusual for this neighborhood. If anything, the Nawasaki's profile was more suspicious than his.
Mender tried a manual reset. He tried logging in to the WB4 Housing Authority domNET Helpline... all dead. His box had one message in it. He focused on it.
***************ATTENTION***************
M(r./s.) d_Mackel,
This Notice of Suspension, in accordance with the Articles of Regulation for Virtual Reality Subnet Autonomy (Section 92.C/Article 5-1), is hereby warranted on the grounds of an alleged Breech of Contract (reported anonymously), and, pending optional investigation, can not be resolved by petition or pardon, until said approved investigation has come to satisfactory completion.
Suspendees may conduct, or retain, 3rd party research related to self-investigations pursuant to Article 5-16 (VRSA 92.C), but must have said retainers authorized and approved by an active Appellate Governor. Under no circumstances will VRSA privileges be reinstated for the purposes of self-investigation to suspendee. Violation of Suspensions Under Review will result in a permanent suspension hearing and a mandatory 2-year commitment to offstem habitation.
Upon receipt of this transmittance, confirmed through retinal verification, your VRSA privileges are suspended indefinitely. Personal data will no longer be collected, traded, or accessible during suspension. If you are in need of financial stability during your suspension, you may report to the Office of Offline Welfare for nutrient disbursements and temporary shelter services.
Thank you, have a nice day.
Elna
VRSA.192.168.1.2—M42
Assistant Deputy Superintendent of Probationary Notice
Rhed Sector Regional Office for Subnet Autonomy
***************END***************
As soon as he had finished reading "autonomy" the feed went dead. All of it. Not a single electron blinked in his visual field, real or virtual. Someone had shut it all down. Even his private net was dark.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there in real silence. But, eventually, in the back of his mind he knew someone was at the door.
Ordinarily this would have been determined by the holo-feed lighting up with all sorts of credentials, profile images, sonic signatures, and various other forms of digital authentication. But the feed was dead. Instead, there was a sound. This was the first time Mender had ever heard this sound. At least, he'd never noticed before now. His door was making a noise. It had a physical buzzer.
Funny, that.
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