A few minutes pass as Puck enters a steady stream of code into his supped up deck. Ravage begins to pace the room in caged restlessness. Damn I hate when I'm cooped up like this, he thinks to himself. It reminds him of his youth, which was not to long ago, when he was forced to stay inside his families mansion. The coming of the new age had brought many new and wonderful things to this Earth, but the birth of Ravage was looked upon as a bad omen, especially compared to his beautiful, unblemished twin sister, Tanya. Before he can think upon his past more he notices Puck unplugging his data jack link. Growling more at his own self pity he says, " So did you find out anything?"
          "Well the number seemed to be to a Korean tailor, but after doing some eyeballing I saw that this was just a front for him to lose some snooper dogs. He probably was being hounded at the time and wanted to lose em. I could trace the footprints of the hounds going to the tailor shop and leaving without going any further. It was actually quite cleaver he must have changed the format of the program so that it..."
          "PKzip the techno drek and get on with it!" roared Ravage before Puck could finish his train of thought.
          "Ummm O.K. Ravage no prob. Well using some of my own home brew programs I was able to circumvent the surface program and find out that it lead to a BBS in Denver, Colorado. I wasn't able to find any trace of Drider on the BBS but I know he must be a lurker there or otherwise have an alias that he goes by. I was able to find out through that BBS that some outsiders have come to Denver and seem to be moving into the Biz. They are very organized and very efficient but have been laying low. Maybe this could be your guys? The time frame is the same but I could get no definite ID because the group is sitting on ice. I did post a message to the board's personals file. It said 'Lonely, lost man searches for a friend or friends that can help him find an escape from a dull and lifeless existence. He is interested in plenty of action and is deeply into religious forms of behavior.' I put the name of Pike as the poster so maybe if were lucky Drider will be lurking on the board and spot it. I also used an old address of a dead decker I used to know. I'll check on it on a daily basis to see if we get any takers."
          "Good, that will have to do." replies Ravage, "I'm going to recon the contacts list to see what I can come up with and you keep on seeing what you can catch on the net."
          "No prob Ravage. As far as the net is concerned I'm just a college student seeking knowledge." says Puck with a smile.
          With a nod Ravage checks his gear and silently opens the door and exits out. O.K. Ravage lets do what has to be done and get out of this drek hole. I may have been the hero around here once but can't count on that now. Time to see what's what. With those thoughts he exits the ally and starts walking down the street.

          It was the rush hour for Bangkok and the streets were jammed with pedestrians and bicycle riders. Ravage hoped that with his overcoat and the people surrounding him he would have some kind of cover from wandering eyes. His body was tense and his hand never strayed from his shoulder holstered Ares Predator. If drek was going to happen he was gonna be ready. He was stuck in a suddenly changed city, one that he did not know anymore. One day he was the hero of the day and the fragging mayor was even giving him the key to the city, the next thing he knows he is a marked man and everyone he once knew has been either slagged or has been chased out of town. Things really must have been bad if Scorp Corp had to book a quick one out of town. Ravage was very pleased to see that Shelob had made it out, she was one nice piece of work, and he never minded when she gave him some heat. Hell, he would sometimes do things on purpose to get her components in an uproar. Shaking himself out of his revelry, Ravage thinks about the situation at hand. In order to hassle Shelob and the rest of the crew he need to get his ass out of Bangkok. Puck was doing his job on the net but the footwork had to be done by himself. Looking at his list he quickly deduces that the military contact that Shelob had is probably a no go. If Scorp Corps was kicked out then the military must have changed, and if I know my Bangkok history that means anyone who is anyone of the old regime is either geeked or is a stoolie, he thinks to himself. He decides also against visiting the police station to look at that lead, due to the same reasons. Using simple deduction he heads towards the harbor area where the customs office is located. He studies the print out of the man whom Puck i.d.'ed as Drider's contact and memorizes the name.
          The customs office is a dilapidated building with a look of an unemployment office rather than a government building used for customs. Entering the smallish doorway he enters a dimly, fluorescent lit room that has the faint smell of burning incense. The room is a small 10 x 10 with a desk in one corner and a door in the opposite wall that leads to the bathroom. Nothing more seems to exist here except a lone figure who is draped across the desk. Before Ravage can think the worst he hears a deep, rolling snore emit from the figure's body. Ravage walks over to the desk and sits down opposite the sleeping figure, with a grin he thinks that things must really be slow around here.
          With a deep clearing of his throat Ravage wakes up the sleeping civil servant. With a rapid flourish of movement the man leaps up off his chair and bangs his knees on the desk. He then topples over the chair and paper and limbs fly all over the place. Brushing off his clothing the official straightens up his papers and attempts to ignore his lapse in attention.
          "Umm have you taken a number sir," says the official in a monotone, official sounding voice. When he sees the grinning ork's face turn into a steadily deeper frown he quickly deduces that numbers may not be very important in the grander scale of life. "How may I be of assistance to you kind sir?"
          "First off what happened here? Looks like business has been bad."
          With a sadden expression the clerk says, " Well with the new change in administration they have found the customs service to be inadequate and so the military has taken over most of this office's services."
          "In other words they have cut off the middle man and started taking the bribes directly. Seems like you were left out of the picture and are left with the drek jobs." says Ravage.
          "Umm, you could say that business has come to a grinding halt. Who can argue with a rifle up your ass. I'm lucky to still have a job, most of the others higher up than me got a speedy welcome to hell. I guess I must have been too low in the totem pole to be worth a bullet so I'm given the long way to die. Boredom."
          Thinking this man to be safe Ravage decides to plunge into the situation. "I have a friend who has lost his way and I'm trying to find him. He goes by the name of Drider." Ravage pulls out a cred stick "Information about my friend is very valuable to me, do you know anything about him and where he might be?"
          Ravage stares hard at the clerk and prays he has not given away to much information. Of course if the drek hits the fan there will be one less bored civil servant on this planet.

          The clerk looks the massive ork up and down. To be an ork and still be alive in Bangkok he'd have to be quite a bad ass. The old government never used metahumans, and the new one doesn't seem to need them, so he wouldn't be associated with them. He seems beyond the standard ganger groups, although he could work for one of the larger syndicates. But they tend to hurt first and ask questions later. That leaves only one other thing he could be. Yet it's best to be cautious.
          "I assume you worked with this guy?"
          "Yeah bub." says Ravage, quickly losing his patience.
          "And what did you do, with this a -- Mr. Drider -- you called him?"
          "Acquisition and disposal of trash." with that Ravage jumps over the desk, grabs the clerk by the throat and pulls a large dagger from a hidden sheath and holds it in front of the clerk's eyes. "Does you need a demonstration?"
          The clerk lets out a small squeak, and tries to suck in a gasp of fresh air. He then looks down at the large stylized ceremonial dagger with the hilt of a large scorpion and says,
          "Ohhhh, you mean DRIDER, ohhhh my apologies chummer -- uhmm -- Mr. Chummer. My memory is not as clear as it used to be. Drider is outta here man! He left, disappeared, POOF! Gone, man."
          The large ork slowly lifts the clerk off the ground with one hand, "Is there anything else you want to tell me, slag?"
          "Well, ya know biz has been slow, and the memory is bad. . . "
          Ravage lowers the raggedy man, shakes his head, 'I'll give this weasel one thing, he's got guts.' Ravage tosses him the cred stick, "What else??"
          "Oh yeah, now I remember, he didn't like his current living arrangements. I guess the environment didn't suit him. He mentioned needing a taxi service to get him to a new neighborhood. Didn't say where that was. I told him about this delivery man I'd seen around. He'd pick stuff up and deliver it for a cost. Ya get what I'm saying chummer? The guy also ran a helo sight seeing business too. A man of many talents. Maybe you find him, huh?"
          The clerk then begins casually leafing through a black book sitting near a vidphone; the vid being smashed in years ago. "I just don't know how one would find him???" The clerk stops on a page with only one number- Ravage notices a lot of pages with only one number. "I guess you'll just have to look around for 'im, he shouldn't be hard to find. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get ready for the next customer." The clerk then looks around the room, "Number two? Number two?? Well, I think I'll just check outside for that other person."
          "Yeah, you do that." says Ravage. He then quickly turns the book around and jots the number down in his pocket computer, and then strides out of the room.
          The clerk is standing on the steps out front as the hulking figure tramples past. "Come again" he states. He then wanders back into his small 10 by 10 office. "Ta think I used to make big money in the export business, and now I'm working a desk job," pauses, "Well, might as well get back to work." With that the clerk lowers his head and begins snoring again.

          There he was. Trying to hide himself in a cloak and the crowd. He didn't even bother to consider that he was easily half again larger than everyone else around here. It was amazing he'd survived this long, the dark figure thought.
          Ravage entered a decaying government customs office. Interesting, he thought. Why was he going there? There wasn't any way to get in close enough to find out what was being said, but there were other ways of getting that information. The dark figure found a busy corner across from the office and pretended to be interested in some cheap knock off computers. How could these people even consider buying this junk.
          There he is. The customs agent was standing outside, trying to look relaxed, but obviously scared to death. With good reason, he thought. Ravage exited the office with a slam of the door and a snarl at the poor soon to be dead government official.
          He watched the giant ork disappear in the crowd. The dark figure waited until the pathetic little agent returned inside his office.
          The agent had just resumed his seat when the door opened again.
          "Busy day today," he muttered. "What can I do for you, sir?"
          A pistol materialized in the man's hand. "I am in need of information. Information which only you can supply."
          The little agent's eyes crossed as he looked in horror at the glowing red dot between his eyes. "I am just a simple..."
          "Shut up. You will speak when told to do so. It must feel wonderful to posses something that someone would desire so much. Does it not?"
          The little agent was silent.
          "Does it not!," the dark stranger yelled and shot the silenced pistol, the little man's cup of steaming coffee exploding in silence.
          "It is quite a responsibility," the terrified customs agent stammered.
          "I seek to learn from you," the assassin's lips rolled over the word learn. "That traitor ork, what did you tell him?"
          "I, I, he wanted to know where a friend was." The dark man's eyes squinted to slits and shot the little agent in the forearm. He waited until the man's screams were softer. "That is not what I asked you. What did you tell him."
          The terrified agent looked at the red stain covering his left hand and seeping from his arm. "I gave him a number, that's all."
          The dark man rose and walked around the cluttered little desk and massaged the doomed man's shoulders. "All I ask is for your cooperation. That isn't unreasonable is it? Now, what number was it you gave him," he asked softly in the agent's ear.
          The agent swallowed hard. With his intact arm he reached out and flipped through the black book until he came to the page with the number.
          "Is that the number?"
          The soon to be dead man nodded.
          "My what an interesting book you have here. I'm sure it contains many secrets." The dark man's finger squeezed on the trigger and the agent's head quietly exploded with blood and gore. The tall dark man picked up the little black book and tucked it into the inside pocket of his dark wool coat. He put the pistol away, pulled out a toothpick and cleaned himself and tossed it away before leaving the little office.
          "Well my friend let's see what surprises we can have prepared for our friend."

          The large dark elf walks into his room and jacks into his cyberdeck. Instantly he feels the power of the drider, a large half-elf half-spider form that appears almost beautiful in its profanity. The drider looks around the dark forest in which he has made his lair. Webbing covers the small clearing, and spider silk winds off down many a dark trail. He feels at home.
          Almost instantly a vibration is felt along the length of his web. 'I see my trap has captured some prey.' He follows the shaking web and finds a beautiful moth entrapped in his web. The upper elven half of the monstrous drider form opens it's mouth wide exposing two sharp canines. 'Let us taste what we have earned by our labor.' Drawing up the moth, the dark figure bites deeply into the struggling quarry. The greater creature dines deeply on the life-force of the smaller. It ceases to struggle, giving itself over completely to the master. The eyes of the drider then close in pleasure. When the body is nothing but a husk it is tossed away.

======Drider Jacks out======

          "So my program has detected someone trying to snoop on me." They have followed the trail I intentionally created to the BBS thus, they must have some skill, as I coded that to be rather difficult to snoop out. I weed out the minor players and cybergroupies trying to hang out with me, and am left with only a few pros.
          "Well chummer, ya fragged up cause I know your lookin for me. But I wonder if you are friend, foe, or just biz." It couldn't be Ravage as he doesn't have the skill, I also don't think he knows any other top shelf deckers besides me. Perhaps it is the government buttonheads who have reopened the Scorpion Corps case due to Ravage's most recent actions in Bangkok. If I'm lucky it'll just be biz.
          But I'm not lucky. "Well chummer, I hope you enjoyed being routed into that 'underground BBS.' Pah! What a joke."
          Known to the pros as 'Poser's BBS,' it's a board full of a bunch of latch on techno-preps looking to add a little excitement to their dreary corp lives by pretending they're in the shadows. Funny thing is, is that the board is run and monitored by Mitsuhama Computer Technologies and the information forwarded to Lone Star Services. They catch any bakebrain stupid enough to discuss their plans while on this board. MCT goes pretty far with the whole scam, logging all icon entries into their system and comparing it to subversive netrunning activities reported to them by other Company computer systems. Once they've found a match, they run a tracer on the icon. Since these poor posers stay on the BBS for hours on end, there's plenty of time to pick up the newbie bit jockey and charge him for a multitude of crimes.
          "So chummer, your gonna try and follow the big dog and snoop after me? Let's see if you even notice your icon being tagged when you enter this BBS node. All I gotta do is get the icon log to bounce a few pixels of your icon to me each time you log on. A few more times and I'll have a bitmapped image of your icon, ya little fraggin bug."

          Ravage enters the tiny shelter expecting the worse, but is glad to see that his friend is still in one piece and their shelter is still safe for the moment.
          "Did you scan anything yet on your end Puck?" asks Ravage.
          "Still no go on the BBS. I'm using my university account so I don't have all the wiz progs that I normally have. Basically I'm just doing a surface search that any 2-bit, brain dead, net junky could do. I'm hoping that maybe Drider's tailor shop set off an alarm that he is checking into. Once I was passed the shop and realized where the thread was destined, I switched over to my school account and dialed direct. If he's as good as you say he should be able to notice I got past his first defense and then switched over to another ID. It will probably take awhile for him to trace me because I don't want to be to obvious but I'm using typical newbie mistakes when on the university account."
          "Why not just post to the BBS in you normal ID and ask him where the drek are you man?" replies Ravage in an impatient tone.
          With a look of unbelievable horror, Puck replies "You've got to be popping ice chips! I'm not sure why or what he's doing on that BBS but I'm not gonna let my ass hang out the window for any corp flunky or flat foot to come an plug! This way if your average flunky does a trace they will only see a drek headed student who is flunking Chem. You receiving what I'm transmitting?"
          "Yeah I copy. I should let you do what you do best and stick to what I do best. Just remember we don't got much time before those hounds get a bead on us." replies Ravage
          "What about your sojourn? Did you pick up anything interesting?" Pulling out his pocket computer, Ravage tosses it over to Puck and says, "Scan that number for me and make a print out of any transactions that might have been made during the time of my coma. This guy deals in a taxi service and I've heard he has a rep for transporting anything, anytime, anyplace for a price. I'm looking specifically for any locations that took his vehicles outside of this side of the world. Cross reference your search with the descriptions of the Scorpion Corp and with some heavy vehicles. I'm sure they split up when they left and I'm pretty positive Shelob would not leave without her prized possession. She treated her vehicle like it was a member of the corp, which come to think of it, it was. Also give me any information you can on the owner of the biz. I'm gonna take me a nap and when you get all that info just wake me and I'll be off to have a talk with this Johnson."
          With that Ravage collapses on a bunk and begins to snore lightly. Puck glances over at his still body and contemplates sneaking up on him, but rethinks the plan when he sees one eye open slightly. He quickly sets up his deck and begins the search for info that is his livelihood.

          "Well, I guess it's time to see if I caught a snooper. Shelob, I'll be in the web, checking for prey." Drider then returns to his room and connects his deck to the wall terminal and then jacks into cyberspace. Instantly the surroundings change and he once again is sitting in the center of the forest primeval. He stretches his large black form in eight directions and feels along the strands for any messages he may have received in his absence. However, to his surprise he feels no vibrations echoing along the length of his web. 'Nothing on this glorious day?' The dark skies overhead crackle with the sound of thunder. The great form ponders. 'It will come, it will come, something always falls into my web.'
          The beast then picks up a shield lying near the web. It appears very lightweight and sturdy. He begins reworking the internal framework of the shield, adding thickness and bulk where before there was little. He turns it and works it in his hands for an eternity. After a time the monster holds up the shield, it being noticeably heavier now. 'That will be stronger.' He remembers when he created the earliest form of the shield and how he wielded it. A simple round metallic disk he would strap on to the arm of the dark elf. The drider allows himself a smile.
          The dark elf. His first icon. Being rather sickly as an albino metahuman child, the dark elf symbolized everything he wanted to be. The strength and speed with which he would engage the pseudo icons his father had created to oppose him in cybercombat had giving the boy a sense of freedom he did not have in reality. His father pushed him against greater and greater opponents, but never allowed the boy the use of his sophisticated military defense and attack programs. The important thing was that the boy use his mind to find the weak points. In addition, only programs the boy developed were allowed in the game. That included the shield.
          The beast in the forest looks around, he wonders how long he's been here. Time has little meaning to the drider when he is in his lair. He turns over the shield in his hand and begins etching designs into the surface, each new line glowing as he works it into the overall motif of the shield. The lines criss - cross and twist all over in a bewildering pattern. He continues his reminiscence. He remembers when the dark elf lost that first shield. He was lucky to have survived. That was his first run against a computer system known to have black ice. . .

          The T$R Corporation, had back in the '10's rabidly pursued the extermination of all other competitors in the interactive fantasy industry. Engaging in extended price wars, the smaller companies could not compete, and in the end, T$R had bought out the copyrights to all fantasy elements ever thought of by man. The few gaming companies left had no alternative but to go into underground publishing and die a slow painful death by starvation. Triumphant, the T$R war machine then proceeded to publish massive amounts of fantasy simware relating to their universe and gained the vast market share of sim - gamers by default. That was thirty years ago.
          Three months ago the boy had successfully hacked the computer system of the T$R Corporation. It had been difficult. It had been designed by a former colleague of the boy's father known as the Dragon. He was known for his mazes of corridors and it was widely speculated that the CPU of the T$R system was guarded by black ice in the form of a great dragon. But nevertheless, the boy attempted to hack the grid. On his first attempt he lost his shield, and nearly lost his life.
          The access node of the grid, the first level, was guarded by kobolds. Individually they were easy to kill, however after each death, another one would instantly show up to take its place. The young boy had repeatedly tried attacking the system, killing the kobolds off by the tens. But inevitably the death of these kamikaze kobolds would trigger the computer's defense ejection program, dumping the offending decker out of the system. Charming programs worked no better, because as soon as the affected kobold was commanded to leave his post, another would fill in the emptied position, preventing any form of intrusion.
          The boy had eventually decided 'if ya can't beat them, join them.' He then spent many days on writing a masking program. Simple enough, it covered his dark elf icon with that of a kobold. Any quick movements of the dark elf icon could not be translated into the mask program fast enough and the program would fail and drop. Thus although it had no realistic usefulness as a counterfeit icon, it gave off all the proper signatures of a kobold while the user remained moderately still.
          The day arrived. The boy decked into the T$R access node and walked up to the post of the kobold, standing at attention next to it. He then switched on the masking program. 'Let's see if this works,' the boy said. The computer system, monitoring all nodes, detected two operating kobolds in the access port and in a moment derezed the guard kobold. 'That's it!' the boy exclaimed. He had found his way in! He turned to the door behind and simply stepped inside. He assumed the computer would already be creating a new kobold to guard the post behind him.
          Inside he found a large catacombed dungeon with many rooms and doors. He walked through it stealthily, once barely escaping being spotted by a wandering monster patrolling the corridors. He had little problem opening most doors with the lock picking program created by his father. Generally the doors would only lead to more hallways and further portals.
          The boy had created the dark elf to be especially stealthy and observant, rather than attack heavy like his father's Death Knight icon. As h was passing down one particularly long hallway the dark elf's eyes detected a slight flaw in the wall to his left. Examining the wall further, he pushed in on it and it gave way! He had found a secret door. He followed the dusty, cobweb strewn hallway for what seemed an eternity until he came to a dead - end. This time however his eyes could show him nothing more.
          Taking a chance that this was just a more sophisticated secret door his icon could not detect, he pulled up a program his father had created just for this purpose. Raising his hands and chanting, the dark elf pointed at the wall and cast a spell. Within moments the stone gradually turned to mud and collapsed, revealing a large room behind it.
          On the opposing wall was a large yellow curtain hanging in an archway. On each side of the arch were two beautiful carved marble statues of women rather daintily holding their hands behind their backs. The dark elf cautiously walked up to the archway to see if he could peer beyond the yellow curtain. He thought he was a safe enough distance away but instantly the arches sprang to life, drawing large swords from behind their backs!
          Frantically, the boy called up his shield program which instantly appeared on his left arm. He then drew his short sword from the sheath at his side on his right. The statues engaged him and attacked with blinding speed. He swung his small short sword and missed. The statues responded by repeatedly beating on his shield in a flurry of bladed swings. Within moments the shield had degraded completely. His shield program was destroyed in but a moment.
          His second swing connected on one of the statues but the sword shattered in his hand. Shards of cybersteel derezing into nothingness. He drew his crossbow and fired. The bolt only bounced off the statue. He was truly defenseless! The statues then descended upon him.
          He then felt the sting of the sword bite into the side of the dark elf, but it HURT! The boy could actually feel the pain! The boy's flesh body back in his room was taking real damage from the hits. This was for real! THIS WAS BLACK ICE!!! The elf held up his hand to block another blow and was struck again by the caryatid columns.
          He tried jacking out, but nothing happened. What was going on? What was preventing him from leaving? He turned around and saw the wall he had entered from had reformed. He was now looking at the back side of the stone secret door. He was closed in.
          The young boy thought of how it would be for his father when he came home and found his son fried, smoke pouring from the datajack behind his ear. Connected, connected to the deck he had received on his 14th birthday. 'He told me not to try this yet, said I wasn't ready. I just wish I could tell him he was right.'
          The boy had very little left he could do. Then he thought of it. His only hope would be to get free of the bladed attack and cast the spell reopening the stone wall behind him and make his escape. He dodged a swing and then backed up, spun around on his heals and began the chant. He felt no hit from the rear, perhaps he could make it!
          But just then the two stone maidens stepped into view. They had been programmed to prevent intruders from retreating and thus placed themselves between him and the back door. The dark elf tried backing through the yellow curtain behind him, but to no avail, it was solid as well.
          His father had told him once that hacking was a "toil of blood, sweat and tears. Sometimes when you were in drek - deep, you just had to take the punches and ride it out." His spell was almost complete. 'Just take the hits and concentrate on the spell.' The dark elf continued the chant. The blows came in now like a blender, chopping hard and slicing deep into his psyche. His virtual body dropped to one knee. 'TAKE THE BLOWS!!!' he screamed to himself.
          If he could have seen his real body at this time he would be seeing the beginnings of a feedback induced seizure. The body beginning to shake. After that there would only be smoke, sparks and death.
          But he completed the spell and pointed his finger at the wall. In that instant the maidens moved in over top of him, completely blocking his view of the door. The spell went off, and deep down he knew he hadn't gotten it off correctly. Hadn't cast it at the door. He closed his eyes and waited for the final blow to finish him off.
          The blow never came.
          The dark elf opened his eyes and looked around the room. The door was still there and so was he. He hadn't jacked out. 'HE WAS ALIVE!!' The pool of mud on the floor revealed everything. 'Of course! The spell had destroyed the dangerous maidens by turning them to mud--they were marble after all!'
          The dark elf looked around the room and drew the yellow curtain to the side and revealed a room piled high with gold bars! 'I've done it!' He stepped through the doorway. He had succeeded in gaining access to a high level data storage bank containing copyright records for many of the T$R created or patented creatures and worlds used in their interactive fantasy games.
          Simply stealing this data would not do. T$R certainly had backup copies of all information here. Furthermore, there was no new information that could be sold to data buyers. Something more sophisticated would be required.
          Running a search on all things relating to "Drow" and "dark elf" he found that the expiration date for the copyrights on these items was only three months away. The automatic copyright monitoring program would soon notify the legal branch of the T$R Corp that it needed to reassert those copyrights with the UCAS patent office. Otherwise the copyrights would be forfeit. The young boy thought of a plan.
          He thus changed the copyright renewal date on all things relating to "Drow" to a later date. The computer would not alert the legals until this new time had expired. He then jacked out. "I fraggin did it!" he yelled, and then he realized the pain in his skull. The boy would sleep for 2 days.
          Three months later the boy would file for the copyright himself through the UCAS patent service, and he would get it. For now he needed to heal.