Before CWR’s neural synchronization completed, he noticed an encrypted message in his inbox. He clicked on it and instantly recognized the email user. It was from the famed hacker and influencer, ‘Queenalona’.
Dear esteemed VseR,
I hope that you are well. I am holding a secret conference deep in the dark of the net with the other kings of CWR. We are hoping you will attend as there are pressing matters that need to be discussed and would benefit from your input. I know you choose not to attend these meetings, but this one is different and it would be great to have you there.
Your Friend,
Queenalona
Guess I can’t avoid it any longer then. Time to dive into CWR and check out this meeting for once, he thought to himself. Caiden reclined in his chair. He grabbed his NeuraVisor and initiated access into CWR. Neural link; one hundred percent. Sensation nodes; one hundred percent initiated. Net consciousness awareness; one hundred percent. Body at complete rest, syncing was complete. Full body sensory transfer to the digital world; successful.
No drug could ever compare to the sensation of connecting to CyberWave Republic. The thrill of navigating the deep web using the power of his mind gave him a rush like no other. His consciousness experienced a digital high, contorting his reality and allowing him to essentially merge and become one with the system, in a way. A ring of light appeared in the dark around his feet. With each increment, billions of pixels methodically came together to form his slick shinobi body armor suit avatar. The trademark moving code in the shape of motorcycle helmet was the last formation as the ring of light went above his head and then disappeared. VseR was back in CWR.
He felt like he could absorb all of the information the vast digital frontier could offer. He felt invincible there. I wonder if it’s like this for everyone, he thought. It was time to find the secret source code for the meeting location. Caiden decided to change the color of his smooth body armor suit avatar from a gunmetal grey to a shiny onyx. The streaming lights of code that formed the city buildings interacted with an indigo sky made from other people’s custom coded graphic designs. Some clouds were made entirely of advanced GIFs, others were made from psychedelic video files, mimicking a piece of the ever-changing color of the digital sky.
The city streets were lit a glowing a soft blue, yellow, and magenta. Multiple users’ avatars walked the digital streets of CWR, en masse. It was unusually busy at this particular time. I wonder if the heavy user traffic is some sort decoy code implemented by Queenalona. There were plenty of Psi-Corp Special agents, especially from the CSSA, i.e. City-State Security Administration, posing as regular users of CWR, looking to take down cyber criminals and underground drug rings. It would make sense for her to be extra cautious.
VseR drifted through the endless sea of users, observing both them, and the changing digital city, searching for any clues that would lead to the secret meeting. To his right, down an obscure backstreet, he noticed a small beacon of light flashing off in a strange sequence. He ambled past the other users toward the light and as he approached it, the beacon stopped blinking and turned green. As it did that, a glowing green door descended from the sky right in front of him. He looked around to see if anyone else was watching, then turned the knob and walked through. He was in a strange hallway filled with naked women. This some sort of sex simulation program? Naw, couldn’t be. There’s more to this than their appearance, he thought to himself
After a quick analysis, he deduced that they were postured to act as makeshift doors, each leading to individual pathways. As he stepped forward, the women’s hands extended. Each step he took left glowing footprints. Unsure of how to proceed, he changed his visual feed to safe mode and scanned up and down the entire hallway, hoping to understand the complex coding required to create such a transitional node. He noticed a unique encryption on every piece of digital matter in this room. He thought back to when he opened the email officially and recalled a specific marker that was designed to temporarily embed itself to his avatar.
The reason why he even saw the strange light beacon in the first place was because of that marker. It was specifically designed so that once it embedded itself to a CWR user, only they could see its source code and anything else encoded onto it. This was indeed the work of Queenalona. Gotta give it to her, she’s always been a cautious one, almost as much as me, Caiden thought to himself. With his visual feed still in safe mode, he located a flashing light on one of the women-door’s hands. That’s it, right there. That’s my way to the meeting, he thought.
That level of caution and discretion eliminated the threat of unwanted spies or unauthorized users breaching the code and finding the source location of the meeting; an excellent way to fend off the prying eyes of the law and any other unwanted user. He grabbed that woman’s hand and a bright light encompassed everything around him. When the intense flash of light subsided, he found himself in a vast, infinitely dark space with only a small blip of light shining in the distance.
Knowing that walking or floating there would take an eternity, he decided to accelerate at lightning speed toward the small light. The closer he got, the more things came into view. He finally arrived at the source. The light that shined from the distance was a singular overhead lamp and a streaming wall of protective coding. The protective wall
