After I had amended the catalog, I took my usual tour through the labs and universities.

The only interesting news here was that somebody clued Dr. Nicolins in about my CRS free cyberware. So far he had not reacted, but I could expect a communication request from him in the near future.

And I could already see the number of orders from the Commonwealth spike after that. Maybe the factory would be a good idea. I was still not thrilled about it though.

It was when I checked the message boards in the Abyss that I experienced the snag. I had barely entered the virtual village when a somewhat irate avatar placed himself directly in front of me, having his arms crossed.

When he simply stared at me for a couple of seconds I shrugged and walked around him, only for him to grab my upper right wing.

“Stop right there! Do you not understand that I want to talk to you?”

I just ripped my wing out of his hand, thankful that I mostly had them just for appearance's sake, and they could not convey pain.

“Then you should say something. Simply standing menacing in the landscape is often unconducive to healthy discourse.”

I did not intend to waste more time at some idiot believing he was entitled to my attention, and started again to walk towards the board.

“I said STOP! Why don’t you ever listen?”

He ran in front of me before he planted himself in the confrontational fashion from before again.

“Now, listen you stupid little bitch, when I talk to you, you will listen!”

I tilted my head, sighed, shrugged, and again walked around him, not bothering with giving him an answer.

“I SAID STOP!”

Again, he grabbed my wing, stronger this time. I have to say, he oh so slowly moved upwards on my excrement list. But so far it was nothing I could not solve with a little scrambler in the face.

“I would be thankful if you would abstain from grabbing my wings again in the future. And considering that you used ‘stupid little bitch’ I naturally assumed you were talking to yourself. Now, I have things to do, so have a nice day.”

The scrambler hit him like an electrical shock, and he fell on his behind, with an, if you excuse my pun, shocked expression. I was mildly curious why it gave him more than a little buzz, we were in the Abyss after all, and we had to expect something like a scrambler at all times here.

But I was not interested enough to waste any more time with him. Instead, I walked to the message board. Only to be waylaid again, by another run-of-the-mill avatar.

“Hey, you are that Seraphim-girl?”

Another sigh from me.

“Do you see another figure made of light and shadows with six wings? Yes, I am Seraphim. Do I know you? I have things to do, so keep it short please.”

“Why did you put me on the ignore list?”

Oh, one of those.

“If you are on the ignore list, then you managed to convince my VI that any further discussion with you is wasted.”

“But it simply did not accept my order of an IFF system.”

IFF? Oh, right, I remembered that discussion. Not that he was the only one with that idea. He was just the only one who, even after an exchange of more than 80 messages still insisted that I make it.

“I think the VI informed you roughly 20 times that it is simply not possible with today’s technology. I have nothing further to say.”

Sadly, the first nuisance had used the time I needed to explain that little nugget of wisdom to catch up, and he grabbed my wing again.

I did not keep it at a little scramble this time. No, I made my displeasure felt now. First, I accelerated to combat compression. Well, the safe combat compression of 60:1. It was more than enough to beat some no-name wannabee, but left more than enough in reserve should I encounter a serious threat.

Next, I sicced the VI on him. Nothing lethal, but I had it find his physical position. It took a surprisingly small amount of time to find him, as he actually used a direct connection. No bridge, no firewall, no protection at all.

All that happened while he opened his mouth.

“I S…”

That was all he managed to blurt out before I gave him a headage from hell and fried his board, an of-the-shelf Kawamoto-clone.

His avatar twitched as if he was being electrocuted, screaming, and then vanishing.

Dropping back to the much more sedate 20:1 I looked into the round and realized that there was a small crowd of people seemingly hellbent on talking to me.

I spread my wings and flared up the light in my avatar.

“Does anybody else desperately want to be in the need to shop for a new board? I can relieve you of your current one if you absolutely want to.”

“I should have known that you are at the center of this.”

The words were admonishing, but the voice was mostly amused. And when I turned towards the speaker I saw Bletchley standing at the door to Hut 2. Interestingly a significant portion of the crowd moved to cut him off.

No self-preservation was found here.

Bletchley’s expression changed from amused to annoyed in moments, and lightning coruscated around him, before a couple of the more egregious offenders yelped out in pain.

“I don’t know most of you, and from the way you act, you are not a member of our quaint little community. I am Bletchley, one of our leaders here, so I am nice and give you the ground rules.

Rule number three: Everybody here might be a very good hacker. Annoy them at your own risk.

Rule number two: Keep it calm and orderly. We don’t want riots, upheavals, and anything like this here. It could be bad for your health.

Rule numero uno: Most important, there are some of us who are more important than others. These few are protected for various reasons. Disturbing these selected individuals might lead to repercussions up to and including a second sunrise in your hometown. I am one of them, and more important, Seraphim there is one too.

So fuck off and leave us the fuck alone before I get serious.”

Around 80% of the crowd vanished over the next few seconds, but some sullenly stood around.

Bletchley was obviously not impressed.

“I said fuck off. You have until I counted to five. If you are not gone then you will regret it. ONE!”

By the time he reached FOUR the last of the crowd had vanished as well.

I took a deep breath.

“Thank you. These idiots had become annoying. Well, at least one of them needs a new board before he can come back.”

“No problem, but could you be so nice and come in here for a chat, please?”

Defeated I let my shoulders sag. Obviously, I would not look at the message board any time soon. I mean, sure, I was protected as I had recently found out, but one simply did not say no to Bletchley in the Abyss.

Inside he led me not to his personal room #3, but to the larger conference room, where a selection of the top 20 hackers was talking about something. As soon as he walked through the door, Bletchley announced:

“Hey, look who I found right there at the center of that loud mob. I think it will be much easier if we can ask her directly.”

And he gestured for me to take place.

But the one opening the discussion was not Bletchley, but Colossus.

Like Bletchley, that was a legacy name, reserved for the, well, let’s call him leader of our community. Traditionally, it is the name reserved for the hacker with the highest bounty on his or her head, but as the Phantom had yet to even announce itself, he had kept it, and the Primus-inter-Pares position of the #1 spot.

“Yup. That would make it easier. Now, Seraphim, I assume you know why you are here?”

“It can’t be the VI, that is already an old hat. The CRS free cyberware has hit like a nuke but is not yet ready, so not that either. Could it be the ignore list and that I refuse some people as customers?”

Colossus nodded.

“Yes, righto. It is simply not you to refuse anybody. So what gives?”

I massaged my temples before I answered.

“First, that is not quite true. If somebody goes out of their way to aggravate me I simply don’t work with them. But usually, that becomes a mutual avoidance. They rarely want anything from me, so no need to formally exclude them.

In this case, some people were so obstinate that my VI, which I tasked with answering the messages, wanted to terminate them, as a mercy to them.”

I was interrupted by Bletchley guffawing out loud, together with some of the others expressing their amused disbelieve. After a couple of seconds, I could continue, though a small giggle now and then remained.

“To make it absolutely clear, these people managed to be so mulish and pushy that my VI threw up its virtual hands in despair. And while I think that is a remarkable accomplishment, it is not one I think deserves a reward.

And to prevent any possibility, as small as it might be, that my VI goes rogue, I simply allowed it to put those it decided were impossible to work with on the ignore list.”

After the amusement had died down somewhat, Colossus continued.

“You mean that these jackasses managed to drive a fucking VI to desperation? Yes, that is hardcore. But why did it not simply give them what they wanted?”

“Because what they wanted was, in general, not possible. For example, the second guy that stopped me wanted an implant to get an IFF signal.”

There was appreciative murmuring around the table.

“Yes, I know, it does not sound like a bad idea, and in all honesty, it wouldn’t, if it were possible.”

Splinter, #12 on the ranking list, was the first to voice his concerns.

“Yeah, it sounds really nice. So why doesn’t it work? I mean, it works for bots, and fighters, and even grav ships.”

“Do you have an implant that constantly sends out your identity, your affiliation, and real-world name? Or does anybody you know have such an implant?”

He showed confusion for a moment before he shook his head.

“Nah, that would be more than stupid. Who knows who would exploit that?”

“That is how it works for bots, fighters, and grav ships. They have a transponder that constantly sends out their identification. The only thing the others need is a database of what transponder is a friend, and what a foe. And to make it even easier, to prevent friendly fire, they have a faction identifier in their transponder.

But that won’t work with humans, as humans usually don’t have such a transponder built-in.”

Charade, #8, interjected.

“But they get something similar with the law enforcement systems. For humans.”

“They use biometric scanners, a huge database, and a room full of computer hardware to do that. It will be a bit hard to squeeze something the size of this room into a human. It would be no problem to build a server to do that and connect the implant to it, but that is not 100% and that guy did not want such a solution.”

“So it is not really impossible, but it can’t be offline.”

“Correct, but even after more than 50 messages from my VI, that gentleman refused that answer. Another one, the worst of the pack, wanted a personal assistant. A full expert system, capable of learning to work with him.”

Maestro, #15, frowned at that.

“But… every decent com can do that. How is that a problem?”

“The com has an app installed that connects to the commercial server that runs the assistant. The com itself only runs the front-end app. And it is absolutely no problem to install such an app on the cranial board. As the idiot in question was told 153 times, whenever he brought up the very same argument.

But that was not good enough for him. He wanted privacy so that no big corporation could use the assistant to spy on him. I can understand it, but the solution for that, which he was told 188 times, is to build your own server and run your own expert system, and connect the implant to that.

But no, such a connection was not reliable, and if it was going through the matrix it could be intercepted.

No, he insisted that it had to run completely on the implant. An implant that, if you looked into the catalog, runs on a Regulon 224 SoC, what he was told 211 times.”

Colossus shook his head.

“A Regulon? That is barely better than a com. Why do you not use something better?”

I sighed.

“I used a Regulon because it is a very energy economical and more important cool processor.

Think about it, you have to power it from your metabolism. A normal human produces around 100 Watt constantly, with spikes going up to 2000 Watt for a few seconds. But your metabolism is designed to produce 100 Watt as a base.

The Regulon uses 15 Watt constantly, with spikes going up to 25 Watt. You have to produce that energy somehow, and metabolic converters are notoriously inefficient. In other words, you need to increase your food intake by 20% just to run the processor.

The heat is even more important. At full power, it goes up to 50°C. For those of you not knowing about the human body, 42°C is usually the upper limit. The cooling system that I built into it makes it work, barely, but it becomes unpleasantly warm at times.”

Bletchley guffawed again.

“Wow, that sounds like… well, why bother with it then? I mean, it is a slightly better com.”

I tilted my head when I looked at him.

“A slightly better com that you can’t forget at home, that does not run down its batteries, that can’t be stolen, that is permanently connected to your jack, giving you options like a HUD, fine control of your other implants, an emergency board, even if I would really only use it in an absolute emergency, and gives you a permanent WiFi, BlueTooth and NFC connection to the matrix and the computers around you.

You won’t believe what a difference the last point will make. Oh, and it can be used to connect to your board via WiFi. It has its uses, but it is just not magic. And of course, the function of the synaptic acceleration is worth it alone in my opinion.”

Override, #18, and the only woman in the top 20, scowled.

“Wait, I thought the synaptic accelerator is a different piece of cyberware.”

I sighed.

“You can get the synaptic accelerator as a standalone implant. It basically uses a Regulon 130 SoC and lets out most of the other functions of the cranial board.

But, as I wrote in the description of the board, it integrates the functions of many implants into one package.

You could also get a separate HUD implant. That comes with a Regulon 80.

The same with the various sensory enhancements.

Which you, by the way, can control much more finely with the full cranial board. So, if you are interested in a couple of these implants. You should look first if the cranial board includes that function. It is actually cheaper, and easier to implant than getting all the separate implants.”

She nodded at that.

“Oh, ok. I can get that. Good to know.”

“Another question that led to people landing on the ignore list is after the reflex booster. I would guess that it was overwhelmingly from outside the Abyss, as it is mostly useless for us.”

Splinter chuckled.

“Yeah, a mate of mine was asking why you don’t offer it.”

“Because it is deadly. It was under development when the UNAN released the second CRS virus and was never finished. It tends to burn out the nervous system in a couple of years.”

“But the corpos use it for their zombies!”

Bletchley laughed at that.

“Yeah, right. And the corpos are so known for their compassion, especially to their cyber zombies. Get real, they don’t care if the booster burns out the nerves in two years. The cyberware alone will kill them in that time anyway.”

I chuckled at that.

“I mean, if your mate absolutely insists that he gets a reflex booster, I can give him one. But only after he acknowledges that it is basically suicide to get that implant. If he wants to kill himself, I will not stand in his way.”

A burst of general laughter broke out when I said that.

After around a minute or so, Colossus knocked on the table.

“Calm down. I think we can accept that the people Seraphim has banned were banned for a good reason. Tell your contacts to remain reasonable and I am sure that they will get their cyberware soon enough.”

I cringed at that.

“Ehm, it will take some time for that. Not the developing, I am at this moment testing the applicator and should be done with that in a week and a half. But I have now around 16000 orders pending. And it is growing.

At this moment I have a single industrial fabricator, so can make between 20 and 50 pieces of cyberware a day, depending on the complexity. A second, bigger indyfab is coming online, so it will increase to 50 to 120 pieces a day.

But you can see the math. At the moment I get more orders a day than I can build.

I honestly did not expect it to explode this way.

And until I find a way to fix that it will go slow. Sorry for that.”

That hit like a bomb, and for several seconds nobody said a word. Then Override broke the silence.

“Not that I want to be catty, but is your planning off? How could you ever expect that low number to work?”

I sighed.

“I expected people to be logical.

First, I only released the information here in the Abyss. There are less than 500 Abyss-dwellers. Even with only one indyfab, I could fit out every single one of us with the most complex cyberware in less than a month.

Second, most of the people who ordered a jack from me actually ordered the basic one. If we only take the statistical distribution, around 70% of those are from people who will replace a fully functioning jack with another fully functioning jack. Yes, it will work for longer, but unless you either upgrade to a higher quality jack or already have the need to replace your existing jack, why get a new one now?

A couple of those have to have gotten a new jack in the last three to four months. And they get absolutely no benefit if they replace it now with a basic jack. It would be much more logical to use the current jack until they develop CRS and then replace it with a higher quality jack that they save up for.”

From the way a couple of the people at the table fidgeted I guessed that three or four of them had walked directly into that trap. Of course, I could not understand why they ordered a basic jack. They had clearly enough money to buy the better ones. But everyone as they like.

“Third, before I made my announcement, all of humanity produced less than 4000 jacks each year. And that is including the corporation Jacks. The less than legal field uses around 2000 a year.

Even my smaller indyfab could satisfy that demand easily, even if everybody ordered the ultra bandwidth jack with the cranial board and all sensory enhancements. I certainly did not expect nearly one and a half times the number of Jacks alive in only three days.

I mean, even if we included the corpo-Jacks, there are only around 11k of us. I for sure hope we don’t have any corpo-Jacks here in the Abyss, and I won’t sell to them knowingly so that cuts the number down to 4k possible customers.

And I expected these 4k to get a new jack throughout the next couple of years. Not all at once. I would have been easily been able to meet that amount of demand, without even bringing the second indyfab into play.”

I shrugged my shoulders, with the added side benefit of shrugging all my wings as well.

“At the moment I am honestly a bit stumped. The way it is now it can’t go on. And we all know that I can’t sell” I made the appropriate air quotes at that word “the technology to some corporation. If I am lucky I might even come out ahead, but the rest of you? Most of you would be left to hold the bag. We all know how they love to screw us over. So I have to see what I can do.”

There was a lot of unhappy grumbling but nobody objected to the point. We all knew I was right here.

After a few seconds, Bletchley cleared his throat.

“Well, how do you plan to go ahead for now?”

“For now, I will prioritize people who already have CRS and can send me plausible proof. They are the ones that need the tech the most. After that, the higher quality and more integrated the cyberware is, the higher the priority.

For all I care, if they want a basic jack, they can buy it from their usual sources and send it to me to convert. If the applicator I have designed works out it is relatively easy to make it bigger. With enough bots, I could easily convert several hundred basic jacks a day. The problem is in making the jacks in the first place. But as of yet, nobody has the plans for the higher quality jacks or the other goodies.”

Colossus scowled at that.

“What do you mean if it works out? I thought you have tested the tech already.”

“The tech, meaning the nanofilter to prevent CRS, yes. That I have tested, and am currently using. The point is, that the device that applied the nanofilter to my implants, and the rats I tested it on is… cumbersome, extremely inefficient, and quirky. I used it to develop the nanofilter. But if I used that system to apply the filter to all implants I could do no more than a handful each day, and that if I concentrated on making copies of it.

What I am now testing is a specialized device that only applies the nanofilter to the cyberware, and nothing else. It is completely specialized and streamlined, and around 20 times faster. Also significantly cheaper to run, and the prices in the catalog are based on its efficiency.

But before I sell its product, I have to test if it actually applies the nanofilter correctly. That should be done around two weeks. If it doesn’t, I have to tweak the design and start a new test run, but so far it looks good.”

They all calmed down a bit.

Maestro then leaned forward a bit.

“Now, you said something about upgrading the jack. I mean, yeah, I get it that we all want CRS free jacks, but what is the use of the way more expensive jacks you offer?”

I had to chuckle for a bit.

“In one word, bandwidth. It is even in the name. Basic, Low-, Mid-, High, and Ultra-bandwidth. The step-up in graphic and sound quality from basic to ultra is comparable to the step-up from diadem to basic.

But much more important, and something I actually missed at first myself, so don’t be angry that you did not realize it, it increases the compression. I can only talk for myself, and I am not quite the normal jack, but I roughly doubled my compression without increasing the power of my board.

I can, obviously not promise that increase. It could be a fluke, it could be that it works better with a pure, or worse. At the moment I only have an extremely limited data pool of one. And I honestly doubt that many people here will openly state their maximum compression so that we can plot it.

But yes, for me at least, it was an increase of around 100%.”