Raia crouched behind a stack of crates, camouflage membrane turned to full power, focused on powering up the warehouse’s maintenance terminal. Once her enchantments opened up the interface, she plugged the jack into her custom wrist mount and said into her comm, “I’m in.”
“You know,” answered Navasi. “I’ve never heard anyone say that on a job. Outside of an action holovid, anyway.”
“Those soap writers wish they wrote plots as good as my life,” Raia answered. “About to go virtual. Stay put until you get my beacon. After I trip security, I’m going to need a fast exit.”
“‘After’ you trip security?” said Navasi. “Don’t you mean ‘if’? Say you mean ‘if,’ Raia.”
Raia laughed and said, “Going virtual.”
The world around her vanished. Raia could still see, hear, and even feel and taste, but in this glowing, in-between world, meant to represent the digital flow of the local infosphere, sensation was different. Here, she was different. And much more powerful.
Raia had been hired by a politician to expose a cult. She’d taken the job, not for money, but for a favor. Months ago, Starfinder Society probes had discovered yet another inhabited planet along the edges of Near Space, which ancient star charts named Sigerro. Preliminary scans indicated Sigerro’s inhabitants possessed a rich culture and advanced technology. Many interested parties hoped to be on the first diplomatic team sent to meet their people, but such assignments would be determined by the Directorate in accordance with Pact World protocol.
Luckily, Elxur Droj, the verthani politician in charge of the Directorate’s diplomatic corp, was also a Seeker in his spare time—one of a group of infosphere conspiracists hoping to expose the wide-spread religion called the Disciples of Grace. Instead of helping the poor and sick, Seekers believed the Disciples were secretly corrupt slavers bent on taking over the Pact Worlds. Elxur not only believed this, he hoped to use their exposure to run for higher political office.
After approaching Elxur through her usual aliases, Raia had managed to secure a deal. If she could procure evidence of corrupt Disciple activity, Elxur would approve her request to be part of the diplomatic team on Sigerro.
The Disciples of Grace certainly weren’t spending all their credits on charity, no matter how well they laundered their donations. Raia had been able to locate a warehouse on Verces used by one of their shell companies for off-the-books shipments. If she could acquire shipping manifests, Elxur should grant her a place on the diplomatic mission.
Now, Raia stood on a floating platform in seemingly endless digital chasm. Once she leapt, there was no turning back. Checking to make all her defenses and countermeasures were in place, she dove into digital void.
Illustration by Alexandur Alexandrov from Starfinder Tech Revolution.
It was like freefall, glorious freefall, except instead of wind, breezes of bytes and floods of information cascaded all around her.
As long as Raia kept falling, standard security measures shouldn’t be able to track her presence, so fast was she moving from one node to the next. Yet this also made acquiring the right data hard.
Everywhere she looked, she saw secure files as floating screens—and each image they depicted was disturbing. People being led away in chains. Priests changing form in private. These weren’t shipping manifests, but they might be better. Like a hungry child in an orchard, Raia plucked as many files as she could into her avatar for later study. She didn’t have much time before the system’s internal security caught on to her falling simulation and—
VHHT VHHHT VHHHHHT
Suddenly, instead of descending down an endless void, Raia was approaching hard ground fast. A digital wall of spiky security code had manifested—which could shatter Raia’s persona on impact. They’d detected her more quickly than anticipated. Upgraded security. Definitely more cutting edge than a charitable religion should have access to.
Instead of smashing into the wall of code, Raia activated another program, buffering her processors through the node, her digital persona appearing to float gently to the ground.
Where she was instantly surrounded by glowing-red virtual security countermeasures. Vicious, cutting-edge anti-hacker programs, which in the virtual resembled crimson piranhas coated in blood-red razor wire, swirling in on themselves.
“Aren’t you just the cutest things,” she muttered. They rushed at her, but Raia had come ready for something like this.
With the grace of an acrobat, she dodged their serrated tentacles—prodding counterhacks trying to penetrate her avatar and learn her identity. Just when it seemed the countermeasures might be too numerous to evade, Raia pulled her next trick. In a flash of green, two digital versions of Raia stood surrounded by the menacing security programs. Both fled in different directions. The security countermeasures, momentarily confused, split up to chase both.
While her decoy fled, Raia dove behind a digital gleaming column and amped up her camouflage code, similar to the weave she’d been using in the real world. She blended completely into the digital wall around her. As the last security countermeasure flew past, Raia pounced, landing atop it, clawing both hands inside its glowing carapace.
With the precision of a surgeon, she copied its access privileges and modified its instructions. Once finished, the drone glowed the same green as her persona’s glowing functions. It sped off to fight its former companions, while Raia used its security clearance to copy the shipping manifests she’d originally been hoping to “borrow.”
A crackle and a beep indicated a message coming over her comm in the real world. “Raia? Things are getting pretty hot. Alarms everywhere and bots are summoning private security teams to your location.”
Time to rabbit. Raia exited the hacking sequence, copied data securely stored in her rig. She turned on her beacon and sprinted toward the street, already spotting Navasi’s hovercar blasting around the corner.
As she prepared to leap onto the vehicle, Raia wondered what she’d been able to acquire. She didn’t know exactly what was on those files, but it should be enough to get her on the diplomatic team. Either way, she’d make sure never to donate to Disciples of Grace in the future.
About The Author
Patrick Hurley has had fiction published in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Abyss & Apex, New Myths, Arcanist, Aurealis, Frozen Wavelets, The Overcast, and The Drabblecast. He is a 2017 graduate of the Taos Toolbox Writer's Workshop. In 2018, he was a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Award. Patrick lives in Seattle and is a member of SFWA and the Dreamcrashers. He still can’t quite believe he has the good fortune to also be an editor at Paizo.
About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.
