Cyberpunk: XYZ

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Chapter 40: Understanding The Fundamentals

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It's thus clear why acting against them is not a wise idea. Therefore, when X went back home, he put the shard aside, clasping his hands together, and with a frown; contemplated his next course of action.

"I have delayed deep dives," X muttered. He delayed diving deep into the Net for a good reason, the space is very dangerous.

You won't know when you stumbled upon some Black ICE, and you're done.

Black ICE are designed to chase down the Netrunner and their Programs throughout the NET Architecture after detecting them.

There are ways to avoid and escape them, but they aren't easy, which is why X delayed for so long.

X has been studying and delving into the field of Netrunning for a while now, and even with his abnormal mind, he still felt inadequate.

"Wakako really put the seeds of doubt in my mind," X ruffled his hair, feeling a bit of a headache.

He's always wanted to deep dive into the Net. He felt a strange urge to do so. It's a fascinating field, the space that attracts most of his curiosity.

However, X held off, until now, "I can start small, prey into insignificant Net Architectures, and progress slowly as I gain experience."

"I don't have enough money to buy the Cyberdeck I want, so I'll have to go into debt to get it from Wakako... Is this what she wants?"

[If we are to preemptively deep dive into the Net, we'll have to change our schedule. We'll have to prepare. We'll have to suffer.] Z clarified.

X nodded, having decided on something. Still, he wouldn't forget about the clinic as he went back to work.

He put the most time and study and being a Ripperdoc. Now, it was time to dive into the dreamy lands of the Net.

He scheduled a work routine of six hours a day, mostly taking care of high-quality and special clients who scheduled their sessions through the site.

The rest will be left to Chiyo, although in case of an emergency, she can contact him. Then it began, X's deep contact with the Net.

The decision to immerse himself in the art of Netrunning wasn't one X had made lightly.

Despite his talent as a Ripperdoc, X knew that becoming a skilled Netrunner would require an entirely different level of commitment.

He couldn't afford any mistakes; Night City was unforgiving, and its cyberspace was a battlefield layered with traps, foes, and secrets that only the bravest or most foolish dared to confront.

X spent a while consuming every bit of information he could find. Old holobooks, stolen corporate manuals, forgotten net archives, and the rare whispers from experienced Netrunners who wandered into his clinic.

He slept little, his mind buzzing with new concepts and intricacies of the digital landscape.

He joined many hidden groups of novice Netrunners, exchanging information and experience.

He also joined and Networked with many experienced Netrunners, learning the secrets of the craft.

Before he even touched a Cyberdeck, X knew he needed a solid foundation.

He studied network architecture, internalized how firewalls functioned, and familiarized himself with the unique properties of ICE.

ICE or Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics is what protects data across most corporate servers.

He noted the different types: Black ICE, capable of dealing physical damage to hackers; White ICE, which simply tracked intruders.

Then there was Gray ICE, a complex hybrid that could slow down, trace, or even incapacitate a Netrunner if not carefully countered.

He learned how the matrix; the cyberspace landscape; was organized, breaking it down into tiers, or depths.

Each depth was harder to navigate and came with progressively stronger defenses.

This layered security meant that only the most skilled Netrunners could reach the darkest, most lucrative parts of the Net, where corporations kept their most valuable secrets.

For days, X practiced visualizing these concepts, imagining his approach to each node as if he were already inside the digital world.

Every time he jacked into a simple training module, he'd visualize bypassing a firewall, understanding each step of the process.

He didn't want to just know how to hack; he wanted to feel the rhythm of cyberspace, to become one with it.

That continued until a certain evening. X sat cross-legged on the floor of his home, his Cyberdeck placed in front of him.

He'd chosen the Netwatch Netweaver MK.V, a highly advanced deck capable of running multiple daemons at once, perfect for his unorthodox mind.

This wasn't just another tool; it was an extension of himself, and he needed to understand every circuit, every piece of hardware.

X disassembled and reassembled the Cyberdeck several times, studying each part until he could almost feel its inner workings.

He experimented with its components, wiring in additional backup capacitors to give him extra processing power during long runs and creating unique daemons that would give him an edge in hostile networks.

He spent hours programming scripts and testing new daemons; custom programs that he could run while inside a network to assist with different tasks.

One daemon he named Veil, a cloaking program that helped mask his trace, would be his first line of defense.

Another, Rift, was a powerful icebreaker script that could force open decently strong firewalls, but it came at a high energy cost.

By the time he finished, his Cyberdeck felt like a piece of him; perfectly calibrated to his needs, his mind, and his strategy. He just needed to have it installed... For later.

With the fundamentals and his hardware under control, X turned his attention to studying the most common threats he'd face on the Net.

He downloaded old training programs from a defunct corporate Netrunning school and used them to simulate encounters with different types of AI watchdogs, a common presence in corporate networks.

Each type of watchdog operated differently. Some relied on pattern recognition, scanning for unusual movements or fluctuations in a Netrunner's code.

Others tracked intruders by their unique digital signature. X used his external cyberdeck for practice.

He spent days practicing his evasive maneuvers in these simulations, seeking to slip past most watchdogs without triggering an alarm.

Another study area was counter-tracing, a critical skill to avoid capture. He memorized how to reroute his digital path through backdoors and proxy nodes, creating complex digital loops to throw off pursuit.

He practiced for hours on end, until re-routing his signal became a reflex.

X knew that deep-diving wasn't just about getting in and out.

Once he breached a network, he would need a way to navigate quickly between layers.

With Z's help, he began setting up a series of strategic backdoors; hidden pathways within networks that he could use to retreat or relocate in case of an emergency.

He identified a network of interconnected nodes within several lesser-known systems in Japantown.

After carefully mapping them, he started placing dormant codes along his routes.

Each backdoor was crafted to be invisible unless activated by a specific key sequence that only X knew.

With these in place, he'd be able to jump in and out of systems with decent agility.

These backdoors were dangerous to leave open, as even a skilled Netrunner could potentially discover and exploit them, but they were his failsafe.

X honed his reflexes to the best of his ability. The Net is a complex infrastructure of infinitely changing code.

Information passes by and changes at every second, and even a moment of distraction could compromise him.

The failsafe he left could only help him against some low to mid level opponents. Anything else, and he would be done.

Therefore, he needed to hone his ability to remain undetected, to quickly find vulnerabilities in Net architectures, and to escape unscathed.

Most importantly, he needed to prepare a lot of programs, systems, and Demons before wandering the Net.

The Demon is especially important. It is a generic program with the ability to incorporate several other programs as subroutines; in short, two, three, four or even five programs in one.

To use the program, you must activate the Demon, and then specify the chosen subroutine it carries.

There is a subtype of Demons known as Daemons, which when deployed destroy and subsequently replace a program in the target system, borrowing the system's own operating power to implement its subroutines.

The Daemons are what X value most, just the potential of what they could accomplish... It left him dreaming for countless nights.

X's dreams, however, were short. He couldn't sleep much, finding himself to be obsessed and also anxious.

Since he had decided on preemptively deep diving into the Net, he also found himself obligated to prepare.

He set a deadline for himself which he can only accomplish if he largely gives up on sleep, thus the meds and drugs by X's bed.

They forced him to stay away and alert, allowing excellent cognitive abilities with merely four hours of sleep a day, sometimes less.

Such an abnormal routine isn't so abnormal in Night City, with many corpos having to take similar drugs to keep away depression and sleep.

The only good news was that X is about to have his Cyberdeck installed, finally a breather... Maybe?