In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink. ~A Midsummer Night?s Dream
The private doctor that Jacks too her that night so long ago was one Dr. Joseph O?Devlin. As Irish a man as Summer had ever met; complete with an accent that threatened to cause the universe to implode when the two of them got into heated arguments, not a soul around able to discern a word of it.
Turned out that the bone was cracked but there was nothing that could be done for that except for a prescription for pain meds. Summer stuck with alcohol to numb the pain, she didn?t like the way narcotics made her fuzzy around the edges.
Dr. O?Devlin was a specialist, as it turned out, and one that she spent a good deal of time discussing certain procedures. Over the next few years Summer had surgeries to implant devices to make her hearing and sight sharper. Working over those years on a design of her own to interface directly with a computer, because what hacker hadn?t read Neuromancer and dreamed of something of the sort?
After three years she had the design done and approved by her boss to give it a try, although they were not happy that she insisted that she be the first -- the only if she had her way -- to get the implant. That surgery turned out to be wildly more successful than anticipated. The functionality of the link between herself and her computer was amazing, as good a result as a sci-fi/computer geek could have dreamt of and she with a great imagination no less.
The next step was creating applications to use with the interface and that had taken longer. Even with her expertise this was all new ground and the trial and error sometimes had unexpected and somewhat traumatic results. After the first big failure she learned to be a little more cautious. Taking risks with her body was one thing, and one she did often especially on her motorcycle, but her brain? No, that needed protection and so she bowed to reason and ran more tests and simulations before loading new code.
It was in this fashion that she made a name for herself in the circles that mattered to her, the elite few that were good enough to run hack jobs in Rhy?din and the surrounding Planes. In the nether that was cyberspace she had become known as Puck. There were places built in the void for her ilk to gather, to brag and to inform, to warn or to harm and there her avatar was male. Combining that with the name and anyone there would initially say that Puck was definitely some male out there wreaking havoc.
The Void, the name not only of the space created but the hardest to access gathering point, a type of ethereal bar where avatars could mingle in a setting that resembled a bar that would have been comfortable in a TRON movie, was where she found herself on most nights.
There were a few in there that had begun to suspect that the being -- as not all were human -- behind the Puck avatar was not at all male. Far too polite in some cases and far too vindictive in others. That didn?t matter to that crowd, all that mattered was skill, and if Puck wanted to portray themselves as male, well, they wouldn?t say anything.
So when the strange avatar showed up and began asking questions, the answers they received were few and far between, hackers didn?t give up their own, and generally incorrect to boot.
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink. ~A Midsummer Night?s Dream
The private doctor that Jacks too her that night so long ago was one Dr. Joseph O?Devlin. As Irish a man as Summer had ever met; complete with an accent that threatened to cause the universe to implode when the two of them got into heated arguments, not a soul around able to discern a word of it.
Turned out that the bone was cracked but there was nothing that could be done for that except for a prescription for pain meds. Summer stuck with alcohol to numb the pain, she didn?t like the way narcotics made her fuzzy around the edges.
Dr. O?Devlin was a specialist, as it turned out, and one that she spent a good deal of time discussing certain procedures. Over the next few years Summer had surgeries to implant devices to make her hearing and sight sharper. Working over those years on a design of her own to interface directly with a computer, because what hacker hadn?t read Neuromancer and dreamed of something of the sort?
After three years she had the design done and approved by her boss to give it a try, although they were not happy that she insisted that she be the first -- the only if she had her way -- to get the implant. That surgery turned out to be wildly more successful than anticipated. The functionality of the link between herself and her computer was amazing, as good a result as a sci-fi/computer geek could have dreamt of and she with a great imagination no less.
The next step was creating applications to use with the interface and that had taken longer. Even with her expertise this was all new ground and the trial and error sometimes had unexpected and somewhat traumatic results. After the first big failure she learned to be a little more cautious. Taking risks with her body was one thing, and one she did often especially on her motorcycle, but her brain? No, that needed protection and so she bowed to reason and ran more tests and simulations before loading new code.
It was in this fashion that she made a name for herself in the circles that mattered to her, the elite few that were good enough to run hack jobs in Rhy?din and the surrounding Planes. In the nether that was cyberspace she had become known as Puck. There were places built in the void for her ilk to gather, to brag and to inform, to warn or to harm and there her avatar was male. Combining that with the name and anyone there would initially say that Puck was definitely some male out there wreaking havoc.
The Void, the name not only of the space created but the hardest to access gathering point, a type of ethereal bar where avatars could mingle in a setting that resembled a bar that would have been comfortable in a TRON movie, was where she found herself on most nights.
There were a few in there that had begun to suspect that the being -- as not all were human -- behind the Puck avatar was not at all male. Far too polite in some cases and far too vindictive in others. That didn?t matter to that crowd, all that mattered was skill, and if Puck wanted to portray themselves as male, well, they wouldn?t say anything.
So when the strange avatar showed up and began asking questions, the answers they received were few and far between, hackers didn?t give up their own, and generally incorrect to boot.