Daydreamer's Dilemma

The file lay open in his field of vision, pale view against the dark background of his room. Johnson had ordered the encryption not to be touched, but he couldn’t help but make a copy for himself and take a peek inside before handling it to the tall ork who was Johnson this time. Rain poured on the other side of his “window”, which wasn’t more than a screen that showed what was happening outside, though the room didn’t really have any side touching the exterior of the building. It poured heavily, like a chrome curtain that hit rhythmically the window, matching his own state of humor since he had seen the doc.

It seemed just like the spec data on any corporate secret project, and it surely was that precisely: the one secret project that was the only chance of a little B-rated corp to survive against a hostile takeover from a bigger fish in the corporate pond. He shouldn’t have seen it. Now he knew that, if he handed it to the Johnson, tons of people would lose their jobs and projects, their dreams. He sure wasn’t a friend of corps, but he could understand people trying to defend their ways of life… and he was about to destroy them.

Though his real name in the shadows was Dark Explorer, everybody called him Dardreamer because he still had ideals. In a world when every little peace of weakness could destroy you, he had held to what he thought was right and what was wrong, and tried to harm as little as he could. Surely, that had kept many jobs off his hands, but had earned him some strange respect in the shadows of the plex.

And now, he was fragged. As they used to say, “drek had reached the fan”. If he turned the info to Johnson, his own ideals would had been betrayed together with the lives of so many people. If he didn’t, his own life and those he loved would be written into Renraku’s black list… not a nice option either. Many runners he knew would just give a damn and hand the data in, receive the payment, and retreat to forget in front of a couple of beers, or maybe into the hands of some joygirls. But he wasn’t that kind, he couldn’t forget so easily.

Natalie entered the room, holding little Eddie on her hands, quietly caressing his cheeks as he slept peacefully. Natalie… only he knew her real name, for everybody else she just was Quick Katana, a renowned street samurai in the shadowy streets of Seattle metroplex. He knew her from long ago… he used to work alone, but since that one job when everything had gone wrong and only by putting his life in her hands had they both survived… only them two, to be precisely. But that was long ago, when hackers were still called deckers. Since then, they had worked together, and slowly, love came to bind them together, the love of two equals, two dark and lonely souls in a dark and unwelcoming city. And, shortly after, little Eddie had been born.

Eddie. His own blood, his own son. Whatever he did, it had to be done thinking in him. He was just starting his little life, and that was something Daydreamer wasn’t willing to betray. He looked sadly into Natalie’s eyes, and saw recognition in them. Yes, she knew him better than anybody else, and would hide soon enough. She was good at that, it had saved their hoops quite a couple times. She would disappear into the shadows, and no one would ever find her or Eddie.

But what to do with the file? Even if she hid, Renraku would put a good price on her head as a demonstration of what happened to those that betrayed them, and she would have to escape all her life… and little Eddie’s. And still, if he handed the datafile to Renraku, what kind of example would he be for his son? Ideals had always been his life-saviors in a world where most runners ended destroyed inside due to the brutalities they had committed sooner or later. Could he be a good father for him if he turned back on what he was in this moment of trial? But could he not, for love?

Natalie approached him, her feet making no sound at all in the floor of their small kingdom. She looked deeply into his eyes, and slid her arms around his neck, taking him close to her. Little Eddie moved a bit in sleep, and smiled at the warmth that came all around him. Natalie just placed her head on Daydreamer’s shoulder, and left it that way until the hacker stopped shivering.

He looked into the dark entrance of the room and thought, and felt, and thought again. Back and forth, the same old paths. And, then, he realized that he had made a choice. He couldn’t give his back to who he was. When Eddie grew, his mother would teach him who Daydreamer was, and she would be able to tell him that he was a good man, in a wrong time. A time when good men were the exception, and corruption the rule.

He left her embrace and watched her as she left the room. She would disappear, and only with an enormous effort would he ever be able to find her again, if at all. It’s the way it had to be. He turned back and connected his AR display once more. It was time to get the wheels moving.

A message was sent to the small Arrowhood Brothers Company. In pale blue and black letters, it arranged a meeting with their men. He would give them their data back, for nothing less than a place in their corporation as one of their security hackers. They’d have to take it if they wanted to survive. It was all or nothing. He followed the datatrail as it left, in case Renraku’s own hackers were on him already.

By the time he left the room to meet with his own destiny, Natalie and Eddie were already gone, shadows among the shadows of the city streets.