Coni's Secret Self

The game

A punk living in the the futuristic city of Zail, wakes up in a dark alley with bruises all over his body. He has no idea what happened. He stands up and sees that he is naked.

A girl shrieks at the entrance of the alley as she sees his naked body. She runs away screaming while he tries to wipe off the blood from his face.

The girl runs to her mother, "Mommy!" she cries. 

The woman is surprised to hear such an innocent voice coming out of her daughter's mouth, "Coni, what is wrong?" Robin asks her daughter.

"Scary man!" Coni cries. 

Robin hugs Coni "It's ok, honey, lets go and get some ice cream, okay?" Robin says, trying to calm her down. 

Coni's eyes light up and seems to have forgotten what just happened "Ice cream, YAY!" she says excitedly. Coni and her mother go and get some ice cream.

"Your father will be waiting for us at home" Robin says to Coni.

"I'll hug him big when we get back." Coni replies.

"Ok then let's go". Coni and her mom head home.

They walk through the door and Coni sees her father. He looks like he has been crying. 

"Daddy!" Coni exclaims. She runs to hug him.

He smiles and hugs her. "Where's mom?"

"There." Coni says pointing to the doorway where Robin stands, holding a half eaten ice cream cone and smiles at the pair.

"Well, I guess it was worth the wait." He says.

"It was." Coni agrees with a big nod.

After hugging each other again, with a pained look, he asks "Are you ready to play the game again?"

"Ok daddy." Coni replies. "Nait, no, please, you said this would stop." Robin pleads to her husband.

"I know but I can't do this job without her" Nait says.

"Fine, but you better keep her safe." Robin sighs.

Coni lays down, Nait attaches the trodes (electrodes that connect her brain to cyberspace) and jacks her into the matrix. Coni finds herself in a cyberspace version of their living room, sitting on the couch watching TV. Her matrix persona is a glowing blue wire frame of an adult female.

Nait's persona appears next to her on the couch. "What is the situation?" Coni asks in a straight, serious tone, a heavy contrast to her meat-space voice.

"We need to find out where the hell she went." Nait answers.

"What do you mean?" Coni asks.

"She might have left town or gone to another city." Nait explains.

Nait flicks his wrist and an image of the target appears in the air in front of them.  "She is a young woman, brown hair, wears glasses, long legs and a slim figure. As for cyberware, well... other than a comlink, it doesn't matter since we don't care about that anyway."

"She will be found." Coni states, matter-of-factly.

"Good, now let's start looking." He says.

Coni starts to glow brightly for a moment. Then she disappears from the couch. The room goes black.

"What the...?" Nait thinks to himself. He reboots the sim and the room flickers back.

A few moments later, Coni contacts Nait "I found the target, she was captured by a runner team hired by Renraku, they are currently in transit." she says.

"How do you know it's Renraku?" Nait asks.

"The runner team were transporting her to the new location when they got caught." Coni replies ignoring his question. "They are in a car chase right now."

"Yeah, I see that now." Nait says as a video feed from Coni appears in front of him.

Coni hacks into one of the passing cars and crashes it into the Lone Star vehicles that were chasing the runners van. She then takes control of the van and drives it at high speed through the streets into go-gang territory.

"Where is the rest of my crew?" Nait asks.

"I have been in contact, they are heading to the drop point where I will deliver the target." Coni replies.

The go-gang surrounds the van shouting and shooting into the air. "we got us a new runner van, boys!" one yells.

Small doors slide open on the side of the van and several shots ring out, a few gang members fall.

Coni remotely opens all the doors on the van, gangers start shooting inside, hitting one of the runners.

The rest of the team exit the van shooting down gangers as they move but are eventually killed.

The van's doors close "The target is secured." Coni says. The gang once again surrounds the van.

Coni causes one of the gang bikes to explode, gangers dive away from the fireball. With the gangs attention away from the van, it speeds away under Coni's control.

She disables the tracking device on the van as it drives to the drop off point.

The van stops and its doors open, Nait's team find the girl inside.

Coni's persona flickers back into view sitting on the couch next to Nait "Target is in our possession, mission complete." she states.

Nait nods. He jacks out and disconnects the trodes from Coni.

She wakes up, "Did we win daddy?" she says excitedly.

"Yes, we won." he replies smiling then hugs her.

"Yaaaaay!" she squeels.

THE END