Netrunning Stories

Nineteen-year-old Valerie thought she was just another Streetkid from Heywood with a talent for quick-hacking and a suspiciously overprotective father. But her "dad," Solomon Reed, is no ordinary bouncer-he's a sleeper agent for the NUSA, and Valerie is the secret he's been guarding for nearly two decades. When Space Force One is brought down over the walled-off nightmare of Dogtown, Valerie's world shatters. Forced to cross the border into Colonel Kurt Hansen's lawless territory, she discovers that her life has been a carefully constructed lie. Trapped between a dying netrunner sister she never knew she had and a mother who happens to be the President of the New United States, V must decide where her loyalties lie. In a city built on betrayal, Valerie must master the "Cuckoo" code and face the shadows of the Blackwall to save her found family. But in the world of spies, the cost of freedom is always paid in blood.

A netrunner awakes to find themselves alone in an unfamiliar section of the net. Originally started for a contest last fall. Prompt: Write up to a thousand words about someone in a science fiction setting coping with the effects of being alone.

Investigative journalist Metis Kazitake discovers first-hand the dangers of running the Net between New Glory and the virtual world. Written in November 2011