Blue eyes turned bright red, then back to blue. Blue eyes turned dark red, then blue. Blue eyes turned dark red, then small bubbles appeared behind the iris as if the blood filled eyes were boiling.
Fallon smiled, he was on watch and as so many other times he had been on watch during dead zones he browsed glamoursoft. Flare for your digital projection. While his own confections were some of his favorite the others that he pulled from the freeware server were stimulating.
There was a faint howl in the background, a strange occurrence in the fact that it spammed all the public communication channels.
Fallon cocked his head instinctively while he traced the source. His red eyes panned up to the rooftop. In a flash he found himself hunched over the edge of a rooftop like a crusader of comics old.
The howl was a bouncer. A chat command sent out by a lot of worm code that awaited a signal.
Fallon pulled out a small pigeon. It separated into four smaller pigeons. Fallon threw them into the air. They hovered for but a moment before the next howl rolled through the chat channels. In a blink they were gone. Each one began tracing the separate channels, ambient chat, nature, rural and forum. They fluttered along pausing in between howls.
Was this a kink or was this some trace's mischief. The pigeon would find the source.
Swallowing the worm code the pigeons dissected the programs of each. With another howl, they took in the command lines acted as the worm and then they were off to the source.
The howl sounded closer. Fallon began flipping between bird's eye shots of the district. The code for the worms came up as a recasting. A copy of prior code tweaked to bypass the filters set up to stop the original code.
Again the howl was closer and suddenly the pigeons live stream stopped reporting. Fallon pulled out Program 322. He felt the presence of the Kink. It was closer than he had hoped
The air around Fallon felt like it was crackling with energy. A beam of light cast down from the sky upon Fallon's face. Fallon's expression changed to puzzlement as he looked at the full moon hovering between dark clouds above.
The proximity trigger went off on his defense grid and he shot off the edge of the roof. Right as his last foot was airborne a small boulder slammed into his shadow on the building. With a thunder it tore into the apartment below.
High atop a neighboring building illuminated by the moon stood a monolith of a creature. Covered in what appeared to be twisting wisps of pure darkness was a humanoid with a wolf's head. Its eyes were radiant phosphorescent white rubies that disappeared as the moon was covered by the clouds.
The sound of thunder roared into life as Program 322 took action. Bursts of clear space flew from the gun's barrel into the wolf creature and back into the sky behind consuming all the programming in its path. The air around the shots seemed to taper off into the black nothingness left in its wake.
With a strange archaic howl the creature took the wounds. Fallon thought he had dispatched it but after a blink the creature began to pull itself free from the clear space path left by program 322. As Fallon pulled his finger again the creature weaved and ducked to avoid the coming clear space. It pulled back from its visible roof top position.
Fallon cursed the dark one and flew higher to gain a vantage point. Two Killers in one week he thought, normally the filters were so strong that you wouldn't see two in a year. Most Kinks that were put in the system were common annoyances from one trace to another. A small group of flies that would follow you around in Free space. A mime that would, well just a mime in general. Normally they were kinks in the way of life, instead of knots on a noose.
A howl arose from the darkness below and Fallon perked up. A kink this far into a residential server was a problem. The shots of Clear Space work well when you aim for the sky. Placed into one of these buildings, he would be hearing about it longer than it would take to fix. That is if they could fix the damage.
The howl didn't move. It was a lone signal coming from the park a block away.
Flying under the cloud cover Fallon looked down upon the trees and pathways of the park. Pure darkness, the Kink knew stealth. Up in the air Fallon had the advantage, limited data for his systems to scan. He waited, hoping to bait the creature out into the sky. Nothing.
Then the howl followed with a scream. As the clouds parted for the moon again a beam seemed to shoot down upon the dark one below. The creature stood with arms to the sky and white eyes burning with the worst of intentions. Behind him bound to the ground was a woman.
Why is it targeting me, Fallon thought. It wants to get me close. The dark one looked directly at Fallon and took a menacing step back as it turned slightly. It pulled its enormous hand down around the woman's throat. Then the park turned pitch black as cloud cover returned. A scream curdled the air.
Shooting down from the heavens Fallon tried to turn the weather program off. He received an access denied response every time. Fallon took a deep breath as he plunged into the darkness.
Within his sensors all went off at once. He found himself standing in front of the dark creature. Its darkness flickered upward in a controlled chaos like grains of black sand pulling free from the ground by a wind. A grin appeared on the creature's face.
Something was very wrong. He felt it before his program popped an alert. The creature was not actually there. The creature was composed of clear space. It was a reverse embossment of a creature. Every arm, leg and tendril was nothingness. Gaping at Fallon was the jaw of void.
His mind raced as he tried to retract. There was nothing he could do against emptiness. He was a dispatcher, a clearer himself. He hesitated and in that moment the dark one expanded into a dark spherical shell around him. In an instant the world was black again. His mind raced, did he see a flicker of programming behind the nothingness. That was it. A program which copied, destroyed and created. Very rapidly at a speed which only an Ed
Red eyes turned bright blue, then back to red. Red eyes turned dark blue, then red. Red eyes turned dark blue, then small bubbles appeared behind the iris as if the blood filled eyes were boiling.
Fallon smiled, he was on watch and as so many other times he had been on watch during dead zones he browsed glamoursoft.