Hacker: Debut (Ch. 1)

The reason I'm letting the plot crawl slowly is because I'm not sure how much I want to keep this story going. However, the good thing is, I know exactly how the plot is going to end up if I do finish it.

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Debut

River walked on the untrodden grass of the grove. The trees were relatively young, and the sun had just come up. She put her hand on one of the trees, tracing a scar running down the bark. Today was the fifth of August, she realized with a jolt. The twentieth anniversary of when her sister had disappeared, lost in the chaos of the Hacker Hunter Uprising.

There's no use thinking about it now, she thought to herself sternly. She was a Hacker, and deserves what she got.

But still, River couldn't help remembering the time when she was six, and her sister had just come home after subjecting herself to the DNA Hack operation which had just become open beta.

"River! Don't go near that cliff! It's dangerous!"

"Oh, come off of it, mom! Nothing's going to happen!"

The rocks suddenly cleaved off the cliff wall, and she fell towards the raging rapids below. Her mother shrieked and River's eyes began to tremble, lost in fear.

And then, from one moment to the next, she was on the other side of the small canyon, on the cliff opposite to the one where her mother was, crying her lungs out.

River looked up, and saw that she was in her sister's arms.

"My sister, who used her Speed Hack to save me," she murmured to herself. She tried to remember her sister's face, but for some reason, she could only remember the look she had, the look of great intensity, but also of pure joy and freedom at the act she had just performed. Then, River froze. Something's coming. She moved her feet and pivoted around, moving her hand to the curved longbow on her back. She barely had time to draw it when something lunged out of the bushes. Her eyes turned scarlet as her Sniper's Sight took over. Everything, from the clouds moving in the sky to the man who had just lunged at her moved in abnormally slow motion as her body pumped more adrenaline to her brain.

The man was drawing a shortsword, curved to a point and was moving it in position to pierce her throat. River fired two arrows at the man, one shooting towards his heart, the other between his eyes. She was sure of a clean kill when suddenly-

The two arrows changed course and stopped in midair, three feet away from their target. They seemed to be sucked into a vacuum- Oh God.

River managed to pull out of the way just in time as the man's left hand struck against the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. Everything sped to normal speed again as her Sniper's Sight ended. She rolled to her feet quickly, drawing another two arrows into her bow. The man was holding the shortsword like a kitchen knife, an evil grin painted on his face.

"You're a Hacker, aren't you?" River shouted, her trembling hand taking aim towards the man's chest. His evil grin grew wider.

"Vac Hacker, to be precise," he began to shift his weight forward, his wide smile still stretching his facial muscles. River moved her thumb down the shaft of the arrow, causing the tail feathers to glow. It shot forward, exploding with the small force of a bomb. The man leaped aside and pointed his free hand to the left, the smoke and flames from the exploding arrow began to get sucked towards an empty spot away from him. Now! River thought fiercely.

She drew her bowstring back as far as it could stretch and let go, a barrage of glowing arrows shot out of the space where no visible arrow was knocked before. They were just about to reach their target when the man raised his knife and pointed it to the right of him, and all fifty-three of the arrows shot in that direction. The man's feet touched the ground and he laughed from the depths of his lungs.

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This morning, the man had gotten up as the sun's rays hit his face, warming his cheeks. He opened his eyes and smiled. Today was August Fifth, the twentieth anniversary of the Hacker Hunter Uprising, and the day Mordent proclaimed to the world that he would return. When it did, he had told all the people, the Hackers would throw off their shackles, and with him at their lead they would crush the legits and take their rightful place as the perfect humans of the world.

The man had gotten up today and decided to head to town for a couple of drinks to celebrate. No one would notice him, he had just procured a new bypass and a man celebrating would not be an uncommon sight on the anniversary of the day the legits had "rid the world of a deadly scourge of humanity." He had been walking towards town when he had come across this strangely attractive female, obviously legit, staring at the bark on a tree. It was then that he made his mind. What better way to celebrate the coming of Mordent, he had thought, By killing the first legit of the revolution?

He laughed from the bottom of his lungs as the flames and smoke died out, and the glowing arrows winked out of existence. He moved his left hand and directed his Vac Hack at her bow, it flew out of her hands and landed fifteen feet away. He lunged in for the kill when, right then and there, he knew this was a mistake. From the bushes that he himself had emerged from, two large throwing knives flew out. They pinned him to the very same tree that the legit had been staring at, and he was stuck, impaled by two throwing knives, eight feet above the ground. He tried to use his Vac Hack to pull the knives out, but they were embedded deep in the bark, as if the thrower had strategically placed them to prevent them from coming out. After what seemed like a century, the knives flew out and he began to kick himself off the tree-

But too late, a man in a green cloak jumped out, the perpetrator behind the thrown knives, twirling a greataxe like it was a reed, and swung it down, just as the hacker kicked off-

The axe ran from his skull and through one of his legs, cleaving him in two. The greataxe kept going, and cut right through the tree behind him with a series of cracking sounds. Blood flew through the air as the two, now seperated parts of the hacker fell to the ground. The man in the green robes left his axe embedded into the stump of the tree and checked his robes to see if anything had gotten on him. When he seemed satisfied, he turned around and looked at River. She got up and quickly picked up her bow, and hurried over to him.

"Hi, thanks so much for saving me," she said, rushed. "My name's River, what's your name?" The man in the green robes ignored her and began walking. River followed him, slightly put off by the cold shoulder.

"Wait, are you just going to leave your axe there?" She swung her head around, and her jaw dropped. The axe had faded out of existence, and so had the two throwing knives he had used to pin the hacker to the tree. She swung her head back around, and rushed to follow him, and stared into his face. There was something there that seemed familiar, the same look on his face when her sister had saved her from that drop so many years ago. A thought suddenly struck her.

"You're a Hacker, aren't you?" River pressed forward. She was a couple of inches shorter than him, and maintaining a gaze at his eyes took effort, as if she were staring directly at the sun. The man in the green robes stopped, and she could tell she had struck a chord within him. Now, she had time to examine him. He looked as if he were about as old as her, with a peaceful look on his face. However, no matter how hard River tried to remember, she had never seen him on any of the news reports as one of the people who had subjected themselves to the open beta DNA Hacking operation.

He began walking, and River followed along. "A Duality, actually." River jumped. His voice was startling, it was light, yet grave, as if he was constantly visiting funerals. She found strange comfort in that, and kept listening. "Two hacks. Accelerated Experience and Duping Hacks." River nodded. Accelerated Experience would explain how he had known how to use both throwing knives and a greataxe, and Duping would certainly explain how he had created those weapons, and how they'd disappeared after use.

"I'm going to come with you, wherever you're going," River said. She waited for a response, but got none. "Hello?" She asked. "I said I'm going to follow-"

"I'm not going to stop you," he said, interrupting her. He didn't break his stride, and River hurried to keep up with him.

The man in the green robes spoke no more after this, but kept on walking in the direction of the town.

Time and again, he would turn his head towards her, and then awkwardly spin it away. There was something in his demeanor that told her he had expected her to leave by now, but then he would awkwardly move away, and then move back slightly as he was walking. When they got to town, the two of them walked through the security enchantments that had been placed to keep evil-doers and Hackers well in visibility. The man in the green robes didn't break his demeanor, but walked through the enchantments confidently. River had her breath held the entire half a minute it had taken them to pass through the security spells, and then exhaled sharply as the man in the green robes kept walking, undetected. He had a fully functional bypass, it seemed. River began to talk to him.

"My sister was a Hacker." She took a deep breath and kept talking. "When I was six, I was about to fall to my death. She used her Hack to save me. When I looked at her, the look on her face was the exact same as yours, right after you saved me from that man back there." River examined the man in the green robe. There was no change, but he was suddenly striding faster. "I can't remember her face anymore. She was one of the first lost in the Hacker Hunter Uprising, twenty years ago. Is that strange?" The man in the green robes' face had a far off expression now.

They finally got to a bar, with much noise coming through the old, chipped door, and the man in the green robes stopped and looked at River. He seemed to see that she had not left, and finally relaxed, half with exasperation and half with an emotion River could not identify. His light voice rang out again.

"My name's Zathe, by the way," he said simply. River looked at him, and moved towards the bar.

They walked inside to the encompassing noise, the door swinging shut behind them.