"FWLS36" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

*Umm... nothing.*

*Bloody unlikely you'll find anybody here that will help
you, then,* Gosub paged back.

*Rats. Alright, never mind... forget you ever saw me.*

*Now hold on there. I said nobody HERE would help you, not
that you couldn't get help. How tough is this site you want
cracked open? Maybe I can line up someone who wants to try out
new routines or wants a challenge.*

This guy seemed informed... why wasn't HE talking up in that
blasted channel? *It's pretty tough, I think. I'm not a hacker,
I can't judge these things.*

*Hmmm. Alright. Here, I'm direct-connecting you a
program...* he paged, as a small happy face sphere appeared in
front of me. *Twist that and you'll connect to #hackers.*

*I was already there,* I replied.

*No, you were in #HAKKRZ. There's a difference. Just twist
it, would you?*

I gave a virtual shrug, and twisted it. The standard VRC
transition animation played, and I was in a new channel.

These guys looked... different. Normal. Instead of the
black leather and metal studs and large phallus ObjIcons the
other hackers were sporting, these people were quite in fashion.
One was even wearing a suit.

"The language is good," one was discussing as I switched in,
"But on the whole, performance isn't very good. The thing can't
even cut level six ice. I wouldn't rate it real high."

"That's because you don't have it configured right," an old-
looking guy with a familiar voice replied. Yeah, that was the
guy who paged me. He looked kind of unfunny, just an ordinary
human image with a brown sweater and khaki trousers. "If you
don't go into it with HTools or something and flip the switches
for the options, it's useless. Either that or you have to pay
credits to register it, and lord knows that'd be a sin."

"Who's he?" someone asked, pointing at me.

"Potential client. Goes by Random. Say Hi, Random."

"Hi," I said, waving.