[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/wW8Zqhp.png[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/milA0pJ.png[/img][/center]


[center][hider=Hold My Vodka-Mountain Dew Voltage][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbxycFX3idc[/youtube][/hider][/center]

[color=008000]>>>𝔸𝕡𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕛𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕃𝕒𝕣𝕘𝕖 𝕎𝕖𝕓 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕦𝕝𝕦𝕤...
>>>ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝔸𝕦𝕘𝕘𝕖𝕕, ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝕀ℂ𝔼'𝕕, ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝔸𝕟𝕘𝕣𝕪...
>>>𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕃𝕒𝕓𝕪𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕙… [color=#035096]𝕆𝕣 𝕊𝟘𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘[/color]...
>>>...[/color]

[i]He was webbed, like a spider,[/i] she thought. The crawling spirals of code and ICE swirled about him like a cloud of pheromones to the unsuspecting Mega-hacker. It obscured his suave step, at least to someone lost in thought, wrought to ponder the awful concepts inherent in the swirling data maelstrom. She strained her eyes, trying to focus on the epicenter of the storm, but the signals she received were far too many. She cocked her head to the side, interpreting an inverted line of Labyrinth leaking out of his tech.

[color=#035096][i][b]Another beast. Another creature.
[center]Spider[/center]
[right]Lost in its web[/right]
[center]Approaching fast! Fuck,
React![/center]
We’re back. Back, I tell you.
[right]Lost.
Mad.[/right]
Still trapped.
[center]Still in the game? Another enemy? Lash out and attack![/center][/b][/i][/color]

But alas, Delilah just stood there, like a drooling idiot. This time it was the patterns in his glasses that cast their spell upon her. The red and blue filters only further abstracted her [s]mente scindendris[/s], [s]SPECS[/s], mental picture— so elaborate.

[color=#035096][i][b]She would not be beat! Damn it.
[right]The Shaman of the Labyrinth had no weakness.
She, the Genius.[/right]
But this opponent was different.
[center]Different.[/center]
Held his own kind of magic, in fact.
[right]Alert! Alert! Calling all players in the [color=green]𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖[/color] to their brain battlestations. There’s a dangerous mage. Their distance apart was no more than a few paces.
Delilah sent out a distress call to her bodyguards right away.[/right][/b][/i][/color]

[color=green]>>> ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾…[/color]

But it didn’t quite go that way. She hit, perchance, a different contact. She didn’t have bodyguards. It was just the Shaman, alone, locked in that head of hers.

[color=green]>>> “[/color][color=#035096]ℍ𝟛𝕝𝕡! 𝕀'𝕞 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕜![/color][color=green]”[/color]
[color=green]>>> ...[/color]
[color=green]>>> ...[/color]

[color=green]>>> ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾…[/color]
[color=green]>>> “[/color][color=#035096]𝕀𝕥'𝕤 𝕒 𝕨𝕚𝕫𝕒𝕣𝕕![/color][color=green]”[/color]
[color=green]>>> ...[/color]
[color=green]>>> ...[/color]

[color=#035096][i][b][right]Wait…[/right][/b][/i][/color]
[color=green]>>> ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾…[/color]
[color=green]>>> “[/color][color=#035096]𝕎𝕒𝕚𝕥...[/color][color=green]”[/color]
[color=green]>>> ...[/color]
[color=green]>>> “[/color][color=#035096]ℕ𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕕. 𝕀 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕫𝕒𝕣𝕕...[/color][color=green]”[/color]
[color=green]>>> ...[/color]

[h3][color=gray]𝕊𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕥 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕤[/color][/h3][color=008000][b]ℝ𝕖𝕔𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕞 ℤ𝕠𝕟𝕖, 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕙 ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕊𝕡𝕣𝕒𝕨𝕝[/b]
[b]𝔸𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕝 𝟙𝕤𝕥, 𝟘𝟞𝟝   𝟙𝟠:𝟚𝟘[/b][/color]
[right][sub][@Atrophy][@Sandy][@Valor][/sub][/right]

Delilah could only imagine the assault she had perhaps ‘accidentally’ enacted upon Citizen K’s interface of choice with her onslaught of pings. She could have sworn she actually hallucinated the sound of a tablet erupting with notifications, but then it faded away. The Wizard reached her, cornered her near the wall where he could hush his voice and save face as much as he could. 

[b][color=lightslategray] “You told me you were going to stay in ‘The Dungeon’ today. You know, when important folks who shouldn’t be seeing your face are around.”[/color][/b]

[b][color=#035096] “The Woman Cave grew stale and boring and out of snacks. I came to scalp information from the upper class.”[/color][/b] Delilah posted up against the wall and crossed her arms. Surveying the crowd, she recognized that most of the conniving candidates were too busy with their bourgeois scheming to notice the invisible hacker. The invisibility thing got to her sometimes. She was invisible in the Labyrinth. It had to carry over at least somewhat here in reality.[b][color=#035096] “And I changed the codeword. It’s the Woman Cave now.”[/color][/b]

[b][color=lightslategray] “The Pirates and Gatch have their own netrunners running their own games and surveillance operations here you know. You’ll want to watch for them, and maybe even get us some useful information that they leave vulnerable?”[/color][/b]

[b][color=#035096] “Speaking of Pirates, and boats, and information, one of Amalgamation’s barges is anchored 30 miles off the South City coast on the same latitude as the new land purchase—that dead sector. What’s that for?”[/color][/b]

[b][color=lightslategray] “You did [i]what[/i] to Amalgamation info?”[/color][/b] [i]Oops,[/i] the hustler thought. That one was a bit too loud. Samsara pitched down to a near whisper for the next line.[b][color=lightslategray] “Couldn’t you be a little more useful with your targets? There are unencrypted Labyrinth instances flooding this complex, and if you get me in trouble with Amalgamation, I will fire you. Fire you into space or something. We [i]cannot[/i] mess with them—especially that project.”[/color][/b]

Delilah felt the come-down approaching, she pulled the E-Drug soft from her neck and discarded it on the floor in plain sight of any onlookers. Turns out she had put it back in the box half-empty. [i]A new low for sure[/i]. It would have been worse if Samsara hadn’t swooped down to palm the object away from view before anyone got to identify the cartridge. Delilah started off towards the snack table to find something to replace the incoming wave of bodily and emotional entropy. Already, dangerous levels of [s]something [color=green]𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕖[/color][/s] negativity were threatening to take hold. If only she knew the prime wave of [color=#035096]ℍ𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕪[/color] was yet to hit. Bootleg homebrew cartridges were strange like that.

[i][b][color=#035096]Just like the rest of the expanding universe, slowly losing heat…
[right]It was all downhill from here…[/right][/color][/b][/i]

[b][color=#035096] “You never even hired me. I’m out here hustling, free-lancing. Amalgamation should be proud of me and give me more robot parts.”[/color][/b] Once she secured the deck on her person with a shoulder strap, Delilah drummed her hands on the table, surveying her options of vastly superior food to what she was used to. Drinks too. She decided those came first, but she was second in line, after another woman who also by the looks of it needed to desperately drown her demons. [b][color=#035096] “Besides— Gatch and his goons are too easy these days. I’m a ghost, Samsara. A spooky ghost.”[/color][/b]

Delilah poured up her own concoction—vodka and… something blue. She thought it was an energy drink at first. The color was really all that mattered. It matched her hair, and half of her vision. Samsara either adjusted his glasses or rubbed his temples, taking a long breath—the kind that concealed an internal scream. He reached for his inner pocket and sought out his flask. Nothing. Another sigh. Or a growl. He stiff-armed Delilah, assaulting her until he felt the flask in her—no [i]HIS[/i]—jacket pocket. Very strong brandy. [i]It was classy, like him,[/i] he thought.

[b][color=#035096] “I mean, fuck Gatch. Doesn’t the world have enough dirt on him?”[/color][/b] Delilah was the one on the ‘too-loud’ side of the scale this time. She might have accidentally drawn some eyes.[b][color=#035096] “Aren’t the Reclaim people done with him yet? I am. Send him my way. I’ll rip off his other arm. The flesh one.”[/color][/b] She turned to the corporate-type sipping their own cocktail next to her. [b][color=#035096] “Am I right?”[/color][/b]

Samsara did another glasses-adjust//face-to-palm. He took a few steps back from Delilah, realizing the grenade he had run into all too drunk himself in the bar that fateful day and trying to distance himself from her. She wasn’t quite done, though. Delilah did a survey of the room, struggling a moment to discern faces in the filter of red and blue. It didn’t take her long to settle on a set of familiar eyes and old-school lumberjack hipster beard. 

[b][color=#035096] “[i]Michael[/i] Faren! You and your hunter-gatherer cronies are probably in the market for discarded ripped-off flesh arms, right? I could have sworn that was what your campaign was about…”[/color][/b]

Faren looked offended for the smallest microsecond. Then, he looked to his posse and did his [i]absolute best[/i] to contain his laughter, eyes falling upon Samsara. [b][color=lightgreen] “Is she—”[/color][/b]

[b][color=lightslategray] “Oh no… De—”[/color][/b]

[b][color=#035096] “Listen here, Michael!”[/color][/b]

[b]“Michael?”[/b] One of the NLP’s stylish gangers muttered from the crowd. Delilah furrowed her brow. She wasn’t deterred. Samsara had taken to standing as close to the wall as possible, his glasses almost bumping the decrepit brick. His flask was almost empty.

[b][color=#035096] “How ever will Gatch deter your silly protest?”[/color][/b] She gave her best attempt at a posh, ironic, mocking tone. It was almost indistinguishable from her usual demeanor. A number of the NLP cluster shot each other nervous glances, all eventually settling on Faren himself. [b][color=#035096] “What ever could defeat a bunch of Anprims?”[/color][/b] She looked around, calling to the crowd. [b][color=#035096] “Does anyone have any preventable diseases on hand?”[/color][/b]

[b] “How does she…”[/b] 
[center][b] “Who—[/b][/center]
[right][b] “Are we…”[/b][/right]

The air was, needless to say, dense with questions. Something was wrong, Delilah felt. The atmosphere of banter was suddenly replaced by a sort of tension. Maybe it was her bloodstream constricting, she thought. That was what it usually was. 

[b][color=#035096] “What?”[/color][/b]