Just a random bit of text i found on one of my hard drives, thought I'd share.
Dancing around the matrix, looking for some docs, I ran into some deck cowboy guarding something. Curiosity mostly, I wandered towards him (his icon was male, or looked male, so I just assumed. Usually a dangerous thing to do in the matrix), trying to see what he was guarding. Maybe it had some value and I could sell it to someone, or something, I could use the extra yen. He saw me coming, figured I was a threat, and hit me hard. He hit me with an IC that would have left most people cooked, from the inside out. I felt my skin chill as the IC hit, the kind of chill you get when a room isn't cold, but just a bit cool and your skin just crawls with goose bumps for a second. He had such a charming look when he realised it didn't phase me. I love seeing them like that. I really didn't feel like dealing with him, so I sent him one of my milder attacks, and logged him out of the matrix, unharmed. (I was in a rather good mood, and have never liked ICing people to death). After seeing what was guarded had no value to me, I left. I saw him log back in. Thought of giving him another run, just to see what he would do. Decided against it, I really need this faq I was looking for.
I love doing that IC stunt. The look is just so precious, sort of a mix of shock, fear, and disbelief. All rolled into this tasty little treat. I felt my mind ride thoughts back to when I got my cyberware installed.
I was a screen coder, you know, one of those people that didn't have the money for anything but a keyboard and monitor setup. I had wanted to get a deck and cyberware so bad it burned. It had this rather charcoal like taste that bothered me. I worked at just about any job I could get, saving and saving. I wasn't going to get a cheep deck, I was going to get a good one, and those take money, lots of it. Of course the longer time went, the stronger the taste became. It grew until all I could taste was charcoal. I needed a deck. Now.
In a rather out of mind state I took my savings and went out in search of my cyberware. I don't really remember where I was, or even how I got there, but there was a faint mint taste to the air. So I figured this must be the place, I must find it here. I found something, or someone, whichever you prefer. She said she had some stuff that may interest me. So I followed (You can tell how stupid that move was later). When we got to the office, which was just a room, off in some odd corner, she showed me what she was dealing. All I could taste was mint, perfect pure clean cool mint. I asked if she could put in now. I blinked, and was hit with a needle. Then drifted to sleep.
Of course afterward I find out that I was the only person to survive her surgical additions. (well, the only to survive with their same state of mind, which really wasn't all that much to begin with.) This puzzled me, it had worked, of course it worked, I had tasted mint. There couldn't have been anything bad about it.
And in fact there wasn't. She had been messing around with a new concept of interfacing the mind with cyberware, something completely new. And she didn't get support from any institutions, so she had set out to the streets where the supply of test subjects was vast. I suppose I should care more, but I don't. It leaves a bad taste when I do, like a cheep cigar laced with something you'd care not to identify.
Anyways, my cyberware was different. I couldn't be ICed, or probably better put, it hadn't hurt me yet. Instead of pain, it produced a different reaction. When I got hit, it felt cool, a bit like cool water being thrown at you, but dry. Things would slow down a bit, then life moved back to normal. The stronger the IC, the cooler I got and the slower things got. I guess there is probably an IC somewhere that will completely freeze me. But until then.