welcome to my narrative website. here you will find all the media i have created for this assignment. this website can be viewed on desktop as well as various tablets and phones.

writing my story for english was a lot of fun. i started with the knowledge of what genre i wanted to write in, cyberpunk. from there, i let my characters come to me in pieces and rearranged them as i saw fit. my biggest struggle was trying to decide what kind of ending i wanted, and i ended up settling on a cliffhanger. i plan on revisiting this story at a later date to expand on it, and continue the multimedia experience that JUST DATA deserves.

my book art for this piece was heavily rooted in monochromatic detailing. the toxicity of the world really comes through.

working on this website proved to be fun. i was able to create a visual experience that spoke to my story.

enjoy your stay.
Trailer
JUST DATA

Anomaly detected. Runtime error in ArComNetSec004990.exe. Segregating program in Safe Drive K. Allocating resources to central hub for self-repair. Queue repair diagnostics. Scrubbing plug ins. Open channel between Master Intelligence hub and Safe Drive K: 70% Estimated time :00.16 remaining.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________            Corinne's head was starting to hurt. She sucked on the straw of her overly caffeinated, overly carbonated soda. The letters and numbers on the screen were beginning to blur. Served her right for staying up for almost seventy-two hours straight.

Never doing a favor for Nosu. Ever, ever, ever. Not in a billion fucking years, with sugar on top. She sucked on the straw again, savoring the chemical zing and oral orgasm of high fructose corn syrup with a minimum of waste.

      Her fingers tapping the keyboard listlessly, she briefly wondered what the appeal of NetSec was, anyway. Then again, anything had to be better than the shithole that was home. That’s what her flatmate, Miyaki, said. She glanced out the window, tiny digital ghosts shimmering on the glass from her screen. Outside her small sanctuary, things were slowly spiraling down. Downstairs, the Kata gang had declared residency on the first floor. She may be well protected, but sometimes the screams kept her up.

      Beyond the doors of her slummy apartment complex, the air was thick with chloropicrin and nickel tetracarbonyl. One could spend about fifteen minutes in the open before the noxious gasses in the air would eat away at flesh. The only ones out for considerable time were the enforcers, or the government’s way of keeping a (bionic) eye on the masses. As if that was the biggest problem, though. The urban area around the Central Tower (or CT for any conversational purpose) has been submerged. Outside, there were rooftop slums and barges. But inside thrived the shadowy economy of drug dealers, hackers and plutocrats. Bullets were the best way to solve problems, and people, good and bad, died. Painfully. The world was dark and horrible, filled with injustice and crime. But who was she to judge?

      Looking back at her screen, she allowed herself a small smile of victory as the virus finished debugging. She flexed her fingers, preparing to release it into the small sect of cyberspace known as NetSec. A simulated representation of collected data stored in a small parcels throughout a mainframe controlled by ArCom International, NetSec was a complete, immersive experience. Multiple channels, trading centers, decent weather- anything you could possibly dream of that wasn’t available in reality; or, at least, available for long. Technically, trading posts underground were always around, but ArCom swiftly shut down anything it didn’t deem its own. Something about billions of people’s minds linked up to a machine run by a corporation known for their disregard for human life didn’t sit well in Corinne’s stomach.

      Her phone buzzed, pulling her attention away from the window.

“Are you done yet?” Nosu’s impatient tone was really the only one Corinne knew.

“Yeah, it’s about to go live.”

“Hurry the fuck up.” Known as MadByte out in cyberspace, Corinne had made a pretty penny (well, virtually, at least) wreaking havoc for those who didn’t want to get their hands dirty. She’d met Nosu at a club inside of CT, and they had been business partners ever since. Nosu found the gig, Corinne did the dirty work, pay was divvied up. But this time, her work didn’t have a price. Nosu never called in difficult favors, so she had- stupidly - agreed to take a look into cracking ArCom’s security for NetSec. Which brought her to the current situation. She was sleep deprived, hungry, and really wanted a shower. But the virus was ready for distribution, and keeping Nosu waiting with the excuse of a little TLC wouldn’t fare well for her.

Channel between Master Intelligence hub and Safe Drive K opened. Data entry queued. Estimated time: 02.45 remaining.

And now the waiting game. Leaning back and stretching her body out for the first time in almost 72 hours, Corinne felt she deserved a moment of relief. Idly, she splayed her fingers out, admiring the way they cast shadows on the wall.

Estimated time: 02.00 remaining.

      Miyaki strode in, her heels clicking on the floor as she dumped her bag by her bed. Miyaki, like most girls around, worked as a dancer. Corinne was just glad she didn’t bring home her customers like the girls upstairs.

“God, tonight has been a nightmare. But I think rent won’t be a problem this week.” Cracking open the fridge, Miyaki grabbed a pop and collapsed onto her bed.

“Isn’t every night at the club a nightmare?”

“I mean, I guess. Everything out here is, don’t you think?” She huffed, pulling off her shoes and massaging her heels. Miyaki had a way of making everything seem ironic, even the ruined world outside.

Estimated time: 01.30 remaining.

Wonder if any other sectors have such shitty firewalls? Hell, wonder if they have ArCom?

“Are you staying for dinner? I want sushi.”

“No, I’m meeting Nosu for some business.”

“Is that the tall one?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I have him when you’re done with him?”

“It’s not like that, Mi. You know I don’t work like that.”

“Don’t know how you manage it.”

Estimated time: 00.23 remaining.

      Standing up, Corinne pulled a jacket off the back of her chair. Miyaki waved. Shrugging on the thin garment, Corinne snatched her phone off her desk and walked out the door.

Estimated time: 00.00 remaining. Upload beginning. Thank you for your contribution.

      Walking out into the rest of the world was always something that made Corinne nervous. Maybe it was the fact that even the air was out to get her. Shivering, she pulled her jacket across her body tighter and hastened her pace. The sounds of the collapsing world around her ambushed her every time she left the sanctuary of her room. The loud ruckus of gangs, the whores trying to make a sell before having to retreat back inside- it was overwhelming. CT loomed over the broken city. From any angle you walked, CT would take up your vision. As she approached the building, Corinne glanced at the bright screen of her phone.

Cho’s, by the door. Hurry up. Really? Nosu was supposed to send her something less vague than that.

      Marching up to the front doors, Corinne felt the familiar tug of her chest tightening and her heart rate increasing. CT made her nervous- too many eyes, too many ears. Pushing her phone back into her pocket, she walked up to the crumbling entrance into CT. You know, from the exterior? You’d never guess what’s inside this shithole. Maybe that’s why ArCom ventured into CT so rarely. The building was covered in graffiti, large black garbage bags stacked along the base of the tower. Neon signs were scattered, unhinged and blinking up a silent rave of their own. Everything had a look of decay to it; metal was rusting, bricks were crumbling. Tattered billboards from before the electronic uphaul depicted young chinese women advertising new anti-aging creams.

I think. My Tianjin is getting rusty. Nosu needs to brush me up.

      Walking into CT, Corinne scanned the first floor. The air was detoxifying around her, meaning the area was fairly empty. Teens loitered around, reapplying their makeup and adjusting their clothes- the raves were on the second floor, you could hear the music pouring down from above. Checking the time on her phone, she waited for the elevator to come down. The building was built with an air tight lock, the elevator- you couldn’t enter the rest of CT without being detoxified, and the elevator was timed for complete and total safety of the upstairs patrons. Ding. The doors slid open. A strung out girl giggled her way out, followed by an embarrassed looking man in a clean cut suit. No doubt what was going to go on there. Walking in to take their place, Corinne could smell the alcohol and smoke. Nosu wanted to meet in one of the raves, so floor 2 it was.As the doors began to close, a frantic hand slipped in.

“Please hold it oh my god I can barely walk in these.” A girl who couldn’t have been more than 16 stumbled in.

“No shit,” Corinne laughed. “Those are at least four inches too high and two sizes too big.”

“Yeah, well.” The door slid to a close and they began to ascend. “I’m Hime, you going to the rave too? I’m so stoked, it’s my first one. Will I see you there? What’s your name?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Pro-tip: Don’t give out your name unless it’s necessary. That kind of information coupled with your whereabouts could very well get you killed. The elevator made its tinny ding, signaling the end of the conversation. With a tight smile, Corinne exited the metal box only to be assaulted by a visual shitstorm. It was dark, but the amount (and placement) of neon in the room was staggering. Strobe lights glared harshly down as the music beat down your will to converse. Only Nosu would subject me to this. Weaving (well, really, pushing and muscling) her way through the crowd, Corinne approached the bar. Nosu was perched on a stool, stirring something undoubtedly bordering on toxic, given the glowing blue tint to the liquid.

“You could have just stopped by my place.” Corinne swung herself into the seat next to him.

“Yeah, but then I couldn’t see you out of your element. And that’s just too fun to pass up.” Nosu tilted his glass in her direction before downing the contents. “What time can we expect things to go to Hell?”

“Ten years ago?” “Very funny, Corinne. I paid a lot for you to make this work.”

“You didn’t pay me at all.”

“Close enough.” A slight chuckle. “So, ETA of destruction?”

“Uh, probably about five minutes at this point. I designed this virus to not go into effect until every user’s account is housing it. Considering ArCom’s reach, that isn’t a minute long ordeal.”

“What happens exactly when it wakes up?”

“Short circuits, as well as corrupted discs ensuring no tinkering will fix the damage. I considered letting the virus into the main nodes, but if ArCom caught me snooping around their insides, I’d become a piece of art on the wall.”

“Fair enough.”

“There is one thing, though. I’m a little embarrassed about this. See, I needed a big power source to wake up this program, and the network at home is kind of shit.”

“And that would be?”

The lights went out and the music fizzled out. Everyone started panicking.

“That.”

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