That evening, Nutty ate a light meal, and then launched his mind into cyberspace once again, rapidly screaming through the virtual Night City to the Sosumi fortress. This was going to be the worst yet, he mused. He had almost all of Sosumi 'space mapped, but he had to make a play for the Corp Runner himself -- and do a convincing job of it.
His Battering Ram and Sugarcubus had been fine-tuned. Whoever this Runner was, he seemed to favor sonic-based ICE like the Rock is Loud, so Nutty perfected the programs to help them resist any viruses inserted through the audio channels of virtual reality.
His Dodo again pow-wowed with the baby dodoes from inside, but nothing much new was added to the Sosumi map. Nutty passed through the Artificially Stupid walls easily, paused at the location with the tiny video screens, nodded with satisfaction, and approached the unknown core of this datafort.
But then, turning a corner, he saw four tables with expensive tablecloths and candlesticks, and a group of French waiters in tuxedos, carrying large rectangles of cardboard. "Great! Just great!" he thought, "some Misleading Dinner Menus..." He played it cautiously, launching both his Dodo to lay eggs, and the Lizard's Book to decrypt at the same time. The waiters minced forward, waving their large, opened menus menacingly in front of them and trying to interest him in a Coq au Vin with Vichyssoise sauce, but Nutty would have none of it. Soon, whether from the dodo eggs or the Lizard scampering around, one by one the waiters petrified, and Nutty could pass.
Nutty was pleased, but looked to the side and saw a Black guitarist in folksy duds, standing there with his arms folded over his guitar, next to some strange globular fish hovering in mid-air. "Welll, hello! My name is Hootie," the man said, "and this is my Blowfish." He then started to plunk a few notes on the twelve-string guitar.
The Blowfish puffed itself up to enormous, spiny size and wriggled towards Nutty. Nutty called forth his Battering Ram and Sugarcubus, which flanked the Blowfish on each side and started to bob and weave as the Blowfish lunged.
Another human shape rezzed next to Hootie, taking the form of a man in a dark leather jacket and dark shirt, white tie and dark glasses, with his dark hair tied back in a pony-tail. Hootie, still strumming the guitar, addressed the stranger, "Glad you could make it, Gunther; I'm having a 'discussion' here with some new talent."
"Don't call me that here; call me...nEuroTrash," said nEuroTrash.
The fish and Nutty's programs were darting around so fast now that they were a gray blur: whitish Ram, dark Bjork the Sugarcubus, and a pale yellow Blowfish. All of a sudden, the Ram and Sugarcubus stopped on opposite sides of a surprised-looking Blowfish...which then exploded into a million sushi chunks all over the room.
nEuroTrash smiled evilly, clapped his hands slowly and sarcastically, and said, "Bravo! Bravo! Very good; but you're not the only Runner buying fancy programs these days. Here's one from France which you may have heard about." At these words, a malevolent human form rezzed next to nEuroTrash, dressed in what appeared to be French Revolution period clothing with a strange light-dimmer knob sticking out from its chest.
"The Vampire LeRheostat!" Nutty shrieked, remembering a small item in a previous VECTOR VOICE describing this fiend. The Anti-Personnel program glared with its red eyes and bared its sharp fangs at Nutty, coming closer, closer. Nutty tried to counter with his own programs, but his Battering Ram bucked and ran, his Dripp was blocked by a miniature wooden coffin, and even his Sugarcubus, after a moment of facing down the monster, wailed and derezzed. There was nothing between Nutty and the Vampire!
The program grinned a death's-head grin, and with its ruffle-sleeved arms it reached for Nutty's heart. At the same time its talons pierced Nutty's chest, the Vampire started to turn up the knob on its own chest.
Nutty started to feel a strong headache. Mind Jolts! The Vampire was starting its inductance program, trying to use the telco grid to feed back dangerous patterns of voltage at Nutty through his 'trodes! "Any brain damage and it's a life of basket-weaving for me," he thought in a panic.
In desperation, Nutty called forth his Dodo program. The Dodo bravely turned around and bent over, shooting out an egg at the Vampire. But the Vampire let go of Nutty, caught the egg in its fangs, and swallowed it, laughing hideously.
Off in the distances, the wails of derezzing baby dodoes were heard. The Vampire was using the egg's information to develop a virus-cleaning procedure! Nutty saw his map crumble and fritter away; the Data Walls, Code Gates and Sentries started to smarten up again, to awaken from their Artificial Stupidity. Everything he had worked a week to perfect was disappearing! The Vampire turned to the Dodo and shot twin balls of red flame from its eyes, which struck the Dodo, causing it to explode with a squawk, in a flurry of feathers!
But luckily, the Dodo distracted the Vampire long enough for Nutty to break free, derezz everything and jack out! He regained consciousness in his recliner, and hastily pulled out his 'trodes, which had started to grow uncomfortably warm in his brain-socket.
Then he laughed and, pausing to hunt down a spare set of 'trodes, jacked in again.