Raptor was stalking the matrix; he perceived the various digital constructs around him as an impossibly vast shadow filled digital jungle. Raptor’s living persona (a sleek, black, muscular Velociraptor) sniffed anxiously at the various nearby digital streams. Raptor caught his chosen foes digital ‘scent’ and bounded off deeper into the virtual ‘jungle’ followed closely by his various sprites who also appeared as Velociraptors. The Fixer (who was piggybacking Raptor’s trip through the matrix) was mildly impressed; he hadn’t thought the young elf would be able to catch the trail of the mark so quickly. He watched intently as the pack of Velociraptors raced through the matrix following the data trail of the hacker he had specified for the boys test. Raptor stopped at a data node his head coming up and looking around intently.
Suddenly a vicious looking T-Rex burst from the virtual foliage grabbing one of Raptor’s sprites in its jaws and then tossing it aside. The rest of the pack reacted immediately surrounding the larger beast, which represented a deadly Black IC construct. The pack snapped and kicked at the larger monster while Raptor circled around behind it and jumped up onto its back clawing his way up towards its head. The Fixer sent Raptor a mental message telling him to abort; he had never intended the boy to face Black IC on his first test run. Raptor appeared not to notice the message as he continued making his way up the monster’s neck toward its head. Upon reaching its head the Fixer watched in fascination as Raptor’s persona opened its mouth wide, his eyes started glowing a dazzling blue and lightning played across his teeth. As he chomped down on the monsters head a massive electrical discharge flashed through the huge beasts body sending blue lightning bolts streaming out from its eyes and mouth and electrical arcs erupting from its body. Raptor leapt down and away from the T-Rex as it slowly collapsed, smoke rising from its empty eye sockets and mouth, it hit the ground with a resounding thud before slowly fading away.
Hardly breaking his stride Raptor plunged into the data node the T-Rex had been guarding, his sprites following in his wake. The Fixer watched in amazement as Raptor went on to complete the basic tasks he had set for the boy as a test of his skills and abilities. The way he had taken out the Black IC had marked him as a natural hacker. He hadn’t had much opportunity to work with a professed technomancer before, but if they were all as good as this kid he’d be happy to add them to his list of resources. It would definitely be worth looking into, in the meantime he had the perfect first run in mind for his newest Hacker…
