[Cyberia] Re: Cyberia: Down the Rabbit Hole

[Cyberia GM]

"Let's go back into the terminal itself, and we can start your lessons,"
[Asha] said, opening the door that she had referred to as a port and
gesturing for Dot to pass through.

Dot looked around, still a little uneasy, before passing through the door.

+++++

Back in the real, Asha sat down, and closed her eyes.

>>>>>

Suhuy was at the edges of everything, Reilly-like, peering at every
conceivable angle of every conceivable contraption. He chattered to himself
under his breath, scratching notes into the back of his hand with a
sharpened fingernail.
      
+++++

Suhuy could make out one discrepancy- Asha didn't hook herself into
anything.  No wires, no trodes.  She just sat there, still as a statue.  As
he came particularly close, her eyes suddenly snapped open.  They looked
unfocussed for a bare moment, then inhaling deeply, she focussed upon the
man.  Raising one finger, she tched.  "Please try to stay out of trouble
while we're gone?" she queried.  Then, smiling, she closed her eyes.

>>>>>

As Dot passed the portal, she could somehow sense that something was
different, but it was too subtle to pickup on.  

"This area is inside of the process space of the terminal back in Kayle's
office," Asha said, slowly filling a space a little bit in front of Dot.
"When you first connect to the Ether, you have the option of moving directly
into the Virtual World at any public port within the immediate 'hop'
distance of your terminal, or any private port in that same range that you
have access to.  Or you can start in the process space of whatever terminal
you are utilizing."

She gestured towards a spot in the floor between them, and two comfortable
looking chairs materialized in the space.  "Have a seat," she said, sliding
gracefully into the one in front of her.  "Within your terminal, you are
able to do pretty much anything you can imagine, within limits of your
processing power.  Outside, it's more difficult to impose your whim on the
environment.  Programs help with this, but truly talented hackers can
program the environment around them on the fly.  This allows them to be
versatile in their approach to the Ether."

She smiled.  "This will become more obvious once you do it yourself- being
used to walking shadows will help.  It's not much different from that, which
is one reason you should be better than most hackers in almost no time.  Why
don't you try it yourself?"

"Raise your right hand, extend your index finger, and draw a circle,
counter-clockwise."  She waited a moment for Dot to complete the task.

As Dot did this, she could see that a transluscent series of icons
superimposed themselves on her vision.

"You should now see your interface.  The time and date appears in the upper
left hand corner, and icons for your primary memory cache and emergency
shut-down to the right.  The motion you just performed is the universal
motion for 'open'.  It is contextual... By that I mean that it's function
changes depending on what options you have available."  

"I'm sure by now you're starting to become a little overwhelmed with all of
the information I'm giving... And if you're not, I am," she said, laughter
in her tone.  "So we'll do something practical."  She stood up, and her
chair disappeared into the ether as she began to walk to the portal out of
the room.  "I'll be on the other side of this port waiting for you.  If you
need help, your interface has a help daemon- just query it for whatever
information you need."

"See you on the other side," Asha said, stepping through the portal.