Jump 255: Soul Hackers

Jump #255: Soul Hackers
>King of Pentacles, reversed: An unyielding businessman, with a gift for identifying weakness and exploiting it for personal gain.
If I've ever heard a clearer description of the average jumper...
>Age: 23
>Location: Amimi City
I'm getting a strong sense of deja vu here...
>Identity: Drop-In
>Strong Soul (Free, Drop-In)
A nice little willpower boost, and being possession-resistant is always a plus. Even if I already am technically immune.
>Negotiator (900)
Being able to understand others to better negotiate with them is definitely a positive thing. Even if they are demons. Fortunately, this applies to non-demonic monsters too, and that's a very big category.
>Victory Cry (600, Drop-In)
Recovery after a big fight? Hell, that sounds QUITE useful, I'll be taking that.
>App Master (0)
Well, I'm already basically a god in the digital realm. Being able to create as appropriate is fitting, no?

Ah. So this is a matter of demons running amok - again - except not quite as crazily as other times I've been to similar spots. Less a matter of 'we're being overrun by demons' as it is 'demons are a side effect and we want to steal everyone's souls'.

Because you can steal peoples' souls over the internet.

You know what? I'm not even going to do anything for this jump. SHODAN wanted to be a god? Okay, SHODAN, here's the internet and this is what they're doing. You've got ten years. Impress me. Just no screwing around with upgrading humanity or killing them off, because then Bad Things will come and slap you down and we want to avoid those.

Ten years later: okay so you've turned the Earth into some sort of freaky cyber-utopia that will continue on its way to uplift itself post-singularity, with the internet being simultaneously a place where everyone is connected AND the afterlife for everyone died in the last three years and anyone who WILL die henceforth. Color me impressed.

I didn't even do anything that jump. That was all SHODAN, who apparently somehow browbeat it into going dormant by lording it over the thing. Psychological warfare is a hell of a thing when you have an AI like that involved, I had no idea it was even POSSIBLE to bully the manitou.

I didn't ask SHODAN how she did it, I just know that she did it. She seriously got onto the internet and went full 'a god am I' mode.

I regret that I already went to portal, introducing her to GLaDOS would have been the most wonderful thing.

To be fair, SHODAN ascended to godhood and stayed behind, so... I'm pretty sure it ate her and then she ate it from the inside.

It was extremely unsettling.

Also it does piss me off a bit that I had JUST gotten her as a companion and now she's gone.