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[opening excerpt from one of the the short story/novella ideas I've been tinkering with]
apprentice
\Ap*pren"tice\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Apprenticed; p. pr. & vb. n. Apprenticing.] To bind to, or put under the care of, a master, for the purpose of instruction in a trade or business.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
elite adj.
Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a general positive adjective. This term is not actually native hacker slang; it is used primarily by crackers and warez d00dz, for which reason hackers use it only with heavy irony.
Source: The New Hacker's Dictionary
Cambridge looked at the digital scrawl marching brashly across his screen and scowled. "What is this, some kind of eight-bit Cyrillic? How the hell do you pronounce that, anyway?" He'd thought things were secured pretty well, and here he was, with fifty-three derisive or desperate inbox messages (and who knew how many voice mails) and counting, trying to read the defacement.
Nairn put one of her perennially-cool hands on his shoulder and shook her head. "You don't. You read it, you don't say it. It's understood by the reader. You'll get it soon enough. Maybe even become conversant. You can code, you can read and write this stuff. Just take it easy."
Nairn turned away before Cambridge could see her hiding a grin. "`//3 0wz0|2 j00," indeed. She was going to have to tell Kyle to reign his kiddies in, if for no other reason than to delay the incipient aneurism her assistant seemed hell-bent on having.
* * * *
"Fuck you, Jack." Salute, one-finger, noncom-class. Caffeine spilled, zero.
"Ess tee eff you, Fanboy." If it were possible for Jack's day-glow pink Chelsea to bristle further, hers would have.
"But FM said we had to get this done."
Jack hated it when Fanboy whined. "Ox, are you coming, or what?"
"Yeah, just a second." He turned back to the chat window and banged out a couple quick lines.
Oxyde: Gotta go. Work.
Oxyde: Keep those dirty thoughts, I promise to make it up to you.
Christ, he's cybering right in front of us, Jack thought. She pointedly ignored his smirk as he spun his chair around, and even more pointedly ignored how he adjusted his BDUs. Cocky bastard's supposed to be good at it. Probably making up for something. I should check his logs sometime. Just to see. Jack rolled her eyes and turned to suspend her rig.
Fanboy, as ever, was dicking around with something at the back of his system again, his fluorescent orange suspenders and bright blue cargo pants all that remained visible sticking out from under his desk. There was a click, and another low whine began emanating from beneath where he was working.
Jack yanked on the nearest suspender, and there was a satisfying thump as his head whacked the underside of the desk. "Are you done fucking around? I thought you were in a hurry."
"Yeah, sorry. Crossbridge." Fanboy fidgeted slightly, clearly torn between finding out if his latest tweak helped any, and not wanting to get any further onto Jack's bad side.
Ox tilted his chair back, grabbed a can of off-brand soda, and made a show of not making any noise as he popped it open. "What's the big hurry? I thought we didn't need this online until next week sometime."
"They wanna put a load on it tonight to make sure nothing pulls a wilson."
"Grand. Marvelous. Fantastic. Just-"
"Ess tee eff you, Ox."
* * * *
apprentice
\Ap*pren"tice\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Apprenticed; p. pr. & vb. n. Apprenticing.] To bind to, or put under the care of, a master, for the purpose of instruction in a trade or business.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
elite adj.
Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a general positive adjective. This term is not actually native hacker slang; it is used primarily by crackers and warez d00dz, for which reason hackers use it only with heavy irony.
Source: The New Hacker's Dictionary
Cambridge looked at the digital scrawl marching brashly across his screen and scowled. "What is this, some kind of eight-bit Cyrillic? How the hell do you pronounce that, anyway?" He'd thought things were secured pretty well, and here he was, with fifty-three derisive or desperate inbox messages (and who knew how many voice mails) and counting, trying to read the defacement.
Nairn put one of her perennially-cool hands on his shoulder and shook her head. "You don't. You read it, you don't say it. It's understood by the reader. You'll get it soon enough. Maybe even become conversant. You can code, you can read and write this stuff. Just take it easy."
Nairn turned away before Cambridge could see her hiding a grin. "`//3 0wz0|2 j00," indeed. She was going to have to tell Kyle to reign his kiddies in, if for no other reason than to delay the incipient aneurism her assistant seemed hell-bent on having.
* * * *
"Fuck you, Jack." Salute, one-finger, noncom-class. Caffeine spilled, zero.
"Ess tee eff you, Fanboy." If it were possible for Jack's day-glow pink Chelsea to bristle further, hers would have.
"But FM said we had to get this done."
Jack hated it when Fanboy whined. "Ox, are you coming, or what?"
"Yeah, just a second." He turned back to the chat window and banged out a couple quick lines.
Oxyde: Gotta go. Work.
Oxyde: Keep those dirty thoughts, I promise to make it up to you.
Christ, he's cybering right in front of us, Jack thought. She pointedly ignored his smirk as he spun his chair around, and even more pointedly ignored how he adjusted his BDUs. Cocky bastard's supposed to be good at it. Probably making up for something. I should check his logs sometime. Just to see. Jack rolled her eyes and turned to suspend her rig.
Fanboy, as ever, was dicking around with something at the back of his system again, his fluorescent orange suspenders and bright blue cargo pants all that remained visible sticking out from under his desk. There was a click, and another low whine began emanating from beneath where he was working.
Jack yanked on the nearest suspender, and there was a satisfying thump as his head whacked the underside of the desk. "Are you done fucking around? I thought you were in a hurry."
"Yeah, sorry. Crossbridge." Fanboy fidgeted slightly, clearly torn between finding out if his latest tweak helped any, and not wanting to get any further onto Jack's bad side.
Ox tilted his chair back, grabbed a can of off-brand soda, and made a show of not making any noise as he popped it open. "What's the big hurry? I thought we didn't need this online until next week sometime."
"They wanna put a load on it tonight to make sure nothing pulls a wilson."
"Grand. Marvelous. Fantastic. Just-"
"Ess tee eff you, Ox."
* * * *
