TRACEBACK

TRACEBACK is a furry cyberpunk action story following the story of four rebels fighting to free their home from the clutches of a surveillance enterprise threatening to endanger the way of life and plunge the entire island into a monochrome dystopia. But in trying to save their home, they find themselves suffering grave losses and facing the cold reality of their situation.

Follow the progress here: Discord Server Check out what's written so far: Ao3 Series

Interested in taking a peek into the lives of the cast? There's also dedicated character blogs for each of the main four.

Hi! I now have an official Archive of our Own series for TRACEBACK! With two works now on the site, I feel more confident in being able to properly begin the story. So, here we are!

Few reasons for this. One, I'm still mega-swamped with classes and shit, and I really need to prioritise working on that over TRACEBACK. Second, I've got some stuff in the works regarding the main cast... and a few of the characters in TRACEBACK's extended universe. I'm looking to replace some official references, namely Markus's, and acquire some brand new refs for basically everyone else.

There's a few reasons why I'm choosing to focus on this, but one of the big ones is that... well, everyone's current references or non-references are just a little out of date, or don't exactly hit the marks I want to be hitting.

One of these days, I will get off my ass and actually start writing TRACEBACK. But for now, it'll be more of the same... farting around thinking about it rather than actually doing anything.

Rocky Smith, for those who are unfamiliar, is Chekhov's mechanic/gunman. He's comfortable behind the scope and deeply familiar with munitions and explosives, given his background. As it stands, his backstory outlines his history as a black-hat hacker for hire, born in a time before Atom and since struggling to make ends meet after it became the norm. None of his usual hacking tools worked with Atom in charge, and so in order to make money, he turned to old-school crime.

Smith is most easily identified by his fully robotic right arm, built by Smith himself in prison after a bank heist gone wrong resulted in him blowing his entire arm off with his own explosive. Sam recognised his potential as a part of the team, as someone comfortable fixing frameware and creating machines and/or explosives for whatever situation necessary, and Markus helped him bust out of prison - in exchange for agreeing to work with them to stop atom. 

A frame is a metal exoskeleton surgically inserted into a person's body, that allows augmentations to interface with and be controlled by their nervous system.

Frames became standardised in the Hollows as a catch-all solution to rising issues with augmentations drawing too much energy from users, putting stress on their nervous systems and risking potential heart attacks. A frame acts as a central connection point for all augmentations, limiting the amount of energy that can be used as a given time and determining which augmentations get more power over others.

Sam glanced down at her phone briefly, double-checking the address Aries had given her for this intruder. It was supposed to be invisible... Root boasted incessantly about the server's ghost protocols after he'd gotten it up and running in the base, claiming it was invisible to any modern hacker, and to his credit Aries had lived up to his claims... until now. Neither he nor Regex seemed to have noticed its warning alert, which left Sam to check it out.

...ugh. Boys.

Something else bothered her about the alert. Sure, the intruder made the connection, but they never bothered trying to access any of the messaging channels or even setting up their profile. According to Aries' logs, they just... sat there. Not doing anything. Long enough for Aries to get a ping on their location. Almost like they wanted to be traced... Sam wasn't sure if she wanted to find out why.

Her phone buzzed as she reached her destination, alone in the eerily quiet, empty streets of downtown Sandspire... there was no one here. The directions had placed her into the middle of an alley, shrouded in darkness by apartment buildings on either side that obscured the street lights. She turned on her phone flashlight, holding it close to her chest as she turned to get a better sense of her surroundings. Colourful, intricate murals covered both walls of the alley, depicting some kind of glowing, rainbow creature clashing against a horde of dark, rigid geometrical monsters wielding phones like lightsabers. Sam took a cautious step closer to one of the murals, pressing her paw against it. The paint was still wet.

"Pretty, innit?" She whipped around, free paw whipping down to grab a pistol from her pocket and pulling it out to aim at the source of the voice, a blue fox with their hood up. A spray paint can sat half hanging out of their hoodie pocket. "Been working on the design for a while. It's meant to be a commentary on the creative peoples' ongoing war with monotone conglomerates. Like a... representation of one's perseverance to create art in the face of our brutalist reality."

They took a step forward - Syntax steadied their aim on their shoulder - before holding out their paw to the dog, flipping their hood down. She kept her grip firm, closely examining their face, before cautiously lowering the pistol and holding out her paw to shake the fox's. "You're the one who intruded on our network."

"Palette. At your service," they nodded and brought their paw back to rest it in their hoodie pocket. "I heard about what Chekhov's up to. I want in."

Syntax snorted. "Syntax. And hell no. Not until you tell me how you found our server."

Palette raised a brow. "Worried I'm a fed?"

"Worried you're with Atom."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

Syntax laughed. "Touché. But still... I don't know anything about you, and my boys aren't here to check you out. Give me a reason to trust you, and we can talk." She folded her arms, looking over the fox. Nothing about them screamed Atom... undercover Atom agents typically had a problem with perfecting the level of no-fucks-given attitude that most people downtown possessed, either too tense in their shoulders or too sleazy in their speech. Palette's act, if it was an act at all, was pretty good. All things considered.

The fox shrugged. Her logic seemed solid enough. "Alright. Fine. Your network is pretty secure in all the ways that matter, but it's got a tiny hole somewhere where it doesn't. As we both know, wireless routers transmit data through radio waves, that's how your laptop can stream ViewTube videos no matter where you sit in your apartment."

"But we don't use a wireless router," Syntax interrupted, brow raised. "We're entirely locked down, closed circuit. All our traffic runs on the Subatomic Network through cables."

"Some server racks have a problem where their radio transmitters don't fully shut down, even if the OS tells them to. They'll stop broadcasting on the frequencies that matter, but... sometimes they'll still broadcast very faint signals, somewhere around the 1,000 Megahertz range." Palette pulled their phone out of their pocket and held it up for Syntax to see. It showed the readouts of a radio relay box, presumably hidden somewhere near the Arcadia. "By itself, you can't do much on that kind of signal. But if you have a strong enough receiver to start capturing the data, you can start transmitting data of your own to make a proper connection. And that's how I got in."

"...wireless intrusion is old news, no wonder people have been getting sloppy with their transmitters," Syntax sighed, letting out a laugh of combined disbelief and admiration for Palette's technique. She was impressed. "How did you even catch this?"

"Let a fox keep their secrets," they chuckled. "I wanna know if I'm in first. Clearly, I've proven myself in the field. I'm not really hands-on, but there's worse people to go to when it comes to picking up on rumours and listening in on comm links."

The fox held out their paw, giving Syntax an almost hopeful grin. It was a hell of a good first impression. Had it not been for Palette, they most likely never would've found that hole in Aries's firewall... and if the fox had found it, then it was almost certainly going to be found and exploited by someone far more malicious. And the idea of having someone experienced in surveillance in the team was promising. It could certainly complete their little ragtag group of rebels.

"This is the dumbest plan we've ever gone ahead with," Regex adjusted the collar of his shirt and straightened his tie, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. He impatiently watched the progress bar visible in his neural display, as a fake biometric profile was installed to align with his new cover - Xavier Holiday, a waiter at one of the most popular restaurants in the entire city. The name alone was stuffy enough to make him want to gag.

Root snorted as he glanced up from his desk, screwdriver in hand pointed at his arm. "What are your specials tonight?" he laughed, enjoying the clear discomfort on the raccoon's face. "Ah, it's fine, little man. You're gonna fight right in, this plan is flawless."

"And our only option." Syntax's voice cut in, the dog having walked in and taken her bag off her shoulder, setting it down on the wide table they used for group conversations. The usual pizza boxes and beer bottles had been cleared away to make room for a holographic platform projecting a 3D floor plan of the restaurant. "We put a lot of effort into getting Xavier on the staff sheets for this event, and it puts him in a prime position for scalping data. I'll be damned if I let this effort go to waste."

"I'm just saying this is profoundly stupid. I'm all out in the open without any backup," Regex tugged at his wrist cuffs, fumbling with the buttons. "Are we sure these biometrics are gonna mask my identity?"

"You scrubbed your biometrics from Atom, didn't you?" Syntax's question got a nod from the raccoon. "Right, so security will freak if the facial rec fails to identify you. Better you have biometrics that match your cover, instead of having none at all."

Regex let out an agitated huff. Syntax was right - as usual. Registering a new citizen inside Atom's database was as easy as filling out a form, but erasing one would leave behind a trace. He wasn't keen on giving his face back to Atom… but what choice did he have?

"Don't worry." Syntax seemed to notice his concern. "Your record has you as a visitor. As long as you stay off cameras for a few days after this op, you'll go back to being a ghost."

"…mh."

---

Markus's eyes darted around the ballroom while adjusting the spacing of wine glasses on his serving plate. He'd already linked himself to several of the most reputable attendees' neural links - CEOs, investors, some even from Atom - and started his siphon, storing the data onto the data chip in his neck.

"How are we looking?" his voice echoed through the neural comms back to the rest of his team. Syntax was back at home base, while Palette was stationed outside the ground floor lobby tagging a wall with their art. Root's position on a building facing the ballroom's giant wall-length glass window gave him clearance to the entire room, sniper trained on Markus as cover. Both his and Palette's positions were telegraphed to the raccoon through his neural HUD.

"Nothing on the comms," Palette glanced back to the lobby through the window. Bored security guards patrolled around the front doors.

"You're clear, little man," Root chuckled, scope shifting to scan the room again. "Picked up any juicy gossip?"

"Randall on my six just became a father. Twins. He's missed seven calls from his wife and his assistant."

"Oof, yikes."

"Reg, you've got incomplete downloads from attendees 49, 82 and 106." Syntax leaned over the table at home base, eyes narrowed as she monitored the progressing downloads. "Those are high priority targets, you need to get back over to them."

"Syn, please," Regex rolled his eyes as he handed another glass to a stuffy executive, flashing them a practiced smile. "I'll get to them when I can, I can't risk rushing over and blowing my cov--" A taller figure bumped against his shoulder, causing him to briefly lose his balance on the plate of wine glasses. He stumbled a little as he twisted his arm to regain control, panic briefly flashing across his face before he got his balance back. Root's laughter echoed through his head as he took a moment to straighten his tie before turning to look at whoever had knocked him off-balance.

"Uh, sir? Excuse me." Regex approached the figure, reaching for a wine glass as they turned to face him.

"REGGIE, BAIL OUT, YOU KNOW HIM--" Syntax cut in suddenly, but it was too late. The raccoon's blood ran cold as his facial scan identified the stranger, but he already knew their name. It was his old manager from Atom. Viktor Chazikov. The grey wolf's face wore a cold, almost unamused expression as he glared down at Regex, then at the wine glass in his paw. He carelessly snatched it out of the raccoon's grip, bringing it up to his lips to gulp down the entire drink before placing it back in his paw.

"…sorry, kid," he mumbled, "Is a very busy evening, no?"

"Yes, sir," Regex kept his cool, putting on a vague, more proper accent as he tried his best to hold Viktor's gaze. "Has everything been to your liking?"

"Food is shit," the wolf chuckled. "Ah, but company is good. Very rich. Party would be better with a poker table."

"Hah. I'm afraid we don't have one on hand, sir."

"Of course not. You think I'm an idiot?"

"Ah- n-no, sir." Markus cleared his throat. "My apologies, Mr Chazikov. Have a good night." He went to turn away, only to feel the wolf grab his shoulder. Fuck.

"…do I know you?" Viktor leaned in to get close to Regex's ear.

"I, ah… no, I don't think so, sir."

"Mm… strange. You look familiar, but… can't place your face. Do you live in Sandspire?"

"No, sir. Just an overseas business trip. I'm with the catering."

"…hmf."

Viktor's paw lifted from Regex's shoulder as he turned away. The raccoon gasped to catch his breath, like he'd been hiding from a predator and finally gotten to safety. He quickly found his way back to the bar to set down the plate of glasses. "Do we have enough?"

"It'll have to be," Syntax sounded stressed. "Palette?"

"Something's spooked security, Reggie," the fennec watched as the previously lounging guards were now up and about, speaking with hushed voices into walkie talkies. "You need to bail."

"Fuck. Root, exfil?"

"There's no noise on the east side of the building, if you can sneak onto the floor below you can drop from one of the windows." Root's scope turned away from the raccoon slipping out of sight into the kitchen, instead focusing on the rest of the ballroom. "It's a pretty tall drop--"

"Jump to the apartment building across the street, Reg." Syntax cut him off. "I'm tapping into the lift authentication, you'll have a clean exit."