Who is Tara Maclay?



Author: Chris Cook

Rating: PG-13 (mild violence)

Summary: Ace hacker Willow is on the trail of cyberspace's holy grail, the all-knowing, ever-elusive Tara Maclay - but is she prepared for what she'll find?

Spoilers: None.

Copyright: Based on characters from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and concepts created by Larry and Andy Wachowski. All original material is copyright 2003 Chris Cook.

Feedback: Please. Here, or to alia@netspace.net.au

Note: Thanks to Michelle, who unknowingly supplied me with the idea for all this.



--

Chapter One

--



Sydney, Australia

2003



Alicia Rosenberg was woken by her alarm clock, and regretted it. She sat up and hit the kill button on the tiny clock, silencing the irritating beeping that had roused her from warm, comfortable sleep. She looked across her bedroom at the computer nestled among piles of CD cases, zip disks and empty cans of Coke. 'I'll just stay online a couple more hours' had seemed like such a sensible notion at midnight, but in the cold - excessively cold - light of morning, the down-side was far more apparent. Alicia glanced at the clock again, wondering if she dared set it for one more hour, and be a little late for work. No, best not - she may have been doing good work, but management was nonetheless in a foul mood about system breaches, and would not take kindly to their newly-appointed project manager of system security showing up late on only her fourth day.



"Mental note," she said to herself, "do not stay up hacking until three in the morning on weekdays." She glared balefully at the Xena Warrior Princess action figure sitting jauntily on top of her computer monitor.



"I may rise," she told Xena, "but I refuse to shine."



-----



She arrived in her office - the sixtieth floor of the Governor Tower - on time, still munching on a snack bar, which she hid in the armful of files she was carrying while Mr Brown, her boss, passed her in the corridor. He didn't acknowledge her - possibly didn't recognise her. He was not a people person, except insofar people were shouted at if jobs failed to be completed on time. As this seemed to be his only method of contact with his staff, Alicia was hoping to get through a couple of years in her current position, entirely under his radar, before moving on to something more interesting. And hopefully with shorter working hours.



She slipped into her cubicle without anyone of consequence noticing her, quickly devoured the remainder of he breakfast, and elbowed the mouse, kicking the computer out of its own slumber. 'Sorry to wake you, girl,' she thought as it self-tested its way to full operation, 'but at least you got an hour and a half more sleep than me.'



She logged in and opened all the systems she had set up to keep watch on the network and identify security faults. Operations division, on the floor above, were doing something difficult to their network, but Alicia had already assessed the quality of their technical staff and found it wanting. Management, true to form, was messing around with their PDAs and playing Solitaire on their desktops, and wouldn't have noticed if their competition sent hackers in the front door to access their trade secrets by looking them up in a filing cabinet. The only really competent security programmers - the only ones Alicia rated anywhere near herself - were off-site, attending yet another pointless seminar in team-building, or management theory, or some such garbage. Perfect.



Alicia set off a series of programs that ran themselves up and down the building's network backbone, looking very much like Alicia doing her job. That done, she created a new connection from her own machine to the outside world, concealed beneath layers of misdirecting code. Her personal 'I'm hacking on company time' log-in program appeared, prompting her for her personal and very private user-ID, and quietly ensuring that, if she failed to provide it, any evidence of anything at all would be deleted before anyone was the wiser.



'WILLOW,' she typed. The wonders of the world's most secure networks lay at her fingertips, waiting to play.



-----



"She's in."



"Fast."



"I told you, she's good."



"Will they detect her?"



"They don't even know they should be looking. Is everything ready?"



"Ready. The clock is ticking."



"Let's do it."



-----



Alicia - Willow - was just contemplating whether to remotely store a new encryption key some very important people would wish she didn't have, if they knew she had it, or whether she would have the audacity to just put it on a disk and carry it around with her all day. The thought had a certain charm to it - the key was probably worth something like five million dollars. Willow didn't hack for money, but the idea of having a five million dollar key in her pocket, while Mr Brown remained none the wiser, was tempting.



An instant message popped up. That in itself was strange - Willow had checked for any of her sometimes-team of hackers and internet joy-riders, and none of them were online - Czar would probably be asleep, with London still in the dark, Ratty had never logged on during US-daylight hours in his/her life, and none of the others were good enough to conceal their virtual presence from Willow's automated snoopers.



Stranger still was the user-ID attached to the message, for there was none. No name, no alias, no IP address. Willow ran a quick background routine, to trace the message back to its source. In the meantime it stayed on her screen, waiting for a reply:



'Hello Willow.'



That was a problem, too. So far as Willow knew, no-one knew that she was Willow. So far as Governor Corporation knew, she was just Alicia Rosenberg, model employee, quiet and modestly brilliant, never made a mistake worse than trying instant coffee without milk and sugar one time. As for Willow - well, few enough people knew Willow existed, and those that did had never heard of Alicia Rosenberg. When - in a fit of anti-bureaucracy pique - she had connected the British minister for the interior's phone line to the editor of the Daily Mail, while the minister was having a very unconventional conversation with his mistress, the government had concluded that the hacker - if there was one, which they couldn't quite be sure of - was somewhere in Russia.



But someone knew she was Willow. She considered yanking the connection and erasing all traces of her presence online this morning - and, if it got bad, erasing all traces of Willow altogether - but something stopped her. Someone had found her - and Willow wanted to know how they'd done it.



"Hello," she typed. Her thought process had taken all of three seconds.



'I've got a secret,' the screen said. Willow glanced at her tracer routine - no answers yet.



"Yes?" she typed in the meantime.



'Do you want to know?' it said. Still nothing on the trace.



"Yes," typed Willow.



'I'll be in touch,' the message said, and vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.



The tracer routine ground to a halt. Willow checked its results - it had back-tracked through a virtual maze of re-routed signals, and reached the origin point just as the mysterious messenger had shut itself down. Willow ignored the results page and looked at the raw communications code instead.



'This can't be right,' she thought. According to the tracer, the messages had come from no server, used no protocols, originated at no time according to any computer clock, and had delivered her answers to no place. No, wait - there was something. At the very end of the code log, as if dropped there by the departing messenger, was a file:



'Read me,' it said.



"Alice in Wonderland fan, eh?" muttered Willow as she opened the file. She imagined opening an envelope and unfolding the page inside, as her code unfurled the strings of encryption around the data inside the file. After a moment, she had her answer, and the name:



'Tara Maclay.'



'Oh my god,' thought Willow.



-----



She had first read the name two years ago, in a conversation between a select group of hackers who had invited her to join them in an online forum that would have attracted the attention of a lot of serious men from national security agencies, had they known. No-one there knew much about Tara Maclay - anything, in fact - but the consensus was that there was something to be known. Sensing a new challenge, Willow had pursued the subject over the months, finding pieces of information buried in unlikely places, well beyond the reach of casual surfers, and even moderately proficient hackers. Each new nugget of fact, once sifted from its surrounding fortress of misdirection, drew her in deeper, until she was determined to learn the truth. She followed every lead, checked every possible connection, had dozens of free-roaming programs - programs that had taken months of painstaking coding to create - scouring the most guarded corners of the internet, slipping into networks like thieves in the night, collecting scraps of data, and just as silently returning to their creator and depositing their treasures at her feet. Programming was Willow's job, hacking her hobby - Tara Maclay was her obsession.



And not without cause. The more Willow found, the more extraordinary it all seemed. No-one knew who Tara Maclay was, though powerful people had made concerted efforts to find out. Her influence seemed endless - she had reached effortlessly into systems deemed impregnable by the best in the field. She did not spread secrets to the media, she did not embarrass corporations by breaking open their systems, and she did not siphon billions of dollars from banks while their virtual backs were turned. She was a creature of rumour, the only real proof of her existence the tales told by very, very good hackers who had - so they said - seen traces of her presence. Tara Maclay could be anywhere, they said. Tara Maclay could do anything. Willow had been vigilant in separating wild rumours from facts, yet even now she still had trouble believing some of the things she had found, that all her checking told her were true. Systems that should have been isolated were open to Tara Maclay. Watchdog programs, built by genius-level programmers, stood idly by while Tara Maclay passed through their networks. In the world inside computers, Tara Maclay was God.



No search had turned up a single clue to her identity, her location, whether she was a person or a group. Some suggested that Tara Maclay wasn't a person at all, but a super-program - but if so, someone had created her, and that someone had been somewhere beyond genius and still accelerating when he or she put hand to keyboard and coded this program. Willow was convinced Tara Maclay was a person - she knew programs, and programs didn't behave like Tara Maclay. The crumbs of information she had followed, and was still following, were laid out like bait to hackers. Willow had become convinced that it was an invitation: 'If you're good enough, find me'. Willow was very good, and over the last two years the search for Tara Maclay had pushed her to become very much better.



And now Tara Maclay had contacted her. It defied belief, yet there it was, on the screen in front of her.



-----



Willow became Alicia Rosenberg for the rest of the day, answering emails from management and patching up holes in the network's security - no difficult task, considering she had learned how to find such holes before she was out of school. The five-million-dollar encryption key no longer seemed that exciting, so she just shunted it to a protected space where it could be accessed later, and shut down Willow's links to her world for a while.



She sat quietly on the bus ride home, only a few stops anyway, watching the rain make patterns on the window. She kept underneath shop awnings on the half a block journey from the bus stop to her apartment building, and arrived only a little damp on the shoulders. She let herself in, dropped her briefcase on the old couch, flipped on the TV and watched the news while her home computer ran through its daily routines, checking off-site storages and touching base with the various remote programs it was playing host to at the moment. Nothing noteworthy on the news - two-minute stories of dramatic pictures and talking heads reciting carefully-prepared soundbytes, containing the minimum of real information. The name Tara Maclay had never been on a news broadcast. These days, Willow doubted there was anyone in a commercial news-room anywhere in the world with the necessary skills to hear that name. Tara Maclay did not give up her secrets so easily.



'I've got a secret,' Willow remembered. Was she close to the truth? Had Tara Maclay been watching her all along, as she scurried from clue to clue, gathering pieces of the puzzle? Willow switched off the TV and sat at her computer, intending to go over the communications code again, just to see if there was anything she had missed. She knew there wasn't - she didn't make mistakes that basic any more - but she had to do something, and she couldn't think of anything else.



'Hello Willow,' said the screen. Willow almost jumped out of her seat.



"Tara Maclay?" she typed back.



'Do you want to know my secret?' asked the screen. Willow's heart jumped, as she ran every background routine she could think of.



"Yes," she typed. The routines were coming back, one by one, all devoid of solid results. This was no hoax.



'Follow me,' the screen said. The message window vanished, and just like that it was as if it had never been there. Even the checking routines Willow was still running suddenly reported that there had been no incoming message to check.



"Follow you how?" said Willow out loud. The screen remained obstinately free of messages. The doorbell rang.



'Coincidence,' thought Willow as she went to the door, 'there is no way Tara Maclay is standing outside my apartment.' She peered through the lens - the corridor outside was empty. She opened the door and checked - nothing. She looked up and down its length - all the doors were closed, and there was no sign of anyone anywhere. As her gaze passed over it, the little hall light at the end of the corridor blinked off and on.



Willow stared at it. She slowly turned back into her apartment and looked at the computer. Its screen was as lifeless as always. She looked out again. Right - just the end of the corridor, nothing. Left - the elevator, also nothing. She looked directly at the light, just to one side of the elevator door. It blinked again.



'No way,' she thought to herself as she locked the door behind her and walked to the elevator. Part of her mind was jumping up and down insisting that it was just a stupid coincidence. The rest was busy contemplating how one might go about remote-controlling a light in an apartment building. The building's computer would be easy, but this wasn't some modern techno-hotel tower - the building's computer was a mechanical moron that couldn't even tell if the lights were on, let alone control them. Control the power directly? You'd have to have control of the power company's system, and be able to shut off the power to one light socket without affecting all the rest - it was ludicrous. She was wasting her time.



She touched the call button on the elevator. The signal dinged, and the doors slid open immediately. It was on her floor already. Didn't the elevators go back to the ground floor when they weren't doing anything else? Willow wasn't sure. She went inside, trying not to shake from excitement. She reached for the Lobby button.



The light in the button beneath it, Carpark, blinked off and on once. Willow was having serious trouble stopping herself from trembling. She pressed the button. The elevator closed its doors and descended quietly, playing inane music to itself. The doors slid open on the carpark, revealing rows of mundane vehicles waiting like farm animals in a barn. Willow stepped out of the elevator.



She looked from side to side. The whole floor seemed empty. She took a few steps, as the elevator closed behind her, and listened. Nothing but the ever-present hum of the exposed air conditioning ducts.



As her eyes passed over the rows of cars, the headlights of a red sports car flashed once. Willow stared at the vehicle in disbelief.



'No way,' she thought to herself, 'can you do that remotely. Nup. Can't be done. You'd need a receiver actually in the car and there is no possible way on earth that Tara Maclay's car is in the basement of my building!' Glaring at the car as if it was personally to blame for the ridiculous situation, Willow crossed the carpark and stood in front of it.



"Okay," she said aloud, "now what?"



The soft-top roof of the sports car shuddered into life and began folding itself back, revealing the interior of the car. Willow stared at it with a you-expect-me-to-believe-that expression. Walking with a calm she thoroughly didn't feel, she went to the side of the car and looked it. Her eyes immediately went to the slim car phone stowed in the centre console.



"Okay," she said, "come on." The phone rang. Willow leaned over and picked it up.



"Hello?" she said in a falsely-sweet voice.



"Alicia Rosenberg?" asked a female voice on the end of the line. Willow was about to say 'yes', but changed her mind.



"My name is Willow," she said instead.



"Good answer," said the voice. The world went white.

Edited by: Artemis at: 2/27/03 6:09:09 am

ok you have outdone yourself again you amaze me this is so cool im giddy



im so into this one ill keep my eye out for this one



Willow: hear that baby youre my always

thank you

Hmmm...Interesting concept. Gotta say I got sucked in.



I will certainly be on the watch for further updates.

I like the mysterious Tara and the Willow thoughts. Willow's alter identity is also very engaging. I'd like to know more about how that came to be.

---

"You have to believe we are magic. Nothin' can stand in our way."---Olivia Newton-John.

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.~~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Hey, this is tres cool! What a great story, I'm loving the suspense! I can't wait for Willow to meet the mysterious Tara Maclay, hehe! Lookin forward to more!

xoxo

I love this one, well I love all your others too, but I just read the first chapter of it earlier today on the list and I can't wait to see where you're going with this. Great work as usual! Thanks.

~ - ~ - ~

"Your shirt!!!! Ooops! If my arterial blood flows onto your shirt I'm so sorry, I'll get the dry-cleaning bill for that." - Amber Benson on the 'brilliance' of the "your shirt vision"

I really like what you've got so far. Kinda Matrix-y. Kinda cool. I'd love to read more. You've sucked me in.



Sarah

So I'm turing off the TV and I smashed my radio cause I realize my heroes are the people I already know. And I'm burning up the papers and tearing up all the magazines cause they make me feel so lonely when there's no one there who represents me. ~H2O (Role Model)

Fascinating story. Can't wait to read more!





-Mandy

Thanks all



peggy of sunnydale: Glad you're enjoying it. I'm working with a whole bunch of ideas on this one, which may or may not end up being included, so we'll see how it turns out.



SlayerSydney: Alicia Rosenberg isn't really a different identity. When she goes online, as a hacker, she calls herself Willow, the same way I'm usually either Artemis or Miss Kitty Fantastico. Except Alicia doesn't really have much of a life offline, so 'Willow' is pretty much the real her.



tarasfan: Well, you won't have to wait long. But I'm hoping with this story I can really rack up a whole bunch of twists, so meeting Tara won't be the only surprise.



IsayAmberBensonsgorgeous: Thanks. I'm quite curious to know where it's going myself. (I know what the situation is, but not yet how Willow will deal with it.)



unionjill30: It's no coincidence that it's Matrix-y



SuperMandy13: Thanks, and more is here.

Who is Tara Maclay?



Author: Chris Cook

Rating: PG-13 (mild violence)

Summary: Ace hacker Willow is on the trail of cyberspace's holy grail, the all-knowing, ever-elusive Tara Maclay - but is she prepared for what she'll find?

Spoilers: None.

Copyright: Based on characters from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and concepts created by Larry and Andy Wachowski. All original material is copyright 2003 Chris Cook.

Feedback: Please. Here, or to alia@netspace.net.au



--

Chapter Two

--



Willow blinked. She could see again, and what she could see was- herself. Her own face, distorted in a curving mirror that filled her vision. She spun around, but found no edges to the vision - she was encased in a sphere, and could see nothing but its reflections of her own body. She tried to reach the mirrored walls, but she had no purchase to push against, she was hanging in mid-air with no support, her feet inches away from the bottom of the sphere.



"You're in no danger," said a voice. It sounded like it came from someone standing right in front of Willow, but there was no-one there.



"Can you hear me?" it asked after a moment. Willow looked around, but the same polished reflections looked back at her, and nothing else.



"Um... yes?" she hazarded.



"Are you able to move?" asked the voice. It was female, gentle.



"I can move, sort of," said Willow, testing her arms and legs. "I mean, I can't move myself, but I can move... myself. I'm sort of hanging here- where am I?"



"You're inside a force sphere," said the voice, "it'll shut off in a few moments. There will be a short drop to the ground, half a metre or so. Do you understand?"



"Um, yes," said Willow. She looked down at herself.



"Um," she went on, "excuse me, mystery voice, I don't know if this is exactly the right time to mention this but... I'm kind of naked, at the moment..."



"We're here to help you," said the voice, "be prepared for the drop."



"Uh-huh," answered Willow uncertainly. A few seconds later the mirrored sphere vanished. Willow dropped instantly to the ground - not as fast or hard as she had expected - and stayed still for a moment, waiting. Slowly she stood up, covering herself as best she could, and looked around.



To her left was a giant sphere, such as she imagined she had just been contained within. To her right, another, behind her, yet another. In front of her was a short space, a metal floor, then a wall. She leaned forward and looked beyond the sphere to her side. There were more of them - tens, hundreds even. She looked the other way, peered around the one behind her. Thousands, all lined up like the world's biggest game of billiards about to start. She took a few steps forward, confused, wondering if she felt light from shock, or if it was something else. Her steps seemed to have a spring in them she wasn't used to.



A hissing sound startled her, and she looked up. A red line was forming in the metal ceiling, curving around, becoming a circle. Its ends joined, and the piece of metal was lifted away. A person dropped through the hole, landing in front of where Willow had fallen. It was tall, it wore some sort of uniform covered with wires, and over its face was an array of lenses. It reached behind itself, into a backpack, and held out a bundle of material to Willow. Another one like it dropped softly to the ground beside it. This one turned to her, then looked sharply away.



"Put that on," said the first one. Willow unfolded the material, finding it to be a one-piece outfit, its outside covered in wires like their clothes.



"Who are you?" Willow asked as she struggled into the outfit. The figure looking away from her pulled off the mask covering its face, revealing a young man with fairly handsome features and untidy hair. He continued staring resolutely off to one side.



"Xander," he said, "and that's Anyanka." The other one pulled off her mask to reveal a sharp, pretty face.



"He's embarrassed," she said to Willow, "because of the nakedness. Don't worry about him." Anyanka didn't seem to have any problem at all seeing Willow in her undressed state, and quickly helped her put on the suit and zip it up. Xander finally turned to her.



"We have to get you out of here," he explained, "hold on to me, and don't let go." He offered an arm to Willow. She hesitated for a second, then took his hand. He guided her hands to straps secured to his clothes and made sure she was holding on tight.



"W-what's going on?" Willow asked as Xander and Anyanka replaced their masks.



"You heard you were in no danger?" Xander asked. Willow nodded. "Well, that's only true for the next minute unless we get going now. Ready?" he finished to the woman.



"Got your back," she answered.



A hiss emanated from Xander's backpack, and with Willow hanging on tight he rose off the floor and passed through the hole cut in the ceiling. Willow saw another enormous chamber, identical to the one she had been in, filled with more spheres. Anyanka was rising behind them. Another ceiling passed, another chamber, and another. Willow lost count. After dozens of ceilings they were suddenly inside a tube. Xander slowed, and stretched out to brace himself against the edges of the passage, coming to a stop in front of a heavy-looking hatchway. This opened mechanically, and Xander manoeuvred Willow through before following. Anyanka closed the hatch behind herself.



Xander took Willow's hand and positioned her with her back against one wall of the small room they emerged in. All three of them leaned back on the wall - it was inlaid with padding, stiff but flexible. Xander firmly pushed Willow back against it.



"Stay there," he warned. Anyanka tapped a device strapped to her wrist.



"Tara," she said, "we've got her. How're we looking?"



"Short on time," answered the gentle voice, filtered through a crackly radio system, "they saw the extraction. Are you ready?"



"Boost now," said Anyanka.



"Good work," said the voice. Immediately afterwards Willow was pressed back against the padded wall by a powerful force. It wasn't enough to be painful - thanks to the flex of the material behind her - but she couldn't move her arms or legs. A rumble built beneath the floor, growing like the noise of a train rushing past. Willow understood - they were moving, fast, accelerating away from where she had been. Wherever she had been.



-----



The acceleration subsided after several minutes, during which time Xander and Anyanka remained silent. Once it passed Anyanka took Xander's mask and disappeared through another doorway. Xander led Willow alone through several corridors, up a ladder. All around her were metal panels, valves, pipes and electronic cabling. Willow thought it was like a ship, or a submarine. She could feel a distant vibration through the thin soles of the jumpsuit she was wearing - engines?



Xander finally brought her to a reinforced doorway and stood aside, motioning Willow to go ahead without him. The doors opened for her, and she walked into a large chamber, walls curved to a dome at the far end, like the front of a plane, except within the steel dome was a second layer, of glass. There was a seat at the end, likewise made of steel, high-backed and riveted to the floor. Willow couldn't see beyond the wide back of the seat.



"Thank you Xander," said the voice. She was there, sitting in the room with Willow. The door closed behind her.



"You're Tara Maclay," said Willow.



"And you are Willow," said Tara, hidden. "Alicia Rosenberg. I've been watching you for some time. I'm glad we could meet."



"Well," said Willow, wondering if she should feel flattered or frightened, "I guess we're even then. I mean, I've been finding out everything I could about you for..."



"Two years," said Tara, "I know."



The chair swivelled slowly around, under its own power, to face Willow. For the first time, she saw Tara Maclay. She was wearing a loose bodysuit of several semi-opaque layers, dark red - like rose petals - that covered her from its high neckline to her short grey boots. She was leaning on one arm of her chair, with her chin cradled in her hand, her head tilted sideways. She looked at Willow through a veil of blonde hair. Her eyes widened for a moment, and her mouth, which had opened to speak, remained still.



Willow was captivated. She knew - at least, she considered that she knew - a lot about Tara Maclay, and she had formed her own impressions of her, if not what she looked like, then what sort of person she was. Willow felt connected to Tara Maclay, despite having never met her - she imagined that they shared something deeper than experiences. Something almost primal - the nature of their beings. Willow had often imagined meeting her, and sometimes - in moments of fancy - imagined more than that, but her imagination was now proved inadequate.



Something in Willow, not in any way connected to her brain, which was reeling, prompted her to move.



"Hi," she said, stepping forward, holding out a hand. Tara sat up straighter, a little surprised at Willow's spontaneous greeting, which helped Willow conceal her own surprise at her advance. Tara stood and accepted Willow's hand - Tara's was soft, smooth and warm. Their touch held for a moment, then in a fit of uncertainty Willow smiled brightly and retrieved her hand. Her skin felt hot where Tara's fingers had touched her palm.



"H-hello," said Tara. Her voice, for the first time Willow had heard it, had vulnerability in it. When she had spoken before, there was certainty in every syllable. Willow felt safe. This realisation brought back the unreality of her present situation, and she looked around hesitantly.



"I don't mean to be all bothery with the questions," she started, speaking in a rush, "but I'm just a little bit confused about the whole 'where am I' thing. Not to mention the whole 'what happened to me' question, and then there's a lot of gaps in the 'what on earth was that place' situation. And if it's not too much trouble, and I realise this is probably going to seem a bit odd, with all the rest of the stuff being, I'm guessing, quite a bit more vital and important and stuff, but how did you make that light go on and off outside my apartment? I know it's silly but it's bugging me, and I kind of obsess over stuff I can't figure out, and I'll shut up and let you talk now, sorry."



Tara actually had to stifle a giggle, which made Willow feel better. She had made Tara smile - that was good.



"Well, you're right," Tara said, "the light isn't really among the big questions. But we'll get to it." She sighed, and suddenly looked sad. She turned away and walked a few steps, facing the covered glass dome.



"It's a long story," she said quietly, "and one I wish I didn't have to tell you. You of all people..."



"What do you mean?" asked Willow, coming to Tara's side, "why me of all people? What's different to other people of all people?"



"I know you," said Tara, "at least, I like to think I do. Everything you've done as Willow, I've watched. I'm sorry," she suddenly blurted, facing Willow, "I didn't mean to, to make you uncomfortable or..."



"It's alright," interrupted Willow, "I don't. I mean, I've been all obsessed over the mysterious Tara Maclay the whole time, it's not like I was trying not to get your attention." Tara stared at her for a moment, her face unreadable.



"Thank you," she said at last, turning back to the dome. "I hoped you wouldn't... I'm glad you don't mind. I did what I had to do. But I believe that I know you, Willow, and if I had a choice... what I'm about to show you will not be easy for you to deal with. If I could spare you the knowledge, I would."



"What is it?" asked Willow. "Is it... am I in danger? Am I sick, is there something wrong with- is the government after me? Is there some sort of... what's going on?"



Tara reached back to her chair and tapped a control on its arm. With a clank that echoed through the floor, the steel plates over the dome unlocked, and began to slide back. Willow stared out as the plates retracted, like a flower opening, at reveal a vast expanse of starry sky. She craned her neck, looking down as the shielding plates slid back out of her view, trying to see the ground. There was none - beneath them, stretching away in front of them, was a huge river of rock, vast jagged chunks of stone spinning slowly through space. Willow stared around - aside from the asteroid belt, there was nothing but void.



"Spaceship," she said automatically, trying to sort out her thoughts, "but how- no, who- where are we? What is this?"



At her side, Tara sighed again, and closed her eyes for a moment. In that moment she looked tired, sad and weary. She straightened her shoulders, and gestured to the vast belt of debris beneath them.



"That," she said quietly, "is Earth."

another update! And don't worry, no matter where this is going, I'm sure I'll enjoy the ride! Keep them updates coming!

~ - ~ - ~

"Your shirt!!!! Ooops! If my arterial blood flows onto your shirt I'm so sorry, I'll get the dry-cleaning bill for that." - Amber Benson on the 'brilliance' of the "your shirt vision"

oh i get it it sorta like matrix but sunnydale style youre own version of it that is so good i tought somebody should have done that so many posability with that



i must say very good update



you must update soon



Willow:hear that baby youre my alwaysthank you

I'm intrigued, mostly because you've taken some time out to do some hacking homework, which for me as a former pseudo-hacker is key. The elements of the Matrix are a nice touch so I'm interested in seeing where you go with this.



Cheers!

K

Love is tricky. It is never mundane or daily. You can never get used to it. You have to walk with it, then let it walk with you. You can never balk. It moves you like the tide. It takes you out to sea then lays you on the beach again. Today's struggling pain is the foundation for a certain stride through the heavens. You can run from it but you can never say no. It includes everyone."--Amy Tan "The Hundred Secret Secret Senses"

Ok...so I am a little slow on the catching on part....lol...if you knew me...you would not be surprised by this fact.



Anyway, still a very interesting concept to me and I am definitely intrigued by your story. Or should I say stories...



I plan on continuing to read the updates and I am excited about where this fic will go.



It's not quite the stuff I am used to reading. But, I kinda like it.

---

"You have to believe we are magic. Nothin' can stand in our way."---Olivia Newton-John.

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.~~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Me is all intrigued an' that...Really liking the way you are writing Willow and Tara in this one...I'll be reading.

fiat justitia,ruat caelum

Interesting idea. I like both the hacking elements and the Matrix elements, but what it makes it interesting are the divergences from the Matrix. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this, especially if you can find a real purpose for the AI's keeping humans, if indeed that's what's happening here, as the whole idea of human power sources in the Matrix was just too stupid.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

loving it. as long as you dont get techincal about space-y things or matrix-y things i'll be able to follow smoothly. lol...



interesting start, liked anya and xander being used already and wonder who buffy will be. i like that both willow and tara have been obsessed at learning all about each other already and how tara's confidence when with willow is kinda wrinkled by perhaps being smitten with her already. or i could totally be wrong. lol... so earth is a bust eh?



looking foward to more.

"Take care of my heart, won't you please? Take care of it because it's all that I have. And if you let me, I'll take care of your heart too." Pure sweetness in the look between Willow and Tara.

Well, I'm normally not keen on W/T in a SF setting, but I'll make an exception in this case. (In other words, hooked already).



So, who broke Earth?

dude that was like the last thing i thought was gonna happen this fic rocks keep it up.. i mean wow that was like lol then i read it over and was like no way

The word "gulp" comes to mind.

Ah, another W/T SF story... yeah! I like SciFi stories



The first part was a bit hard to get into for me, most likely that has something to do with the work I do (take a guess).



The car-roof opening was a nice visual, got to say that. Willow most of all wanting to know how the hallway light was flashing was much fun to, true to charachter I too recognized some matrix-like elements here and there, hopefully I'll like your version more. You got main charachters I care about which is an improvement



Grimmy

"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

I've read both of your stories and it's interesting. I didn't like A.U. fic before, but after reading yours, the concept is really starting to appeal to me. I'd like to have a go at writing one myself. It's a chance to re-write any of my favourite movies so that it star's Willow/Alyson and Tara/Amber.

I can't wait to read what happens next. I'm certain that it will be much better than the film.

Thanks to everyone for your comments. It'll be a couple of days before the next chapter's ready - the information is there, but the emotions need to be sorted out (and with a story like this, if I don't have the characters right it's just going to be a strange sci-fi, not Will/Tara). Bear with me.



IsayAmberBensonsgorgeous: Thanks, and sorry about the wait. I'll try to make it worthwhile.



peggy of sunnydale: The inspiration for this one was just the question 'Who is Tara Maclay?' in the same context as 'What is the Matrix?' - something that everyone's obsessed with, yet no-one can answer because the answer is literally beyond the world they live in. I like the idea of that, it's sort of X-Files-y.



Kieli: Actually I think I must just be lying convincingly - I'm plenty proficient at using computers from the outside, but I know nothing about how they work on the inside (well, except for what I learned from watching Tron).



SlayerSydney: Actually I considered putting a little explanation of who 'Alicia' is above the story, but I figured I'd just leave it. I can see where it's not 100% clear.



Lucy Moore: Most of the work I'm doing at the moment on the next chapter is about how Willow and Tara interact. I hope it turns out well.



darkmagicwillow: Actually I didn't mind the humans as batteries idea in The Matrix - I'm very forgiving of illogical ideas provided I find them interesting, and I thought the complete dehumanisation of humanity fit in well. But I've got something different in mind, both for humanity and their unseen masters. I wouldn't have been happy just recycling Matrix's background anyway.



Rane018: You probably needn't worry, I'm not pushing this one to be very sci-fi or techy. The body of the story will be firmly character-based, I hope. (In case anyone's wondering, I'm not planning to resolve the fate of humanity in this story - though I may come back to it later. This is primarily about Willow and Tara, after all, not futuristic guerilla warfare.)



russ: Who indeed? Well, all will be revealed soon enough, so for the moment I'll just say it wasn't a bunch of machines.



mocha fiend 22: Yay. I love it when I can pull off a surprise.



Grimlock72: Guess what you do? Well, I'm not good at intuition, so either you're a programmer - and noticed that I was completely making up the programming-speak - or you're a manager - in which case, don't be offended, I had a very specific manager in mind when I was populating Willow's office.



chilled monkey: I've become quite attached to the possibilities of Uberfics (this kind of AU) since I started. I crave variety when I'm writing, so this is a way for me to keep Willow & Tara, yet also go anywhere and anywhen I feel like. Let me know if you do write an AU/Uber fic, my Uber-archive Through the Looking-glass (home.iprimus.com.au/ottago/) can always use more stories.

Ooh, this is good. I think what I like the most is that you've managed to draw me in as a reader with the familiarity of names and characters, but the content and context is so very different to what I normally read. I do like that. This is turning into a really good Sci-Fi story; can't wait to read more. Thanks for this.

"There's so much more to wiccan Willow than muff-diving gimmickry" ~ SFX

Who is Tara Maclay?



Author: Chris Cook

Rating: PG-13 (mild violence)

Summary: Ace hacker Willow is on the trail of cyberspace's holy grail, the all-knowing, ever-elusive Tara Maclay - but is she prepared for what she'll find?

Spoilers: None.

Copyright: Based on characters from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and concepts created by Larry and Andy Wachowski. All original material is copyright 2003 Chris Cook.

Feedback: Please. Here, or to alia@netspace.net.au

Note: Just so's I don't accidentally offend anyone - I'm not making any sort of statement about religion in any way. Religious terms are used for effect only, and no connection to any actual 'god' or 'heaven' is intended. (And anyway, the Wachowski brothers did it first - I swear they've read The Dumas Club.)



--

Chapter Three

--



"The year is 2125," said Tara. The blast shields had closed again, sealing off the chamber from the remains of Earth outside. Tara had asked Willow to sit in her chair, and now stood in front of her, alternately pacing from side to side, and standing closer, resting her arm on the back of the chair, staring at Willow. Her gaze would fix on Willow's for a while, then as she talked, her eyes would begin to flutter around Willow's face, and her voice would soften. Every time she would catch herself after a few seconds, and look away and resume her pacing. She was hypnotic to Willow, who stared at her unashamedly, and remained silent throughout.



"Since you were born," Tara told Willow, "you've been living inside a force sphere, like the ones you saw. It projected every sensory stimulus you ever experienced, up to the point where we switched it off. The other spheres you saw contain people, and all the spheres are linked into the same simulation of the world as it was over a century ago. In various locations, only some of which we know the location of, there are over a billion people trapped inside that world, completely unaware that what they experience isn't real. It's been this way for over thirty years now.



"There was a war, long ago. A natural mutation in the human genome had spread far enough to overcome its recessive traits and become active. People were born with psychic abilities - telepathy, telekinesis. A lot of them were persecuted for it. The situation deteriorated until most governments in the world decided the only way to safely have telepaths in their populations was to control them totally. Extremist groups among the telepathic population came to the reverse conclusion, and tried to take control of their governments.



"The war lasted a decade, as far as we can tell. Initially the telepaths were nearly wiped out, but the ones that survived, the very strong telekinetics, practiced until the forces they could exert were equal to the weapons being used against them. One group developed a technique to psychically link themselves together, which exponentially increased their powers, at the expense of their stability. They became maniacal - they considered themselves, joined, a god. Even the other telepath militias saw they were dangerous. When the largest resistance group began negotiating a peace with the nations fighting them, the 'God' wiped them out. They used gravitic forces, enormous amounts of power - there was no defence against them. Some nations retaliated against God, and it destroyed them as well.



"The gravities that the God exerted on the surface of the world were too immense to be absorbed. The planet began to break up. In order to save itself, the God devoted all its energies to maintaining the stability of the area they occupied, about a fifth of the world. It called it 'Heaven'. Everyone outside Heaven, it just- let everyone else die. It probably would have wiped out the people in Heaven as well, but it found a use for them. Before the break-up the God realised that maintaining the gravity forces to hold Heaven together would be massively draining on its minds, nothing but a constant fight against natural forces. The God forced the people it ruled to build the equipment for the simulation, out of what was left of their cities. Inside the simulation they were no threat to the God, and it could feed off them at its leisure... when people feel joy, or euphoria or- any kind of happiness, the God leeches it out of them. They're left with a shadow of the feeling, while the God drugs itself with their joy, against the pain of keeping its Heaven in one piece. That's all that's left of us, everything that humanity ever was. People trapped in a false world, and an insane group-mind that never does anything but keep itself alive, and get high on stolen joy to keep itself from wanting to die."



Tara stopped, and looked at Willow again. Willow's expression was somewhere between disbelief and horror.



"Willow," she said softly, "did you ever feel empty? As if you should be happy, but it just didn't reach your heart?" Willow nodded slowly.



"Sometimes," she whispered, "sometimes I would actually be happy... but most of the time- I thought it was just that I was alone, or that I hadn't really, you know, found my place in the world..." Tara nodded sadly and sat on the side of the chair. She put her arm around Willow's shoulders, and let Willow lean against her.



"You're lucky," she said, "it can't always take away everything. Those time you were happy, you resisted. Most people can't do that, and they never truly feel anything good."



"How?" asked Willow. Absorbing all the information had put her beyond her instinct to automatically come up with theories to explain anything she didn't understand. Now she just let Tara hold her.



"The human mind is, well, it's complicated," explained Tara, "full of instincts and intellect and reason and random impulses... all sorts of things. The God can't see everything inside a mind as if it were just opening a book. It has to deal with the surface layers, and what's deep inside isn't always the same as what it sees from the outside. I guess you could say that Alicia Rosenberg had Willow hidden inside her, and the God couldn't find Willow."



"Tara," Willow said after a long silence. She looked up, finding Tara staring down at her, waiting patiently. "Who are you?" Willow asked. Tara gently let go of her shoulders and stood again.



"The God is about five hundred people," she said, staring into nothing, "but every once in a while it makes a pair of its bodies, the people who combined to make it, reproduce. To replace the ones who grow old and die. I was one of them. When I was nineteen years old, something just- I don't know. The rest of the God wasn't inside my mind anymore. When it tried to come back I felt threatened, and I reacted. I forced it to stay away, somehow. I escaped from the habitats where it keeps its bodies."



"And you... you started saving people from the simulation?" Willow prompted when Tara fell silent. Tara nodded, and continued in a voice that was suddenly a lot more fragile.



"I-I remember," she said haltingly, "what I felt, w-when I was part of th-the God. All the memories o-of everything, right from the b-beginning. A-all of it. Being created. Sending the g-gravity waves a-against all those people. I... I r-remember... w-when they d-died, when the waves crushed t-them... I remember... e-enjoying..."



Tara looked as if she were about to break down and cry, and Willow sprang out of her seat and went to her without thinking. She didn't bother with words - not that she could think of any - she just closed her arms around the woman and held her tight. Tara buried her face against Willow's hair, and Willow felt warm tears wetting her cheek.



"A monster," Tara said quietly. She gathered herself, and her voice gained an edge of finality that seemed to give her strength.



"It's a monster," she repeated, "and it shouldn't live. People like you shouldn't have to struggle just to feel joy, while that... thing drugs itself with stolen pleasure. It just- shouldn't be."



A tone echoed through the chamber, from the direction of the door. Tara raised her arms to Willow's back, returning her embrace properly for a moment, then drew away.



"Come," she called, with one hand still reassuringly on Willow's arm. The doors opened to reveal a slim blonde wearing an earpiece which extended to a tiny microphone.



"Buffy," said Tara, "I was just going to... this is Willow." Buffy smiled at Willow.



"Hey," she said brightly, "good to see you finally."



"Willow," said Tara, turning back, "would you go with Buffy? She'll get you some proper clothes, help you settle in. I have to go up to command for a while." Her decisive tone had returned, but the warmth she'd shown to Willow was still there. Willow nodded, offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile, and followed the blonde out of the chamber.



"How're you holding up?" Buffy asked. Willow considered the question for a moment, then shrugged.



"I guess, okay," she hazarded. "It's all... I figure it'll all hit me between the eyes sooner or later, but I'm sort of coasting along for now."



"You'll do okay," predicted Buffy. "I remember when she brought me out, I was a wreck. You're doing well. Anyway, introductions all round, I guess. This hunk of gleaming chrome," she patted the corridor wall affectionately, "is called Pilgrim. You already met Xander and Anyanka, they're our tactical team, they handle all the sneaking around and commando-type stuff we have to do, breaking into Heaven and that- Tara told you about Heaven? The asteroid-chunk, I mean, not the afterlife one." Willow nodded.



"Well," Buffy went on, "it's not exactly overflowing with guards, the bodies of the God thing don't move much, but there are mechanical defences that can pack a mean punch. Plus there's the whole gravity shield around it that keeps it together. Tara gets us through that."



"Is she," Willow began to ask, "I mean, she told me she was, you know, born as part of that- is she like them?"



"She's a telepath," confirmed Buffy, "a powerful one. But don't worry, she doesn't go around peeking into people's thoughts. Pretty much the only time she uses it is to interfere with the God thing. Getting us through the gravity shield, causing effects in the simulation, that sort of thing. She doesn't use it for anything else. This way," she motioned for Willow to follow her down a side corridor. "We'll get you a bunk, then run over a few pointers for living out here in the real world. It's big on the satisfaction-of-living-a-real-life scale, but some of the luxuries are a bit thin on the ground," she added with a wry grin.

wow - i mean wow

i love the way you write

i love your characterisation

i adore the story

talk about being hooked

please update soon and often



B

"Dude! like you're getting in the Boob light alright!" - AB Stuff photoshoot

Hello Kittens-



I've always thought the idea of telepathy was one that sounded better on paper than lived out. The thought of a decent person like Tara being linked to the hive mind is disturbing, as is the lonliness she must have faced until she could free her team. I wonder how long it took her to explain the "real" Earth to that person.



Thank you,



Jixer

Fantastic update and story. I love the matrix so I enjoy the take on it. I love that you have taken it elsewhere. And Tara's interesting position in all this. I am really drawn into this one. Great job.

-----------------------------------

En un mundo de ilusión yo estaba desahuciado, yo estaba abandonado.

Vivía sin sentido, pero llegaste tú. -
Mana

Your theories on a created world, rather than a totally human one are really interesting. Looking forward to more of this.

"There's so much more to wiccan Willow than muff-diving gimmickry" ~ SFX

Excellent update! As a biologist, I do take issue with the genetics portion but since this IS fantasy, I guess one can take liberties m Well done though, if not far too short. Now that you've grabbed my interest be prepared for me to pester. I do pestering very well. Just ask Rane



Kieli

Love is tricky. It is never mundane or daily. You can never get used to it. You have to walk with it, then let it walk with you. You can never balk. It moves you like the tide. It takes you out to sea then lays you on the beach again. Today's struggling pain is the foundation for a certain stride through the heavens. You can run from it but you can never say no. It includes everyone."--Amy Tan "The Hundred Secret Secret Senses"

Hey, this is a great story, I'm really enjoying it. I'm trying to picture it all in my head, like Xander being all commando type guy..though not in the not wearing underwear type way...eek! Tres cool, looking forward to next update



xoxo

Oh, this is good. Always love the SF things, and Willow/Tara SF? Even better! Can't wait for the next part.

This is gonna be great!