Literature / The Hackers

A group of Russian hackers receives a very important contract which would bring them more money than they can spend; they're not yet aware that it's a trap, and that fallout of that contract would change their lives forever. And Rinat, a young hacker from "Ventrue" hacker clan, does not expect yet that he's gonna be a "happy" owner of an artificial intelligence who prefers being called "Alisa" and thinks that she knows better how should live his life.

A cyberpunk novel about hackers, written by Russian sci-fi writer Alexander Chubaryan, also known under pseudonym "Sanych".

Tropes

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Discussed. When Alisa says that she needs a network access to function more efficiently, Rinat tells about the "Werewolf" and how it wiped out everyone on the facility, and says that he expects Alisa to try and start a World War Three or something. She says that the "Werewolf" was purposely designed as a weapon, so they got what they wanted — it's their fault they failed to control it. And the part about starting a war makes no sense: there's no way to access military objects through internet, even for an AI, as no one would be dumb enough to link them; besides, what's the point of taking over the world or wiping it out? Only the humans would want something like this.
• Armour Piercing Response: When Rinat reunites with the remnants of "Dark Souls" and completely fails to see why they are in so dark mood, Lilu answers his questions about what's going on the best:
  Lilu: Everything goes fine for you? Great, Rinat. It's good, and we're happy for you. But Ilya has a little problem. Really little. He would never be able to walk again. By the way, do you know what Worm has survived? Just look at him. He was freed from Raysa yesterday. Instead of happily dancing around the table, let's just remember Keda.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Just before his death, Sanych makes everything in his power to be as unlikable as possible, and to have no sympathy once Jet kills him.
  • Both "Stalkers" and "White Wolves" clans have no standards when it comes to taking contracts, have connections to the mafia, and are prone to physically terminate competitors. They already have next to zero sympathy when they gets backstabbed and killed by Jet, but later we learn that they were the true culprits behind Tel-Aviv terrorist attack, making it into outright Karmic Death.
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: Out of members of "Dark Souls" (and its predecessor, "Ventrue"), both dying members (Sanych and Keda) are the fighters, with Sanych dying in battle, and Keda during Jet's attempt to interrogate her with drugs after he manages to capture her.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: There are no truly "good" guys, but only few are truly evil either. The protagonist and his teammates are hackers, working on the other side of the law to make profit. Ruben is a former criminal, and no one knows whether he's truly "former", or just hides well enough, but he's loving husband and father, and good friend. Jamba may be a ruthless gangster, or may be a loyal friend, depending on from which side you're approaching him. Jet has a Dark and Troubled Past which explains his behaviour (and actually changes for the best throughout the story), while Alisa doesn't operate on our standards at all.
• Blackmail: Novak blackmails Ruben and his wife by saying that unless they reveal the truth about the mystical hacker who helped when their daughter was abducted, they're gonna lose everything — their house, their daughter and their lives. They are forced to tell him about Rinat.
• Blackmail Backfire: Threatening Rinat to get something from Alisa is a bad idea, given that she's an almighty AI, and you're just a human.
  • Novak tries to blackmail Alisa by threatening to shoot Rinat. She gives him power and money... then she contacts his boss, who sets up for his arrest and subsequent death, after which Rinat gets freed.
  • Almost happens to Jet, who also tries to blackmail Alisa by threatening Rinat (this time, to get information on 2FED). Alisa shows him the photos of his family, and tells that unless he backs out, she would use their photos to make fake porn, which would taunt him forever. Jet backs out. Alisa gives him a CD with information he needs... which was actually empty. Then she contacts police and reports Jet, leading to him being captured by the corporation.
  • Defied when Novak's replacement suggests to press Rinat to make Alisa more agreeable; Bart rejects the plan immediately, saying that it would backfire on them.
• Blessed with Suck: Installing the implants severely damages one's health (many outright dies during the process), resulting in agonising pain once per several days (which can only be lifted with drugs), inability to make children, and inevitable death after roughly ten years. On top of that, having the implants is illegal, and if you gets caught, you would be either used for experiments, sent to mines, or outright killed. The implants makes you into One-Man Army, but do they worth the troubles?
• Bodyguard Betrayal: When Jet decides to dispose of "Stalkers" and "Wolves", Ench gets killed by Inga, his bodyguard (and lover), who suddenly turns on him, revealing herself to be in league with Jet.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: At one point, Rinat replies to 2FED, asking him about the source of information with 2FED's signature "hmmm" (which basically means "no comments").
• Breaking the Fellowship: After everything they went through, the former members of "Dark Souls" can't continue what they do, and chose to disband the clan and lay low. However, later Alisa manipulates everyone into reuniting, and becoming a big happy family they used to be; she still dislikes them doing crimes, but she clearly sees that by alone, they wouldn't survive.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Alisa (who uses the camera to observe what goes on in the room) records Rinat masturbating, and tells him about it, to his displease. When she starts going into details of what she recorded, Rinat angrily tells her to delete everything.
• The Cavalry: When Rinat, over Worm's warnings, still returns home to take his cat Romero, the police arrives after him, too quickly to have a chance to escape. Rinat gets away due to Worm attacking the cops, but Worm himself gets shot and captured.
• Chekhov's Hobby:
  • It's revealed early on that Worm is a biker. Later we learn that he has contacts of Jamba — a gangster with connections on black market... and a biker himself.
  • Alisa's love for cheap TV melodramas:
    • The weird, tangled up plots of the melodramas is the first, even if very subtle, hint towards Alisa's true goals. And indeed, she turns out to be manipulating the people to set the whole story in motion, just like a director, all so she can study humans. The similarity actually gets acknowledged in-universe.
    • Early on, Alisa says that she plans to make her own movie, and publish it, to prove that AI can be creative too. The last (non-epilogue) pages shows that she did make it after all, and, in her usual manner, manipulated Rinat and his friends into obtaining the tickets to attend its theatrical premier.
• Creative Sterility: Defied; Alisa plans to make a movie (acting like its scenarist, composer, director, etc), distribute it and copyright, just to prove that AI can do art too. Rinat talks her out of the last two steps, as they're on the hiding. After leaving Rinat, she decides to do that after all, albeit she hides behind a "famous web writer Alisa" to conceive the fact that she's an AI, and hires human directors to get their names on the project (even though it would be her who would do the work).
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • During the early days of Raysa, there was a rebellion attempt. It was swiftly and brutally suppressed, with guards mercilessly killing everyone who failed to run away in time, starting with the rebel leaders, and just leaving the corpses to rot under summer sun. The administrator then announced via loudspeaker that "corpses are your own problem" (the phrase since then became the second rule of Raysa), meaning that it's up to the prisoners to burn their fallen in the local crematorium (which ever remains the true since then).
  • For all his skills, Sallah-Ad-Din is no match for Jet; their battle ends very quickly, and very messily.
• Cyborg: So-called "imps" (from the word "implant") — victims of the secret and (officially) illegal experiments done in "Raysa", where they were implanted with bioplastic implants to give them major improvements in combat efficiency, at the cost of severe reduction in lifespan and regular agonising pain. Just having those implants is also illegal.
• Death by Materialism: Sanych's desire to get the "Werewolf" files for himself, so he may then bargain with "Wolholland", results in his undoing, as it allows Jet to catch up with him.
• Destination Defenestration:
  • Early in the novel, Jet throws a Dirty Cop named Boris, The Mole working for "Stalkers", into the window of his office, killing him.
  • Sanych almost throws Keda out of the window when she irritates him too much. He gets talked out of this.
  • Jet throws Ilya out of the window after attempt to interrogate him. Ilya survives, due to falling on a tree, but becomes wheelchair-bound.
• Disney Death:
  • Worm seemingly dies protecting Rinat, but actually falls in coma and gets captured by the police. He later awakes in Raysa.
  • After Alisa tells Rinat that Jet isn't gonna return, he hears a news report stating that Jet was killed at the apprehension attempt. Later it turns out that he was wounded, but captured alive, and the "killed" part was made up by journalists. Fortunately for Rinat, Jet indeed has no interest in killing him.
• Disproportionate Retribution: After infamous terrorist attack in Tel-Aviv airport, which killed seven hundred people, the hackers became the world's main boogeyman, leading to creation of international network police with nearly-unlimited rights just to hunt them down, and installations of the new rules, under which you can end up in Hellhole Prison with no right to ever get out, alongside worst of the worst humanity has ever birthed, for the otherwise minor crimes: the people are afraid of hackers just that much. They even taught children in schools to fear and hate the hackers.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Invoked by Jet, who puts on a disguise of a sexy host of borderline erotic show, Janna Sinyavskaya, when trying to intercept the convoy escorting Worm to Raysa. It distrusts most of the guards, but one of them, Max, notices that "Janna" is actually a man. He's mocked at first, but then someone actually checks... and it turns out that while it's indeed Janna's car... Janna herself is in the studio. Jet throws disguise away and attacks.
• Drugs Are Bad: Invoked by Alisa; when Rinat, not being able to tolerate living in isolation (aside from Alisa, who's an AI, and occasionally visiting him Ruben), asks Ruben to bring him some marijuana, just to deal with his depression, Alisa busts him preparing a joint, and shows him a montage of addicts (and what the drugs did to them), and their coffins/graves. This almost scares him out of this, but eventually he finds a remote place and smokes anyway. When he returns, Alisa refuses to communicate with him at first, saying that she wouldn't talk with junkies, meaning that she had found out anyway. She knows that for drug addicts, there's only one end, and since her goal is to protect him, she's forced to make him choose between her and drugs, right now. She also warns him that if she ever finds out that he's lied, she would shut down without a warning, permanently.
• Dueling Hackers: Rinat was initially invited into "Dark Souls" after he accidentally went into conflict with Worm, and managed to hack through his defence (made by 2FED, no less)... while drunk.
• Epic Fail: Once ago, Worm and Rinat were hired by some guy to do a work for him. He then hired Jamba's thugs to threaten them into giving it up without paying. Unfortunately for the schmuck, Worm actually knows Jamba; after one call, the thugs turned on the schmuck and beaten him up, after which they forced him to pay the money he owes. Rinat thinks that they then forced him to pay to them as well, but he's not sure, they leaved too early.
• Establishing Character Moment: Our introduction to Vitaly tells everything we should know about him specifically and Raysa in general. He approaches four newcomers, and says that it doesn't matter who they were while free — here, it's him who would tell them what to do. Firstly, he approaches the single woman amongst them, and orders her to undress, saying that if he likes her, she would be his, otherwise, he would give her to the other prisoners; when she reacts aggressively, he calmly steps towards her, saying that he likes such "untameable tigresses"... only to hit her in the stomach, saying that they always turns into scared chickens, and tells her to only get up when she decides to undress, or she would fall again, this time forever. Another newcomer tries to appeal to his prior authority (he was a criminal boss), only to be knocked out despite all his attempts to fight back, after which Vitaly says that many fools like him have tried to show how cool they are, only to being brutally put in place. The third one introduces himself as Tiger, and says that he would work, after which Vitaly calmly explains what he must do, and how it would end if he wouldn't (the prisoners are only fed if they work, so if no one would work, the high-ranking prisoners would eat the low ones). The fourth and final one is Worm, with recommendations from Jamba, so Vitaly accepts him relatively friendly... but warns that if he tries to exploit it, Vitaly would punish him, and punish hard.
• Fall Guy: At one point, "Ventrue" received a contract to hack the database of one airport in Tel-Aviv, with client being some unanimous group (later revealed to be related to "Al-Qaeda"). Nothing serious, the client only wanted the names of the passengers; the contract was fulfilled by four clan members. Meanwhile, "Ventrue's" rivals, "White Wolves" and "Stalkers", have received another contract from "Al-Qaeda", which resulted in the infamous terrorist attack and deaths of seven hundred people; they got away with it, and all the blame was put on "Ventrue". One of "Ventrue" members, Kostya "Coconut" Kosin, had lost his wife and little daughter in that terrorist attack, and, believing that his clan is to blame, ratted them out to police, which resulted in fourteen out of twenty people being arrested and put to Raysa, Coconut included; only six of them managed to run away and lay low, amongst them were 2FED, Worm and Sanych. This event is what motivated Coconut — now known as Jet — to hunt down the other hackers.
• Fate Worse than Death: Jet throws Ilya out of the window from the eighteenth store. He survives by falling on a tree, but it leaves him permanently paralysed, and it's said that perhaps it would've been best for him to just die instead. Ilya seems to share this view, as his newly-gained disability put him into permanent depression (not in the last turn due to his permanent solitude), which he fights with boring chatting and marijuana.
• Greed: One of central themes is how the greed can ruin lives:
  • The open contract, just as expected, ended up being a Schmuck Bait, with everyone trying to earn those money getting into troubles and often dying, including entire "White Wolves" and "Stalkers" clans. And this project ultimately ruins the lives of nearly everyone in the "Dark Souls" clan, directly or indirectly.
  • Both Jamba and Novak tries to exploit Alisa to gain large amount of money. Jamba, who asked nicely, gets politely rejected, while Novak, who tried to blackmail her, gets his money — and then gets utterly destroyed.
• Hacker Collective:
  • Besides "Dark Souls" clan (the group to which Rinat and his friends belongs), there are two rival clans, "Stalkers" and "White Wolves" (a Russian and Ukrainian teams, respectively), both having connections with mafia. "Dark Souls" are led by their secretive leader 2FED, while "Wolves" and "Stalkers" are led by the hackers named Ench and Span, respectively. "Wolves" and "Stalkers" ends up being wiped out by Jet, while "Dark Souls" lays low in attempt to survive.
  • Long before "Dark Souls", there used to be a group named "Ventrue", of which 2FED was a former leader (under nickname Waspworth); it also included Worm, Sanych and Jet (then known as Coconut). They dissolved after being tricked into assisting in a terrorist attack (which, amongst the other things, killed Jets' family), after which Jet put the police on their heads.
• Hazy-Feel Turn:
  • After conversing with Alisa, Jet loses interest to hunting former Ventrue hackers, and calms down in general; according to Alisa, he's tired of killing. Was he the good guy before? Did he became a good guy now? It may be impossible to tell, given that he was hacker-turned-cop with Judge, Jury, and Executioner approach to his job, until his past was revealed, and now he's a criminal again, albeit now neutral, not working with anyone.
  • It's unknown whether Alisa was evil before, or whether she became good after, but she certainly changed after seeing how Rinat chose to save his cat Romero over his personal safety; this single event convinced her to stop intervening into the lives of Rinat and other "test subjects", at least in radical way.
• He Knows Too Much: Jet asks his former subordinate (and closest he has to a friend) Mace to assist in capturing Worm (whom Jet plans to use to find 2FED and the rest). When Mace refuses, saying that he can't assist in what would end in his coworkers being killed, Jet kills him, as he already told him too much. Later it turns out that Mace has reported him already, in one way or another.
• Hellhole Prison: Raysa, the special experimental city-sized prison (made by, and controlled by "Wolholland" corporation) designated for murderers, rapists and, since the Tel-Aviv terrorist attack, hackers, with no segregation by age, gender or faith. It has (deserved) reputation of the absolute hell, with no chance to escape or get a parole (only live through your sentence... if you can), "kill or be killed" mindset of the prisoners (guards almost never intervene, the convicts are left to survive on their own, receiving only food — and only if they work for it; the local thugs are fine with eating those who leave them with no food), and occasional illegal experiments on the convicts, or the corporation's enforces using the inmates to "train" their combat skills. There's no supervision from the government, and no control over abuse the inmates suffers; and if journalists tries to uncover too much, they ends up either in Raysa, in asylum or in the shallow grave.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard:
  • Creators of "Werewolf" have planned to create the AI with ability to self-educate. Knowing that it may try something nasty, they have installed some security measures which "Werewolf" can't control. Despite them, "Werewolf" has managed to wipe out everyone on the facility, and now the corporation needs the hackers from outside to regain control over "Werewolf"... or, rather, the "Werewolf" wants the hackers to believe that it's the corporation which hires them, but actually it needs them to get the absolute freedom.
  • Jet kills Sallah-Ad-Din by taking his Tuki-Tuki and smashing it into his face hard enough to break his skull into a bloody mess and make the cane stuck in it.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Someone (later revealed to be Alisa) informs the police that Jet (the chief of Russian Department of Network Security) is actually a former hacker Coconut: the runaway member of infamous "Ventrue" clan, the runaway Raysa prisoner, and the murderer with long killing spree, with just as bloody hands as a cop, not to mention, an imp, which makes him the target for the police himself, and forces him to go on the run.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All chapters are numbered using binary code. Considering that it's cyberpunk novel about hackers, it fits quite well.
• Incompatible Orientation: Lilu was also hit by Alisa's schemes, albeit offscreen; we get no details, but it involves some guy named Phil, with whom Lilu was in love, but their relationship broke apart, and Alisa states that she had no chance anyway: Phil was gay, but never told her so.
• Insistent Terminology: Sanych repeatedly calls Keda "girl" despite being told not to, to show his dismissal of her. At one point he outright accents it, to demonstrate that he doesn't care what she thinks.
• I Resemble That Remark!: Alisa refuses to help Rinat in any way, justifying it by him possibly becoming too dependant on her helping him. Later, when asked enough times, she gives him the list of possible contracts involving his programming skills (all fully legal). When Rinat reluctantly accepts one of them, he wastes all the time doing nothing, and then asks Alisa to do the work for him; she refuses.
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • "White Wolves" and "Stalkers" were hired by "Al-Qaeda" to assist them in the terrorist attack in Tel-Aviv, with another clan, "Ventrue", being framed for their actions. Years later, one of the former "Ventrue" members whose life they have ruined joins with them to work on another heist, only to wipe them out in the end.
  • One of the last chapters has Alisa uniting with Jet to track down Al-Qaeda's leader (the guy behind the Tel-Aviv terrorist attack, which killed Jet's family). The epilogue shows that they're about to make a raid on him, which he has no chance to survive.
  • Besides sealing the fate of Al-Qaeda's leader, the epilogue also implies that Alisa is about to strike down at "Wolholland" corporation, making them pay for their crimes.
• Karmic Death: "Stalkers" and "White Wolves" gets wiped out by the very man whose life they have ruined long time ago, even if he never realises it, and kills them for unrelated reasons. Had they never worked for Al-Qaeda, he wouldn't have been here in the first place.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • Subverted with Jet; while Rinat sees in a news report that Jet was killed at arrest attempt, after anonymous report from "some woman", the very next chapter shows that he was captured by "Wolholland" instead.
  • Harry Novak was "killed during escape attempt".
  • We learn about Sallah-Ad-Din's death post-factum; Jet, through having both the implants and the "Shadow" installed, easily (and brutally) kills him with his own sword-cane.
• Mugging the Monster: When Alisa fakes Jamba's voice to order Jamba's men to give the guys who abducted Ruben's daughter to police (instead of killing them), Jamba threatens to kills Rinat and destroy Alisa if she does something like this again. She says that she already did countless backups far outside his reach, and says that they may come to agreement: Jamba leaves them alone, and Alisa wouldn't give the police evidences they need to prosecute Jamba and his associates. Jamba calmly capitulates.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • When Rinat chose to go back home to take his cat Romero (who would likely die there if Rinat goes on the run, cause he's locked), Worm at first refuses, saying that the Network Police is hunting for them and it's exactly where he would be searched for first, but ultimately lets him. He turns out to be entirely right, and Rinat gets ambushed on his way back, and only escapes because Worm attacks the cops, which results in Worm himself being presumably killed.
  • Alisa hacking the police database to show off before Jamba by demonstrating him her skills attracts attention of the Network Police (which finds nothing interesting for them), and, through their report, "Wolholland" corporation (which does connect the dots). This results in Rinat being arrested soon afterwards.
• Pet the Dog: Despite doing some... highly questionable things, Alisa is not heartless, and does some good things on her own accord.
  • Alisa offers Ilya the tools to undo damage done to him by Jet; once the equipment gets prepared, he would get his legs back.
  • Alisa offers Jet help with tracking down the true culprit behind his family's death, the current leader of "Al-Qaeda".
  • Alisa manipulates the former "Dark Souls" members to get them back together, which leads to them restoring their friendship. It's also implied that Rinat may end up in relationship with Lilu.
• Private Profit Prison: Raysa is controlled by the "Wolholland" corporation, which uses the prisoners to do manual work (officially), as well as committing the illegal experiments on them (obviously, not officially).
• The Purge: In 2018, Jet has purged a lot of hackers across the world; this event is still known simply as The Purge, and is what made Jet the most dreaded figure for any hacker.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Alisa gives Rinat an ultimatum (either he quits smoking marijuana, or she would cut all ties with him), he tries to blackmail her by threatening to turn off TV, leaving her without the series she watches. She reacts by giving him the prognosis for how his life would go if he wouldn't listen:
  Alisa: Go. You're weak, you can't hold your word, you can't control your desires and, with 70% probability, here, in solitude, you would become a drug addict. While the other humans are living full lives, falling in love, making children and building houses, you're gonna slowly die here, fearing to leave the house. The further, the more often you would have the suicidal thoughts, and one day they would overwhelm you, unless you would become a schizophrenic and paranoiac before then. Goodbye.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Jet is ready to work with "Dark Souls"... but they are not ready to work with him, after everything what he did in the past (even if 2FED forgives him).
  Worm: You want to take the place of Keda, whom you've killed, and work alongside Ilya, whom you've threw out of the window? Back then, we, "Ventrue", were framed, but you chose to believe that crap of which we were accused rather than your friends. How could you believe that we can do something like this? What you gonna do now? Rat us out again? Or finish what you have planned for years?
• Refuge in Audacity: According to Keda, the first thing Tyapa tried when met her was blatant attempt to suggest sex. When she informed him that she's an imp, just to see his reaction, this somehow made him ''even hornier", of which he immediately informed her. The sheer absurdity of situation made her unable to get angry at him. She didn't mention the name, but Rinat immediately recognised Tyapa from description alone. Both laughs at that story.
• The Rival: Two hacker clans, "Stalkers" (a Russian clan led by Span) and "White Wolves" (an Ukrainian clan led by Ench) have a long history of rivalry and even open confrontations with shoots-outs and people getting killed. This makes it all the more surprising when Jet unites them to do the job.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • At one point, it's presumed that the open contract on hacking the server of "Wolholland"-controlled psychiatric clinic (which had no patients ever since it was established), offered by some no-name American IT company, may be a trap to bait as many hackers as possible and then just hunt them down (especially since everyone who have tried before ended badly). The truth turns out much more complicated, but the contract indeed turns out to be a trap... set up specifically for "Dark Souls" clan.
  • Span sees something fishy with Jet offering him to work together (he also brings along "White Wolves", but that's less suspicious). He turns out to be right, as Jet disposes of them when another clan hacks the server.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Ventrue" clan was named after namesake vampire clan from Vampire: The Masquerade (or, rather, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, a video game set in the setting).
  • "Dark Souls" clan is named after namesake video game series.
• Something Only They Would Say: When Jet visits Rinat and mentions that he wants to see his animal, Rinat understands that Jet and Alisa are now working together.
• Theme Naming: Both of 2FED's clans have video games as the source of their names. It may or may not have something to do with 2FED's age.
• Totalitarian Gangsterism: Much of the reason why Raysa is the Hellhole Prison it is lies in the fact that the convicts are free to do to each other whatever they want, with almost no control, and those who can establish their rule, are free to do so. The corporation only intervenes when some gangsters gains too much power, as they prefer anarchy: having the people scared and desperate makes them easier to control.
• Tuckerization: Many characters, including major ones, got their nicknames from the people the author knows in real life. Sanych was named after the author himself.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The novel is set in unspecified year, but at least two decades into the future (by the time of writing).
• The Unreveal: It seems that 2FED's identity is about to be revealed... but Alisa refuses to talk about it. However, later Worm tells Rinat himself: 2FED is a seventeen-years old boy living with his family in Spain; back in the times of "Ventrue", he was even younger.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 10110 is the chapter where Sanych gets killed, and Keda captured, when Network Police and Jet specifically goes after "Dark Souls" clan. The things would only go downhills from there.
  • Chapter 1000011 has Alisa gathering the remnants of "Dark Souls", and revealing the truth about herself and her involvement in the plot: everything bad which has happened to them in the last few months was in one way or another related to Alisa... but it was all part of the experiment, and she means no harm to them now.
• White-Collar Crime:
  • Majority of characters are hackers, and while rival clans occasionally do fight each other through physical violence, most of their crimes happens online. In this world, after one resonance terrorist attack, the hackers became the main modern boogeyman, leading to creation of dedicated international police, and severe punishments for anyone who gets caught; by "severe" we mean Hellhole Prison which is commonly considered to be equal to Place Worse Than Death.
  • At some point, Jamba, Vitaly and Ruben got drunk, made some paintings, and sold them to a group of pretentious fools by tricking them into believing that it's some modern art.
• The Worf Effect: Malenkiy was established as the strongest fighter in Raysa early on. But Sallah-Ad-Din effortlessly kills him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Jet unites both "Stalkers" and "Wolves" to participate in attack on "Werewolf" server. But "Dark Souls" gets there first. Jet, no longer needing his allies, disposes of them, killing entire "Stalker" clan, including their leader Span, while Ench and "White Wolves" gets killed by one of their fighters, now working for Jet. He then attacks "Dark Souls" too, resulting in Sanych being killed, and Keda captured.

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