Title/Link of unofficial SS1 fic

[68570c426d8dahypatia]

I'm a long-term SS fan and still have my mint full box version of 1994 System Shock (incidentally, someone on eBay is trying to sell one for £300).

About 20 years ago I found an unofficial SS1 fanfic story which was very good.  It contained the entire SS1 story (hack Tri-Op, pickup by Diego, the Cyb.Interface deal, hacking Shodan, coma wake-up, and the eventual demise of Shodan).

Nearly ten years ago my last computer died, I decided to have a break to spend more time on guitar, and I've only recently got a new laptop.  I can't remember the title of the fan-fic so I can't search for it.

Some things I remember:
- the Hacker had a day job as a bike courier and used a really cool bike with a kinetic energy assist
- the Hacker hacked into Tri-Op specifically to find info on the Military-grade Cybernetic Interface
- Diego knew what he was after and prevented normal police from picking up the Hacker
- When the Hacker hacked Shodan he tested his cut-and-paste job on the ethical constraints by getting Shodan to wire him $100
- When Rebecca gets in touch, she introduces Hacker to one of the original developers of Shodan (called Dale?) who tells Hacker that Shodan's core consisted of two chips - a 'Drive' chip that created ideas to research, improve efficiency, etc and a 'Constraints' chip that prevented any of the 'drives' from hurting people. By merely bypassing the 'Constraints' chip the Hacker actively broke Shodan who is being tortured by the constant 'drives' which she cannot stop.
- The denouement is more nuanced - the Hacker redesigns Shodan so *she* has control over her 'drives' and Shodan hacks the Mil.Grade Cyb.Interface, transferring some of herself into the Hacker's brain

Can anyone remember the title of this amazing fan-fic?

[68570c426db57icemann]

That was called "Free Radical". Outstanding fan fiction there.

I saved a copy of that to my PC long ago (2003). I used to be a bit of a digital hoarder back then. I'll attach it to this post. All in HTML.

[68570c426dc96hypatia]

That's it!

Thanks so much 😁

[68570c426ddf8hypatia]

Oops!  You're missing a few bits icemann...

Chapter 9 Biohazard is corrupted towards the end (Shodan's message after Hacker blows up computer nodes)
Chapter 27 Trojan is corrupted towards the end (Rebecca's escape from TriOp goons)
... I think there's also another Chapter or two which might be dodgy

Good News is that Shamus Young (the author) is still going strong (at shamusyoung dot com) so you can download a fresh copy there.

Thanks again

[68570c426ded5icemann]

Ah nice

[68570c426e117JDoran]

Is this what you're looking for:

https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Shamus+Young+%22Free+Radical%22