Acquiring Programs

Getting a new Verb or Subject isn’t as simple as buying it off the rack or copying it from a friend. The programs that hackers use are profoundly illicit, programmed to sneak under corporate security barriers and ignore corporate spyware requirements. Each one is a work of digital art that relies on secret corporate database taps, spoofed security certificates, and unpatched exploit lists. If such a program was simply copied, the doubled hit on those resources would instantly flag both programs as threats and ruin them for any practical use.

As such, these programs are painstakingly designed one-by-one by expert criminal codesmiths and sold and traded among the hackers of a city. The prices given on the chart for Verbs and Subjects reflect the usual fees charged for such things; any competent hacker will know where to buy them.

Writing Programs

Crafting a constant stream of usable Verbs and Subjects for sale is impractical for most PCs. The work requires contacts with a host of insider moles in corporate databases, criminal data launderers, and subject-field specialists in hardware security subversion.

While few hackers have the time or resources to write illicit programs as a business, most can manage to keep a few of their most important needs satisfied through their own coding prowess. A sufficiently talented hacker skill can maintain a few usable Verbs and Subjects, keeping them up-to-date and concealed from ubiquitous corporate DRM.

Writing a Verb or Subject takes at least Program-1 skill and one week, less one day per level of Program skill. Two such programs can be maintained at once per level of Program skill, so a PC with Program-2 can maintain up to four total Verbs and Subjects at once. They might choose to keep Glitch, Blind, Cyber, and Camera available this way, after a few weeks of work to write the code. Code that is abandoned in favor of a new program must be rewritten from scratch if the hacker needs it once again, as entirely new security bypasses must be researched and implemented.

Characters with the Hacker Edge gain eight Verbs or Subjects at the start of the game. These do not count against their programming limits and can be re-written if erased at the usual time requirements. They cannot be changed once selected, however.

Hackers can also write specialized or unique Subjects, often in preparation for a mission. If a hacker can find out the exact model of camera or electronic lock their target is using, they can write a unique Subject aimed at that specific device, gaining a +2 bonus on their skill checks to overcome its security difficulty.