Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesAug 7, 2021 1:02:53 GMT Post by Nexus on Aug 7, 2021 1:02:53 GMT2698 is here to stay. Man's ascension to the stars was originally one of scientific curiosity and drunken utopianism, the dreams of future generations basking in the light of alien suns being the ultimate initiative. Technology advanced at an insurmountable pace, and with the unlocking of the razor-edge Tepiltzin-Csanád Drive, the flow of history was finally open to hearken its children unto the greater universe. Biological uplift, cybernetic immortality, and the crowning of Man as the new God was to be carried out in proud affront to the deities of the old. It seems that God had no need to play in the game of deification, for the folly of Man soon brought itself down into the lowest depths of existence. Interstellar war and colonial uprising shattered the humanist, utopiandreams of the hedonistic forefathers and brought forth an era of pain, tribulation, and the dawn of the human reality. No matter the technological advancements, and no matter the espoused new-age dogma of transhumanist endeavor, the soul of man was damned to want. The want for independence, for autonomy, for money, and for power sundered these falsehoods and forced the hand of Man to act in kind. Gone was the dream of solar-kissed silicon utopia; in was the dystopic reality of war, pestilence, famine, and death. It is the year 2698, and the 27th Century of mankind turns to a close. Numerous insurrectionist movements and pirate fleets chip away at the periphery of the all-encompassing Coalition of Congressional Republicsthat has bounded all of humanity into one monolithic polity. The recent pyrrhic victory of the Belial Warhas left the military-industrial complex turning inwards unto the Coalition's citizenry, with the militarization of police and the garrison of Coalition Forces Authoritytroops across the core and colonies rolling out in an attempt to squash the rampant crime and corruption. Hyperion, the second planet from the star of Hathor within the core of the Coalition, is one such example of the rampant presence of basal human vices. Originally a labor-oriented world with focus on the production or breakdown of starships, it has metamorphosed into a world of over a hundred billion souls that clash with one another. Money, power, pleasure - all reasons for the never-ending crime and pain. Such a world has spawned generations of criminals, gangsters, and neer-do-wells that clash constantly with one another and with the law enforcement that struggle to keep the peace. The amount of blood spilled and drugs produced means that money is to be made. This is the story of one such group of profiteers, seeking to make their own money and leave their own mark on Hyperion and humanity at large. Riches and victory or failure and agony await those who play this game of destiny; and it is yours to behold. If they live or if they die, the cycle will still chug on unto infinity. Not all stories are conducted as a collective symphony. The tales of how these people came to be lie mainly in their own individual struggles, ranging from the memories of years past to the machinations of life that plague the very present. In between team efforts, some of these folk lead simple lives, while others continue to chase the adrenaline of successful hits and runs on their lonesome. These are their stories; stories of the strugglesthat they endure. |
NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesAug 9, 2021 7:07:20 GMT Post by Nexus on Aug 9, 2021 7:07:20 GMTReprieve to Freedom Jaxon "Mohe" Kende is a man who, for all intents and purposes, is new to the megalopoli games of megacity crime and cultural flavor that Hyperion has to offer. Being locked deep within the bowels of the Southern Albion Penitentiary for eleven years without any friends or family waiting on the outside for him, Mohe was acclimated to his prison life of idleness in between cracking the skulls of those who got in his way inside. However, a recent move by the Hyperion planetary government in order to process the millions of high-tier criminals in lower jails has meant that a new offer of life has been extended to Mohe and hundreds of thousands who committed crimes below that of murder. For his fifteen-year charge of armed robbery, Mohe will find out early on the tantalizing taste of freedom; including the future choices and vices that await.
The prison cell that Mohe called home for the last eleven or so years — at least, when he wasn’t thrown into isolation for beating someone to near death for trying to bribe for commissary or attempting to “buck up” to him — was quaint as it always was. Four gunmetal walls of God-knows-how-thick steel surrounding Mohe on all sides in his solo cell, with the only access to anything beyond incarnating as a silent metallic auto-door, its sharp jaws firmly shut. Even so, with the decade or more that Mohe had spent down deep in the hole, it wasn’t all dreary; from commissary, he was able to eventually purchase his own sh*tty plastic posters of random centuries-old women to cover up the dings, scratches, and rusts that had accrued over the years. Mohe was at that moment sprawled upon his dull gray mattress, looking upon the grid-locked fan that laid above cycle slowly. Wannabe escape artists that ended up in the hole always attempted to break off such grids and think there was a route out; instead, they’d find a hole that lead to a pipe no thicker than the width of one’s palm. He remembers hearing the frustrating cries from nearby cells whenever such a thing happened. The man chuckled over the thought as he slowly got up from the bed below. It was strewn about with random items ranging from dulled-paper magazines to the improvised iron pipe that he had made a few months ago in order to exploit hits of kreggy. At least, whenever they made their rounds throughout the prison and were smuggled in by a “charitable” corrections officer. The pipe burned like a bitch in one’s naked palm, but there was no other materials to fashion it out of; everything sold to prisoners were either made out of dull and pliable recycled paper or plastic. That was why his was wrapped in chunks of magazines that he didn’t give a sh*t about, their words slowly being burnt away and ferried unto the fan above on a wisp of smoke. Mohe had none of that stuff at the moment, however, and it wouldn’t be until another four hours until his block would be allowed to process out onto the yard. This meant that he was essentially doomed until then to more mulling-overs of old books, endless calisthenics, and silent meditations under the cycling clicks of the overhead vent. Instead of committing to any of these monotonous activities, Mohe instead opted to walk over to the mirror that laid above the cell’s sink-toilet amalgamation. He looked at himself in the mirror, and noticed that the orange jumpsuit he wore covered the spanning tribal tattoo that originated from the core of his chest. His platinum teeth glistened underneath the sick white light of the cell, and were a good change to the otherwise blandness of his white skin and the ugly orange that his jumpsuit sported. His physique, muscular and toned, was one necessary for survival within the penitentiary, for two reasons: the first was the obvious, with a need to have a body built for defense and offense alike against prisoners who sought to shank you at any possible chance that they’re given. The second, less obvious reason was to train the mind to pay attention towards a goal in the otherwise boring hell that prison was. This meant that Mohe called the gym and the floor of his cell home, using weightlifting equipment and committing to cardio and calisthenics alike whenever he could. Over the course of several years, this yielded a man who was able to stand among the veterans of this massive penitentiary and demand respect. Sure, he wasn’t the true old guard that have been serving their life sentences for utter decades, but he knew his capacities and what to do or not do. As he grinned and flexed his biceps into the mirror in an act of confidence, a sudden bleep emanated throughout the room that snatched this expression off of his face. Turning instantly towards the front of the cell, he noticed a hologram dancing in front of the normally locked door console. Its red holography flashed an exclamation mark encapsulated within a pyramid, with the words “PREPARE FOR TRANSPORT” orbiting it like a moon. Mohe stood there dumbfounded, but rushed to quickly shove his pipe underneath the mattress of his bed and assumed a position where his face and frontal body were pushed onto the wall, hands splayed on both sides and above his head as procedure. He did not want to be thrown into an iso-cell again; the last time that happened, he almost bashed his own head in against the walls of that cramped box out of boredom. His eyes now staring at the minuscule roughed details of the gunmetal cell wall, all he could do was anticipate what he was being “transported” for as he listened to the sound of his autodoor opening. However, instead of the usual dull thuds of a corrections officer’s boot, he heard the rough slams of something metallic against a similarly steel-plated floor. When he realized what it was, Mohe’s body briefly surged with adrenaline as a means of a fight — or, more rationally, a flight — but he nevertheless kept his composure.
Complying for fear of getting smacked over the head by a robotically-held baton, he drifted his arms down to his hips. At once he felt an immense force tug them backward before having a pair of heavy duty cuffs magnetically lock around each of his wrists.
“Can you be careful, eh? Is that too hard to ask of a f*ckin’ gov-bot?” “NEXT AGGRESSIVE VOCALIZATION MAY RESULT IN CHARGES. PLEASE BE SILENT AND FOLLOW THE ASSEMBLY.” “The assembly? What the f*ck are you-...” Mohe stopped speaking once he walked past the threshold of his cell and into the spanning, seemingly infinite gangway and greater atrium. Levels upon levels of auto-doors hiding cells similar to his were stacked across the gulf of empty air between his gangway and others, with each and every single one filled with prisoners being escorted by either human officers or androids. Everyone was heading towards Mohe’s right, and he was subsequently shoved in that direction by his “entourage” and forced to march in a column along with hundreds of others on his level. “The hell is happening? This doesn’t seem like f*ckin’ gym time to me — and that’s not supposed to happen for a few hours, is it?” “YOU ARE BEING TRANSPORTED TO A TEMPORARY PROCESSING FACILITY. THESE ARE ORDERS OF THE SOUTHERN ALBION PENTITENTIARY WARDENS.” “What!? I didn’t ask for no goddamn transfer, you dickhe*d—!” The slam of the droid’s baton into Mohe’s side made him buckle slightly before the strength of its arms hoisted him back up and immediately into marching position. “VOCAL AGGRESSION CHARGE WAIVED. WARNING: WAIVER WILL NOT BE ISSUED AGAIN.” Mohe did nothing but keep his mouth shut, albeit in a silent rage, and marched behind yet another corrections droid hauling its own prisoner in front. His charge for armed robbery was to end in about four years, and he had most of his charges for “self-defense” against other prisoners pardoned. Whatever was happening was clearly way beyond his control, and he didn’t like the feeling of it in any way. Such a massive movement of prisoners meant to him only one thing: transport off-world. Hyperion, despite being the planet he was held on for over a decade, was alien to him; yet the thought of being shipped off to a truly alien world to do god-knows-what was unnerving, to say the least. As he walked, he noticed in the void between the two portions of the penitentiary block the flight of several camera droids and other spherical machines in flight. He habitually turned his face away from them, but overhearing the shouts of prisoners nearby, he was proven right in doing so. “WHY THE f*ck’RE THE NEWS HERE? HUH!?” “f*ck you, and you, and you! I hope y’all get this, you journo f*ck-wits!” For the life of him, Mohe could not understand why corporate news stations out of all things were being let into the block and given the right to broadcast to potentially millions, if not billions across Hyperion. He would find out soon enough. What was once Mohe’s block’s designated yard had now become a massive field of nothing but cheap pre-fabricated cubes, all of which being organized in a grid format across a massive concrete field. Despite it apparently being the afternoon, the sky was already cloaked in a sea of gray overcast that threatened rain at any given moment. In between the thousand or so cubes that lied upon the yard were tens of thousands of prisoners, standing in haphazard lines and being guided or watched by squads of corrections officers and droids everywhere that Mohe could see. He was being guided to the yard in a massive platform that took him and dozens of others down from his cell block on a slope downward towards the crowded masses that waited on the floor below. Soon enough, the platform stopped, with its yellow gates flinging open automatically. The droids and officers pushed their respective prisoners out onto the crowded yardspace before shutting the gates behind them, having the platform ferry the corrections officers back up in order to possibly clear out more of the block. Mohe tapped the upper arm of a scrawny prisoner, scaring the smaller man at first. However, Mohe’s neutral demeanor allowed the prisoner to turn to him amidst the cacophony of voices and alarms. “Hey, d’you know what the f*ck’s going on?” The shrill blare of a nearby siren was accompanied by the arrival of several officers and droids, with the humans among them sporting fatigue beneath the visors of their masks. One of them, a human senior corrections officer, stepped forward. “Once you join it, you keep goin’ forward until an officer, droid, or whoever the f*ck else flags you down to enter one of these boxes.” Mohe couldn’t believe it. He stroked the buzzed top of his head with both of his calloused hands in total surprise, and even a bit of gleeful anticipation. Finally, the time had come for Mohe to get the hell out of the hell-hole that he had got himself in for over ten years; he was truly attesting such a miracle to God and the spirits of his ancestors that he had reconciled with after finding out of his ancestry while in prison. He had to break a few skulls for people to stop calling him a “redskin” every time he was in the cafeteria, but it seemed to have slipped away under the radar enough for him to be escorted to what stood before him now. He and several other men joined the nearest queue, which was guarded by several heavy riot droids that stood vigilant in shield formation. Their sensors seemed to follow Mohe and the others as the minutes rolled by, with his walk past several of these pre-fab structures allowing him to see men both stepping out in total joy, in broken sadness, or in absolute rage — the latter having necessitated the intervention of the overwatch riot droids. “Parole... f*ck, can you believe it?” asked a dark-skinned man behind Mohe, sporting a similar muscular physique beneath a white t-shirt that rose from a blossomed and unfurled orange jumpsuit around his waist. “Me? Well... I’m a spiritual guy, so yeah, I can,” Mohe responded, his head angled so that he could both pay attention to the conversation and if an officer were to be flagging him down. “sh*t, man... I’ve been in this joint for fifteen years. Fifteen-motherf*cking-years. My son’s already an adult out there... I was supposed to be in here for thirty.” “For real?” “I’ve already served eleven of my fifteen years in this sh*thole... I got arrested after trying to rob some expensive microprocessors during transport on some hyperhighway that I can’t remember. I was eighteen.” “Got-dayum... you’re twenty six!? Man, you’re built like me, and I’m forty-five! Don’t know if that says something about you young motherf*ckers or about my old ass...” As their conversation went on, an officer stepped out of the various CO formations and walked up to Mohe directly, prodding his bare chest with the end of his baton. “You, with the f*ckin’ heya-hooya tattoo; go in that box there.” The man said nothing in response as Mohe fell silent. Instead, he was typing away on a portable computer with a one-way glass screen, the glow of whatever lied on the other side of the glass’s surface being shown as a multi-colored spectrum over the man’s glasses. “Age twenty-six, English-Hungarian. Born on Deimos, in the Solar System, on the thirtieth of December, 2675. Unknown father, deceased mother, no siblings, no listed contacts of any kind on the planet of Hyperion or the greater Hathor star system. Is this correct?” “Yeah, it is.” “According to Coalition-wide parole regulations, you are required to have proof of a possible residence or career opportunity prior to discharge. However, with the recent planetary mandate, you are being extended a parole offer due to the fact that your charge is considered to be within the field of regulatory waiver. Do you understand?” “Yes, sir, I understand.” “...Why did you apply to change your first name to ‘Mohe’?” “A new change of identity, you know. Something to get away from the sh*t I did in the past.” “Does it have something to do with that tattoo?” “I... don’t really care. However, I have the ability to change your name right here and now, given that you don’t exist anywhere in the Hathor system other than ‘908469-5’, and this can cycle up to your Coalition supra-citizenship. Do you want it changed or not?” “...f*ck, yeah, that’d be appreciated.” “You seem like you know how to carry yourself, and your crime wasn’t major. You have no family or any goddamn connections whatsoever here, so this is cleanest slate you can possibly build on. I deem you valid of parole as of the 1st of January, 2698 and approved for discharge.” Mohe’s head bobbed down in relief. However, before he could send off a prayer, the man before him still had a few words to say. “Yeah.” “Good. Your case is henceforth considered approved. Take one of these,” “It’s your ticket off this rig and back into society.” Mohe and thousands of prisoners alike stood assembled at one of the hangars of the Southern Albion Penitentiary, which was a slot-like space that hanged several hundred feet off of the raging and choppy sea below. He never truly knew the extent of the SAP until then, and it came into his mind that the prison was nothing but a massive ocean rig smack dab within hundreds of miles of turbulent and polluted water. The thought gave him a slight pit in his stomach, but such a feeling dissipated when he slipped off his prison jumpsuit in instruction of nearby officers and donned a generic gray shirt with matching pants. They felt like utter sh*t thanks to the cheap synth-thread fabricwork, but it was better than being out in the real world with an orange prison uniform on. That was property of the state, anyway. The air rumbled as a large, delta-winged hovercraft idled near the entrance of the hangar prior to taxiing in with the aid of droids waving their amber guiding lights in straight angles. The word CORRECTIONS was written in a bold white font amidst the craft’s otherwise gray superstructure, and as it entered the hangar, Mohe could feel the force of its engines from his waiting postion that was cordoned off by hexagonal-linked fencing. When the hovercraft parked in full, the gate to the hanger itself was opened by a pair of corrections officers who, in assistance with droids, guided the prisoners out and towards the craft, its engines still on and sending a turbulent wind throughout the hangar that flapped Mohe’s new clothing to and fro from such power. He carried an almost empty duffel bag in his hands, which only held the Christian annotated Bible he was fond of highlighting within and the bare essentials of his newly-minted identification cards. Noticing other hovercraft entering the hanger in tow and creating an even more violent atmosphere within the hangar, he and hundreds of other prisoners jogged along the indoor tarmac towards their craft’s own open side doors. There, Mohe boarded the craft upon its skeletal extended stairs, and met the interior atmosphere of dim yellow lights and no benches of any kind in sight. “Those coming in first, sit with your backs to the walls. Come on, we ain’t got all day!” Mohe and the others gradually heeded the instructions of the onboard officers, and he found a spot near one of the craft’s windows. He placed his almost-empty duffel bag beneath the window and sat on it, with its center depressing from the empty air within being displaced. Soon enough, other parolees followed suit, the large interior of the fuselage growing with impromptu bag-benches of their own. Two men sat to Mohe’s left and right, with the one on the left immediately closing his eyes as if to sleep. The one to the right had his left arm entirely gone, with only a cybernetic implant slot visible near his shoulder.
“Yeah. Cheap f*cks said I didn’t lose both of my arms, so there’s no point to keeping one,” said the man, who seemed to be even older than the prisoner that Mohe had talked to while waiting for his brief parole “hearing”. “Do you know where the hell this thing's going to?” Mohe asked. “Damn, I have no idea; I lost my home in Porto Saudade a long time ago, so they sure as sh*t ain’t bringing me there. As long as its far, far away from here, I’m good!” the man replied, chuckling as he raised his right fist in the air. Mohe noticed that it sported a tattoo of an eagle surrounding a planet; one that many veterans came into the prison with tattooed on their bodies. “You were in the military?” Mohe asked, pointing at the man’s tattoo. “The hell did an old geezer like you do to get locked up in here?” “Some implant-scalping little c*nts tried taking my old arm off me near where I lived. Shot them dead in the middle of the street; the f*cking homeowner’s association that owned the apartment block where I shot ‘em didn’t like that. Said it lowered property value. This planet — no, this country — has no respect. All about money.” Mohe woke up from the nap that he had inadvertently taken to the rumbling of a landing craft. He could have sworn that he already felt such a thing before, but in the haze of waking up, he could only preoccupy his mind with the shouts from the onboard officers that emerged into the fuselage from somewhere in the front of the hovercraft. Mohe grabbed the sling for his bag and hoisted it over his shoulders before waiting for the craft to come to a standstill. Peeking out of his windows during such a process, he noticed that night had finally graced this side of Hyperion, with the neon skyline of the city all around the utterly massive aerospaceport glowing in a comforting amalgam of purple. He never got the chance to appreciate cities like this for all of his life, since he spent one half stuck in a moon’s interior and the next in prison. Now was such a time. With the craft coming to a full stop before a terminal with a crown of green glass, he and the other parolees began to meander towards the exits. Mohe took the skeletal stairs of the corrections hovercraft down, and arrived in the pitter-patter of a light rain that fell against the charcoal black tarmac. The petrichor, carrying a slight caustic smell to it, was soothing to Mohe after spending years under the recycled air of his cell and the confined concrete musk of the yard back at his old prison. He stretched his body and his aching back muscles before continuing on towards the comforting green and white glow of the terminal before him. The corrections officers that were escorting the group stopped at the entrance of the terminal, where an assembly of regular police officers stood vigilant to receive the parolees. Entering the terminal itself soon after, Mohe felt the cool air of the air conditioning inside flow unto his dampened shirt. Looking around, he saw many families assembled on one side of a partition, where some of the parolees were taken and reunited. Having lost sight of the veteran he talked to on the craft, Mohe shrugged and continued on with the rest of the lone parolees into a more barren side of the terminal atrium. There, he cashed in the tag that was given to him by the agent who approved of his parole to an attending police officer. In return, he was given a transparent rainjacket and complementary umbrella, a currency card, and a basic InfoScape-accessible prepaid phone. He slid on the rainjacket and gripped the umbrella in his left hand as he shouldered his bag with his right, before looking back at the officer to ask a question. “One thousand and five-hundred Coalition notes, exact. Don’t lose it, or else you’re not getting it back. Same with the phone.” “And the umbrella...? The jacket...? What’s with this sh*t?” “It rains a lot here, if you didn’t know beforehand.” Mohe’s right eyebrow raised as soon as he heard that statement. “Where exactly is... ‘here’?” “Did they not tell you on that hovercraft?” He’s heard of Jade City before, specifically from the prisoners that originated here. It was one of the larger cities in the southern portion of the Albion continent, and that placed him within the city-spanning Jade City Aerospaceport. If he wanted to get out of there before the sun came up, he had to catch a train out of the area — something he experienced only ages ago. The train that Mohe took out of the Jade City Aerospaceport was surprisingly barren of any civilians at the time that he took it southbound, with its cars only being populated by the sprinklings of parolees that drifted away at various stops. When the clock on his phone read 11:00 p.m, Mohe found his train arriving at a district known as Rochefort. He exited the lowly-populated traincar and stepped onto a train platform protected by the pouring rain by a metallic overhang. With his bag and umbrella still in his hands, he exited the platform and walked towards an overhang that showcased a sprawling street avenue before him. It was true; he was free. Well, as free as a parolee could be. He brought the bag’s sling over his arm and held it in his shoulder as he leaned on the railing, his eyes drinking in the neon sights before him. An endless sea of storefront signs and holographic advertisem*nts poured out before him, scintillating in innumerable colors and combining into a chromatically amorphous soup in his retina. Combined with the pouring rain and the headlights of cars that drove beneath and flew above unto the hundreds of stories of stratascrapers and skyscrapers, it was a testament to the strength of the Coalition’s economy and the insignificance of Mohe amidst such an ocean of concrete, metal, glass, and neon. He left the railing in order to purchase a pack of cigarettes from a nearby autovendor, choosing one with a menthol flavoring due to its cooling effect and assistance in having a smoke after countless years. Pocketing it alongside a purchased lighter, he rode one of the station’s elevators down to the ground level and exited unto a sidewalk that bustled with the walk of people out for their New Year’s celebrations. He walked down the street for some time, noting the variety of pedestrians abound — from full-on synths in nothing but stretched t-shirts to various cyber-goths and preps alike crowding before side stands and storefront displays. Looking up, he saw a miscellany of civilian walkways that criss-crossed through the next sky, peppered with hovercraft traffic inbetween. Mohe, after soaking up the sights in full, opted to use his phone to digitally flag down a nearby taxi. He jogged for some time before he found the taxi parked in a sequestered parking lot hidden between two massive designer clothing stores; hopping inside, he noticed the thick bulletproof glass that partitioned the front of the taxi from the back. The driver himself was an old man who seemed to sport Spanish heritage. His grumpy expression was visible through the rear view mirror, and his phrases were short and curt. “Where to?” “...sh*t. I’m new to town, you know?” “...No, I don’t know. Where do you want to go?” “...Uh,” “Hope you like roaches, pal.” An hour later, Mohe found himself shirtless and sitting on the patio of his room within the motel that the taxi driver had located and driven to. Not far off from the very train station that he had came from, Mohe could still hear the rumblings of their passing through the echoes of the streets. Distant police sirens and car horns blared in the distance as Mohe smoked on a menthol cigarette, his eyes entirely focused on the busy nature of the streets below him and the designated flying lanes for hovercars above him. He let out a puff of smoke from his mouth before returning the cigarette to his lips, getting up from the rickety patio chair and returning inside with the sliding door still wide open. He opted to sit at the foot of his bed, the duffel bag with his belongings strewn to the left side and his umbrella and rain jacket to the right. Mohe simply sat there in the silence of the room and the distant ambiance of a living, breathing megalopolis, his mind running only with the thought of relief for freedom and a chance to live the way that he wanted to again. That way? Well, it wouldn’t be one that he would report to his parole officer. Mohe smiled at this notion, before leaving the squeaking mattress to return to the outside and to ash his cigarette against the tray that was present.
|
Last Edit: Nov 15, 2022 8:44:08 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesNov 6, 2021 3:42:58 GMT Post by Nexus on Nov 6, 2021 3:42:58 GMTAcclimation Mohe and hundreds of thousands of fellow prisoners from all across the planet of Hyperion have finally achieved some semblance of freedom, even if temporary, on New Years Day of 2698. However, spending the better years of his young adult life in the systematic violence and harshness of penitentiary life has left the man a social husk. With no family and no friends in sight, Mohe wanders in his newfound sea of freedom alone.
The rain that slicked and splashed itself along the windshield of the taxi refracted various red, blue, and pink neons into Mohe’s eyes, his vision meandering all around the car’s interior. Of course, this light came through a jury-rigged mixture of bulletproof glass and metal gridding that separated the passenger compartment from the driver’s front seats. It made him feel like he was right back in the back seat of a cop car, but Mohe understood the basics of why this was so. It was a good attempt to prevent a degree of petty vehicular robbery or anything else that might come about from rowdy passengers. He dwelt on this thought as he smoked from a synth-cig, its black plastic body being almost invisible amid the general darkness of the cab interior. Mohe had little to do other than smoke, as the very destination that the taxi was charted towards was to deal with the phone that the government seemed to toss at every paroled prisoner. The massive traffic jam that he and the cab itself were stuck in, however, did not help his plans. The man exhaled two plumes of smoke from his nose in boredom, his eyes turning to wander around the sights that lied past the scuffed window that his head rested upon. In the six-lane highway that he was entombed within lied a sea of cars and trucks going northward and southward alike, almost frozen in their processions from the amount of congestion going on at that moment. Peering above, he could just about make out the less congested airlanes that were formed out of hovering traffic buoys and a miscellany of various hovercraft. He would have loved airfare to his destination to avoid such a sh*tty traffic jam, but that would cost him too much on his pittance of a wallet. “How you doin’ back there?” asked the cab driver, a tan-skinned man who glanced at Mohe through his rearview mirror. “The same as you.” “I’m good,” Mohe idly tossed the phone between his gloved hands, noting its absolute banality. A cold black mirror stared back at him, and when he motioned with his finger to power on the device, he was simply met with an absolutely bland home screen with only the most basic of functionalities and applications. He kept the smoldering synth-cig on the cusp of his lips as he began to fidget with the device in his hands, opening up a faux three-dimensional map of the local area. At first, the app was overloaded with the sheer amount of locations around his very location, but after a moment of processor lag did relevant data arrive. Various bars and restaurants were being pushed to his phone due to the time, in addition to various transport networks that included his prison of a highway. He played around in this app for some time as the traffic jam inched by, soaking up the information given a lack of need to learn anything else. A little more zooming and digging allowed Mohe to view cabarets, strip clubs, and gentleman’s clubs, all of which he knew were being recommended only because they weren’t some seedy underworld joints and instead sanitized sex or strip work locations. He soon got bored of this application, swiping it away and returning his gaze to the neon-addled darkness of the night city all around him. With the constant barrage of rain along the metal and glass of the cab, and along the cold drafts that slid over Mohe’s skin and clothes from an overcranked interior air conditioning, the man sat smoking in silence. His thoughts were both barren and alive; lacking proper form and topic, but drifting from idea to idea such as what he was exactly supposed to do with his life thereon. When he was first imprisoned, he was but a rowdy and confrontational sixteen year old with ambitions too big for such a scrawny and juvenile rat. Now, eleven years later, Mohe was a different person entirely. He was a calm and collected person, reserved except for the times that it would prove necessary to release any form of force. His muscular build, chiseled from years of distraction away from boredom through constant exercise, seemed to demand the attention of many that he walked past; yet, here he was, unemployed and aimless. A man with all the qualities to achieve what he desired, and yet with no knowledge or true drive. He felt liberated, sure, but not free; for Mohe’s future was all too unknown. Mohe pinched his temple with the same hand that held his synth-cig, deep in random thought. However, before he could fully lapse into a state of internal dwelling, he felt the sudden lurch of acceleration. Looking in between the seats and past the barrier, he noticed that the traffic jam had finally alleviated, thus finally sending his cab forward and onward towards his destination. He sighed in relief before returning his eyes to the glassy darkness of his phone, staring at a red-mottled reflection of himself, one side of his face warped by neon and the other masked in shadow. If he could have a wallpaper right then and there, that would have been it. Mohe exited the cab with a grunt as he thrust himself out and onto the slick pavement, flicking his paychip over a scanner and having the door automatically shut behind him; thereafter watching as the cheesy yellow and checkerboard vehicle sped off back into the unknown of the night. Having finished smoking, Mohe shot off the filter that he was using to smoke from the synth-cig before returning its hull back into his pocket. Pocketing the phone as well, he began to trod along the rough concrete sidewalks as he zigzagged his way past crowds of raincoat-laden people, the scents of petrichor and something sour wafting into his nose. Soon enough did Mohe find the first clue to his ultimate destination: that being a subway-esque opening buried into the side of a towering stratascraper, its tiled and stained mouth being adorned at the top with a plethora of blurry neon signs and arrows all pointing downwards; as if beckoning all who saw to enter its maw. Mohe was one of the many folk who sought refuge from the rain by ducking inside, his boots almost slipping against the wet tile stairs as he descended set after set of steps. Each step was punctuated by a flicker of an overhead sickly fluorescent light, a rousing cough from the crowd, or the distant echoing squeals and screams of traffic from above. Mohe felt slightly anxious in such an environment — South Albion Pen, for how sh*tty it was, always had a degree of order to it. This was, at best, an organized chaos that only held together by the apathy of everyone around him. Every person that descended or ascended the steps with him were sequestered in their own worlds of distraction, ranging from bulky retro headphones strapped onto their ears to entire holo-visors mounted onto cybernetic optical dockets. Mohe chuckled to himself as he reached the finality of his descent, his boots’ rubber hitting a tiled floor already slicked wet by the steps of thousands from the rainy night before. His eyes chased each and every red-glowing neon signage that led him deeper and deeper into this first level of the underworld, with each sector’s number increasing bringing a more and more decrepit environment. Soon enough, after finding himself in the beginning of a “sector five”, Mohe was given the chance to spectate the aftermath of a rough bar fight that can gone awry; a corpse’s head was blown across most of the hallway leading from the bar’s entrance, with the area already being cordoned off by rust-bucket security droids. From the overhead lighting, the blood seemed almost black in color, flowing either in guided rivulets between tiles or splattered across the other side of the hallway. He averted his gaze not out of disgust, but instead out of a need to continue forward to his destination. He shambled along with a growing group of civilians who were being reguided to another entrance into sector five, and in growing desire for nicotine after seeing such a scene, Mohe pulled out the hull of his synth-cig and loaded a new cartridge. Blueberry flavor, apparently — Mohe hated it, but it was on sale. He couldn’t miss a bargain given his measly funds dished out to him by the state. Shuffling through an ancillary entryway into the fifth sector of this underground flea market, Mohe lit his cigarette with a plasma lighter that burned with just the right shade of blue. His first puff of smoke left his nose in a mixture of distaste for the flavor’s smell and taste, but a few more puffs allowed a gradual habituation to its synthetic nature. A few turns more than he would have liked, and Mohe finally found himself standing before the entrance to his final destination. The windows were all covered up with sheets of pleated metal, years of corrosion and rust from the humid atmosphere being apparent in brown stripes that splotched the pleated patterns. Similar in rustic composition was the door to the store itself, which seemed to have originally been a light blue auto-door that was refurbished into a heavy and manual entrance. Fixed above this rather dilapidated display was a faintly glowing sign, which spelled in weak LCD light the words “TELEPUNK REPAIR & SERVICES”. Mohe thought it was cheesy as all-hell, but this was the only establishment that had the ability to do what he required and not cost a fortune in the process. He walked over to the faux-prison door and pressed on a red button that lied near to the handle, sending forth an audible buzz that came from somewhere inside the establishment itself. A shutter on the top of the door soon swung open, with a glowing cyan optic being visible through metal netting. “Yeah? D’you need somethin’ repaired today, pal?” “Uh... yeah, I do. Repair, yeah, you can call it that.” The short conversation left an uncomfortable air of silence soon after, with the cyan optic blinking in metallic clicks as the man behind the door studied Mohe’s figure. “Show me the back of your neck.” “...What?” Mohe grimaced, pulling the cigarette out from his mouth as he turned his body a full 180-degrees. He overhead more metallic blinks coming from behind him, spanning a few seconds until the other man’s voice came out through the small shutter. “Hah, I f*ckin’ knew it! You’re a pennie! sh*t, you have a lot of balls to be walking around Jade like that... or you just hide it with your collar, don’t ya?” “Is this 'posed to be an interrogation or something?” “Nah, nah, I’m just messin’ with ya. Lemme open this door here real quick... gimme a sec...” He heard the slam of unlocking deadbolts and various locking mechanisms give away from the other side of the door before it slowly hauled open inwards, revealing a rather shadowy space within that Mohe’s eyes needed to adjust to. Peeking out from the other side of the door was someone that Mohe entirely expected to work at a place called “Telepunk” — a young guy with a towering crimson mohawk that was perched above a cybernetically attached visor. It was speckled with various optics, revealing that Mohe initially only saw one of the many eyes that the man had in store on his face. He ushered Mohe to come inside with his free hand, which was entirely metallic and customized on each digit with varying small grasping and soldering tools.
Mohe silently complied and entered the store under the owner’s good graces, hearing the door behind him slam shut and manually lock once more in a series of scrapes and bangs of locks and switches. “Okay,” the store owner said, sighing as he rounded a slipshod counter to begin attending to Mohe. “You showed up at my door with all the intent right on your face, so I gotta tell you two things. One, this store has electromagnetic shielding all around the f*ckin’ thing, so no govvy-boy’s gonna hear what we have to say through anythin’. Two, I already served ten f*cking pennies today that all wanted the same thing as I bet you do. I watch the news, I know you all are out on some bullsh*t probation.” “Well... I’ll break down what I gotta do and then tell you how much you gotta pay — so that it makes sense, y’know?” “Sure.” “Before I tell, though... how the hell do all of you pennies find out about what I do? My sh*t isn’t on any major advertising network, and that’s for a reason! Were ya recommended?” “You can say that, yeah,” “Y’all must use some codewords or some sh*t over text to avoid the gov gettin’ on your asses... but that’s none of my business. Now, about your phone here, it’s relatively simple for what I’m gonna do. The first thing I’m gonna do is a silent wipe of all miscellaneous trackers on your device. Gov shoves in so many f*cking bugs and the like that it’s a walking, talking hive of tampering and surveillance. The problem is that I can’t clear the whole hive or else they’ll think you’re on some suspicious sh*t, you know? So, I gotta leave them breadcrumbs. After all, if your communications and location go dark during probation, that don’t look too good. After I wipe the miscellaneous sh*t, I’m gonna upload an ancillary software that’s going to root itself deep into the phone’s OS so that the gov can’t really f*ck with it remotely. This is a sort of a ‘mini-AI’, as I like to call it — it’s too dumb to think on its own, but it can generate a sensible and logical set of data built against trackers. It’s from the shadow web; I can’t script that sh*t myself.” “Is that supposed to lie about where I am?” “Hah! Not only that, but it can even type like you and send fake replies and sh*t depending on who you flag to the mini-AI in your contacts. Of course, you need to type sh*t yourself for it to build a digital personality, but... you get the idea. Dupes your location, your communications, and even dupes the sh*t you save on the phone’s drives itself. You can have an entire f*ckin’ shopping list of guns and bombs, and the gov’ll think you’re collecting cutsey-f*ckin’-clips of kittens and puppies.” Mohe rubbed his chin as he processed what the vendor was telling him. “Is there any sort of catch?” “Apart from the price? Nah. I had an associate of mine clean the mini-AI from backtalking data to any repositories online — that means your data won’t suddenly be sold on the shadow web from this sh*t. As for the price... well, it’s gonna run you around nine hundred creds. That’s at a major freakin’ discount, too; if you were some dumb corpo f*ck who wanted to duck from his honcho’s spyware, I’d normally charge upwards of two thousand. So, what’d’ya say?” The vendor stared at Mohe with a multitude of scintillating blue and cyan optics as the latter finished his cigarette, discarding the filter into his gloved hands and pocketing the hull in the process. Pulling out his paychip, he laid it on the counter and motioned for the shopkeeper to accept it.
The shopkeeper swiped up the card and inspected its circuit facets for a scant few moments before placing it into a slipshod transaction machine. As the transaction processed through a series of audible hums and whirs, the shopkeeper motioned towards one of the two sickly blue seats in the “lobby”. “Go ahead and chill while I get this done,” the man said to Mohe as he pulled out the chip and handed it back. “Shouldn’t take long; already did this sh*t so much that it’s muscle memory.” A few hours had gone by since Mohe was able to fully liberate his device from the miscellany of spyware that naturally came with any government-issued device. He spent the time thereafter journeying throughout the bowels of Jade City by way of trains, his money having been whittled down to the bare essentials for a few day’s worth of survival. He, being a thief at heart, wasn’t anxious at such a thought. He was going to alleviate this issue one way or another, and it started first by this little meet-up. He was able to make contact around Jade City with a fellow inmate from the South Albion Penn who went by the name of Cadmium. Mohe knew his real name was Santiago and some other long-drawn surname, but Cadmium earned his nickname via his excellence in the art of manipulating cybernetics. He was locked up for doing just that — being a source of underworld modified and refurbished augments. Since he was back out in the streets, such a lucrative industry’s restart would surely need helping hands. Mohe’s eyes glanced up as he rounded the massive city block, taking note of the street he was on. The rainy sky above barely permeated its pelleting drops upon such a low level, with dozens of elevated freeways above and the titan forms of arcologies abound blocking the storm. The lack of a real need to deploy his umbrella left it in a strong grip in his left hand as he walked along the busy sidewalks, his mind idly thinking of it as a impromptu melee weapon if the need for such arose. Then again, it was a cheap plastic piece of sh*t, so would it be any better than his fists? He dwelt on this thought as his steps drew the man closer to his ultimate destination. A massive apartment superblock loomed ahead at the intersection, with its titanic porched facade being decorated with the flutter of thousands of articles of clothing strung on lines and left to the rain amidst hazes of indoor lighting. On the ground level, however, were gaggles of shops and venues that serviced both the denizens of the superblock and any busybody that walked upon such cold streets. One of them were Mohe’s objective, and as he blended into a massive crowd of pedestrians that lurched itself across the road, he noticed the distant inlet into the belly of the building that he was told to watch for. Mohe passed a massive scene of graffiti sprayed over a defunct garage door as he walked towards the entrance, confirming that this was the right spot that Cadmium arranged a meet-up at. The art showed in a Japanese style of drawing two tigers tumbling with one another in the midst of an azure raging river, its one bright colors having been leached away by the constant humidity and rainfall. Mohe ran one of his gloved fingers of his right hand over it as he passed, noticing a hint of blue sticking to the leather. The man lit his synthetic cigarette aflame once more with a menthol flavoring as he approached the entrance, seeing that it lacked any actual signage indicating the venue that lied below. He began his descent down the chipped concrete steps and stumbled across a man that was slumped over on a mess of plastic sheets, his tongue lolling to and fro as he weakly held onto a smoldering pipe. From the unique scent, Mohe knew at once it was smokable kreggy; even with the sight of the paraphernalia, however, Mohe did not feel an urge to partake in the drug like how he did in prison. Maybe it was all the times that the metallic impromptu pipe that he had burned the flesh of his hands, or maybe it was the synthetic cigarette working its own specific addictive magic. He trudged past the junkie and held tightly onto his umbrella as he finally noticed a sign, tucked away from the greater world outside; it was simply the words “NAIKO BAR” in a stylized format, flashing red and only slightly illuminating the faux-wooden door that lied below it. Taking a deep breath of his synth-cigarette and exhaling, Mohe pushed the door open and walked inside. It was exactly as Mohe expected it to be; an utter sh*thole. He could see brown stains strewn about the cracked and chipped white tiles that adorned the bar’s floor — he couldn’t tell if it was vomit, dried blood, or literal sh*t, and he had little care to find out. His entrance didn’t seem to rouse much stares from anyone inside, as half the customers were busy drinking themselves to death at the bar and the other half were too involved in their booth-and-table conversations to give a damn. Mohe liked it that way. One man was able to notice his entrance, however. Those crimson optics were unforgettable; similar to the shopkeeper he met hours ago, the upper side of this person’s face was adorned with a sea of sensors and shifting lights that indicated a permanence of ongoing scanning and vision. Cadmium motioned for Mohe to come over to his side of the bar which miraculously had an empty stool waiting for him. Mohe saw that Cadmium’s old penal-augment arm was already switched for a candy-apple red cybernetic arm that flowed with a greater degree of grace; after all, this was noticeable by how fluid the motions of his beckons were. Mohe propped the synth-cig back into his lips, with the basic metal stool creaking its years-old welded joints as he sat down. Cadmium laughed and slapped Mohe on the back with his cyberized arm, forcing out a cough from the latter from such force.
“Not much to say about it so far,” Mohe responded after taking a deep breath. “Being out and about is great and all, but being stuck in a cell for a decade has grown on me. Not much of an idea of what to really do, you know?” “sh*t, man, I know the feeling. Thing is, I had my gigs set up for whenever I left the pen, you feel me? No distractions, back to the grind, and without any mushy-gooshy bullsh*t about reminiscing of old times... and shivving people for scraps.” Mohe chuckled at Cadmium’s comment as he tapped a cracked screen embedded into the bar’s surface, ordering a black rum from the visibly rusted bartending droid. “Let’s be clear here, Cad; I did most of that kind of sh*t. You just sat around most of time f*cking with people’s wetware.” “Can a man not exaggerate? Anyways, since you actually showed up to this joint, that means you’re serious about getting something to do. Right?” “Yeah. I only have, like... four hundred bucks to my name? Government’s always sh*t with their handouts.” “Since that’s the case, I’ve got a guy that might have just the thing for you...” “Me and this guy, we’re associates. He’s in the same set I run with - the Jackals.” “...Which Jackals? There’s like, ten.” “The Fiftieth Red Jackals, man! sh*t... anyways, he’s right over there. Kaden, get your ass over here, the guy I was talking ‘bout arrived!” |
Last Edit: Dec 7, 2021 23:01:23 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesDec 10, 2021 1:12:07 GMT Post by Nexus on Dec 10, 2021 1:12:07 GMTTellurian Escapades Renée de Langemyr is a young woman whose ambitions often clash with her personality. Once a detective in the Crystallis Security Firm, her dreams of grander careers lead her away from the comfy position towards becoming an "affiliate" for the Security Intelligence Network and its Tellurian branch. However, working alone in SIN and having both shoddy pay and sh*tty cases to work upon has forced her towards anticipating farther, braver ventures... that is, with the help and advice of friends both near and far. Unit 2206, Chaume Condominiums, Monatoga City Tellus, Elpis System, Coalition of Congressional Republics 1:02 p.m., 3 January 2698 The brilliance of the star Elpis amidst the clear blue skies was enough to breach the sun-screened windows of the condo in the late afternoon shine, slowly lathering a bedroom laden with an assortment of white and black furnitures in its stellar glow. Upon a rigid bedframe of onyx metal laid bundles of fine white silk, their curvaceous forms twisting and turning unto a hidden form that slept above the soft, swallowing touches of a memory mattress. Stirring, ever so slight, had roused beneath the multitudinous layers of fine silk. The arrival of the bountiful rays of Elpis granted their soft heat unto the bed that lied once in the shadows of tinted windows, and as a result of this shift of opacity, finally led to the awakening of the one who lied cocooned in their blankets of silk moments prior. A mound of black hair poked out of the white covers most proximal to the bed’s headboards with slowness, blue eyes hooded by lethargic eyelids blinking against the self-perceived harshness of the sun. These eyes looked away from the window and towards the other side of the room, where two clocks lied in wait: one detailed the all-pervasive Terran date of the third of January in its far orbit around Sol. In the time zone that Monatoga City sat within, it was just about one in the afternoon. Audible sighs of grogginess arose from beneath the covers as the hidden form shifted once more, all before breaking past the silk blankets to stretch in the basking of the unfettered sunshine. Curved sheets of black hair hung down across the breadth of the awoken woman’s shoulders, bobbing to and fro as she finished her stretch with an audible yawn. Slipping off the silk-laden memory bed with a methodical push against its plush sides, the woman came to stand upon an outlaid monochromatic rug, all with a full view of the outside world beyond the thick windows before her. The black satin bedwear the woman wore rippled in the breeze of the room’s air conditioning as she swiped a finger over a nearby sensor, the windows subsequently and manually dimming themselves until the bedroom was once more bathed in familiar shadows. A soft but audible mew arose from the corner of her bedroom as the windows shifted their opacity back to a minimum. The woman let a slight smile creep upon the corners of her lips as she walked over near to the door of the room, noticing how her pet cat seemed to have stirred from even the slightest of the noises that she had made earlier. The all-black feline arched its back in the recesses of its bed as it pawed in the air towards her, prompting her to brush its soft fur with her hand for a few moments in time. Soon enough, she rose away from the settled cat and sauntered towards the door of her bedroom proper, its sensors detecting her incoming presence and opening accordingly with a smooth, nearly silent motion. A blast of frigidity hit her as she walked into an empty hallway - one which led to her living room proper. Shivering ever so slightly and yet at ease with the low temperature, the woman walked forth and found herself underneath the faint glow of ambient light fixtures embedded into the roof above her. The distant sizzles and pops that emanated from the kitchen alcove drew the woman in close, both out of a growing hunger and nascent curiosity. Her long eyelashes fluttered as she poked her head around a pillar of the alcove towards the kitchen itself, and she saw a usual figure standing within… dressed in a rather cheesy kitchen apron. “Oh-Eight. Did you…?” “Good morning, Renée! Or... should I say, good afternoon? I know you went to sleep pretty late this morning, but you do have that meeting with your assigned Inspector later tonight. We can’t risk you missing it, now can we?” Oh-Eight, an old model of companion synth who wore an oil-stained apron that he had procured from God-knows-where, towered over Renée even from a distance. She had bought him years ago and was able to restore intelligence to the model using an aftermarket logic core - able to both defend her and serve her, Renée merely used the antiquated synth as the chore-handler of the condo. It seems that his logic banks were still at tip-top shape, as he was in the midst of cooking lunch for her. “I’m going to get myself ready.” “Alright. I’m sure you’re going to love this: Kimchijeon with-” “I’m not going to be staying here to eat, Oh-Eight. I’m going to meet with someone before the Inspector’s appointment; make sure to make that to-go for me.” His model always had a static expression affixed to the head compartment, but if it were able to emote properly, he would have probably tugged at Renée’s heartstrings with a pout. “Well… okay,” the synth replied, before turning back to chop an assortment of fermented vegetables for the kimchi he was in the midst of making. “But, if I can ask… are you meeting with your old Crystallis partner again?” “Yes, I am. I don’t think SIN would care about that all too much, now would they?” Renée’s bathroom was not much to brag about - at least in her own mind. The usual whiteness of the countertops and walls echoed monotony of coloration - or lack thereof - and the only item left to bisect such a continuous mass was the dark grey glass that separated the rest of the bathroom from the bath-shower inlaid unto the floor beyond. It slid open with a stroke of gentle force, bountiful amounts of steam billowing forth as it slid on hidden tracks. A slender leg, pale in complexion and sporting the glinting rivulets of lingering showerwater unto its smooth skin, broached the clouds of steam that puffed away from the dark glass opening. The rest of Renée’s body followed suit, her navel and breasts having been hidden by a fine white linen held tight to her body. “Weather forecast for Monatoga City, Hub,” Renée said unto the steamy air as she moved to dry her hair down. “...Welcome, Renée de Langemyr,” a voice called out, coming from a hidden speaker affixed from somewhere on the roof in the center of the bathroom. “The current forecast for Monatoga City for two p.m. is approximately fifteen-point-six degrees Celcius. Tonight’s forecast is expected to drop to four degrees Celsius, and light snow is to be expected.” “And the traffic forecast for Downtown?” she asked, finishing her hair and moving to put on a nearby set of pre-warmed lingerie. “Current road and air traffic is predicted to persist in relatively low volumes within downtown Monatoga until five p.m. An expected surge is to take place during rush hour and will last until seven p.m. for both air and ground lanes.” “Hmmph. Rush hour… typical to Tellus.” Renée moved on from her bra and her panties onwards to a grey undershirt that would lie beneath her planned outfit for the day. She checked her nails to see if her black nail polish was still in prime condition before moving on. “Confirm to Inspector Varga that I will be coming at our seven p.m. appointment, Hub.” “Confirmation sent.” “Now, prepare an audio-only call to Laurence.” “Preparing call composition. Contact ‘Laurence’ is currently busy, and will answer at the earliest convenience...” As Renée’s apartment’s AI hibernated in the InfoScape in order to establish a call with Laurence, she finished ascertaining the articles that would compose the outfit which she would be wearing later on - in expectancy for the oncoming cold later that night, Renée’s outermost article of clothing was a black coat that was currently open at its buttons, with its rear portion hanging far below her hips. Below this coat laid its complementary shirt, which was cream and dark purple in its coloration; black accents became visible in areas around the nape of her neck and its edges along her hips. Renée’s legs were covered by tight-fitting and dark-colored pants which were composed of smooth sheets of expensive nano-weaved fabrics. It was fastened tight to her body through the usage of a black leather belt, and its buckle sported nothing more than the sigil of the Langemyr family: a lion’s head embossed upon its gleaming platinum surface. As she moved to apply her makeup, Renée’s eyes shifted to stare at the scintillations coming off of her now-clothed chest. The glints of light prior came from the necklace that she wore even within the shower, and had grown habituated to keep on herself at all times. The necklace carried an onyx crucifix upon its form, surrounded by a light gold edge; this very cross was the one that Renée’s parents had given her prior to their mutual passing. She did not mind its presence on her regardless of what outfit she was keen to wear, as the memento was utterly priceless. She pondered these thoughts even as she finished applying the makeup to her face. Renée’s eyes were now shadowed in shades of dark blue, existing as complement to her own blue eyes. Her eyelashes were even more prominent in their statures, all in contrast to the white powder that blossomed over her cheeks and beyond. “Call connected.” “...Renée? I thought you slept way in.” Laurence Mayenburg, a platonic friend and confidant from old partnership in Crystallis. “Oh-Eight made sure I woke up sooner or later. Are you still available?” “I just finished my preliminary notes for a robbery case and checked the scene, and I don’t go back there ‘till tonight... so yeah, I am.” “Good. We have much to talk about.” “Is this about you getting bored again?” “And what if it is, Laurence?” Renée heard a stifled laugh over the speaker as she prepared to slip on her black heel boots onto her dark seamed stockings - the former of which having been lying in wait prior upon a delivery platform connected to the automatic closet in her bedroom. The garter belts strained as she put her shoes on, flexing against the pressure of her twisting legs as she maneuvered her heels on. “Well, it’s just extremely expectable at this point. Even with Crystallis out of your life and SIN in it, you’re still bored as all hell. Right?” “...Do you want to meet me in person, Laurence, or do you want to speak about all of this through call?” “Ah, right. I forgot. What about going to that one seafood place on Arthur and Braxton?” “It’s Astroquímica, right? I’ll be heading there soon; I’ll tell you when I get there.” “Sure thing. We’ll be eating on their outside palisades because I’m in need of a smoke or two, so if you get there before me, save a spot there. See you later, Renée.” A blip sounded off after Laurence’s sentence finished, indicating that the call between them was over. Coincidentally, the call had completed as Renée finished prettying up her outfit for the outing, and the dull clicks of her heel boots against the granite tiling of her bathroom signaled her readiness to Oh-Eight to receive his piping-hot cuisines prepared just for her. “Renée! The kimchi is ready-” “Sorry, Oh-Eight. You’re going to have to shelf those for later,” Renée said as she grabbed her PROTON Infoscape Pad from the kitchen alcove’s hip-level divider. “Oh… do you not like it?” Oh-Eight asked, his shoulder servos making him assume a sad, sagging stance. “I do, but Laurence wants to meet at a restaurant. I don’t particularly feel like stuffing myself today. If you feel bad about it, you can drive me to where I need to go… that is, if your driving logics are updated.” Oh-Eight’s eyes shone red for several seconds after Renée responded, only flashing back to a beady gray after she began to co*ck her head in concern. “What were you-?” “AUTOMOTIVE OPERATION LOGIC UPDATE DOWNLOADED. I think I’m ready, Renée!” She shrugged and shoved the lunch that Oh-Eight made into her fridge, the pot laden with such food disappearing into a hidden refrigerated compartment for later use. “Let’s go. I’m not going to a crime scene today, so don’t bug me about bringing my gun, alright?” As Oh-Eight ferried Renée amidst the skies of Monatoga City’s air-way system in her Mallette Spirit hover car, she flipped through her datapad in a lying-down position. As she laid perched on the two rear passenger seats, her eyes dove through bits and pieces of information relevant to the (rather cold) cases that she was working on for SIN. A potential supporter of the Meran Confederacy in Tellus turned up all dead ends for her so far, and the other case she was handling - an outright rape and murder - seemed to be blocked at every turn by the Tarkov-Hessen corporation. It was no coincidence that the prime suspect was a member of such a company, but with their monolithic influence, what could she do about it except let the case rot? The minor rocking of the car as it shot through the atmosphere was hypnotizing Renée with a bout of hypnagogia, but before she could become subsumed in such a tantalizing feeling of sleep, her datapad began to vibrate with its screen flashing forth in the car’s cabin. She angled the datapad’s screen to face her once again, and as her eyes scanned over the screen, they became instantly affixed upon a notification box that indicated an incoming call. Not from Laurence, but from a contact by the name of AnUnusualPlayer. Mahendra Adhya, or “AnUnusualPlayer” - the perpetually horny NecroScape scourer and self-proclaimed “net-sec analyst”. “...f*ck.” Sighing deeply, she swiped her finger against a flashing green button in order to answer the contact’s call request. And, as per the usual habit of this “Unusual Player”, their camera was off, and only Renée’s face was visible; her perplexed expression gawking back at her through a mirror GUI. “Mahendra, why are you calling me?” “Aw, come on, man! I can’t up and call my size-nine-foot-pic plug to ask how she’s doing, eh?” Renée’s eyes widened in sudden surprise as she realized that Mahendra, in his obtuse and aloof usage of hacking tools, was staring at his friend’s perched heel boots through her datapad’s back camera. “...You’re a total pig, you know that?” Renée jeered, shoving her legs out of view. “Calling me names only makes me act up real good, ya’know. Anyway, Renée, remember how you asked me to scrape that juicy info on the sh*t happening from Hyperion?” “I don’t remember asking you to do that at all. I wonder, are you watching my search history too?” “...No, I’m not. I actually thought that you asked me that before. Well, anyway, I looked into that Hyperion friend of yours you were talking to. She seems to be wanting to make some savory moves. Might be big money in it.” “I don’t understand how you stalking one of my online friends implies you helping me get ‘juicy info’ from Hyperion, Mahendra.” “Well, aren’t you bored as f*ck working for SIN? You’re not even a proper agent, dude!” Renée rolled her eyes at Mahendra’s comment. “Thank you for reminding me how low on the bureaucratic ladder I am. It is extremely encouraging.” “If I were you, I’d hit her up and ask if there’s space to slip in for some of that extra money. For my sake, I'd also ask here to show some of her -” She muted Mahendra before he could enter a libido-addled tangent and hanged her head over the edge of the right passenger seat, mulling over her friend’s comments. After some moments, Renée unmuted him, but instantly regretted such a decision. “- because, and I know you never told me this before, but her f*cking ass got some jiggle to it. I only got a scant few jpegs of her sh*t, but… oh my mama!” “Are you done yet rambling?” The line held silent for a few seconds, before Mahendra composed himself once more. “...Yeah, sure. You know, since I told you all of this, mind if I get some pictures of your f-?” Renée cut off the call between her and Mahendra instantaneously, throwing her datapad over her stomach in exhaustion of its use. Her head leaned towards the front seats to talk to her companion synth. “Oh-Eight, how much longer until we reach Astroquímica?” “We’re just about there, Renée.”
Tellus, Elpis System, Coalition of Congressional Republics 4:12 p.m., 3 January 2598 The Astroquímica, a penthouse establishment with affordable costs… mostly. “That wait was annoying, wasn’t it?” The voice that greeted Renée’s presence upon the circumferential patio of the restaurant was coarse in its texture, yet spoke openly with a smooth familiarity that she had become accustomed to. The cool air of the higher afternoon sky rippled over Renée’s coat as she walked in accompaniment with a waiter to the table that was reserved for her and Laurence; such an atmosphere chilling her neck slightly as she took in the Monatoga City skyline around them. “It was annoying, yes, but there’s nothing I could’ve done. It does give us less time to talk, unfortunately.” “Well, we can talk while we eat, right? A little uncouth, maybe. Can you risk it?” Laurence shot Renée a humorous smile as his joke unwound in her mind, leading her to throw her right hand in the air as if to swat such a thought away. “Do you take me for a prissy girl, Laurence?” “No, I don’t; and as proof of such, if memory serves me right... you’re quite the eater when you get stressed. Very unlike a noble girl!” “And what is that supposed to mean?” Renée asked, folding her arms. “Eh… forget about it. Didn’t you text me something about your synth preparing a late lunch for you? What a sob story.” “When did you pick up sympathy for synths? Are you going to lambast me for not catering to Oh-Eight’s emotional logics?” Laurence raised both of his hands in a faux-surrendering gesture. “sh*t, you got me there.” Renée returned her gaze to the faint yellowing of the horizon, signs of an impending dusk just barely etching the distant sky. Flicking of a manual lighter alerted her to Laurence’s ongoing smoking habit - one that she was already well-accustomed to. “Smoking before eating. Interesting.” “...Yeah? I can smoke here, Renée. Ain’t no problem as far as the establishment is concerned. You know, being in the middle of the Tellurian sky and all.” “Surprising, really.” “Sheesh! You sound even more dead than usual,” Laurence commented, lifting an all-white cigarette to his lips. “I’m dreading wasting my valuable time to go to that SIN appointment.” “Ah… SIN and their obligatory debriefings. Nice. Food will make you cheer up though, wouldn’t it?” Laurence’s statement coincided with the arrival of a new waiter unto the table. This waiter, like many others in such a specific establishment, were actual humans - being served by someone whose eyes didn’t give off crimson glows were usually a plus. However, the waiter seemed to be on the latter stages of middle-ageness. “Ah, a new customer has come! Have you decided what you want today?” the waiter said, his voice slightly grating to Renée. “Mmh… I don’t know. Laurence, what did you get?” “I got Furic Sea Bass in a miso glaze for the entrée, buffalo shrimp for the appetizer. What, you’re gonna go and copy my order now?” “Since this is my first time here, I might as well.” “Ah,” the waiter said, intervening in the duo’s conversation, “If you’re new here, might I interest you in today’s special?” “Sure.” “For today, we are offering the Iscarian Seared Special! Fresh lobster pulled straight from the nearby Iscarian Sea. Boiled and seared right on sight and served with Iscarian sea clams and sausages from the Candle Pastures - a famed pasture island chain! And of course, veg-” “How much is this going to cost?” “The cost? Seventy three notes for the special, no tax.” Renée’s eyes bulged as she heard of the price, with her head swiveling to stare at Laurence. “You are treating me out, aren’t you?” “…” “I assume SIN has you in a tight bind, doesn’t it?” The voice of Laurence only briefly crescendoed over the snapping of a lobster’s carapace as Renée dove in to eat her own entrée. The duo had already finished their appetizers, and as Laurence poked at his sea bass haphazardly, his counterpart seemed to still have an idling hunger. “...Yes, it does,” Renée responded, putting down a knife that she was using to scrape out remnants of meat left in the lobster’s crimson tail. “Despite my service with you in our numerous cases with Crystallis, SIN had still placed me at the lowest rung of its ladder and treated me to its first-class experience of recruitment. The gall of them to do such a thing is astounding…” “And the little pay they give you for being an affiliate, right? sh*t… you should have never left Crystalline!” “Oh please, don’t give me that ‘we’ll take you back’ lecture you always spout. I’m not looking to spend the rest of my days making nominal income off of the next murder cold case or money laundering scheme on Tellus, and you know that.” “If you’re not coming back to Crystallis, and you’re thinking of hopping off of SIN’s Tellus branch… what are you planning to do?” Renée put her knife down and leaned back, crossing her arms once more and co*cking her head to the side. “Haven’t I told you this already? I might be going off-world for a better job experience.” “sh*t… off-world? What, like Astarte?” “No; beyond the Elpis system. I’m thinking Hathor.” “Hathor? So… Hyperion?” “The planet with the most interesting stories to tell, yes. Archangel is too insignificant in comparison, and Paradise is an installation that even I probably cannot enter.” Laurence stroked his hair-absent chin as he thought of her proposal, leaving his fork embedded into a piece of sea bass in the process. “Hyperion… hmm. You’re definitely gonna get picked up by someone there for a job, but are you sure that’s the best place for you to go?” “Terra is closed to all permanent immigration for extra-solar persons. It is the best option, besides withering away on Tellus chasing ghosts hidden by the corporate powers that be. I can’t exactly complete a case when its prime suspect is being sheltered by a mega-corp, you know.” “Yeah,” Laurence said with a sigh, “I know. That sh*t is even pissing me off with how these cases fall off sometimes… always has to be a corpo goon or executive going off the rails, and having their tracks covered for the better of the company. Can’t really blame you. The thing is… aren’t you short on money right now? I mean…” Laurence gestured with his hand over the assortment of empty appetizer and half-filled entrée plates - over half of which Renée’s doing. She initially shrugged as she finished a piece of lobster tail before continuing on. “I already planned this out. My condominium’s ownership contract has an embedded clause from SIN employment - after all, I’m not quitting. They can’t issue a foreclosure unless they get SIN to sponsor their legal bullsh*t. I’m going to ask my assigned Inspector for a transfer to Hyperion, since even he knows how shoddy cases are getting these days.” “So… you’re not selling your condo? Why?” “It’s a contingency in case things go wrong on Hyperion. I’m thinking to travel alone - I’m not bringing Oh-Eight. And, I need someone to take care of Problems… and I doubt you would remember to feed him like Oh-Eight would.” “Hah! You do have a point there. Is that the end of Renée’s illustrious planning?” “...No, it isn’t. I also plan to make more money on Hyperion than here; I’ll accrue profit from the jobs I’ll work and wait until it’s enough to come back here.” “Jobs? So, not just SIN on Hyperion?” “I have a friend who I met online that seems to be in need of someone to help her. With… odd jobs.” Laurence wagged his finger at his old Crystallis partner as he finished his bass, pushing the plate away with his other hand. “It’s always the online ‘friends’ that actually turn out to be killers, Renée. You out of everyone should know this!” “Your jokes always make me die inside.” “Wait… where the f*ck are you even going to live on Hyperion? A hundred billion people are already crammed on that sh*thole of a planet. Everywhere else's ocean and bandlands.” “I’m going to kill two birds with one stone, Laurence. I’ve been planning to meet my unc-... my family friend for some time now. He will definitely give me a place to stay - at least until I recuperate enough money to rent my own apartment.” “Well,” Laurence said as he rose from his seat, lighting another cigarette, “It seems like you have all your bases covered. Good luck if you actually go through with this, Renée - you’re going to need it.” “Believe me, I know I will.” Renée followed suit in pushing away from the table, leaving the assortment of remnant foodstuffs behind. She saw Laurence swipe a note-card over a pay terminal nearby, and followed him thereafter to the “entrance” elevator lobby. “Best of luck to you with your, uh… debriefing. I might actually follow suit and copy your idea of going to Hyperion if sh*t gets dull here for me, too,” Laurence said as the both of them waited for one of the lobby’s elevators to reach their location at the top floor. “If you do, let me know. I can get you the same jobs I’m going to be chasing after… probably.” SIN Tellus Branch Headquarters, Monatoga Administrative Spire, Monatoga City Tellus, Elpis System, Coalition of Congressional Republics 7:00 p.m., 3 January 2698 “...You want a transfer, huh?” Renée’s eyes shifted constantly over the form of her assigned Inspector, his thin frame standing in contrast to the growing evening outside of the window that he stared through. Her hands drummed against his glass desk as she gave her reply, the pangs of anxiety before having faded away to only this one tic. “Yes, Inspector.” “Hm.” The Hungarian man turned away from the man-sized window to return to his seat at his desk, the pleather cushioning denting softly as he settled in. His hands flicked upwards with two outstretched fingers to pull up a holographic display of various files, and using his index finger, Varga dragged forth a specific file in question to blow it up in size. “Case OBD-83865. Assigned to you four months ago; you said that the case was unable to be advanced in investigation further due to ‘corporate blockages’. Now, Case ALB-294758,” he said, flicking forth another file to scale up, “assigned to you merely three weeks ago. Now, you claim that Tarkov-Hessen is hampering your investigation of a prime suspect, Albert Kelemen. ‘Corporate blockage’. They respond with your incessant probing of Kelemen’s residence and workplace. Affiliate Renée, you do see the pattern here, yes?” Renée bowed her head slightly in recognition of the Inspector’s comment. “Yes, Inspector, I do. However, if I may answer this…” “Go on.” “...I have already forwarded to you footage of my presence at the crime scene, Kelemen’s residence, and his workplace. I have followed all procedures of investigation strictly and to stringent protocol. Yet, they nevertheless lay these claims against me, hindering my investigation to the point of paralysis.” “Yes… I already know of all that,” Varga said, spinning his chair to the left in order to eye the sunset behind him. “Which is why I’ve already anticipated your proposal.” “Anticipated…?” Renée mouthed, her forehead furrowing in quizzical expression. “Yes. A proper agent - and of course, inspectors - usually have the bureaucratic means and connections to circumvent such blockages on Tellus. The thing is… you’re not an agent, and you’re not due to be one for another three years as per the age requirements. This leaves us at a predicament with your employment with SIN…” “If I stayed on Tellus?” she said, attempting to piece together Varga’s mode of thinking. “Exactly,” he replied, giving a slight smile. “Reassignment to a new planet is not out of the question, as how it may seem. However, affiliates usually don’t have the means to properly reassign.” “I personally do, Inspector Varga. And I think I have a good place in mind.” “Oh? Do tell.” “Hyperion.” The smile on Varga’s mouth faded as he heard her answer. He spun the chair around again to face her in totality, bringing a hand to his chin in the process. “Hyperion? Are you sure about what you just said?” “Entirely, Inspector.” He shook his head slightly. “A planet full of gangs and scumbags... huh. Affiliate de Langemyr, do you have a death wish?” “No. However, that is the one place where SIN is understaffed beyond Terra, isn’t it?” “This is true…” “I have the means to assure a stable residence on Hyperion for an extended period of time - that is, if I am to be transferred to its SIN branch. All I need help in is the reassignment itself.” Varga clasped his hands together in thought, cogitating the pros and cons of Renée’s proposal. As he angled his head downward, his ears perked up at the sound of a guttural rumbling coming from somewhere nearby - as he looked upward with an expression of bewilderment, he saw his subordinate with a hand over her mouth and her eyes open in surprise. “Affiliate de Langemyr…?” “It’s nothing, Inspector. Well... heh, you see, I had dinner only some time before, and-” “I see,” Varga said, rolling his eyes and returning his gaze once more outside unto the orange and purple skies. “Look, about this Hyperion reassignment: I’ll see what I can do. Keep working what you can on these two cases that you have right now, and I’ll let you know of my decision within the next week; that is, acceptance or denial of it.” “Thank you, Inspector.” Varga waved her away as he swiveled his office chair to rest forward unto the spanning skylines before him. “Oh, and one more thing, Affiliate de Langemyr...” “Yes, Inspector?” Renée asked, already halfway through his office’s door. “Can you not do this ‘fine dining’ tripe before any of our debriefings? I saw you fidgeting constantly when I was trying to explain important and pertinent information about your cases. Go take a gastro-pill or something.” “This was just a one time thing,” she replied, faking a smile etched with nervousness. “Sure it is. Try not get yourself killed until I call you.” |
Last Edit: Jan 20, 2023 20:18:42 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesDec 19, 2021 18:58:01 GMT Post by Nexus on Dec 19, 2021 18:58:01 GMTShopping Time Rinji Kawano is no pushover.Despite being still in (the final level of) secondary school, he has already found himself involved with one of the more prestigious of the gangs that rule Jade City: the biker gang known as the Jade Drifters. He has already spilled blood in service to the gang, making money from successful hits to upgrade his bike, buy guns, entertain his girlfriend, and feed both himself and his mother in their one bed, one bath apartment. His life is hard, and with further schooling being abated by winter break, Rinji has decided to prepare for future jobs by visiting Joey's Powderkeg, an underground gun-shop nestled deep within the crime-infested Cherry Dawn Megatower. With three thousand notes to spend, he hopes to find a good deal... Joey's Powderkeg,Cherry Dawn Megatower, Jade City Hyperion, Hathor System, Coalition of Congressional Republics 5:20 p.m., 3 January 2698 “Eh!? Four thousand dollars for all of this!? You’re just f*cking with me here!” Amidst the steam that rose from hidden grates and ventilation grids, and through the scintillations of neon chroma that radiated off of flickering interior-street signs, two men shot glances at each other - one wide-eyed in shock at the prices being given, and the other bored from the monotony of dealing with customers. Joey’s Powderkeg was one of the more popular “underground” weapons shops within the Cherry Dawn megatower. Unlike other shops that suffered frequently from robberies or stick-ups due to being new or too aggressive against their customers, Joey’s enjoyed patronage by a wide variety of gangs and individuals for his unique selection and person-by-person price negotiations. Of course, this meant that he usually tried to assert the upper hand in sales. Rinji Kawano, however, was a customer that immediately diminished his energy to zero whenever he dealt with the teen. “ The shop owner continued to stare at his youthful customer with an exhausted expression, the bulging optical implant that sat affixed upon his right eye seemingly sagging against his leathery skin from fatigue. A huge array of guns of all types and origins hung affixed to prop-hooks behind him, ranging from gigantic machine guns of centuries past to modern, dainty plasma pistols that packed powerful punches well above their weight class. “ Rinji shoved the unloaded assault rifle into Joey’s cyberized face following his comment, making the shop owner push it away with a prosthetic hand and utter a sigh of exasperation. “ “ Paulie’s Gunshop, as banal as the name of the weapons store was, was quite the fierce competitor to the Powderkeg - and was quickly building an arsenal of similar size to Joey’s with cheaper prices. It made the shop owner’s blood boil upon the store’s mention, but he shook his head and calmed down upon noting how Paulie’s was being used as a front for the Hyperian mafia to spear into the underworld. That was the kind of sh*t he did not want to f*ck around with. May as well keep a customer. “ “ “ Joey fetched a large box of 7.62x54mm ammunition from one of the numerous backstores and hauled it back to the front as he talked, slamming the ammunition container on the shop counter and sending its inner contents of shining brass clattering around. “ “ “ The shop owner raised his prosthetic hand to shut the kid up, the plastic of it shining a sickly pale against the overhead lamp. “ “ Rinji pointed to the side of the dirty and cramped store, his gloves motioning towards multiple shelves of body armor that came in all sorts of sizes and colorations. His specific was the IIIA, one that could protect against most small-caliber kinetic rounds not fired by some corpo-tier electromagnetic gun. “ “ “ Rinji backed up from the counter and raised his hands in the air, shrugging. “ “ “ Joey merely shook his head as Rinji headed towards the counter once more, the sound of shoes clacking against cracked linoleum reverberating amongst the miscellany of propped guns and weapons lying haphazardly all around. “ Mainly because he already had a girlfriend of the same faith; secondly, because he needed to deliver such a long haul to the meeting location as soon as possible. With a big laser pistol dangling and jangling on his hip as he walked - an Abramov LP-09b of 30kW power - Rinji noticed that some figures that lurked in the darkness of alleyways and away from the fluorescent glare of advertisem*nt signs seemed to back away. Sure, he was hauling around almost three thousand notes worth of goods, but one good shot from that Abramov would mean a heap of flesh carbonized to ash in an instant. This helped to stave off any would-be trouble. As his back ached from the weight of the crammed duffel bag, Rinji let out a sigh of relief as he saw the familiar beams of sunlight emerge from a far-off entrance tunnel. Hundreds of people were pouring in-and-out of the fence-edged entrance, with five or so o’clock signalling the end of many a person’s gruelling hours of work. Billions more still worked into the night, but the respite of a dusk was something to cherish. Rinji didn’t really care, though, since his “work” of serving the Jade Drifters was only really ever carried out at night. Stepping into the afternoon sun on one of the megatower’s many parking platforms after following a mighty crowd, Rinji craned his neck to survey his surroundings. His platform was positioned immediately beneath the lowermost cloud layer, which was indicated by the puffs of clouds rolling by at almost eye level all around. This was on purpose - after all, the higher one went, the more parking space there would be… sometimes. That rule didn’t really work for popular venues. Rinji ascended one of the towering staircases that climbed the outskirts of the platform, once more returning to the darkness of an overhead surface as he entered the innards of the skybound parking garage. His red Tsuzuki S9500 was hoisted within a self-contained parking pod, able to be seen through the opaque, stained, and scratched plexiglass that had seen better days. Rinji gained access to his hovercycle with the input of digits upon a keypad, and as the front of the parking pod popped open with a hiss of pneumatics, he ducked underneath its movement and popped the trunk of the hovercycle open. Being anything but a proper hovercar, the poor excuse of a trunk could only handle the girth of the duffel bag and nothing more - the biker had to chuck out excess pins and screws that he knew were to be useless in the future to fit the bag in. Plinks of metal hitting rock resounded as he emptied the trunk for the newfound gear, and Rinji shut the trunk down with an affirming thud. Walking over to the cycle and mounting it, Rinji popped one of the nootropic Psiracetam pills he had with a swig of an old water bottle left in his trunk, and strapped on his Japan Wears racing helmet that had been hanging from one of the handlebars previously; its rim snapped tight onto the compatible NuBlack racing jumpsuit that he wore. The air tubes from the racing jumpsuit that lead to an oxygen provider attached to the tubes within the helmet with a series of magnetic snaps, indicating to Rinji that his oxygen intake for high-altitude cruising was ready. Alright, here we go. Unlocking the ignition pad with his key and slamming upon the red button that laid beneath, Rinji’s S9500 roared to life with the sound of vibrating tubes and a humming, reverberating gravity repulsor. The teen’s boots were magnetically attached to their respective pedals on either side of the hovercycle, and his gloves were firm upon the handlebars. Flicking on the reverse, he raised his mag-locked foot that was attached to the brake pedal, allowing the cycle to reverse away from the parking pod and float over the pocked concrete floor of the garage. The crimson hoverbike meandered through the garage as Rinji approached one of the aerial exits, his helmet HUD flashing to life in synchrony with the sensors on his vehicle to detect and monitor local phenomena such as other hovercars and cycles in the area. As he anticipated, a hover-van flew into the aerial exit as soon as Rinji prepared to leave, the repulsor on the van bellowing its gravitic disruptions in throaty reverberations as it slightly pushed Rinji’s bike to the right. He angled the bike ever so slightly to the left to manually compensate, and when he found balance from the van’s rude force, he slammed his foot that was mag-locked on the accelerator down. The Tsuzuki roared in its rear engines and rocketed forward, blasting away from the aerial exit and taking off into the greater sky. Rinji’s HUD directed him to the nearest lane of aerial traffic, and so he slowly angled his bike towards the teeming sky-line of cars and trucks with careful adjustment of the drift of his handlebars. Soon enough, Rinji transitioned into the proximal aerial lane, taking formation to the side of some luxury hovercoupe. He knew that he was in the right lane not only by his HUD giving him a green path of flight, but also by the buoy drones that maintained constancy in their floating in the sky. Ah, yeah, Intercontinental 58… this sh*t is going to be packed. Good thing I filled this bad girl up before going to Joey’s! …Wait, that didn’t sound right. Agh, f*ck it, I gotta kill time, before my brain becomes a mush of innuendo… “ “ “ An old techno song began to flow into Rinji’s ears from his helmet once the onboard Infolink loaded in, its booming bass and synth effortlessly resonating due to the interior soundproofing. His jumpsuit was also working well, keeping him warm even with the mighty winds whipping over his bike and himself thousands of meters unto the air. A simulated honk blared in from the left side of Rinji’s helmet as he briefly got lost in the song’s flow. Snapping his head to the ride, he saw the passenger of what seemed to be a self-driving hovercar flick him off - apparently, he almost crashed straight into it, with the anti-crash software and thrusters of both vehicles going off at just the right time. The hovercoupe soon dove down to merge with the top lane of an underlying aerial road, and all Rinji did was merely shrug and chuckle to himself. Sometimes riding in the afternoon makes me doze off… I’m just built different. Now snapped to attention away from the music, he looked off to the right as he drove southward, noticing the many peaks and apices of surface-level towers glint in the afternoon light. There were structures whose tops towered kilometers above even where he drove, but many of these were clustered in the downtown and proper district of Jade City. He was not going there, but instead to his home, which laid in the Burberry Condo Tower within the more seedy part of town. Halfway on his journey across Jade City, Rinji noticed a floating Aerotransport Patrol Office and its iconic half-dome shape lingering near his aerial road. Various police patrol hovervehicles zoomed in and out of it - it was no surprise that they were this hectic, with such a time of day being one of the busiest for driving both in the sky and on the ground. However, even with a huge sticker of the Jade Drifters sitting on the right rear engine of his hovercycle, Rinji cared little about the police - after all, they couldn’t really arrest someone for something such as that. If they followed him, all they would come to know is how sh*t his home tower was. Well, such is life here, in grand ‘ol Jade City. Burberry Condo Tower, Jade City Mom’s for sure not going to like to see the sh*t in the trunk… I’ll go in, get everything else I don’t need, and dip with a goodbye. With his personal parking pod closing behind him, Rinji pocketed his keys and trudged towards one of the many the dimly lit entrances to the tower condo-complex, the inside atrium’s dull green light being present. Passing into the atrium, he walked past a gaggle of kids that seemed to be harassing an older man that was seated upon a bench. High-pitched voices squealed at the man to give them money, and in response, he did nothing but ignore them and read from a bona-fide newspaper. It was rare to see an actual, real newspaper, but Rinji assumed the man was a fan of the old vectors of information. The teen took an elevator all the way up to the sixtieth floor, where his apartment laid. It was number six-thousand six-hundred-and-four, and had a nice view of Jade City… from the lone port-hole of a window that the apartment sported. He hated how small that damn window was, wasting space on the wall like that. As the elevator rocketed upwards, Rinji could hear the faint screeches of unoiled metal whipping against the gears that hurled the rickety box upward. A sea of graffiti adorned the elevator walls, ranging from the green of various Jade gangs to the reds and blues of bored artistic youth. It smelled slightly like sh*t to him, but Rinji paid it little mind - after all, almost everything was inundated with sh*t or other fluids and materials in a slum. This wasn’t a shocking revelation, but rather a mind-numbing reminder. As the on-board floor indicator ticked towards the sixtieth floor, his eyes drifted onto a partly-tattered poster that was affixed to the back side of the elevator. It was a propaganda piece from the Coalition Forces Authority, advertising the wonders and vistas one would see while on service abroad in any of the branches. Yeah… that sh*t’s not for me. I don’t need to go into an actual warzone when I’m already living in a place that may as well be called one… His thoughts were snapped away with the ding of his elevator’s arrival, shortly followed up by the tumbling of the opening steel doors. Stepping out of the rank elevator and into one of the four atria of the sixtieth floor, Rinji took his time to waltz along the stained carpet and beige-green walls that adorned the environment around him. After a few minutes of walking on dirty carpets and underneath various flickering lamplights, he finally stumbled upon his apartment’s entrance. Taking out a keycard from a previously zipped-up pocket in his jumpsuit, he slid it onto the door’s reader and waited for the bolt to unlock. As it did, he pushed forward on the hinge, escaping from the musty hallways and into a faintly orange-lit kitchen. The aroma in the air was now that of a sweetened teriyaki, and as he shut the door behind him, a familiar figure stepped out to greet him. “ Keiko Kawano, his mother, assailed him with the end of a spatula as she exclaimed her frustration in their native Japanese. “ “ “ “ “ “ As Rinji patted his gun, Keiko once more sported a stark frown as she smacked his hand away from it. “ “ “ “ “ “ As he pulled the door shut, a hand reached forth to grab Rinji by the arm. Lacking true force, it only slightly startled him; as he looked up while pocketing his keycard, his eyes fell upon the face of Kazumi. Her short-cut, tomboyish hair was complemented by a Catholic crucifix that hung around her neck. This was, in turn, joined with her wearing denim shorts and a striped half-tee, her bare skin being morphed in color by the haze of the sh*tty lamps that were hoisted in the roof above. “ “ “ “ “ “ “ Rinji laughed and gave Kazumi a kiss as he began to walk with her to the elevator. “ “ “ |
Last Edit: Apr 2, 2023 17:23:13 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesDec 24, 2021 0:43:08 GMT Post by Nexus on Dec 24, 2021 0:43:08 GMTGearing Up, Gearing Down Mohe, after meeting up with a fellow ex-convict from prison and being given a chance to make some real money on the streets, takes the offer with grace. He heads towards a pub that his new contact, Kaden, recommended to him for a meeting... Meanwhile, Octavia Maeng is the picture-perfect worker for any megacorporation. Bound by parole contract to work, she shows up on time each and every day and leaves under the pitch darkness of the night, slaving in the production of augmentations for Poros Bodyworks as a means to scrounge just above what the average corpo-drone usually would make. Being a twenty four blue collar worker and with no clear future besides the endless toil of her labor, Octavia is often left in the silence of her nights to contemplate such a dull lifestyle.
The passing between the cold, humid outside and the warm, dry interior would have done wonders to Mohe’s skin - if he wasn’t already hiding under layers of synthread copped from a thrift shop some hours ago. Stepping into the pub that Kaden had told Mohe to meet up at, with a lit cigarette spooling forth the tastes of cinnamon onto his tongue, his eyes shifted to and fro in order to soak up the sights. The Ragz-n-riches Pub was but one of thousands of similar pub venues that were shoved into every nook and cranny that their owners could afford in Jade City, with each of them trying to differentiate themselves from each other by the use of thematic gimmicks. The gimmick of this particular pub was the intermingling of the proles and the bourgies - after all, it was situated on a nice side-highway that was nestled between the commercial side of Jade City and its sprawling residential arcologies or super-blocks. This meant that alongside the usual ruffians sat more dignified office drones, and even an odd corpo or two that had assembled a corporate entourage unto themselves. Mohe exhaled the cinnamon-flavored smoke from his nostrils as he headed further into the venue, his stature either towering over or being towered upon the diverse crowd that were in attendance. Those who were not yet called to work following New Years were spending their final leisurely hours here, meaning that the venue was rather packed; a great time for a meeting, given that there was space to even do so around. The two-story pub had a subtle amber ambience to it, one that was continuous and much different than the discontinuous neons that infected the Jade City skyline outside. In sound, various noises of conversation blended into the saxosynth music that was on play, issuing a tune to each step that Mohe took as he walked past the crowded bar and up the stairs towards the dedicating eating and smoking areas. The faux-wood aesthetic that the pub had going on played very much to Mohe’s personal tastes, since he always thought that the organic textures of wood beat that of the monotony of steel or the broken nature of weathered concrete. With his synthetic cigarette’s cinnamon cartridge running out, Mohe switched it out with a similar clover flavor as he reached the top of the staircase, rounding its corner and walking along the railings as he searched for Kaden. The man was not as easy to spot as Mohe would have liked - the Fiftieth Jackal hid all his art underneath layers of jackets and coats, and the dermal augmentations the man sported on his face had been already covered up by an underground dermatologist with faux-skin tissue. Even so, Mohe eventually found his new “friend” by being flagged down by one of Kaden’s boys, who led him towards two concave booths and a table arranged to form a shape of an eye that sat right above the entrance to Ragz-n-riches. Several men of varying appearances were already seated between the two booths, enjoying beers and different saltine foods as they waited for the impromptu meeting to start - one of them moved and allowed Mohe to join them, allowing him to have a full sight of the entire pub. “There’s that f*ckin’ penno! Mohe, my brotha, how’re ya holdin’ up?” Mohe sighed as he sat down, puffing twice on his synth-cig before placing it down on a shared ashtray. “Yeah, I’m good, Kaden. Say, are all these your boys too?” he asked, co*cking his head to and fro in indication of the various tattooed and augmented men around him. “Half of us are from the Fiftieth Jackals, same as the boss,” one of them replied, taking charge in place of their present leader. “Other half are like you; pennos with experience. That right, ain’t it?” “Truuuue,” blurted out a man in the midst of finishing his joint, his blond dreadlocks seemingly brushing off of the shoulders of a much smaller man sat next to him. “We all ‘ere for dem notes... Mohe, Kaden’ ere say you a beast ‘n d’ pen. You a real beast?” the dreadlocked man asked in an audibly Jamaican accent, pointing his joint at Mohe before finishing it in one massive, savored inhale. “If you’re asking me if I can handle my sh*t, I can. Cadmium knows the bull I had to do in the pen to survive. A job here is easier to put in my mind, if anything.” “Good!” Kaden exclaimed, cheering him with a raise of his beer before slamming it down onto a coaster after sipping it. “That means we are all accounted for in knowing how the f*ckin’ game goes, yeah? Now, we ready to talk business, or are half of you too fried to understand jack sh*t?” As Kaden looked around to take stock of the mens’ states, Mohe noticed that the man’s irises glowed a dull violet. It was a strange sight - most likely being the result of an optical implant. “I’ll take that as a yes, then... alright, let’s talk biz. “Now, as y’all know, me and Cadmium know our sh*t when it comes to running untraceable augs for any client that hires us. The thing is, Hathor’s Prez has been up the ass of every aug-servicing corp from here to Thoas and back because of those new cyberization laws. That means it’s now harder to get sh*t for our clients from systems outside of Hathor, and this also means that black market rates for ‘em are through the f*cking roof. We can’t peddle our products like good f*ckin’ tradesmen, which means we gotta get our hands dirty. Y’all get what I’m saying?” His question was responded to by nods across the booths, Mohe included. “Good, good. There’s a aug-manufacturing corp that just got bought up by Chen Wu recently called Poros Bodyworks, and the great thing is that their plant is straight outta home turf - smack dab in southern Jade City. The purchase for it was in the tens of billions of notes, too, which means that if we don’t hit a lick on this soon, Chen Wu is going to roll in and dump their usual deal of asset protection and evaluation services. In other words... that sh*t is gonna be locked down like Guantanamo.” “What’s a gwantanmo?” “...It’s some f*ckin’ jail from Earth, Klezzy. Look,” Kaden said as he rubbed his forehead, “the point is that we gotta hit this subsidiary soon and hit it hard, or else these new laws - courtesy of our beloved President Foulke - is gonna bury us in the damn dirt. Can’t have that.” “You got a timeframe for this lick?” Mohe asked, picking up his synth-cig as he spoke. “If you know what Chen Wu’s doing, it means that we can plan accordingly.” “You one smart nut, ain’t ya, penno? I did have one, yeah... but... I got sold out.” Whispers rounded the booths as the men looked between themselves and Kaden. “Let me explain what the f*ck happened first, okay? Klezzy, roll me a blunt while I talk. I’ma need it. “I had what seemed like a real good f*ckin’ contact in Poros, named Hando. He had access to the comms between his managers and the Chen Wu corpos that were supervising the transition of leadership and assets through apparently sucking some off, and gave me access to what I thought was their timetables, itineraries, the works. I send a few of my boys to verify this, and as half of you know... they never came back from that sh*t, except in bodybags.” “Woah, woah - your boys got iced by f*cking Chen Wu?” one of the ex-cons asked, his cheeks being decorated with taoist trigrams. “You serious?” “Of course it was f*cking Chen Wu, penno! Who the f*ck would whack a bunch of gangboys like that for just messing with timetables? Hando was feeding me false sh*t, and now I have no clue if I got a bounty on my f*cking head. So, here’s what we gonna do first. I need two of you to ice that f*cking fa*g, search his place for anything related to this deal, and take it back to me here,” Kaden said, rolling his eyes in interaction with optical GUIs before sending an address to each of the men at the table. Mohe received it on his phone, and he eyed it - 746 Faulkner Court, Puerto Magnifico Arcology. It was probably a trap house of some kind, but Mohe wouldn’t know unless he was the one that had to report to it directly. “Say, Mohe, Cadmium knows you f*ck sh*t up - how ‘bout you go and help my boy Klezzy here?” f*ck, Mohe thought. Wonderful luck’s what I got. Committing a hit with a f*cking stoner. “Sure,” he responded, exhaling his synth-cig’s smoke while seeing it conjoin with the clouds of exhaled weed that already floated about underneath an amber lamp. “Klezzy, you got iron?” “sh*t, bredren, y’know we ‘redy,” the blonde Jamaican said as he reached underneath the table and placed a gun near to the plate of chips that he was entertaining beforehand. It was a street-legal Proskurin SA2566 from what Mohe could recall, and Klezzy’s pistol already had a suppressor affixed to it. “Mohe, I know you and the rest just got out of the pen, so you ain’t got sh*t but your fists. God knows that I already can tell you specifically can wreck sh*t with ‘em, but you never go do this kind of stuff without the steel to back it up. That’s why I brought some guns for all of you pennos; Ricardo, get ‘em acquainted.” One of the Fiftieth Jackals who were previously straddling a metal box in their arms, unlatching its top before opening it and revealing four other pistols inside - all being SA2566s, with suppressors and magazines alike lying to their sides inside. “Pub owner is friends with Cadmium; he won’t rat to cops about this little distribution. Y’all go ahead and take one.” “Ain’t these six hundred or so notes a pop without even counting ammo and the supps?” another ex-con asked. “Bro, don’t worry about the price; it ain’t going on your tab. Besides, if we do this sh*t right, all these guns are gonna be payed a hundred or more times over.” Mohe put his cigarette back in the ashtray and reached into the box with his fellow ex-convicts, pulling out one of the SA2566 in one hand and a suppressor with two magazines sandwiched between gloved fingers in the other. He pocketed the two extra magazines in the underside of his jacket as he inspected the Proskurin, checking that the safety was on before unloading it to see another magazine already loaded inside. “For those not acquainted, SA2566s run fifteen-round magazines - thirty if you’re brave, forty-five if youre accommodating for something. Perfectly street legal. God bless Hyperion, because you don’t need a license for this sh*t. Easy. However, I expect you all also to not f*cking flash them around like a bimbo’s fake tit*, or else you’re going to attract heat that we don’t need. Mohe, Klezzy, I’ma send you the deets of this sh*t later. We can’t make a move without those timetables, so there’s no point of stressing about any other sh*t now. Let’s get sh*tfaced, yeah!?” Mohe stepped outside of the pub with a slight buzz, having treated himself to some rum at the bar. It was already nine, and the neon streets of Jade City shone in full effect all around him. Being sober enough to walk without a stumbling gait, he lit a cinnamon flavor in his synth-cigarette once again before walking down the crowded sidewalk towards a place where he could easily catch a taxi. Before he could enter a full stride, however, he felt a hand grasp him on the shoulder. Turning reflexively with his hands clenched, ready to punch, he instead saw the blonde dreadlocks of Klezzy. “sh*t, it’s you? Man, I almost clocked you right in the f*cking face; my bad.” “Is all cool ‘ere! You roll wit Kaden, you bredren t’me, no bad blood, seen? Since we roll soon, I fig’d we talk ‘bout each o’ ourselves. Can’t roll good if y’bredren ghosts.” “Yeah, I understand,” Mohe replied. The two walked over to a railing on the sidewalk that gave full view of the location they were in - in essence, the sidewalk was a raised platform that was hoisted over and under hundreds of similar platforms that snaked around the mega-block that Ragz-n-riches was a part of. Hovercars flew by as the men smoked their respective cigarette and joint, smoke billowing away from their subsequent, forceful wake. “Mi ‘ear you in the pen for how long... ten?” “Eleven. Locked up for stealing microprocessors... somewhere on this planet. I can’t even remember, but it was somewhere in South Albion, that’s for sure.” “Ah, seen,” Klezzy responded. He coughed for some time before returning to the conversation, probably as a result of the hefty drag he did prior. “Me ‘ave been locked up for tings out’ere - nothin’ big, though. Mi serve ‘bout seven years total for peddlin’ cannabis witout license, for puttin’ shots in a bitch-boy car, other tings... gangb*ng sh*t, y’know?” “Yeah,” Mohe replied. “You know how to handle your iron, then, I take it?” “Mi gun mi wife, mi spirit ‘n d’metal. Aim true.” “Good sh*t, then,” Mohe said, turning to face Klezzy and raising his left hand with his palms open. Klezzy, knowing what Mohe was doing, switched his joint to his left hand and slapped his right on Mohe’s hand, dabbing him up before patting each other on the shoulder with a friendly hug. “You’re gonna have to teach me some sh*t about Hyperion, though. Over a decade in prison and I can’t understand this place...” “Seen. Kaden ‘ready sent d’ address of dis batty-boy, so mi ready t’ride whenever you’re true.” Mohe and Klezzy both took their last drags before tossing them over the railing, with each of them parting and looking at their respective phones for the details that Kaden had sent them. *2 New Messages sent 1 minute ago. Poros Bodyworks Manufacturing Plant, Jade City, Southern Albion Continent Octavia was at the brink of snapping. The woman stormed down the snaking halls of the plant towards the employee lockers, a stoic stare planted on her face as a means to not attract the ire of her supervisors for having a “poor workplace attitude”. However, as soon as she entered the room that hosted such lockers, her demeanor turned into that of a simmering rage. Normally, Octavia would have been held up at work until seven for some inane reason, but on the whim of her manager Joachim, she was now forced to work almost five entire hours past the time most clocked out. Opening her locker with force, she tugged out the duffle bag that contained her spare change of clothes, various baubles necessary to carry with her while on parole, and equipment to maintain her two cybernetic arms - sitting below of her two natural, organic ones. Both sets of arms sported similar dense musculatures, but her cybernetic pair used for work were attached to a neuromuscular port that sat below her deltoids, thus being slightly longer than her organic pair. Due to corporate regulations, they were colored in metallic orange, and thus shone underneath the sickly white lamps in such a tinged glow. These arms hoisted the duffle bag over her back while she stood silent, head down in thought. I’m going to strangle my parole officer, I swear to God... Octavia slammed a fist into the metal chassis of the locker in frustration before walking away, the silence of the halls and their relative emptiness echoing the isolation that followed her. Ever since she was released from prison a year ago from her assault charges, Octavia was effectively entombed to slaving at Poros Bodyworks as a part of her parole contract. The only “positive” was that it allowed her to be augmented with a secondary pair of arms free of charge, sure, but having this be done in exchange for a pittance of a salary at a sh*tty company with sh*tty managers and supervisors felt more like a death sentence. In prison, Octavia was at least spared the farce of maintaining a professional relationship with those superior and inferior alike. As Octavia trudged throughout the labyrinthine of halls towards the entrance to the facility, she was stopped by one of her female coworkers, Vicky. She hated the woman with all her heart and soul for being an insufferable bitch to work with, but Vicky’s attitude now lacked the annoying texture that Octavia was used to. Now, it sported hesitancy. “Yeah? Do you need something?” “Well, um... have you seen Hando lately?” Vicky asked, clutching a burning cigarette between her fingers. Octavia’s brow co*cked in response. “He works in a different department than us; general admin. The bureaucratic bullsh*t - you know this, why are you asking me?” “Well... I was told to give something to him. Records and stuff from those people from Chen Wu; they said he had to review them immediately. I’ve been asking everyone here, and no one’s seen him at all! Not even the people from general-” “Then that means the lucky f*ck is spending his sick days doing the weird sh*t he usually does. Right?” “I guess... but I don’t know where he lives!” “sh*t, and you think I do, Vicky? Look, I gotta catch a bus back home, so good luck with your... stuff, okay?” Octavia said, inching away before breaking off the conservation and heading through the entrance. She didn’t want to get involved in anything relating with Chen Wu or its employees being in the area. Everyone knew this, and it was simply the sensible thing to do. Vicky was probably digging her own grave, and Octavia thought better than to get involved. As she waited for the entrance doors to be automatically opened, she noticed the two security guards shooting the sh*t in their allocated interior guardhouse. She waved two of her four arms at them and gave off an irritated expression, forcing one of the guards to lazily scoot in his chair and fiddle with something hidden that allowed the maw of the entrance to finally give way. Walking through, Octavia found herself in a cold and humid night, with the chill flowing over her arms and her exposed midriff. The company attire she was supposed to wear indoors was already hanging off of her waist, and Octavia didn’t want to exactly advertise where she worked as she went through the city. She’d rather bear with the cold. Octavia walked down the somewhat quiet streets that ran parallel to the Poros Bodyworks plant, her amber eyes bouncing to and fro different neon signs that she already saw hundreds of times. Strip clubs, bars, shops, the works - it wasn’t surprising that these were located only a few hundred meters or less from a major augment manufacturing facility. Nothing was surprising in Jade City, or Hyperion as a whole. Soon enough into her travels, Octavia was able to rest at one of the miscellany of bus stops strewn throughout. As the hoverbus that ran the route near to her house landed, she piled in alongside dozens of others - many of whom were gawking at her for the obvious display of arms, in addition to her defined physique. Women and men alike shot her gazes, but Octavia was not in the mood for it - she simply settled into the back of the bus, using her duffle bag as an impromptu pillow. Settling in for the drive, her eyes slowly sagged with the weight of sleep as she looked through the window. The bus lurched forward and set off unto the night sky, with the neon lights of Hyperion’s innumerable cities swallowing the starlight above and thus rendering it a murky light-blotted void. Octavia could make out one specific pinprick of light in this soup of darkness, however - the orbiting ring station known as Paradise, where the top one-percent-of-the-one-percent resided in all of the luxurious glories. She didn’t care for such monumental dreams, but always thought about what living in space with all needs accounted for would truly feel like. These thoughts lulled her slowly into the grip of sleep, but she was ultimately roused by the beginning of a conversation near her. In the seats in front of her, two men had begun to light their cigarettes and speak to one another about... something. Cueing her ears in, she gradually picked up what they were saying. “...I just don’t understand, man. Corps funding gangs in the streets? Nah. Can’t be true.” “Oh come the f*ck on, man! Stapleford, Chen Wu, Hinata; do you think they just sit with their thumbs plugged up their asses when their private securities can’t fight for control? They go get cheap, expendable, reliable soldiers - gangs. Cliques. The works.” “How the f*ck did you get this information?” “I mean... to be honest, there ain’t no concrete evidence of this that the news’s just gonna pass to the public. Thing is, there’s a lot of sh*t floatin’ ‘round on the Net that show how these corps distribute money, weapons, and all sorts of other sh*t.” “Now I gotta believe everything the Net says? Really now?” “Well, Mark, if you don’t believe me, then maybe...” The conversation began to bore Octavia, but she soon noticed that the hoverbus was approaching the destination that she needed to disembark from. She slowly rose from her seat, bag in hand, and waited for the bus to finish its approach to one of the many aerial platforms for the megablock that she resided within. The sound of crumpled cans hitting plastic resounded throughout the cramped apartment as Octavia finished her third beer of the night. Stifling hiccups as she stumbled from the open kitchen to the bedroom-living room combo, she flopped onto her folding bed with an audible sigh. Her cybernetic arms were already put away near the foot of her bed, leaving the neuromuscular ports open with their metallic lips attached onto nothing. The crappy television screen that was hoisted on the other side of the room was turned on with a flick of a free hand, allowing Octavia to see a newscast babbling on colors blended in from a mess of pixels. “...in other news, many are expressing their shock with the decision that President Foulke approved earlier last month. Known as the ‘Parole Re-evaluation Procedure’, the Republic of Hathor has validated for the release of hundreds of thousands of convicts across the planet of Hyperion. Some fellow Presidents across the Coalition of Congressional Republics have decried Foulke’s move as a dangerous attempt to feign populism, while others across Hyperion see it as a chance for a new, redeeming life.” Octavia watched the newscast as it teetered on, nursing her fourth beer of the night without a particular care for the consequences tomorrow. She already filed for the day after to be one of the very few days off that was spared, being so as an indirect revenge for being shoved into work for so long into the night today. “Beginning our opinion segment is a particular metaconservative politician hailing from Masay Harbor, Niels Angstrom. Mister Angstrom, I wish you a warm welcome to the show, and I want to open with this: what do you personally think about President Foulke’s most recent act?” “Thanks for having me, Claye. Well, when looking at this from a policy perspective, it is quite strange for even someone as conservative as Foulke... I mean, rehabilitation bills and the like are the things that many metaliberals and sociodemocrats fling at congress all the time. Thing is, though, like all laws and acts, there’s a good and a bad to them. I don’t see much good coming from this, personally, given how many ex-convicts have been released without any support structure. They really should not have been released in the first place, as now the public sphere is going to be saturated with a metric ton of parolees.” “So, would you say that this move was unwise from President Foulke?” “...No, not necessarily. Hyperion labor markets right now are in a slump for employment, and this has already showed function as a major labor force injection. Corporations are already headhunting parolees and hiring them en-masse if they don’t have a parole contract already. It is just that, from my perspective, the President just did not weigh all the consequences properly before enacting this thing.” “Very interesting, mister Angstrom. Now, to hear the opinions from the other side of the aisle... miss Tiyana Hakodate, chairwoman of...” Octavia grew bored with the opinion segment, soon shutting off the television with another lazy swipe of her hand into the air above her bed. She sat up and lumbered over to the small window affixed to the right side of her apartment, giving forth the glowing lights of the distant commerce sector of Jade City hundreds of kilometers away. She stood there, staring forth, in deep thought. Once she was off parole, Octavia did not have much of anything to come back to. Her father didn’t exist anymore in any record she was aware of, and her mother had already died some time ago to the innumerable diseases that rippled through the overcrowded planet. In the terms of friends - co-workers certainly not counting - she barely had any. The rigors of her schedule disallowed Octavia from participating much in social events, and her friends from high school were already spread far and wide across the breadth of Hyperion’s city-addled surface. She did not have the pang of wanderlust in her heart, nor the taint of true lust - she desired something more close and less superficial from a man. She knew no one that could love her like how she wanted, and thus Octavia naturally grew to give off a vibe of confrontation and competition to everyone around her. Octavia sighed as she hit the lightswitch to the apartment off, bringing the light present down to only the faded neon streams through the window and the silent glow of activity statuses from her television and other electronics. She threw her last beer can across the room and flopped onto her bed, grappling with a mind that desired more from a life barren of true opportunity. One day, she would find something worthwhile to latch onto and prosper. One day... |
Last Edit: Dec 24, 2021 7:35:22 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesJan 8, 2022 2:41:27 GMT Post by Nexus on Jan 8, 2022 2:41:27 GMT⬖ Back In the Thick of It The interior of the car that Klezzy and Mohe occupied was filled by the ambient smoke of the former’s joint, which had now fizzled down to dying embers within the ashen cupholders between them. Mohe, sitting in the front passenger seat, was busy fiddling with an external data extractor that Kaden had lended to him (due to the fact that Mohe lacked neurodata augmentations), while his compatriot finished checking and loading his suppressed SA2566. The two men had left the land-based car and stared upwards, with the accordion-esque shape of the apartment complex before them shimmering in a multitude of scintillations of glass against the rays of Hathor above. Hando’s residence was somewhere deep within the central ribbed area of the massive residential structure, and from the details that Kaden had sent, it was definitely nowhere near the ground floor. Bad for escapes if things were to go wrong, but Mohe tried not to dwell on such an idea. Klezzy pocketed his pistol and trotted up to Mohe, blond dreadlocks bouncing against his red synthleather jacket as he caught up with his partner near one of the complex’s entrances. Crowds were already coming in and out of the structure, and as Mohe checked his phone for the time, he figured out that a mixture of churches and over-the-break school had just let out just over fifteen minutes ago. This complicated things, but Kaden did not want the two to wait for night-time before they went on with the plan — apparently many Poros workers had been overworked recently due to the transition, Hando being one of them. A little social manipulation before he was betrayed revealed to Kaden that Hando recently transitioned to working from home, meaning that time was only a risk relative to being seen by others. Kaden’s pressure to kill Hando immediately thus forced Klezzy and Mohe into action as soon as possible. Mohe and Klezzy filed through the crowds and reached a residential atrium. Synthetic receptionists were stationed at several places along the atrium, but asking them for directions would be both foolish and needless to the mission. Klezzy, being neurally cyberized, was already running the computations in his brain augs, before flashing a thumb to Mohe that pointed towards the elevators to the rear. The men walked up to one of the many elevators and filed in, being surrounded by a gaggle of middle-class kids and adults alike all around. The two clearly stood out, with Mohe’s attire making him seem vaguely threatening from the articles of clothing he wore, and Klezzy’s clear gang affiliation being shown from his candy-apple red jacket and tattoos. This caused many within the elevator to drift away from the two, leaving a visible ring of emptiness between them and the others. Mohe and Klezzy cared little, with the latter punching in for the 45th floor. Soon enough, the crowds gradually dissipated, leaving only the duo as they arrived on the 45th floor. Due to the unique architectural designs of the Accordion complex, the floor distributions skewed the 3900 apartments to such a level, leaving Mohe slightly stumped. Without Klezzy being present, he probably would have taken longer to find the location - and time was of the essence, at least from Kaden’s perspective. Mohe nodded in respect, his hands reaching for under his jacket and feeling for the grip of his pistol as the two exited the elevator onto their recipient floor. Klezzy pointed to the left, and the two proceeded down the empty sterile halls with their hands brushing their iron and their eyes flicking to and fro. As they rounded the final few corners on their approach to apartment number 3958, Klezzy stopped halfway into his last stride. He quickly backed up and pushed Mohe backwards, causing the latter to almost fall onto the ground. Folders. Works from home... the dots were rather easy to connect in his head. Mohe briefly flashed a toothy grin as he wagged his cigarette-clutching finger towards the girl, taking steps forward in the process and mentally preparing himself for whatever was to come after. He approached her slowly as he spoke, backing her into one of the hallway’s walls. The girl anxiously pointed at his chest. He forgot to fully cover his gun. Are you kidding me...!? The girl darted away from him in an instant, her heels clacking against the stone floor as she made a brazen attempt to get away from the stranger before her. Mohe instinctively gave chase, with Klezzy hearing the commotion soon after and revealing himself. With the dreadlocked man behind, some ways Mohe put in more speed as a means to get to the girl and whatever she was carrying. Agh, you dumb f*cking bitch! Audible screams of terror rang throughout the hallways as Mohe sprinted through, his face angled low and his collar now raised high to hide his face and tattoos in an attempt to hide his face from the unblocked cameras throughout. Seeing the girl stumble on her own heels, Mohe brought himself to a stop and grabbed for her by the neck, raising her up and letting the folders that she was clutching fall to the floor. Mohe heaved her up with ease and slammed the girl’s face straight into a nearby door with force, spraying blood from her nostrils as she folded onto the floor. With a small pool of blood now forming near the door and below the trail already left by her face unceremoniously sliding onto the ground, he turned around and bent down to pick up the folders that were now speckled with crimson drops throughout. Pocketing the cigarette that he never lit, he flipped through the files in his hands. Chen Wu... Poros Bodyworks... yeah, this is the jackpot, alright. Klezzy soon followed up behind, his breaths being more heaved and ragged than Mohe’s own. Mohe, without saying anything more, gripped the depression in the door that acted as a handle and tugged hard to the left, sliding it open with a loud bang. He stormed in with his pistol raised to eye level, but found himself staring into an abyss of darkness. Klezzy soon followed in, flipping on a light switch and revealing the apartment interior. Nothing seemed amiss at first - that is, apart from the specific decor that Hando had elected to use for the residence. Flamboyant pinks and violets were strewn about, all rendered in cheesy leopard decals upon chairs and the living room’s wallpaper. Both Klezzy and Mohe slowly advanced through the apartment, their guns drawn on the nooks and crannies peppered throughout. Hovering near one of the final unsearched doors in the darkness, Mohe slowly turned the knob and pushed it in, revealing a bedroom almost entirely cloaked in shadows in exception to what laid bathed in the faint light of a computer console. Mohe’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw the systematic, jerking movement of an arm moving up and down, to and fro in conjunction to the gyrations of the man’s ass on what seemed to be... a massive, vibrating dild*. What in God’s holy name am I looking at- The man seemed to be in total hedonisia, with a series of wires running to the sides of the man’s head from the console indicating that he was suspended deep in virtual reality. Mohe slowly crept forward, his footsteps being muffled against the soft carpet underfoot and drowned out by the consecutive wet slaps originating from the other side of the bedroom. Flexing his fingers on the grip of the SA2566, he flicked off the safety and slowly positioned the suppressor to the back of the man’s head. What if the folders that the bitch had don’t got what we need? Mohe thought, anxiety creeping into the forefront of his thoughts.f*ck, now I need to interrogate this dild*-riding guy... Mohe tapped the man’s right shoulder with the suppressor of his pistol, almost missing it from the motions that the man was committing to on the robotic phallus. As Hando unplugged the wires from his temple and turned around, he and his lubricated co*ck both stared upward at the towering figure of a complete stranger. Those were the last words that Hando spoke before he felt the sides of his head cave in, metallic ports and all, from the force of something crashing into it at extreme speed. Hando groggily woke up ass-naked and bound to the stares of two men that he had never even seen before; one that had a buzz cut and lacked any augments on his face whatsoever, and the other who had blonde dreadlocks and clear indications of cyberization across his face. Slowly turning his pain-ridden around, Hando also noticed a knocked out woman splattering blood from her nose and mouth all over his true-leather couch. With his eyes barely being able to he focus, he eventually figured out that it was... Vicky, one of his co-workers from Poros Bodyworks. Mohe grabbed one of the chairs near the kitchen island and brought it into the living room before slamming it down in front of Hando’s bowed figure, sitting down with his gun aimed squarely at Hando’s face. Hando squinted under the pink light of the overhead living room lamp, being somewhat able to tell what was in front of him. Mohe simply stared forward at the man, his eyebrow slightly twitching. Mohe rubbed his head with the grip of his gun as he paced around the room, with Klezzy in the middle of smoking yet another joint — and spectating the show while also keeping an eye on the front door and the unconscious girl splayed out on the couch. Mohe slammed the steel toe of his boot square into the jaw of Hando, sending him flying as the man’s jaw cracked in forceful dislocation of metal and bone. Blood now splattered across the zebra-print rug that Hando had on the floor, its crimson being turned into an odd pink underneath the light of the room. The two stumbled through the apartment and back into the bedroom, with Mohe pushing Hando forward and sending the man tumbling into his own computer setup. Hando sat down proper on his chair, shakily tapping on a holographic display that arose as he logged in. The screen turned from a standard login page to that of a background sporting what seemed to be several men in gimp outfits, to which Mohe responded to with a silent grimace. Hando was quick to navigate throughout the computer’s folders, before reaching a location marked WORK_DOCS. A sharp thwack emanated throughout the bedroom, Mohe having kept his eyes on the computer monitor. He heard the fleshy bang of Hando’s body collapsing onto the floor, with the man’s head having been cavitated by the 9-millimeter round and sending a plume of metal, blood and brain matter spilling over the silken fabrics of the bed beside him. After turning his head and noticing the grisly sight, Mohe kept a stoic face as he put away his gun and pulled out the data extractor given to him by Kaden. He plugged it into the computer and downloaded the files shown on the explorer application, with such only lasting a few seconds before completion. When it was done, he snapped the wires from the computer’s ports and pocketed it, stepping over the fresh corpse of Hando and the continuously billowing bloodfall that was raining onto the carpet from the bed’s topside. Mohe lit the synth-cig he kept handy as he put it in his mouth, and exited the room, ignoring the menthol flavor present. 🙼 |
Last Edit: May 3, 2024 14:08:34 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
crassus GNP Posts: 29 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesJan 9, 2022 3:38:24 GMT Post by crassus on Jan 9, 2022 3:38:24 GMTSOFTLOCK Opportunities to progress in life are as rare as they come nowadays—unless you are born into status, your chances of making it up the social strata are slim. In these challenging times, it seems as if the old saying that "luck is the combination of preparation and opportunity" is little more than a myth. For Miata Hughes, an opportunity has presented itself, but does she even have the chance to take it? Maogang 錨港 (Anchor Bay) Miata Hughes was standing atop a city which didn't feel real at all. An icy wind cut through her like a blade, but the surrounding ambience was silent—deathly silent. Standing over the edge, she saw that the ground ended in a milky white void, with the sky above her a solid blue. All around her, the buildings seemed to stretch downwards into an infinite blank nothingness, and the sun reflecting off their windows gave the impression that the buildings were glowing. She knelt down, as if to test if the cool metal roofing beneath her was real against her fingertips. Real enough. She stood back up as sirens suddenly filled her ears, along with the familiar loops of drum 'n bass breaks and electronic synths. A police hovercraft rose up over the other side of the building, its sirens blaring as red and strobe lights flashed in her face. She assumed a stance likened to that of a runner about to blast off the starting block, and without any more hesitation, she blasted off the side of the building. She was flying. She felt weightless, and as the music intensified around her, she— "* BIIIIING BOOOOONG Now approaching: Maogang. Please hold onto the hand rails and watch your step as you exit the locomotive. Have a great day at work!*” *** ”f*ck.” Miata grumbled and shrank into her seat, watching as her reflection on the window was immediately replaced by the corporate city Maogang. As they exited the tunnel, Miata removed her earbuds and looked out the window, watching as the city flew past her at breakneck speed. For as many times as she had immersed herself in fantastical virtual reality settings, she never had thought about taking the time to inspect her own home—and for good reason. Maogang—Jade City as a whole, even—was very different when one wasn’t practically submerged in VR or AR tech. It was more or less a sh*thole; much less flashy and optimistic, more dark, rainy, and depressing. Miata could see a web of maglev monorails and hovering buses zipping atop routes that crisscrossed the city; some shot through gaps between skyscrapers, some blasted over neon-lit streets, and others passed beneath dark tunnels that seemed to lead to nowhere. Gigantic viewscreens broadcasting big name products were practically everywhere, plastered onto practically everything—even onto the goddamn seats in the monorail. Miata at least had a bit of breathing room when it came to these all-pervasive advertisem*nts—if she had the proper AR ocular implants, they would’ve been be right up in her face. As the train approached Maogang, her eyes slowly drifted away from the massive skeleton of a partially-disassembled CFA vessel far off in the foggy distance, to the throng of street vendors beneath the bridges made from the monorails. Her eyes passed over them, watching as they bickered, bartered, and argued in the open, as if they had no care for the rain at all. Most of these people were just lowly tradespeople and scavengers that sold pirated tech, all while the actual shopkeeps across the street stared at them contemptuously from inside of their establishments. It was a bit of a sad relationship, really. The people on the ground had practically no idea how infinitesimal they were compared to the guys up top, such as her bosses with Big Chen. At times, Miata also felt small, but she always had to remember that there was always going to be someone smaller than her, and in much more destitute conditions. Sometimes, it paid to stay grounded. As they continued moving, the buildings around the shipbreaking yards gradually transformed from the recognizable blocky office towers to squat squares made of corrugated metal sheets and concrete. The screens on these buildings were cracked or otherwise non-functional, and the occasional burn barrel hidden in an alleyway lit up stacks of trash and debris, which formed scrap walls that separated small shacks from each other. It became readily apparent to Miata from the passover what these shack-villages were: homeless communities, hoping to leech off whatever tech that the Chen-Wu workers came out with, where they could sell it in the markets for whatever measly profit they could. If life was hard for the street vendors, it was even worse than the people out here. As the monorail began to slow down, Miata stood up from her seat and shuffled her way over to the doors, practically melting into a crowd of a hundred other workers packed like sardines onto the hovering train. The train soon came to an abrupt stop at the station, the momentum nearly knocking her off her feet as it slid to a halt. Then, the doors sheathed open, allowing the throng to step out onto a wet metal platform leading down to the ground level. Miata hopped off the train and had no time to look around as she was pushed by the human wave down a flight of metal steps, totally exposed to the elements. The wind blew freezing cold air and mist into her face as she followed the crowd in a tight file, reaching into her jacket pocket for her ID and earbuds again. Her usual combination of VR and binaural beat music was pretty much useless here when she was exposed to so much stimuli. She felt a little upset that she wasn’t on such a relatively quiet and smooth train anymore, which meant that finding something to distract herself from the cold and hellish workplace she was about to enter was a task easier said than done. Soon, the throng had reached its destination, the front gates of the Shipbreaking Yard of Chen-Wu’s Maogang site. The armed robotic guards on duty stood like statues, unfazed by the rain or wind, and unmoving as if they were completely unaware of the massive amount of Chen-Wu workers shuffling into the site. However, Miata knew better—if someone was to step out of line or get uppity with another worker, two of those robots on guard would be on them before she could even blink. She figured it was best she kept her mouth shut, her ID up, and her face forward at all times. Passing through the security checkpoint and clocking in was a breeze, and before long, Miata finally had some breathing room as she entered the corporate city. Maogang, in essence, was a walled off community built by Chen-Wu, which meant that practically all stores and housing were also owned by Chen-Wu, or a Chen-Wu subsidiary. The place was filled with stores, places of worship, markets, recreational facilities, and even schools, but if one had more than one brain cell, they’d know that living here was exploitative and controlling as hell. Miata had opted to stay off-site, a decision she thought paid off, even if it meant taking the train in to work every day. The luxury of staying in an apartment one could personalize themselves in an area where things didn’t cost as much as one’s salary was something that was truly underrated, even if things were generally less quality the further away she went. Miata suddenly stopped as she found herself at the front blast doors of her place of work: the Chen-Wu shipbreaking yards. The imposing neon sign up front in English and Chinese, and the tired appearance of the previous shift workers exiting made her hesitate on stepping in, but a buzzing sensation on her hip prompted her otherwise—she quite literally couldn’t afford to be late. Inside the building, she made her way into a small meeting room on the first floor, where a collection of individuals had been gathered—most notably, her supervisor. The man had to have been an ethnic chimera, his face practically unrecognizable to any ethnicity she knew of, which meant that he was perhaps an off-worlder. The one thing that never seemed to change about his face, though, was a scowl that seemed to judge everyone he was responsible for. Regardless, she knew very well of the man’s attitude and was prepared for it—he had to be a hardass on them because his paycheck depended on it. Entering the room, she hovered the PDA in her pocket over a scanner by the door, which let out a single beep in approval. ”Sorry I’m—” ”You’re one minute late, Hughes.” Her supervisor sighed, his hands on his hips as he watched her enter the room, shuffling into place beside another identically clad worker. He then checked a vintage chronograph on his left wrist—something Miata knew probably costed him a paycheck and a half. ”Make that two minutes. Anyone else decides to come in late gets written up. Let’s get started.” She didn’t protest at all as she just stood there, unable to defend herself at all. Miata watched as he placed his hands into his jumpsuit’s pockets, then looked towards a screen behind him. "Synth, bring up, uhhh, the cross section of the Captain Deckard. Highlight command deck and, uhhh, conning tower.” Miata watched as a synthetic worker behind her tapped something on a small console built into the drywall. The screen behind her supervisor eventually powered on with some effort, showing a gridded cross section of the gargantuan starship they were currently dismantling outside. The ship’s profile enlarged, emphasizing the bridge and the conning tower directly above it, which contained a plethora of obsolete electronics and sensors likely used to detect enemy vessels during the Captain Deckard’s prime. ”Okay... let’s, uhh, see here. Here’s the job for today:” her supervisor began unceremoniously, scrolling through a small holographic notepad built into an implant on his wrist. ”We’re bringing in the big guns tomorrow, folks. That means heavy gear, salvage hovercraft, big cranes, et cetera.” He paused, his finger passing over Miata for a moment. ”That also means everything tech-wise on that dump has got-to-go. First group, you’ll be goin’ to the bridge and taking the computers to reclamation—I swear to Christ, you break them, it’s goin’ out of your f*ckin’ pay. Corporate apparently says that we can re-use ‘em or salvage old components, so long as the physical data banks and computers aren’t busted.” He paused. ”They, uh, also don’t want you guys selling any scrap or copper wire ‘n sh*t to the tech-scavs outside Anchor Bay limits—’breaking corporate policy’ or something. I don’t really care, just, uhhh, don’t get caught doin' it.” Anchor Bay, Miata repeated to herself, a quick reminder that Maogang went by two names. Anchor Bay was only the Anglicanized method of saying the city, which some people still used out of personal preference. Her supervisor then realized where his finger was pointing and lowered it. ”Oh. Uhh. Hughes, today, you’ll be on topside duty again on the conning tower, buddy paired with, uhh...” He paused to check a name on his holo-notepad. ”Clancy.” As if her gaze was linked with her supervisor’s, Miata turned to a slender blonde woman with a pixie cut who stood in the corner, someone whom she had never seen before in her life. The woman looked up, giving a nod and wink to Miata, which only caused her to shiver. Normally, she’d be assigned to working alone, but for whatever reason, today was an exception. I'll manage, though, Miata thought to herself, sighing.Right? "Alright, folks." Her supervisor clasped his hands, turning off the screen as the lights automatically brightened. "Need that conning tower and the computers in the bridge out by COB today. Let's get it done, folks." With that, Miata stood up and started for the exit, only remembering that she had a partner when the "Clancy" woman stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling. Miata's face scrunched up almost automatically as she turned to her. "What?" "Just going to say..." she began, "It's gonna be nice working with you, Hughes. The name's Kiera, by the way." Miata still had a poker face as she gently moved Kiera's hand off her shoulder. "Miata. Don't get too comfy—we don't get paid to sit around and talk, after all." ”Right, right. We’ll have our chance to talk after.” Kiera nodded. Miata scoffed, starting for the door and immediately making a right turn for the lockers. Yeah, right. *** Miata paused halfway on her descent down from the conning tower, turning to Kiera and squinting her eyes at the woman while dangling from the rope, seeing that she had said something out her mouth that was unintelligible. ”Whuh?” ”I asked, ‘how’d you get this job,’ Miata?” Kiera repeated a question that had apparently fallen on deaf ears, and quite literally. Miata removed her earbuds as she rappelled down the conning tower, a hovering carryall drone following her that carried the more sensitive and delicate electronic equipment that Miata had salvaged. In response to the woman’s question, Miata just... shrugged. How did she get the job here anyways? As far as she was concerned, she simply had just finished high school and some college before dropping out and ending up here, but with time feeling so blurry lately and work being so all-encompassing, she never really had bothered asking that question. "Um." She paused. "I don't know." "Your parents work in the shipbreaking industry? It’s a huge, imposing industry that sometimes traps entire families. I wouldn’t be surprised." Miata shrugged. As far as she was concerned, she wasn't aware of what her parents were up to nowadays. There were rumors of some family connections to her job here and there, but she doubted someone like her father had any say in Chen Wu affairs if she was working from the bottom here. In response, Kiera just frowned. "You know, you're a real tough cookie to crack, Miata. At least you're honest." Miata finally lowered herself down atop the upper deck, where the magnetic boots on her equipment locked to the metal plating with a loud and hollow clank. In response, she just glared at Kiera, not even bothering to look back at the climbing equipment she was pulling back onto her suit. "What? What do you mean I'm a 'tough cookie to crack’?" "I mean exactly what I say, Miata," Kiera responded, reaching atop her head and flipping a protective visor down over her face as she began to cut a large piece of metal in half with her cutting torch. Above the flashing lights and harsh noises, Miata could still hear the woman's voice: "You're introverted as hell!" Miata waited patiently for Kiera to finish cutting the piece of metal, watching her pass it over to a larger carryall drone to be shipped down to the surface. She just rolled her eyes as this happened. "The f*ck's that supposed to mean?" "It means," Kiera paused, flipping her visor up, gesturing to her ears. "You've gotta talk more. I think you playing that music in your ears so loudly blocked out any chance of small talk I had with you today, and we're almost done. I like to talk when I work, and I like to make friends!" Miata frowned, sifting through a pile of some of the smaller sensor arrays with her boot, as if to kill time. "I don't. Sorry I’m not so chummy. Company doesn't pay us to talk, they pay us to work." "And look at what we've done." Kiera gestured to the deck they were on, which had been almost completely stripped of its remaining electronics and sensors, and in record time. Even Miata was a bit surprised at how quickly they had accomplished everything—either she was working extra diligently today, or Kiera was almost as fast of a worker as her. ”We worked.” Miata just said, emotionless. ”What’s it to ya?” ”I’ve got the feeling that we’re going to be working together more in the future—its just an inkling with the boss I had. So...” Kiera paused, standing up from her impromptu workstation. ”Why don’t we get to know each other more? I know it’s creepy, but—” ”The way you put it makes it creepy.” ”Touche. But, either way, there’s an arcade in Jade City that I want to take you to after work. It’s pretty cool.” ”I do enough gaming already,” Miata sighed, packing up her things as she made her way towards the access shaft they had entered topside from. ”What makes this one different?” ”...What about secret bars? You like those?” Miata stopped, turning her head over her shoulder as she raised an eyebrow. ”You have my attention...” |
|
crassus GNP Posts: 29 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesFeb 13, 2022 7:20:16 GMT Post by crassus on Feb 13, 2022 7:20:16 GMTRECOMPILED APARTMENT 268, CYBERIA CITY Why did it all have to end? Why did the world have to end like this? Why? Cyberia—4ur1ga’s entire world—was slowly decaying, and she was powerless to even do anything to stop it. She had anticipated that this was going to happen ever since the shutdown back in 2695... but... she just hadn’t thought about it at all until it finally crept up on her. After all, at first, the thought of being stuck in Cyberia felt like a dream come true—finally entering paradise, free of her mortal strugglers, with seemingly no limits to the reach of her electric mind. Nonetheless, the real world was still out there. She yearned to go back, a desire she knew was impossible now. No matter how real Cyberia tried to be, how real it tried to feel, smell, and taste, it simply couldn’t truly replicate the real thing.
Back then, 4ur1ga hadn’t anticipated how bad things were going to get. She was so wrapped up in other things, trying to make her place in the virtual world, trying to get away from everything... and now, everything she had previously worked towards was decaying, broken, or in the process of being depreciated. Broken scripts and textures were becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and glitches in geometry warped the terrain into something abstract and surreal, with bends and dips appearing in the world at completely random intervals. She had questioned why she had even agreed to join J4xonfex in plugging herself into Cyberia, let alone taking the advice of someone several years older than her stupid teenage self. Was it out love? Desperation? Loneliness? Fear of missing out? Was it because her old boyfriend was going to have no one else if she refused, and would throw a pity party because of it? No matter the case, she was stuck here... and she still felt as if things were partially her fault. Regardless of whatever accident or shutdown happened with Cyberia, and however she wanted to face it, the fact she had chosen to be a WireSoul was damning enough, and couldn’t return to her real body as a result, even if she tried. Over time, though, she grew to cope with the realization that she was going to stay for good in her virtual world. After all, Cyberia was meant to be something of a replacement for the real world—for a game so old, it was relatively ahead of itself in trying to stay true to its promise of allowing anyone to be anything. At first, there was hope—life went on, and things still seemed like they were in working order, even if Cyberia was separated from the surface net and regular updates. She had even kept in regular contact with her apartment neighbors, often hearing their voices as they chatted outside on the floating “balconies” overlooking the skybox of the Cyberian overworld. As the days turned into weeks, and as the weeks turned into months, hope gradually began to be lost. She stopped hearing her neighbors talk altogether, let alone seeing them outside, and a gray fog began to cling over the low-poly graphics and geometry of the world, as if emphasizing its age compared to more contemporary projects. By the first anniversary of the shutdown, 4ur1ga was certain that she was the only sane person left in the Cyberian apartments. Everyone else had become a recluse, babbling nonsense all day, or locking themselves in their homes to wallow in filth and clutter. The introduction of the so-called “New Gods” of Cyberia wasn’t helping her case, either. People needed a strong figure to turn to during tough times like these, and it was no surprise that they had begun to show up around the time of the first anniversary. The New Gods were hackers, some from the outside net—which the Cyberians had begun to refer to as the “Unwired”—and others from Cyberia itself, whom had taken advantage of the weak source code to rewrite the game—and thus, reality—to their whim. Apocalyptic clashes between these hacker-archons were just as common as their sermons, which were absurdist and abstract in nature. Those native to Cyberia proclaimed themselves to be the arbiters of their new cyber-paradise, while most of the Unwired hackers chose to settle their disputes with one another using Cyberia as their battlefield or testing grounds, decimating the landscape in the crossfire of their clashes. 4ur1ga had remained unharmed during this all, miraculously, but there was one name that kept popping up in ALLCHAT, one name that she simply couldn’t avoid... no matter how hard she tried to block his name out.
Was there any doubt that he’d become a New God? 4ur1ga knew that the only reason he had even joined Cyberia was because she had begged him to join her. Where she saw an opportunity to express her creativity in building elaborate structures and machines, he saw an opportunity to destroy and exploit. All hackers were the same dime-a-dozen, selfish, arrogant assholes, but there was a modicum of something else in what he did—passion for his work, and for the people he loved. It was almost like he was hacking for her; to keep her safe, to impress her, maybe out of some sense of honor, or maybe some combination she wasn’t aware of yet. 4ur1ga rose from her couch and made her way to the opaque window leading out to the balcony. She saw the reflection of her no—her body, staring back at her: an intentionally low-polygon form with blocky, angular proportions, and a two-colored face that resembled a surrealistic art project. Behind her, a similarly low-poly brown dog waited patiently, letting out a loop of a low-quality panting sound as it watched her, eager for some action. She saw the dog’s happiness indicator was at its max just by looking at it, but its hunger and thirst were low. While virtual pets technically couldn’t die and were rudimentary AI at best, she wondered if they, too, experienced feigned hunger and thirst... maybe they were suffering, too. "Don't worry, boy," 4ur1ga spoke the words mentally, watching the text message appear in the chatbar on the upper left hand of her vision. She ran a hand atop the dog’s head, petting it softly. "I'll go to the store soon. You're gonna eat well tonight." With a thought, the opacity of the window lowered, allowing her to see the outside world... empty as ever. Cyberia was a world meant to hold tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, at its peak, and the ambitiousness of its creator was paralleled only by its scale. She felt as if millions could fit in just fine in the virtual world... yet, with things so empty, it added an unsettling malaise that she previously hadn't experienced before. Seeing such large, empty spaces made her mind wonder how the virtual paradise could’ve looked in its prime, as opposed to being left to rot like this. Data loss was natural, but something about the emptiness felt bleak... and oddly nostalgic to the quiet days when Cyberia was still in its Beta state. She turned to her virtual pet again, giving a smile. "I'll be back." Another mental keystroke—she had opened up the fast travel menu, selecting Cyberia City’s supermarket. Apartment 268 slowly melted away in the background, sending her into a milky white void for only a split second, before the world coalesced back into focus. She was standing outside of an empty supermarket with the skybox as the backdrop of the larger Cyberia City, its parking lot empty and doors wide open. It looked like it had seen better days, the bleak “WE’RE TRAPPED” graffiti spray painted on its windows, and its desolate front facade spelling a bleak picture of people’s spirits as of late. As she began to step towards the building, though, she stopped, checking her surroundings. The world had stopped... and she heard nothing, as if even the game itself was quieting down to listen into something nearby. A three-toned ping went off in her ear, and then she saw a chat notification pop up in her peripheral vision. (WHISPER CHAT) SYSTEM: User 4ur1ga has connected. SYSTEM: Welcome to Cyberia City Supermarket by Cyberia,4ur1ga. There are currently 1 player(s) online. SYSTEM: User ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx has connected. She wasn’t doing this again. Jax wasn’t going to have his way with her again, nor was he going to make her pity him. Not after what happened, and definitely not here, no matter how alone they were. As a “New God”, he was essentially omnipotent in Cyberia. He always knew where she was, and what she was doing at all times... making his being here all the more pervasive and suspicious. What did he even want? (WHISPER CHAT)ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: 4ur1ga please.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I just need to see you againᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I know you’re s afe,. .. I just want to know you’re still thereᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: it feels like... it feels like everyone is gone. just mentally checked out. tgey aren't human anymore 4ur1ga just please come back to me I hate being alone here and I don’t want to be alone here anymore f*ckᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: i hate talking to these goddamn people, making ttthem worship me like I’m f*cking God. it’s like i’m talking to a brick wall. they don’t understand the nonsense I say and they speak so cryptically but they still love me. they’ve lost it and themselves. some of these people have lost everything and I’m the only thing they haveᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: but you’re the only r thing I have leftᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: i need to know you’re still there, i need to be assured thatyou’re still with me and you haven’t become like them.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: Please esther. just read my messages.4ur1ga: that name is dead to me, jax4ur1ga: kindly f*ck off.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: just listen to me, please :’-[ She let out a loud mental sigh of frustration, burying her hands in her face for a moment as she fully enlarged the chatbox. Why am I even doing this? (WHISPER CHAT)4ur1ga: what do u want jaxᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I need you.4ur1ga: youre not gonna have your way with me again.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: No, not like that.. god no.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: you don’t have to go through these repetitive motions anymore estherᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I can..I can give you anything you want, anything you need, just with the snap of a finger. u don’t have to keep doing this. just come to me for a while4ur1ga: i’m not living with you in your hell dungeon, Jax. not after what you tried to do to meᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: i..... i apologize, that wasn’t me back then, and i shouldn’t have even considered doing that. I just wanted to keep you safe4ur1ga: a bit too f*cking late to apologize for that, don’t you think?ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: Please esther. i know you’re scared and sad. I can help.4ur1ga: get out of my head.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I can help you, though! Just listen to me... please...4ur1ga: what ‘help’ do you even have to offer me that I can’t do myself?ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: a safe place to stay. Unlimited resources.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: whatever you need, you name it.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I’ve also been... researching things, ways on how to potentially get out, or at least access the surface net .4ur1ga: that’s impossible, i thought you abandoned that project. are u f*cking with me?ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: *shaking head* no. I’ve come up with a surefire solution I think. selling limited Cyberian items to the dark net to get money... maybe shoot for a cyber body to transfer my WireSoul to.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: I just need your help, Esther. I can help you, too. I even got the web browser reversed—I can finally see what’s going on with the Unwired!4ur1ga: ...ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: please just consider it, Esther. you’re everything I have. I don’t want to lose you. She let out another sigh again. J4xonfex was trying his hardest to get her back—and it was working. 4ur1ga couldn’t imagine someone living in his shoes—having to appease thousands every day, while clashing with other New Gods... it was a lifestyle that was paradoxically busy, but one that was also lonely as hell... and she could relate. She let out another mental sigh and returned her focus to the chatbox. (WHISPER CHAT)4ur1ga: if you try anything, i am leaving. your place gives me bad vibes.4ur1ga: i need food for my dog.ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: Yes, yes, i can give it to you. ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx: sending you a portal now. The world in front of her compressed into a sphere, as if they were being molded by invisible hands right in front of her. Inside the sphere, she saw a red skybox, along with a white temple structure, similar in appearance to an ancient Greek temple. She stepped inside, then the world went white once again. *** (ALL CHAT) SYSTEM: User 4ur1ga has connected. SYSTEM: Welcome to AKROPOLIS by ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx,4ur1ga. There are currently 1,203 player(s) online. SYSTEM: User AEDELWEISS has connected. Toning out the nonsense in the background regarding J4xonfex and another New God, 4ur1ga made her way across the desolate, empty wasteland that was the AKROPOLIS. The last time she had been here was a memory that was better left being forgotten, with J4xonfex trying to force himself upon her “for her safety,” whatever that meant. The place reeked a bad, ominous aura, and the throng of low-poly avatars mustered around the pristine white temple unsettled her, to say the least. She squeezed through the crowd of monochrome avatars, ascending up larger-than-life stairs that required her to manually jump and clamber over each step. Once at the top of the steps, she stepped out to the entranceway of the titular acropolis, finding the walls had begun to warp around her like a film reel on repeat. The interior was vastly expanded compared to the actual exterior of the structure, lined with smooth, high-quality marble textures that felt jarringly realistic, yet smooth at the same time. The hallway stretched down for what felt like an incalculable distance, fog occluding her from seeing the end of the hallway. After what felt like an eternity of walking, though, 4ur1ga had made it: the hallway turned left to a large room, with an even larger table in the center of it. Two player names could be seen just barely visible in the fog... and she crept in slowly as she read their names in full. AEDELWEISS sat at the end of the long table. Their form was an insectoid hexapod with two sets of wings, resembling no bug that she had ever seen before in her life. It was colored sickly yellow and semi-translucent, a strange light constantly flickering in its form, and its many eyes glowed a fluorescent white. It stared down a dark humanoid avatar in armor with more horns to count, who sat silently at his end of the table. “Speak, interloper.” J4xonfex’s voice was as unchanged as it was long ago, albeit with a somewhat “stuffy” electronic compression to it. “Why have you come to my domain?” "TO DEMAND YOU ANSWER FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS," AEDELWEISS replied, their bug-maw vibrating as they spoke. Their voice was hollow and electronic, not unlike a synth’s, if one knew what little differences to look for. “YOU HAVE BETRAYED THE SACRED PACT WHICH BINDS US. YOU CONSPIRE WITH THE UNWIRED. DEFEND THINE HONOR BY DUEL OR DEBATE.” “I conspire with no one, creature,” J4xonfex glowered at the other New God. “Your allegations are as fallible as your character.” “YOUR FOLLY IS WELL KNOWN,” AEDELWEISS retorted. “WE KNOW OF THINE PLOT TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE DARK WEB HERETICS, THOSE OF “SINDEX” WHO WISH TO CAPITALIZE ON OUR SITUATION AND BRING MORE ROGUE GODS INTO OUR REALM. REPENT, OR I SHALL CLAIM YOUR DOMAIN.” “Like I said,” J4xonfex folded his arms. “Your allegations carry no weight. Now leave, or you will be removed.” There was silence for a moment. Then, AEDELWEISS leaned backwards. The sound of glass breaking was heard as the gigantic insectoid avatar turned to the corridor that 4ur1ga was standing in. The many glowing dots it had for eyes blinked in curiosity, and 4ur1ga felt her data getting snatched and assessed just as quickly as it was put back. The massive insectoid entity moved, glowing blades materializing in its free limbs. “J4XONFEX, IS THIS A CONCUBINE OR A WORSHIPPER FROM OUTSIDE. WE HAVE BEEN EAVESDROPPED.” Before she could even hold her hands up in protest, J4xonfex stood up, holding a hand out at the creature. “Cease your hostilities. This is merely an aide of mine.” “MMMM. A CLEVER PLOY. BUT I AM NOT AS EASILY FOOLED AS THE OTHER NEW GODS.” AEDELWEISS turned to J4xonfex, disarming themselves. “ORDER HER TO LEAVE, OR I SHALL CLAIM HER TOO.” “She’s not leaving.” J4xonfex asserted. “You’re the one who has to go. I have no more business with you.” The bug-creature let out a grunt, standing up from the table. “VERY WELL I TAKE MY LEAVE NOW.” SYSTEM: User AEDELWEISS has disconnected. She folded her arms as she thought up her message. She shrugged. Esther hesitated for a moment as his words dug into her. He stepped forward, lightly placing a hand on her cheek—it was warm to the touch, and a warmth she hadn't felt in a long time. She was silent for a moment, before hearing her own voice for the first time in what felt like forever. It came out in the same, compressed electric tone as Jax's. J4xonfex lowered his hand from her face. "I've been meaning to show you something, but your inbox is closed. I've... done some more research, on the ingame browser project I had started, but abandoned. It's certainly possible to reverse-engineer it to access the surface net, but I'd only be able to allow for one search as of now." He reached into the dark folds of his clothing, presenting a glowing cube that he passed to 4ur1ga. "This is a beta version of that program. Run it at your home, away from the prying eyes all on me here, and if you run into errors, let me know." She took the program, storing it in her inventory much like one would've done with any other tool. "I thought you were abandoning all prospects of returning to the surface net." "Perhaps, but I haven't forgotten about you." J4xonfex replied, dipping his head down in a nod as he smiled. "I'd ask for you to stay, and I know deep in you, there's a small desire to stay... but I know that cannot happen now. I'll see to it that you get home safely." Another portal materialized in front of 4ur1ga's avatar. She turned to J4xonfex and gave him one last nod—then, without taking even a moment to hesitate, she stepped forwards into the rift. SYSTEM: User4ur1ga has disconnected. |
|
oceanman8888 Posts: 13 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesMar 6, 2022 8:51:13 GMT Post by oceanman8888 on Mar 6, 2022 8:51:13 GMT血の飛沫 第一章 Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics) Naraku, Kamiizumi Village, Kusanagi Megasprawl 7 January, 2698 UC (Universal Calendar) 血しぶきを以て描く一行の詩と、人生とを引き換へにすることを、万人にゆるすのはたしかに穏当ではない。 My life is a death poem written with a splash of blood.
Celestial Dragon (天竜) - 51% Heh, number one, baby. Wait. Well, whatever. Now that the betting period's over, it is now up to the fighters when they would begin fighting. Audiences often screamed their words of encouragement to the fighters they betted on they'll tear each others' throats. Well, who would want to lose money after all? It's always money that is heavier than blood and soul of a person. Best they can do is a nice pat to the back. "YUMMY MUMMY! MUMMY MILKY! YUMMY MUMMY!" "SUPERCHATS! FRAGRANT MENHERA AROMA! SUPERCHATS!" The strikes were done consecutively in simple yet large motion, done in sets of three strikes with full commitment and weight. I could see not only by the determination behind his attacks but also in his eyes that he was intending on finishing me with a single powerful blow. "VIOLENCE! VERY VIOLENT! HOLY sh*t!" "TENRYŪ! TENRYŪ! TENRYŪ!” What? "MEZU THINKS WE SHOULD KILL, KILL, KILL!" Another robotic voice adds. And not a second later, there was a blast of thunderous rattling metal. A weird sense of tranquility and serenity paralyze the entirety of my body, thirty seconds for nothingness. The deafening silence was broken by the sound of hasty murmuring and whispers suddenly spreading like wildfire, of which slowly died out. Or was is my senses? No idea. |
Last Edit: Mar 14, 2022 7:53:56 GMT by oceanman8888 |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesMay 14, 2022 22:00:05 GMT Post by Nexus on May 14, 2022 22:00:05 GMT⬖ From Up High to Down Low ⠀◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics) His eyes opened to a field of purple-twinged darkness, the brilliancy of Jade City’s early morning citylight focused through a narrowed rectangular window. Mohe laid there in the low light, with the distant ambiance of a burgeoning metropolis having been muffled through the thick concrete that lied to his left. He neglected to move at all for a while, as his mind still faded into and out of the desire of sleep, only coming back to reality after checking his then-idle phone and noticing the time — five in the morning. Mohe had only slept for four hours, but his current lifestyle left him without much of a choice. The distant dream of a full night’s rest could wait, for now. Now sitting upright upon the slim, half-deflated mattress that he called a bed, Mohe stared at the other side of the room, noting the stark absence of any personal items or furniture. Anything and everything that he truly valued was simply stored in the duffel bag beside him, containing the gun given to him by Kaden in addition to physical memorabilia that harked back to his childhood. He opened the bag and sifted past the idle pistol and ammunition, retrieving a picture of his late mother from within its depths. He held the picture forward, capturing as much of the inky city light that filtered into the room, and viewed the last remaining vestige of his mother left. A Caucasian woman stared back at him, a soft smile set upon her face as she looked past the camera lens towards a young Jaxon that had thought it fun to take such a picture long ago. Having these thoughts seep back into the recesses his mind, Mohe’s arm slowly drooped downward as he sat alone, his eyes closed and his mind in a state of wander. Even though it was not her fault, his mother’s death was the nail in the coffin of Mohe’s old life and identity — her disappearance from his life forced the young Jaxon to grow and adapt to a harsh universe; one befallen with poison beneath the superficial, “stable” nature of society. For better or for worse, he had irrevocably changed, and the decade that he had spent behind bars only reinforced such. Mohe rose from the cold floor with a quiet sigh, grabbing his phone, pre-loaded cigarette and plasma lighter from nearby. Passing through the autodoor and locking it behind him, the man merged into a dim hallway filled with various signs of age and degradation, ranging from cracks on the cheap plastic tiles beneath him to the webs that adorned the distant corners of the roof above. Mohe paid these sights little mind as he turned immediately to the left, going through another autodoor that left him alone in a small bathroom. As Mohe stripped off the second-hand clothes that he had slept in prior, he turned on the shower and let the haphazard droplets of water rain down upon the mold-stricken tiles behind frosted glass as he lit his cigarette. He stepped inside soon afterwards and turned to face opposite of the shower head, pulling up his phone in one hand while smoking his cigarette with the other. The man had no bank accounts to access, but Kaden had thought it kind to deposit a few grand in a new digital wallet that Mohe had created as payment for the hit that he had done on Hando two days ago. Staring at the number before him, Mohe didn’t see much use in the lump of notes apart from budgeting it for basic subsistence — after all, he was crashing in Kaden’s gang compound, so there was no rent to worry of for as long as he was working with the guy. Beyond buying more cigarette flavors, he also did not have a taste for enough vices to splurge the money upon — Mohe liked to think that he wasn’t that kind of person. Some time after Mohe finished the shower, he emerged fully clothed into what could best be called a “living room” that belonged to the compound in which he resided. Unlike his own solitary self, many of the people that Kaden rolled with in his gang were anything but; this being evident in the various figures that were slumped over chairs, sofas, and even the bare concrete floor. From the amount of beer cans and bongs left out in the open, Mohe surmised that they had thrown some sort of impromptu party last night, and as such he took care in creeping around the snoring and hung-over bodies on his way out. As he approached the front door of the compound, Mohe noticed one of the still-conscious members of Kaden’s gang posted on a stool near to the armored door, with the man reading from a holobook and its contents being projected to the open air — something about grav-space and how faster-than-light drives, which was interesting at a glance. He simply nodded to the man as Mohe opened the door himself, and he had soon found himself out in the open morning air as he heard the door shut behind. Now upon an open-air apartment floor raised high into the sky, Mohe fished out his cigarette once more and lit another on his trek beyond the tower block that he had been temporarily calling home. The arcology that Mohe was crashing in had the basics, but he was never one to stick around in such a structure for most of his free time. Jade City, like many cities across Hyperion, had as many good venues outside of these massive “urb-towers” as they had inside, if not more. It had something to do with taxes inside versus outside of these arcological structures, but beyond that Mohe had little knowledge or care of the “why”. Entering one of the many elevators strewn about alongside a gaggle of other augmented and unaugmented denizens, he leaned on one of the cracking faux-wooden walls and leaned his head down, listening on the nearby conversations as he smoked further. “...I don’t know how the f*ck you do it, man. I don’t know how. Every time we hit the club, you just accumulate that sh*t like water to a fountain...” “Whadd’ya mean? Are you talkin’ about gettin’ bitches? It’s easy, my guy, you-” “Naw, naw, not just that, I mean... you know, the ones WITH the jiggle to they ass. Those bitches. Whole f*cking salsa party whenever they walk. I know for a FACT you don’t get that sh*t with just basic smoov-talking!” “Ah... well, y’see, that’s a company secret. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” The boisterous laughter of the two nearby men — most likely on their way to work, given that it was now around six thirty in the morning — complemented the dozens of others talking in the large elevator as it meandered its way downward towards the ground floor. Mohe simply kept to himself, however, in thoughts of where he should go next. Kaden had told Mohe that he needed to scope out the Poros Bodyworks facility, noting its loading dock activity and anything else that could be of use before a full-fledged plan could begin to be made. Even so, Mohe still had time before the bulk of activity would kick in for such a factory in the switch between its day and night crews. This meant he could probably kill some time, but where was an anomaly to him as of that moment. With the elevator reaching the ground floor and disgorging its various passengers into the yawning courtyard of the tower, Mohe subsumed into the mass of humans and synths that surged towards the true outside world. The distant mist of evaporating water, raising from the rooftops and walls of thousands of sky and stratascrapers, obfuscated the amber and golden dawn. In a way, Mohe was glad that he woke up so early, as to catch such a brilliant sight. The beauty that he beheld inspired Mohe to enjoy the morning more properly, that being at a diner of some sort. Surely, there had to be something like that nearby the site that he had to scout... About half an hour after he departed from Kaden’s urb-tower, Mohe had arrived at a small diner that was situated along the precipice of a major freeway, hoisted high into the Hyperian sky. He left the taxi he took in the lot that laid next to the surging freeway lanes, shutting its door with a smack and watching it later merge with the rest of the surges of traffic as he headed towards the diner’s front doors. However, Mohe took a slight detour as he realized how high he really was in the sky; although clearly not in the altitudes as many urban structures, the man was easily standing at nearly a kilometer straight into the air, with the only thing separating him from the building-addled ground below being just some thick concrete and plasteel molded into an intra-freeway sky-high rest stop. Soon enough, Mohe passed through a set of doors reminiscent of the nuclear-age Americana aesthetic, finding himself in the midst of a busy diner corridor that stood out in metallic chrome and plushy red seatings. Walking towards the back of the establishment to where the windows overlooking the massive expanse of Jade City and beyond, the smells of sugar and cooked meat that wafted in from the central kitchen piqued his previously muted appetite, and Mohe’s luck was cleared when he was able to find an empty booth just where he wanted. Sitting down at the red-themed booth, he was immediately greeted with the flickering and materialization of a smooth crimson hologram against the mahogany of the table before him, re-arranging itself in real time to present to him a visualized menu. Assuming it had the ability to detect his touch, Mohe swept through the menu’s digital pages, reading everything from gigantic meals of pancakes and assorted protein sides to more petite servings of cheesecake. Not being a that big of an eater, he chose a mixed serving of pancakes and bacon, combining it with an order of coffee in lieu of plans ahead. As soon as his order was placed, a feminine synth shimmering in a cream-colored plastic chassis passed by, with her uniform seemingly been designed to cover only the most essential portions of its body. Mohe found it to be more humorous than anything; most likely as a part of a tactic to wrangle the male trucker crowd that often used the freeways nearby. “Your order’ll come soon, darlin’,” it said, with a voice modulator only betraying the thinnest of cybernetic origins. “Am I able to smoke in here?” “Haven’t you taken a look around you? Every single, lonely man’s doin’ the same thing. Go on ahead.” Shrugging in response as the synth meandered away, Mohe loaded in a cinnamon-flavored cartridge into the hull that he carried around, lighting and smoking it in the process as he waited. As the seconds flew by, Mohe’s attention wandered between the appearances of the various customers. Some of them were as expected; rough-looking men and women that attended to the long pan-planetary transportation routes as truckers, while others seemed to be more baseline. He didn’t see any streetpunks in the diner... compared to the urb-block he now lived in, this came as a relief. One of the televisions that lied closest to Mohe, hoisted above the oblong bar counters that rounded the center of the diner, was in the middle of rolling footage from a major gang shootout somewhere in the bowels of Maogang. Being broadcast by the Albion Continental News Network, it was clear that they were not a media agency to refrain from showing the grit of street wars; a row of corpses appeared as if it was just some normal B-roll footage. Mohe didn’t lose his appetite over it, but he didn’t quite understand how the diner would nonchalantly show such during breakfast hours. To him, it might have been a mistake, or the owners just not caring. Mohe turned his head to the left, looking beyond the thick window that separated him from the rushing wind of high altitude outside. The ascent of Hathor turned the sky back into a familiar blue tone, with the onset of its heat turning the all-surrounding horizon into a sea of concrete-baked and steel-heated mirages. Taking another hit from his cigarette, he rested his elbow on the table and took in the sight before him as he waited. For ten years, he saw nothing but the starkness of his own prison. Now, Mohe had been rendered the same feeling he had over a decade ago, when he first made planetfall — a sense of wonder for the extent of humanity’s sprawl, and yet a sense of dread. This dread stemmed from being but one of billions upon this world, fighting and dying for scraps in either direct or indirect methods. His years in prison taught him many things, including how to adapt and change to one’s environment, but not in regards to navigating the labyrinth that was true, bonafide civilian life on Hyperion. His reversion to crime was out of necessity, for what else did he really have for him? With no family and crime-free friends on the outside, he had nothing but the dream he held as a child— a hope for something to bring him meaning. Mohe had no true knowledge of what exactly, but the feeling had been gnawing him for all his life, and was only muffled by the demands of prison. “Your food’s here. Payment’s just through the notereader there and through a physical or digital device link with our store. Enjoy...” The now-familiar synthetic voice banished Mohe from his prior thoughts, and as he turned his head around, the quaint plates and cup that had his food and drink were placed down in swift but soft motion. He placed his cigarette in his off-hand as he looked over the meal before him; small, maybe, but for ten notes it was manageable to excuse. Scanning the code on the table for payment, he sent the money from his digital wallet away and began to eat alone amid the ambient murmurs and conversations of the diner. ⠀ ◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR Mohe had emerged from a hoverbus stop some ways away from the Poros Bodyworks facility, the pleasant smell of the diner a distant memory, having been replaced with the miasma that flowed from the public transport’s lack of proper care. He now smoked moreso to dispel that smell than even for its taste or feeling. Rain now began to fall, sending Mohe shrinking into the hooded overcoat that he wore. With its rate only increasing, he saw it fit to immediately move towards the facility that loomed ahead, with its blocky façade having grown sinister when compared against the graying sky. The words “POROS BODYWORKS” shone in a newfound neon signage underneath the shadow of its own shape, but access to the facility itself was blocked by a front gate. Mohe surmised that he could get vision on the loading docks by heading to a nearby skyrise, but he didn’t budget money nor the time to pick up anything with a zoom functionality. Taking it upon himself, he walked on up to the front gate, where a crowd of workers and aspirants had already gathered in wait of their incoming shifts. Spotting a window to a security booth, he simply went over in anticipation of conversation — although to what specific end he had no idea of. “State your business,” a drawn-out and bored voice said from the other side of an opaque screen. “You ain’t on any employee or application registry that I know of.” “Yeah, about that... I think HR misplaced my application or something. You sure I ain’t in any database of yours?” “Nope.” “Who do I speak to here to figure this out, then?” “Speak to the guy you applied to online. Ain’t that hard-” “I didn’t just apply online - I mean, I did do that, but I also talked to someone here about it, but I forgot their name. Can you let me in so I can find them?” “And why the hell would I do that when you don’t show up anywhere?” “What, you think I’m gonna do something? I’m just trying to find work, brother. Help me out, yeah?” “...Worker Oh-Four-Nine-Six, get over here.” Mohe’s eye raised in curiosity as the hidden security guard called out, and as he turned around, he saw a figure approaching both him and the booth through the deluge of rainfall. Beneath a clear umbrella was a well-toned woman, her jumpsuit only halfway on with the emergence of two orange cybernetic appendages from her back. She sported an expression mixed with boredom and mild frustration, and as she trudged forward to answer the booth’s calls, Mohe could see her overall figure more clearly. She was taller than the rest of the female workers that had assembled before the gate, at his own height. He wondered if the booth was going to sic the woman on him — a comedic thought, at least — but he did not expect what had came next. “Yeah? What am I needed for?” the woman asked. “Take this guy and help him meet whoever the hell he needs to in there. He talked to someone in there about a job or something; go figure it out.” “Are you serious?” “Yeah, I am. I don’t want to be nailed by the higher ups for turning around an applicant that they themselves talked to. Help the guy out, will you?” “Ugh...” The woman turned to size up Mohe, her eyes scintillating with an amber that betrayed some sort of set of optical implants. “Try to not f*ck around when we’re in there, okay? I don’t need to get docked any more than I already have,” she said. “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Mohe replied, discarding the smoldering remains of the cigarette cartridge he had loaded previously. As the gate that loomed before them slowly opened up to accommodate the exit of the last shift and the arrival of the new, the woman turned her head to face the new man before her. “What’s your name, anyway, ‘new guy’?” “It’s Mohe. You?” “Octavia,” “Well, it rolls off better than just a string of numbers, don’t it?” “Sounds like you have some experience with that...” 🙼 |
Last Edit: Nov 7, 2022 22:21:21 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesAug 7, 2022 23:31:39 GMT Post by Nexus on Aug 7, 2022 23:31:39 GMT⬖ Visage of the World ◤⠀Hyperian Space, Hathor System, CCR The Hyperion International Spaceport was truly a behemoth of spatial engineering, with only Earth’s own grand spaceport superseding it in sheer scope. It was of little surprise to the newcomer agent, as practically every educated human knew of Hyperion’s worth to the Coalition as the Core’s “second beating heart” of industry. This much of a reputation was valid, as Renée’s eyes caught sight of the glowing nigh-ecumenopolis through the window-screens meters above her head in the passenger terminal. Although the screens weren’t true, real windows — as any nut that passed security with a gun or bomb would otherwise easily vaporize the whole atrium — they were a true one-to-one depiction, and showcased an endless stream of pinprick lights that flowed in and out of that shining world. Her thoughts were dispelled as one of the disembarking passengers forcefully shoved past her, with Renée coming to realize just how overcrowded the terminal was. Thousands upon thousands of humans and synthetics ebbed and flowed through one of the ten massive circular atria of the international spaceport; dozens of corporate advertisem*nts cycled through their motions within the midst of the atrium. This was a massive change to the first-class portion of the ship she had taken to Hathor, where the HERMES transport corporation offered their high-class buyers total privacy suites. Following the general movement of the crowd in avoidance of being crushed underfoot, Renée proceeded to a nearby hotel module that she had personally paid for as a means to handle some final things before descending to the planet’s surface. She had a reservation for later that day, one to board a smaller HERMES craft that would transport her to the space elevator of Port Bremerton. Even so, this was not for another ten or so hours. Renée’s hand clenched the black, glossy bag that held her personal belongings as she stepped into a cramped elevator, the air thick with a multitude of scents ranging from expensive colognes to body sweat. Her eyes were shifted down, but she nevertheless sneaked a few peeks around; she noticed the variation of attires and augmentations alike, with businessmen that droned into hidden earpieces and space station workers in their bright orange, oil-slick uniforms sharing the same space together. As the elevator reached Renée’s desired endpoint, she shimmied her way out and was met with a lesser amount of people before. In a sigh of relief, she followed multitudes of signage until she reached the hotel that would harbor her for a few hours. It went by the name of “Hotel Hyperion” — eliciting an eyeroll from Renée in its blatant unoriginality — but the establishment seemed sufficient enough to her, given its trickling influx of middle-class clientèle. Joining the short queue for entry, she soon stepped forward and met the artificial cyan gaze of a receptionist synth, a uniform of satin covering an otherwise smooth metallic and plastic skin below. “Welcome to Hotel Hyperion, esteemed customer. Do you have a reservation with our establishment?” “Yes, I have a physical one,” Renée flatly responded, fishing out a passport from her pockets. Legally, she was a citizen of the Federal Republic of Iscaria, and this was reflected by the stark and embossed Iscarian seal upon the dark blue leather that she presented to the synth. “Please present a proof of identity, such as a pass-” The synth was unable to finish its statement due to Renée already presenting her Iscarian passport, circumventing further of its dialogue protocols. In an instant, it had scanned the open page of the passport that contained the codes for Renée’s digital identity, recognizing her and her reservation in tow. Putting her leatherbound passport away, Renée switched to a modern style of information transfer by raising her right arm and allowing a featureless bracelet to make direct contact with a nearby payment pad. The funds went through successfully as a result of Renée keeping a few thousand within the encrypted accessory, circumventing having to pay through her bank account that was currently hosted light years away on Tellus. “Transaction complete. Your suite is 5A-4; a complimentary basket is waiting for your arrival. Once again, thank you for choosing Hotel Hyperion.” “A gift of hospitality...” Renée murmured to herself as she nodded to the synth, passing through a blue shimmering field that scanned her for any undesired belongings. She had already passed through ten individual fields prior, which stood as a testament to the Coalition’s frenetic dedication to preventing any form of terrorism on space stations; Renée was not surprised by this at all, partly as a result of her line of work and partly because of already spotting a miscellany of surveillance cameras and drones under the purview of the HYPD’s Orbital Security division. After some time of wandering through the elegant halls of the hotel’s front compartments, Renée reached the fifth level and found her specific subsection. Split into four individual suites, she entered the fourth designated room through an autodoor that already recognized her as its respective customer, stepping into a pre-lit and furnished hotel room. The suite was much more to the tune of Renée’s tastes than the hustle and bustle of the port before, with a definitive sense of exuberance that was much like that of her homeworld. The air was scented faintly with wisps of jasmine, with the room having sporting accents of mahogany in its furniture, floor, and roof. Finely-tuned, cream-colored light illuminated the room, originating from both traditional lamps that sat on wooden dressers and overhead light fixtures. However, the true boon of the suite was not the decor nor its composition, but one of the walls; upon the farthest side of the suite laid a massive, continuous windowscreen that broadcasted the real-time view of space beyond. However, unlike the general windowscreen that laid in the atrium that Renée arrived in, this one sported an almost frightening resolution of clarity. Such a breathtaking sight gave Renée an idea... She walked over to the mahogany circular table that laid near one of the far corners of the room, situated next to the wide-spanning windowscreen. Upon its flat surface was a woven basket cradling a full true-glass bottle of wine, sitting in a blanket of burgundy silk. She fished the bottle out from the basket and read its label, with small but noticeable disclaimers upon its back reading “one-hundred percent organic wine” and “made with passion on Archangel”. Renée recognized the name of that world, being Hathor’s agricultural center. The brand didn’t matter to her, as she popped open the cork on the bottle with a complementary automatic corkscrew and poured the dark red liquid into a nearby wineglass. Sitting down on one of the two plushed chairs situated near the table, Renée plopped a datapad from her bag upon the table and kicked her feet up on the nearby empty seat. As the datapad turned on from a touch to display a loading hologram, Renée requested into the open air for the lights to darken entirely, with a chime of recognition sounding throughout the room shortly thereafter. As blackness subsumed the room, Renée was left with nothing more to illuminate than the faint blue light of her datapad’s holography and the speckled chromatic aberrations of simulated stars, their faint pricks of light dancing across the dark void of her boots’ leather surfaces. Taking her wine with grace, Renée motioned at the pad with her free hand to bring up a file of interest. The blue hologram, previously sporting a loading symbol of fluxing geometries that morphed between various iterations of polyhedra, turned into a single flat rectangle that suspended a floating document. It was sparse in terms of textual content, with only one noticeable picture in its breadth. The picture, unlike the words that surrounded it, was rendered in true color; it sported a middle-aged man, gruff and yet with a glint of passion behind his brown eyes. Renée downed the wine as she went through the sparse information available on the man. The only notable addenda on the document was in regards to the man’s “military history”, with an indication that he served with distinction in the Belial War from 2669 to 2673 as a member of the Interstellar Coalition Space Navy. Beyond this, however, the information atrophied until only a criminal history was available, detailing a fifteen-year prison sentence for attempted murder in 2679 and release in 2694. Her gaze drifted away from the file and towards the windowscreen, where the visage of Hyperion could be seen in its faint amber glow of a thousand metropolises. A grin of bittersweet remembrance spread across her lips, as childhood memories came flooding back to her mind after years of lingering in mental stasis. This was not her first time visiting Hyperion. Just twenty years ago, in 2678, Renée and her parents visited the bustling planet to meet a “family friend”; her godfather. This man, who her father lauded a hundred times over when he still drew breath, was a Hyperian; having served together in the Belial War, the two had superseded their planetary biases and forged a lifelong friendship. This man was the same man that she was now reading about. The information did not come to a shock to her; even before her parent’s death, she was already made aware of what her godfather had done and the reasons why. Maybe it was a natural bias of familiarity, but Renée held no true disdain for her “faux-uncle” in her heart. Any disappointment for him was gone by the time he became her sole parent figure after her parents were killed, having been replaced with a longing for a leading figure in her orderly-chaotic life. She hadn’t noticed until the very last minute that half of the wine bottle had already disappeared. Feeling the effects of the wine slowly infiltrating her mind, Renée turned off her datapad and stared at the glow of Hyperion, with mixed city and sunrays lulling her into an alcohol-assisted sleep that spun the dances of dozens of stars into a hazy, pleasant dream. |
Last Edit: Aug 9, 2022 6:33:46 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesAug 20, 2022 21:00:25 GMT Post by Nexus on Aug 20, 2022 21:00:25 GMT⬖ A Day Out ◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR Having stored his Tsuzuki 9500 in a parking pod over a mile away to just meet up with Lamarcus, Rinji was already at the cusp of exhaustion and hunger. Thus, while waiting for his friend to arrive, the young gangster sat himself at a corner booth in the expansive, busy restaurant and waited. Rinji was already dressed in his gang attire, with an emerald biker’s jacket and a darker green undershirt poking out from its partially unzipped form. His dog tags jingled upon his chest as his black leather gloved hands swiped across a dingy hologram displaying the diner’s selection of various grease-laden food items. Having left his bike helmet back with his ride, Rinji’s semi-unkempt hair drifted in a slick fashion to his left, with his eyes drifting over a particular food item that enticed his easily capitalized heritage — stir fried udon noodles combined with and bacon, garlic, and kimchi. Of course, he didn’t expect the ingredients at the diner to be top-brand, but being only seven notes in price was thus too good to not try. Before he was able to place his order on the holography, a familiar face peeked out from the mass of men and women that drifted through the diner’s doors. Lamarcus Collins, fellow senior at Biff Stoll and Rinji’s most valued childhood friend, greeted the gangster with a friendly fist bump as he sat opposite to Rinji. “Can’t wear this at school as you know, so gotta do it everywhere else.” “...f*ck. Forgot school’s boutta open on Monday,” “Yeah. I’m getting the udon noodles—” “Typical Jap eating Jap sh*t, man! When you gonna eat something not made in Neo-Tokyo? Huh?” “Didn’t you say you wanted to eat ‘authentic’ when we go to Kusanagi?” “Yeah, I did. Look brotha, you got millions of ya mothaf*ckin’ countrymen over there. Common sense says at least one of ‘em know what the f*ck they doing. Here, in Jade City? The bitch that runs this place is Hispanic! I ain’t expecting the real sh*t here, you feel me?” Rinji chuckled at the hyperbole of Lamarcus’s comment as he selected the udon noodle item from off of the menu before them. “Say, what happened with ya girl?” Why ain’t she here?” “Kazumi? She’s in Destino right now, visiting family before school starts.” “Aha! Now that the wife’s gone, you can get some side action!” Rinji waved away Lamarcus’s statement as the latter began to incessantly swipe through the hologram in search of a meal. “Oh yeah, ain’t gotta tell me; you don’t even slide in your own girl, on some church boy sh*t. I’ma say to you right here and now, Kazumi’s gonna get some fat dick and leave ya puny Asian ass. Always happens to those types of girl.” “You always are talking about me and Kazumi, but what about you, man?” “Huh? Whatchu tryna spin on me? I get my puss* on the prowl, like a damn African warrior; out here pillaging and sh*t. No bitch is safe from the Collins Tribe.” “Yeah, pillaging who though?” “That info’s on a need-to-know basis, man. Just know I’m getting it good, while yo dumbass drives hoverbikes around and goes to church after busting a mothaf*cka’s head in on Sunday.” “Did you even choose what you’re going to eat yet, Lamarcus?” “Lemme choose! Damn... what they got that ain’t fake Japanese...? Burgers... sh*t, my commode ain’t gonna like it later, but f*ck it.” As Lamarcus chose his own array of food items from the table’s holographic display, Rinji looked over at his wrist and brought up its own miniature holography, noting the time and weather in the process. Surprisingly, the day had been one of significant sunshine, which may have been an explanation as to why so many people were out and about in Jade City on such a Saturday afternoon. “Guy? All our homies are busy doing other sh*t today, you know that. Ain’t no dude gonna show up right now to this hole.” “So that means what, exactly?” “Well...” “Yeah... but how the hell is that possible? I thought her parents were corp as f*ck, and we all know how that goes with letting their kids out...” xoMDai_2678's Catena profile pic. “She hit you up first but didn’t ask for a dick-down by the ‘Collins tribe’, huh? Lamarcus, I think your game with women is becoming a little shoddy...” “Uh-huh, yeah, f*ck you. You already know corp-puss* is another realm entirely. Besides, she ain’t really corpo all the way; last time I checked, she don’t live in them fancy f*ckin’ gilded towers you expect those types to live in.” “I see... when did she say that she’s gonna be here?” “Right about now. While we wait, though, why the f*ck did you get some strap a few days ago? Your boys thinking about hitting a fat lick on someone?” “Not exactly,” “You gonna cut your homeboy in that, right?” “I guess so.” “Haha! Money time, bay-bee! The thing is, though, ain’t yo crew gonna get angry as f*ck from you makin’ side moves?” “Nah. My captain and lieutenants both don’t care, since they know me and Mom need all the help we can get.” “Ma probably don’t like the idea of this, right?” “I don’t tell her about that sort of thing. Better for her health, you know.” “Yeah, yeah, I get the vibe you’re tryna put on... I think.” As Lamarcus finished his sentence, Rinji’s eyes suddenly perked up and looked beyond his friend’s shoulder, up and over the booth that they were in and deep into the diner’s crowd. People were parting for a tall figure as they emerged from the mass, with this particular individual walking through the open space and towards where Rinji and Lamarcus sat. The latter, seeing the attention of Rinji’s face, turned his vision back and let out an audible chuckle. “Aha! There’s our girl! Ain’t you know that you gettin’ stares from some of the fools in here?” “Yes, I do. I get that pretty often...” The girl that appeared before the duo was none other than their friend, Marjolijn, with her appearance confirming Lamarcus’s prior allusions. Wearing a black jacket with white fur complements, a dark violet undershirt, and black pants to boot, her stature allowed Marjolijn to peer over the present booth and onto several others, noting how the stares of some switched back to their food. “Anyway, did you two already order?” “Yup,” “Uh-huh, sure,” Marjolijn let out a slight giggle as Rinji exasperatedly made room for his friend on his side of the booth, allowing her to slip in and place her leather purse down on the table before them. “I guess I got here in time, though, since no one served you two anything yet.” “Probably because of all the people in here. Every booth been taken before I even went through their front doors,” “I see... what did you two get?” “Good question. Lamarcus here got a f*cking burger, like usual; I got udon noodles.” “...This mothaf*cka really said ‘but usual’ , and then says that sh*t! I told the Jap here to diversify his palette, but dumbf*ck here insists on eating his people’s dishes even when his Mom ain’t here to cook.” Rinji flipped the bird at Lamarcus as the latter laughed back, with Marjolijn smiling as she perused the hologram that was now available to her.
Lamarcus perked up as he recognized the item that Marjolijn was willing to get. “Girl, are you for real!? Does your corpo momma not pack any food back at home? That sh*t is meant for obese fools who need to keep eating two times the amount of synth-slop a day...!” Marjolijn rolled her eyes underneath the sheen of her glasses as she cupped the underside of her shirt, a sly grin spreading across her lips. “How do you think I maintain these, then?” Rinji could have sworn that Lamarcus’ eyes were to burst straight from their sockets after Marjolijn revealed the musculature that lied upon her abdomen, with her hiding it almost in an instant and wagging a teasing finger at him in the process with a smirk.
“I am simply giving a demonstration,” she responded, her tongue slightly peeking out in a comedic expression. “Not my fault if he trips about it in the process.”“sh*t... aight girl, enjoy your twenty thousand f*ckin’ calories. But anyway, did you do the work that these bitch-ass teachers assigned over break?” “Of course. Are you trying to copy me again?” “Hah! I mean, sh*t,” “Well,” “That sounds like a type of thing I’d snort, not study. The f*ck?” Rinji laughed as Marjolijn leaned back to sigh in pity for their friend, who sat in front of them still aloof at the question. “I will give you my work, sure; but try to actually pay attention in class. Or are you too busy staring at the tit* of all the girls around you?” “You almost got my personality down to a tee; thing is, I ain’t even in class half the time. School’s so f*cking big that I can just hang with the crew in sh*t like the bathrooms.” “That explains why every time I need to take a piss, the f*cking bathrooms smell like a metric ton of weed went alight,” As Lamarcus and Marjolijn struck up another off-kilter conversation about what the former should copy off of the latter next, Rinji looked out of the window and took in the full grasp of the day outside. Being on a ground-level restaurant deep within the center of Jade City, all Rinji could really see was the façade of a mighty megabuilding that laid opposite of the multi-tiered road outside, but the rays of sunshine were still able to make it all the way to the surface in this specific portion of the Alabaster borough. Throngs of Jade City denizens made their way to and fro on the bustling sidewalks that glittered with the holography of changing pedestrian and traffic signals; on occasion, a land-based vehicle would make enough of a clamor to slightly rattle the window that he rested his head against. A ding from the device that previously cast their menus announced the arrival of a human waiter, who brought the food out on a rather primitive display of trays by hand. Rinji looked away from the sights outside to be greeted by a waft of steam rising from his order of udon, hitting him in familiar aromas that reignited his hunger pangs. He could already see Lamarcus immediately diving to eat as soon as his order was placed down, with Marjolijn eyeing both of them intently.
“I see that you did not order any... appetizers...” she responded, slight disappointment in her tone as she saw the two’s ordered drinks placed down. “Fair enough.” As the two boys began to eat with Marjolijn in wait, Rinji’s eyes drifted to a holoscreen that laid up ahead. Expecting the news to be on, he was instead greeted with a rather boring megacorporate advertisem*nt by the Hermes corporation, which showcased the “wonders” of traveling across the Core of the Coalition on their dedicated slow-speed space cruises. He chuckled before eating, noting how the cost of just one of those trips was probably more than the entirety of his mother’s apartment and his bike combined. “What the sh*t...!?” Lamarcus’ comment drew Rinji’s focus once more; two different waiters had now appeared before the trio, bringing the special that Marjolijn had ordered with two large trays in tow. Not knowing initially what his female friend had bought, his eyes poured over what seemed to be a plate containing a large slab of dark meat garnished with finely-cut potato slices and greens, flanked by another plate that hosted a sizable hill of rice adorned with further splatterings of sauces and vegetables throughout. Receiving a juiced drink as the final portion of her order, Marjolijn flashed her friends a peace sign before immediately cutting into the steak that laid before her.
“Since it was a special, it came out to twenty five notes in total. Maybe it would be double if it was not otherwise,” Marjolijn replied. “My sista, you better share some of that sh*t,” Lamarcus said. “Ain’t no way yo prissy ass gonna finish that.” “Oh?” As the two entered a friendly banter, Rinji checked the holographic display that came from the device on his wrist once more and flicked through differing widgets and apps as he ate. After some time, he landed on a rather obscure InfoScape site, slime.bbs; a vector of his brewing plan to find extra jobs on the side of his work for the Drifters. He was able to access such a niche — and, in many cases, illegal — network thanks to one of the applications that worked on his device, which was supposed to block the plethora of government and corporate trackers that could feed unwanted information out whenever he visited sites. Navigating to the jobs.zone board of the site, he scrolled through the multitude of different job postings as he ate, with said posts ranging in content from simple escort or meeting missions to those begging guns-for-hire to shoot their spouses or put down that nagging boss at work. None exactly were of note to him, except for one — a posting by a user named “50jackalskxng”. It was asking for a driver for a “job”, but the specific details were left out. This was interesting to Rinji, as the site security and anonymity embraced by the slime.bbs community meant that even criminal jobs could have a degree of explanation to them in postings. The advertised payment was good, too, coming out to several thousand notes. Rinji boosted his own ego as being an “expert driver”, but that would only really be applicable to hoverbikes and the like. He could get behind the wheel of a car, but the efficacy of such was unknown to him since he rarely drove such vehicles. “What are you looking at, Rinji?” The focus of Marjolijn’s tone and the sudden appearance of her hand on Rinji’s shoulder startled him for a second, with his attention on the job posting dissipating as he lowered his wrist and subsequently banished the holography from sight. “Oh, nothing much — just extra opportunities for money, you know. Not everyone can afford mountains of food like you, miss-corporate-princess.” Marjolijn took no offense to the comment, instead flashing a toothy smile before flaunting her order in front of Rinji via slicing a large cut of meat to later grasp in the hold of her fork. “Marry me and you can have this too, eh?” she joked, winking at Rinji before sticking the large slice into her mouth. “Something in the food here has got you both going crazy...” The trio exited the diner under the faint trickle of present daylight, with their path taking them across the road that lied before them through means of an underground pedestrian pathway. Originally, the group were to take a taxi north to the more prosperous sections of Jade City; however, Lamarcus had revealed the fact that he recently acquired his very own car — with a proper license to boot. Rinji was flabbergasted at the fact that his friend was able to find parking even closer to the diner than he had; although, to be fair, he recognized that Lamarcus knew this area better than he did. Underneath the dim overhead lights of an underground parking lot, the three came across Lamarcus’ parked car. It was a beaten-up sedan, but enough to accommodate the small party, with the two boys hopping in the front seats and Marjolijn taking her spot in the back. The inside of the car itself was expectedly ragged, with the leather cushioning of the seats pockmarked and cut in several places to reveal the ages-old foam beneath. Rinji, in the front passenger seat, turned to speak to Lamarcus. “Why does it not surprise me that this sh*tbox smells like weed...” “You always gotta hate on ya boy, huh. I gotta refuel this bad boy before we go north, though, so you better have brought some stuff to entertain you in the meantime. Marj got the right idea, don’t she?” Rinji looked towards the backseat and noticed Marjolijn splayed over the two seats, earbuds already situated in her ears as she slipped into the beginning of her food-induced coma. “Never took you for a radio dude.” “Can’t really listen to the radio when you’re in an open-seat hoverbike, now can you?” | ||
Last Edit: Apr 8, 2023 21:47:46 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesSept 30, 2022 2:54:46 GMT Post by Nexus on Sept 30, 2022 2:54:46 GMT⬖ Minuit ◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR It was true that the city was never known for wealth or affluence. Lying near to the heart of Hyperion’s shipbreaking industries, Ningzhou was once at the cusp of greatness, only to fall into centuries of economic despair and stagnation following the Corporate Wars of the 2200s. Now, from this vantage point of a shanty house sitting upon a throne of its fellow tin-roofed kin, all that could be seen was this failed dream turned wrought into a nightmare. Yet, to the man that sat alone on the patio, this nightmare was comfortable to live within. It was a refuge to he who lurked in the shadows; a place to escape from the prying eyes of all who hunted his past. He knew very well that his old identity, soaked in sins, was being sought after with guns and lead. Even so, he had left that life long ago, venturing forth into the massive poverty-stricken sprawl of Ningzhou to heed the call of a more peaceful end. It did not matter to him if his tomb was of rusted corrugated sheets and mildew, as the beckoning hand of his faith dismissed such trivialities of yearning for a flashier death. Looking past the rusted rebar grating between his patio and the sea of metal roofing, the man breathed in a meditative peace, the cycling of synthetic lungs and the straining of an artificial trachea bringing forth minute clicks from beneath the fake dermis of his chest. On a hand bereft of any skin, betwixt fingers of hexagonal-patterned rubber, dangled a bronze crucifix. The figure of Christ was dampened in the storm’s atmosphere, with water slicked to His metal from the cold, moist wind. Eyelids closed, the man sat upon a chair of welded metal, his head bowed and aimed towards the distant ocean in silence. This, of course, was not meant to last. The chime of a nearby device roused the man from his prayer, forcing him at once to get up from the chair and face the full extent of the weather. Water now petaling across his synthetic form, he retreated from the display to don a set of dark burlap on top of his soulless carapace as red irises scanned an incoming message. As the man closed the dirtied glass door behind him, he walked into total darkness. Sight shifting in spectra to accommodate, he who was cloaked in burlap robes transitioned through several rooms filled to the brim with various containers and instruments before ultimately stopping in front of a heavy, iron manual door. Having already seen who lied beyond through the usage of a camera system routed to his optics, he shifted the various locks of the door open and swung it forth, letting in the rain abound above inside in the process. Crimson optics peered forth through the shadow of the entryway, scanning who stood on the gangway. A man with a high degree of natural muscle was he who was the closest, with tattoos across his visible arms betraying allegiance to a local gang outfit. The tattooed arrival’s expression was one of concern - the stained rivulets of blood upon the man’s gloves told the inhabitant more of the story. His optics flickered from the man to beyond his shoulders in an instant, and the inhabitant’s own expression shifted from a neutral gaze to that of surprise. The inhabitant of the home ventured onto the side of the gangway in an instant, hood raised to cover his head from the onslaught above. Rain inundating his robes, he noticed the wounded girl that laid in the arms of another man, and as such briefly froze in an internal astonishment. This girl could not have been older than sixteen or so, and yet she already sported a significant degree of cyberization - not enough to replace organs, if he could guess from the running blood, but enough to encase herself in synthetic skin marked with various ports and sockets for cyberware. Her head lied limp in the other man’s arms, blood flowing from beneath what seemed to be a jumpsuit. Feeling a twinge of sadness deep within his core, he stepped forward and beckoned for the man to place the girl in one of his arms, blood now intermixing with the rain that flowed through his inundated fabrics. “Heh... thanks, I guess? Don’t want a girl dying on our turf, so... we really don’t need to get paid. Good luck, sir.” Turning on a dim light bulb that was hanging in the midst of the room, orange light illuminated a pale-skinned girl with light-colored hair slick against her head due to a mixture of rain and blood alike. Beyond the large gash that ran across the side of her head, the girl was also bleeding profusely from somewhere on her abdomen - leading the barren mattress that she laid upon to slowly stain with crimson as the man scrambled to prepare his impromptu operation. In a rapid pace did the man’s augmented arms move, removing his wet burlap outfit and placing it to the side while opening previously sealed containers to reveal instant-acting coagulants. Without feeling any shame for what he was about to do, he grabbed a set of scissors from a nearby opaque plastic box and cut the girl’s jumpsuit open, top to bottom, revealing her body in its entirety. Although she was now naked, the man was now able to see what he was to work upon - that being two gunshot wounds to her lower abdomen. Cutting off the jumpsuit had now allowed portions of her small intestines to herniate outward from the wounds, alongside a continuous stream of blood spurting from between them. Noting the severity of the injuries, he then grabbed a suture gun and rotated her so that he had a better angle against the two perforations, injecting her with an anesthetic to prevent her from waking up mid-operation. Minutes went by as his hands became wet with her blood, his fingers fishing out and adhering to the injured loops of organ as his suture gun slowly worked around their sliced circumferences. Bleeding subsided as he administered the local coagulants alongside a round of basic antibiotics, with his work finishing by roughly closing her wounds with the now blood-soaked suture gun. Placing it down on a towel he had fished out, he slowly began to wrap her midsection in gauze, placing one of his blankets over her thereafter. Rotating the girl’s head slowly, he picked up the suture gun once more and went to work closing the gash that was left, noting how her skull beneath the wound was still intact. Wrapping gauze now over her head, he cleaned off the remaining blood and matter that remained on his hands from a nearby open-jug of water, drying his hands with whatever clean textile was left in the room. He raised up from the position that he had sat in without a sound uttered, and instead placed his hand over the unconscious girl’s shoulder as his throat whirred in a silent rhythm of prayer. He knew that the work he did was only a temporary fix, as she required further help to repair her abdominal wall, but he nevertheless prayed to God that it would be enough for that moment, thanking his Lord for the chance to bring relief to someone once more in his life. Leaving the room slowly, the cyberized man turned off the light that loomed above. He traversed through his house once more to his patio, and stood in contemplation as the rain now washed him clean from lingering crimson droplets. After some time, he sat down, and picking back up the crucifix that he had left on an end table, putting it near to his face as he bowed his head once more. At first, she felt nothing but the cold dampness of her clammy skin, with what seemed to be some sort of slightly-scratchy fabric draped over her body. As sense came back to her nerves, however, she began to feel a dull, rolling pain - both on the side of her head and across her stomach. A sudden realization of the events that happened before flashed through her mind like lightning, bringing her heart to a frightening tempo as she tried to get up. Her body had failed her, however, sending the girl tumbling back into the mattress that she had just risen from. She cried, not only in physical pain, but also in emotional dread, her wails reverberating through the thin sheet-metal walls that entombed her within such darkness. Suddenly to her did light break across the room, with an orange light bulb having been turned on just above the girl’s fear-stricken face. This allowed her to see with the natural spectrum of her eyes, revealing... a figure. It instantly dawned on her what she was looking at, and without realizing what had been done to her prior, the girl screamed in total horror. A massive figure blocked the entrance to wherever she was being held. It was covered from the head down in black and red cybernetic augmentations that sported scratches, tears, and bullet holes galore. Exposed wires and pipes could be seen where joints were supposed to be, with two bright red optics staring down at her from behind a face that sported no humanity, no soul, and no spirit. It was a face of a monster; nay, a demon of steel, with no visible flesh in sight. She wanted to flee; to run just as she had done before. Yet, her mind was also in the farthest reaches of despair possible, begging her to resign to whatever fate that this world had left for her. Her body was in agreement, paralyzing her further and not allowing her any possibility in moving to get away from this monster. It came closer. She closed her eyes, tears welling as she drew her head towards her chest and under her arms, not wanting to see what it would do next. And there, then, she felt it. Not a searing heat of billowing blood, nor an agonizing explosion of crushed bone... It was a simple, delicate touch upon her shoulder. She could sense that this giant of chrome was right next to her, but it did not do anything. It had merely crouched down and offered a simple touch, a hold - as if to comfort her from what he saw. Mustering the courage to put her arms down and look upwards, she saw that which she called a beast looking at her with its head co*cked to the side. It was concerned; now, if it was feigning such emotion, she could not know. Yet, as the minute dragged forward, it retracted its hand and simply sat down next to her... holding a book in hand. The girl sat there, saying nothing, as she finally looked around - and at herself. A shirt too big for her size was already put on her body, and she could feel both the gauze that wrapped around her body and head alike. Beyond the metal man on the chair, she could see boxes with red crosses upon them, including a bare wooden cross that hung from a rusty nail upon the wall. Taking this all in at once, she could only muster a brief quiver of response. Before completing her reply, however, she began to sob once more, remembering once more what had happened to her. This sob turned into more tears as she buried her face into the blanket before her, the events of what she could remember as just hours before repeating over and over in her mind. She only slightly felt the cold embrace of the fully cyberized man attempting to console her as the nightmare of the past took to her psyche in full force. “A beautiful name, to be sure. Well, do you know where you are right now, Aurora?” “...No.” “Hm. Alright, what about the city? Do you know which city you’re in?” “I... I think I am in Ningzhou... right?” “Correct.” “Why am I here?” “To be blunt... you were found bleeding out on the surface-level. Two of the guys from an outfit that I work with found you and took you here. I did the best I could with what I have, but you need to rest for now as I fetch someone with more experience-” “I need to get back... out there...” “I can’t... I just...” The details of such pained her heart to say, leaving her again at the precipice of tears. “Yes...” “Not really...” “Hm. Well, that’s good. Do you mind me asking more about yourself? If it makes you feel better, I can reply in kind with my own details.” “I guess.” “Alright,” “Fifteen.” He sat in silence for a moment as he processed the answer in correlation to just how much cyberization he saw on her before. “No... there’s no one...” “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind you staying here, if it helps to heal you better. Sadly can’t get you to a hospital with how this city is...” His mouth smiled softly in hearing her question. “What do you make?” “Weapons. Guns, to be specific. The thing is, I don’t make them for attacking people - my customers are just everyday folk who need something to protect themselves from how this city is... how this universe is.” As he spoke, the door that was left slightly ajar to the room opened wider. A small, black cat poked its head out from the opening before entering the room in full, trotting up to Amadeus’s legs and rubbing its body across his black plasteel. As it continued onward, it trotted up to Aurora’s mattress and sniffed around, its nose hovering first over the old blood before reaching up to her body proper. It nuzzled her as it looped around Aurora’s body, bringing the slightest form of a smile to her otherwise bereaved face. The joke was a success, having Aurora chuckle just a bit as Amadeus rose once more. Amadeus’s soft words lingered in Aurora’s otherwise rattled mind as he left the door cracked once more, soothing her mentally as Cloak nestled upon her thigh. She rested her head down fully on the pillow that was brought to her and looked up, with none of the optical augmentations she had working. Sighing, her eyelids drifted to a close, with the beginning semblance of sleep overtaking her. The cycling of distant fans, the hum of air conditioning units, and the pitter-patter of far-off rain closed the book on her passage to slumber. Amadeus looked away from the crack in the door, his mind at ease. |
Last Edit: Feb 15, 2023 4:18:01 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |
Nexus Archon [TI0] Posts: 39 | Project November II — Stories of the StrugglesNov 5, 2022 23:31:42 GMT Post by Nexus on Nov 5, 2022 23:31:42 GMT⬖Low Lays the Devil ◤ Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR “Yeah, Edward, we are. f*ckin’ Lucian and Arthur are about to get trashed off of the booze, though. I tried stopping the f*cks, but-” “They’ll shape up when the meeting begins. Just hang tight, yeah?” The short conversation ended as he who hanged up the call looked towards the windows of his self-piloted aerocar, cruising through the sky in a serene silence. The mighty star of Hathor sputtered forth the last of its solar light over the horizon, with its setting in the direction that the car was flying. For the last half an hour, all that Edward could see below was the mottled blue sea of the Gulf of Batou, but now the distant shores of his ultimate destination emerged - a sight familiar to him at this point. As if on cue, a great bloom of neon lights had spread across the westerly horizon as the Southern Albion Megasprawl rose up, answering the darkness of the evening with a roar of scintillating light. Edward leaned back after seeing such a spectacle, sighing as he fished out an ebony cigarette from within the tin he carried. Having the cigarette alight from the contained fire of a lighter hosted within the central console, he smoked in quiet, staring at the empty leather seats that faced him to his front and across the way. Many things ran through Edward’s mind, but he trained his visage to betray nothing but stoicism and attention; this would come handy in what was to come. With a single thought, Edward’s eyes artificially glistened with graphic representations of the distance to his destination, among other things such as endlessly scrolling newsfeeds and diagnostics on the man’s own personal health. The heavy smoking and drinking that he partook in was, of course, reflected in warning prompts that noted hepatic and pulmonary damage; yet, he did not shed a thought upon it, for he could address such problems easily with the fortune he possessed. The full might of Jade City was now in full view from the windows, with its mighty sprawl stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. Taking another drag of his cigarette, Edward flicked two of his right gloved fingers upward, casting a hologram from the center of the passenger compartment. Without any dialogue from the artificial intelligence that controlled it, the hologram automatically toggled to a news screen. Defaulting to a Jade City-centric station, the news anchor that was shown rambled on about the increase in migrants from Earth and other Coalition worlds. With the minutes drawing to a close, the full strength of the neon lights below Edward reached a crescendo as he now cruised over the widening maw of Jade City’s urbanscape. He could tell that he was over the borough of Coronado not only by the map positioned in his peripheral vision, but also by the sheer brilliance of the sea of lights and the size of the spires that shot upward. Feeling the descent of the hovercar as it approached the terminus of the trip, Edward reached to the briefcase that sat to his left, bringing up onto his lap as his face warped amid the lights of the passing city. Several minutes had passed before Edward’s hovercar finally stabilized its aerial trajectory, gliding effortlessly towards a small alcove perched high within a towering, golden-accented stratoscraper. This specific megabuilding sat right at the edge between the boroughs of Coronado and Alabaster, giving him the perfect view in the change between the opulent megatowers of the former and the more humble skyscrapers of the latter. This sight disappeared as the mouth of the opening swallowed whole his vehicle, revealing a sky-high aerocar garage already filled with various others of different manufacturers and makes. Due to his importance, however, the spot closest to the sumptuous corridor that led inward was left bare just for his own. Edward felt the deployable locks of his car meet the magnets that laid upon that spot, grounding it in place and allowing the onboard AI to initiate shutdown procedures. In a hiss, the lock of Edward’s right side door depressurized, allowing it to pop upward on its own; from this, he felt the cold, high-altitude air from the outside blowing over his exposed face. He hoisted the briefcase in his right hand and exited the vehicle, not idling to watch it automatically close as he now passed into the corridor that awaited him. Two men stood at the large elevator doors, positioned at each side of the its wooden frame. Wearing tailored jackets and waistcoats much like Edward, they at once took off their flat caps and bowed their heads upon sight of his arrival. “Good. You gentlemen standing guard the whole night?” “Nope. Since everyone’s here, Lucian gave us the green light to shut the garage door until the meeting’s done.” “Alright. Well, let’s get on with it, then.” On the cue of their leader, Tom reached for the nearby console and punched for the penultimate floor: host to the Lion’s Mane gentleman’s bar. The three stepped into the luxurious elevator after one engaged the lock for the garage door; where they now stood was layered in granite tiling and true wooden panels of dark mahogany. Having now reached the butt of his cigarette, Edward exhaled the last of the spent smoke from his mouth, depositing the remains on an ashtray that laid near to the elevator’s interior console. The three men stood in silence, their focus ahead in anticipation for the opening of the elevator doors. Edward paid little mind to such, though, scrolling through the various notifications he had accumulated through his optics. However, as the floors ticked upward and upward, his attention snapped from the internal dimension of his augment GUI to that of reality. The wood-paneled doors of the elevator slid open with a ding, bringing in a waft of cigars and cigarettes alight. Edward took the stride out first, and was followed by his miniature entourage into the spectacle that laid before him. The atrium that they arrived within was empty, devoid of all the usual nightlife that would normally be filing in. The footsteps of the three men rang out against the silence as they approached one of the auxiliary entrances to the bar, passing through more opulent corridors that gave aesthetic reminiscence of centuries past. As they neared the finality of their walk, Edward motioned for the two to stop before a large set of wooden doors. “No worries,” Nodding in acknowledgement, Edward reached for the handle of one of the wooden doors himself, feeling the assistance of hidden pressure systems helping to open as it gave way. The booming voice came from none other than Edward’s cousin, Arthur, who sat closest to the entrance. Arthur had raised a glass to his arrival nonetheless, an opaque brown booze already in his crystal glass cup. Edward walked forward, now attracting the gaze of all who were in attendance. However, instead of giving a direct reply to Arthur, Edward instead turned to the bartender and began to speak. “Which specific drink do you want me to serve, sir?” “Wine, one hundred plus. The ones from Mars.” “Holy sh*t,” “Give me a reason not to, Lucian,” As the bartender returned to the private bar’s main area with several bottles in tow, a large figure emerged from the shadows near to where he had arrived. The hulking mass wore glasses similar to Lucian’s, with a large, three-lobed black beard hiding its mouth. Dressed in a white suit shirt and black tie alongside gigantic formal pants, Edward immediately recognized his distant cousin, Sergei. As the man poured, Edward did a final mental check on all the men assembled for the family meeting, discounting Arthur, Lucian, and Sergei: there was his cousin Mark, the accountant and manager of the counterfeiting under Edward’s jurisdiction, in addition to his younger brother Finley and youngest brother Rex. Although Finley was of drinking and smoking age, Rex was not; being only thirteen, he was always brought into the meetings to instead spectate how business was done. Other important relatives were present as well, including George, who served as Edward’s main fencer. “We drink Martian today for a reason. Now, let’s get this meeting started, aye?” “I figured you’d meet with the yarmulkes,” “Yeah, well... now we have an alliance with them.” “You said what, mate?” “And risk blowing our entire underground operation over there? No, Arthur, I’m not going to be a f*cking idiot and walk right into that trap. I already reached a concession for that incident.” “And what would that be?” “And, before you ask, Otis is not going to have a clue what the f*ck is going on. He sent me there not knowing the opportunities that lie against him; it’s only natural that I take what is naturally available. For all that fat-ass knows, I was there to deal with loose ends from since the last big gang war.” “Okay, so now we have Jews involved... what’s next?” “Glad that you asked, George, since it involves you.” George paused in the midst of pouring himself another drink. “You here, more than anyone else, knows about the xeno business, especially in relation to Hyperion. You know pretty much the ins-and-outs of the trade, yeah?” “Yeah, Eddie, I do, but... you already know the alien artifact market right now is absolute dogsh*t, right? The megacorps and the government alike have been cracking down on it, can’t even get a sliver of f*cking xeno-rock from the excavation sites without having watchdogs on our asses.” “Yes, I know of all of the nonsense going on in that market. The thing is, there is only so many avenues of profit we can pursue without Otis noticing what is happening under his nose. What I am thinking is that we should begin expanding our... investment portfolio on alien items, so to speak.” “Now the hell can we do that when there’s nothing to scrape!?” “You... just want to up and take f*cking xeno sh*t, huh?” “’Alien sh*t’ makes louder signals when moved compared to drugs, guns, money, or people. The demand for that, and the prices that people will pay for it, makes even the movers commit to doing things that raises larger red flags. George, you know what I am talking about,” “Sadly, George, I am,” “There’s no way I can take from Byrne’s fencers under their nose without sh*t going loud, man. We don’t got the manpower or equipment for that kind of thing... sh*t, his own fencing crew is unknown to most of the gang.” “That, right there, where I beg to differ,” Edward slid the paper over the wooden surface of the table to his cousin, who took it in surprise. The room grew quiet, sans the intermittent gulps of alcohol, as all of the cousins and brothers assembled waited for George to finish reading the paper in hand. He dropped the paper from his grasp, eyes betraying his shock. “With all due respect, cousin, that is not something you need to worry about. The point is, these are the men that we are going to scrape the goods off of. Don’t fret, since you won’t be doing the hard part of actually taking them. I have plans for how to lift what we need without leaving a trace.” “Let me guess, Edward,” “Correct, but even more so: someone not even related to the Harbornes at all. I’ve had someone familiar with the digital underworld print me this,” “Yup. If we risk one of us here doing even one job of stealing from Byrne, we are f*cked. We can’t let all the webs of intrigue that we have woven collapse all because of one mistake. With proper approach, we can either have these people get what we need and get compensated, or fail and get burned without ever risking us being exposed.” “Alright,” “I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet. Depending on how much information I can glean about them, we can get a crew competent enough to get the job done.” As the group of relatives began to discuss with one another the intricacies of what was just discussed, Edward got up from his chair with his alcohol in tow, looking past the window and over the near endless sprawl of Jade City. Eyes closed as he drank, the fog of his mind briefly dissipated, allowing Edward a full bird’s eye view of the situation that he and his family were now held in. Years of preparation were coming to an inevitable end. In truth, Edward had no real judgment of the command that Byrne had over the Harborne Boys’ Hyperion borough - yet, his grievances with his adopted cousin stemmed from a deeper, more glaring grudge. It was clear to every true-blooded Duncan that the deaths of Edward’s father and the previous Hyperion borough leader were on the hands of Byrne. He sighed, the sound being drowned by the clamor behind him. Opening his eyes, he let his mind drink from the cup of the splendor before him; a splendor that he had become used to a long time ago. Even here, standing in the highest of altitudes over the richest of the cities, he felt no richness nor wealth. In reality, he felt nothing, with the sights of millions of buildings towering into the night having lost their luster decades ago to his now weary mind. No sight could alleviate Edward of the weight of his own machinations, nor the plagues of the mind that still afflicted his thoughts from events years past. Yet, as he turned and saw both the laughter and arguments that roused up from his family, both close and extended, the slightest twinge of happiness grew in his mind. Not enough to assuage him from the stress of what he had to bear, but enough to tell him that what he did was all for the kin that he loved. Edward sat down once more, and partook in the impromptu festivity that resounded amidst the atmosphere of wine and tobacco smoke. |
Last Edit: Nov 6, 2022 20:35:45 GMT by Nexus NEXUS |