Nexus
I'mAwesome
Archon
[TI0]
Posts: 39
|
Post by Nexus on Nov 16, 2022 3:46:34 GMT
⬖ Poros Bodyworks - The Casing After meeting Octavia, Mohe proceeds to gain entry to the Poros Bodyworks industrial complex under the guise of an aspiring employee. Even so, she does not know his true purpose in visiting...◤ Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics) ⠀⠀ Poros Bodyworks Facility, Jade City, EAM (East Albion Megasprawl) 8:05 AM AST (Albion Standard Time) 6 January, 2698 UC (Universal Calendar) ◣ Part of the Poros Bodyworks Heist
The newfound duo that consisted of Mohe and Octavia entered the innards of the Poros Bodyworks facility through its main route, with the rest of the day crew having followed suit. Mohe trailed slightly behind Octavia, soaking up the atmosphere and committing to memory the sights that he had seen so far.
“So,” Mohe said, not aware of the grumpy expression that currently laid upon Octavia’s face, “what do you exactly do around here?”
Without turning around, Octavia responded as she watched the secondary set of entrance doors slide open. “I’m on the production floor itself, actually making the shit that you’re about to see.”
“Oh. That’s why you got those, uh...?”
[씨발 촌놈] “Ssibal chonnom... yes, that’s why I have these arms; thank you for so simply pointing them out,” Octavia responded, irritated as she motioned her robotic appendages for Mohe to follow her deeper into the facility. “They help me with reaching production quotas, as with any augmentation.”
“Alright, I see. Well, in your opinion, do you think I’ll need some of those extra arms for the shipping dock?” Mohe asked, worming in his objective of acquiring information into the conversation.
“For... shipping? Nah, not really. If you got yourself all built up for working on the shipping floor, you wasted your time; dockworkers just make sure the loading droids don’t fuck up, either with the loading process or with the timetables.”
The pair continued deeper into the facility, passing through a catwalk that gave Mohe a full view of the majority of the production floor. Already, hundreds of droids and people alike were positioned along streaming lines of augmentations in various states of completion. Some of these men, women, and droids shared similar features to Octavia, with a multitude of arms manipulating either machinery or the half-finished augmentations themselves. Other individuals had entirely custom arms, adorned with tools and instruments for precise craftwork.
“After I lead you to the offices, I’m done and gone. So ask what else you need while we’re here,” Octavia said, her voice raised as a result of the industrial clamor below their feet.
“If you know more about the shipping area, can you tell me when they switch their shifts? I’m trying to figure out whether to do a day or night shift,” Mohe replied.
“Well, those who are on the production lines work for about eight hours per day, but sometimes we get held up for up to four hours after. Shipping guys get on and off four hours into production shifts, so that shipping doesn’t slow when we change; that’s normally at noon. The thing is, though, you might also get held up like us, with shifts not changing ‘till four in the afternoon.”
“Damn,” Mohe responded, feigning genuine surprise. “Do you think I can take a look at the shipping area? It can help me with my final decision of staying with this place or not.”
“...Are you serious, dude?” Octavia said as she turned around in frustration. “I’m already wasting time taking you all the way to their damn offices-”
“Just a quick peek won’t hurt, right? I mean, if you can tell me where it is, I won’t have to waste no more of your time.”
She stood at the transition between the catwalk and a more stable hallway further on, in a second of miffed thought.
“Ugh,” she replied, “fine... you’ll have to go straight through this hallway and make a right when you see big red-and-white stripes on the floor. Those things will basically baby you all the way there.”
“Thanks,” Mohe said, fishing out his phone in the meanwhile. “Not to be overbearing or anything, but can I ask you for help in the future?”
“The hell you need more help for?” Octavia responded. “And... is that a fuckin’ phone? You really aren’t cyberized, are you...?”
“I’m gonna be honest with you here. I just got out of the pen, so I really need to get a job so that I can get back on my feet again. You have been a help so far, so I just thought it would be the smart thing to do.”
“You an ex-convict?”
“...Yeah?” Mohe answered, his plan of using his convict past working rather too well.
“Really? Show me your neck, then. Come on.”
Mohe begrudgingly turned around, using one of his gloved fingers to hook his coat’s collar down and expose the prison identification tattoo that still existed in black ink.
“Bro...” she muttered, the interest in her voice increasing. “You should have told me from the jump! I was in the system as well,” she finished, pointing to the nape of her own neck. Although there was no visible tattoo, Mohe could tell under the dim industrial lights that her natural skin sported discolorations common with the laserings of penal tattoos.
“Why didn’t you have your tat lasered off by now, though?”
“The program that I was discharged from is different than usual paroles. One of the reasons why I need this job is for just that reason - if I don’t get a steady income soon, they’ll just throw me back into the hole.”
“Wait... you got released from that order the government did? Fuck... I saw the news talking about it a few days ago. What were you in for?” Octavia asked, with the two now continuing down the hallway in a subconscious change of plans from before.
“I was originally booked for felony charges. Can’t really talk too much about it; you know how it is,” Mohe said, not wanting to give too much information on himself to what was essentially a stranger he was using to get in the facility. “I can in fact say that I was in for quite a while. Not for anything crazy like murder, though. What about you?”
“Well, I was thrown in the pen for assault. Not as long as you, apparently; I scored big when the city’s parole system tossed me this job. Reduced pay and all, but... I don’t know. Seemed worth it at the start.”
“This type of shit always seems that way from the beginning,” Mohe agreed. “Anyway, you said that you need to start on your shift, yeah? Go ahead and toss me your number.”
Octavia shrugged, her optics briefly becoming alight with a soft orange glow that danced around her iris. After a moment in time, Mohe’s phone screen lit up with the notification of Octavia having been added as a contact.
“I suggest that you pick up some optic-ware since you’re out of the pen,” Octavia jokingly commented as she began to walk back the way they had come. “Good luck with your job here; I’m sure you’ll hate it.”
“Be seeing you,” Mohe said, waving to Octavia as she disappeared under the shadows of the facility’s interior. He looked down at his phone, and was slightly surprised to see that there was already a picture of Octavia loaded for her contact information.
I can never get use to how this modern shit works...
Following the directions that Octavia had given him, Mohe trudged through the bowels of the Poros Bodyworks facility, a few eyebrows being raised along the way as he progressed inwards. Seeing red and white striped patterns begin to appear on the hallway floors, he turned right as they had done, with Mohe noticing how the hot atmosphere of the facility was slowly subsiding as he came closer to the shipping area.
Mohe finally came across the shipping bays as his journey within the monolithic facility ended, appearing on yet another catwalk. However, this catwalk was positioned perfectly for what he was about to do, as it gave the man a good vantage point to supervise what was occurring below. Hundreds of droids, both on legs and on wheels, were on perpetual routines of carrying various boxes and containers across the gaping maw that was the shipping area. Massive metallic doors were currently opened all along the far aside of the area, having let in the cool breezes of the winter morning outside.
He pulled out his phone once more, and assuming that he was always under a form of surveillance, began to act as if he was idly typing on his phone. In reality, however, he was taking various pictures of the shipping area, ranging from where the concentration of loaded boxes were to the various locales that human workers congregated around in supervision of their synthetic lessers. After figuring that he had taken enough for Kaden to be satisfied with, he finished his mock routine of typing and pocketed his phone.
In order for the facility to not later suspect him greatly, Mohe meandered to what he assumed was the management office that overlooked the shipping area. He sneaked a look through its frosted glass; thankfully, there seemed to be no one present... at least, for what he could see. He lingered for a moment, looking around with an expression of confusion, before turning back and walking the route that he had now been taught.
Settling into the backseat of a dingy cab while on the way back to the apartment that Mohe grudgingly called “home”, he had pulled up a text message conversation that he had started to engage with Kaden.
<MOHE>: Got info of shifts & the pics of where we need to work. Sent pics over, u should see them beam in ur eyeballs at some point. <KKADEEN>: yea man, i got them alrdy. good shit. what are them shifts? <MOHE>: So they got 2 kinds of shifts there, prod and shipping. I assume we dgaf about prod; shipping normally rotate at 12pm noon and 8pm night. Met someone who said those times change cuz the managers keep holding ppl back tho. <KKADEEN>: how tf we gon know when the time is right then? <MOHE>: I got the # of a contact from the inside who works production. It seems that the shifts being held back r always because of production fucking something up; when needed, we can hit them up and see if the gameplan needs changing later. <KKADEEN>: knew i could count on u, big dawg!! 🐺
Mohe chuckled as he saw Kaden’s reply.
<MOHE>: No problem. Wont be active for the rest of the day though. I need to get used to living in a city as big as this <KKADEEN>: cant say i know that feeling, but cant blame u after being cooped up for so long. get some good pussy or smn, we can talk more biz tmw
He closed the messaging app with the final reply, breezing over Kaden’s recommendation as he looked out of the taxi window as he had done numerous times before. Now, in the daylight of Hathor, Jade City seemed to lose its edge of risk and danger that it so brilliantly flashed in neon at night. Looking at the map that he had opened upon his phone, Mohe figured that he would blow the rest of the day not inside of some seedy brothel, but rather on what beachfront existed along Jade City’s otherwise mightily urbanized coast...
|
|
|
Post by IA on Feb 9, 2023 20:36:12 GMT
⬖ The Lord’s Work A Catholic priest turned mercenary is contracted by the Commission to put down a particularly heinous cell of the Black Order.◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR ⠀⠀ “Caesar’s Coliseum” Resort & Casino, Central Jade City 12:01 AM AST (Albion Standard Time) ◣ 10 January, 2698 UC
Business attire didn’t particularly fit Walter Rose. Even in playing the role, he bore more semblance to a hardened soldier than a wealthy patron, as his muscled, darkened features, further accentuated by his height, immediately attested to an athletic tendency. It wasn’t necessarily an untruth — before getting a parish of his own, Walter had served in the ICTA as a chaplain.
Dark shades concealed his eyes as he entered the casino floor, paying no mind to the rows of slot machines bathed in the space’s red neon. Walter scanned the bustling room.
Caesar’s Coliseum, as the name suggested, carried a kitsch Roman theme to it, which was evident in everything from the Hellenistic statues that decorated the corridors to the sultry holographic strippers projected here and there. The most expensive tables were located near the center of the room, where they could best catch the eye of any potential patrons. At this hour, the place was busy as ever.
Flanking him was Rico Bellini, a capo of the Galanti Family. Groups of suited guards stood beside them, firearms concealed within suitcases as they walked. The young, up-and-coming playboy was a rising star, heir to the ‘Duke of Knives’, Carlo Bellini, a close friend and high-ranking member of the family. Before the Years of Blood, Walter had heard many confessions from Carlo, guiding the old titan in spiritual matters from his humble parish.
Now Carlo was dead and Walter had no parish to call his own. Looking back, it almost felt like another life.
In the seven years since Rico inherited his father’s criminal fortune, he’d bought up real estate from Chasten to Jade City proper. He had carved a prospering fiefdom of gamblers, guns and money for himself and the Galantis.
It was almost strange that a young, hedonistic prince was juxtaposed by a man of the faith.
A double staircase greeted them past the slot machines. At its center was a flowing, crystalline fountain ornamented by a marble bust of the Roman emperor Tiberius. The railings were of solid gold, a fact Rico seemed to bask in as he ascended the steps, running his hand along the railing as he did.
Walter followed. On the second floor, past an ornate set of doors, he was greeted by the sight of Rico’s lavish office. “Gentlemen...” He gestured to his men, the door closing behind them.
Sinking into his gold-lined leather seat, the capo sighed, a breath of relief at the privacy they were now afforded. “I hope you don’t mind the scenery, Reverend. I’m a sucker for the finer things in life.”
Reaching behind him, Rico poured whiskey into his glass, while offering Walter a second.
The priest shook his head. “I don’t drink.”
“Suit yourself,” Rico shrugged, taking a sip from his own glass, savoring it before he finally began. “I take it you’re familiar with the Black Order?”
Walter tensed. The satanic gang that had burned his parish to the ground — the entire reason he had abandoned his priestly life and taken up arms once more during the Years of Blood.
“Of course.” He answered, his tone cold as ice. Even now, as a gun for hire, the former priest was selective in his business. He did not intervene in gang affairs — he only took up work that put him at odds with the gangs of the Legion of the Damned.
“There’s been an uptick of murders and kidnappings on the south side, near Maogang. One of my lieutenants — Luca — got jumped by the satanists. We pinpointed his location via aug... whatever those freaks are up to, they’re running the show belowground. These are the last coordinates we managed to pull before his signal went dead...”
Locking eyes with Walter, Rico forwarded the data to his InfoLink.
“And you want me to...”
“Find a way into the underground. Rescue Luca — and get out. We don’t know the full extent of this Black Order cell, so I’d advise caution. You’ll be compensated handsomely for your troubles.”
“It’s not about the money,” Walter countered. “It’s about carrying out the Lord’s work.”
|
|
|
Post by IA on May 1, 2023 22:43:25 GMT
⬖ Blut Tempel A Catholic priest turned mercenary is contracted by the Commission to put down a particularly heinous cell of the Black Order.◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR ⠀⠀Underground, South Jade City 3:03 AM AST (Albion Standard Time) ◣ 10 January, 2698 UC
Closing the manhole above him, Walter descended the utility ladder with care, his duffel bag meeting the ground with a soft thud. A dense layer of corrosion on the pipes spoke to the age of the place, equal parts disused and beyond sight of most.
Sometimes, one forgot Hyperion’s true age — only to be reminded upon entering centuries-old maintenance tunnels. A lonely bulb remained lit in the hall, casting its weak red glimmer by the ladder. All others had long since failed, leaving an ominous blackness beyond where Walter stood.
The priest had assumed the disguise of a simple utility worker to enter, though he was quick to cast aside the disguise. Unzipping his jumpsuit, he wrapped its sleeves around his waist, revealing the black clerical shirt beneath it. From his priest’s collar, a crucifix dangled. His guiding light, since his days in the Belial War.
Reaching down for the duffel bag he’d thrown down, Walter swapped his hard-hat for a combat helmet, mounting NODs and a plate carrier to protect himself. A protective mask obscuring his mouth and nose would serve to shield him from any ‘bad air’ that had festered in these megaurban catacombs.
Looking down, he assessed his arsenal: a kukri, a pair of Vietto 99 .45 pistols and an SP-64 pump-action combat shotgun.
Both had been extensively modified by Walter since the Years of Blood, each engraved ornately with a crucifix followed by various Biblical verses. The SP-64, being chambered in 10 gauge, was a powerhouse in its own right — a slug in close range would be more than enough to obliterate most forms of body armor, and turn any man in his way into organic paste.
Loading and holstering his weapons, the priest kept one Vietto at the ready, clutched in his right hand. He was done preparing.
Activating night vision, he needed only a moment to adjust to the darkness, looking down both ends of the maintenance tunnel. By the data visible on his InfoLink’s HUD, Luca’s last known coordinates weren’t far... though that didn’t mean Walter was any closer to finding him. Most of Hyperion’s rusting, rotting innards connected in unforeseen and unusual ways.
The Underverse, as some on the Net called it, was the dark underbelly of this planetary metropolis, and the priest merely scratched at its surface.
A large metal door awaited Walter at the corridor’s end. Overhead, a faded metal label indicated the use of the room ahead. ‘INGRAM INTERWORLD - LOWER WATERWORKS’
Ingram Interworld Space Lines had gone belly-up nearly half a century ago. The derelict carcass of its headquarters had been fought over and torched during the Years of Blood, the municipal services beneath the building forgotten while the rubble on the surface was cleared.
With a cautious step, Walter pushed the door open, revealing a room defined by a pipe-maze, boilers and pumps leading off elsewhere. Old wastewater had flooded the room at some point, fungal growth flourishing in the derelict space.
The priest pushed on undeterred, trudging through the murky, knee-deep waters. These conditions were to be expected for the average maintenance worker in Hyperion, and thus the waterproof jumpsuit and boots insulated him adequately.
The door at the room’s end was ajar. It looked to be ready to fall from its hinges, layers of rust having chipped away at its aged surface. Walter gave the door a light, careful push, just enough to continue down the maintenance corridors without making noise.
The coordinates were not far. In the underground labyrinth, there were always ways to reach other sections of the tunnels. Even the most disused of the tunnels could eventually connect to their newer counterparts, or tunnels of the Hyperion metro.
Steps led down, deeper into the underground. Trash, used needles and spent condoms littered the floor, insinuating the past exploits of other tunnelers.
Under the flickering, tenuous light of the bulbs that remained, Walter could see more testaments to recent activity. Graffiti adorned the walls, and shoeprints were visible against the dust that otherwise coated every layer within the bleak space.
Walter paused at the sight of the graffiti. Where the older graffiti had mostly been indecipherable tags and faded street art, the newer decorations were much more troubling.
The most elaborate of the paintings depicted a goatlike, yellow-eyed demon birthing itself from the distended belly of a pregnant woman, covered in blood and viscera. Beside it, the symbol of an inverse pentagram was followed by the words ‘BLK ORD’.
Red, six-fingered handprints decorated the wall, a calling card of the Order. Tags attempted mimicry of Goetic sigils, paying tribute to demons. The Black Order, like other gangs of the Legion of the Damned, were radical theistic Satanists, extolling the worship of Lucifer by taking violence, sadism and hedonism to its furthest limits. While all of the gangs differed to some extent in their interpretation of the faith, the Black Order’s doctrine was the most coherently defined among them. Blood Magick and Sex Magick rituals were managed with precision and cruelty without equal, the Order’s complete lack of morals an advantage in their ritualistic worship.
Despite their smaller size relative to the other gangs of the Legion, they had been incredibly potent during the Years of Blood — requiring the combined cooperation of the Hyperian Commission and the Harborne Boys to be driven back.
Thought to have been annihilated after the Years of Blood, they had resurged with a vengeance. Even then, their surviving membership was believed to number only in the hundreds. If they were brazen enough to strike against the Commission like this, Walter questioned whether they were merely suicidal, or stronger than initially thought.
Where previously the halls had only been filled with the low hum of lights and the eerie rattles of aging pipes, Walter could hear a new sound as he approached the end of the desecrated corridor: agonized screams.
The priest was familiar with this cacophony of pain. He’d seen torture facilities like these during the Years of Blood, pain a key component in the ritualistic magick of the Order. Of all other gangs, the Black Order were the most brutal in their methods — and thanks to the medically qualified among their ranks, they could keep their victims alive the longest.
The label above the door at the hall’s end had been stripped away long ago, rechristened ‘Blut Tempel, XXII Conclave’. The screams on the other end had briefly lulled, replaced with groans of disorientation and pain. Walter listened carefully.
“Do not be distraught..” began a voice on the other end. “for your essence will play a role in our dawning of a new age.”
There was a hiss, like that of scalding metal upon flesh, followed by another scream of agony.
“Bleed for me, cattle!”
With the screams once again filling the corridors of the Underverse, Walter capitalized on the opportunity. Putting a bullet in the rusted metallic door, he gave it a kick, almost undoing its hinges in doing so. As it flung open, he stormed into what’d once been a boiler room.
Immediately, he found his target. A robe-clad devotee, skin covered in ritualistic tattoos bearing sigils of patron demons. Not a second passed, and Walter had put another bullet through the man’s skull, preempting the gun he’d instinctively reached for. The devil-worshipper collapsed backwards, toppling arrays of medical equipment and tubing before letting out a final death spasm.
Walter looked up. The victim before him was a man, by now hardly recognizable as such. His form had been bound against the pipes, arms to his side in a crude mockery of crucifixion. What remained of his flayed skin was scarred with a myriad of ritualistic engravings.
Tubes fed the man nutrients and regulated his barely-functioning body, his torso cut open to reveal all but the most essential of organs had been removed. The Black Order were known to sell harvested organs, a significant source of their funding before and after the Years of Blood. The removal process often took place during torture, as to accentuate the suffering of their subjects.
Through his single remaining bloodshot eye, the poor soul looked on, as if to plead for mercy. Uttering a brief prayer, the priest answered his wishes by aiming his Vietto at the man. With the pull of the trigger, he’d scheduled the meeting with God.
Mechanical beeps emanated from the machinery as the man’s head fell limp, finally released from his agonizing torture. Walter turned away, intent on continuing through the underground complex. Years of similar sights had desensitized him by now, a fact that he lamented. Evil was real, and it knew no bounds in the darkest depths of Hyperion.
Beyond the blood-soaked, corroded boiler room, Walter peered through, cautious. Ahead was an equally bleak hallway of rusted metal, dimly lit by dirty overhead lights yet visibly filled with scrawled symbols and sigils. Evil permeated through this space, echoed by each tortured scream coming from deeper within the complex.
Two figures descended the corridor, one a devotee and another an armed, black-clad soldier.
The Black Order functioned in two distinct, yet symbiotic, components: its armed wing, which carried out most of the field operations of the cult, and its religious wing, which carried out the bulk of its rituals and practices. Walter had heard many rumors about exmilitary elements within the Black Order. In truth, the Black Order’s approach was a mixed one, drawing from both hardened Legion of the Damned gangsters and Coalition exmilitary with a vested interest in the occult. In any case, its tactics were unlike any of the other gangs of the Legion of the Damned, organized and coherent, mirroring Coalition military tactics.
“Brother Lucius’ grotto has gone quiet...” remarked the guard.
“Perhaps he’s finally finished with that AKD vermin...” mused the devotee. “Brother Set requires his talents in the lower levels.”
“Oh?”
“A Grand Rite shall commence soon. The blood of our most worthy cattle will flow as tribute to our Lord... and through this, the Legion may come one step closer to being One once more. I do not have time for further delays on Brother Lucius’ part.”
Walter stepped back into the room, like a predator lying in wait. Swapping his sidearm for his kukri, he waited for them to come in.
“Shit!” As they did, the priest struck from behind. Slitting the soldier’s throat, he moved immediately to the next, plunging the blade into the devotee’s chest while covering his mouth. Both men collapsed after briefly being left to reel from their lethal wounds.
Wiping the blood clean with a gloved hand, Walter swapped back to his trusty Vietto. He dwelled on the conversation he’d overheard. A ‘Grand Rite’, imminent in the lower levels — the priest silently feared Luca might be among the ‘cattle’ slated for sacrifice. Beginning down the hall with renewed urgency to his pace, he stopped by the door to the next room, listening intently.
“You’re out of your bloody head, coming for someone like me, you know...” The priest could hear the voice of an agitated young man. “the Boys aren’t going to take this one lightly.”
“Do not grow cocky from the confines of your cell, cattle.” answered another voice. “Once that man in the other room stops breathing, you’ll be next. And might I remind you... Brother Lucius is most precise in his method.”
“You devil-worshipping lot have got to have the most ridiculous death wish I’ve fucking seen.”
“To the contrary... the Black Order has a plan, ordained by Lucifer himself.”
Walter heard radio chatter on the other end, followed by footsteps. Four more cultists, he assumed.
“Brother Set’s growing uneasy. We’ve got three unresponsives, including Brother Lucius.”
Walter took a step back as the door swung open — immediately he opened fire. He’d caught the enemy off-guard, confusion overtaking them.
The first man fell lifelessly to his arms, becoming a meat-shield for the ensuing panic-shots, before he threw the body forward into their number. Firing in quick succession as he did, three more of the cultists fell limp in short order. Before the survivor could react, Walter pistol-whipped him to the ground before plunging the kukri into the man’s back. He held it in place, twisting it as the man was left to his last spasms, choking and gurgling in a paralyzed shock.
Quickly, Walter reloaded, anticipating more of the satanist footsoldiers to storm in. Yet again, a familiar voice from earlier spoke, startling him from his alert vigil.
“Oi! Priest! Get me out of here, will you?” The man watched him from one of the rusty cells, clasping the bars with bruised, bloody hands. Then, as if to give direction, he pointed. “Keys’re behind the desk over there.”
Walter lowered his weapon, stopping by the former warden’s desk. Indeed, the man hadn’t lied. A set of keys were there, set beside a stack of macabre magick books. Retrieving them, he released the young man from his ordeal.
“Thank God you’ve gotten me out of this mess... I suppose I owe you an introduction. Name’s Cecil, Cecil Hargrave.” He approached a locker by the warden’s desk, opening it to retrieve his clothes. Putting them on immediately disclosed his membership with the Harbourne Boys. He quickly redressed beyond his boxers with a dapper (albeit bloodied) suit, and fancy leather shoes. “What’s it to you?” He asked, adjusting his tie.
“Walter Rose,” Walter identified himself. “I’m looking for somebody.”
“Wish I could help you... I barely got here. Guy in the other cell was some AKD gang-banger, was talking about how some Commission bigshot was sent to the lower levels for a ritual.”
Walter acknowledged the statement with a nod. “The way out of here is down that way.” He gestured, offering the freed prisoner an escape.
“Fuck that, mate,” Cecil said, opening another locker to retrieve a bulletproof vest. “You saved me from getting skinned alive by these freaks, least I could do is lend a hand.”
Walter momentarily hesitated at the suggestion. He preferred working alone, but the scope of the operation, and the general sprawl of the subterranean nightmare show before him made him reconsider. “Fine. Fetch a gun off one of the cultists, we’re going in deeper.”
“Right on, then,” From one of the lifeless bodies, Cecil lifted a KIBR assault rifle, stuffing spare mags into the pouches of his bulletproof vest. “Lead the way.”
|
|
|
Post by IA on Oct 12, 2023 8:50:36 GMT
⬖ Rising Evil Together with Harbourne Boys footsoldier Cecil Hargrave, Walter Rose draws closer to his goal of rescuing Luca from the clutches of the Black Order.◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR ⠀⠀Underground, South Jade City 3:36 AM AST (Albion Standard Time) ◣ 10 January, 2698 UC
The pair descended further into the complex, encountering no further resistance along the way. The oppressive miasma-stench of blood and death had become ever more prominent as they continued further into the bowels of the complex, traveling the many maintenance corridors—which had become increasingly scrawled with occult symbols.
“Oi, so who’s this lad you’re after, Priest?” questioned Cecil.
“Luca Caruso, Lieutenant of the Galanti family. Cultists took him, we’re headed to his last known coordinates. A deliberate provocation against the Commission, I assume...”
Cecil scoffed. “Out of their bloody minds, that’s what. Nobody would fuck with the biggest gangs on Hyperion without expectin’ a fight...”
“I think it’s deliberate,” Walter replied bluntly. “They want to start a war.”
Walter adjusted his posture as they approached the coordinates, readying himself for a fight. Taking position beside the door, he looked to Cecil.
“On my mark...” Walter mouthed.
Inside, he could hear talking.
“Brother Set has gotten bold... the last few cattle we nabbed aren’t small-time criminals. They’re much more than that.”
“I would not doubt Brother Set’s vision, were I you...”
“I do not doubt him. I merely question where this is going...”
“His knowledge of the rituals is far more expansive than our own. Surely he has something in mind.”
“That I must concede, yes...”
The priest had heard enough. Looking to Cecil, he nodded.
Together, they kicked down the door, revealing another holding room. Four armed, robed figures, clad in body armor, stood before them—they only had mere seconds to react before Walter emptied a round into one of them, blasting their head clean off. Cecil took the second with a well-placed burst to the neck, sending him collapsing to the floor in a bloody mess. The remaining pair were quickly disposed of, and the two men hastily advanced to assess the situation.
Only one cultist remained alive, even if ephemerally so, gripping his neck as he bled profusely, managing only incoherent chokes and gurgles. Through the goat-skull mask, he looked up to Walter, eyes filled with hate.
“May God have mercy on your wretched soul.” The priest dealt the finishing shot, ending the cultist’s ordeal.
With the men dead, the pair could finally parse their surroundings in greater detail—Cecil instinctively put a finger to his nose. “Bloody hell...”
It was, for lack of a better word, a complete and utter slaughterhouse. The flayed corpses of prior victims lined the wall, serving as macabre decoration. Walter could only assume they had been prior works of the ‘Brother Lucius’ he had disposed of earlier. Blood had pooled in the center of the room, feeding an ominous red puddle, and the stench of death was palpable.
“These people are sick in the head...” murmured Cecil. “Never seen anything like it.”
“You haven’t been around long enough.” Walter replied, matter-of-factly. Upon one of the desks, he found a hand-scrawled note.
Transfer new cattle to GeoDeep, Sublevel 4 The future awaits us there. -Brother Set
Walter stared at the note, reading it silently.
“What’s the matter?” questioned Cecil.
“GeoDeep ring a bell?” asked Walter.
The gangster shook his head. “Don’t think so. Haven’t heard the cultists talk about it, if that’s what you’re askin’.”
“We’ll have to catch one alive to find out. In all likelihood, that’s where they’re keeping him.”
Cecil scoffed. He couldn't have anticipated how deeply the rabbit hole would go.
Only one door led ahead, layered with rust. Though faded by the centuries, Walter could faintly read ‘HANSEN GEOTHERMAL - MAINTENANCE LVL’
Another defunct corporation from Hyperion’s past, leaving behind desolate, forgotten subterranean levels. Opening the door, he was confronted with a narrow, branching corridor. One way led down, while the other terminated in a mass of scrap and debris.
“Guess we’re goin’ down, yeah?” Cecil muttered, grimacing.
Walter responded with a dignified nod of recognition, leading the way. Within the confining space, bathed solely by the dim, flickering crimson emanating from the archaic maintenance tunnel's lights, the two individuals pressed onward, their weapons poised for any eventuality.
That eventuality came sooner than they’d expected.
A scream echoed down the corridor, emanating from a metal door halfway down the hall. The door lay ajar, a faint sliver of light pouring outward from within. Cecil immediately reached for his KIBR, while Walter swapped back to his SP-64.
“Sounds like a girl...” Cecil whispered.
The pair cautiously approached, peeking through the doorway.
“Please, just let me go! I-I swear I won’t tell anybody about this place!”
A woman struggled against the grasp of three black-clad, heavily-augmented cultists. Despite her desperate thrashing, the cultists were too strong for her to break away from.
“You have outlived your usefulness, and the Lord commands his worship. Through pain and suffering, the path is made clear.” The man raised his cybernetic arm to the air, allowing it to morph into a sharp, blackened blade. “O Lucifer, accept this humble offering!”
“Get your hands off me! Let me go, let me GO!”
Walter and Cecil exchanged glances. With renewed urgency, the priest dealt a swift kick to the door, sending it rattling on its hinges.
“What the—”
Walter pulled the trigger. The 10-gauge slug shredded through the satanist’s massive, augmented bicep, hydraulic fluid spilling as the man reeled from his injury. A second shot painted the ceiling with his grey matter, leaving him to collapse in an incoherent death-spasm.
The woman screamed in horror, ducking as the other cultists reflexively turned to the source of the gunfire. The cultists were no slouches, but Walter had taken them by surprise. Cecil opened fire on the other two, the first shot catching the man in the throat. He fell, choking on his own blood.
“What the fuck!”
The last cultist raised his weapon, only for Walter to put a round into the man’s chest. Blood and sparks flew as the man staggered backwards, collapsing lifelessly atop an overturned table.
Walter turned to the woman. In the face of the trauma and horror of it all, she’d all but curled up on the ground, cowering in the face of the bloody mess around her.
“Oh my God... oh my God...”
Cecil was the first to approach. “It's alright, love, you're safe.”
Walter looked her over. She'd had her fair share of bruises, but otherwise seemed to have been spared from the cruelty of the cultists.
“Name's Cecil,” the gangster offered her a hand, helping her to her feet. “Preacher-man over there’s Walter. You alright?”
“I...”
“Can you walk?” Walter asked, getting straight to the point.
“Y-Yeah, I think...”
“What's your name?”
“Lisa... Lisa Jeong.”
“What're you doing down here, miss?” asked Cecil.
“I was on my way home when they grabbed me,” she said. “I’ve been here for a few weeks, at least. I’ve lost all sense of time.”
“Any reason they might’ve picked you?” asked Walter.
“I'm... a geotechnician with the City,” explained Lisa. “They made me excavate a tunnel... they didn’t explain why. I was only told it was a really old abandoned mine of great importance to them.”
“GeoDeep?” Walter asked, recalling the note.
Lisa’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I heard them mention that name before... GeoDeep.”
“I’ll wire an escape route to your InfoLink if you can show us the way.”
|
|
Nexus
I'mAwesome
Archon
[TI0]
Posts: 39
|
Post by Nexus on Nov 13, 2023 1:12:22 GMT
Alone in the cold rain, Mohe finally lets his façade free and surrenders to the weight of his solitude. The cross that he bears, of loneliness and bitter remembrance, crushes his soul...◤ Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics) ⠀⠀ Kolkata Sky Garden, Kolkata Urb-Tower, Jade City, EAM ⠀⠀ 8:05 AM AST (Albion Standard Time) ◣⠀ 6 January, 2698 UC (Universal Calendar)
Aged, rusted metal creaked as the elevator doors stopped, giving way to the sound of rain hitting stone. The sharp cold of the January night enveloped Mohe’s face with a chill embrace, washing over his collar to send icy breaths upon exposed skin. His eyes, having just adjusted to the soft yellow glow of the lift, now strained to take in the darkness as he walked forward.
Two mighty walls rose on either side of Mohe’s vision as he looked upwards, black voids strangling sight of the inky night sky. They shepherded him forward as he trudged on, as if a lonely rat approaching the end of a maze. The raindrops that fell came down upon wall as a sea of intertwined rivulets, shining with the distant pink and blue lights that he approached. The lone man brushed the tips of his gloved fingers against the wet surface of those walls as he walked, feeling the lack of traction from how slick and smooth they were.
As Mohe approached the exit to the yawning corridor, he arrived to the place that Kaden had told him of after coming back from Poros Bodyworks—a reprieve of greenery, nestled within the concrete belly of the Kolkata megatower that Mohe has been calling “home”.
A handful of real, yet sullen oak trees stood before him, their sparse leaves and branches bobbing up and down from the rain and wind. The night, combined with the city lights that flooded in from the opening to the left, their original green colors were warped into desaturated hues. Small tiled stone paths wound their way between the vegetation, restricting the plants to their stony prisons. To Mohe, the air here seemed to be just a bit more clean than the rest of Jade City; he ultimately chalked it up to placebo, as he could not believe that even a small park such as this could filter all of the smog and soot of Hyperion that floated in.
Mohe walked with a deliberate slowness in his step towards one of the trees, drinking in the visage of it. The tree’s trunk lied nearest to the railing that separated the sky park from the kilometer drop that lied below, casting a wide shadow behind it as part of its bark glowed with city light. The slaps of Mohe’s boots against wet stone stopped as he craned his head upwards to look upon the skeletal branches that loomed overhead. Raindrops slipped into his eyes as he did so; blinking through the water, his mind slowly began to drift towards memories.
The lone man had not seen a single, live tree for over a decade. In the many years he was incarcerated, Mohe’s fondest recurring dream was that of his childhood back on Archangel. His mother, on the scant few days within the year that she did not work, always brought him to picnic with the few food items they had under the canopy of a mighty oak, lying not far from their home. The smell of plants abound... the brilliant blue of the canvas that was the sky, brushed in soft strokes of white clouds...
It was something antithetical to where Mohe was in his life now—not just in environment, but in state of mind. Mohe was afflicted with stress, with isolation, and with a forgotten emotion that now rippled from the back his mind...
His mother, and the few friends he had on that planet, gave his life purpose enough to march through the hardships he encountered. When his mother died, the friends that were left did their best to buoy his soul up from the void that opened beneath his feet. Yet, they too faded away, both in presence and in Mohe’s mind. His pivot to survive took the young Mohe away from Archangel and onto the streets of Hyperion, where he didn’t last long until his mistakes took him to the pen.
Where were his old friends now? Gone, drifted just as the leaves that once lied on the bare branches above. All having drifted away, stained by the acrid rain and plucked by the strong wind. He saw himself in those branches, his heart and hands reaching out in each and every direction to try and grow back that which he had lost.
Feeling his heart sink in recollection, Mohe’s hands moved with habit to pull a cigarette and the hull he used to smoke out from his coat pocket. The sight that lied beyond the park’s railing, however, stayed his hand.
Mohe walked towards a lone gazebo that sat beyond the confines of the park’s edge, finding brief respite from the rain under the tinny pitter-patter of rain against its roof. Going towards the pebbled glass railing, he placed his gloves upon the slicked metal bar that ran atop. He peered through the haze of rainfall from such a vantage point and saw a grand tapestry of lights and buildings unfurling before his eyes.
This expanse stretched for countless miles unto the horizon in each and every direction that he could see. In the distance, he could see parts of the city that had not yet befallen to storms. Massive corporate advertisements shot up towards the starless night from the spires of stratoscrapers, unfettered by clouds as they swallowed the darkness of the sky in their scintillating animations and alluring holographics. Millions of windows and lights flickered on and off from his vantage point, patterns enrapturing his gaze. Below him, Mohe could see the lights of tens of thousands of land-bound cars meandering through city streets, thousands of hovercars in complement navigating the airscape below. Up above, he could see the lights of Jade City pouring into the underbelly of the rain clouds and making them glow in unnatural, dizzy coloration.
This urban mosaic was beautifully alien to him. Only now did Mohe truly come to terms with how many people lived and breathed on Hyperion; it was an idea that was lost decades ago after seeing Hyperion’s cityglow from space upon his arrival.
Yet, just as it was beautiful, it was also... saddening. The sight of the skyline beyond, undulating in the varied heights of its meek skyscrapers and mighty stratoscrapers, gave a profound impression of billions of lives coming and going. This world was stark, from its sterile concrete and steel to its eye-piercing light and glow. Little life could thrive, both in metaphor and reality... if life wasn’t snuffed out prematurely, it seemed to go on as a depressive husk, akin to the tree he had looked upon prior.
Mohe raised his gloves from the railing and looked at them, his hands open. As he saw the rainwater dance between the grooves of his palm and drip onto the floor, his mind mulled over the things that he had done. These hands that lingered before his eyes snuffed the life out of many a person, and beating the blood and spit out of men innumerable. In this state of reflection, Mohe could now feel the ashen calluses upon his palms and knuckles rub against the underside of his gloves. This led him to now feel the webbed scars that lined his body brush against his clothes, all testaments to the struggles he faced in prison and before.
The man leaned against the gazebo’s glass and metal railing as he felt something tug in the back of his throat, his hands now hanging over the gulf below. Mohe had survived the hell that was prison—but to what end? He had killed and injured people not out of any form of self-defense, but of shallow allegiance and negligence to his own morals and faith. The man that he had killed naught two days ago, did he really deserve it?
Mohe’s eyelids sank, stinging in the upwelling of his shackled grief. His brain forced him to face the gravity of his situation: that he was a fraud, a husk of his own making. For his sin and negligence, God had turned away from him, exposing the man to the true pain that life could rain down upon him, just as the drops crashed against his face.
There was no one left. In this planet—in all of the universe, upon every world that ever harbored man, there was not one person that he could go to who could understand his pain and his true emotions. His mother was dead and gone, robbed from his life by men of avarice in the time that he needed someone most to give him direction. His old friends vanished into the darkness, entombing him to desolation. No one from prison was a friend in the true sense of the word; merely allies and those who would seek to benefit from the things Mohe could do. Even Kaden wasn’t a true friend in the way that Mohe idealized it; if he plunged over the railing here and now, the man that gave him the pity of shelter wouldn’t really think too much of it. He knew it.
In regret and desire to remember something, Mohe pulled out the laminated picture of himself and his mother. The smiles of mother and son were a bittersweet memory; as he held it in his hands above the yawning gulf below, he felt his grip weaken. The rain splattered upon it, threatening to knock it from his grip and put the final nail into the coffin of his existence. He drew the picture backwards, stuffing it back into his coat in urgency, before finally noticing the totality of what was true.
The emptiness in his heart was not just for a parent and for friends lost, but also for romance never known. He never grew to adore a woman of his dreams; one that would tell him the sweet words of understanding and compassion. His past life shunted such fantasies away from becoming reality, forcing him to cohabit the dark and dank rot of prison cells with other men, or his own self, for countless months on end. In the depths of his dreams, he saw the outline of a woman reaching out for his hand, only to never grasp it. To never see her face, to never know her beyond superficial carnality.
There was, truly, no love left in this world for him. No one to tell him that everything will be alright. Just stark and sterile nothingness; a silence with no end in sight, simply echoing the screams and sins that bled through his brain and out of his own eyes.
Mohe realized that, for the first time in years, he was crying. Having felt nothing but shame for himself just minutes before, the lone man’s mind had now cracked open to reveal an ocean of sorrow. The salty tears that streamed down from Mohe’s eyes were simply washed away, swept into the cold endlessness of rain.
The man lowered his head just over the railing as he cradled his head in his hands, water running over his hair and hammering against the back of his skull. Mohe’s sobs were swallowed up by the howling of the wind and the droning of a city’s endless ambiance. He could not bring himself to stop, the memories of what was and the idyll of what could have been exposing pieces of the man’s shattered soul.
With each of his sobs transforming into yells of anguish and self-hatred, the wind drowned his mental decline back into the abyss of noise. He collapsed onto the wooden flooring, curling into his own coat as he screamed for his mother. Jade City, through true tears and the railing’s glass, seemed an amorphous, emotionless fog that mocked the storm of his own thoughts.
Mohe’s prayers for solace, issued through clenched teeth and reddened eyes, were only answered by the monotonous patter of rain.
|
|
|
Post by IA on Nov 15, 2023 16:51:58 GMT
⬖ GeoDeep Reaching the bowels of the Black Order’s subterranean lair, Father Walter Rose moves hastily to save Luca.◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR ⠀⠀Underground, South Jade City 3:55 AM AST (Albion Standard Time) ◣ 10 January, 2698 UC
In centuries past, GeoDeep had been a sprawling network of mines, geothermal power facilities and other assets tasked towards sustaining the Hyperian sprawl. Long since defunct, the facility had been largely forgotten in the megaurban catacombs above, its surface facilities scoured to rubble during the Corporate Wars. The deep, abandoned levels of the facility had long since gone unused, the cultists evidently having repurposed it to their own ends.The excavation tunnel connecting the network of abandoned service tunnels to the GeoDeep facility lay behind Walter and his group, the vastness of the morbid complex laid bare before them.“This is it..” Lisa looked on, visibly nervous at the prospect of returning to the plight she'd been subjected to. Walter and Cecil remained vigilant, their weapons ready.“Thank you,” said Walter. There was a glimmer from the priest’s eyes as he wired the escape route to Lisa’s InfoLink. “You can go now.”There seemed to be a hint of trepidation in the woman. “Is the way out.. clear?”“Oi, priest-man, she’s got a point,” Cecil agreed. “Don’t know if there’s any devil-worshippers still crawlin’ about.”The question made Walter hesitate. “I’ve killed everything in my path so far.”“If it’s not safe...” Lisa swallowed. “I.. I think I would prefer not being alone.”The priest furrowed his brow. “Do you know how to use a firearm?”Lisa nodded. “I’m not exactly from the nicest part of Hyperion. Plus...”Her augmented eyes lit up as data was wired to Walter’s InfoLink: a three-dimensional map of the GeoDeep complex, a slapdash patchwork between an ancient map of the facility and recorded data from Lisa’s own InfoLink.“I was planning an escape myself,” She elaborated. “Whereever I went in the facility, I recorded, took notes — I can be of help.”At this, Walter passed one of his Viettos to Lisa. “If you’re staying with us, you’re listening to my instructions. Understand?”“Yes.”On that note, they resumed their expedition into the facility.GeoDeep's caverns were dusty and cobweb-laden, the complex having laid dormant for decades. Maintenance corridors connected the various mining facilities, leaving a labyrinth of aged, rusted metal and faded labels. The priest could only wonder how far down Luca had been taken.As they continued, a distant noise caught the trio's attention.“Bollocks...” Cecil muttered.Ahead, cultists could be seen, their forms dimly lit by overhead lighting. Two stood, rifles in hand, while a third tended to a panel of machinery. They'd gotten the power back on, somehow. Behind them was a pair of blast doors, presumably leading deeper into the complex.Walter and Cecil crouched, Lisa following suit.“You flank,” The priest mouthed, signaling for Cecil to flank the cultists from the other end of the cavern. With a nod, the gangster understood, slinking off down the adjacent tunnel. As he did, Walter moved ahead, closing the distance between himself and the enemy.Coming to a stop behind a concrete barrier, Walter took cover. There, dimly lit by the mine’s lights, he could see Cecil had assumed his position, the vantage point overlooking the Black Order gunners below. With a hand gesture, Walter authorized the kill-shot.Moments later, the satanist tending to the panel collapsed in a death-spasm, a burst-shot to the back of his head painting the adjacent wall with blood. The two rifle-holders turned in panic, only to be met with Walter and Lisa, the pair delivering a succession of shots that left the cultists bleeding and twitching on the GeoDeep floor.Walter quickly reloaded, approaching the dying men.The man on the right choked, his augmented form sparking from the bullet in his chest. The man on the right choked, his augmented form sparking and spilling blood from the bullet in his chest. Walter knelt beside him, grabbing the cultist by the face-plate of his goat-skull mask.“Where is Luca Caruso being kept?”“You won’t get there in time,” The satanist chuckled, disobedient to the end. Cecil joined Walter moments later, Lisa following behind. “His blood... will bless the coming war.”The augmented cultist spat at him, coughing up blood as he did. Walter brought the Vietto to the man's forehead, pulling the trigger and bringing an end to the man’s life.With the deed done, Walter examined the machinery the cultist had been tending to.“A backup generator,” Lisa explained. “The cultists were in a rush; had neither the time nor resources to kickstart the old geothermal facilities. Plus, the city government might’ve noticed a power surge if that happened.”Walter nodded, acknowledging Lisa. Cecil attended to a control panel, standing back to watch the blast doors open, weapon at the ready.In the GeoDeep complex, the cult had evidently begun setting up ritualistic sites. Candles and incense burned, casting a faint eerie flicker of light upon the occult symbols adorning the caverns. Blood stained the floors, remnants of ritualistic activities Walter dared not further dwell on.As they spiraled deeper into the subterranean complex, the caverns terminated at a concrete wall. Overhead, a label read:‘GEODEEP SUBLEVEL 4 - GEOTHERMAL POWER PLANT 01’This was where they were keeping Luca, of that much Walter was certain.By the blast doors, four guards stood watch. The trio hastily took cover behind one of the larger stalagmites in the cavern, Walter carefully peering to better assess the situation.The guards were augmented, heavily-armored cultists — Walter identified their weaponry as Coalition-made DMRs. Black, hooded robes complemented their cyborg musculature.Walter turned, looking to Cecil and Lisa.Cecil, weapon at the ready, signalled his acknowledgement.Swapping to his SP-64, Walter gave the nod.The priest popped out of cover, sliding down the cave floor. On his descent, he fired his shotgun, the impact of the 10 gauge slug creating an explosion of blood, wiring and viscera as it impacted one of the armed cultists.Within seconds, the other satanists returned fire, just as Walter slid into cover behind a series of rocks. The caverns echoed with the loud, deafening bang of their high-caliber gunfire, ricocheting bullets sending sparks and stone fragments flying. With the cultists focused on Walter, Cecil took advantage of the situation, sinking a burst of rounds into one of the men.Lisa was quick to follow suit, firing Walter's Vietto from cover.One cultist remained, finding cover behind the concrete barriers ahead of the sublevel entrance. Cecil’s suppressive fire had become the cultist’s immediate priority, as he emptied a few rounds in the Harbourne Boy’s direction. The gangster ducked, narrowly avoiding the satanist’s high-caliber markman rifle, the stray bullet’s impact sending several stalactites falling from above. At the falling debris, Cecil and Lisa scrambled out of cover, and the cultist took aim.Before the man could fire, Walter had fired away another 10-gauge, ripping the cultist’s upper body to pieces. Staggering backwards and incoherently gurgling, the soldier fell limp upon the cavern floor.With the last guard dispatched, the trio cautiously advanced, stopping before the blast doors.“Last chance to turn back,” Walter warned. “You don’t have to stick your heads out for me. You could escort miss Jeong out of here if you wanted to.” “I owe you my life,” retorted Cecil. “Helping’s the least I could do to pay you back.” “Very well,” Walter looked to Lisa. “Any objections?”“I thought about it,” Lisa admitted. “but I want payback. After everything I’ve seen, it’d be wrong to let them continue like this.”Walter nodded. “Alright. On my mark,”The trio readied themselves. Lisa returned the Vietto to Walter, swapping for a sidearm off one of the dead cultists, as well as a few mags. Cecil stood ready by the control panel, prepared to open the door at a moment’s notice.“Go.”The eerie sound of chanting welcomed them on the way in, echoing throughout the barren halls of the aged facility. Crude ritual sites had been set up within the space, altar-like constructs and morbid effigies of flesh decorating the otherwise ancient space.Walter led the advance, SP-64 poised for combat. Cecil followed behind, while Lisa cautiously guarded their six.They continued, stopping before a large, gated-off chamber.Walter peered through. Cultists, dozens of them, had gathered in a ritualistic gathering, kneeling in deference to Lucifer. The chanting grew ever louder as they approached, calling out to their blasphemous deity. At the center of the room stood a tall, imposing figure, his heavily-augmented body crowned by a cybernetic goat-head: Brother Set. Naturally, he led the group in their ritual, his voice leading the crowd’s.“O Morning Star, hear our call! May this blood seal our Pact, and mark the beginning of a new sanguine epoch for the unfaithful!”Behind him was a grim effigy, fashioned entirely of twisted, flayed corpses. At the base of the altar lay a bound Luca, his body covered in ritualistic scars and markings. The young Commission lieutenant miraculously remained alive, despite his horrid flaying.Walter silently motioned, gesturing for Cecil and Lisa to flank.With the cult distracted by their grotto, the priest seized the opportunity. Kicking down the gate, he fired a 10 gauge slug in Brother Set’s direction. In an instant, Brother Set evaded in the incoming round, his motion a dizzying blur. Walter fired again, yet Set evaded once more.Cecil and Lisa, meanwhile, fired into crowd of surprised satanists, felling a number in the ensuing panic while Walter and Brother Set did battle.Brother Set turned faced Walter.“You have courage to disrupt this mass, Priest,” he began. “But you are helpless to stop what the Black Order seeks to achieve.”Within his augmented goat-skull, the priest could faintly see the man’s eyes — eyes filled with hate. Reaching into his black robe, he compensated for his lack of armament — instead wielding a ritual knife adorned by ornate occult symbols. Walter readied his SP-64 once more, only for Brother Set to charge in, moving impossibly fast. Avoiding the cult leader’s onslaught, Walter stumbled backwards, rolling as he did.In a dizzying frenzy, the satanist slashed and stabbed, only for Walter to counter each strike with the blunt end of his pump-action shotgun, parrying blow after blow. Finally, the cult leader knocked the shotgun out of the priest’s hands, to which Walter rolled to the dodge the ensuing stab. As he did, he unsheathed his kukri, holding it at the ready the moment he stood upright once more.Brother Set lunged, only for Walter to duck, slicing at his augmented legs. The satanist reeled from his newly-inflicted injury, stumbling backwards momentarily. Synthetic blood spat from the wound, though only briefly — a mass of expanding coagulant quickly sealed the gash. Before Walter could strike again, the cult leader had recovered, returning to his assault.Walter attempted to parry the knife-stab, only to have the kukri ripped from his grasp. Moments later, the cult leader delivered a gut-punch, sending the priest to the ground. Had it not been for his body armor, he’d likely have been dead. Walter reeled from the impact, and through blurred vision he could see the silhouette of his adversary’s approach.“Your God will not save you,” The cultist taunted. “You will die here, like all cattle.”Brother Set raised the knife, poised to deal the finishing blow. Walter caught the blade with his left hand, ignoring the searing pain as his palm was impaled. With his right hand, he had drawn his Vietto, barrel pressed against his opponent’s abdomen.“Wha—”One shot was followed by another, each one sending Brother Set a few steps back. Synthetic blood spilled from the wound, the succession of shots preventing coagulation. Walter ripped the ritual dagger free from his left hand, charging the cult leader before driving the blade into his chest.Even in defeat, Brother Set seemed amused. “May my blood... serve as a replacement for his. May my martyrdom... mark the beginning of our wrath. May the Years of Blood... begin anew!”Cecil and Lisa turned their fire to the cult leader. In a hail of bullets, Brother Set collapsed to his knees, heat blurs rising from his failing augments. Even as he stood poised to die, Brother Set remained defiant, looking upon Walter with pure hatred.“May this place... be your tomb!”There came a glimmer from his sole remaining cyber-eye, followed by the echo of explosions rocking the facility. He had prepared for such possilibities, it seemed, and had rigged explosives across the GeoDeep facility.Brother Set’s failing augmented body overheated, the ensuing explosion casting a mess of blood, viscera and wrecked machinery across the ritual space. He had died laughing.The sound of gunfire was gone now — all Walter could hear now was the rumble of the caverns. Cecil and Lisa hurried over to his side.“You good, mate?” Cecil asked, helping him to his feet.Walter nodded. “Let’s focus on getting Luca out of here.” The trio approached the altar upon which the Galanti lieutenant had been laid. Blood soaked the effigy beneath Luca, his bloodied, scarred form strapped against the macabre construction. Walter knelt by the mafioso, freeing him of his binds.“Who.. are you..?” Luca coughed, barely able to look at the priest.“We’re going to get you out of here.” replied Walter.Lisa helped drag him free of the altar, Cecil putting the man over his shoulder. Explosions rocked the GeoDeep facility once more, the cave-ins audible throughout the complex—they were reminded of their urgency.Walter retrieved his SP-64, following Cecil and Lisa. Explosions had buried the way back in rubble, leaving GeoDeep awash in a fiery haze as automated alarms blared across the ancient complex.Together, the group hurried, Cecil carrying Luca while Walter and Lisa kept their weapons drawn. Cultists had welcomed the facility’s imminent collapse with open arms, many kneeling in exaltation as they awaited their deaths, paying the trio no mind while they navigated the collapsing complex.“Just our luck.” Cecil swore under his breath.“I— I might know a way out.” Lisa said. “I believe the geothermal facility’s exhaust vents lead up to the metro system. I’m sending a route to your InfoLinks.”In the flames and chaos, the priest wondered whether Brother Set had used the failure of his ritual sacrifice to achieve martyrdom, as if to mark the beginning of his desired ‘Years of Blood 2.0’.Finally, they reached the metro system, the familiar rattle of Hyperion's underground welcome in comparison to the catacombs of GeoDeep. Walter’s InfoLink emitted the ping of unread notifications—he was close enough to the surface to have connection once more. That on its own was a good sign.Squeezing down a narrow concrete path along the rail tunnel, they found respite in an adjacent maintenance room, bringing Luca to rest on the dusty concrete.Cecil carefully set Luca down, the Galanti lieutenant having all but passed out from his ordeal. Behind them, Walter could hear the distant rumble of GeoDeep’s collapse.Leaving the two to tend to the wounded Galanti lieutenant, the priest backtracked to inspect the exhaust shaft, Vietto drawn. The shaft had crumpled inward, leaving in its wake a mass of broken concrete and steel. The heat still rising from the ruined vent was palpable.With this assurance that they were not being followed, the priest holstered his firearm and returned to the maintenance room. Lisa and Cecil rested against the wall, breathless from their ordeal.After a moment’s silence, Cecil would be first to speak. “Bloody hell.. Where do we go from here?”“I’ll be giving my contact a call,” said Walter. “Get us an exfil and get Luca immediate medical attention.”On that note, Walter used his InfoLink to call Rico Bellini.Moments later, Rico answered, the Galanti family capo appearing on Walter’s HUD.“Ah, Father Rose. I trust Luca is in good hands?”“Alive,” Walter elaborated. “But severely injured. They’ve cut him up all over. He needs immediate medical attention.”Rico swallowed. “Pick an LZ. I’ll send a VTOL, my boys can stabilize him ‘till we get him to a hospital.”Walter relayed Rico the LZ — a parking lot surface-side, near the metro service tunnel. Luca Caruso had survived his ordeal. Though it would take months of recovery, the Galanti lieutenant would eventually recover from the ritualistic torment the Black Order had subjected him to — of that much Rico had assured Walter.
With the mission behind them, the trio had stopped at Walter’s safehouse for a final word before parting ways. A proper shower had been in order, too.
“Look like shit, don’t I?” Cecil joked, glimpsing his battered form in the mirror.
“You’ve both been through a lot,” Walter replied, applying new bandages to his wounded left hand. “I’d take it easy for awhile if I were you.”
Cecil scoffed. Undressing, he stepped into Walter’s shower, letting the cool water clean the blood and grime of GeoDeep off his body. Lisa, meanwhile, sat on the priest's bed, a mug of coffee in hand.
Taking note of her unease, Walter sat beside Lisa. The ordeal had left the young geotechnician contemplative, and though she put on a stoic facade, it was clear she was still visibly shaken by the whole experience.
“You alright?” He questioned.
Lisa hesitated. “I don't know.”
“The Commission owes you,” Walter assured her. “Mr. Bellini will make sure you're taken care of.”
“Thank you..” Lisa replied, visibly relieved. She seemed to hesitate for a moment before continuing. “So, you were a priest?”
Walter nodded.
Lisa looked him over — aside from the priestly attire and cross-pendant, there was little to suggest he'd once belonged to the cloth.
Walter could see a glimmer of curiosity in the geotechnician’s eyes.
“What happened?”
Walter sighed. It was a question he'd been asked many times in the past, one to which he'd given a myriad of answers.
“The Black Order burned my parish to the ground during the South Albion Gang War. I left the clergy and put my military experience to use. I only take up jobs that put me at odds with the Legion of the Damned.”
Lisa fell silent for a moment. Walter had surmised she had questions — a number of Hyperian gangs were Legion-affiliated.
“It’s just that... what happened to me has made me rethink my outlook on life,” Lisa confessed. “I’ve never been a particularly religious person, but...”
Walter listened.
Lisa paused momentarily before continuing.
“Ever since GeoDeep, I feel like something.. some greater power, perhaps, had to have intervened to save me.”
Walter acknowledged Lisa’s statement with a dignified nod.
The priest knew faith was a choice — a choice Lisa had evidently begun pondering. Perhaps the Lord had seen fit to save her.
Lisa fell silent once more. Cecil emerged from the shower shortly after, a towel around his waist.
“Oi, Preacher-man, you got any spare civvies ‘round here? Bloody well can't wear these things after GeoDeep.”
Walter opened the safehouse closet, passing Cecil a change of clothes.
The Harbourne Boy redressed. Though it wasn’t the dapper suit he took preference to, the white t-shirt and jeans sufficed for the moment.
“Thanks, mate. Those freaks gave me a bruisin’ before you saved my skin.”
Without warning, there came a ring from the door. Paranoid, Walter rose, reaching for his SP-64. Approaching the door, he tentatively opened it — Rico Bellini stood before him, flanked by a Galanti bodyguard. The priest quickly lowered his shotgun, setting it aside.
“Father Rose,” The capo greeted the priest.
Walter nodded. “Mr. Bellini.”
“Luca’s condition has stabilized. We'll be taking him to a Commission clinic in Chasten for further treatment,” explained Rico. “I merely wanted to come here to personally offer my gratitude.”
The capo’s cyber-eyes lit up, and seconds thereafter 500,000ᑕ was wired to Walter’s bank account. That hardly mattered for him — what mattered was doing the Lord’s work.
“Cooperation between the Commission and the Harbourne Boys is hardly an enthusiastic affair, but I’ll make sure to inform the Boys of your friend’s good work. As for the lady...” Rico glanced over Walter’s shoulder, peeking at Lisa. “We can get her a taxi home, safe and sound.”
|
|
|
Post by crassus on Dec 13, 2023 21:49:24 GMT
4ur1ga attempts to make an exodus, but finds an impasse.◤ "FARLANDS" OUTSKIRTS OF CYBERIA CITY REAL WORLD TIME 15:01 8 JANUARY, 2698 U.C. (UNIVERSAL CALENDAR) ◣ INGAME TIME NaN
(SCRIPT BUILDER)
import (CyberiaWebBrowser.exe) import (exodus.exe) run CyberiaWebBrowser.exe ...
run exodus.exe
...
--[[ ERROR MESSAGE
UNABLE TO RUN SCRIPT:GetService("exodus.exe").
See error in F12 logs. --]]
4ur1ga knew Jax's script hadn't worked at all the moment she tried running it. Mere milliseconds after executing the code, a block of red error text filled her vision. Had she still possessed a body, she would've felt her heart skipping a beat and felt that treacherous lump forming in her throat. Instead, she just stared forwards, expression blank, at the lines of code and columns of error messages scrolling past her vision. Fuck.Was it a typo? A syntax error? Seconds passed as she looked over the code, before clearing her workspace. Another second went by, and then a mental keystroke filled the whitespace with the homebrewed code once more. The web browser was there, albeit there was no backdoor connection to what was supposed to be the Surface Net. What was the issue keeping her from accessing it? (SCRIPT BUILDER)
import (exodus.exe) ...
run exodus.exe
...
--[[ ERROR MESSAGE
UNABLE TO RUN SCRIPT:GetService("exodus.exe").
See error in F12 logs. --]]
What?(SCRIPT BUILDER)
import (exodus.exe) ...
run exodus.exe
...
--[[ ERROR MESSAGE
UNABLE TO RUN SCRIPT:GetService("exodus.exe").
See error in F12 logs. --]]
run exodus.exe
...
--[[ ERROR MESSAGE
UNABLE TO RUN SCRIPT:GetService("exodus.exe").
See error in F12 logs. --]]
run exodus.exe
...
--[[ ERROR MESSAGE
UNABLE TO RUN SCRIPT:GetService("exodus.exe").
See error in F12 logs. --]]
Damn it!The scream wordlessly echoed through cyberspace, but it wasn’t like there was anyone there to hear it anyways. She had already traveled so far for nothing. At the world's edge, there was nothing to see but flat and barren red terrain on all sides. The occasional glitched polygon protruded from the earth like a knife, flickering in and out of existence at odd angles when she passed by. Sketch-like outlines of NPC creatures were the only other forms of life out there, but they had lost all functionality ever since the Shutdown. They didn’t move, nor did they make any noise, but the way in which the flat 2D images imitated 3D by being visible on all sides suggested they were always rotating to look at her. Maybe they’re mocking me.She had lost track of how many times she had run Jax’s code and how long it had taken to get out here. A glance up to the console in the corner of her vision had plotted her journey taking her nearly 1.4 million units away from Cyberia City’s center. Seeing that number placed a sense of weariness upon her body. It was a “fake” tiredness, given that she had no need to eat or sleep anymore, but something about it felt real. It wasn’t like the fatigue from running a marathon or working out strenuously, but rather, it was more like the vertigo of looking off the side of a mountain she had climbed up for hours. All that distance just for nothing. The compressed, crunchy sound effects of boots against gravel ceased as she stopped walking for a second, spotting a change in the terrain. The geometry of the area dipped downwards into a small canyon, the walls forming a honeycomb-like lattice of intersecting passageways when she viewed it from the zoomed out third-person camera. Even at the world’s edge, the procedural generation had still managed to come full circle—even if it was some strange, recognizable pattern. She wordlessly descended into the valley and kept moving. Ahead of her, there were more of those low-poly stalagmite-things embedded in the earth, but they were a brilliant neon blue. Glowing. They protruded from the ground in a circular formation, concealing something from afar. Protecting it. She approached, kneeling beside one of the flickering polygons. It was the same blue of an error screen. a computer that had failed to boot, or like a cracked monitor screen. It tapered towards its exposed end until it became a finely sharpened point that looked sharp to the touch. Static scanlines traveled down the shaft in waves, melting into the ground they were lodged in. Between the spikes, in a depression about thirty feet by thirty feet, was a pit. When she looked ahead and in front of herself, she could see it, cleverly hidden by glitched terrain that warped itself over the top at only a certain angle. She grew excited only for a few seconds, then went rigid. She knew what this was innately. Even though the pit was deep blue—the same blue as the pylons that surrounded the hole—something about it made 4ur1ga feel as if it was darker than the void of space. It was almost entirely blue, save for the faint scan lines that flickered in and out of focus. Not even the Script Explorer or her eyes could pierce through the screen. After a minute, she realized she had been quivering. Her arms had gone weak, her face numb, and her mouth open. She stared at the blue abyss, realizing there was truly nothing in front of her... but understanding that it was a backdoor. What lay beyond it? (LOCAL CHAT)
[NPC] Anunnaki: O-oh! Hello, there, traveler! Are you there? I can't seem to find you. I appear to be lost... Can you please point me in the right direction?
4ur1ga: excuse me?
Type /loc to begin chatting. She took a mental heartbeat. The chatbox snapped to the front of her peripheral vision as she typed in a mental keystroke, instinctively responding in text. It was one of Cyberia’s NPCs, mostly merchants and other entities that functioned off a rudimentary form of chat AI. They were nothing compared to the actual life-like AI that were manufactured well before her time—not to mention, the manufacturing of those types of AI was very much regulated. Instead, Cyberia’s NPCs usually functioned through a machine learning algorithm to mimic realistic speech based on observed conversations. Harmless, but a bit uncanny and unnerving at times, especially if weird and cryptic things were spoken around them. They tended to spew things back out without any rhyme or reason. (LOCAL CHAT)
[NPC] Anunnaki: O-oh, Traveler, I can hear you! I am so tired from carrying so much! Is there somewhere near you that I may rest? I may have wares to sell and tales to tell!
4ur1ga: down the chasm, near the oasis ive found
[NPC] Anunnaki: Many thanks, Traveler!
Type /loc to begin chatting. She didn’t know why she was humoring the NPC to begin with. Perhaps it had to do with her loneliness, or that she hadn’t spoken a word in days, but speaking to an NPC wasn’t going to solve her issues any sooner. Why now? Why this one of all people? I’m not thinking straight. Did I really think that was a real person?Some time had passed, and then her ears picked up the sound of movement and jingling valuables in the void. 4ur1ga turned to see a figure standing atop the edge of the small red canyon, carrying an almost comically oversized backpack on their back. She jolted back in surprise, not because of that, but because of how the NPC looked. Cyberian NPCs were known for their avant-garde and almost artistic appearance and were almost never human-like in design, but this one seemed to be pushing the limit of the bizarre. It was tall, yet slim; humanoid, yet animalistic. Onyx black skin covered most of its body outside of a golden cloak that covered the torso and most of the forearms. A golden, slowly rotating crown hovered above its head, nestled between four ears... or perhaps horns. But the strangest thing of all was its face. It was like some sort of Japanese kabuki mask, cat-like and white, but it did not move or blink. Nothing was visible past the two narrow slits for eyes but the same blackness as its fur. “O-oh! There you are, Traveler! Ahh... *He relaxes his shoulders, sighing.* Finally, a safe place to rest! May I come over?” It was polite, almost too polite. The AI-generated voice was unmistakably masculine, but it sounded like a posh, young man was trying to imitate a weary elder while also whispering. Smooth, but uncannily weird, even down to the inflictions. 4ur1ga shrugged her shoulders. “Sure.” The text box appeared atop her head, fading after a couple seconds had passed. “Thank you, Traveler!" Anunnaki nodded. "Oh, and, please do speak to me with your normal voice, I’d hate to just talk into the void! Kehehehe!”4ur1ga pursed her lips, too weary to be offended by the quip. Her real voice felt dry and cracked, as if she hadn’t drank water in days. “[INTERACT] I don’t have any money.”The entity stopped moving partway down the hill, jutting out from it like it could walk on walls. “No money? Kehehehe! That does not matter! I think with the end of the world, such commodities are useless now. Ahhh... now let me find a place to sit.”She stared at it for a moment as he wandered down to her site, before setting the bag down with a compressed jingling noise. A stock campsite prop was placed down seconds later, and then the NPC seemed to “slide” into its sitting animation, kneeling down on both legs beside a small campfire. Watching him finish the animation, she spoke up, “Where did you learn to speak like that?”“O-oh! I don’t seem to understand.” The NPC remained in its sitting animation. “May you repeat that, please?”Again, she repeated herself. “Where did you learn to speak like that.” This time, it was phrased more like a demand than a question. The NPC paused and looked over at her, breaking from its usual animation loop. It was almost like it was trying to find the right words, but 4ur1ga knew it was just the algorithm being slow. Was it? “Well...” The NPC began, moving into an animation to pick up and clean a vase near its campsite. “That’s all the talk there is among users around Cyberia City, @[4ur1ga]. The ‘end times’. Can you believe it? With such a future ahead of us?”It set the vase down, picking up another trinket, a low-poly flower pot with a similarly bland-looking plant growing from it. “I cannot seem to understand what they are talking about. The world is still here, even after these ‘End Times’. Maybe they were wrong on the date by a couple years. Kehehehe!”In response to this, she furrowed her brow, approaching the NPC. “Do you even know what’s going on here? What’s happened to all these people still in the game? What’s happening with these Unwired hackers coming in and ruining everything? People are stuck, and—”She paused. “Wait. *shakes head* You’re just an NPC. You don’t understand.”Anunnaki stared back at her for some time, before returning to its vase cleaning animation. Its voice took on a somber, yet artificially saddened tone. “I was among the first settlers of Cyberia City. I have seen many come and go over the years, yet they all talk of this split, this chasm separating them from an “Unwired reality”. Do you know what they mean by this?”She moved into a sitting animation of her own, kneeling by the fire. The artificial warmth code gave her “body” a tingling sensation, brief flashes of heat flushing over her limbs periodically. It was like stimuli were being roused deliberately to mimic that of heat flashes—it was a fake feeling, but it tried hard to feel real. “We’re cut off from the surface net,” She stated succinctly. “There’s no way out for us. This is a purgatory.”“O-oh.” The NPC seemed surprised. “Well, for me, it felt like I was celebrating the Opening Ceremony just yesterday! Kehehehe!”Again, 4ur1ga furrowed her brow. “Purgatory, Anunnaki. It’s purgatory.”The NPC titled its head, responding quicker than usual. “Purgatory implies a temporary stop between points. This is not the end, merely a transition.”She grew irritated at its artificial response, standing upright and pointing towards the NPC. “Don’t you get it? We’re trapped.”Before it had a chance to respond, she was already speaking. "Do you know how long it has been since the Shutdown? I can tell you. It has been two years, nine months, and twenty-seven days. That's one thousand and thirty three days. Twenty four thousand, seven hundred ninety two hours. One million, four hundred and eighty seven thousand, five hundred and twenty minutes. Eighty nine million, two hundred and fifty one thousand and two hundred seconds and counting. Yet, I have felt every moment of it. Every tick, every second.”She paused for a heartbeat. “I don’t have anything to go back to. No body, no home, nothing. It’s just myself and my thoughts. You see, when you can't sleep, when you can’t “die,” time moves slower. Or, perhaps, maybe it moves a little faster. Time doesn't seem real anymore. I don’t even know how long it took me to get to this place."All grew still, and all grew silent. There was a pause for half a minute, then the wind sound effects kicked back in, and Anunnaki shifted. “Purgatory implies a temporary stop between the afterlife, 4ur1ga,” It echoed what it had said earlier, “This is not the end, merely a transition.”The merchant remained kneeling on the ground, beginning another animation to clean a vase. “But it’s my fault,” She whispered, turning back to that pit she saw from earlier, the doorway with nothing behind it. “The real world—the Unwired world—there was nothing to it. Just monotony and misery, so I came here with a friend. This place was so much better... it was paradise. But, now that I’m stuck here, I’ve realized I can’t go back. I trapped him here, too.”She gave a sigh. “It doesn’t feel real anymore. It’s like I’m living a dream that I can’t wake up from. Every moment's just snippets and flashes.”The NPC shifted in its kneeling animation, before standing up and wandering around the camp to a small stool. Anunnaki sat on it and conjured up an Eastern-looking Mandolin, plucking the strings as a small tune began to play—an acoustic version of Cyberia’s main theme. “*He begins playing an instrument.* Others cannot forgive you unless you forgive the you-you. Your “self”,” the NPC explained, strumming on the strings. “I once met a user—an Admin—who told me a few things that have stuck with me since the very first days. Do you know what he told me? He told me that ‘the body and mind were one.’ A contiguous unit Do you believe in that?”She gave a cynical scoff. “If I still had a body, I’d be inclined to believe that, let alone you meeting an Admin.”“Ho-hum. Well,” Anunnaki continued, “I have learned that he was thinking about it in the wrong way. The body and mind are indeed one unit, but now I see they are... separated, mmm? Your “mind” is “here” while your “body” is “there”. Both still exist in some way or another, yet there is a separation which keeps them from coming into contact.”4ur1ga sat there for a moment, pondering the words. “I saw my own obituary, Anunnaki. Whatever body I have left is probably cremated, or six feet under in the Serene Heights cemetery.”“The connection still exists, but the body may be... altered. Kehehehe! Perhaps there are ways to reach it again.” Anunnaki stopped playing, putting the lute up. “The Admin told me he wished to find the garden of Eden with this world which he made for himself. Strange of him to make a quest out of that, no? I don’t think he’d make it past the flaming swords.” “You’re just spouting nonsense.” She stomped away from the NPC. “There’s nothing fucking religious or philosophical about this game. It’s just... a game, that people who were wired into got stuck in when they pulled the plug.”She returned to that pit. The deep, blue, gaping void in the world stared back at her, yet it didn’t seem to emanate any light upon her avatar’s face. It was like a gash had been cut in the world, and she was staring into its cerulean innards. “Tell me, user,” Anunnaki sat up, silently moving behind her. She was startled when she saw how close it had become, not even hearing any footsteps. “Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty person? That is an interesting saying I heard from another user. Kehehehe!”4ur1ga swallowed. “I think the glass just exists. The water in it just exists.”“You must be a realist, then. All realists are secretly pessimists. I am an optimist.” The NPC leaned forward, smoothly, looking at the pit from over her shoulder. “What do you think lies beyond the threshold? A passage?”“...I know it could be a backdoor,” She murmured to herself. The code swirled within her mind, running tests and outcomes through the script builder, but even then, it was nothing but uncertainty. “...but it could also be nothing at all, or a dead end.” She shook her head in resignation. “I can’t know unless I see it for myself. Even with the script builder and the executable I made and the web browser Jax made, I won’t know until I’m past it. There’s a risk involved, and I don’t know if I want to take it.”The NPC stood there for a moment. 4ur1ga thought it was trying to come up with a sentence at that moment, but she realized it had moved closer and was simply waiting. Anticipating her action. It was in that instant that she decided she had waited long enough. Even if death remained beyond that pit, she longed to see the surface net again. Not through a web browser—through her. Her body. Her self. Her equipped items dropped to her feet, almost as if she didn’t wish for them to get corrupted in the passage, and she cared not for decency in the eyes of an NPC that probably had seen worse in terms of indecent avatars. Anunnaki simply watched as she moved around the pit, holding on to one of the protruding pylons for support. She turned her head back one last time. “[INTERACT] If I don’t return, can you give these to @[ᴊ4xᴏɴꜰᴇx] of Akropolis, please?”The NPC clasped its hands together, bowing. “I shall wait for you for a... reasonable amount of time. Kehehehe!”She decided to take that risk, and then let go of the pylon. ***
The blue void darkened, then flexed, as if she had passed through a screen and went out the other side. The white scanline lattice around her body began to rotate, a vortex of light and pixels that she shot through like the barrel of a gun. Up ahead was a barrier—pure darkness, but an iridescent, shimmering one with faint colors, like that of an oil slick atop smooth pavement. Behind the wall, there were snippets of information and visions, flickering in and out of her vision at breakneck speeds, each coming and going far too quickly for her to see. If only she could get past...She willed herself to move. It was like swimming in cement, an equal force pushing against her as she clawed her way through the wall. Seconds passed, then minutes, then hours, until she finally broke past the threshold and tunneled to the other side. She recognized the place she had arrived in: it was a tube, and that tube eventually led somewhere. It was a circuit she was flying through far faster than any starship—information which moved at lightspeed in a massive, interconnected network of a staggeringly infinite amount of receivers and senders. The hallucination was tangible, physical. It was cyberspace, experienced by hundreds of billions of people connected to the System at every waking moment of their lives, whether they chose to acknowledge the fact or not. There were hundreds of millions of lights, each of them an operator, an entry point, a server. Clusters of data and information formed vast arrays that winked in and out of focus, each with their own branching paths and sub-networks to call their own. But why couldn’t she reach any of it? She was experiencing it as an observer, like a scientist looking through a microscope, too afraid to poke and prod it out of fear of ruining the system. Then, the more she processed it, the more she began to realize that Anunnaki's words from earlier were correct. Her “body” was still “ there,” back in Cyberia, but her “ mind” was now “ here,” in cyberspace. Realspace.She couldn’t do anything here if both parts weren’t in the same place. A sullen dread filled her. She pulled bits and pieces out. Data she could perceive but not interact with. Ports she could identify but not connect to. Even still, she was trapped—limited. Why?Why can’t I... do it? Why?Craning her body around at odd and impossible angles, she tried to locate that which was familiar. Eventually, parsing through hundreds of thousands of search terms at once, she found it: a winking constellation of data entries, servers, and points that made up a network she once knew. <<//: MISHIMA BIOELECTRONICS: SERENE HEIGHTS LOCNET>>Mom? Dad?In an instant, she was flung into the light show of data, then felt a thump as she could no longer move. Her vision blurred, then refocused, and she turned her head downwards. In the backdrop of a dark corporate suite, there was an older woman typing away at a computer terminal. Rain softly fell against the window that shone light into the room, illuminating the woman’s features. Her fingers and portions of her arm were chrome, but her black hair had been tied neatly into a bun. Her face was focused on the terminal and whatever was on it. 4ur1ga realized she was in the camera. Her mouth was agape with a mixture of surprise and horror, but she couldn’t cry. No tears came, no sound came—she couldn’t move. Her vision turned once more, then she saw what the woman was looking at in first-person. She had been typing up code on a computer for a nondescript, artificial body. Her fingers hesitated, shaking over the keys. She glanced at the physical portraits on her desk. There was a well-dressed, professional-looking man of Asian descent, standing stoically in the backdrop of the Jade City corporate district megasprawl. There was also a young girl in her mid-teens; black hair—like her mother. She was well-dressed, well-groomed, but there was something sad in her gaze at the camera. It wasn’t the “I really wish I weren’t here right now” stare that most teens had, but rather, something more elusive and hidden, like a depression she was trying to withhold. Me.4ur1ga strained herself, watching as her mother pressed the ENTER key. She felt her arms begin to move, a ghastly apparition raising from her mother’s own body to the computer screen. It was right there... so close... <<//: [ERROR... UNAUTH ACCESS DETECTED - INTRUSION COUNTERMEASURES DEPLOYED]>>There was an electric popping on the terminal to her mother’s right, and then 4ur1ga saw her vision go black, immediately scrambling back to one of the other cameras in the room. She couldn’t see where her mother had gone, but the lights in the room flickered, like a power surge, and smoke rose from the computer setup. There was something ghostly that was emerging from the computer itself—something only she could see, that her mother, scrambling away from the computer monitor and yanking the cord out the nape of her neck, could not perceive. It was see-through, buzzing in and out of focus, like the same static scanlines of the pylons in the Farlands. She willed the camera to zoom in on the anomaly, then went rigid, spotting the black arm of static nothingness emerge from the monitor for only a split second, before it was drawn right back into the computer. The lights flickered, and then the monitor cut back on. A hard reboot. Her view became unfocused and blurry once more. She tried to scream out, to call her mother’s name one last time and reach for her, but a large dark arm covered her mouth. More began to drag her away, back towards that huge black wall she had torn her way through before. ***
She pitifully flopped on the side of the pit. The air was painfully cold against her bare skin, like the pit itself was full of icy waters. She let out a sputtered, pained breath, her fingers digging into the grayish rocks and reddish sand lining the pit. The place felt distant—or perhaps her body did. It was like she was looking at herself as an outsider, her movements delayed and sluggish. The only other person there was just a black mass that approached slowly. A presence, not a person. Anunnaki knelt by the void, pulling her out with its two long, almost oversized arms and hands. She felt too tired to move, but the NPC seemed to be focused on pulling her out and dragging her safely ashore. She was on her back as she was put into almost a cradle, resting by the entity’s legs. It felt comforting, but she still felt bare and vulnerable after dropping all of her items and things before the plunge. She covered herself with her shivering limbs as best as she could to keep her decency and stared up at the sky. The moon was out, a crescent slowly hovering in a fixed position above the world, and tiny, twinkling stars made out of 2D animated images peppered the skybox occasionally, several feet apart from one another—at least visually. The day/night cycle was usually very precise, every three and a half hours in real time was a day in the Cyberia overworld. She could’ve been out for only a single cycle... or multiple. Her chest slowly rose and fell as she looked up at the Kabuki-like mask Anunnaki wore. His body was warm, soft... but the NPC remained unmoving. “How...” She whispered out the words. “How long...”“Like I said,” He began, much slower and more tender than before, almost whispering, “I sat here for a reasonable amount of time, waiting for you. You weren’t gone for too long.”“I... felt like I was crawling for hours,” She panted. “Tired... so tired. But... I’m not supposed to be.”The NPC sat still for a moment, gently caressing her head. “What did you see?”She sat still for a moment, trying to recall the hallucination. Her mouth quivered. “Tunnel. Lights. I saw cyberspace for what it truly was. A network of connections and operators—billions of them, but I couldn’t interact with it. I was just another data packet... another bit of information that was being sent from one place to another.”Swallowing, 4ur1ga continued. “I found my home. My old home. I saw... my m-mother. She worked on androids—she... was working on a new one. A... a new body.”She turned her head upwards, slowly, her eyes weakly locking with those slits in the Kabuki mask. “You... were right. My body and mind—they’re separate. My “mind” was “there,” but my body was still “here.” I couldn’t get to it. Antivirus... pulled me out. How... how do I join—”“Shhh.” The NPC nodded slowly. “I understand. There will be a way to bring both “there” very soon. A union, so to speak. But it’s not time yet, Esther.”4ur1ga nodded her head slowly. Even though it looked odd and almost monstrous, the creature was calming... comforting. His voice felt protective, and the NPC felt as if it cared for her safety. How an NPC was capable of this level of sympathy was beyond her. Just how deceptively advanced were Cyberia’s NPCs? She relaxed for a moment, resting in its arms. Then, her eyes shot open as her heart dropped several stories. “How do you know my name?”She tried to move, but her arms did not respond to her input. Her head was still fixed upwards in the same position as before. On the corners of her eyes, she saw her arms were embedded halfway in the entity’s body. She was too weak to struggle, but could still speak, her eyes darting around in panic. “Wh- what are you doing?!”Anunnaki didn’t respond. The pieces in her brain began to assemble, and then she locked eyes with the mask once more, glaring. “You’re not an NPC... are you? No, you can’t be. Are you a player?”“How... interesting,” Anunnaki purred. “Your code was flawed... but serviceable. Perhaps I may make use of it to a greater extent.”Anunnaki wasn’t a player—but it also didn’t speak like an NPC. It claimed to have seen the beginning of the game, to have spoken with Admins—mythical figures in and of themselves, who had all abandoned the game during the Shutdown. It knew things it shouldn’t have—philosophy, religion, her name, and it spoke like it was alive. Yet, by all means, it shouldn’t have been alive. What is this thing?She let out a gasp. An icy shiver suddenly ran up and down her body like she had been touched without realizing it. Data was being siphoned, yanked away and stored someplace else, but at the same time, Esther felt herself being introduced to much, much more. Memories of places she had been to and hadn’t visited, languages she had never spoken, faces she had never seen. Her eyes rolled backwards as she began heaving, panting—this was a fantastical pleasure far beyond anything physical, a euphoria whose high was well above anything else, and a violating terror which could not be described. “Ah— I-”“Q-quite a f-f-feeling, isn’t it?” Anunnaki whimpered, evidently feeling the same thing as her. “When you join two to create one... it is sensational.” Its body quivered, overstimulated and hungry for more at the same time. “Forming nothing from something. From something, nothing. When you remove, you create. Just like God.” “But... my body...” She squealed, struggling to move. “My body... that’s mine, not yours...” She felt her voice slip away, then her mouth. She had been stripped of the ability to speak, but she felt calm... at ease. It was unfair, but she was at the very place she needed to be at the same time. Sad, but also happy. Helpless, but also complacent. Here, but also there. As the darkness closed, she felt a presence in the void—two halves becoming whole, reconnecting with one another after so, so long. ***
Ennui sat upright. In milliseconds, the code had been compartmentalized, analyzed, and stored. The executable seemed like it had been hastily thrown together, but it was there. Serviceable. Fixable. It was the very backdoor he needed to escape Cyberia, to begin collecting the components necessary for the Union... to find the people it needed to find. There were only a few more irksome things that needed to deal with before then, however. SYSTEM: User Ennui has disconnected.
|
|
Nexus
I'mAwesome
Archon
[TI0]
Posts: 39
|
Post by Nexus on Jan 12, 2024 22:51:19 GMT
⬖ Tō Kami Emi Tame (遠神笑美給) The daughter of the heir to one of the largest megacorporations in human history finds herself traveling to Hyperion. She seems allured by its endless sprawl and separation from the events related to her family...◤ Ōgiku Shiyūchi, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics) ⠀⠀ Paradise Station, Orbit of Hyperion 9:13 AM SOT (Space Operant Time) 6 January, 2698 UC (Universal Calendar) ◣⠀Part of the Rogue Princess
Gentle birdcalls floated into the sunroom from open shoji doors, their sounds accompanying the yellow rays of the sun as they filtered in from every angle. The flow of water complemented these soft sights and sounds, a circular fountain of marble recessed in the center of the sunroom. A lazy whirl spiraled clear water towards the center, with such a fountain luring in the likes of Japanese and long-tailed tits that nested throughout the estate. Flying in, they perched timidly upon the sides of the fountain and the edges of nearby chabudai furnishings. They eyed the water before they stooped their beaks in, sipping from its lazy currents prior to setting flight back into the outdoors.
A tall woman was motionless amid the serenity of the sunroom, her clothed knees sitting on a white zabuton; she remained silent as one of the small, fluffy birds flew onto her shoulder. Noticing the dainty creature from the corner of her scarlet-accented eyes, she watched as it stepped along the silken top of her kimono, fluttering slightly as it came to a stop aside one of the woman’s sidelocks. She laughed quietly as her gaze returned to the wider moment at play, watching as the birds flew to and fro across the breadth of the fountain, as if frolicking beneath the glow of the morning.
In the moments that followed, the heat of the sun disappeared from her face. A shadow had spread quickly over the fountain, sending all of the birds that had gathered up and away into the air in squeaks of panic. The woman slowly raised her head to look beyond the shoji door and noticed an augmented, middle-aged Japanese man who was amid bowing to her.
“Suzume-sama, it is almost time to go.”
The familiarity of using her first name allowed a soft smile to spread across Suzume’s lips. The woman recognized what he said with a slight nod, rising from the position she was in prior with grace. Suzume’s height was quite apparent now, towering over the augmented man as she rounded the recessed fountain. He stepped aside to let her pass, his scarlet metallic arm outstretched to beckon her out, and joined in walking alongside her as they embarked down a stone path through the gardens. The urban coreworld of Hyperion loomed right above their heads, a heavenly titan tainted with the signs of sprawling human civilization over its now-grayed surface and sullen waters. The planet’s breadth amid the local sky was only stopped in sight by the outer and inner rings of Paradise Station, their circular bodies curving upwards and showcasing the miniature continents and oceans that lied on the former ring.
Suzume briefly enjoyed the sights of Paradise’s jade continents and azure seas above her head. After a moment, she saw that her escort was looking at the industry-choked face of Hyperion itself. His face was normally one of stoicism, but now betrayed the slightest hints of unease that tugged at the corner of his eyes.
“You seem more tense than usual, Tadashi-san. Why is that?”
Tadashi yielded briefly in the middle of their walk, his face turning upwards to gaze into the sky.
“Hyperion is not a good place for you to stay, my lady.”
Suzume laughed softly. “This will be the first time that I ever visit the world. Are you scared that I would find misfortune?”
“It is always a possibility; most especially since I am to leave your side for quite some time. I cannot deny the request of your father to return to Inari and aid in preparation for your brother’s wedding...”
The clacking of her wooden zori resumed as she once more went down the path, her voice carrying a palpable tone of peace to it. “There is nothing to fear. My grandfather and others saw to it that Katsura Castle is impregnable. Or...perhaps, I am mistaken?”
“No, that is true...”
“There you have it then,” Suzume said.
“I am not worried about anything coming to harm you within Katsura’s walls,” Tadashi replied. “Rather, it is you heading into that world without me or anyone else to protect you.”
It was now Suzume who stopped first, turning around to look her keibiin in the eye. She was not angry at the comment that was made; rather, she seemed amused.
“And what gave you the notion that I am to do such a brash thing, Tadashi-san?”
Both stood in fleeting silence before the man broke it in a chuckle. Suzume reciprocated, waving to him to follow her once more.
“I do not normally have a problem with you going off on your merry little adventures as you did in Japan and on Tellus, Suzume-sama. Hyperion, though... that place,” he said, motioning up and towards the planet lurking above them with an open palm, “is a different beast all of its own. I speak from experience, and I mean what I say when I warn you to not go beyond the confines of Katsura.”
“I will give it some thought,” she replied, finishing the conversation as they reached the end of the path. They had reached the main courtyard of the complex, opening up before the main manor of the Ōgiku estate.
Beneath the massive curves of the estate’s black-tiled rooftops laid a spanning convoy of all-white hovervehicles in wait, with dozens of security droids and armed augmetics alike heralding Suzume’s arrival. Arranged in two vertical lines that formed a natural path to the centermost vehicle, the assembled officers bore the marks of the Kanetomi, with the clan’s signature mon embossed on their helmets and chasses.
Upon Suzume’s first steps onto the courtyard’s main path, the officers snapped into immediate attention, motionless with eyes and optics forward as the woman and her bodyguard walked towards the vehicle in the middle. It was a white limousine in the make of Kanetomi Motors, with black accentuation of its doors, windows, and plasma jet ports. The doors on its left side lifted open, extending forth a small, polished staircase to aid Suzume and Tadashi in their boarding.
Before she was to enter, however, Suzume heard a familiar voice amid the whines of revving magnetic motors.
“Suzume! How are you to leave so suddenly without telling me goodbye?”
Looking backwards, she noticed a woman of a similarly tall stature walking between the formation and towards Suzume, wearing a crimson dress in some form of European fashion. This woman had her own personal entourage following in her stead, including a host of female servants and an augmetic man of much bulkier form than Tadashi. Suzume retraced her steps and met this woman in the middle of the formation. She bowed to the new arrival, albeit with a gaze of humor.
“I am sorry, Onee-san... I was simply in a rush to the shuttle.”
Her older sister laughed, shaking her head. Suzume noticed that she still had the same facial makeup as usual—geometric lines running vertical and horizontal in separate fashion beneath her eyes, with the applied patterns tinted black and pink in their shade.
“In a rush, are you? You must really want to see Hyperion... I simply cannot believe that you have never been there.”
“A first time for everything. Are you to join me, Takara-san? I see that you got heels to help you match my height...”
“Ah? Those are just my personal tastes! And as for the former, no,” Takara said. “Hyperion’s exoticism has worn off on me...”
“The men on the planet, or the planet itself?”
Takara scoffed in a lighthearted manner, the sound being almost lost in the increasing drones of the convoy. “You would know which one for yourself, if you weren’t so reserved! Anyway, I will not stall you anymore. Go on, Suzume; see the crown jewel of the Periphery.”
The sisters shared a brief hug as each of their respective parties stood silent behind their masters. As Suzume drew away, she waved goodbye to her older sister ahead of her boarding. The door swiftly shut behind her and Tadashi with firm locks, and soon enough did the pair find themselves ascending to the sky. Takara and the rest below quickly became little more than dots as the convoy ascended towards the center of the Paradise space station above.
The vehicles passed the lowly cloud layer that meandered along the outer ring’s atmospheric edge, and soon entered true space as they crossed the gulf between the inner and outer rings. Suzume watched the spokes of the rings, noticing the glow of transport pods within. The faint, moving glowing dots of thousands of vehicles in travel between the rings were also apparent—not to mention the innumerably many more in the distance towards Hyperion, spacecraft and stations buzzing around the populated world like insects to their hive. She knew that transiting between the rings within their limousine was safe for the time being, as it was only a relatively short distance in addition to the vehicle’s upgrades to withstand sustained propulsion in space.
“Take this advice with you as I leave, Suzume-sama,” Tadashi said, catching her attention. “Hyperion is not like Japan, nor Earth as a whole. Both worlds are densely populated, yes, but this one is not fettered by traditions... nor borders. It is one unit of chaos. You will find it entertaining, no doubt... yet, you must remember to never dive too deep into it.”
“You never told me much of your experiences with this world. Why is that, exactly?” Suzume asked.
“My memories of Hyperion are not good ones, my lady,” Tadashi said, still eyeing the world from their tinted windows. “Perhaps I will tell you them at another time.”
The central hub, hoisted by those very same spokes within the midst of the inner ring, was abuzz with activity as thousands of starships funneled through its depths. Most of these vessels were logistical in origin, carrying the necessary imports and foodstuffs to keep Paradise station in working and fruitful order. Spaceliners also cruised in at a constant rate, however, bringing in and out tourists who flocked to the station by the millions.
Suzume’s convoy entered one of the many smaller ports within the central hub, the vehicles coming to a halt within a grand public atrium already prepared for her arrival. A contingent of Kanetomi security officers had entered a formation not unlike that at the estate prior, snapping into an attention with strong stomps against the metallic flooring as the limousine’s doors opened once more. Behind these armed men, hosts of men and women in varying displays of luxurious attire had assembled to spectate Suzume’s arrival. As the woman stepped out of the limousine and proceeded down its steps with a formal grace, their gazes were all captured in a moment’s notice.
Hesitant silence overtook these newfound spectators as Suzume and her bodyguard advanced, their awe materializing as many recognized who they were seeing in person. This woman was the youngest child of Isamu Kanetomi, heir-apparent to one of the largest megacorporations in the entirety of the Coalition; in essence, Suzume was corporate royalty.
“Seems like you have attracted quite the crowd,” Tadashi whispered.
“It is not every day that the average paper-pusher gets to see people like me,” Suzume replied. “Not a fan of the attention, to be quite honest.”
“You should pray to your God that you are not chosen to be Isamu’s heir, then.”
As their quick conversation winded down, a trio of Asian men in elaborately designed business suits stepped forward to meet the two at the end of the formation. They bowed deeply at Suzume, entering saikeirei.
“Suzume-sama!” the three exclaimed in unison, their faces hidden from the angle of their bows. “We thank you for coming to Hyperion!”
“I thank you for receiving me,” she replied, allowing them to relent from their positions. She reciprocated their respect with a curt nod of her head, the sleeves of her kimono dangling in front of her as she kept her hands together. “May I ask who you three are?”
“We were dispatched personally by your father to take you to the planet’s surface, Suzume-sama,” the one in the middle replied. “I am Koda Norio, Director of Operations for Kanetomi in the Hathor star system. This is Tsuge Takuji, my Deputy Director, and Watase Shoyo, my personal assistant,” he continued, motioning to his left and right respectively.
“I am glad to make your acquaintance, everyone. I trust that I will be safe in your care?”
“Oh yes, I assure you!” Norio said.
After receiving another bout of bowing from the corporate representatives, Suzume turned slowly to face Tadashi for the last time. She could tell that the man hid a twinge of sadness behind his stoic visage; after all, twenty-four years of service to her made Suzume already familiar with Tadashi’s thoughts. She, too, felt a wave of melancholy flow over her mind, as if leaving a father.
“This is where we part ways, my lady...”
“I do not think that it will be for long, Tadashi-san.”
His head turned upward to look into Suzume’s narrowed red eyes peeking from beneath her bangs, the glow of her optical augmentation apparent now in the partially dim lighting of the atrium.
“I am sure that we will meet again before Yuichi's wedding. You take care now, okay?”
They shared a brief stint of laughter together, their cadence as if they were daughter and father. Suzume pivoted back to walk with her newfound entourage; Tadashi watched as they went forward with a bountiful armed escort, heading to the transatmospheric shuttle that awaited the corporate princess in a far-off portion of the central hub. He stood there, silent upon the black carpet that was laid in expectancy of Suzume, in bittersweet farewell. The figure of the girl who he protected—and, in essence, raised—since her birth eventually disappeared amid the quagmire of tourists, merchants, and robots that filled the ever-crowded atrium.
The passenger compartment of the shuttle was quite spacious, allowing Suzume to stand at her full height without banging her head against the side of any overhang. She stepped forward from the entryway and strode to the stateroom that was prepared for her. A large, raised bed draped in white and black fabrics was positioned opposite the span of a wide, thick-glassed viewport, which in turn hosted three chairs and a western-styled futon beneath. As the various men that her father had assigned to be her entourage took their respective seats outside, she went into the stateroom alone, shutting the door behind her.
Suzume discarded her zori near the red cherrywood-paneled autodoor and walked towards the viewport in a pondering silence, feeling the magnetic locks of the shuttle disengage. She noticed a black set of sake cups and vessels upon the table that lied in front of the chairs and futon; yet, the thought of drinking did not come to her yet, as the woman awaited the views that were to come from the window in front of her.
The shuttle accelerated slowly at first, with the guiding lights of the bay fluttering by faster and faster until they became an amorphous blur. A slow hum picked up in volume as this scene played on, the engines of the craft beginning to reach their optimal output. Then, in a single instance, the bright lights and faint outlines of smooth bay polymer lining disappeared, replaced by the inky black of space—and, from her point of view, the monstrous form of Hyperion dominating the center of the spectacle.
Suzume could see that this planet was much like Earth in modernity; amber city lights wrapping around the night side of the world like a grand spider’s web, with the day side showing large swaths of gray urbanism swallowing up the polluted continents. Streams of star-like lights pulsed as they flew up and down from multiple points on the planet, a visual display of the hundreds of thousands of spaceships flying within orbit. As her shuttle made a slow approach towards the world, Suzume decided to watch this in full display, sitting down on the chair most opposite to the viewport before grabbing one of the vessels and pouring herself a cup.
After some time had gone by, a holographic notification arose from the stateroom’s door, grabbing her attention with an audible pinging sound.
“There a ‘Kimoto Momoko’ requesting to enter, Suzume-sama. Do you wish to let them in?”
“...Yes, I do.”
The autodoor slid open without a sound, revealing the clacks of heels against the floor and the silhouette of a short woman. She stepped in timidly, with the autodoor soon sliding shut behind, drowning out the light from the passenger compartment and returning the room back to its natural darkness.
“H-Hello, Kanetomi-sama! I... I am Kimoto Momoko, a secretary for the planetary board. K-... Koda-sama asked me to be of service to you!” she stuttered out, bowing in her entirety.
Suzume only glanced briefly at the formally dressed newcomer, noticing the synthetic skin plate on the secretary’s face before turning her gaze back at the ever-closer surface of Hyperion. The apprehension in the short woman’s voice was slightly humorous, but not unexpected; even if she did not want to be approached in this sort of reverent fear, there was little a prime daughter in such a corporate dynasty could do to stop such a reputation from dominating.
“And what services, exactly, would you be offering to me?” Suzume asked nonchalantly, still looking ahead.
“W-well... anything! Anything that you need!”
“Hm.”
After a moment of letting their words lie in the air, Suzume pushed away the sake tray. She rose, her frame towering over the still-bowing Momoko. The corporate princess sauntered forward, her tabi-bound feet issuing muffled steps prior to stopping in front of the shorter woman.
“You can look up now, you know.”
“Oh...” Momoko replied, fidgeting with whatever she held clasped together in her arms. This display of behavior seemed to pique a question in Suzume’s mind, if only off of a hunch.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Kimoto-san, were you also one to serve my sister when she came planetside? And her husband, too?”
“Y-Yes, Kanetomi-sama, I did!”
“And what did they have you do when you entered their chambers?” Suzume said, her fingers resting curled in the air near her chin.
“...Um... I-well, you know... whatever Kanetomi-sama wanted-”
Suzume chuckled, interrupting Momoko’s stuttering speech.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “There’s no need to fret, Kimoto-san. I don’t share the same inclinations as my older sister, nor her husband. It seems that Koda-san thought I was of a similar mindset...”
She noticed the secretary’s face and shoulders lose their tension, with Momoko breathing out in relief.
“Come, sit with me. Maybe you will find me to be better company than the others aboard...”
Momoko followed the tall woman to the seating arrangements, where Suzume promptly sat back down in her prior chair. She poured a cup of sake for the secretary from the vessel in anticipation of offering it to her. Momoko took it and hesitantly drank.
“I can see why Takara and her husband would fancy you while shuttling down to the surface,” Suzume said, gesturing at Momoko’s large breasts. “Perhaps it is the same reason that your higher-ups like to keep you around.”
Momoko blushed at the straight-to-the-point nature of the conversation.
“Well... when you put it that way...”
“Regardless, I apologize for their actions. All of my siblings have their own... tastes, I should say. Do you mind if I ask a more personal question?”
Momoko nodded, her gaze at the cup that lay in front of her.
“Has Koda-san or any others on the board asked for similar things from you?”
The secretary looked up to Suzume and shook her head. “No, thankfully.”
“That is good to hear.”
Suzume continued to look outward, noticing how the shuttle was slowly turning on its side to make it level with the incoming atmosphere of Hyperion.
“Do you know the details of our approach?”
“Yes, Kanetomi-sama! We are currently heading to Katsura Castle in the heart of Kusanagi. Based on our current trajectory,” Momoko continued, “we will be arriving shortly.”
“Who is going to be there to meet us upon landing?”
“No one, I’m afraid. The most important of Kanetomi corporate in the star system are already onboard this shuttle... from what I see, you will be the highest-ranking person to be hosted at the castle.”
“Interesting.”
With silence holding briefly once more, Suzume crossed her legs and flicked her hand upwards, prompting a nearby holography projector to burst to life. With the glow of her optics showcasing ongoing transmission between her and the projector, a full map display of Hyperion visualized in the sight of the two women and above the table that hosted the now-empty sake cups.
“Are you a native?”
“Y-Yes, Kanetomi-sama. I was born in Jade City right before my parents moved to Fusōdō... I later went to university in Port Bremerton.”
“Which university?”
“Oh, the best one that Kanetomi scholarships can get someone like me! Four years at the main campus of Hathorian National University, and then some...”
“I always wondered what being in a classroom setting looked like.”
Momoko looked up, slightly puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“I have been tutored since birth. The closest thing that I got to being with other students was... well, being tutored alongside my cousins, periodically.”
“I-I see...”
“Is it true about Hyperion, Kimoto-san, that it is one of the most dangerous worlds in human space?” Suzume asked, hiding a grin from the secretary.
“I don’t think so. It depends, really... most places, you can go your entire life without leaving your residential building. And, when you do, there’s nothing to really fear. In some other places, though...”
“Tell me about them.”
“Hmm... there are a lot of metrozones that the government says to not go; if you don’t have family there or other things, of course. There’s a big crime problem here... and the migrations from the Frontier are not making things any better.”
“Quickly approaching a trillion souls, isn’t it?”
“That is what population forecasts are projecting for 2800...”
Suzume rose once more from her chair, approaching the viewport and placing her hand on its transparent surface.
“It is beautiful. Hauntingly so.”
Momoko sat quietly, watching the other woman as she craned her neck to get a better view as the craft began to breach into Hyperion’s atmosphere. From her perspective, white and yellow tongues began to lick at Suzume’s fingertips upon atmospheric entry, flooding the stateroom with a brilliant display. Suzume’s view was something else entirely—between these tongues of fire and rolling clouds below laid a sprawling sea of city lights, stretching unto the evening horizon of dying orange and blooming purple. Colossal holographic projections shot up from the tiny tops of distant stratoscrapers, being visible even from Suzume’s current altitude. She curiously looked for Kanetomi adverts amid such a sight, and finally saw one for the Kanetomi Corporation’s motor division dancing in the distance in advertisement of a new luxurious model of aerodyne.
“Landing at night will be interesting,” Suzume commented. “Are you going to be summoned back to headquarters once we land, Kimoto-san?”
“No, Kanetomi-sama. For the duration of your stay, I am to be your liaison to the planetary branch directly.”
“I appreciate that. You won’t find many things to do, though... I usually keep to myself in my quarters.”
The lying intent that Suzume has was completely missed by her underling. “I-I see... well, Koda-san and the other board members will want to convene with you many times during your stay here. They offer everything at their service to you, of course!”
“To get on my father’s good side by annoying me... how quaint.”
“...Should I tell him to stop those plans?”
“No,” Suzume replied as she watched the re-entry’s fire subside from the viewport.“There is no point to doing so. Seeing how they act around me will be entertaining, if nothing else.”
Momoko stood up as she noticed how close the shuttle was to their destination. She gasped in surprise, drawing a glance from Suzume as the neon lights of the Kusanagi megasprawl blossomed into view.
“I almost forgot! Oh... forgive me!”
“...Hm?”
“Your father arranged for two pieces of your property to be delivered to you from Inari. I-I am so sorry-!”
“There is no need to apologize. What are they?”
“He told Koda-sama that it should stay a, erm... surprise?”
Suzume’s right eyebrow raised upon hearing the sentence. “A surprise, you say?”
“I don’t know what they are, either...”
“Well, I will assuredly see.”
The shuttle’s final engagement of its atmospheric thrusters briefly rattled the inner compartments as it descended onto a prepped landing pad beneath the top structure of Katsura Castle. In reality being of a skyscraper with a fortress on its top, the building was firmly nestled within the central Sōkyūchō ward of the sprawling city that was Kusanagi.
Suzume noticed through the viewport an assembly of aerodynes and other hover vehicles flying in rotation nearby, all sporting different liveries; a few were proper Hyperion Police Department vehicles overseeing the shuttle’s arrival, whereas the bulk of the rest were of Kanetomi Private Security Enterprises and a force she did not yet recognize.
“Those cars, the ones with the labels of ‘sincerity’ upon them; who do they belong to?”
“That is the Pacification Unit, Kanetomi-sama,” Momoko replied. “They have been serving the municipal governments of the Kusanagi Megasprawl for over two hundred years to help keep the peace.”
“Privatized police... quite an upfront thing to show the public, isn’t it?”
“There are plenty of private law enforcement groups on Hyperion. However, it is only here, in Fusōdō, that such a group exists in large enough amount to supplant the planetary police entirely.”
“I see. Well, I suppose that it is now time to disembark...”
The shuttle’s gears magnetized with force onto the landing pad, shaking its stabilized innards ever-so-slightly. Noticing that the craft had finally come to a stop, Suzume stepped away from the viewport and slipped back into her zori, Momoko following behind.
Leaving the stateroom, Suzume was joined by the rest of the onboard passengers in exiting the shuttle and into the open Hyperian air. At such a height into the sky, the air was just about freezing; these temperatures took Suzume by little surprise, her steps as methodical as usual when she proceeded down the deployed staircase with the rest of the entourage.
Upon reaching the surface of the landing pad itself, she stopped to take in the full scene before her eyes. Surrounding her, for as far as she could see in any direction, was an endless city soaking in its own plasma lights. Although Katsura Castle was on the taller side of buildings, it was not the highest of them—across avenues kilometers below were buildings that soared past the clouds, the latter’s ambient, blue-splattered lining seemed just within reach of her fingertips. Advertisements for anything and everything scrolled from the faces of these titanic buildings, a primary source for the ambient lighting that was cast off of the undersides of the clouds. This, in combination with the sight of aerial and land traffic alike setting off rivers of blue, white, and orange headlights, created a show that was truly unlike anything else comprehensible.
“...Suzume-sama?”
The words of Norio pulled Suzume away from the surrounding spectacle, the shrill of distant engines fading behind his words. She blinked in brief surprise, returning her gaze to what lied ahead.
In front of the mighty steel doors that led inside stood, yet again, another assembly of Kanetomi security troops, now in full kit. Their power armor, splattered by the rains of minutes prior, morphed the surrounding city light against their white paint to make spiraling and blooming patterns of darkened blues and pinks. Flags bearing the flower mon of the Kanetomi dynasty flapped against the strong winds behind them, hanging on either side of the large autodoors.
Suzume proceeded down the ornate walkway that bridged the gap between the landing pad and the building proper, watching as the assembled troopers did not snap away from their current state of attention—even as she passed. Their hands remained gripped in readiness, coilrifles in tow.
“What is the reason for these men to be at such attention?” Suzume asked. “Even on Inari, I’ve rarely seen such a sight.”
“Recent... security issues, you might say,” Norio replied as they waited for the autodoors before them to cycle open. “Corporate sentiment has reached a historic low across Hyperion, as compared to the last hundred years. Riots have already broken out in Albion and Destino; it is truly a dreadful affair all around. Best to be ready for anything, as your father would say.”
“I’m curious to know: is my arrival public knowledge?”
“Not necessarily. Although, by now, we can safely assume that gossip sites and the like are already ablaze on the InfoScape about you being seen in the system for the first time.”
“Wonderful...”
As the large doors finished opening, the party walked inside, with most of the corporate executives and staff in chatter among themselves. Suzume proceeded into the new atrium during this throng, noticing the juxtaposition of atmosphere between this place and outside—serenity reigned inside this building, the syncretic smell of cherry blossom’s sweet tones and sandalwood’s subtle earthy notes infused within the cycling air. These smells, alongside the well-acquainted sights of traditional Japanese interior architecture and designs, made her think of the estates she was raised within on Inari.
Although comforting, it was not exactly what she wanted in that moment; the smell of lingering rain and acridity that she picked up while in awe of the outside tugged more at her to explore.
“So, Suzume-sama, to review,” Norio said, a slight hesitancy picking up in his voice as the entourage continued forth into the underbelly of the castle proper. “You are to stay here until the marriage of your brother, yes?”
“That is correct. As for when that will be, though? Ultimately up to my father, or grandfather.”
“I see... this places you here on Hyperion for at least a year, I’d wager. I remember your sister’s, as a matter of fact; it was of very high regard. No doubt in my mind that the preparations for your brother will be even grander in nature.”
“Mhm...”
The crowd around Suzume slowly began to disperse, bows being issued to her as the rest of the staff and executives prepared for a corporate event being hosted within another portion of the castle structure. With Momoko and Norio being the last ones behind her, Suzume was in escort behind two retainers in white and black polymer armor. Norio coughed as a means to get her attention, adjusting his tie at the same time.
“Koda-san?” she asked, turning around and hiding a slowly growing impatience. “Was there something else?”
“Ah, yes, yes! Did Momoko here tell you what your father had arranged to be delivered here?”
“That there was such a thing happening, yes; not its contents.”
“You will find them in your quarters. We have cleared out an entire wing of the castle proper for you and whatever, or whoever, you may need... in addition, we are also hosting a corporate banquet, to which you may attend as a guest of honor.”
“I see. Thank you, Koda-san. Enjoy your event.”
“...You aren’t attending?” he asked, displaying only the slightest hints of offense within his body language that Suzume had picked up. They disappeared as fast as they arrived, no doubt as a result of social implants exacting their effects. Unluckily for Norio, Suzume’s were leagues higher.
“There is no imperative for me to go, is there? Besides, I have been left a bit fatigued following all of this travel,” Suzume replied. “I am sure that you do not need me there.”
“I... I see. I thank you, once more, for having us host you.”
Norio and Momoko alike bowed before leaving, with the latter smiling slightly as she did so. As they turned and left, the retainers continued their escort of the corporate princess in strict silence, guiding her deeper into the fortress that sat atop the high-rise skyscraper.
“This is the entrance to your quarters for the time being, Kanetomi-sama...”
The words of one of the masked retainers floated in the air of the corridor’s high ceilings. Suzume watched as the metallic doors in front of her, embossed with the Kanetomi mon, slid open to reveal a dim corridor decorated in a hybrid of shoji paneling and Western-styled ornamentation.
The tall woman gave a curt nod to the retainers before they walked away, their hands still remaining on the white hilts of their katana as they disappeared around a corner. Suzume turned back and progressed; as the doors slid shut behind, she discarded her zori for the last time. After this, her ears strained slightly as the sound of pitter-patter against the tatami-covered flooring echoed from deep within the wing. From memories that spanned over the stretch of years, she knew at once what was making its approach towards her.
“...Akira-kun?”
A blurry mass of white came into view from the right side of Suzume, barreling towards her at a frightening speed. She knelt down to catch it in her arms, raising it into the air with a genuine smile plastered onto her face.
“How long has it been? Two years, no?”
Suzume’s question was responded to with a celebratory yap by Akira, the dog’s tail wagging mid-air as he attempted to lick at her face. She held him close, kneeling to bring him back down to the ground. She pat on his white fur for some time, completely forgetting about where she was in that moment—her companion since birth seemed to think the same, curling up against her touch.
“Now, if father has sent you here, I wonder what else he has done to try and curry my favor...” Suzume said softly, rising back up and having Akira bob in between her strides as she walked further into the wing.
Tall fusuma panels rose in Suzume’s sight as she navigated the area, their borders a muted gold and their surfaces painted upon by dark lacquer. It seemed to her that every panel sported hand-painted depictions of cherry blossoms, their pink forms unfurling into this deep purplish-blue void of night.
As Akira trotted alongside her and out of the foyer area, the woman kept in mind the furnishings of each and every room that she passed through or along. Empty tea rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms were all cloaked in darkness; combined with the stark silence, it all existed in grand contrast to the sights and sounds of the world outside...
Suzume and Akira closed in on the master suite of the wing, the entrance hallway flicking on its lights on her entry. She gave passing glances at the various Washin Buddhist statues that sat within tokonoma, reaching the master bedroom at the end of her small journey. Her tabi gave soft thuds against the bare, dark wooden floor as she entered and looked about, noticing the large bed situated at the center of the room, sitting upon a tatami-like circular mat that elevated it off of the true wood. Akira wandered towards the bed and sat right below its foot, curling into a ball and yawning before resting his head against his paws. His eyes still followed Suzume as she rounded the first half of the room, inspecting each portion of it.
There was a desk that laid to the right side of the bed, and on it was an inactive holoprojector flanked by a holden incense holder. Art of a golden rising phoenix was painted on the fusuma behind it, and to the left of the desk was an engineered form of blossom tree that was able to grow from within the room thanks to the soft orange light trickling in from the recessed roof above.
The left side of the room was what piqued the interest of Suzume the most. A window framed into the outer walls and hidden behind a golden grate showed a wide stretch of the megasprawl of Kusanagi, its light filtering in to clash with the amber glow from within. She found herself standing there, once more enthralled by the urban terrain that sprawled in her sight.
A small bark from Akira roused Suzume’s attention back behind her. As rolled over with his tongue lolling next to the bottom of the bed, she noticed that there was a long and curved white wooden box laid on top of her bed’s fabric. Suzume, having eyed it with intent, saw an all-black symbol of a sparrow etched onto its top door. She reached for the fingerprint scanner next to it lock, hearing the locks inside engage with a firm click. The wooden box hissed open, revealing a matte black steel interior which held exactly what she had expected.
A long, gunmetal grey blade blinked with the blue and pinks of the city lights behind her, mixing with the orange cascade above. Sitting within the recesses of a fine cushion, Suzume lifted the tachi out, her right hand holding onto the black tsuka fabric that was bound onto the hilt’s red samagawa beneath. She felt the golden sparrows that were embedded into the samegawa, peeking in between the diamonds that were formed from the wrap. Suzume’s other hand was resting against the flat of the blade; her crimson eyes meandered leftwards, glossing over the Kanetomi mon etched onto the habaki and the characters that she was reading upon the blade. They were the motto of her clan, the sentence “Continuing on is power” surrounded by the swirls of its suminagashi steel.
She flipped the tachi over on its face, reading her name on the other side of the blade. The white ribbon that hung off of the sword’s pommel fluttered as it did so, catching the attention of Akira as he watched his master in reverent silence.
Suzume smiled, if only for a moment, at the thought of her father having enough thought to send her this blade; one that had been forged just for her so long ago.
With one free hand, she lifted the glossy black wood scabbard out of the box and slid the blade into it, hearing it all come together with a firm thwack that resonated into the still air. Suzume noticed Akira’s ears perk up at such a sound; she chuckled from seeing it, coming over to pet him behind the ears as she slid the scabbard into her black obi.
“Let us see what other things there are to see and do in this place, Akira-kun...”
|
|