Everything is normal today during the early hours of the morning. There's really no hint, no way of knowing, no anything that could indicate that CERES -- and thus Cerealia -- is about to irrevocably change. There would be birds chirping, if there were birds, but since there aren't any, there's just the constant sounds of a city in motion, humming with technology even that early in the morning.
And then, regardless of where you are or what you're doing or how early it is, everyone's CereVices flicker on to show a perhaps-familiar, perhaps-unfamiliar face.
Bellona Recreare, the business owner of Cerealia and CEO of CERES, stares at everyone with a flat, cold look. She doesn't seem happy.
(When is she ever?)  It has come to my attention that there has been industrial espionage and corporate sabotage in CERES' personnel. Such a thing will not be tolerated.
Due to this, Mosley's employment with CERES has been terminated. Please now direct any public relations questions to 1-800-7322934844444.
Good day.
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PHASE I [ 6 00 ] Bright and early, not long after that sudden announcement by Bellona, you may decide to go back to sleep, or you may decide to get up and go about your day (or you may not have woken up at all).
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Because your apartment is broken.
The entire apartment. The door is locked shut (and that sucker is solid metal so it might be time to try a window), the HOLO(gm) is flickering wildly between settings, and the blender is out for your blood. Anything technological in any way (that is CERES-brand or has been tampered with by CERES) will be malfunctioning in a way that comes across as... oddly malicious.
Now's a bad time for the late sleepers to realize that the beds, too, have auto-control tech functionality. Hope you enjoy that electroshock wake up call, or the fact that the bed could fling you totally across the room.
PHASE II [ 1000 ] The rest of the city isn't faring so well either.
The trains are completely out of commission; even if the doors do open, it's probably not a good idea to get on. If you do, it looks like the doors will slam shut behind you, and the train will go hurtling forward at dangerous speeds with sudden stops. Many of the shops can't be accessed at all, automated doors refusing to open, and worst of all, every single last piece of tech in Cerealia now seems to have the sole goal of Making Your Life Hard.
The Pleasure District is flooded now that the spas are broken, but hey -- at least the perfume ensures that water smells good, and it's pretty warm. That's good, right? Maybe go for a nice swim.
The CERES police bots are out of control, chasing people down to arrest them for imagined crimes (What do you mean you aren't a closet voyeur?), and heaven forbid you're around any of the auto shops when everything goes totally wrong. The auto-drive feature in many of CERES's cars seem to be a little... finicky today. It doesn't seem like anywhere in the city is exempt from this. Good luck.
And towards the end of the second day of this insanity, the train, with whatever unfortunate passengers are on it, will derail. It crashes into part of the shopping district, leveling buildings and leaving the wrecked overturn husk of a train resting there uselessly.
Suddenly, things don't seem so harmless anymore.
PHASE III [ 1100 ] Of course... you're CERES-owned too.
Your code, rather, is made and owned by CERES, and it's inevitable with the craziness going on that it would soon affect everyone's code as well. So as the hour approaches noon, a few unlucky souls may start to notice that things are just Not Quite Right with them. Their powers may be on the fritz, functioning entirely wrong or not at all, or even stranger -- fire powers turning into water, ice into flame, electricity brings mud. Your clothing might suddenly change when your coding glitches, or it might be gone entirely. You may suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to start singing, or frolicking. You may suddenly be wildly in love with the first person (or robot or mirror) that you see, unable to stop it until the odd glitching wears off.
And then, just like that, you're back to normal, if a bit more tired than before. How troublesome.
There are also moments where what appears to be an ID number appears on the back of your neck in glowing light blue numbers. Each of these codes is a 7 digit number, with an E at the front of the number. It appears that the longer you've been in Cerealia, the lower the number is -- like a brand of some sort. You may not be able to see it yourself with it on the back of your neck like that, but everyone else sure can.
PHASE IV [ 1645 ] And, just like that, on the last day of this madness, the city goes dark. The lights cut out. The technology shuts off. Every last robot in Cerealia is completely and totally down, and can no longer be booted up. Even when the lights come back on in a few hours... the robots remain dead.
Cerealia's a lot harder to function in without those handy dandy robots running the place. It's also a lot more desolate, and rather quiet.
Slowly but surely, the rest of the technology will boot itself back up towards the end of the last day. But the robots remain broken, and cannot be fixed. In fact, opening them up will reveal that nothing's wrong with them at all... they just won't wake up.
As time ticks by, it doesn't look like Bellona will address anything on the network about the events and all people are left to do now is... learn how to function again. Without any help.
BONUS [ ???? ] If you were a stupid brave enough soul to log into ViViD during this time (or were unfortunately glitched there, which could happen), you will find that ViViD is in... safe mode. It's struggling to boot up, and even when you finally enter, you'll find yourself wandering through skeleton levels of half-completed scenery and incomplete quests. There are readings in the corner of each level that can be seen now, one about Energy Gain and one about Energy Loss, and just as the gain goes up the longer you are there, the loss, too, rises. At first, it's fascinating, and it isn't particularly dangerous... but then it becomes clear that you can't actually log out.
You can't exit Safe Mode at all.
Slowly, it feels as though you can breathe less and less, that the empty walls of the level are closing in on you... and there's nothing you can do. Unless you are or find a particularly genius hacker and they can access the source code and find the exit buried inside that code within the next few minutes... there's nothing to be done.
And then everything goes dark.
You'll wake up the next IC day, with those same energy readings marked on your wrist like some sort of bright blue digital tattoo. When you wake in the mornings, it will read at 100% and slowly go down during the course of the day until you sleep. It will fade after three IC days.
And from now on, ViViD always has those energy levels in the corner, even when it's fixed. They always seem to be recording you, every time you're in ViViD. Strange.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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III
( Even if Soleil hadn't made a promise to Rei to take care of Athena when things went south, she would still be looking for the girl. Athena is the type to get in over her head pretty quickly, after all, so Soleil is relieved when she finally finds her friend.
Only to be speechless at the sight of the animal characteristics. Before she can muster the words to ask what is going on, Athena is suddenly nuzzling against her. )
--A-Athena, what are you doing? I already did the 'pinch myself' thing to prove to me this wasn't a dream today. Don't give me a reason to double check.
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I'm not really sure what I'm doing, to be honest! I'm just following my instinct.
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Your instinct? S-So, those ears are...huh.
( If those ears are real--or as real as things can get when Cerealia is going wack--then Soleil needs to take a moment from the chaos to kind of...just...scritch Athena behind those cat ears. )
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I'm a cat now! It's kind of weird, but it's not so bad.
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I thought you were cute before, but this is getting to be too much. Heh heh. You seem to be taking this situation in stride, Athena.
( A thought occurs to her and she pulls out her Cerevice with her free hand and takes a selfie with Athena's features apparent and her snuggling Soleil very clear.
She will be disappointed when everything breaks later, but perhaps there is a way to salvage the photo...some day. )
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It's kind of weird, but what else can I do, right? It's not like it's killing me.
[ not yet, anyway. ]
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I think it might be killing me. I don't think my heart can take much more of this. If you stay like this, can I keep you? I'm great with cats.
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[ soleil?!?! you're crazier than her!! ]
I gotta stay with Ai no matter what!
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Aww, but why Ai? That's not fair. If only I were carrying the catnip I bring to the cat cafe...
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[ words she never thought would leave her mouth, tbh. ]
I wonder what happened. Cats aren't even my favourite animal.
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( Soleil wouldn't mind having cat ears. Or a tail. Which reminds her to carefully poke that to confirm that is real as well. )
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[ that's about the worst thing that's happened to her this event. ]
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( Things are going crazy, after all. That and she knows Rei has asked her to keep an eye on Athena, but she knows it may be difficult given the chaos. )
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[ well, to her, anyway. but in other people's eyes, she's definitely reckless as hell. ]
Has anything weird happened to you?
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...N-Nooo. Nothing weird at all. Nope.
( She refuses to let Athena know she spent about an hour dancing for people. She can FEEL the embarrassment returning. )
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What's that supposed to mean?
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( She scritches at Athena's cat ears more furiously in an attempt to distract her! )
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[ her ears move to the touch though, as if she likes it. ]
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Aww, who's a good kitty cat? You are! Yes, you, Cathena! Hehehehe.
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which is to say, athena pokes soleil's forehead rather fiercely. ]
Tell me!
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( She rubs her forehead. She should have known this cat would be the cranky type. She probably isn't even housebroken... )
Okay, okay. I, um...danced. A lot. I got a super cute outfit, though, so that was nice.
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That's not embarrassing.
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( It takes her a moment to realize that might not make a whole lot of sense. )
...Can you keep a secret for me? It's really embarrassing.
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Okay, sure. I'll have you know I'm a great secret keeper.
[ THAT IS NOT TRUE AT ALL!! ]
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I can't sing or dance.
( Soleil's deep, dark secret is revealed. That is her most closely guarded secret. )
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