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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Phase 2-B
[ In all of the chaos and shouting around the city at the moment, Duo seems oddly.. removed and calm, in the moment. Mainly because he's managed in these kinds of conditions previously, and well... he might've caused comparable damage more than once in his life. He picks his way carefully through all of the people and rubble and chaos until he hears a familiar, shouting voice.
Lifting his sunglasses and putting them on his head, Duo carefully works his way over to the other teen. ]
Whatcha got? I got some training in field dressing and more than enough training on monkey-see, monkey-do and just patching shit up long enough to get by. I can do what I can for now until you find someone with actual like.. powers.
no subject
Oh jeez, that's like the best thing I've friggin' heard all day.
[He slowly but surely picks his way to a not so damaged spot, hoping to find a place to set some of the survivors down.]
I'm not sure, honestly-- I don't know squat about doctor stuff, but one of them has an arm that feels like jelly, and another one might've punctured something. I think some others got scrapes and head injuries too. I don't even know if the hospitals and junk are even working right now, but we gotta do something in the meantime, y'know?
no subject
Dude, you're running around like a piggy-back caravan here.. [ Duo drops down to a knee, slinging the back pack to the ground and beginning to unzip a few pockets. From them comes a fully packed plastic bag of gauze, everything needed for sutures, alcohol wipes... basically an entire medical kit had been tucked away, pretty meticulously at that. He listens intently to Yusuke's descriptions even as he unpacks the items and makes sure they're all in arms reach, nodding each time. ]
Give me the more serious ones first. I can probably maybe get them stabilized unless we've got something internal going on.. Thankfully Sally made me better at stitching, just don't think she thought I'd, you know, use her lessons to sew myself up more than anyone else.. [ The braided teen kneels next to the person that Yusuke indicates may have punctured something, first, as internal bleeding was a lot bigger of a problem than a broken arm, at this point in the game. Carefully, he traces along the person's rib cage, one rib at a time, and then - ah, a grimace. ]
Yeah, that ones busted, and pressed in. It could've punctured something but also could just be stuck there.. for now, relax as much as you can. Ok? I know that's not like.. the easiest thing with all this shit going on, but the harder you breathe and the lot, the more that bone will shift. All you can really do for ribs anyways is sit still and make sure they're straight in place..
And that ain't easy either.
no subject
Yeah, well, if you can find another guy who's stupidly strong, send 'em my way. I doubt we're gonna get any ambulances right now with things being as crazy as they are.
[He sets another survivor down near Duo as he's assessing the first one, the person groaning loudly as they settle on the ground.]
May as well check this one next. I think something might have got lodged in their stomach, but I'm not... really sure. They're bleeding like hell.
[And it's true-- Yusuke's forearms, which are shaking slightly, are already smeared with their blood. It's a struggle to keep his voice level, the panic and chaos already starting to take a toll on his nerves. He's used to blood, and he's used to various injuries... but on a much smaller scale than this. Large disasters like this weren't his expertise, and it was a struggle just to figure out what to do.]
... hey. You think... they're gonna be okay?
no subject
You'd think all the people like that would.. you know, be around here givin' people a hand.. [ Duo wasn't strong, but he was small and experienced with places where utter chaos has become the norm. Post-battle recovery hadn't been something he'd ever been trained in, or really did a lot of, but it wasn't too hard to spot out someone in trouble and attempt to give them a hand, so far as he was concerned. ] I doubt we'll be getting anything involving machinery for a while. Everything seems to be a little haywire right now so I wouldn't trust 'em anyways.
[ The braided pilot takes one look at the bloodied middle of the person Yusuke's just sat down and reaches to grab a bag full of gloves - pulling them on quickly. ] Honestly, depending on what I find we might just have to apply pressure and hope someone comes around with powers or is a surgeon..
[ Duo is oddly calm, despite Yusuke's nervousness and the constant chaos around him. There's once or twice that a noise makes him pop his head up and reach for the back of his pants, presumably for a gun, before settling back to his work. He's a little strangely removed from what he's doing, actually, carefully prodding and mopping at the blood at the person's middle, analytical even though he didn't know 2/3 of what he was seeing. ]
You never know. Internal injuries are probably the hardest things to treat and if the hospitals are overwhelmed or hard to reach then... it's not worth making anyone fuss more than they already are.
Can you pass me another wad of gauze?
no subject
He can only stare numbly at Duo doing his work, trying to patch up this one poor unfortunate bastard out of many, although his head quickly snaps up as he addresses him.]
Huh? Oh, yeah, sure--
[He fumbles through Duo's bag until he finds the gauze, handing another piece of it over to the other boy. His face shadows over as he considers what was said, though.]
... anyway, I didn't mean the injury specifically. I mean, I've known a guy who's got stabbed in the gut more times than I can count and it's never looked pretty, but-- I'm worried more about if they don't make it.
What brings us back is the code stuff, right? If we die, and the tech stuff is still on the fritz... what happens to these people?
no subject
[ Duo wouldn't normally be the one to stop and do anything remotely medical to a random civilian - in fact, even as he does this there's a small voice in the back of his head saying he shouldn't be wasting supplies that he may need later for himself on other people, and yet, here he is. Being involved in war, especially one as dirty and at times twisted as the one he had been involved in changed a person, he thought. It had, definitely, made him a bit more giving, to say the least. Not that he'd been a notoriously selfish person, by any means - providing for the little street gang he'd been apart of had taught him good teamwork, but usually, anyone outside the team?
Goodluck. And yet, here he is..
Duo's bag is stuffed to the brim with medical supplies and food, in the already open pockets. Yusuke may see lumps suspiciously shaped like weapons through the fabric of the other pocket, if he looks really hard, though. ]
Then they die. [ He says it plainly, as if it's just the most normal thing in the world. ] The code ceases and the string is deleted and they're no more. Just like when you bite the big one outside of this weird place, I would think. Just, you know, probably without the funerary shit..
no subject
There's a sharp intake of breath at Duo's words, however, and his grip on the bag tightens. Death wasn't a foreign concept to him-- biting the dust three times already and dealing with the matters of the afterlife made him much too familiar with it, more than any guy his age should. But this...]
... dammit.
How is this fair? These people weren't doing anything wrong, nothing to go and piss off CERES or their ghosts or whatever the hell else screws around with this planet! They were just going about their business, trying to work, or shop, or--
[His teeth grit, trying to rein in his anger.]
... go about their lives. If this place doesn't have an afterlife, then where DO they go? Are they gonna be part of this stupid city's ghost crew too?!