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.
|
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. ] |
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ii.a
Spitting floral scented, warm water out of her mouth, she shoves damp hair off her face and looks wide-eyed at who she's not sure she hit or was hit by. Too chaotic around here for her to really guess! ]
— you okay?
[ Aaaaand another cough into the crook of her arm. ]
no subject
Leon immediately comes up to his hands and knees as well, coughing and spluttering, before he immediately scowls in Chihiro's direction. It's really not her fault, he just has Water Issues.]
I'm fine.
[He snaps that out immediately, if in a raspy tone, and starts to push himself to shaky feet, and because he's a rude asshole, he doesn't ask her if she's okay in return (though he might be watching to see if she's able to stand up. Not because he cares or anything. Just because.)]
no subject
I'm glad. All that glass —
[ Whoops, still needing to cough, and staggering forward a few steps before bracing herself. She looks down; one of her shoes has plain washed away in the meantime. Her wet ponytail splats against her shoulder when she looks back at the busted window, then down at the ground and the glittering tell-tale signs of glass that have been spread across the sidewalk and into the street. Most of it's been pushed further away from the window with the force of the water breaking the window. She gestures down with a rolling motion of her wrist. ]
Please be careful.
[ That said, now she'll start picking her way closer to the building to better heed her own advice. A little like moving upstream in a weak creek by now, but water's still pouring out as the spa continues pouring ElegantRose™ water forth. Now if she can spy where her shoe washed away to... not like this doesn't remind her of a blast from the past. ]
no subject
Leon sighs.
But honestly... even with as much as a jerk as he can be, he can't leave a little girl to wander a glass covered street looking for a shoe that's right there. So he sloshes his way over there, taking careful steps to make sure he doesn't slip and go under (his heart wouldn't be able to take a second soaking), and then grabs the shoe by its lace.
He clears his throat.]
... I suppose this is yours.
[As if he didn't grab it fully knowing it was.]
no subject
She's even considering just pulling her other shoe off when her eyes skim waters searching for a flash of orange, vaguely registering Leon sloshing over to another part of the street. Her attention swings back to focus on him when he clears his throat, eyes lighting up with recognition as she takes a step his way. Her lips curl up into a small, grateful smile without thinking overmuch about it. ]
My shoe! Thank you, I didn't see where it'd been taken!
[ She picks her way toward where he is now, holding out her hand. ]
I thought I'd probably lost it for good.
no subject
He clears his throat again, pushing wet bangs from his face and handing it over.]
Yes, well... it was simply in my way, so I suppose I had no other choice but to pick it up.
[He's Leon, though, so of course he'll tsun.]
no subject
It's good luck for me you were headed that way.
[ She means it, too. Transferring her shoe into one hand, she sticks her arm out to balance like an awkward flamingo, pulling at the laces of her other shoe. She's plucking at laces and pulling it off before long, having to stand back down on that foot with its sock still in place. (She'd lost her balance.) ]
A friend of mine might have laughed if I'd managed to lose another shoe down a river, even one only a few inches deep. [ She ties the laces together, draping her shoes around the back of her neck. One nestles wetly under each shoulder. ] I guess that's what's nice, though. This time it's not a deep ri... ver...
[ She'd been smiling in a small, reflective way when she'd first looked back up at Leon. That expression leaves her face quite suddenly as a roar of sound comes crashing down from higher up the street. The way debris has stacked in this part of the pleasure district, where the water's being pumped out of seemingly bottomless wells, is having a troublesome tunneling effect on where the water's heading.
There's a waist-high wave of water heading at them from up the street, thundering around the corner with detritus of all kinds caught up in its turbulent, overfloral waters. Even where they stand now the water's rising past ankles, a slow creep that's not going to stay slow. ]
Up. We've gotta go up!
[ Her reflex is to step toward Leon (clearly he'd know... or react... better than she would, probably, this seems to be most her life here) and reach out, as if she were going to try and grab hold of his sleeve; knees bent and ready to run sideways. Can't race a river (or a flood) down it's course, but they might be able to get to the side and up out of its way to not get swept away as surely as her little pink shoe had, years ago.
... Though it might be better if she started checking her impulse to reach out and take hold of whomever she's presently with whenever things start looking a little too high octane thriller. ]
no subject
Leon pales, eyes widening, and immediately freezes in place--but she grabs his sleeve and that snaps him back to reality.
He's faster than her, of course; he's a trained soldier and she's a little girl, if one with a lot of pluck and gumption, and so he looks to the side just as she was and grasps her wrist tightly (tightly enough that it might leave bruises, but he doesn't have time to worry about that) and then he's sprinting, dragging her along with him on what's almost an automatic instinct, and diving the rest of the way off to the side, where a store wall will hopefully prevent the worst of it from hitting them.
But he can't just leave her.
Even to him, it'd feel...wrong.]
no subject
Leon dives off to the side, and she dives along with him, bringing her other arm up as a defense against what's coming, instinctively ducking in close to Leon. The roar of water and the clashing, cracking, and clanging of debris grows overwhelming in short order. The store wall keeps the debris blockaded, taking the brunt of any damage before the debris was dragged further down the road on the wave of warm water. It's a backwash of water that rushes in to fill the space around them, a spray of droplets coming down like a scented summer rain overhead. Only small debris is carried along with as the water whirls and sucks back out, rising no higher than mid thigh in the thirty or so seconds before the water level drops as dramatically, settling down to just above the level of Leon's ankles. A loofah snags on the wall, hanging at about knee level once the water's receded. ]
no subject
Somehow, he fights it off.
But it doesn't mean he's in any real state to make sure she's okay, even as the water recedes and leaves them in a far more peaceful area (for now, anyway).
Give him a moment.]
no subject
She gently tugs on her hand, looking push her hair back, but desists after a moment. She can use her other hand for that — and so she does. A glance toward Leon's face and she finds she's not sure what he's focusing on. He might be hearing something she doesn't. It doesn't occur to her to suspect he might have fought off a minor panic attack.
Much at the same time... the moment of silence in the aftermath is a relief. She leans back against the wall too, letting it support her weight as she locks her knees and closes her eyes. Oh geez, this better not keep happening or else getting back out of this district is going to be more dangerous than she thought. ]
Thank you, sir. [ ??? sir's all she's got on short notice okay. She glances up at Leon once she opens her eyes again. ] You're very fast. It's the only reason we got over here in time.
[ She tries, but she's a stick of a kid and she knows it. She just doesn't let it limit what she strives for (outside of the realm of being somewhat reasonable). Peering out around the corner, her expression grows more somber. ]
That would have swept me away.
[ And there would be no Haku to help pull her to shallow waters before she could drown. For all she can swim these days, it doesn't change the force and power of a flash flood and its debris. ]
no subject
Still, when there's a little girl politely thanking you for saving her, there are other things to focus on besides a very relevant and strong fear of water--so Leon breathes out a shaky breath before he shakes himself and straightens his shoulders. The last thing he wants to do is look weak in front of someone like this--she doesn't seem to have realized, but it doesn't matter. Children are perceptive, after all.
So instead, bravado is the name of the game. He tries to focus on her, instead of on the water still trickling by them, and for the most part it works.]
Naturally. It would be pitiful if I could not do that much, as a knight.
[That's the excuse he's got and he's sticking with it. But her expression...there's something that strikes a chord with him when he sees it, and so--]
You were not, though. [He shakes his head, responding instantly.] You were not swept away, so it is more important to focus on what we may do from here. You are still alive, and that is what matters.
no subject
A knight?
[ Which she conceptually understands, it's fairly popular in media, and not too far off in media concepts to samurai, but it's still startling (and, well, cool) ]
That's really cool!
[ Cue an immediate brightening of her countenance. There are so many amazing people here! It's a far nicer focus than the fact there's, you know, significant ongoing destruction all around, and no end in sight. Not with the water pumping out of whatever pipes and aquifers they tapped into without pause.
Bright eyed, she looks a bit less like a damp kid dragged through and around the floral scented waters of the Pleasure District. Not by much, but enough. It's tempered that somberness into something akin to admiration and curiosity, which softens again, looking back out toward the street. He's right. She nods her head toward him, firming her shoulders. ]
You're right. We're both alive, and we'll both stay that way. Though we really probably need to get out of this district. Can no one turn all the water off?
[ Not really a question she's asking for him to have an answer for (and why would a knight, really, have one for the plumbing problems of this world), but it's one that she feels should have an answer somehow. One she guesses relates back to technology, because it's technology that's been acting all wrong. What kind of automated system has messed up this time?
She shifts forward, away from the wall. Waters swirl around bare feet, debris bobbing by as she steps forward — and flinches, glancing down with a sharp look. ]
Ow.
[ Had she gotten stung? It sure felt like it; lifting her offended foot above the water, she instead stares down at the shallow, bleeding gash, water and blood dripping down from her toes. Nothing bad, she evaluates, but definitely a nuisance. ]
At least it's not on the bottom...
[ She sighs, keeping it internal. Her bandaids aren't going to cut it here. There's not much she herself can do, lacking bandaging supplies (or much knowledge in bandaging). She'll just stick her foot back in the water and worry about cleaning it out later. ]
no subject