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}
IV
Navigating by cell phone light, Togo eventually shows up at the smithy entrance, looking thoroughly tired.]
Good to see that you're still alive, Altway.
no subject
[His clothes are pretty worse for wear...torn, bloody, and disheveled, but despite looking exhausted, he's actually completely unharmed. In stark contrast to his clothes, that is. Either way, his workshop is lit up with candles and lanterns...not to mention his forge is blazing. All of the machinery in the place has been summarily destroyed and dismantled to keep it from springing to life, and from the looks of things, Darin's doing what any healthy person would do in the midst of a personal crisis:]
[Burying himself in work.]
[All kinds of weaponry and armor are scattered around, and he's already hard at work on a helmet when Togo makes her presence known.]
Togo...! You're okay!
[He hurries over to help her inside.]
no subject
I can only imagine what it must have been like in here when everything started malfunctioning.
no subject
As soon as I got here I wrecked the place. Tried to make it as safe as I could for anyone who needed a haven from all of this.
[Darin grabs a chair for her and sets it out.]
You hungry? Thirsty? I've been ransacking vending machines left and right. I figure the police bots are already attacking indiscriminately, I might as well give them a reason.
[He jokes, but in his mind, right now the entire city is exploding into chaos and there's going to be people who need food and drink. At least he can provide.]
no subject
I don't feel hungry, but my body probably needs food either way.
no subject
lootprovisions and grabs a bag of those bite sized cookies and grabs a bottle of water. He brings them over and hands them over.]Yeah, it's a good idea to get some energy back while you can. Who knows what's next for us?
[With that, he takes a seat in that chair.]
You doing okay?
no subject
I wasn't injured or killed, so I'll count myself as fortunate. Still, to say that it's been a long day would be an understatement.
no subject
[He slumps back in his chair and runs his hand through his hair.]
I'm...I'm at a complete loss. I set this place up for people who needed a place to go. A safe haven. A command center for people who have experience dealing with this sort of thing...
I don't know what our next move should be.
no subject
You've been here long than I have. Has anything like this happened before, even on a smaller scale?
no subject
But I took apart everything I could get my hands on. Made detailed sketches, figured out how everything was put together and how everything worked. I've got tons of notebooks on everything I disassembled and reassembled...
But here's the thing. Near as I could tell, everything should be working fine. Nothing was out of the ordinary. No messed up wiring, no faulty parts, nothing.
Whatever's doing this, it's taking control of the machines either remotely or...or...I don't even know what else it could be.
no subject
no subject
Unless you know some sort of...techno mage, the best I can do is build. Not command.
no subject
no subject
If they think we're just gonna sit around while everything goes to hell around us...
[He grits his teeth, a low growl escaping his lips.]
People got hurt out there. People lost control of themselves...!
no subject
...I can't imagine that all of these things happening at once could be a coincidence. Do you have any idea who might be responsible for an attack like this? The Flamines, or the Gods, or maybe even CERES themselves...
no subject
[Darin kind of tenses when 'Gods' comes up.]
I don't know. I tend to keep to myself when things like this crop up. I'm better off behind the scenes, supporting people with my wares, than actively taking point.
[Except that's not what he's been doing. He was out there fighting, using his strength and his powers to save people. And when people were exhausted, he was giving them refuge in his workshop. He's taking a much more active role in this than he's admitting.]
no subject
Supporting people with the skills you have is commendable, even if you aren't fighting. As for me, I should probably be out there taking point, but...
[She sighs.]
...everyone has their own reasons for doing things, but whatever the reasons, I still feel like keeping to myself right now makes me a coward.
no subject
Why would you say that? I mean...what can you do?
What can either of us do?
[Darin looks at his hands. His powers...or CERES...was making his body do some weird things. Some powerful things. He's not quite sure what to do with himself. If anything, he's the coward. He should be out there fighting.]
[He could practically hear Dromas mocking him.]
no subject
Ultimately, what I can do depends entirely on what I'm willing to sacrifice to do it.
no subject
I'm not sure I understand...
no subject
...This is just a hypothetical question, but imagine that you could save 100 lives by cutting off your left arm. Do you think you would do it?
no subject
Because I'd rather live with one arm than knowing that I could have done something to save a hundred people.
[He says this with next to no thought whatsoever. It almost seems like he's not even taking it seriously even though he is.]
no subject
What would you do then? How many people would you save?
no subject
...Honestly?
If giving up my body could, in any way save people...? Especially that many...?
No question...I'd do it in a heartbeat.
But I ah...
I guess I have some...special circumstances...
no subject
Your memory of your mother. Of your father. Your friends. Your name. Your reason for fighting.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)