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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ii-a
W-what are you talking about!? Nakigitsune has done nothing wrong!!
no subject
What if it's not Naki that committed these crimes, but...
[ and then, attempting to pry smallest fox off of naki's shoulders. ]
You, mister fox?
no subject
[how is that a solution!!!!! the fox holds onto naki's shoulder for dear life, and naki, too, ignores the policebots in favor of trying to save his fox.
except that means nobody's paying attention to the enemy?]
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[ if naki ever asks what those words are, innocence may die worldwide. but while tsuru's obviously bluffing, the police bots have stopped, bleeping at each other in confusion. they weren't supposed to look for a fox! they were supposed to look for a person! but if they don't know who to capture, they'll capture both.
as the robots rush towards them as fast as their little wheels will take them, tsuru notices — and lets go of smallest fox, yanking on naki's sleeve — urgently. ]
Here, they're coming — we can talk while we run!
no subject
[he's willing to temporarily forget this affront once tsuru lets go though. there's more important things to focus on! like running as fast as they possibly can. and naki does indeed start running, as soon as tsuru gives the signal! just turning right around and running faaaar away from the robots...or trying to, at least. it's a big city going through a robopocalypse, there's probably a lot of obstacles?
also naki's faster than tsuru, right? keep up, keep up!]
Why are those robots so angry...!?
no subject
anyway, at first it's tsurumaru who's tugging naki and smallest fox along; but as they run further, the gap in speed becomes a bit more obvious. he's keeping up just fine (for now), but he's still huffing and puffing, barely hanging in there. ]
Naki, hold on — don't run so fast!
[ but naki's not running fast at all! just faster... but a few of the robots do crash into the rubble left behind by the robopocalypse, though that doesn't thin out their numbers by too many. maybe if naki and tsuru keep going, they'll find something to hide behind! or maybe something to destroy all of the robots in one fell swoop... ]
no subject
also why is tsuru so slow!! naki hops over a crashed scooter, slowing down a little bit as he glances back at his senpai.]
Nakigitsune, Tsurumaru-dono! Try going that way!!
[not that tsuru can tell what he's talking about, but naki turns to head for...ah, it looks like that ice cream shop had an accident with the machines too, because there's a growing puddle of hot fudge spreading out from under the doors....maybe the robots will slip on it?
maybe the swords will slip on it too??]no subject
it looks a little strange, but it's working! ...kind of. his teetering back and forth won't last him too long, but it'll last him for the next few seconds, which he's aware of, so he waves his hands in naki's direction desperately. ]
Naki, Naki! Come here, help me.
[ meanwhile, the robots that make the unfortunate mistake of sliding onto the puddle go zooming off into the distance, their wheels now powered by this slippery hot fudge... if tsuru and naki listen carefully, they'll even be able to hear the robots crash into buildings! for now, their robot problem seems to be taken care of?
but there's a bigger problem before them... ice cream. a lot of ice cream. possibly melting ice cream, but still good ice cream. ]
no subject
though considering this is a giant melting ice cream fudge puddle and not a skating rink or something, it's kind of a lumpy bumpy slippy slidey road.....will they make it out without falling over!?]
no subject
and it's once they're at the edge of the puddle that one of tsurumaru's platforms slides a bit farther than expected... there the ground goes from beneath him, along with a shriek! if he falls, he's far enough out of the puddly area that he won't land in fudge; but on his way down, he's holding onto naki like a lifeline, because if he has to fall, so does naki!! logic!
comrades ride together, die together, and fall together, right? ]
no subject
the fox, meanwhile, actually did slip off and land in the fudge puddle (with a very loud yelp)......somewhere in that chocolatey goo is a chocolatey brown lump of fur, trying his best to enact a chocolate-free escape.]
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but he gently rolls naki over to the side, so that he can get up... only to notice that smallest fox isn't there on his shoulder?! where did smallest fox go?! for now, he decides to let naki know right away (as if naki doesn't already know, because it often seems as if naki and smallest fox share a lifeline)...
just in case, though, he taps naki on the arm — a bit abruptly, but this qualifies for an emergency, right? ]
Hey, Naki — where's your fox?
no subject
.....Can you see him....?
no subject
There's a...
[ well... ]
That's either your fox, or a suspicious chocolate monster.
no subject
fox coughs. that's all the words you're getting for the moment.]
no subject
Did you help yourself to the chocolate while you were there?
no subject
I...not because I wanted to, I [cough] --assure you...!
He doesn't like chocolate.
no subject
Oh.
[ and for a moment, it's just "oh", as he tilts his head to the side. ]
Do foxes not eat chocolate? Or do you just not like how it tastes?
no subject
naki copies tsuru's headtilt.]
Both.
no subject
So if he slipped in strawberry syrup instead of fudge, he'd be alright?
no subject
[fox has groomed all he can! his back is still all chocolatey! naki's hand can only do so much...he shakes himself instead, getting more chocolate on tsuru and naki. but they're already chocolatey, right? so it's fine.
meanwhile, naki tries looking around for those policebots again, just in case. did they all slip and fall and die? it looks like it...]