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}
no subject
This isn't a bad way to look. [ She says, meaning it even if she's also being polite. She turns her head to watch as he goes in for a landing on the roof. ] It's nice to meet you, Oz-san. I'm Chihiro.
[ He's chosen a good location. For better or worse, most the malfunctions are hitting on lower levels. The streets are pure chaos, the sidewalks no better, and the apartments are throwing hissy fits. She guesses she just isn't getting back in anytime soon. ]
That was an impressive leap.
[ .................................... he's a rabbit, maybe that's a given??? She squirms a little, more to get a good look down from where he's landed than anything else. ]
Geez... there is way too much technology messing up around here.
no subject
You think so? [ A hopeful note lingers in his voice briefly as he says that, making sure to keep his hold on her firm but still enough that it's still fairly light and comfortable. Quite a feat when one considers the size of his hands and body overall. ] Chihiro-chan, huh? Nice to meet ya too~
[ He wasn't about to let other innocent people roam the streets when things were this insane. Especially with the crazy beds catapulting people out of their beds like he'd experienced this morning. ]
Thanks!
[ Shifting a bit he leant over a bit so they could look over the edge together, making a bit of a displeased noise in his throat at the sight of the streets below before looking over to her once again. If he could automatically fix things about how he looked now, he would have shot her a smile but hoped the general idea came across nonetheless. ]
Yeah, you're right about that. I'm... still not even used to how this technology even 'works' and then this happens.
no subject
You're welcome.
[ With her attention focused on looking down, she can only give a small shake of her head. ]
I know technology kind of like some of this. I'm not all that great with what they have here now, but if things ever do get more normal again, I'd be glad to help you get used to it, if you don't mind me learning at the same time.
[ She... doesn't know what size he normally is, but it's probably not even bigger. ]
no subject
I don't mind at all. That would actually be really appreciated!
[ Oz can't help but feel quite elated at the idea, his excitement reflected in his eager, happy tone of voice. When he took everything into consideration, having someone help him learn how this stuff worked would be a handy thing to know if he was going to be stuck here for any amount of time. ]
I mean... it might sound crazy but where I'm from? All this technology never existed for me, and this is all a bit much to take in at once when you don't know the first thing about how stuff is supposed to work at all.
no subject
Not too crazy. We come from all different worlds, and even if we share a world, we come from different times. I've met people from the future, some by hundreds of years, and people from the past. There are even people from worlds where it looks like they wouldn't know anything about technology like this, except they know way more than I do.
[ She reaches out to attempt to pat Oz's shoulder, such as she can manage. ]
You're doing better than you expect.
no subject
Knowing that just makes this place even more strange, but it's kind of interesting too. I don't really entirely buy that my world was destroyed, but for now i'll accept it until I know differently.
[ Oz then turned his deep red eyes onto her, surprised by the subtle touch of hers as he wasn't entirely expecting it. ]
Yeah? I just kinda felt lost with everything so far so I really wasn't sure how I was doing... [ He shook his head, tone sheepish and as light as he'd be able to physically manage. ] O-Oh right. You probably want me to put you down, huh? [ He knows it might be awkward or something along those lines, so if it does bother her at all, he doesn't have a problem in setting her down if that was what she wanted. ]
no subject
She'd take pleasant surprises over earthshattering hurts. One is easier to cope with if this becomes a long term situation. ]
I don't mind either way. [ Since he's hardly throwing her around or, aside from initial impressions of sheer size and the depth of his voice, too intimidating. ] But I can stand so you're free to move as you need to. I don't want to slow you down.
[ In case he has to leap into action, as these days are starting to require. ]
You're able to do more than I can to help people right now.
[ Stated factually; there's no resentment or envy in her tone. Chihiro knows she's not equipped to handle this situation on more than a "get through it" basis herself. It's not that she won't help, but she'll help on levels that she can realistically achieve. ]