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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no subject
Your bed threw you on the floor? [Why, yes, she might sound incredulous, not that she doesn't believe you of course.] Um... why?
no subject
I'm going to guess that everything electronic in the house is going berserk again. Can you get this thing off me? I can't get any leverage.
no subject
Again? This happened before? I didn't notice anything weird on my way here.
no subject
This happens with alarming regularity. Whenever something goes wrong with CERES, the technology goes on the fritz. I advise against touching your CEREVice, stay away from Lacus, and don't use anything in the kitchen that's electric.
[From out in the kitchen, there's a shaking sound, a bit like a fridge on the move.]
Hell. It's started already.
no subject
[Fridge, please go back to where you belong. No one wants to be squashed by 400 pounds of metal and plastic.]
We should get dressed and get Usagi out of here. I think we can make it if we move fast enough.
no subject
There's an impact against the door, several metal thunks as...]
The blender just came at my face.
no subject
We can't just leave Usagi out there. Do you think we can go along the outside to her room?
so we don't end up in a three way thread
She's not home. Her presence isn't here. She probably went to school on time.
[Which means...]
We need to worry about ourselves for now, she can manage on her own.
Good plan
Okay. [Not that she doubts Rei's abilities to sense Usagi and the others for a second.] Going back out there is a bad idea, but that leaves us with only one option. The window. And it's not like we live on the bottom floor...
no subject
Simple. We transform and fly away?
[They'd been able to fly since the very beginning, with some exertion. Jupiter may not have been as fast as Mars, or as nimble as Mercury, but getting clear shouldn't be a problem.]
no subject
I haven't transformed since I got here. I... Do many people know about us then? Have you had to do it often?
no subject
A...good many people have seen a senshi transformation, yes.
[She starts towards the window, already shifting into her white-booted Eternal form.]
I've had to do it with some regularity. And some close friends know my identity.
no subject
So, no need to hide my identity while we're here.
[Because if enough know Rei is Mars, it's only logical that the others have similar identities. She wastes no time transforming into Super Sailor Jupiter and joining Mars.]
You first. I'll follow.
no subject
[Hiding who she is from him would be hard because of that. Still, now that she's changed she opens the window and hops out into the morning air.]
We can probably hit the roof and see what's happening around the city.
no subject
[Once Mars is out the with Dow, Jupiter wants no time in joining her, the roof hrr first stop as she looks at the chaos going on out in the city.]
I don't know if it's reassuring to see that we're not alone in our technological trouble. I mean, CERES is supposed to be a huge company in charge of everything, right?
Dem phone corrections.
[Goddess of War and Flame and all that.
Drifting downward, Mars moves to the next building over, a smaller apartment complex, hovering a pace off the roof]
And yes, you've got the right of it. CERES oversees Cerealia. Everything they've worked on is probably going berserk. That's happened more than once.
Why didn't you tell me? /sob
[Jupiter follows at a more sedate pace, trying to make sure that they aren't being stalked by anything questionable.]
There is something wrong if it happens like that often enough. They should fire whomever is in charge of all this technology.
Comedy.
[Which is quite the thing.]
And you know I think they did. Mosley was sacked this morning. But I'm not entirely sure that was his entire job description.
Terrible friend is you. </3
[Because where else would you put a castle for the Goddess/Guardian of Thunder and Lightning but a storm cluster?!]
I guess that would do it. That lady didn't sound like she was best pleased with him anyway. I keep hearing about this Mosley guy, what did he do?
no subject
[Jupiter is a gas giant...]
Mosley is strange. He worked for CERES in their PR department. But he was ostensibly our liason. He sometimes helped us out, saved us in the jungle, and did a lot of other things.
He's been working against CERES sometimes, doing things that they won't like. We're not sure why.
no subject
[Shhhh, don't judge. She knows Jupiter is a gas giant. Sort of. She pays attention to parts of science classes.]
So, he was basically going against orders to help the people brought here and his bosses got tired of it? Or do you think they fired him after he set this all into motion?
no subject
Yes, that's right. He was doing a few things, and has done things, that help our cause. [A beat.]
And as for that, my theory is that this might be retaliation for his actions. I don't think he'd set something this actively hostile into motion on his own. It's too chaotic and random.
no subject
Unless you're a superhero from Outer Space. DETAILS!]So, you think that his bosses are doing this to teach us a lesson about accepting help from radicals? What about the natives of this world? I've seen them around here. Do they get mixed up in all of this crazy stuff too or is it just us that get the special treatment?
no subject
[Rei smiles somewhat vaguely.]
The people here who aren't like us, Code-Created, are all from other worlds and came here willingly. They're travelers from space. They're just like us though.
The actual natives live out in the jungle with the elemental spirits that they worship as gods.