estoria | //EVENT032.EXE

Entry tags:

//EVENT032.EXE

Who: CERES and associated intellectual property
When: OOC: 8/01 - 8/08, IC: 8/16 - 8/19
Where: Cerealia™
What: PR really was important. Who'd have thought?
Rating/Warning: Currently none! Please let us know if the log heads into R-related territory so we can lock it!

//event032.EXE

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.

//SCENARIOS.EXE

PHASE I

[ 600 ] 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. ]

//RUN.EXE

Welcome to Cerealia's August event! Please visit the OOC information here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. This event will last from 8/01 to 8/08, or IC 8/16 to 8/19. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here. Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Maybe I oughta stick by you in all this mess. Heh, bet you'd love that, huh?

[Of course that's sarcasm, but it's gentle sarcasm. He pulls his hand back, still a little disappointed he's not getting to actually play with the megaphone, but whatever.]

Can you use it as an actual megaphone too? That'd make it even cooler . . . you could walk around saving people while making official-sounding announcements about saving people! Like, stop right there, I'm coming to help!

[He is maybe a little pumped up on relief and adrenaline right now, along with his natural . . . Leonness.]

...Not particularly. Although I'm sure it could be modified to work that way. [ He hasn't really thought about it. Togami kinda expects everyone to listen to him as if he's speaking through a megaphone at all times. Obviously.

He starts walking, investigating the area, expecting Leon to follow. ]

[He does, following along close behind. For a while, he's actually quiet, keeping an ear out for anything and taking in the rather bleak surroundings. He doesn't touch Togami, but he keeps only a short distance between them, because Togami's the guy with the gun, here.

But there was no chance things were going to remain peaceful for long. Of course, after a few unbroken minutes, there's the whiz of another police robot heading right for them from behind. Leon spins on his heel, though Togami probably hears it too, and he's the one who can actually do something about it—

Except there's a police baton flying right for their faces, launched at high speed, as if the robots are determined to show off their own ranged attacks. Luckily, even if Leon doesn't know what to do with robots or hacking guns, he knows what to do with high-speed projectiles flying at his face without having to think much about it: he fists his left hand in the back of Togami's jacket, wrenches him hard out of the way, and lifts his right hand to catch the baton with effortless ease, before winding up and hurling it right back at the approaching robot's head, hard.]

—Man, forget this, let's just get outta here before they keep coming!

[ Togami's already on high alert by the arrival of this police robot, but—unsurprisingly, in retrospect—Leon's reflexes are faster. Togami watches in mild awe as Leon knocks the robot out of commission. Leon's personality being what it is, it's easy to think of him as just a loud idiot (even if he's a loud idiot who is his friend), but he's as SHSL as the rest of them.

He straightens out his suit, mildly flustered. He would consider this an ordinary occurrence coming from someone who actually worked for him. His People are just expected to do this sort of thing, though he's grateful for it. But with Leon, there's a heavier burden of gratitude that he doesn't quite know what to do with. ]

...That would be best.

[ But when he remembers the immediacy of their current situation, he decides to dismiss all of these thoughts in an instant. He can worry about being indebted later, when he has the freedom to. ]

[Of course the baton hits its mark, smashing the robot right in the face and sending sparks flying, though the robot doesn't actually go down; it'd take more than that to kill it dead. But it's time enough to get away. Where to? He has no idea, so he just starts with "away," hanging onto Togami's jacket still for a moment before remembering to let go.]

Where? Let's just get inside somewhere . . .

[ Togami nods, and after a quick survey of their surroundings, he starts dashing off to a nearby building. This one has a manual door and not an automatic one, so not only would it be hard for it to be malfunctioning, but also it's probably easier to barricade shut if necessary. Sure, they'll probably be shutting themselves in with more killer robots, but it will be a finite number that they can take out.

He holds the door open for Leon, looking inside the entryway for things that will work. It appears to be an office building. There are a lot of commercial waiting room chairs and potted plants... ]

We need to block off the entrance.

[He nods, going immediately to grab a couple chairs, because what else would you use? Seems logical. They're light enough for him to carry two at once, but not without considerable effort, and he's got good arms—so they're probably heavy enough to stop the door if they pile up enough of them.]

You see anything coming? I wonder if they saw me comin' out of the CERES tower . . .

[ He lets Leon take care of grabbing the chairs—he can focus his efforts on arranging them to jam the door. He shakes his head slowly as he scans the view, although Leon's continuation makes him pause. ]

Why were you in the CERES tower?

[That works. Assembly line blockade. He hands off the chairs and goes to grab two more, talking while he works.]

I was lookin' for Mosley . . . but he ain't there anymore. They took care of him. Ah, I should probably tell you all that once we're safe in here, huh? I haven't had the chance to tell anyone I talked to him last week . . .

...Yes, tell me further into the building. [ Because he's very curious about this, but he doesn't want to be distracted from the task at hand. Even though they seem to be safe right now, his senses are still on high alert after that close call...

Oh, that's right. If he doesn't address that now, he'll get distracted by this information and then never get around to it. ]

By the way, Kuwata—thank you for taking care of that robot.

[Whoa. That's more surprising than a robot attack. Leon's dragging the chairs over to hand off to Togami, but he pauses and lifts his head to give him a look. Not a bad look. He doesn't even look shocked or anything. But for a moment, he looks—open. Normally he might brag about this, but he's unguarded enough that it slips past that surface reaction.]

. . . Yeah, 'course. What was I gonna do, let it get us? I didn't even really think about it. My body just acted on its own. Besides, you too, right? You got the first one!

[ He shrugs as he reaches up to take the chairs, not really making eye contact before he turns back around to prop them up against the door. ] It is appreciated nevertheless. You refused that being part of your so-called "job description", so it was not something required of you to do.

Just 'cuz it's not part of my "job description" doesn't mean I'd let you get hurt. . . . You need any more?

[He heads back to the area with the chairs, but maybe four is enough—mostly he just lingers over there, peeking back at Togami over his shoulder.]

[ Hmmm. He observes the chairs so far. The door now has one row of chairs locked up against it, but maybe at least one more row of resistance holding it in place... ]

At least two more, I think.

[ He lets the matter of Leon protecting him drop, although it still sits in the corner of his mind as something he'll have to dissect on his own later. ]

[He lugs over two more chairs, handing them off, and then goes to pace around the lobby and make sure they aren't in any immediate robo-danger here. They're not; the lobby they're in is pretty trashed, but there's nothing lingering around in it at the moment.]

We good? So what do we do, stay in here or go in deeper . . . you think there's better cover in there? Or just more robots?

[ He gets a firm base set up, chairs holding the other chairs securely in place, and then finally stands up straight, brushing himself off. ]

There are likely at least some. We just need to find a smaller, empty room with one clear entrance we can keep an eye on.

[He nods, glancing back behind them; there's a hallway off to the left, one to the right, and an elevator, which they probably shouldn't risk, considering.]

You got your magical robot gun?

[He knows that's going to piss Togami off, and says it teasingly.]

I've got a knife, but that's like the most useless thing I can even think of against robots . . . how do you kill a robot? I guess a bat would work pretty good, but I don't exactly carry those around in my pockets!

[ Though he frowns, flat and unimpressed, he holds up the hacking gun as an actual straightforward answer. ]

We could look for a bludgeoning weapon for you if you like. Enough force should suffice to break past its exterior and crush its hardware.

Maybe I could take off a chair leg or somethin' . . . or maybe there's somethin' in one of the other rooms. You ready to cover me?

[Ha ha. He grins back at him, undeterred. He's so funny when he's like that (which is a lot of the time, so good thing Leon likes it).]

Of course. So just follow my lead.

[ That's quite enough standing around and talking. He's going to start finding a suitable room for them to enter. ]

[Leon follows, keeping an eye out for anything coming after them, but there's not much he can do at the moment other than be on alert. Luckily, this place isn't exactly hopping with robots; most of them probably cleared out when everyone evacuated.

Through the door is a hallway with an open lobby at the other end, and a few other closed doors lining each side. Leon glances at Togami once they're in:]

Which way? Just grab the first room we can?

[ He nods. ] I don't see why not. Though, try to pick an internal room that isn't on the edge of the building. We don't want anything coming in through a window.

[He doesn't have a great mental map of this building going on or anything, but at least he can see what windows look like. He doesn't open any of the doors immediately at hand, wandering farther down the hall first, but eventually he comes to a room on a corner of the hallway that doesn't look anywhere near any windows, at least. He puts his hand on the knob—]

Ready? I dunno what's gonna come out!

I'm well aware of the danger. Worry about yourself. [ He levels his hacking gun to point at the door, ready to fire as soon as it's open.

Despite his relatively calm demeanor, this situation isn't exactly pleasant for him. It's uncomfortably reminiscent of the apartment complex at Towa City... But when they're entering an enclosed room, there's probably not much that can be hidden in there. They probably won't be overwhelmed by a swarm of robots, like happened that time. Probably. ]

[He makes a brief face at Togami, then swings the door open, stepping back.

Luckily, it's not a swarm of robots. There's only one that was in this room, a cleaning bot, and it doesn't even launch itself at them or anything; it's bumping crazily around the room, but it takes a good moment for its sensors to pick up that the two are even there in the doorway, which is plenty of head start to shoot it dead.]

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