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Utopia

Started by Scribbly, April 16, 2006, 11:22:43 PM

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Scribbly

Now gather round children, and listen to the story that I have to tell. My time is growing near, and I greatly fear that before this night is done, my life shall finally end. I could be wrong, though, for it may not yet be my time to go. It may merely be my time to... pass on.

Oh quiet down, I'm not dead yet, and I need silence for the tale I shall weave, you have heard many of my stories, but you have never heard of the most important one. I have kept it to myself down the years, for there are those out there still that would rather see me dead than hear me speak of it. But now I feel my light fading... there seems little point in hiding it any more, the truth must be heard.

Our tale begins nearly two hundred years ago, at the bleakest point in humanities long and sordid history, a mere fifty years after the great Corporate wars, the GAIA corporation had risen from the ashes of its rivals, had plundered their technologies, and was the last remaining company in existence... of course, you know that, what you don't know is what it was like back then... the sky, ah, the sky was a purple as deep as any bruise, and-- yes, child, I do speak as if I were there, I was... so long ago now, but hush, I digress, and my time- as I have mentioned- is rapidly running out...

-----------------------------------

The mans name was Trione, he had never known anything but that which the Corporation fed him, he never needed to know more, he was happy and content. Everyone was happy and content, who couldn't be, with Utopia so close?

He rose each morning, brushed his teeth, had a nutritious bowl of SoySludge, looked out the window to check that the building opposite had not collapsed. It had collapsed twice in his lifetime, each time he had picked up the Reciever, informed the woman on the end of the line, and bots had arrived to put the building, and the people inside, back together. The Giver would then reward hiim with an extra bowl of SoySludge.

Once the morning routine had been finished, he would don the helmet to Utopia in the corner, and there he would spend the rest of his day.

Utopia was the finest Virtual Reality the world had ever known, more than three million square miles of virtual earth, full tactile interface, and over two hundred million different skills, spells, items, jobs and guilds to join, learn, experience, create and enjoy! Every day, every human (or so he believed) would log in, and, well, play. It was the job of every man, woman and child to play the game, gather the gold, do the job and live the virtual life. In return the Corporation would ensure that the bots ran.

The bots ran every facet of human life, they made the buildings, they kept people healthy, they made the food, they tracked down and killed the hackers.

Ah yes, the hackers, the most hated of all the people in the world, hackers were a constant threat in Utopia, they modified their Utopia-system-interface, they altered Utopia itself to gain unfair advantages! Thank the Corporation that the Immortals would always be there to stand against the Hackers in the System as surely as the Bots would hunt them down and destroy them outside of it! All hail the Immortals!

Trione had only seen an Immortal once, the same time he had seen a Hacker, it had been glorious. The Hacker was clad in glowing green armor, ghostly and ethereal, ordinary weapons and spells couldn't have touched him, and his body regrew every hack of the Immortals weapon almost instantaneously.
The Immortal was a tall man, some seven feet of pure muscle, feathery white angels wings grew from the back of his golden breastplate, and he was literally aglow with Divine power. But... the hacker seemed to have the upper hand, for as the battle wore on, the Immortals wounds grew greater whilst the hackers diminished...
Until the hacker literally burst into flames and vanished with a scream, the Bots had finished tracing his address, and had disposed of him.

Trione enjoyed that battle, it was fun to watch, and although he recieved half rations that day- he had not met his Gold quota- he privately thought it was worth it.

However, Trione was in for something of a shock one day, for as he was preparing to log in to Utopia, his back wall exploded in a fiery blast of stone shards and flame. In the ragged hole was a class IV drone- a hulking mechanical creature that towered over the pale, naked form of Trione like an elephant over an ant.

The construct was made of shining steel, armor plates locking over every section of its body, it was a device fuelled by mysterious means, that was taken to be the will of GAIA wherever it was seen, glowing red visual sensors and a vaguely humanoid shape kept it looking human enough that those it interacted with were able to register it as such, though the viciously sharp edges to the machine ensured that, subconsciously, they recognized it as a figure of authority- everything from its jerking movements to the buzzing of electricity that hummed on the air around it ensured that its aura of authority was never broken for a second.

"TRIONE. CLASS 1 POD SLAVE. CORRECT?" The machine buzzed harshly.
"Yes Drone, I am Trione." He replied congenially, "I fear there had been a mistake, for I did not call for a drone."
"CORRECT CLASS 1 POD SLAVE. YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF HACKING WITH INTENT TO DESTABILIZE UTOPIA. YOUR SENTENCE IS DEATH. HOW DO YOU PLEAD?"

Trione seemed confused by this, "If you have already found me guilty... does it mat--" He began, almost instantly the machine sprouted two tentacles from its side, each bearing a menacing, glowing, spear-like tip,

"ANSWER THE QUESTION CLASS 1 POD SLAVE. HOW DO YOU PLEAD? GUILTY OF HACKING WITH INTENT TO DESTABILIZE UTOPIA, OR GUILTY OF QUESTIONING THE AUTHORITY OF GAIA TO POLICE ITS CITIZENS?"

Trione was flabbergasted, this was insane! He had never dreamed of hacking before, and he would never question the Machine, who would? The Machine proided him with everything!

"ANSWER THE QUESTION CLASS 1 POD SLAVE."

"ANSWER THE QUESTION CLASS 1 POD SLAVE."

"ANSWER THE QUESTION CLASS 1 POD SLAVE."

"REGISTERED ADMISSION OF GUILT. CLASS 1 POD SLAVE WILL BE EX--- EXT---EXTERM--"

The machine stumbled to a halt, the glow of its eyes dying, the tentacles falling to the ground as whatever mysterious force was keeping it going died. The entire construction toppled forward, revealing the reason for its sudden end- a large pole jutted from the back of the constructions head. Behind it was a rather attractive young woman, clad in form fitting black leather, with fiery red hair and eyes to match that exciting shade. Quite the opposite to the pale, bald, naked features of Trione.
"What happened?" He asked, clearly confused and scared by the sudden turn of events.
"Simple." Replied the woman, "Someone set you up the bomb."
I had an existential crisis and all I got was this stupid gender.

East Coast Hustle

Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

Scribbly

Part 2: Heroes and Heroines! (I'm bored and this is actually quite fun to write!)

Trione awoke some hours later, apparently having passed out after the somewhat traumatic events. He looked around the darkness, for that was what it was, darkness. And then he found himself blinded by the sudden harsh intrusion of a bright, buzzing electric light. He winced and looked away, at the sound asleep figure of the woman who had rescued him, he blinked slowly.... and then looked down at himself. He was in a bed, a nice one by the looks of it, and he was clad in a very stylish t-shirt and jean combo, he looked up again, now his eyes were adjusting to the light. The room was made of steel, which was rather odd in itself, and apart from the comfy bed and the electric light that illuminated it, there was nothing else there.

Well, almost nothing, in the doorway was the person responsible for turning on the light, a man almost as weedy and undernourished as Trione himself, the man had pale watery blue eyes, and judging from the barely-shaven, sunken eyed and yellow-toothed face, not to mention the unidentifiable stains down his shirt and pants, this was either a junkie, or one of the people who really, really -worked- Utopia.

Trione was no slouch, he did his bit for the good of the Corporation, but he never really threw himself at the game, what was the point? The only reward would be fame, and he didn't want to be hounded by Newbies, he could do without that, but some people really craved that top spot, and to get it usually meant sacrificing luxuries like sleep and personal hygiene in favor of more hours in the virtual world that they so loved.

"Hey dude! Heh, sorry I bought some heat down on your pad, you know, sometimes a guy just gotta get out 'fore the Imms getcha, ya dig?"

The mans voice had that nasal quality to it, the kind of high pitched whine that is associated with the kind of person who bathes maybe once a month, brushes their teeth even less, but really, really enjoys standing too close to you, and breathing really hard when you are standing in a long line.

"What are you talking about?" Trione asked groggily, getting up from the bed... though there was a moments hesitation there, as the thought occured that he was getting up and leaving the side of the beautiful woman who had saved him to talk better with this... well, he assumed it was a human.

"Well dude I had to run some shit through your account, you know, to buy time, and I didn't have time to clean up the tracks 'fore the heat came down, you know, no worries though right? 'cause I got us round to your place before the real bad guys could get us."

Trione just... stared, yes, this was definitely the look of a man who was a hacker, and considering the attire of the woman in his bed (not to mention how easy it had been to get her in bed) she was pretty much the stereotype of the hardcore action chick. He'd seen a couple of movies in his youth, before they had been banned, he knew how this went...

"Let me guess..." He asks slowly, "We are currently in some kind of vehicle, hurtling along at an incredible pace, probably in a sewer network or the like?"

The newcomer nodded quickly, "That's amazing, that is our exact situation! And pretty soon we'll get to our secret underground base, and then you'll find that the wool has been pulled over your eyes, and everything you eve--" Trione waved his hand to get the guy to shut up.
"And let me guess, you are the big hacker on this ship, and your name is something like Snip or Click?"
"Actually I'm called Snap,. this is amazing, how do you know this, are you some ki--" Again Trione waved to get him to shut up.

"Now... let me get this straight, you were too fucking incompetant to do some hacking... thing without getting traced to me, and this woman burst into a housing unit, and broke a BOT with a POLE... are you telling me that you did all that without getting tracked, when you couldn't even manage to stop me getting blamed in the first place?"

No sooner had Trione pointed this out, then the entire room lurched uncomfortably, a dull boom echoing up from below, and a red light started to flash whilst a siren blared. God. Even the warning system was horribly stereotyped. How stupid could these people be!? Any moment now half a dozen Bots would surge up through the hole in whatever stupid ship they had, and would slaughter everyone on board. And it was all because this idiot had enjoyed one too many stupid bloody Matrix reruns!

The woman sat bolt upright at the sirens blare, and Snap had just about enough time to open his mouth in protest before Trione hit him in the face, very, very hard.
I had an existential crisis and all I got was this stupid gender.

Shibboleet The Annihilator

Quote from: Kai Wren
"What happened?" He asked, clearly confused and scared by the sudden turn of events.
"Simple." Replied the woman, "Someone set you up the bomb."