11-29-2022, 05:08 AM
A sleek, gleaming ship of white metal soared high above the clouds of Planet Denver. A pilot, clearly unhinged with his own driving, carried himself around the small clusters of astonishingly low traffic out of the small coverage the pearlescent clouds could provide, by quickly descending in altitude, until a fallen titan of steel and glass emerged from the view of his second-hand cockpit. What unfolded before the pilot was the major living center of Crichton Springs, the second beating heart of Liberty, entirely ran by big name corpos and rich bastards with too much cred on their hands. Bustling, crooked skyscrapers and almost unexplainable architecture of glass made in the name of modern art along with rotund steel domes sprawled around Washington District, some of them were casting holo-commercials well above the confines of the clouds, transmitting advertisements about Synth Paste to God himself. Thousands, if not perhaps millions of people were trying to enjoy their daily commutes down there in peace, tiny specks of yellow and white lights swarming from the heart of Washington by moving through the cornerstone Pueblo Plaza, the second biggest monument to capitalism ever conceived after Sunbucks and the Liberty Police, Incorporated. The reckless pilot did not reserve even the slightest hint of disdain for that capitalistic inferno before him, and advanced through the bee swarms of spacers heading out of orbit.
“Denver… second best overall inhabited planet in all of Liberty, they say. No thanks to you corpo people for making it so damn popular all of a sudden.”
The reckless Jackdaw pilot mumbled things to himself, spiraling through the skies with his gleaming U-shaped vessel, with a single destination in mind, amidst the swarms of hovercrafts and space freighters zooming past him in a bit of a disorderly fashion. There were indeed quite a few bee lines of spacers and non-spacers taking the imaginary air highways as to not anger the ever-watchful LPI, ready to fine you for even flying a little too close to someone a little too important. The sheer numbers made for a very interesting and rich tapestry of individuals and ships with their own ways to go about flying a spaceship. It was a bit of a curious sight to see Stork transports immediately followed by a wing of Patriots, followed again by an entire Oasis liner taking off to orbit.
After narrowly avoiding causing several incidents, the reckless pilot re-engaged his accursed autopilot systems to navigate his ship over a designated landing pad zone in Grant Street – sure, they’re going to suck him dry for every penny for choosing a rooftop landing spot that's usually designated for corpos and other VIPs, but the last job he did for that Bounty Hunter fool provided him with more than enough to care about these kinds of blasphemous fees.
The pilot turned off the decadent decade-old twin-H-Fuel injectors, and removed his terrifically advanced spacer helmet adorned with several wires and at least two dozen chips strapped all around its cheeks and connecting back to the rest of the spacer suit for enhanced controls and G force stabilizers, serving as doppelgangers for the augs he chose not to have embedded in his flesh.
A thin lined, clean shaven face with pale blue eyes emerged from it, revealing frazzled brown hair reaching well beyond the tip of his nose. He wasn't supposed to bring around Technocracy tech on his person for these kinds of personal reckless things, but changing into a secondary suit free of all its comfy accoutrements just for a single day visit felt a little pointless.
The helmet presented opaque materials for its base. Disconnecting it disabled the glowing aquamarine inner-visor that would automatically regulate the intake of light he would often look at while in space.
His eyes became quite sensitive after a dreadful expedition, and the light became the one thing his damaged eyes couldn't handle fairly well anymore. After holding the bridge of his nose in frustration with a sigh, he reached for what appeared to be a small cubical visor with hinges and straps that were built for prolonged use and comfort, and would provide him with much needed information regarding his location, creds at his disposal, along with some brief background checks of some of the more notorious individuals he would come across. As a Technocrat, he was most definitely on an LSF watchlist, and attention was among one of the things he did not need.
He began to think, consulting a more rational part of himself he often refused to listen to. The one that was objective and pragmatic, the one that left little to no room for his wild emotions he is often asked to not feel. A voice that was beginning to take on a more eerily feminine and stern tone after each encounter with Kimiko Hawkins, or whatever was left of her.
Mmmh. I remember that optic procedure I'm supposed to go through with. But I'm a little afraid of having my eyeball sliced open like a melon.
Does it look like I'm functioning properly in any capacity right now?
I'm not afraid. I just want Raven to stop being such a tight ass about it.
She won't care if I'm going to die tomorrow. She will probably only find it bothersome because her dearest husband died here, so she'll have to bury me right next to him.
...I'm not afraid. Just shut up. I don't want to talk to myself like I'm Caliban.
The Technocrat sighed, and activated the visor on his face with the flick of a button in the left side.
All he could see in that display of the light-regulating lined lenses was a portrait of himself on the bottom left of the visual interface, a real and proper idiot named Lazurith, also known as Kristoff Avellone, the wise-ass problematic science officer who only caused consternation for everyone around him. Just like Raven, in a way. In that portrait on the bottom right, next to various bits of information, there was his neutral expression, his eyes buried under the plasteel cover of the visor.
Sickening.
I am an embarrassment to everyone. I should have died in that cell.
I am trying.
The man shoved away the pricey helmet on the grime-stained khaki floor, with little care or effort for it. They were built to endure impacts, anyways. Before opening the dingy door to access the backdoor of the ship, he took a minute to inspect his own attire to roll up the sleeves on his coat, revealing veiny arms that presented small rectangular silver straps of some kind grafted on each of his wrists, emitting a faint green light from the center. The silvery things extended far-reaching mechanisms that burrowed deep inside the length of his arms. Initially, those wrist augs were built to enhance his typing speed and nullify shaky hands for precise movements during on-site repairs, but ever since he had an incident his previous auxiliary augs failed catastrophically, causing a brutal hemorrhage he almost failed to survive. Now, they were essential for him, as without them he was unable to keep up with the complex works he had to perform in order to keep up with everyone else in the Technocracy.
More and more bits of his body became mutilated and slowly replaced by carbonated steel.
With a sigh of lament for his deplorable life, he opened the Jackdaw's bulkhead to walk outside, making his way past the prettier looking CTE-6000s and the shiny Falchions with Synth-Paste logos plastered all over them. The marine air was fresh. The sun of Denver was setting on the horizon, falling under the mesmerizing ocean of gray waves in the distance. The beelines of ships and freighters were still well above the sky, crisscrossing and zipping all over the place at high speeds, just like the hoverbikes and hovercars below, the distant fresh breeze from the mountains sweeping his ruffled hair even further, making his coat undulate in the wind.
Beaches, waves and babes.
I loved riding my hoverbike above the ocean. I could have died at literally any moment, because plutonium engines and sea water don't go well together. And I never felt more alive.
The warm moment of nostalgia and longing for better days was quickly interrupted, as an almost comedic duo of Police corporate officers appeared from the elevator room's huge foyer area. They were both looking sharp and dandy while smoking white cigarettes. Their long blue navy coats and their obnoxiously blue Liberty-police-for-hire hats certainly helped with making the men look the part.
The duo were looking right at the newcomer as they walked to approach him, clearly noticing he wasn't a big suit corpo landing his pricey spacecraft, but instead a rather ragged looking thin boy with a funny looking visor.
Two LPI officers approaching him wouldn't be such a problem if only he was not on Liberty's wanted list for terrorism among countless other charges. Fear began to take root inside his guts.
“Hey, kid. Are you lost? The lot for you corpo escort people is over there in that building. This area here is for executives only.”
The disgustingly bearded fat balding officer grasping an orange cigarette between his fat lips pointed his fat finger to another building in the distance, about as tall as the skyscraper they were on, but a little bigger and full of ships and vehicles swarming all over it like flies.
No. I'm not going to run away now.
He was not going to let that stand. Not after being so close to home. Not after suffering for so long. Not after risking his neck time and time again. Not after surviving the Sentinels, Alcatraz and the end of Valentine's patience.
He clenched his fist, his blood rushing in every finger. His nails began to burrow in his fist as he approached the meaty officer. He was ready to completely erase his jaw for bossing him around like everyone else in his life. Officer skinny put a hand on his holster to reach for his aptly-named Defender Kemwer-type G7 pistol.
"I have paid the ticket. Leave me alone."
"Oh, "behave" you say. What's next, are you going to call me a Zoner co-operator? A terrorist, maybe? For doing nothing other than PAYING for my ticket?! Check your database, please. My ship's entry is there. End of story, let me go."
"Okay, okay. Let's... take a step back please. My... mom told me I could stay at her parking spot. She told me I could, um... benefit from SF employee-relative privileges. I'll pay you extra, just let me go."
With a sigh, the chubby officer looked at him with a tired, almost bothered and human look in his small eyes.
"Tha-thank you, sir."
After jotting some things on a pad mounted on a small fingerless gauntlet, the officers stepped aside to let him go. But a darker feeling began to churn inside him, as he ran his way in the elevator. He slumped on his backside, whimpering down the ride, as the tears he could no longer hold back began to pour down like rain.
I-I had to lie. About Olivia...
I miss her a lot. She was the only one who ever cared about me when she lived with us.
I-I can't. I'll never be able to accomplish anything meaningful like this.
...
He reminisced about his mother, and the simple life he had lived with the rest of his family. Charlie was brutish and headstrong, his father was vicious but rational, and her mom was doting if not a little hypocritical every now and then, but still tried her best in life, regardless of her inability to use her legs. But he loved them all the same, for all their terrible flaws. He was lucky to have a family, and a wealthy one at that. His dad worked in a relatively elevated position at a comfy little office working for Universal on Trenton, flying transports on occasion to meet up with DSE reps on Pittsburgh. Her mom worked in a hospital on Denver. Cryer paid good money to have both of her children's lives under the safety of an insurance along with monetary compensation.
However, this did not last long. Olivia contracted a dizzying fever one day, and she went into a terrible coma for several days. Charlie didn't know what to do.
Kris was heartbroken.
Her insurance fees could not cover the treatments for her disease.
And even if they could, it was far too late for her.
He couldn't remember much of what happened, even though he was a lad of twenty at the time. She passed away, with nothing he could do to help her.
Dusk soon approached. The relatively scarce fleet of spaceships and hovering vehicles began to re-populate the skies and the roads of night-time Crichton at a quick pace. Crossing the streets turned from a hazard into literally impossible without being run over a couple of dozen times in the span of a second, so reaching Charlie's apartment on foot like he used to is not an option.
After contacting the nearest unmanned taxi vehicle he could afford through the net, he lit up a cigarette from his breast pocket, taking dregs as the nearby vehicles zoomed past him. The fact he was wearing a visor in public might've attracted the wrong crowd, but it was a risk he was willing to take, all for the sakes of reaching out to his folks in person.
The cab ride that followed was nothing short of unnerving – nearly everything he had lived through as a child while on the Crichton streets completely changed in the ridiculously short span of three years. Old mega malls giving room to new smaller ones owned by Interspace, defunct stores giving room to more apartment buildings to sustain the constant influx of the wealthy looking forward to having a cozy house near the beach on Denver. Opulent streets becoming more and more fattened by luxury and unregulated capitalist hedonism, which would crudely blend with Crichton’s more subtle undesirables and crooks roaming the streets – Xenos, Rogues and maybe even some maskers lurking around the tighter alleys.
Hemlocke's cohorts could be watching.
I am everything he hates. I'm nothing but worthless scum in his eyes. If he ever sees me, he won't hesitate to kill me.
I don't care. One day, he will find me. And he can fucking decapitate me for all I care.
...
He quickly dismissed the conversation with his conscience, and allowed the unmanned vehicle to ferry him around town.
The scenery around him was rather nostalgic. There were happy families walking in unison with tall jacketed thugs who most definitely concealed guns and other goods in there. The good blending with bad, as the watchful Police roamed the streets with heavy riot gear and gaudy looking plasma and laser weapons, ranging from assault rifles to high-caliber shoulder rifles. Everyone was incredibly ruffled after the kerfuffle in Erie, and these officers were no exception.
After exiting the cab, an overwhelmingly tall apartment building made of marbled art intertwined with khaki steel beams appeared before him. Artsy metal statues representing overly simplified men striking different Olympic poses above multiple fountains were adorning the entrance, something horribly gaudy but undeniably satisfying to look at.
He could've easily sent them a message on the holo, he could've even sent a letter, an audio file. Anything.
But he chose to show his reviled face to his folks for one last time.
“Denver… second best overall inhabited planet in all of Liberty, they say. No thanks to you corpo people for making it so damn popular all of a sudden.”
The reckless Jackdaw pilot mumbled things to himself, spiraling through the skies with his gleaming U-shaped vessel, with a single destination in mind, amidst the swarms of hovercrafts and space freighters zooming past him in a bit of a disorderly fashion. There were indeed quite a few bee lines of spacers and non-spacers taking the imaginary air highways as to not anger the ever-watchful LPI, ready to fine you for even flying a little too close to someone a little too important. The sheer numbers made for a very interesting and rich tapestry of individuals and ships with their own ways to go about flying a spaceship. It was a bit of a curious sight to see Stork transports immediately followed by a wing of Patriots, followed again by an entire Oasis liner taking off to orbit.
After narrowly avoiding causing several incidents, the reckless pilot re-engaged his accursed autopilot systems to navigate his ship over a designated landing pad zone in Grant Street – sure, they’re going to suck him dry for every penny for choosing a rooftop landing spot that's usually designated for corpos and other VIPs, but the last job he did for that Bounty Hunter fool provided him with more than enough to care about these kinds of blasphemous fees.
The pilot turned off the decadent decade-old twin-H-Fuel injectors, and removed his terrifically advanced spacer helmet adorned with several wires and at least two dozen chips strapped all around its cheeks and connecting back to the rest of the spacer suit for enhanced controls and G force stabilizers, serving as doppelgangers for the augs he chose not to have embedded in his flesh.
A thin lined, clean shaven face with pale blue eyes emerged from it, revealing frazzled brown hair reaching well beyond the tip of his nose. He wasn't supposed to bring around Technocracy tech on his person for these kinds of personal reckless things, but changing into a secondary suit free of all its comfy accoutrements just for a single day visit felt a little pointless.
The helmet presented opaque materials for its base. Disconnecting it disabled the glowing aquamarine inner-visor that would automatically regulate the intake of light he would often look at while in space.
His eyes became quite sensitive after a dreadful expedition, and the light became the one thing his damaged eyes couldn't handle fairly well anymore. After holding the bridge of his nose in frustration with a sigh, he reached for what appeared to be a small cubical visor with hinges and straps that were built for prolonged use and comfort, and would provide him with much needed information regarding his location, creds at his disposal, along with some brief background checks of some of the more notorious individuals he would come across. As a Technocrat, he was most definitely on an LSF watchlist, and attention was among one of the things he did not need.
He began to think, consulting a more rational part of himself he often refused to listen to. The one that was objective and pragmatic, the one that left little to no room for his wild emotions he is often asked to not feel. A voice that was beginning to take on a more eerily feminine and stern tone after each encounter with Kimiko Hawkins, or whatever was left of her.
Mmmh. I remember that optic procedure I'm supposed to go through with. But I'm a little afraid of having my eyeball sliced open like a melon.
You need it to function properly, Kristoff. No harm will come to you. They know each ligament of the human body, every single clue abut each protein bond is stored safely within their archives. They cannot fail. Do not be afraid.
Does it look like I'm functioning properly in any capacity right now?
As long as you are with them, they will help you with anything. Union in strength.
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
I'm not afraid. I just want Raven to stop being such a tight ass about it.
She cares about you. She wants you to be better.
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
She won't care if I'm going to die tomorrow. She will probably only find it bothersome because her dearest husband died here, so she'll have to bury me right next to him.
There is always someone who cares. You must simply seek them out. I know your hurdle well, little one.
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
...I'm not afraid. Just shut up. I don't want to talk to myself like I'm Caliban.
He has an entire consciousness in his brain.
But I am different.
I am you, and you talk to me when you need my help.
But I am different.
I am you, and you talk to me when you need my help.
The Technocrat sighed, and activated the visor on his face with the flick of a button in the left side.
All he could see in that display of the light-regulating lined lenses was a portrait of himself on the bottom left of the visual interface, a real and proper idiot named Lazurith, also known as Kristoff Avellone, the wise-ass problematic science officer who only caused consternation for everyone around him. Just like Raven, in a way. In that portrait on the bottom right, next to various bits of information, there was his neutral expression, his eyes buried under the plasteel cover of the visor.
Sickening.
You are a normal human being. You're only focusing to their critiques.
I am an embarrassment to everyone. I should have died in that cell.
Don't be sorry for yourself. Be better. Learn, and improve.
I am trying.
The man shoved away the pricey helmet on the grime-stained khaki floor, with little care or effort for it. They were built to endure impacts, anyways. Before opening the dingy door to access the backdoor of the ship, he took a minute to inspect his own attire to roll up the sleeves on his coat, revealing veiny arms that presented small rectangular silver straps of some kind grafted on each of his wrists, emitting a faint green light from the center. The silvery things extended far-reaching mechanisms that burrowed deep inside the length of his arms. Initially, those wrist augs were built to enhance his typing speed and nullify shaky hands for precise movements during on-site repairs, but ever since he had an incident his previous auxiliary augs failed catastrophically, causing a brutal hemorrhage he almost failed to survive. Now, they were essential for him, as without them he was unable to keep up with the complex works he had to perform in order to keep up with everyone else in the Technocracy.
More and more bits of his body became mutilated and slowly replaced by carbonated steel.
With a sigh of lament for his deplorable life, he opened the Jackdaw's bulkhead to walk outside, making his way past the prettier looking CTE-6000s and the shiny Falchions with Synth-Paste logos plastered all over them. The marine air was fresh. The sun of Denver was setting on the horizon, falling under the mesmerizing ocean of gray waves in the distance. The beelines of ships and freighters were still well above the sky, crisscrossing and zipping all over the place at high speeds, just like the hoverbikes and hovercars below, the distant fresh breeze from the mountains sweeping his ruffled hair even further, making his coat undulate in the wind.
Beaches, waves and babes.
You loved it here, didn't you.
I loved riding my hoverbike above the ocean. I could have died at literally any moment, because plutonium engines and sea water don't go well together. And I never felt more alive.
But we both know why you had to abandon this dreamland.
The warm moment of nostalgia and longing for better days was quickly interrupted, as an almost comedic duo of Police corporate officers appeared from the elevator room's huge foyer area. They were both looking sharp and dandy while smoking white cigarettes. Their long blue navy coats and their obnoxiously blue Liberty-police-for-hire hats certainly helped with making the men look the part.
The duo were looking right at the newcomer as they walked to approach him, clearly noticing he wasn't a big suit corpo landing his pricey spacecraft, but instead a rather ragged looking thin boy with a funny looking visor.
Two LPI officers approaching him wouldn't be such a problem if only he was not on Liberty's wanted list for terrorism among countless other charges. Fear began to take root inside his guts.
“Hey, kid. Are you lost? The lot for you corpo escort people is over there in that building. This area here is for executives only.”
The disgustingly bearded fat balding officer grasping an orange cigarette between his fat lips pointed his fat finger to another building in the distance, about as tall as the skyscraper they were on, but a little bigger and full of ships and vehicles swarming all over it like flies.
You should turn back. There are better places to park your ship.
No. I'm not going to run away now.
Stubborn child.
He was not going to let that stand. Not after being so close to home. Not after suffering for so long. Not after risking his neck time and time again. Not after surviving the Sentinels, Alcatraz and the end of Valentine's patience.
He clenched his fist, his blood rushing in every finger. His nails began to burrow in his fist as he approached the meaty officer. He was ready to completely erase his jaw for bossing him around like everyone else in his life. Officer skinny put a hand on his holster to reach for his aptly-named Defender Kemwer-type G7 pistol.
"I have paid the ticket. Leave me alone."
"No dice, kid. This is for executives only. Turn around or we will notify Central and press charges. Behave, and take your ship off this landing pad."
"Oh, "behave" you say. What's next, are you going to call me a Zoner co-operator? A terrorist, maybe? For doing nothing other than PAYING for my ticket?! Check your database, please. My ship's entry is there. End of story, let me go."
"Mackleberg, contact HQ. We have a 10-66 at Crichton Springs, send your location--"
"Okay, okay. Let's... take a step back please. My... mom told me I could stay at her parking spot. She told me I could, um... benefit from SF employee-relative privileges. I'll pay you extra, just let me go."
With a sigh, the chubby officer looked at him with a tired, almost bothered and human look in his small eyes.
"Just pay your extra creds. Go see your momma or whatever, kid. And take off that holo-band, you look stupid as hell."
"Tha-thank you, sir."
After jotting some things on a pad mounted on a small fingerless gauntlet, the officers stepped aside to let him go. But a darker feeling began to churn inside him, as he ran his way in the elevator. He slumped on his backside, whimpering down the ride, as the tears he could no longer hold back began to pour down like rain.
Why are you weeping, little one.
I-I had to lie. About Olivia...
I'm sure that no matter where she's watching from, she is definitely proud of you for pulling that stunt.
I miss her a lot. She was the only one who ever cared about me when she lived with us.
Then make her proud by living. High and mighty. Keep your chin up. If not for her, do it for Aspen. She needs your help.
I-I can't. I'll never be able to accomplish anything meaningful like this.
A mother will always be proud of her child. Forever, and always.
It doesn't matter what you did, or what you failed to accomplish.
If she were here, you would have her support.
No matter what.
Charles will never feel the affection she gave you.
Be proud.
It doesn't matter what you did, or what you failed to accomplish.
If she were here, you would have her support.
No matter what.
Charles will never feel the affection she gave you.
Be proud.
...
He reminisced about his mother, and the simple life he had lived with the rest of his family. Charlie was brutish and headstrong, his father was vicious but rational, and her mom was doting if not a little hypocritical every now and then, but still tried her best in life, regardless of her inability to use her legs. But he loved them all the same, for all their terrible flaws. He was lucky to have a family, and a wealthy one at that. His dad worked in a relatively elevated position at a comfy little office working for Universal on Trenton, flying transports on occasion to meet up with DSE reps on Pittsburgh. Her mom worked in a hospital on Denver. Cryer paid good money to have both of her children's lives under the safety of an insurance along with monetary compensation.
However, this did not last long. Olivia contracted a dizzying fever one day, and she went into a terrible coma for several days. Charlie didn't know what to do.
Kris was heartbroken.
Her insurance fees could not cover the treatments for her disease.
And even if they could, it was far too late for her.
He couldn't remember much of what happened, even though he was a lad of twenty at the time. She passed away, with nothing he could do to help her.
Dusk soon approached. The relatively scarce fleet of spaceships and hovering vehicles began to re-populate the skies and the roads of night-time Crichton at a quick pace. Crossing the streets turned from a hazard into literally impossible without being run over a couple of dozen times in the span of a second, so reaching Charlie's apartment on foot like he used to is not an option.
After contacting the nearest unmanned taxi vehicle he could afford through the net, he lit up a cigarette from his breast pocket, taking dregs as the nearby vehicles zoomed past him. The fact he was wearing a visor in public might've attracted the wrong crowd, but it was a risk he was willing to take, all for the sakes of reaching out to his folks in person.
The cab ride that followed was nothing short of unnerving – nearly everything he had lived through as a child while on the Crichton streets completely changed in the ridiculously short span of three years. Old mega malls giving room to new smaller ones owned by Interspace, defunct stores giving room to more apartment buildings to sustain the constant influx of the wealthy looking forward to having a cozy house near the beach on Denver. Opulent streets becoming more and more fattened by luxury and unregulated capitalist hedonism, which would crudely blend with Crichton’s more subtle undesirables and crooks roaming the streets – Xenos, Rogues and maybe even some maskers lurking around the tighter alleys.
Hemlocke's cohorts could be watching.
You do not know that.
I am everything he hates. I'm nothing but worthless scum in his eyes. If he ever sees me, he won't hesitate to kill me.
He has bigger concerns on his plate. You are inconsequential to him.
I don't care. One day, he will find me. And he can fucking decapitate me for all I care.
You do care. You're afraid of him. Thus, you are afraid of death.
...
He quickly dismissed the conversation with his conscience, and allowed the unmanned vehicle to ferry him around town.
The scenery around him was rather nostalgic. There were happy families walking in unison with tall jacketed thugs who most definitely concealed guns and other goods in there. The good blending with bad, as the watchful Police roamed the streets with heavy riot gear and gaudy looking plasma and laser weapons, ranging from assault rifles to high-caliber shoulder rifles. Everyone was incredibly ruffled after the kerfuffle in Erie, and these officers were no exception.
After exiting the cab, an overwhelmingly tall apartment building made of marbled art intertwined with khaki steel beams appeared before him. Artsy metal statues representing overly simplified men striking different Olympic poses above multiple fountains were adorning the entrance, something horribly gaudy but undeniably satisfying to look at.
He could've easily sent them a message on the holo, he could've even sent a letter, an audio file. Anything.
But he chose to show his reviled face to his folks for one last time.