Path of Resistance
Level 1 When you Fight.exe. When you gratuitously blow something up as an act of resistance. The first time in a session you tell an authority to go fuck itself. XP: ◉◉◉◉◎ You may spend Resistance XP to add or subtract Harm you give or take, 1-1.
Path of Truth Level 1 When you Prompt.exe.
When you follow your curiosity in a way that doesn't advance the mission.
The first time in a session you discover something new about the Matrix. XP: ◉◉◉◎◎ You may spend Truth XP to reroll dice when you Charge or Refresh, 1-1d6.
Path of Enlightenment
Level 1 When you Disconnect.exe. When you refuse to back down or run away from impossible odds.
The first time you run out of Resolve in a session. XP: ◉◉◎◎◎ You may spend Enlightenment XP as if they were Detachment, 1-1.
Moves Beginning to Believe: You gain +1 Detachment the first time you Charge.
Stop Trying to Hit Me: You take -1 Harm when on the Defensive in Fights.
Mine Now: Spend a Full Hit in Fight to disarm an enemy of their weapon. If you then shoot them with it, take +1.
Try Again: When you attempt a Disconnect you failed before and have not yet succeeded at, you may input one 6 as a True Hit.
Bit of Help: When you spend Detachment on any move other than Disconnect, you get two +1s. They can be applied to the same die or different ones.
Stunts Jump Impossible Distances Lvl 2* Hit with Implausible Force Lvl 1 Dodge Implausible Ways Lvl 1 Act with Implausible Slight of Hand Lvl 1
CW: Very 90s.
Also, this is going to be a seriously fucked up quest. I'm going to be doing my damndest to channel an appropriately edgy, teen-rage vibe. Expect violence, drugs, sex, etc.
There's also going to be some Pretty Uncomfortable Dysphoria-ing, trans readers be warned.
Hmm, been wanting to post again but I couldn't think what, votes seem more than accounted for. But given the CW, think I'll go with another meme video:
Presumably as the invincible Camelot from which the Resistance could sally forth Zion was where they put anything that needed to be truly safe and secure, with Zion destroyed and the Resistance broken into competing splinter factions correspondingly the already post-apocalyptic civilization of unplugged humans has also further splintered and crumbled as most of the like industrial planners and civil engineers and operators of the relic arcology stuff didn't make it out.
Hmm, been wanting to post again but I couldn't think what, votes seem more than accounted for. But given the CW, think I'll go with another meme video:
You know what would be an interesting quest? It's the 90s, but stuck in a time loop. Literally the end of history. And the time loop is powered by Capitalism. Just the endless grind and suffering and wars and oppression and BS etc. actually feeds the cosmic entity that forces the entire world to be stuck in the 90s forever.
So, you can escape. There's another world that's this far-future post apocalypse. But while there's cool future-tech, like 99.9% of all humans and all the resources are stuck in the 90s time loop. So to survive, to have freedom, to save humanity, you have to go back. Back to the 90s, Samurai Jack. And the 90s sucked.
How do you buy things in Haven? There's gotta be some medium of exchange if only so people can buy food, but it's not like there's much of a state. Is it just straight barter?
You know what would be an interesting quest? It's the 90s, but stuck in a time loop. Literally the end of history. And the time loop is powered by Capitalism. Just the endless grind and suffering and wars and oppression and BS etc. actually feeds the cosmic entity that forces the entire world to be stuck in the 90s forever.
Hmm, have you ever seen that Weird History AU thread I started about If The 90s Never Ended? True, no time loop, but I'd say it touches on what you're talking about:
Thread discussing visions of the future as imagined by the 1990s.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Also, I think that video I posted is old enough now that it too can go in the nostalgia folder. I mean, when was the last time you heard about ukinojoe?
Hmm, have you ever seen that Weird History AU thread I started about If The 90s Never Ended? True, no time loop, but I'd say it touches on what you're talking about:
Also, since QM asked about our private view of human politics for long-term guidance, I figure it's still worth giving my two pence:
What concerns me is that we haven't heard any real plan for exactly how a utopian Matrix would be run and who would run it. I find the ethics of not immediately destroying the Matrix fairly straightforward; immediate mass unplugging is a recipe for mass die-back, and coming from fake 1999 I think we would see that through the prism of quasi-genocidal (and transphobic) neo-primitivism a la the Deep Green Resistance. But the very existence of the Matrix seems like a huge moral hazard.
Who defines what "utopia" means? Who protects utopia from liberationists and the like? What are their methods? Who appoints and oversees them? Who governs a utopian Matrix? What tools of governance do they inherit from the Machine? Which ones do they retire and continue? Might not a human polity also have a need for Matrix processing power? How would such a polity spread the load of such processing, and would it need to incentivise or compel people to do it?
All of that is thorny enough without even thinking about the Matrix as a resource. Maybe whoever controls the Matrix controls the world outside, because processing power translates to the ability to command robotic resources in meatspace. This in turn raises the question of what the Machine is doing with all the surplus processing power, if there is any. The fact that a utopian Matrix did briefly look possible, and partially exist, implies that there is a surplus, that misery is not a fundamental necessity. In which case, where is the surplus going, and what if it's something that rebel humans might not wish to abandon once in charge?
The Machine Intelligence doesn't like making Programs. They're useful as shit, but the same thing that makes them useful also makes them unreliable and prone to acting in line with their own interests, not that of the Machine.
This is one reason why I think the ethics of ending the Matrix could be really complicated, and why we have to err on the side of personhood when thinking about Machine sentience. We already know that some programs rebel, and that the Machine doesn't like making sentient programs, presumably for this reason. That tells us that programs have the potential for redemption, which tells us that our ethics has to take them seriously as (potentially) sentient people with fundamental rights.
"What is a squiddie anyway?" you asked. Cache waved his fingers in your face.
"Horrible big robot octopus with knives for hands, a laser that can carve up just about anything, and way too many fucking eyes, hope you never see one. Here we are…"
[X]Plan: Party Time
-[X] Make your way to the bar near the docks where the crews hang out and make friends.
-[X] Get to know a crewmate better
--[X] Sprite
Look, the last real good time Alice had was at a rave, so she's going to go find another rave ASAP. Not terribly coincidentally, there too she should find Sprite.
[X] Plan: town stuff
-[X] Make your way to the bar near the docks where the crews hang out and make friends.
-[X] Go exploring the settlement.
[X] Plan: Learning Is Cool
-[X] Go exploring the settlement.
-[X] Spend the time training or downloading knowledge, like a nerd
--[x] Theory, just massive amounts of Theory and History, anything that can help you figure shit out. Actually, is there like a library here or something? you don't know where to start
How do you buy things in Haven? There's gotta be some medium of exchange if only so people can buy food, but it's not like there's much of a state. Is it just straight barter?
Credit!
This is actually super interesting, because the 'traditional' view that barter economies moved to mediums of exchange which then evolved to credit traces it's roots to a thought experiment by Adam Smith which just got cemented in the public consciousness over time. When anthropologists actually went out to try to find proof of this process in real human societies, they found pretty much the opposite: First came credit systems where people just kept a rough tally of what was owed and mutual debts were crossed off at regular intervals (with a bit of giving and receiving to deal with leftover imbalances). Mediums of exchange and barter tend to come later when economies grow so large that economic transactions become spot-trades where two people make a transaction and basically never see each other again.
Now, Haven could very well be big enough to require some sort of medium of exchange, but it could likewise do it's economic transactions through electronically mediated credit.
"Why aren't they just nuking everything then?" you asked. Frag leaned over, touching your hand gently.
"The machines coded a special exemption into their atomic simulation. Maintaining the inconsistency is more expensive, but we forced their hand," she said.
"No. There's… there's a barrier. A nanite barrier that follows the sun, blocks it out. Absorbs the heat, so the planet's still warm, but…" Vector trailed off. "We guess the machines did it, to finish us off. Now, the only things that grow there are in the Machine's vats."
I wonder if that's true, or if humanity scoured the sky in this setting as well, and we just don't know? If so, I wonder how would that revelation would go down.
This is a good plan and I admire its... drive and clarity of focus!
[X] Plan: DATE
-[X] Get to know Chrissy
-[X] Go exploring the settlement...with Chrissy
Also Chrissy has been really kind to us for basically our whole time on the ship, and we kind of focussed on Cache and Engima before, due to Cache being our old friend, and wanting answers from Enigma. It would be nice to spend more time with Chrissy to repay her kindness and build upon that budding friendship, even if it's 100% platonically.
You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its horniness.
You admire her. Actually, ituses it/its pronouns now.
Oh, sorry, my bad. You admire it? I admire its purity.
...
...
...
Got it. Well, thanks Ash, this was really helpful. I'm excited for the first date. Last word.
What...? Oh damnit, I'm gonna fall head over heels for it aren't I. I can't lie to you about your chances. But you have my blessing.
You knew you had a lot more to learn about the world, but the last week had been so packed with new concepts and facts and history that it was both exhausting and petrifying to contemplate. You also sort of wanted to see if Chrysalis was free, but she was off and gone almost instantly. Her family lived in the city, she was spending time with them.
Fine. If this was your new job, if this had been a workweek, then you deserved to cut loose for a weekend, whatever that looked like.
You had no idea what that looked like.
"Hey, uh, Cache?" you called, chasing him and Vector down the ramp. "What do we do for fun around here?"
"Uh, well, we're going to go party and get fucked up, so… you in?" he asked.
You gave him a thumbs up and fell in beside the two of them as they made their way down the gantry, increasingly surrounded by green as you pushed forward. You were never exactly the nature-loving type, but something about the fact you were seeing leaves and flowers for the first time made them much more special.
"What's so hard to make about the sunlights?" you asked. Vector shrugged.
"I dunno, but only Haven has 'em. Everyone else just has big hydroponics houses," he said. "I think it's because Haven has water coming in, or something?"
"That's what I heard," Cache said. "Yeah, Haven grows more and more variety than anywhere. It actually predates Zion's fall, it was a, uh, like some kind of agricultural reserve. In case there was a blight in Zion, I guess, or machine bioweapons got in."
"Good thing we didn't have all our eggs in one basket, yeah," he said. "We're really only just getting back on our feet."
"Where do all the ships come from?" you asked, looking around at the enormous variety. Some were small like the Ashur, some loomed enormous like the Zheng He, and while all looked armed many of them clearly weren't warships. One had a belly full of shipping containers, even. "There are so many?"
"There's hundreds, thousands of them littering the tunnels. This is where we retreated, right?" Cache said. "It's one thing we're never short of. They're the remains of the UN Navy, still fighting the good fight after all these years."
"Not like anything rots," Vector added. "I mean, they do wear down, they take a lot of work to restore, but every once and a while we pop the seal on a dead-end tunnel and there's just... Dozens, hundreds of them sometimes. Just left there. Parked."
"We think maybe there was a surrender? The Navy gave up, voluntarily went into the Matrix to avoid starvation or the squids and left their toys. But the ones who didn't?" Cache grabbed Vector around the shoulders and pulled him in, kissing his cheek. "Were this dude's great-great-great whatever grandparents."
Vector smiled, a strange sight on his normally sour face, and kissed him back.
"Like, six hundred years ago, sure," he retorted, pulling Cache along toward a door. As you approached, you could hear a beat from the inside, a fast, loud, deep thump that seemed to resonate through the metal grating. The building looked almost like a piece of a ship, torn out and bolted in place here long ago.
"In any case, we're here," Cache said, leaning against the door and looking pleased with himself. "Welcome… to the Desert of the Real."
He pushed the door open, and you stepped into what you could only call a rave. It was a dark, claustrophobic space filled with way too many people packed way too close together. The only lighting came from red alarm lights set in the walls that span and flashed in time with the music, illuminating the bodies dancing with it.
Cache pressed something into your hand. By the flashing red lights, you could just make out the shape of a small pill.
"I thought his was a bar! I thought we were going to get drunk!" you called, and he laughed and pointed to the edge of the room. There, just visible through the press, was indeed something that might, technically, qualify as a bar.
"It is! You will! This'll help! Go!" He announced, then he wrapped his arms around Vector's neck and dragged him into the crowd. You were left alone at the edge of the dance floor, unsure what to do.
Fuck it. Who cares. You threw the pill back, swallowed it dry, and fought your way to the edge of the crowd to the area he'd indicated to. It was awkward, everyone was much taller than you were used to, but you eventually made it. You were just about worrying that you had no money when the man behind the counter, without comment, placed a metal bottle in front of you without comment.
You took it and drank, expecting something horrid and rank like the coffee. Instead, it mostly just tasted like water, maybe a bit more bitter. Shrugging, you threw the rest of it back, placed the bottle in the rack at the edge of the counter everyone seemed to be leaving their stuff, and you pressed into the crowd, laughing to yourself inaudibly.
Somebody started to turn the music up even louder, so loud it seemed to resonate through your whole body. Your body, remembering what your body looked like gave you a confidence you'd never felt before ever. You couldn't be awkward, you were hot! You had hips! People were looking at you!
… Men were looking at you.
They were looking at you in a way you'd never been looked at ever, a way that was thrilling. You weren't entirely sure how you felt about them, but you were sure how you felt about the way they very clearly, not at all subtly wanted you. You weren't sure you were ready for any of that, but you'd very much like to bask in this for a while, in the heat and noise and desire.
It wasn't long until you needed a break, though. Your ears were ringing, muscles burning, feet aching, you'd put them all through more abuse than they'd ever experienced before. You managed to push your way out toward the entrance and shuffled past a group just coming in, staggering out onto the gantry and leaning against the rail for support.
"Whooo!" you called out into the open docks, wincing at the bright sunlamps. "Ahaha!"
You staggered back toward the door, unsure what you were doing, and saw another person sitting there, leaning against the metal wall and still bobbing his head to the music pounding through. He was skinny and gangly Asian guy, pale, the dark metal ports on his arms standing out in contrast, and his hair was just a short fuzz on his scalp and whisps on his face. Wanting somebody to talk to, you sat next to him and bumped your shoulder against his.
"Coda! Who are you?" you asked, and it took him a few seconds to focus his eyes before replying.
"Uuuh… Cangjie," he said, sounding sort of astonished that anyone was talking to him. ""I… I just picked it. You like it?"
"Yeah!" you said, punching his arm in a comrade-ery fashion. "Loud, huh?"
"Everything is very loud. Very big," he said, shaking his head. He had a bit of an accent, but was quite comprehensible despite how badly your ears were ringing. "Where are you from?"
"Uh… the Matrix? I guess? Like you?" you said. "San Francisco?"
"American! Alright. Guangzhou," he said. "Fake Guangzhou! I could not speak English until yesterday, they downloaded it into my brain!"
"You can do languages?" you exclaimed, leaning against him utterly swept up by the joy of learning that. "Oh my God, I'm going to learn every language."
"Yes! That's what I said. A week ago, I spoke Cantonese and Mandarin. Now, English, Thai, Hakka, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic… next, Hindi I think? I don't know!" He beamed, clearly as fucked up on something as you were. "What have you learned?"
"Uh… I got myself a medical degree, some programming languages, guns… every single martial art?" you said. His eyes lit up, and he indicated to stand and put up his fists. You threw a slow-motion open palm strike and he, in equally flawless slow motion, grabbed your wrist and struck out with his other hand, lightly tapping your cheek. You both laughed until it hurt.
"What ship are you from?" you asked, and he pointed down the docks at a long, sleep ship hanging from a high perch, with silver flanks and long spines emerging from the top.
"The Queqiao, that one. It has another name in English but I can't remember," he said. "I don't know much yet, I've only been out for…" He counted on his fingers. "Well, three weeks and a bit, but I was only awake a little…"
"Yeah, same. Have you been back inside yet? Into the Matrix?" you asked. He shook his head.
"No, not yet," he said, then his eyes widened. "You have?"
"I ran into an agent and lived," you boasted.
"Holy shit," he said, then paused. "That word feels awesome."
"I have exactly zero experience with other languages but I can confirm that English profanity is the best," you said authoritatively.
"So what about you? What ship are you on?" he asked.
"The Ashur," you said, hunting around for it. It was around the corner of the building, shit. "It's a, little itty bitty ship. Subversives." You said that last word without thinking, but he frowned, and you winced. "Shit."
"So what, you want to take over the Matrix, become the new Machine, huh?" he asked.
"I… no. I don't know what I want. What about you, what pitch they give you?"
"... that the real world is better," he said, staring at his palm. "I can't disagree. I mean… Look at me."
"Yeah… yeah. I mean, I could do without the metal…" you said, and he took a deep breath.
"I mean to say, I didn't look like this on the inside. In the Matrix, I…" He stopped, taking a deep breath. "I was different."
"Dude, believe me, I get it," you exclaimed, chuckling to yourself. Whatever liquid courage was pounding through your brain prompted you, unwisely, to keep talking. "I was a dude. Like a miserable, sad, square-lookin' dude. And now… bam."
You pointed two fingers toward your chest, and he burst into laughter, so much it almost looked like he was crying. Oh, shit, he was.
"Dude? Cangjie?"
"Oh fuck, I thought I was the only one. I mean, they said there were others but that was just…" He paused, grabbing your hand. "Isn't it incredible? Being you?"
"Yeah!" you said, feeling your face go hot. "Yeah, shit. It's amazing. Looks good on you."
He wiped his eyes with his forearm, looking overwhelmed by the compliment.
"Thank you. And you… yeah. Bam," he said. Okay, yeah, he was staring at your chest. And you were a-okay with that. Maybe you shifted a little to give him a better look.
"I know, like, damn," you said, doing a little dance with your shoulders. "... okay, this is going to sound, like, really nuts, but… do you want to get out of here?"
He looked at you quizzically.
"Sorry, I'm still very new to the language, and I don't have all of the particulars yet. Is there a connotation I'm missing?"
"Okay, uh, do you want to go to your ship, or mine, and… like, make out? Uh, test the new gear? Fuck?" you spelt out, as clearly as possible. Looking almost a little intimidated, he nodded.
"I… yes. Yes I would like that," he declared, clearly put on the spot. "Like, with each other?"
"Yeah! Well… maybe," you said, leaning against his shoulder. "Confession, I have no idea who or what I'm attracted to right now and there's like a solid 25 percent chance we start kissing and it turns out I'm not into it, and maybe another 25 percent that I'm into it but it's too much right now. Are you okay with that?"
"... 50 percent is pretty good odds," he said. "I will be honest, since waking up, if you told me there was a 1 percent chance that a beautiful woman would have sex with me if I fought an Agent, I would pick a fight with two."
"Testosterone is like that," you agreed. "Wait, beautiful?"
He nodded reverently.
"... 60 percent."
---
You ended up going to his ship, on the plain logic that it was closer, and halfway there you were already pretty sure that this wasn't just some kind of attention intoxication. You weren't attracted to him the same way you were attracted to women, no, but that agonizing minute in the elevator up to his ship where he'd been looking at you like the only object in the universe and you'd desperately wished he'd just press you up against the wall and tear your clothes off was… telling.
You were also learning fun new things about your body, your real body. Being turned on always felt like a sort of imposition before, a drive flattening your brain, telling you want to do. Here, though, it was instead this exciting, bubbling joy in the core of you, fuzzy good little high on brain chemicals. So much better.
The two of you raced up the ramp, he had a rapid-fire exchange in Chinese with another member of the crew loading something into the shelves there before he pulled you through the hatchway and into the ship. It was a lot like the Ashur in many ways, with a similar (if larger) broadcast room and the same grating underfoot, but somebody on the ship was clearly a proficient painter. Rendered in a mix of reds, whites, and greens was an enormous mural on the back wall displaying a beautiful mountain valley, the cold blue metal providing the sky and waters of the river both.
You had to climb more stairs to get to the quarters, moving between a dozen decorated and painted doors until he reached a plain one at the end and pulled it open. Inside was a room not unlike yours, but larger. It sort of resembled a doctor's office, actually, with the high bed against the wall and a sink in the corner.
"This is so roomy! I have like half this space," you said, and he looked rather pleased about that, leaning back against the wall and sweeping his hand over it.
"It's pretty cool, yeah," he agreed, sounding a bit awkward. You sat up onto his bed, disappointed but not surprised at how uncomfortable it was, and realized that the poor guy was… well, probably feeling the way you remember feeling your first time. Between wanting and worrying.
You put out a hand and beckoned him closer, and that was all he needed.
He closed the distance, pressed up to you, his lips meeting yours, his hands at your side, slipping under your shirt. You caught your fingers in his belt loops, just basking in a moment, as his lips wandered away from yours and across your jaw, down your neck, and you had to put a hand to chest to stop him and catch your breath.
"Oh wow," you gasped, overwhelmed by it. Everywhere he touched was like fire. You'd never felt anything like it before. You got your bearing and grabbed his shirt to pull him back in, but misinterpreting he pulled his collar and slipped out of it. He was scrawny and there were bones showing and you could see a half a dozen metal ports dotting his torso, but right now you did not and could not care about any of that.
He was so warm, it was intoxicating.
His hands returned to your sides, slipped back under your shirt, and this time you raised your arms to let him pull it off you, fumbling inexpertly with your bra. He smirked and had the clasp off with one hand, the other against your jaw, then his lips returned as he held you ever so gently in place. His fingers slipped along your jaw to cradle your head the movement slow and sensual, and then-
He shivered and jerked his hand back, looking disconcerted.
"Cangjie?"
"Touched the metal thing. Eeegh," he explained, wiggling his fingers as if to get the Gross off. You nodded.
"Oh yeah, it's weird," you agreed, imitating his motions in sympathy. "The bad one is the belly button one, that's… I don't like to think about that one."
"It's the little ones in my back, I can feel them when I sleep," he agreed. You put a finger to his lips.
"No! No, none of this, this is supposed to be… you know. Sexy," you said, fumbling with your words. He winced, and worried about losing the spark you wrapped your arms around his neck (very careful to avoid The Gross) and pulled him back close. You know it worked because his hands found your breasts and the feeling of his fingers was utterly heavenly. You leaned back, closed your eyes, and just let yourself enjoy it for a while.
One of his hands left your breast, and you almost protested before you felt it again on your leg, running slowly up under your skirt. It paused a moment, hesitant, and you whispered keep going into his ear in the most seductive tones you could muster.
He did not delay, fingers tracing up between your thighs, and you shifted back to try and give him better access. You felt his knuckles brush up against you, then he stopped and starting pulling off your shorts.
"Um, not the sexiest undies, I know…" you explained, but either he didn't hear you or didn't think it mattered because he threw them behind him and started kissing down your leg and you decided that actually maybe now was the time for shutting up and enjoying yourself. Unsurprisingly, he very much knew his way around, his fingertips slowly exploring, then his tongue, oh. You whispered a mental apology to every girl you'd ever done this with, because there was… there was no way…
Okay. Not being a little loud was surprisingly difficult. There was no way you were ever that good at this. You felt like you'd just gone over the edge of a rollar coaster, a heady weightlessness, like there was a wildfire spreading out from your core and racing down your limbs, rebounding back and forth though you. You'd never felt anything like it before in your life, not even in the brief moments you'd had to explore your new body.
Cangjie, for his part, looked quite pleased with himself as he pulled away. Justifiably so.
"You look happy," he observed, and you couldn't help but roll your eyes.
"Jeez, wonder why," you said, or tried to say between gasping breaths. Your voice failing you, you just vaguely waved him closer, grabbing at his shoulders to try and pull him close and down onto you, needing the heat. As he pressed against your, nipping at your collarbone, you felt him pressing against you through his pants and what would a month ago have been utterly unthinkable seemed extremely thinkable right now.
God, you needed to get fucked. You had to know.
"Hey, you got a condom, right?" you asked, trying not to sound too desperate, and he almost tripped over himself scrambling to the drawer across the room. You reached out after him, coveting the heat, and he shed his pants in the fastest motion you'd ever seen and was back, kissing gently again at your neck, clearly very, very eager.
"Okay, hold on," you said, mentally psyching yourself up. "So, uh, take it slow, everything's new, this is still a little weird-"
"I can imagine, yeah," he agreed. "Do your best to relax. The last thing you want to do is tense, okay? Makes it no fun."
"... uuh, yeah, can I just say it's bizarre getting advice about this from somebody who looks like you?" you pointed out, and he shrugged.
"I bet. Though that said, I never found this any fun at all, so I might have no idea what I'm talking about. Turns out the only thing I ever wanted from men was to be one, so, you know…" he said, trailing off. "This is very strange, isn't it?"
"It's so fucking weird, man," you agreed. "I'm still trying to shut up the part of my brain that insists this is gay."
"Well, if that's a problem, let me shut it up for you," he said, leaning back in close and starting to whisper in breathy tones. "Because you are a very, very pretty girl, you know that?"
"Oh…" you gasped, as his fingers slid down your arms and you let yourself sink back into the mattress. "... shut up…"
"I don't think I will…" he continued, kissing at your ear, nibbling a little and making you squirm. "You don't want me to, do you?" You shook your head, closed your eyes, basked in the warmth. You had absolutely no idea what to expect, but Cangjie had well and proven himself a trustworthy actor on this front. "Just relax, girl, let me take it from here…"
"Yeah…" you muttered, focusing on the feeling of his hand in yours as he pressed gently into you. "God…" There was a part of you braced for pain, and it certainly wasn't comfortable at first, but that was very quickly drowned out by the sheer thrill. Sure, there was at the edge of your thoughts a lifetime of shame and fear, but that was all fake and this was so, so very real and true and better than anything the computer had ever offered you.
It certainly helped that Cangjie was careful, gentle, and never stopped whispering lovely things into your ear, even if he started repeating himself, and eventually, he ran out of English altogether. Whatever he was saying, it still sounded sweet. After awkwardly trying to figure out something to do with your hands, he pinned them down against the mattress for you with an absolute effortless motion, and somehow, knowing you couldn't wiggle free actually made you feel safe.
It was the strangest, rawest, most fucked-up thing you'd ever experienced, and you'd have not traded it for anything. You never quite managed to reach the same peak again, but between the heady euphoria of it all and the fact everywhere he touched caused sensual flutters through your whole body was more than enough to carry you though, until the two of you were just relaxing together in that tiny bed.
"That… was amazing," you confessed, wiggling tighter into his arms as he pulled the ragged old blanket over you and he kissed the back of your head. "Wow. Um, how'd you get so good at that?"
"Two things," he said. "The first, a lifetime of disappointment teaching me everything not to do. And second…" he paused. "I may have downloaded some help."
"What?" you said. "There's programs for that?"
"There are programs for everything. They left me alone with a library of a thousand discs and a drive, I wasn't not going to install it?" he explained. "I suspect given the context it is for infiltration and seduction, you know? But…"
"Consider me seduced," you confirmed, and he laughed and ran a hand down your side slowly.
"I'm glad. And... I am so exhausted," he confessed. "I feel like sleeping for a year."
"As I said, testosterone is like that," you repeated, though you were feeling utterly worn out yourself. It was a lot of excitement for a body that, a month ago, had spent twenty-four years floating in a pod of goo.
"Stay for a bit?" he asked.
"You couldn't make me leave," you joked, shifting a little closer to steal as much of his warmth as possible. "This is your job now forever. You provide body heat for me to siphon."
"What a nightmare," he agreed, utterly deadpan.
---
You weren't sure exactly what time it was when you finally picked your clothes up and left, but it was, shockingly, much darker when you stepped outside. There was a misty rain falling from pipes lining the roof, and with the sunlamps off the docks were illuminated by soft white lights lining the buildings and gantries.
You paced toward the Ashur, dwarfed beside the enormous battleship looming beside it, but thought better of it. You didn't know when you'd need to be back, but you did hear announcements echo through the dock for departures or asking after crew, so you supposed that if they were going to leave, you'd hear about it. Instead, you wandered toward the open doors at the edge of the dock, toward the twinkling lights of the settlement beyond.
As you passed through the gates, you ended up at a platform with elevators leading down into the settlement proper. Haven was built into a cave that had been carved into the side of the holding tank, and the whole settlement stretched out before you. It was not large, but it was dense, reminding you a little of pictures you'd seen of Kowloon Walled City before its demolition. Despite the small size, tens of thousands of people must live here. Maybe more.
Curious, but cautious, you rode the elevator down, but decided to stick to the most open streets. You were very obviously new and probably an easy mark, and the sheer effortlessness by which Cangjie had pinned your arms came back to mind in a new and unsettling context. Some care was warranted, and for a second you wished you were back in the simulations, where your strength had nothing to do with muscle.
Though everything was clearly improvised, reclaimed, and reused over and over to their very limits, you could see the love and care put into everything. Despite the fact it was clearly the night hours there was still a fair bit of activity, people moving things back and forth, sparks cascading down from work somewhere far above, voices and laughter. You relaxed when you saw children playing in the streets, their minders a fair distance back: if that was safe, you were probably safe.
Your stomach growled, and you realized how very hungry you were. You started hunting around through the multilingual signs all around, looking for something that might be food, before remembering you still had no money. You still didn't know what money was, here. You should probably ask about pay when you got back to the ship, now that you thought about it.
Unsure what else to do, you started wandering back toward the elevator, when you caught the eye of an older woman, sitting in a fold-out chair at the side of the street and knitting. She was clearly watching some of the kids in the street as they helped pass tools to a workman fixing something on a building opposite.
"Are you lost, dear, do you need any help?" she asked. You looked around to see if she was addressing anyone else, then you shrugged helplessly.
"Yeah, first time here. I don't know what I'm doing," you asked. The sympathetic look she gave you made it clear both those things were obvious to her, and you noticed on her arm as she shifted she had one of the plugs too. Another rescue from the Matrix.
"Do you need anything? I know it's all terribly confusing," she said. "Something to eat, a place to stay?"
"Uuuh, yeah, something to eat. I haven't eaten since… this morning, I think? Afternoon, something? Sorry, time is hard." You meandered gracelessly through the sentence, ending rather pathetically. "Uh, I don't have any money, or-"
She snorted.
"This isn't the Matrix, dear. You crew a ship, you bring people back from that place and keep fighting for us, and you think we won't provide you what you need?" She shook her head, clearly disappointed with you. "See that small green light, just up the street? Take the stairs down, that's our canteen. You're welcome to it, friend."
Confused and a little overwhelmed, you thanked her perhaps a bit too profusely and made your way to the stairs. You'd barely made it in the door before somebody, an old man with a patchy beard and an enormous smile, came over and offered to help. Clearly, he just spotted the pale and skinny redpill with the fuzz of new hair and saw something in need of instructing on the etiquette and workings of the canteen. Seemed pretty simple; wash your hands, grab your food, clean your own dishes and put everything back.
"And I don't have to pay?" you repeated, still not quite believing it. "How does that work?"
"Oh, you pay, everyone pays, in their own way," he said. "I keep the lights on, and build them with my daughter. All around you, people who farm, people repair, people who build. And people like you, keeping us safe."
You felt strange about that for a second. It almost felt like when people would mindlessly recite "thank you for your service" to veterans, but it had a sincerity and realness you weren't used to. You felt almost guilty about it, like stolen valour. What had you done for these people?
"I've really… I don't think I've earned this," you said. "All I've done is… use training programs and screw up."
"Hey, that's something," he said jovially. "You don't starve an apprentice because he isn't a master yet, do you?"
You thought, for a moment about the temp workers in your office, and then of yourself in college when money had gotten particularly tight and your diet had devolved to about three meals every two days. All of this felt foreign to you, and you still found yourself bracing for a catch.
It never came. You washed your hands, got rice, some flat bread, a stem of grapes, and a few slices of some kind of meat or meat culture, and you ate. It was plain, but good, filling food. You cleaned your tray in the little sink at the corner, stacked it neatly with the others, and wandered out feeling like at any moment somebody was going to chase you down with a bill, and it never happened.
Your brain just kept telling you it couldn't be real. It can't actually be how they operate. How do they prevent people from leeching off the work of others? How do they keep people from taking too much? What about lazy people who don't contribute enough? It couldn't, possibly, work.
By the time you got back to the Ashur, you'd convinced yourself there were processes you just weren't seeing. Rules and enforcers that you hadn't encountered. You got what was basically a serviceman's discount, that's all it was. Made a lot more sense.
Still, it had been the best meal you'd ever had.
---
The next morning, when you awoke, the Ashur was already moving. You stumbled into the cockpit bleary-eyed to see Vector and Page guiding the ship through the tunnels by searchlight and radar, looking rather anxious, and thinking better of distracting them you wandered back to the broadcast room.
Chrysalis was there, tapping furiously on the console, while Cache and Sprite were cleaning equipment. Without a word, you joined them, rag and disinfectant in hand, scrubbing everything down, paying particular attention the interface jacks. Anything that was going to go inside your skull had pretty high priority for cleanliness.
"Where're we going?" you asked finally, as the last of the equipment was wiped down, and Cache looked at you kind of grim.
"We were going to stay longer, but another ship gave us a message. One of our contacts is in trouble," he said.
"Contacts? Like, in the Matrix? A bluepill?"
"A program," he said. "We um, we take whatever help we can get."
You didn't say anything. You had gathered from your conversation with Frag that programs were not a monolith, though you didn't know anything about any of them except Agents.
"So, back in the day Frag got into contact with this low-level Administrator, he, uh, he upkeeps data loss protection for Near North Side in Megacity_01. Uh… he stores people's memories in case something goes wrong, so things can be fixed, and he can provide them to editors if something needs to be changed." Chrysalis added, sitting in one of the chairs and leaning against the pad. "Freaky, but, that's how he ended up with us. He has a front row seat to how fucked everyone is, and then he realized nobody is making a backup of him."
"My heart bleeds," Cache said sardonically. "He's alright though. Thing is, he says his bosses are looking to reduce overhead, which means either he gets cut, or Old Town's guy gets cut. Old Town's corrupt as hell, misuses processing power, so it'll probably be him, but the Librarian-"
"That's our guy," Chrysie added.
"-yeah, he think's Old Town's hired some Exiles to kill him so he can keep the spot. Obviously, we want to prevent that from happening, so half of us are on bodyguard duty at his library, and the other half are going to pay Old Town a visit." Cache concluded.
"Uh, am I in?"
"Oh yeah, it's all hands on deck, though we haven't worked out teams yet. What are you feeling, Coda, bodyguard or hitman?"
---
[ ] Bodyguard
[ ] Hitman
What level of equipment will you bring?
[ ] 1 Gear (Hidden)
[ ] 3 Gear (Subtle)
[ ] 6 Gear (Overt)
[ ] 10 Gear (Public Incident)
What's your style this time? Coda's learned her lesson on cop gear, but still doesn't know what she's comfortable with. What compromises does she make?
[X] Bodyguard
-[X] 3 Gear (Subtle)
-[X] Cop gear worked to keep the dysphoria at bay, but other people lacked the vision needed to see it as a disguise. Now it's black parachute pants, blue and black boots, and a loose blue and black jacket.
[X] Bodyguard
-[X] 3 Gear (Subtle)
-[X] Cop gear worked to keep the dysphoria at bay, but other people lacked the vision needed to see it as a disguise. Now it's black parachute pants, blue and black boots, and a loose blue and black jacket.
