Experiments : Cyberpunk (Chp.5)

The male watched the strange watch she was wearing beep with some intensity as the focus in her eyes just disappeared, making her seem as if she had been hit by a mini stroke. Just as he was about to kick into gear and hold her, her eyes refocused, the rapid change in the size of her retinas making him wonder if she just zoned out randomly and then remembered that he was standing right in front of her only to quickly tug on her jacket. A self assessed safety net? Perhaps. What triggered this reaction, he could ask but he didn’t think letting her know that his observations were as keen so early into the meeting was a prudent decision so with a nonchalance that seemed to overlook her quick flicker, he answered,
“I’m Sahil Kramer, resident of nowhere in particular, just trapaizing through the city in search of answers.”
His introduction was a half humor, half truth mixed interaction without giving any specific details beyond his name.
“Cass, is it? Alright. What brings you to this part of town?”

He shifted upon the soles of his feet, standing in a way that could only be said to be more natural than the rather stiff individuals passing them. The yellow raincoat clad folks were rather strange, walking with a posture that seemed derived from 6 aspects of walking, from a relaxed, sure pace to a brisk, almost running jog, suited to their heights.
If one observed with more interest, he/she would notice two random individuals having the exact same way of walking. Why or how was inexplicable.

Experiments :Cyberpunk (The other side-Chp.4)

While Cass was close to commenting on the sudden daze that the man had wash over him, she was hit by a similar wave of confusion, as her current sense were robbed, and she found herself in this new point of view. to her it was not only odd that she was experiencing what seemed to be familiar thoughts, but it was all from a first person view! as much as she could remember the feelings, the smells, and every other sense, she could not so much as twitch a single muscle. she was stuck behind those eyes, watching and feeling everything play out.
When it was all over, she reflexively adjusted her jacket, feeling almost naked all of a sudden. It took her another moment before she collected herself, thankfully it was before he spoke, and she heard his question.
She took in a breath through her nose, inhaling the grimy smell that the rain lifted from the streets and surfaces around them. With a sigh, her eyes focused on his, those shimmering blue irises’ seeming like gemstones beaming from under the filth and depression that surrounded them from all sides. If her clothing didn’t make it obvious enough, those eyes plainly showed she did not belong here.
“Ah, Me?” Her voice cracked a bit. “I’m Cassia Clanton. Just call me Cass.”
She smiled, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “And who are you?”

Experiments : Cyberpunk (Chp.4)

His dark hazel orbs blinked momentarily, defocusing and refocusing rapidly as he flickered between the sudden change in scene. Was he day dreaming? What had just happened? The flashing scene felt so real, he could almost remember the scent of the female from earlier. It was so different from the sweaty dank smell of his current surroundings. As he gathered his bearings, his eyes focused upon the shapely blonde who had called out to him. Her voice felt off. Perhaps he had been listening to the perfect pitch of the robotic voices and holographic billboards to recognize the difference between natural and artificially generated streams of audio data. His voice came out in a deep slow thrum of a guy who had just matured into his late teens. There was rather strange accent (English accent) to his words. Different from the ones around him, he didn’t know why he spoke in such a way but the words came out any way-
“That would be correct, though I personally wouldn’t be able to tell you where I’m from-“.
He let his words trail off only to realise he was having a conversation with another human. It struck him as lightening. As long as he’d been there, his interactions with any other being had been downright minimal to the point of just yes or no. His uncertainty reflected in the tone he followed up with,
“Who would you be, kind stranger?”

Experiments : Cyberpunk (The other side-Chp.3)

A few more minutes of walking, and another buzz came from her wrist. Cass lifted her wrist to see a disk with a few lines around it. in the center was an arrow, which she deduced was her, and in the north point of the disk was another pip, that was slowly approaching. She looked up, confused as to what it could be referring to, seeing as there were plenty of other people on the street… but then she noticed something off. Somebody was walking in her direction, someone without one of the yellow raincoats that the denizens were wearing. She blinked, caught on his jacket for a moment before inspecting his head. He was uncovered, but still at a distance too far to see clearly from. When she checked her wrist again, the pip was moving, seemingly in accordance with his own walking.
‘why is he being tracked.. but not the..?’
She huffed, letting her arm drop to her side and picking up her walking speed, closing the distance between her and the distracted person. When she was within a more decent distance from him, she waved her hand, calling out to him in hopes of getting his attention.
“Hey! you’re not from around here, are you?” For some reason that’s what came out of her mouth, as if it wasn’t the most off putting thing to say to someone you had first met. She stood a few feet before him, giving him a bit of an awkward smile as she waited for him to react.
“I uh, thought ya looked a little different, what with yer lack of a raincoat and all.” Her voice was scratchy, without any real refinement, as if it could crack at any moment.

Experiments : Cyberpunk (Chp.3)

As soon as he walked into the massive cafeteria halls lined with parallel running tables made of some weird plastic fabric mesh, the fabric of his jacket seemingly got thinner, allowing more of the conditioned air mixed with purifying, anti bacterial aerosols to flow within the reaches of his clothes, effectively pulling away the grime and dust from his clothes with any bacteria within. It would seem his clothes were washed without even the need for him to strip. The only reason of him being aware, the pop up HUD on his implant in his eye throwing up the notification of Decontamination in Process. He shrugged to himself, still nog used to the feeling of the cool, icy sensations of the decontamination and headed along one of the parallel tables to the vending machines by the wall. He still had not tried everything that was on offer in the place, today his eyes were drawn to spicy chicken bar and fruit bar with his daily dose of multivitamin, multimineral fluids. Food was rationed in a way where the optimal dietary needs of every human were met in accordance to their age, weight and bodily composition, encoded by the data in the implants which was scanned as the eyes looked over the options. Artificial flavoring achieved alot of the moody change in flavors that the society craved.
Upon grabbing the required food, he moved to the one of the metal seats onto the table and opened up the packets of the chicken bars while placing the drink onto his left side. Food was a wordlessly quick affair, eat, chew, swallow, drink, swallow and leave.

Once done, he was off again, out of another exit than the one came from as the fabric of his jacket got denser and thicker once more. He walked out into what could only be called a metal grated street with an overhanging look over the maglev hydrogen cell powered cars and busses. The atmosphere was damp, the people around him were rather soulless by the look in their eyes. It almost seemed as if they were asleep in side, walking from point A to B, ignoring his existence and walking out of his way. He couldn’t make eye contact with even one of them, their eyes seemed focused on a point at a fixed distance away from them. Something about the society itself felt off, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. What was this strange feeling in his gut?

Experiments : Cyberpunk (The other side-Chp.2)

Wherever Cassia was, it certainly felt like a dump. no matter what the neon and led’s above said, the ground floor was dirty, covered in trash, and constantly drizzling from the condensation clouds produced by the coolant towers from the local power plant. The misery seemed to be reflected by the inhabitants around her; most wore raincoats and went about their business as quiet as they could be.
‘wait.. shouldn’t my phone have…’ before she could even complete the sentence in her head, she watched with amazement as her wrist lit up with a satellite view of her current area. Some extra data flew onto the display, and her assumptions mirrored reality; she was in one of the poor districts. this depressing hovel was on the outskirts of the city, which was practically the outskirts to the bigger city inside. The sections looked oddly segmented, almost too perfect in the shift between a middle class and rich district. But before she could look too much farther into it all, her wrist buzzed again, and out came what seemed to be the head of some sort of anime girl.
“hey, HEY. You’re finally up and stuff, jeez!” A voice came from her phone.

“Uh, yeah.. Who are you?” Cass was proud of herself for taking all this in stride.
“I’m Pamela, your digital assistant! Did you have too much to drink last night?”
“Maybe? I’m having a hard time remembering anything honestly.”
“Amnesia? but why.. huh! Oh well, it’s not like I’m a doctor or something. Anyway, so long as you’re awake and mostly mentally sound, what’s the plan for today?” The AI asked, as if Cass had any sort of plan about anything.

“Well.. I don’t feel too hungry right now.. Maybe we can just wander for a bit? I’d say it’s to clear my head, but that’s feeling empty enough as is.”
“Aimless wandering, at least you remember one of your hobbies! I’ll be here if you need help!” And with that, the picture on the hologram faded away, and she was once again left to her own devices. Cass looked about before deciding in a direction, and walking off.

Experiments : Cyberpunk (Chp.2)

He sat by the transmitter block of the mecha, listening to the whizzes and whirrs of the solenoids and transformers running within. There was a palm sized LED screen that indicated the type of trash the mecha was headed to collect in it’s massive container. Upon closer inspection, the screen seemed to have color coded time and route data reflected at the bottom right. His jacket seemingly seemed to collect and display the data upon the cybernetic implant in his eyes in a holograph upon his irises. He blinked and turned his eyes only for more data to appear upon pages.
From what he gathered, the mecha was headed to the hydroponics station to collect biodegradable waste. ‘Bio’ meant only one thing, food. He watched the massive blue led signboard reading hydroponics get closer and closer as the mecha made it’s way navigating through the maglev tracks.

Upon reaching to the gates, a small notification popped upon his iris which read, jump and climb upto the 32nd floor of the hydroponics centre and explore the green house. Having no other objective, he followed command and moved back till the back edge of the mecha and took a running start to leap about 17 feet of distance between the shoulder of the mecha through the open window of the hydroponics centre.
The staircase was marked upon a pop up HUD in his eyes and he followed suit, maintaining a hawk like gaze upon his surroundings while stealthily running in the shadows of the massive neon lights. Soon, he found himself in the green house. The sheer humidity of the large dome like room had him sweating in minutes.
As sweat poured down his temples, his nose caught upon a familiar scent and triggered a reaction from the jacket.
Food detected in proximity:Strawberries.
Taking note, he rushed to the delicious berries on padded steps and plucked all the ripe ones and fit them in his pockets and palms until his pockets were filled to the brim. He savored some of them and felt some of his st amin recharge as he felt more alert from the nutrition kicking off other parts of his system. Once he had his fill of strawberries, he decided to explore the building until he found himself standing in front of a large double door by the tag of cafeteria.

Experiments : Cyberpunk (The other side-Chp.1)

“I know you’re at that age where you want to roam.. a-and I can respect that. I was quite the trailblazer when I was your age! I just hope that you can understand why I worry. I love you sweetie, stay safe, and at least think of swinging by the office at some point, okay?”
She restarted the voicemail two more times before finally sitting up in her bed. The phone seemed.. odd.. and the voice was as well. everything looked familiar, but at the same time very foreign. By the contact in her phone, it seemed it was her father.. which made sense, but there was a nagging feeling whenever she tried to recall just who this father was. She eventually stood up beside her bed, looking down at what made up her current attire. It seemed to be some PJ’s offered by whatever service ran the motel she was in, if the patches sewn on were anything to go by. Now that she was up, she thought it wise to head to the bathroom and wash her face, but as she stared into the mirror, she was taken aback by the visage she saw. Was that her? Well, obviously it was, considering she was the only person near the mirror, but it didn’t feel like her. If anything, it felt like she was staring at someone she had never seen before.. which was a peculiar sensation when gazing at your own reflection. Nevertheless, it seemed silly to have an existential crisis this early in the morning, and so the girl tied her hair up into a ponytail and headed back to the nightstand to inspect her personal belongings. A minute or two later and she was strapped up in her outside clothes and inspecting her oddly shaped phone. It was thin but long, and when turned on revealed a holographic display a few inches above the surface of the screen. It seemed to be made of some sort of hard light, as her fingers felt a bit of pressure when she pushed, swiped, and tapped on the ‘screen’. Eventually she got the compulsion to rest it on her wrist, and when she did it wrapped tightly around it! it seemed to lock together in a circle by some unseen mechanic, and the holographic display now hovered above her wrist.
‘performing bio-metric lock, relax your hand.’ a calm, feminine voice spoke from the device. once she did so, she felt a minor pinch right on the top side of her wrist, where a watch face might go, and once the pinching stopped, she felt a flood through her system starting from her arm. when the oddly satisfying sensation ended, she found the device responding to just her thought! a smile spread across her face as she messed with various apps (including a snake game from a phone line long extinct) for a few minutes to get a hang of the system before remembering what it was she was going to do!

She opened up the wallet she had found in her jeans, and found an ID card.
“Cassia Clanton, huh?” Another card seemed to be an administrators key card to a company called ‘Nexus’ The rest were some miscellaneous junk, alongside a black credit card bearing the company logo as well; an outline of what appears to be a mesoamerican pyramid, with blocky sides, rather than straight sides. Cass folded it all back up and stepped back over to her mirror while stuffing her wallet back into her pocket. She was dressed in a sharp leather jacket and form fitting blue jeans. beneath the jacket was a simple white tee, although it seemed to be struggling for a lack of better terms; her chest was large, embarrassingly so, and now that she was in street clothes, it was all the more obvious, even with how her undergarments attempted to hide it. Whatever, she couldn’t just, hide them or something, so without worrying any further she stepped outside, to try and orient exactly where she was.

Experiments : Stowaway Chp2.

Upon coming to, he had tried to explore whichever part of the ship he could, just getting into crevice that fit him, hoping that a lose screw here and a lose nut there would get him to some food or some washroom.
Sooner rather than later, he found himself near a scaffold connected to the main ventilation. Quick to the jump, he made his way to the ventilation shaft, moving as slowly as possible to make the least amount of noise above the ambient noise of the ventilation shaft and the main engines.
Luckily, due to the noisy nature of the main engines, he could explore the area of the space ship with some impunity, quite unaware as to where he was in terms of spacial coordinates.

As that problem started to weigh on him, he brought out his laptop from one of the slots of his carbon fibre backpack, quite resilient to any physical altercation or physical trauma, protecting the few objects inside.

43 percent battery.
No solar radiation to charge it up. It would die in about 86 hours.

The state of the laptop allowed him some time to hack into the ship’s comms, UPS, and main frame to pinpoint his location and destination and plan ahead.

By the time he was nearly done hacking, mapping his Destination and then, scrambling and encrypting the data he had managed to yoink out of the systems back home, his laptop was ready to die.
The encryption key for the data was pulled out of the laptop and stored securely in the hidden slot of the utility pockets of his trousers, and he was ready to find something or the other to refill the rations in his backpack which he had exhausted over time.

Having mapped the ship, he quickly made his way to the vacuum packed pantry, overfilled his backpack and his pockets and quickly hid away into the ventilation once more.

The reason for his hurried exit was the fact that the ship was slowly approaching a space port and the crew was starting to rise and fumble around the ship to quickly initiate the docking sequence and precursory checking of the ship for any leaks or problems that could cause problems for them on the customs check.

The attendance check and health check of the crew and the colonialists gave a clean report, along with the systems on the ship.
The only anomaly was noticed by the ones who approached the pantry for food, finding it far less than what was packed, only to assume that a few of them had been greedy bastards and finished much more than what was allocated to them.

Notwithstanding, the food was had, the ship was approaching the docking, and disaster loomed in the distance.

The first boom was caused by the failure of a retractor to latch onto the docker assigned to it. For such a huge ship, the latch was equally large, causing a huge metallic clang through the ship only to cause the hydro pneumatic failure of the suspension for the latch.
The latch broke only fall heavily into hydrogen tanks powering the electric systems by fusion cells.
Even though the hydrogen cells had nearly depleted, the implosion and subsequent explosion caused enough of a backblast to delibitate the ship’s ventilation system and cause a flurry of mini rescue ships to flood around the gates of the main ship.

T was knocked out of one of the panels by the blast caused by the hydrogen.
The panic caused in the crew by the boom caused them to ignore a golden head looking around dazed as they ran towards the escape pods.

T, didn’t remember much of what happened after the fall.
As far as vague memory served, he was carried to a rescue ship, only to taken to a public hospital on the space port, until he came to.

Oh fuck.
If they asked questions, or even tried to ID him, they would definitely send him to a holding cell until his planet’s police cleared his deportation.

He needed a plan, and quick. Using the chaos of the public ward with injured and hurt people being rushed around, he went to the toilets, acting as inconspicuous as possible, only to wait a few minutes and then rush out at a fast pace, almost hurriedly with his head tucked low, his face showing reason as if he was searching someone.
The chaos let him escape the hospital, and soon into the city, munching on one of the ration bars he had stolen off the ship.

Experiments : Pirate Queen (Prologue)

On the far, cold fringes of a system orbiting a white dwarf, there existed an old space station. It was a sad place, about the size of a small city once you trim away all the garnishes and induce a bit of claustrophobia, and it was here that space ‘truckers’, miners employed in the local asteroid belt, and little families made their home, or used as a rest stop in times of transit. Well, that’s how it seemed to regular, rule abiding individuals. In reality, the station had a seedy underbelly that few knew of. Thanks to it’s remoteness, and the little to no questions asked by the occupants, a network of less than savory folks had set up shop for a very specific type of business: slaving. The legality of slaves in the milky way was a much debated topic, but no matter where one stood on the issue, it was obviously very unethical.
At the moment, a small ship was docking at one of the less secure ports upon the station, it’s cargo bay full cargo far different than the norm. Out of the docking bridge that connected to the airlock marched a dozen or so humans in shackles and dressed in rags. Their manacles were low tech, but quite effective at keeping them disarmed. The majority of the soon to be sold slaves were around their twenties, with a few obviously older and probably in their thirties. There was one different soul among them however; It was a platinum blonde boy at the end of the line, shoved in the back to catch up with the women that trailed ahead of him. In a few hours they would be auctioned off to the highest bidder, but for the time being, the poor souls were packed into a small storage deck, alongside a half dozen other potential slaves.

As this was happening, a massive ship skipped out of FTL, simply appearing a few clicks from the station. It was a massive ship, seemingly out of fiction, with designs that are rarely seen outside of museums, or ship graveyards. It looked nothing like the sleek, minimalist ships that skirted about from the ports, or the freighters that it eclipsed. The lumbering beast floated closer and closer to the station until it was beside it, just a kilometer or two from it. From a hangar on it’s underbelly, a transport craft buzzed out from it like a bee floating around a tree, and quickly zoomed towards a port below the upper half of the station. It docked without issue in one of the landing bays, and from the back spilled a squad of gruff, muscled grunts who looked to have seen more than most, armed with weapons strapped to their backs and hips. Behind all of them stepped out a woman that stood an inch or so over the tallest of the group, and further towered with a black tricorn atop her head, the front of which was emblazoned with a skull of gold. Her outfit followed a similar style: Long coat and knee high boots, tight black pants, and gold trimming wherever it fit on the ensemble. On her back was a great gold skull, within it’s open mouth it held a star on it’s teeth.
While it might not have been obvious to those in the landing bay, the tall, over-dressed woman was not a typical human. she was a proto-human; A minority among the galaxy, and the ancestors of the humans that had now spread themselves across the milky-way. She was not known for this by most in the criminal world, she was instead infamously known by a simple title.

The Pirate Queen

The raven haired woman let her ruby eyes dart about the hanger, her nose twitching as she apparently picked up on something the others did not. She barked a command to follow as she began to march, her hand resting on the hilt of her vibro-sabre as she hurried through the hanger. Any respectable pirate, rogue, or or other unlawfully abiding citizen worth their salt could recognize a variety of markings within the hanger as directions towards a rogue den, and once she was on the trail, she did not stop until she was outside the door to their lair…
A keypad and a sealed door was all that laid between her and her quarry, an easy task was opening the door, the difficulty would come in the aftermath. She silently ordered her men to saddle up and take position, readying their various silenced weapons, blades, and stun batons, while she got to work on the door. It was child’s play rewiring the obsolete keypad, and in a few moments, the light turned green, and the door began to slide open…
In that moment, where time seemed to slow, she donned a pair of shades that lit up with various info displays as one of her men tossed a magnesium charge into the room, the ensuing pop and flash blinding those caught watching it, except for her, who was safe from the flash as she charged in time with it’s toss.

What happened next was a blur of shouting, CQB, and the strike of silenced slug throwers landing hits right on their marks…