SPACE STATIONS > The Cancer

Taillights in the Data Trails (Dragonsong!)

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Daglobster:
Kayse flicked his cigarette away from himself, watching intently as it sailed across the coffee table and missed his ashtray by a few inches. "Spit!" he yelled, and scrambled up off his couch to grab it before it lit up his synthfiber rug. He blew some of his messy long hair out of his eyes and glanced around the room.

It'd been an absolute bender of a weekend and it showed on his apartment. The period after the payment for a job well done was always spent partying it up but the past couple of days had been particularly wild. His apartment looked like he'd hosted a couple get togethers and one full on party. Empty and open bottles sat on the counter and table, the ashtray was full of cigarette butts and roach ends , and the whole place smelled like the inbred child of a cigar lounge and a dive bar. The flatvid screen on his wall was playing a documentary Kayse had tuned into halfway through, something about an exploration of galactic sea life

But it was home. Kayse dusted some crumbs off his grey sweatpants and tucked his hair properly behind his long, pointed ears. He took another drag before dropping it in the ashtray. He'd only been awake for an hour or so but it was already two in the afternoon, according to the holographic clock in his small kitchen. He yawned, and with a flick of his cybernetic fingers the program paused and the flatvid screen started playing slow and rezzy synthetic music instead.

"Today Kayse, we're taking it easy," he said, and he nodded almost to affirm himself before walking over to his fridge and peering inside. As he pondered what he wanted to drink a soft chime came from his arm and he looked at his palm. The text message from "Marid" projected out from his palm and he pointed it to his fridge door so he could read it as he drank his nutrisoy.

"Hey there! Sorry to drop this on you so late but I can't make it tonight. And I'm busy all weekend. So next week maybe? I know you already bought the entrance passes but I'll make it up to you. We can go to Freet's, maybe? ;)"

It was a rollercoaster of emotions. Of course, the one day he was wiped out and resolved to not do anything was the day he forgot he was going to a wicked new simrave called "Avalonia". Of course, then he found out his date cancelled, and of course he'd bought entrance in advance, which, of course...

meant that he was shit out of luck, a date, and had pissed away a quarter of his payout on a club opening he suddenly wasn't all that keen on going. Well, at least it was in the Sensenet, so it's not like he had to drive anywhere. Or change.

He looked down at his arm, pulling up the information into his cyber-eyes with a thought. He flicked through the ticket info and saw that the opening was for eight. He smiled.

"Well, I got some time..."


Kayse loaded up his usual programs as he drifted through the transition into the Sensenet space. Avalonia was on a richer section's grid. Fortunately for Kayse, he could hop grids like a frog. He was going as himself tonight, no Chillmute shenanigans, and so he made sure that the trace blockers and ID walls were booted up and running. Back in the real world, a freshly showered Kayse was lying in bed, on top of the covers. His cybernetic arm glowed and hummed beneath the surface. Since it acted as his phone and interface point with the world, it was also his Sensenet rig.

That, combined with the hacking computer installed in his brain, meant that Kayse could slip into the Sensenet almost as naturally as going to sleep.

Back in the virtual world, the host was finally loading up. He'd made it through the last layer of grid security and found himself suddenly stepping through the haze of data and finding his foot on stone.

Looking around, he was in quaint, renaissance-period surroundings. At the center of the virtual space a gigantic victorian style skyscraper cast its shadow over all surroundings. "AVALONIA" blazed in magical letters above the tower's peak. It was a solid sixty floors of thrumming bass and flashing lights, promising all kinds of diversions with a masquerade theme.

The advertisements Kayse had seen advertised thriving raves and ultraluxury dance halls, all contained in a massive virtual skyscraper. The "town" surrounding the giant pleasure tower was made up of smaller virtual businesses. More down-to-earth simbars, rapier dueling circles, and other period stores (For both real & virtual things) and diversions.

Kayse took in the scene a little as he walked up to the tower's gate. Security programs mocked as knights and renaissance musketeers kept virtual comers feeling secure and behaved and added to the atmosphere, and they were also checking virtual IDs and tickets at the door.

He checked his tickets. Two VIPs, all-access including the "Catherine Room" and all the free simulation booze him and one other person could drink, complete with any-time virtual ordering.

Neat.

Knowing he could get wasted as freely as he wanted and wake up in bed after, he started searching the crowd of infinitely varied virtual avatars to see if there was any person who looked like they could use a scalped ticket. Might as well make a few hundred credits on the way in, right?

DragonSong:
Alright. Sensenet.

This was doable, right?

Pink glowered at the small machine she had just finished unpacking from its discrete little black box, biting her lip. She felt kinda bad about this--okay, more than kinda bad. She was pretty sure if any of her friends or family figured out what she was doing, the disappointment and shame would have been a worse punishment than...well. Whatever would happen when they turned her in.

But... She had to do this, didn't she? Teinar needed to grow--maybe not physically, but the isolation just wasn't good for them. Trade with surfacers was always difficult, they just didn't have anything down here to entice people, convince them they were worth the effort.

Nothing except the racing.

Which was where this whole stupid plan came in. God she hoped this was going to work.


Pink liked to believe that she didn't allow a little bit of extra income to really go to her head; her bike shop was a modest affair, and she still lived in the small studio apartment above it, though even before her parents had retired she certainly could have moved to a bigger place. She tried to be thrifty with her money, sending most of it to her parents' retirement facility, but she would admit to a few "extravagances" here and there--mostly upgrades to her favorite racing bike.

But the small rig sitting in the middle of her bed was probably the most expensive thing she'd purchased in...well, in ever. Black market, so that wasn't exactly unexpected, but she knew if this little scheme of hers bombed she'd be digging herself out of this debt for the rest of her life. And that was if no one decided to just revoke her engineering license for possession of illegal goods.

Letting out a sharp breath, Pink furrowed her brow and looked down at the small earpiece sitting in her palm. She turned it over a few times, then huffed again and slipped it on--it fit almost too easily, it was a little disconcerting. Biting her lip, she settled herself on the bed, back propped up against the pillows, and reached over to press her thumb onto the small pad on the side of the sleek, silver datapad that lay next to her.

The screen blinked to life, strings of numbers running down in rows, and she clenched her eyes shut as the earpiece clicked, whirred, and then sparked once, sharply, sending a jolt through her whole body. Oh gods, was this working?

No outside network could reach Teinar--at least, not legally. And black market Sensenet rigs weren't exactly the most reliable pieces of technology.

She really hoped this wasn't going to fry her brain.


When Pink opened her eyes again, her surroundings were entirely unfamiliar. She gaped openly at the cobblestones and renaissance-era buildings, winding avenues, and--oh dear gods, the sky.

Okay. If that was what it actually looked like...maybe this would be worth frying her brain.

Looking around, Pink tried to gather herself, makes some sense of the chaos around her. Alright, her contact had said she should be meeting someone called Reese--which she figured was a moniker rather than an actual surname--at a place called Avalonia, some sort of club.

Right. Okay. So she just had to find Avalonia. She was supposed to have been sent to the right server, and her avatar was...well, just her, really. Colors a little brighter, leather jacket a little sleeker, but she didn't see much else different. Her contact was supposed to know what to look like, so this shouldn't be too difficult.

Right?

Taking a breath, Pink straightened her shoulders and lifted her head slightly, starting off down the street toward the sound of music and the vague flash of lights. She figured that had to be the right direction.

She turned out to be right, but when she caught sight of the building she rather wished she wasn't. "Holy shit..."

Oh, she was so not cut out for this. Why were there freaking knights at the gate?!

The moment she stepped out of her little side street she was immediately jostled along by the crowd. She had maybe half a second to consider just bailing, zipping off Sensenet and tossing the rig out the window, never to return, before she was suddenly almost at the gate to the club and, well, then there was really no going back.

"Tickets?"

She blanched. No one had said anything about tickets. That seemed like kind of important information!

"Umm..." She looked around, trying desperately to think of something to say, anything. Maybe she could talk her way in? Were these guards even real, or where they just strands of code? Did it make a difference?

Fuck.

Daglobster:
Bright colors weren't exactly uncommon in the Sensenet. It was easy to make something vibrant when all you had to do was access the object's properties and fiddle with the hues and saturation. And when it wasn't on the buildings, guard programs, or products the colors could be found in the people. As Kayse stood there, leaned inconspicuously against a wall, he took in the scene in all its splendor.

It went without saying that Sensenet avatars ran the full range of whatever people felt like they could get away with under the anonymity of a wireless connection, although quite a few seemed to have bought some virtual merchandise on the way in. In no particular order there was a  purple werewolf wearing a vibrantly plumed musketeer hat, a robot & a guy with blue skin batting at each other with period weapons, and other fine examples of the Sensenet community, alongside folks who had much more mundane avatars.

A brief glance over the active data connections in the region showed that most everybody here was from Cancer. You also had the usual connections from Aedolis and Libra, and hey, even a few Edanis made it to the party. And there was also...

One single connection from Teinar?

Damn. Must have been some pretty hot bootleg rigging going on there to get a connection from a mile underground. Out of pure curiosity (and before he could stop himself) he narrowed in on the data stream to see if he could get more info. Single-access rig, running underneath and alongside Teinar's private network, using... an earpiece?! That tech is vintage, for sure. When he saw he could get audio, he double-checked his stealth programs and patched himself in.

He heard a young woman struggling to procure tickets (By the sound of it she didn't even have any!) and he pushed off the wall. Snowflakes billowed behind him as he made his way over. It didn't look like anybody here came without a ticket anyways, and why not help out the first and only Teinari he'd ever seen using the Sensenet?

The guard gave Pink a blank look. Not much of his face could be seen under the helmet but his digital nature was fairly obvious when her "Um" had only really caused a few seconds of silence before he promptly replied.

"Opening night is entrance by ticket only. Avalonia is an exclusive, all-senses covered club experience for the disc-"

"Oh, hey! There you are!" Said Kayse, suddenly coming in from the side, bumping Pink's shoulder as he lifted his cybernetic arm up to the guard. Like Pink, Kayse was using himself as his Sensenet avatar (although definitely not for the same reason). He was wearing his favorite outfit out tonight, and his VR-ized self had ice-colored eyes instead of his normal green and snow-white hair where he normally had dirty blonde.

"I've been looking for you all over! She's with me. Two VIPs, please!"

Two virtual tickets flashed out of his arm and into the guard's hand, and the knight leaned his halberd out of the way and Avalonia's doors opened to grant them entry. The very first floor was a party all by itself. The music boomed, magical laser lights and enchanted smoke set the scene, and the place itself looked like a ballroom crossed with a sleek club. This room by itself must've taken up at least six floors, and amongst the scattered dance floors all kinds of shapes and people moved to the thrum of the bass.

Kayse motioned for Pink to follow as he stepped into the room. His face lit up considerably as he gazed around, and he could only wonder what the rest of the tower held in store, and she was seemingly almost forgotten as he looked around.

DragonSong:
Okay, what?

Pink had to resist the urge to skitter sideways as one of the fantastical party-goers jostled into her, and at first she thought he was just trying to get passed her into the club--but then his words actually registered and her jaw dropped open as she stared up at the man in mute surprise for a few moments.

"O-oh! Right, ah...thanks?" She didn't have time to say anything else before they were waved through the gate and into Avalonia.

She had to stop again barely one step in the door, staring around the massive room, utterly overwhelmed. She'd thought she could handle pretty much anything Sensenet could throw at her--she'd been motoracing since she was fourteen after all, how much more intense could a reality that wasn't even real actually be?

Quite a lot, apparently.

It took her a few moments to realize her ticket in had started to wander off once they were through the door. She blinked, then seemed to snap back to herself and trotted after him, reaching for his arm. "Hey! Um, thanks, for, y'know...back there. Are--are you Reese?"

That would make sense, right? She had no idea what her contact actually looked like, but he was supposed to be able to recognize her. Shuffling her feet, Pink straightened her shoulders out and tried to stretch to her full height, pale eyes catching and reflecting the light of the lasers for a moment. She tried to look at professional as she could manage...which wasn't exactly the easiest thing, considering her avatar was wearing her regular racing gear of soft leather pants, slightly ragged t-shirt, and jacket.

Daglobster:
[Song I listened to making the intro post, btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rq8PjgNI3c]

Fortunately for Pink, the Sensenet didn't have any dress codes, so she definitely fit right in when it came to the looks department. She wasn't completely forgotten by Kayse either, but he wanted to take in the sight, the bustle of avatars and service programs, the wild variety of shapes twisting and bumping on the dance floor.

Pink thanked him, grasping at his arm, and he turned back to get a proper look at her, now that the quick moment of entry had passed. She certainly had a unique look to her, but in the Sensenet he couldn't tell what was avatar and what was actually her until he cracked her ID locks and well...

...that just seemed rude.

The pink of her eyes was a really nice touch, though, and he turned back to fully face her, looking confident until she asked if he was Reese.

"Who the hell is Reese?" Kayse asked, even as he gave her attire a once-over as he looked down at her. A racing fan, definitely.

"Name's Kayse," he started.

He offered her his hand to shake, and a friendly smile. Now that they were talking, he could see that she had a "deer-in-headlights" kind of look and he didn't want to overwhelm the poor girl.

"You new around here?"

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