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Thread: [M] Futuropolis 2094

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    Default [M] Futuropolis 2094

    The year is 2094.

    A dying-yet-politically dominant Earth struggles to overcome internal conflict, extreme weather and her ever-growing population. Luna, Earth's moon, infamous for its crater-shaped utopias under the domes, harbours the more priviliged part of humanity. Lunar expeditions to Venus are well underway, and the recently colonized Mars is fractured by old-world influence, corporate interest and union disputes.

    We're citizens of Nova Casqua (frequently referred to as NosCas or Casq City), one of the last bastions of western idealism in Europe. Mecca is lost under the sand, Lady Liberty has long been bombed by the french, and the economic heart of China has been washed away by the sea. From Gibraltar Isle to the Berliner Peninsula, there's a firm line of partly self-sufficient European megacities. Between the gated megacities is little to be found but savages, nomads, miserable villages and self-proclaimed states rebelling against the regime as part of a forgotten world war that's spanning for decades.

    The city of Nova Casqua (located near old Calais) is dependent on trade with the other megacities along the Atlantic coast. Since the Netherlands, half of Belgium and the city of London have been flooded, Nos Casqua relies on Luxemburg, Paris-nord-et-Versailles and Ruhr am See, but Paris currently has a leak in the undercity. As a result, eight-million refugees flee north, on foot - to Nos Casqua and Luxemburg. Alas, a perceptive city dweller would know the city is already packed and any step for expansion could lead to the collapse of the Casquan undercity. The supply chain between Paris and Nova Casqua has also been cut; often shot out of the sky by militants. As a joint NCI (Nova Casqua Inquiry) and humanitarian aid effort, the crisis must be investigated and relayed back to the highrise. It will begin in the depths of the undercity, where the human trafficking is at its thickest. But ultimately, the investigation would likely extend to beyond the city walls, and it's increasingly hard to find people willing to venture out
    without ulterior motive...



    (Props to Artur Sadlos, #2 of a long list of deviantartists I will be ripping from to portray the neo-urban vibes.)

    Spoiler: The details; can also be found and discussed in the OOC 


    ________________________Another Blue Monday in Casq City_________________________


    It was a quarter past 5 after midnight. Morning felt like an early evening, as the drizzling skystreets of Nova Casqua were never empty and its neon billboards ever-illuminating. Thirty-nine floors above streetlevel laid the 3th Greenflower Street, its alleys spoiling the lower mid-class with the wonders of the undercity. These lower levels of the street were infamous for their chinese escorts, opium dealers, grade-A noodles and seedy clubs quite obviously ran by triads. On the counter of Takahashi's Wok sat two men of comparable roots, but vastly different idealism. One with wild long brown hair, one with a short and slightly lighter coupe. One a lover, the other most definitely a fighter.

    "Takahashi!"

    A mechanical eye on a stick looked up to its client while preparing an upcoming cup of noodles with a few of its many other arms. The long-haired fellow pointed with chopsticks to his half-empty noodle cup.

    "Needs some more sambal."

    Without delay, the Takahashi-bot squirted some spice into Q's cup with its sambal-arm. The short-haired man looked up at Q and Takahashi. He felt jealousy: he'd liked extra spice himself, but couldn't bring himself to ask the wokbot in an effort to prevent social interaction with the talkative neo-hippie. He stabbed his fork back into his noodle tofu and slurped up. Some jazzy, bittersweet medley chirped on in the background, barely audible over passing aerocars and raindrops.


    (By Nkabuto, the poor bastard)

    A burst of gunfire echoed through the relatively silent streets. Special detective Cellobs, the short-haired man, who had sat down on the edge of the skystreet's balcony to retain a view of his surroundings, looked down the urban ravine in order to determine the source of the gunshots. Alas, Casqua's thick lingering smog prevented him from seeing more than three streets down. The detective quietly turned back to his noodle tofu while pondering about the scope of his new assignment. As a control freak at heart, he had always been somewhat frightened of the city under the city. Not its organized crime, mind you, but rather its dark corners and alleys filled with opportunistic lowlife, preying on outstanding citizens like himself.

    On the other end of the street, opposite to Takahashi's Wok, a white-with-red facade suddenly lit up. It was followed with a single strike of the clock. The humanitarian aid center was now open, and its queue of strung-out punks, junkies and slightly deformed undercitydwellers slowly began to wake from their blue monday slumber.
    Last edited by Q; 05-11-2018 at 04:11 PM. Reason: shhh

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    The AeroTaxi signalled as it pulled off to the right at a walkway.

    "Sir?" Auntie Simone's voice crackled over the VidLink as it displayed her smiling face at the two passengers entwined on her back seat. Her display, however, was off. She didn't want to think about what those two might have been doing in the back of her cab.

    "Wha... what is it?" the man's voice panted.
    "We're here, sir," she winced. "Fare is 38.90, please insert your cred."
    There was some whispers, too faint to hear clearly, and then some rustling as clothing got adjusted. Then her panel buzzed.
    "Sorry sir," Auntie smiled thinly. "Nobody leaves the cab until the fare is paid."
    "Sorry about that," the man told her. "My companion was anxious to stretch."

    There was a hum from the One-Armed-Bandit as a card was inserted, then her meter flashed "paid" - no tip. The curb-side door unlocked and she heard the man's companion giggle as the two of them crawled out onto the walkway.

    "Good morning, sir!" she called out over the external tannoy the cab door slid shut. With a sigh, she shut it off and her "For Hire" sign and rubbed her eyes as Iron Mike eyed the traffic. Pushing a button on the wheel, she called out, "Tanner!"
    "This is dispatch," scolded the voice over the radio.
    "Tanner, it's just after 5 AM, knock it off!" she retorted. "I'm taking my break."
    "Roger GT-109," the dispatcher replied. "See you in a bit."

    Rolling her eyes, she glanced out the window, then signaled to pull out. There was a blare of horn as some idiot flew by, then she had a slot she could pull out into.

    Five minutes later she was touching down on a parking pad on Greenflower street. Stepping out of her cab, she stretched, feeling that stale morning air. "Lockdown," she said softly. The driver's door closed and there was a subtle gestalt click as the car locked all the doors. Probably take the street level kids all of nine minutes to pop it open, but on this level, they didn't have that desperate a need.

    Across the street, she could see the humanitarian aid center light up, getting ready for the locals. She eyed them warily as she walked into Takahashi's Wok.

    "Takahashi-san," she sang out, "Tanuki udon and coffee, but with real cream and sugar!"

    The robot's greeting hand gave her a wave as she found a seat. She sighed, giving the room the once-over, then frowned as she noticed the two men eating at the counter. They didn't look like people who came to eat. These two came to wait. But for what?
    Spoiler: ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ √Ăłł Єѵïł ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 

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    Khawarij pulled off his bloody latex gloves with a snap. The rubber flung even more blood onto the floor. He pulled the fingers of both gloves into a knot, and turning one of the gloves inside out to hold the blood within. He tossed the expended gloves in the rubbish bin in the corner and began to clean the floor with a mop. Despite the downtrodden state of the Aid Organization, it was a hospital room nonetheless, and if he couldn’t have the entire hospital clean at least his operation theatre would be.

    As he mopped gore off the floor, he heard his current patient startle awake on the operating table. Khawarij was prepared for the scream that would follow, as well. To be fair, there wasn’t anything wrong with the patient before he had started operating. But his patient hadn’t paid Khawarij as he’d promised, so Khawarij had to do something about it. He didn’t save lives for free. Khawarij turned around and looked the man in the eye.

    “Good evening, Mr. McNally. I’m glad you could join me this morning.” Khawarij was a surgeon and a lifesaver, and as such knew human anatomy like the back of his hand. “You know my contract, McNally. You’re receiving the consequences of not following through now.” Khawarij had cut open McNally’s abdomen, taken his intestines out, and hung them up on racks beside his body. The intestines themselves were fine- unsevered, still struggling to process McNally’s previous meal.

    “What the fuck, man!” screamed McNally, struggling on the table.

    “Ah ah,” hushed Khawarij, “We prefer to watch our profanity in these halls.” He began to circle the table, his eye contact unbreakable from McNally’s pleading gaze. “I will make you a deal. You pay me 400% my original rate, and I put your insides back where they belong. And then you can go tell your friends not to fuck with me again. How does that sound?”

    “Fine! Fuck! Sure! Just put them in and you’ll get your money!”

    “No, Mr. McNally. You pay me now.” Khawarij held out his paypad.

    McNally reached out, placed a bloody hand on the paypad, and then fainted from either shock or blood loss. Most likely both. Khawarij wiped off the pad, checked the payment, and then pulled on two new latex gloves.

    A couple hours later, Khawarij had forcefully discharged McNally from the organization, just as it began to light up for a new day. He was hungry. The noodle bar across the street would be a good breakfast.

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    A lanky drifter was among the first to approach the humanitarian aid center, bringing a suspicious aura about him. His tremendously large backpack butted in the faces of anybody standing behind him. A rusted pipe was jutted out the top of it, chomped between the teeth of the zipper. His stance seemed nervous as he impatiently bounced up and down, his eyes firmly staring at the heels of the next-in-line's shoes.
    Joseph flipped out the bent and dirtied business card between his fingers and looked it over again, almost hoping that one of these times the text would change and tell him exactly what he needed to know.

    Amazdu Tsukiko (天津 月子)
    Chief Vaccinologist for Ibutsu Biomedical


    No such luck. Joseph slipped the card back into his pocket and waited for the line to budge. He dared to lift his head and look around the plaza. He couldn't believe how bad the AeroTaxi drivers in this city were at parking. Some noodles sounded good right about now; if only he had any money.
    His train of thought was derailed when he spotted a man, sitting on a park bench with his arms spread and his legs popped out, who was clearly watching him. The expensive sunglasses he wore only to hide his face only made it more obvious. He spun around to find that other people were looking at him, too. Maybe they were just there to pass judgment on the lower classes, but no way in hell was he going to be caught off-guard. Joseph reached a hand around to his backpack and slid the pipe of his bag, gripping it tightly in his hand and looking back down to the front of the line which had, so far, barely moved.

    "Hurry the shit up..." he muttered under his breath.

    The man in the glasses continued staring at the line, then looked surprised and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his cellphone and smiled.

    "Hiya honey! How's it going?" he asked rather loudly, "You're kidding me, he threw up again? God damn, I'll be right down."

    With that, the man stood up with gusto and walked away, leaving Joseph feeling relieved if a little foolish. He relaxed his shoulders and looked around once again. Maybe I'm too paranoid after all, he thought to himself.

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    After Simone's entrance as a regular customer and her subsequent order, Detective Cellobs gazed into his coffee. It did taste a little stale. "Bot?" he finally spoke up, raising his hand somewhat hesitantly. Takahashi swiftly answered with one of its pre-recorded lines, "Nan-ni shimasu-ka?", while simultaneously handing Simone her Tanuki noodle-cup, prepared with extra care. Cellobs lifted his near-empty coffee cup. "Refill?" he paused, "With real cream." He let out a seemingly shy smirk at Auntie Simone, but quickly retreated back to staring in his noodle-soup when his coffeecup got refilled.

    Q, on the other hand, had finished his meal and was now hanging against the counter, face to the facades. He conjured a cigarette from behind his ear, barely visible underneath his thick layers of partly braided long brown hair. He reached into his pocket, hanging even further over the counter and nearly getting into one of Takahashi's arms' way. A frown followed, and Q turned his head towards Auntie Simone. "Lady." He made an open fist and moved his thumb up and down to simulate lighting his cigarette. "Fuego?"

    While Detective Cellobs tried to overcome his social awkwardness and Q tried to bum a lighter, the queue on the opposite end of the urban ravine seemed to get moving along. Between the Aid Center's bright-lit facade and its entrance was a screen showing an article of the Casquan Current, one of the city's more respected news channels. It depicted child poverty in the undercity, showing an Iranian girl with the prettiest, bluest eyes of all, sleeping in a pipe underneath one of the many gigantic columns holding the upper city in place. Just as the article got to a more positive note with a happy brown-snouted cat appearing from behind the blue-eyed girl, the screen went black.

    The Casquan Current channel returned with shocking footage: from a bellycam of an overflying aerocar, the upper city of Paris could be seen collapsing on the Parisian undercity. Hundreds of flats and skyscrapers sunk into the earth, leaving a storm of dust above. It seemed to have a cascading effect; after the first depressing shots from the aerocar's bellycam, other source material was played and showed more than half the city tumbled into itself and the waters of the river Seine flowing into the city's cracks. Paris was in chaos - as were the pedestrians on Greenflower St. who saw the footage. From a quiet-yet-vibrant blue monday, the streets of NosCas plummeted into wordless outrage.
    Last edited by Q; 05-10-2018 at 01:00 PM.

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    Khawarij, seemingly unaware of the outrage, stepped into the noodle shop and sat down on a stool next to a man with a cigarette and long hair. He cracked his neck, and asked the bot for a bowl of miso ramen with chicken. He sucked his tongue as his implanted info-contacts chimed a message in his skull- Paris had fallen. Literally. Khawarij sat shocked as the information played across his retinas faster than he could process- cities didn't just disappear like that. That was millions, if not billions, dead. He instantly patted his whole body down, checking for every single supply on his body. 1 scalpel handle. 3 hypodermic blades of varying sizes. A self sanitizing hypodermic needle. 1 M1911 handgun. 1 surgeons mask. 1 pill of cyanide stitched into his shirt's shoulder. 1 roll of hydrophillic bandages. 1 mini-defibrillator. 2 bottles of neosporin.

    Finishing his check, he stood up and began to walk towards the door. This was no place to be- if he could be on the forefront of aid in Paris, maybe he could delay attention from the Jannisaries for another month. Maybe a year. Just as he was about to step out of the door, there was a chime behind him. His noodles were ready. Khawarij turned to look at the steaming bowl.

    He had paid for those.

    Khawarij turned on his heel and proceeded to sit right back down. He grabbed the two chopsticks and began to wolf down the noodles as fast as he could. As he did, he began to scan the other diners in the shop. Most of them seemed relatively fit. All of them were almost definitely armed. Normally, this would have worried him. But now...

    Kaji looked into the street outside, seeing the outcry. It was going to be dangerous out there, alone. Maybe a couple friends couldn't hurt.

    He took a deep breath, and loudly announced to the rest of the room, "Well, this is a pickle, isn't it?"

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    Joseph's jaw began to tremble as he watched the broadcast and the plaza fell into quiet shock. It couldn't happen like this, not now. He stood on his toes to see above the line leading to the aid clinic. Feeling desperate, he clenched his teeth and threw his hand in the air.

    "Come on, move already!" he shouted with little consequence. His head crashed, his heart raced, and he began to shove his way to the front of the line with little regard for his fellow man. Several people took issue with this:

    "Hey, asshole!" a man shouted as he shouldered past him.

    Joseph threw an apologetic wave back, "Sorry, I just need a minute!" as he heard more angry protests, but he found that nobody actually does anything if they've been cut in a line; he reckoned they're usually too scared they'd be shived or shot. Confident with this knowledge, Joseph trudged through the sea of squatters until finally reaching the aid center. He slammed his trembling hand down onto the glass countertop "You're going to send aid to Paris, right?" he asked the nearest worker, "I need in. Give me a job, you don't even have to pay me. I just need a ride-"

    A pair of hands grabbed onto Joseph's collar from behind and threw him face first into the cement. His pipe clanged onto the ground and rolled a foot away. His assailant, the man he'd knocked shoulders with just before, dropped his knee onto Joseph's chest to press the air out of his lungs. Evidently, Joseph's hypothesis was incorrect, and he gasped for air.

    "Who the hell do you think you are?" the attacker spat. Joseph only barely managed to shield his face before the man threw a punch. "Some of us actually need some fuckin' medicine!"
    Last edited by MarsShadow; 05-10-2018 at 04:25 PM.

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    "Refill?" Cellobs paused, "With real cream." He let out a seemingly shy smirk at Auntie Simone.

    She stared at him blankly for a moment, but fortunately his attention returned to his noodle cup. Another customer came in and sat down, and she felt she could make her escape back to her table.

    "Lady." It was the other one. He made an open fist and moved his thumb up and down to simulate lighting his cigarette. "Fuego?"

    "Of course," she said faintly, putting down the coffee cup and reaching into one of her pockets to pull out a HotSpot™ electric lighter. It was a metal cased lighter with a lid, you had to open the top to undo the safety and press the ignition button to make the recessed coil burn. Holding it by the base, she reached it out to the man... to the cop. She could feel her face go ashen.

    And then violence erupted on the screen, Paris tumbling in on itself, the river flooding in.

    "I... thought this was a news channel," she said, but a look in the corner of the screen showed the Casquan Current logo. "Please tell me this is a movie...!"

    A newcomer next to Q began patting down his body, obviously checking his valuables. The street kid in her filed it away as the man telegraphed his precious possessions. He rose as it to leave, but Takahashi put down his order.

    She automatically returned the HotSpot to her pocket and grabbed her coffee. The minidek on her forearm began buzzing half-way to her table.
    Spoiler: ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ √Ăłł Єѵïł ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 

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    "Of course," Auntie Simone said faintly, while she handed her HotSpot. Q graciously flicked it open and zap-burned a light at the end of his Marlborough. The eccentric smoker raised an uncertain eyebrow at Auntie's facial expression.

    "Wow, chill, lady, no gestapo here," Q innocently claimed while politely giving the woman her lighter back. "Though, well..." he put up a light frown as his gaze strayed over Auntie's shoulder and upon the detective, still sitting in his corner overlooking Takahashi's small diner-stand. The bordeaux-red collar in Cellobs' trenchcoat was typical for City Hall's more subtle enforcers.

    When news of the Parisian Collapse hit the noodle-place, Q stared emptily at the screen for a good dozen seconds, all the while a freshly-lit smoldering cigarette stuck out of the corner of his mouth. After regaining his composure, he leaned on a drainage pipe redirecting the drizzle from Takahashi's roof. He continued to feel distraught and remained quiet for a while.

    Uninterested in the happenings around him, detective Cellobs had already dropped a few euros on Takashi's counter and taken his coffee to go - onward, to the aid center. He crossed the footbridge with a swaggerish disinterest, as if the news was no surprise to him. Prepared to flash his badge or blaster to anyone who'd dare stop him, he shouldered his way through the mass beneath the white-red facade.

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    The man continued his enraged assault. "You little college pricks! I know your type-."

    Joseph finally could grab his pipe and swung it blindly in front of him. He clipped the ruffian clean upside his head; who promptly slumped over like a bag of bricks. He kicked the man's ribcage several times to push him off further and shuffled out of his compromising position. Scrambling to his feet, Joseph limped away from the crowd that had drawn to watch the skirmish. "H-He attacked me first." He pointed at the unconscious man "You all saw that, right?" in a daze Joseph stumbled clumsily back into the path of Detective Cellobs, bumping him aside. "A-ah, excuse me, I'm sorry..."

    He froze when he caught a glimpse of Cellob's distinguishing outfit; the attire of an undercover fed. He awkwardly coughed and muttered another apology under his breath, weighing the pros and cons of making a break for it out of the plaza.
    Last edited by MarsShadow; 05-11-2018 at 04:24 AM.

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