Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » The maze of glass and concrete (1x1)

The reporter, for once, was having a feast. A feast consisting of a croissant sandwich and a cup of coffee. Many would find them to be cheap and and easily obtained food, but with her budget it was hard to buy even this. She walked through the streets of the crowded urban city, ignoring the droplets hitting her raincoat in a consistent pattern. Her coat was longer this time, trailing behind her, covering her still mud-stained jeans. She washed them at least three times, but couldn't get them out. She was wandering the streets and turned into one of the more 'shady' streets, a alleyway she used quite often as a shortcut to the old worn down warehouse in which she kept her supplies. Or at least that was where most of them were delivered to. She walked quickly, not bothering to navigate as she stared at her phone, scanning through her messages. Many of them were requests, forwarded to her by frost, or spam. After a while of scanning and disgruntled mumbles muffled by her sandwich, she found a message sent to her by a anonymous company, which had been her current supplier of goods.

---

Dear ⚉ïթựᅨ੘ੵ,
We have accepted a gift purchase for you from FዎងᡠஞĠ.
The attached message is as follows:

HEy. So this is for your next assignment. Yeah yeah you didn't accept one but this one you NEED to do, okay? OK. Its not rental so feel free to wreck it.

____F

It has been s̶̷ʜ̶̷ɪ̶̷ᴘ̶̷ᴘ̶̷ᴇ̶̷ᴅ̶̷ arrived.
If you have not received your package, please send us an error report on our home page.

---

These people were sneaky bastards. They didn't even have a home page. Or a website for that matter. She swallowed the last of her sandwich whole and looked up checking if she was going the right way. She groaned slightly, not recognizing her surroundings. She glanced around, and finding a rusty fire-escape, began to climb her way up. The warehouse area, while abandoned and ruined, was still pretty large. She should be able to spot it if she was heading in the right direction.

As Snake came out the backdoor, into the alley,he saw the reporter once more climbing the fire escape out of the corner of his eyes. Of course this time she was chasing someone since she wasn't in a rush. What was she doing? Normally, Snake wouldn't care. But following this girl would be more important than returning to the damp apartment, and he had to know why they were after her. If he climbed up to the roof, he would be spotted. If he remained to the ground, he would able to follow her, but she still could potentially look down. He looked around, and next to the dumpster he saw it.

She was pretty fast. And Snake could barely catch up. Not only was he...impaired...but he had to go through a crowded street with...this. He could barely see, except for the slip allowing him a confined view of what was around him. All he could see of course were the strange looks he got from people and the reporter elegantly leaping from roof to roof. His back was killing him of course. He had to be hunched over for this to work. And trying to run in this position was deadly. Inside, the inner lining was damp and cold from the previous days of rain, and the smell of mold and old paper could be smelled. Of course, he progressed onwards. Although he looked ridiculous, it felt right. He felt as if it was his destiny to be in this, like he reached Nirvana within. This thing would protect him from the outside, and when still, no enemy could see him. (Try to guess what it is, if you can't steam me).

Walter, a time traveler,
The only one of his kind,
Since he is only a hamster,
Please keep an open mind.

His tale begins in the city of Metaplex,
The year is 2034, 1st of October,
Walter spots his subjects,
Seri and Snake, who is hardly sober.

Walter finds them in a fight,
All alone against a Frozener,
Whom is nothing against their might, (might=strength)
And goes down in a blur.

And now comes the giant twist,
Walter is not his name, aren't you pissed?

The warehouse lot was larger than expected. Seri was in the row with the warehouses numbered in the 100's, but 106 was nowhere in sight. She sighed, pulling up the email sent previously which supposedly had included a map of the facility. As she pulled up the map she silently swore out Frost. That man and his connections were too much sometimes. He had rented out one of the larges warehouses just for a small ship. This had happened previously, when she had asked him to get her somewhere to stay when going undercover. He practically rented out the whole apartment complex, saying something about being sure about something or another. He overdoes things all the time, and from her experience with working with him, this was one of the less-overdone things he had done.

As she wandered over to the large warehouses, she pulled up her phone to check for any more messages. Other than the chat, nothing seemed to have anything new. She could pull up the chat, but she could predict what was probably on there. After a bit of thinking and boredom, she decided to pull it up anyway. The messages, as she predicted, were mainly from Ais. She had asked her to keep her up to date on things, but the amount of messages she sent per day was astounding. Wasn't she supposed to be a student? Most of the messages were about distant civilizations and machine mechanics, but some were simple messages from her. The most recent one stated she got in trouble for sending messages in class. Seri let out a little sigh and looked up. Seems like she arrived at the warehouse. 106.

In the warehouse district eh? Snake thought. He crossed the empty street. In front of him laid the gate, and a small booth with a rent-a-cop sitting in. He was a black man, with greying hair, a double chin, puffy eyes with a depressed look and big lips, moving in O's, decreasing and increasing in size. Whistling. The cop looked the other way, and Snake rushed behind him (with the box). As soon as the cop started to turn around, Snake stopped in his tracks, and stood still, the box still sheltering him.

"What the **** is this biznitch. Mother****a, I moved down here to the warehouse area to avoid you damn crazies! Who'd you think u are punk? Mother****in' transformer turtle? Get yo ass out of there", he said, swiftly removing the box atop of Snake.

"Alert Mode! 99, 98, 97...96......95........94............" rang in the back of Snake's head. Ah, the good old days. But this was no mission. and this man was not his enemy. "I'm sorry...sir... I was simply...taking in the view. I'm a tourist...from Detroit. Yes Detroit, I'm here to see my family. They're in ...uhm...that warehouse (NOOO, STUPID ANSWER)".

"Cracka, you from Detroit!? No wonder you're out here in the rain in that damn thing. Man, you another crackhead? Shiii....and I thought I saw the last of you by now. Get yo white ass in the damn place and do you crackas do....I'm too old for this shit..."

Snake was rushed into the compound, and he saw a multiple rows, numbered 100-120.

101 was empty
102 Was probably why the cop let him in. There were some obvious crack heads, all huddled around a dealer, all quivering and paranoid by the 'shakes'.
103 empty
104 Had multiple asian men crowded, in a circle, shouting at a chicken fight. Animal gambling, I thought the world was too old for this...I guess not...
105 empty
106

Wait, is that Seri?

(Haikus this time)

While they are gone
Our hamster travels once more
To meet with Shakespeare.

"Such an odd being"
"Where doth thou come from yee thing?"
"For I am Shakespeare".

The hamster squeaked once
And no more, since he was mute
A curse on his fate.

"Such a tragedy"
"A poor being trapped to this"
"I'll write about you".

And thus our hamster
Was named Tybalt by Shakespeare
This was not his name.

Tune in for next time
More tales by our cool hamster
Whose name we don't know.

((IM GUESSING WE (dont?) HAVE INTERGALACTIC-SOLARSYSTEM-WHATEVERYOUCALLIT travel. For convenivence gnna ask but yeah multiple planets are cool yup yup))

Seri stared up at the large warehouse and its contents. Inside was a large plane-ship thing. Whatever you called them. And it was shiny. Too shiny. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted, a plain aircraft of some sort that won't stand out. This humongous thing stood out like a lighthouse. Powered on nuclear. Seriously, this was going OVER over board. She clicked her tongue and jabbed the dial button, wincing as she hurt her finger on the screen.

"Yees?" came a lazy reply after about 6 ringing tones.
"What. Is. THis."
"what is what? Im tired call back later."
"WHY is there a HUUUGE plane-thing in the warehouse?? I asked for something INconspicuous. Not a flashy OOh lOOky Here plane. Seriously, what model IS this anyway?"
"Its the most recent one, not released to the public quite yet. Why?"
"......... does a freshly made and 'not exactly released to public' plane seem INCONSPICUOUS TO YOU?"
"Well the mission is in an area filled with rich bastards you know. If you go in with a cummy old helicopter or something they'll surely notice."
"So you just got me the newest thing ever."
"yup."
"aand you assume this won't attract attention? ITS HUGE"
"It splits into three, so you can use the smaller one if you think its too big."
"Oh great. and it has tons of functions. Is there a manual?"
"mmhm. probably in the mail pocket. go nuts."

With that frost ended the phone call and the phone turned dark. Seri sighed, silently swearing at him for a)having too much extra money to spend and b) spending it in the most stupidest way ever when she was practically starving. She stomped over to the mail pocket on the side of the warehouse, and pried out a thin tablet covered in plastic. The sticker on the top stating MANUAL in large bold letters. She ripped open the bag and pulled out the tablet, taking a seat on one of many nearby boxes, rolling her shoulders.

"now to figure out how to split this thing..."

Is that...a...Ford Thunder Cougar Falconbird? Seriously, who was this woman? Chasing Frozeners, and having access to experimental machinery. Snake only knew because of his friend, John Titor. She was a friend of Snake who supplied him information straight from all major corporations (such as Google and SERN) that were plotting devious plots such as assassinations and coups. He had met her just a few years back, when he first moved in to his apartment and found out that she had an IBM 5100 and lived next to him.

Lowering his gaze from the FTCF and more towards Seri, he saw that she was fumbling around with a remote control and a manual, pressing buttons here and there and making the FTCF omit creaks and moans.

After several failed attempts, Seri finally managed to find the proper sequence of buttons to separate the ship into smaller parts.... well usable parts. While disassembling it would have been easier, she had previously on a mission with frost learned putting it back together is not as easy as it sounds. She and frost once ended stuck on Xirth, a heavily forested planet, when she practically tore apart their ship in search for her phone when it fell through some cracks and frost was off finding supplies. It took them a month longer because they had to replace the parts that broke, and the fuel that leaked out. THAT had been boring. Frost absolutely refused to let her help saying something about her making it worse.

-redone from this point-

Seri let out an abrupt chuckle, smiling breifly at the memory. Something flincher, or should she say shuffled, behind her. She turned. By the entrance of the warehouse was a familiar figure, gaping ever so slightly at the sight of her plane. It was jack, clothes and hair soaked from the rain. He seemed to be dragging along... a waterclogged cardboard box? Well, she wasn't going to comment on that.

"Hey." She greeted.

While she was supprised to see him there (she guessed he followed her) he didn't seem hostile. If anything he seemed curious, so she did not mind. No harm inletting someone see the plane... thing... right? Well, maybe there was. But then she never really was cautious when it came to lesser secrets. The juicy gossipy ones, she knew better than to spill. The ones that are more of a day-to-day occurence for her? She was worse than a broken dam. She really needed to fix that.

((Today's unsencored news article))

--Regant News-- 01-25-3XX0
Warfare material illegaly solt to corporations

As of two days ago, 1-23-3XX0, NGAT's purchases of government level augments, Frozen-Soilders, and Rayon's have been confirmed. Outside sources state that they have been creating their own underground army, which, under the guise of police, has been heavily influencing the town of Glashert. They have been controlling all underground sales of illegal substances and nano-chips, including some government level nano-bots. NGAT is now confirmed corrupt and unstable. It is suggested that all dealers cut ties with this corporation immediately. We will kdep you updated as the story advances.

Urban Legend
In the wealthy district of Khatunn, rumors of 'vampires', creatures from the old myths, have beenspreading. Although nothing is yet certain, it is suggested that unarmed civilans and others alike do not approach the old mansion of Regns Circle.

[Glashert is the town they are in currently.]
[Rayon is a energy weapon, just released from its testing period]

Jack quickly went out of sight, but he knew he was spotted. His coat was quite damp, so he reomved it and placed it in the box. He was wearing a black long-sleeve shirt with multiple hostlers covering him, one for his Navy Colt, another for his trusty colt and finally a tactical belt with a small pouch inside, with maps and compasses, etc.

Okay, Seri, for the most part, is not a threat. It seems like she's on my side. But that codename 'Frost' and the way she handled herself against a Frozener the other day...She's not normal. Defenitly not.

Jack went around the corner, slowly walking towards Seri until he was 20 ft away. She seemed awfully calm, and relaxed. Almost...expecting him. What is she up to?

"Hey there Seri. Is that a Ford Thun- your plane? Seems nice, looks quite new. Strange, it doesn't look like a regular model" he said like walking towards the plane, caressing it while talking to her, "Also, I wanted to know who you're working for. I mean, you took on a Frozener. No one does that. (Not to mention those guys waiting for you at the stairs). Who do you work for again? Frozen, or Coldman, or...?"

"Oh, the excessively shiny ship? It's frost's. Frost, the 'boss' guy." She emphasized his position with a sarcastic roll of her eyes and air quotes. "He's an ass sometimes... scratch that, most of the time."

Seri continued to grumble under her breath as she scanned the manual once more. Groaning about stupid ships and un-edited manuals, she kicked the hinges on one side of the ship, causing it to screech. The latches on the inside became undone, and a loud beeping flared up from one of the small control pads.

"ah. There it is!" Happily hopping over to the pad, she jabbed a few buttons highlighted on the manual, and a part of the ship dislodged from its larger counterpart, sputtering and hovering slightly, before settling down on the ground. Seri's grin grew.

"YES! It has safety features!" She didn't even want to remember what happened to the safety-feature-less ship that she rode last time. She didn't even get to get inside.

Jack leaped to the hatch, and tried to enter the ship. Unfortunately, the door was protected by a lock, with a regular 10-digit password. He turned around to look at Seri, who, in the corner of his eyesight, was simply waving her finger side-to-side, declaring that this wasn't how the game was played and that only she could open it. She pulled out her phone and hovered over the lock, making the door's pistons move with clicks and clacks. The door split in two and a wave of cool air hit them, frigid and sparkly looking as if from the mountains.

The inside was not anymore modest than the outside; The rumors about this ship were true. A regular, working class ship would have as little unnecessary rooms and functions as possible to maximize performance and affordability. However, outfitted with a prototype engine and cutting edge technology made possible by the Omni Consumer Products corporation, this ship could have as many luxuries as it wanted. The entrance boasted a parlor room, with windows peering out to holographic landscapes, oak and silver walls, woolen carpet and furniture made to look from the 19th century. On the wall was mounted a small knob and Seri causally turned it, eager to know more. The parlor room vanished, replaced by a room full of rotating and moving stairs, that went in all possible and impossible directions. The start of one dimension and the end of another was impossible to know. Surprised by this, Jack leaped back, knocking into Seri. The knob turned once more and a scenic view of deep space, made available by a large window, replaced the wall in front of them. Levitating steel chairs and couches, with veins of light coursing through, and illuminated aquariums around them. A door on the right opened and a bizarre robot came out. Drills and automated hands came out of his back and he was gliding on the floor, propelled by an unknown source.

"Hello dear masters, my name is Rex. I am here to do your every bidding. Perhaps you would tour the inside of the ship? Or explore the many opportunities provided by the Omni Consumer Products corporation has to offer you?"

Enerting the ship, Seri was amazed. And terrified. The stairs were turning in strange directions, and last time she saw dimensional shifting withing a compacts space was... well, she really didn't want to think about it. If Frost had sent her the ship, it was safe enough, and that was good. When Jack bumped into her again, and the knob turned, they were in some sort of entertainment room. A robot entered the scene, moving along smoothly across the floor. She knew those parts, the propulsion mechanism was the one she saw as a prototype, similar to that one one in a air hokey table. Except it ran on magnets? She really wasn't sure. She didn't pay attention that much. The point was its parts were from there. The 'silver labs' shut down by the governments of several different districts (or was it stars?) due to its disruptive experiments. All information about Silver was shut down and all experiments was to be destroyed, yet here was one of their minor experiments, ready to be released to the public. Her eyes narrowed. This was suspicious. She was going to have to interrogate Frost later.

Pulling herself out of her thoughts, she grinned at the robot. Omni Consumer Products corporation, huh?

"Well Rex, a tour might be in order. Also, please don't scan me with that thing." She pointed to the scanner attached to him. "And I'm seri, and this here is Jack."

She elbowed Jack sharply to indicate this was the Jack she was referring to. She had also subtly stepped back slightly behind him when the robot began waving around its contraptions, including the scanner. She ended up elbowing somewhere around his kidneys.

"Also an actual overview of what the ship has and its functions would be nice."

Now if only they had a #369-G outlet around here somewhere... They're rare now days though.