System Resources: Cities Without Number 0.16 beta draft.
Oracle Resources: Mythic Games Master Emulator second edition.
Generative Resources: Cities Without Number world building tables.
The following is a session report of my introductory solo game of Cities Without Number, using the newly released second edition of the Mythic Games Master Emulator. Whilst it has been written in story format, it was not scripted. Everything described comes from the emergent narrative arising from play and the use of the tables and tools from those two resources.
Scene 00 – Expected.
2116-04-22-18:39
Neo London Sprawl, Redwall District, Shanghai-Reed Stack.
I stared out across the Thames and watched aerocar lights dancing around the spires of New Greenwich, black and grey megastructures drawn against the churning particulate of a crimson firmament.
I’m not old enough to remember a time when the sky was blue, but I’ve seen the pictures. We’ve all seen the pictures. An azure canopy stretching from horizon to horizon, sadly long gone. Now the heavens were baleful shades of bruises and blood. The hydrostatic shock of a dying world1.
“Harper.”
I turned away from the window and looked at Williams. He was fussing over a tablet attached to my chest via a bundle of cables. “Sorry. What was that?”
He punched a series of commands into the pad. “Everything ok? Lost you for a moment.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, shifting my weight on the surgical chair. “Do you remember the blue sky?”
“No, I do not,” he said, brow creasing in mock outrage. “I’m only four years older than you.”
I smiled and he grinned at me, disconnecting the cables and closing the armour on my chest plate. “Is the new panel still comfortable? No issues?”
“All good. Much better than the slab.” My hand instinctively moved across my midriff. It still felt odd to have an abdomen back after so many years. “What’s the verdict?”
The doc packed his equipment away and switched my chair to its upright mode. “A couple of problems, but decent overall,” he said as I slowly swung into a sitting position. “Cybernetics are all optimal and your synthetic muscle fibres have bedded in nicely. Unfortunately, the induction battery on the heart was degraded so I had to replace it. Swapped out the particulate filters in your lungs, too.”
I whistled.
“If you’re looking for cheap, wear a respirator and save your filters. And stop using the circulatory overdrive, it burns through those power cells.”
I grunted noncommittally and begun to get dressed. He called up a projection of my torso, the hologram marking all the internal blast damage I had suffered, the cybernetic replacements and the reconstructive surgeries. It zoomed in on my liver, the organ shrouded in warning messages.
“Your remaining natural organs are functioning adequately, except for your liver. Microplastic contamination is now at twelve percent. We usually see a rapid cascade of damage once it hits fifteen or so. At this rate you’ll need a replacement by the end of the year.”
“I think I preferred it when you had to do all this for free,” I said, pulling on my jacket.
Williams chuckled, flicking a data invoice across from his terminal to the s-com on my wrist. I smiled, put my hand over the chair’s tag reader and authorised the payment. “I’ll start saving up.”
I strapped the Rasmaur to my thigh, hugged the doc goodbye, and left the Sonntag-Gibson clinic2.
*
The mid-stack carpark was two stories down on the sixty-eighth floor. I usually parked on the lower levels, but the Thames was already surging by the time I’d arrived, and the adaptive architecture had battened down the basement levels3. I walked to my Raven, fishing a crash collar out of my pocket and hooking it around my neck. The thin band adjusted to the contours of my throat and locked in place. I swung onto the saddle, the bike controls coming online when the grip reader recognised my tag.
I rode out of the carpark and joined the aerial carriageway travelling east along the top of the flood barrier. At this height I could see the tidal surge below me, murky sludge water crashing against Redwall’s sea defences4. To my left stretched the rest of the district5, a choppy metropolitan mess filled with stacks rising out of a damp, maze-like sprawl, all bound by the gossamer threads of multi-tiered streets. A neon wound stitched with motorways.
The Raven’s smart chassis hunkered down on the road as I took the exit onto the AC53 and accelerated towards the inner district, dropping down past a small convoy of aerocars as they flew out across the river towards Bextown. Weaving through the evening traffic I eventually made my way to ground level. Night was fast approaching, the sunset greying out the day’s hellish red hue, but the oppressive heat remained. I hoped it wasn’t a portent of another blistering summer.
Not that seasons really mattered anymore. Winter, spring, summer, autumn. Out of date demarcations of a system that no longer exists. At best, those names are now just classification labels for which categories of extreme weather would likely cause the most deaths. Even that wasn’t certain. Last winter a two-week snowstorm shifted overnight into a heatwave that killed thousands.
As if observing my train of thought, my s-com pinged an alert. City-wide needleburst from Climate Warning Control. Contaminated rain incoming. Thirty-minute warning. Fifty-minute duration. I sighed, feeling a deep weariness creeping across my body, and rode home, stopping briefly to pick up some food. I couldn’t face another meal of tasteless home printed noodles, so I laid down the credits for some flavour cartridges and had the store manufacture a sandwich. The price had gone up again but fuck it. Store prints always tasted better.
*
I lived in a small hab unit on the top floor of a five-storey block, with a garage below on the fourth. By the time I’d guided my bike across the bridged driveway, the ten-minute warning siren had triggered. Its eerie, shrill whine echoed off the concrete and glass stacks looming above.
The garage doors clattered open as I approached, and I rode straight onto the charging plate. The darkening sky had clotted over with rainclouds, and I saw Raksa slumped against the wall a couple of habs away. If you were too poor to afford a deck or an s-com, the siren was all you got, so I secured the bike and went to rouse him.
“Hey Josef,” I said, crouching next to him and gently nudging him awake. Startled, he recoiled before recognition crept across his face.
“Oh, Harper! Just the lady. Rubin was here earlier. Looking for you. Have you seen him?” Raksa spoke in the manic staccato of someone teetering on the edge of an Amthro comedown.
I helped him to his feet. “No, I haven’t seen Rubin in months. Did you hear the ten-minute?”
He shook his head and doggedly pushed on. “Rubin told me to tell you. He’s got a job. Really important.”
“I’m trying not to do those sorts of jobs anymore, but thanks for passing it on.” I looked up at the sky. “Rain’s coming, Josef. Get yourself to Westrow.”
He barked a laugh. “Westrow’s closed. Budget cuts. I’ll go to the Lodge.”
I felt the burn of acid reflux. Budget cuts. The stern-faced government speak for not giving a shit. Tough times. Tighten your belts. We’re all in this together.
I bit down on my rising anger.
“Lodge is too far. It’ll be sealed by the time you get there. Come on,” I said, steering him back to the garage. “Stay here for a bit. It’s safe and sheltered.”
“Oh, that’s too much trouble,” he protested. “I’ll find somewhere.”
The reflux flared once more. Raksa had been an engineer living in the block across from mine until three years ago when he lost his husband and daughter to EFS6. Both were diagnosed within six months of each other, and they had deteriorated fast. The family’s income wasn’t enough to keep pace with the replacement cybernetics and Josef had sunk into debt and despair. After their deaths, his life collapsed. It’s a sequence of misery that’s rebooted, refined and replayed countless times across the city every day.
“It’s not trouble,” I keyed the pad and the garage door ratcheted shut. “It’s barely a basic decency.”
He looked at me with a sudden lucidity that made me pause. “You’d be surprised. Thank you.”
I nodded, the resulting silence interrupted only by the muffled patter of rain beginning outside.
“Harper. You should go see Rubin. Money’s money.”
I retrieved the sandwich from the Raven’s small compartment and handed it to Raksa, ignoring his initial protestations.
“Oh god,” he said between mouthfuls. “Store prints always taste better.” I smiled and made my way upstairs.
The living space was a cramped all-in-one, the roughly rectangular room bookended by a small kitchen unit on one side and a bunk area on the other. The rear wall had storage and a dusty window looking out over a forest of hologram billboards, whilst the front wall held a deck terminal and the vidscreen. Through to the side was a washroom cubicle, and a ragged sofa sat at the centre of it all, strewn with the detritus of the last few days of living.
I’ve never been one to own an abundance of stuff, so the tiny hab was usually enough, but today it felt claustrophobic. It happens sometimes, the crushing weight of the city presses in on all sides and squeezes you until you can’t move. I took a deep breath, hung my jacket up and went to make something to eat. An error light flashed angrily from the panel on the food printer. I looked up the code on my terminal and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Code 62-10: Due to a recent policy change, third party additive cartridges are no longer compatible with the Entera Basic Food Subscription. To add flavour and/or texture additives to your print unit, please purchase only official ECG branded cartridges. Alternatively, you may prefer to upgrade your subscription. Entera Consumer Goods7 apologises for any inconvenience.
I binned the now obsolete cartridges and finished printing my dinner, eating a couple of mouthfuls of the grey, noodle-shaped protein before giving up and going to bed.
*
Bad dreams again. The same bad dreams.
Inhuman screams and the sinister whine of robotic leg servos. Hive wolves swarming over the outpost. Blood and fire. A wall of noise. Then the dull thud of ordnance hitting my torso and a searing agony followed by darkness.
I woke with a start, my hands grasping at my chest. There was always a split second in which I expected to find a cauterised crater, a volume of terrible damage that meant I should be long dead, but all I felt was the cold, sleek metal of my new control plate and the clammy warmth of artificial flesh. I swung my legs over the edge of the bunk and gently stood up, moving into the wash cubicle and splashing my face with cold water.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and touched my throat. I used to be able to feel where I stopped and the machines began, but there was no clear border between flesh and metal anymore.
Almost eight years after I had been burned through by a Hive grenade, the doc had taken out the throat to navel military slab that held my body together. He rebuilt my abdomen, ribcage, and sternum, and fitted me with a smaller, contoured chest plate. Six months had passed, and I was still trying to get used to looking human, even if I didn’t feel like one.
Money’s money. That’s what Raksa had said. We’re all just trying to survive.
I tied my hair back, grabbed my jacket and the Rasmaur, and went to speak to Rubin.
Scene 01 – Interrupted – Move Towards Thread – Bargain + Physical.
2116-04-23-01:50
Neo London Sprawl, Redwall District, Apex Enigma.
The danger had passed but it was still raining, the contaminants from earlier now sluggishly making their way through the city’s sewage systems and eventually joining the rest of the toxic slurry in the Thames. I parked the Raven in an adjacent block garage and walked round to the rear of the club. The Apex Enigma was a low, sprawling building that was partially subsumed by the four and five storey blocks surrounding it. A sleazy haunt serving up cheap drinks for cheap clientele, the club sat in a legal grey area between a municipal and a corporate zone which saw it favoured by fixers, operators, and criminals.
I could feel the throb of music as I approached the door. A plodding dreamweb nihilism remix that was supposed to sound transcendent through ‘ware running tweaked processing software. To the rest of us it just sounded like funereal wailing with a distorted bassline.
“Fucking hell. Harper? Is that you?” Mario Nkosi grinned, his crooked smile showing rows of titanium implants. “You back in the game?”
Mario had been a bouncer at the Apex for longer than I could remember. Originally from the SEB, he had been dumped in Neo London at the end of his Unity Nile contract with a face full of scars and a body full of heavy augments. He towered over me as we hugged.
“Maybe,” I smiled. “It’s amazing how one trip to the clinic will fuck your accounts.”
He laughed, a deep, resonant bellow. “Truth,” he said, tapping the large metal plate on his scalp with a cumbersome hand augment. None of his cyberware was subtle. All bulging skin and protruding steel. “Got rid of that slab though. Looking good. What’s it like to have flesh back on your bones?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Strange. It doesn’t feel like I thought it would.”
Mario nodded sagely and lit a cigarette. He offered me one and we stood under the awning, catching up whilst the rain fell, pools of water forming and reforming as they drifted down the incline of the alleyway.
I flicked the stub into a puddle. “Rubin in?”
Mario nodded. “Rough night. Lowman ganger been hitting Rubin up for coin over some run that didn’t fly right.”
He opened the door for me, the muffled sound of music crystalising into clarity as I walked through the threshold. I let my senses adjust to the dim light and intruding percussive beat as I moved slowly around the worn fixtures towards the central area. Furtive eyes watched me from dingy alcoves as I ascended the rear stairwell onto a wraparound mezzanine. Looking down I could see the swell of bodies moving and spasming on the main floor, the DJ jacked into an expansive deck at the far end. The front of his booth held a vid that displayed a scrolling churn of code, the software tweaks you would need to process the noise.
I found Rubin8 in his usual alcove. He was talking to a shady looking suit with an immaculately sculpted hairline. I leant on the rail and waited.
After a few minutes he saw me out of the corner of his eye and his patter speeded up, the business with the haircut concluding swiftly. Once the suit had cleared out I went and sat down. Rubin grinned from ear to ear.
“Harper, it’s good to see you.” He flicked on the alcove privacy screen, a wall of subsonics abruptly cutting off the din of the club. The resulting quiet roared in my ears.
“What’s with the audiocode crowd?” I gestured over the balcony. “The Apex doing theme nights now?”
“You didn’t hear about the Palace?”
I shook my head and helped myself to one of his cigarettes, pulling on the ignition tab and taking a draw.
“Deck got piped with a Wolf-Rash variant. Infiltrated the guy’s code and half the punters downloaded it straight into their implants. The ones that didn’t go deaf migrated here. Everyone else is throwing fistfuls of credits at debuggers.”
“Malicious?”
“DJ was cheating on a decker,” he replied, pulling out a data tablet. “Sounds like she found out and ruined him.”
“So,” I said, stubbing the cigarette out. “What’s all this talk about a job.”
Rubin tapped the tablet and slid it towards me. “Seriously, I am glad you came. Client asked for you. Wouldn’t do business otherwise.”
I started to read but then stopped, suddenly wary. “By name? I’m not sure I like that.”
He shook his head in protest. “No, no. I did due diligence. This guy is on the level.”
I finished reading the woefully short contract data. “I’m not seeing mission details. No payment. Nothing. What the fuck is this?”
“He wants to meet. In person.”
I laughed and got up to leave.
“I think it’s a missing person run,” he blurted out. “Word is the guy’s granddaughter got pinched.”
“This is not how we do things, Rubin.”
“I know. But please,” he gestured for me to sit back down. “Hear me out.”
I slid back onto the seat. “Two minutes.”
Rubin nodded. “The guy’s called McMillan. He’s a mid-level bureaucrat working for District. Used to be a bigger fish until Belcastro9 came to power and muscled all the moderates out. Old school. Big on networking and respect, hence the meet and greet. But this is a strictly private contract.”
I sighed. Rubin could talk endless shit, but he was good at his job. “Do we know why his family was targeted?”
Rubin shrugged. “That’s a question for him to answer.”
“And why me specifically?”
“I asked him that when he contacted me. He said you came highly recommended.”
“Bollocks.”
Rubin’s earnest face stared at me from across the table and I rolled my eyes. “You really think this guy is legit?”
He nodded.
We agreed to meet McMillan in the morning, and Rubin walked me out of the Apex. The rain had wound down to a drizzle and the yellow-tinged stars could be seen between the smears of particulate-laden cloud. As I said goodbye a loud, brash voice called out from the alleyway.
“Weller, you fuck, I told you we’d be back.”
Moving towards us was a group of six gangers10, the tall, mouthy one strutting ahead of the others. They were tooled up with an assortment of cheap gear and dripping with overconfidence. I didn’t recognise any of their markings, but that didn’t mean much. Small players rose and fell in Redwall weekly, and I had been out of the loop for months.
“We want our fucking money, Weller.”
I heard the subtle click of the shotgun embedded in Mario’s cyberarm being cocked and I turned to Rubin. “You owe these people some coin?”
He snorted. “Newcomers from Bruckham. They put down the deposit for a run, but it went bad. They don’t seem to understand operator deposits are non-refundable.”
The group had stopped in front of us, full of aggressive sneers and readied weaponry, but were packed far too close to each other for a proper fight. Amateurish.
I moved in front of Rubin and addressed the lead. “Listen, I’ve been away for a while, but it seems like everyone has forgotten how things work around here.” I heard a disgruntled noise coming from behind me. “Quarter up front. Three quarters on completion. If the run goes sideways, you walk. So, let’s just put this down to a miscommunication and go our separate ways.”
I wasn’t a very good diplomat. The leader looked confused and angry. “Weller, who’s this dog?”
I heard a sharp intake of breath from Rubin and a low, rumbling laugh from Mario. “Stupid fucking lowman.”
The ganger began to throw a string of expletives at the bouncer, but he didn’t get to finish. I tongued the roof of my mouth and blinked twice, triggering my circulatory overdrive. I felt a judder as the micro engines in my lungs spun up and synced with my accelerating heartrate, forcing oxygen rich blood around my body.
I closed the intervening space and sent a lightning-fast jab to the ganger’s throat. I felt his windpipe collapse, cutting him off mid-sentence. Letting my momentum carry me past I pivoted to the right and aimed a low kick at the second ganger’s knee, the joint shattering under the force of the blow. His leg crumpled beneath him, and the alleyway was filled with screams of agony.
Then I was amongst them.
One lunged at me with a blade and I twisted my body away from the attack. Another went for me with a club, and I stepped inside his swing, grabbing his wrist and bringing my other arm down on the elbow. There was a loud crunch as it gave way and he dropped the weapon, staggering backwards with forearm flopping limply.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rubin light another cigarette and lean up against the club wall.
I blocked a second thrust from the knife, this time reversing my grip and taking the weapon from the attacker. Behind me came the noise of a gun being drawn and I instinctively dodged to the left. The shooter fired, the shot missing me and hitting the disarmed ganger centre mass. I spun on my heel and rammed the blade into the neck of a surprised looking assailant, the smoking pistol dropping from her spasming fingers.
I unholstered the Rasmaur and turned on the remaining attacker, pointing the heavy revolver at him. He stepped back, dropping the machete he had been loitering at the rear with.
“Please,” he said, bottom lip quivering as his comrades writhed and groaned on the wet ground.
“Take your dead and your wounded and piss off back to Bruckham. If I ever see you here again, I’m taking your hands and eyes.”
He nodded and scrabbled to do as he was told.
I walked back towards Rubin and Mario, theatrically barking at the leader as I passed. He flinched and begun to crawl away, his breathing loud and ragged.
“Pick you up in a few hours,” Rubin said, finishing his cigarette.
I waved and went to try and grab some sleep.
Scene 02 – Modified – Add Item – Bleakly + Familiar.
2116-04-23-07:00
Neo London Sprawl, Redwall District, Grüne-Holdwell Stack.
Rubin picked me up in the morning and we took his aero to meet McMillan. The elderly bureaucrat lived on the eighty-fifth floor of the salubrious Grüne-Holdwell Stack, in a spacious hab that could easily swallow five or six of my tiny living areas.
“Mr Weller, Miss Harper. Please, come in,” McMillan11 said, ushering us into his home. I drank in as much detail as I could as he took us through into a well-furnished living room and offered us refreshments. My water ration didn’t replenish until tomorrow night, so I took a glass of his. Rubin helped himself to a synthetic whiskey. We sat down on chairs that I found unpleasantly soft.
Our host was a man in his sixties, a fact that implied he could afford good healthcare. He presented himself well. Cleanly shaven, cleanly dressed, grey hair combed neatly. His shoes were free from dirt, and his hands were soft. Obviously a skilled orator, his voice was resonant, calm and clear. But there were tells. His eyes had a red puffiness denoting a lack of sleep, time spent crying, or both.
“I understand that this is rather unorthodox, so I am thankful you agreed to meet me.” He shifted on the sofa, his movements telegraphing an obvious discomfort despite his calm tone. I noticed the nails on his right hand had been freshly chewed. My gaze flicked to his other hand. The nails were pristine.
I crossed my legs and leaned back in the chair. “Why have you asked me here, Mr McMillan?”
“Please, call me Twiford,” he said, gesticulating with a practised ease. “Mr Weller informed me that you have a particular distaste for bullshit, so I shall endeavour to be as blunt and forthcoming as possible.”
He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for some herculean task. I guess for politicians to speak plainly it takes a concerted effort of will.
“Believe it or not, we have met before.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Have we?”
“Briefly. A friend of my youngest brother had uncovered irregularities in data transfers between two of his client corporations. The brokerage firm turned out to be a front for data mining and extortion. My brother and I were at the police station to arrange a private protection detail.”
“Digital Prestige Holdings,” I nodded. “I remember that case. The CEO was being blackmailed.”
“Yes!” McMillan said, jabbing the air with a finger. “And you were the only one that wanted to pursue that lead.”
I looked at Rubin as he poured himself another drink. “That was the case that made me decide to quit law enforcement.”
Rubin frowned. “Wasn’t that the one that eventually led to all those investigations of police corruption? The blackmailer turned out to be a captain or some such?”
McMillan shook his head. “No, but he had connections at that level. A lot of people were paid off.”
“Not that it mattered,” I shrugged. “Couple of people lost their jobs. Nothing more really came of it. The news cycle moved on and the findings were buried. Same old shit. Don’t fix anything, just look busy until nobody’s watching.”
I leaned forward on the awful, spongy seat. “Mr McMillan, what has this got to do with why I am here?”
An almost forlorn look swept across his face before he locked it down. “Well, you see I make a habit of following the careers of those who cross my path exhibiting singular skillsets. An exceptional surgeon. An amazing lawyer. You get the idea. Contacts. Alliances. People who get things done. In case I need them.”
He looked down at his hands as if he no longer knew what to do with them. “And people I hope I never, ever need to call upon.”
I glanced at Rubin who nodded back. It seems like the rumour was true.
“Tell us what happened.”
“Two days ago, my granddaughter, Eleanor, was kidnapped,” McMillan said, a faint quiver at the edge of his voice. “I called in nearly every favour I’ve amassed over the course of my career to raise the funds needed to pay the ransom, which they took without giving her back.”
“Has there been any communication since?”
“No.”
“Did you involve law enforcement or other private contractors?”
“No. The family thought it best to just pay up.”
The elderly bureaucrat was getting increasingly upset, despite his brave facade. And rightly so. If the girl had been gone for forty-eight hours, her chances of survival were rapidly dropping. My earlier suspicions of an ulterior motive for this face-to-face meeting were ebbing away. McMillan was just a desperate old man who didn’t know what to do. I motioned to Rubin who pulled his tablet and quietly moved to the other side of the room.
“Mr McMillan,” I said as softly as I could. I wasn’t graced with a particularly good bedside manner. “I need you to tell us plainly what it is you want us to do.”
He nodded. “I want you to find my granddaughter,” he paused to wipe his eyes. “And bring her back to us.”
When he had composed himself, I started asking him more questions. Details of the kidnapping, events leading up to the ransom exchange, and who he thought might be behind it. Eventually Rubin interjected with a contract and the delicate subject of payment.
McMillan looked awkwardly at the data tablet. “Nearly all the family’s resources were used to gather enough funds for the ransom. I was hoping you would take half in credits, half in goods.”
“Ah,” Rubin said, taking the tablet back and gesturing at me. “That would be at the operator’s discretion.”
I nodded and motioned for McMillan to continue. He got up and moved to a large shelf unit behind the sofa, producing a battered military impact case. He placed it in front of me and entered the lock code.
“The ransom was paid in encrypted credit slates. As requested, they were in thousand credit denominations, so there is a small chance that they have not been uploaded to an account yet. If you can recover a sizable amount, then I will double your fee. If that’s not possible, then I hope this item will go a long way to proving my intent to seeing you paid properly.”
He sprung the latches and turned the case to face me, opening it to reveal a revolver identical to the one I wore strapped to my thigh. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“These are … very rare. Where did you find this one?”
McMillan sat back down. “Please, note the serial number.”
My eyes narrowed and my expression hardened. McMillan must have noticed because he held up his hands in protest. “There is no subterfuge, Miss Harper. I promise you.”
I pulled the case towards me so I could read the faint manufacturing mark on the underside of the barrel. I felt a lump form in my throat when I realised where the revolver had come from.
“How the fuck did you get this?” I said behind gritted teeth.
A nervousness appeared on McMillan’s face. I don’t think it was the reaction he was expecting.
“Like I said, I follow the careers of exceptional individuals. I know you did two tours patrolling the Hive Exclusion Zone before you returned home and joined law enforcement. I know you and your squad submitted salvage right requests once during your time out there, after a reconnaissance and rescue mission near an old weapons factory.
“And sadly, I know the rest of your squad were killed two years later in the same Hive attack that saw you severely injured and the outpost lost.” He genuinely seemed to empathise. Or he was an excellent bullshitter. Either way.
I reached out and touched the gun, pulling it out of the case. The grip read my tag and a faint green light appeared by the trigger guard.
“There was a munitions factory forty kilometres from our border outpost. Rasmaur Industries. Small outfit. Quality weapon designs. It’d gone bust when the Hive overran the area. The ownership had defaulted to a big corp operating out of the Combine and they sent in some heavies to secure the fabrication databases. They never came back out, so my squad was sent in for recon.”
“And did you find them?”
“We found bits. It’s likely a leech got them. The factory was deserted, and the databases corrupted. We did find one intact program that had been uploaded to a small fabrication unit, a template for the A9. We had the machine assemble five of them. Some squads get matching tattoos, we got matching sidearms. We keyed them to each other’s biometrics. That’s what the salvage requests were for.”
I blinked and put the A9 back in the case. “I was airlifted out of that outpost unconscious and with two portable cybersurgeon units working in tandem to keep me alive. I didn’t realise anything else made it out.”
McMillan sighed. “I’m afraid nothing did. Just you, the pilot, and Dr Williams. But four years later a salvage operation was mounted to your outpost. The Hive had destroyed most of it. But they did find some items in the ruins. It was all catalogued, boxed up and sent to a nondescript military warehouse in New Wembley. I had one or two small favours left so I used them to pull this. It’s the only one they found.”
I was impressed he had connected so many dots, but at the same time slightly uncomfortable at the level of scrutiny he had given my background.
He looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “Please, Miss Harper. Help me.”
*
I had McMillan collate everything he had and then downloaded it to my s-com. There was a surprising amount of data amassed in the forty-eight hours since Eleanor had been taken.
“Where are you going to start?” asked Rubin as we walked to his aero.
“The son in law has racked up significant gambling debts over the years. McMillan thinks the kidnapping is connected. There’s also a decent recording of the guy who collected the ransom and then bailed.”
Rubin unlocked the flyer with his tag. “Need a good decker?”
I got in, shaking my head. “Already got one in mind.”
“Well, alright then. Where to?”
“Buy me a store print sandwich out of your outrageous commission and then drop me home.”
Rubin laughed and piloted the aero off the landing pad, the unsightly district sprawl coming into view below us, the stacks glinting in the red morning light.
1 – Stratospheric Aerosol Injection was undertaken in 2069 in an attempt to limit the effects of climate change. It failed abysmally, and by the 2080s only GMO crops designed to survive in the aerosol-altered light spectrum could be grown.
2 – Sonntag-Gibson Medical is an innovative corporation specialising in surgical instrumentation and medical research. They headquarter in Neo London and operate subsidiaries specialising in health training and cybernetics. They also franchise small clinics throughout United Europa and enjoy fairly good public relations due to the sponsorship of health centres in deprived districts and heavily subsidised medical care for LEA and military personnel.
3 – #Clearances: The damage caused by the events of 2057 and the general effects of sea level rise has caused the city topography to shift dramatically during the second half of the twenty first century. Many districts bordering the Thames were redrawn and remodelled to incorporate flood contingencies and adaptive architecture. Soaring new structures rise out of the waterlogged ruins of the old city.
4 – #City Collapse: In 2057 the Thames Barrier was overrun by a tidal wave when a nuclear device was detonated out to sea. The resulting flood damage to the city was catastrophic. Many of the ruined districts in the east of the city weren’t rebuilt but instead used as foundations for the towering new sea defences.
5 – Redwall sprawls across the old east end and is part of Neo London’s tidal defence system. Adaptive megastructures overlook the canal-like drainage channels that criss-cross the district, and a vast, 500 meter high, maroon-hued wall runs along its eastern border. To the south is the smaller, but still imposing, Thames flood barrier. Redwall’s population is estimated at 6.2 million and counts English, German, Panjabi, Polish, and Hindi as its predominantly spoken languages.
6 – Environmental Fatigue Syndrome was first diagnosed in 2055 and is a chronic and terminal condition resulting in cascading organ failure from sustained exposure to atmospheric pollutants, microplastic contamination, and environmental toxicity. The only defence against EFS is through cybernetic organ replacement.
7 – Entera Consumer Goods (ECG) is a large conglomerate that produces a wide range of consumer products, with manufacturing and distribution centres across Neo London. Its budget line products and tech are prone to annoying but deniable glitches, whilst quality lines are charged at a hefty premium. ECG uses some of the most advanced manufacturing technology available but also has one of the worst worker treatment records.
8 – Fixer NPC: Rubin Weller is a chatty individual who is friendly with many of the corporate execs in Redwall. He stands out in his line of work due to an unusual courage but is also known as quite a greedy individual -he has the best contacts but takes a much higher cut. He has recently made a promise to a loved one he cannot keep and is looking for an operative with the murderous skills to make things right.
9 – Political NPC: Asher Belcastro is an incredibly rich politician who is thoughtful and not quick to anger. He is obsessed with the grotesquely expensive Praetorivore lifestyle and is known for his string of infidelities. His spouse is furious but keeps a public facing mask of impeccable decorum. Asher is a ruthless individual who has designs on city governance.
10 – GME Random Event – NPC Negative – Punish + Consequence.
11 – Political NPC: Twiford McMillan is a wise old bureaucrat who can usually discern the most practical path to achieving his goals. Devoted to his family, he is unfortunately prone to fits of cowardice. One of his family members has a problem and it is consuming his waking thoughts. He is secretly trying to raise money to deal with the issue.
Featured image by Andre Benz and used under the unsplash License.
Derelict Otherlands 
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