Companero

Being a pilot doesn't necessarily make one aware of everything that goes on in an airport...

That said, the airport is well guarded, increasingly so with the invasion scare. While there is a possibility of it being the entry point, it would involve massive greasing of palms on the part of airport officials...which in turn would leave a paper trail...

ALL: The effects of the stun grenade are beginning to settle down. Diego's ears are still ringing, but she can hear anything louder than a whisper. Weasel's situation is not so good, but he can hear loud talking (including the soldier), just about - both of their ears are still in intense pain. Both of them are capable of walking normally again.

Cressin and Rachet are in a worse situation, because they have both been subjected to the sound of automatic fire at close range since the blast. Cressin however is beginning to recover his hearing, although his ears are still ringing and it drops in and out at seemingly random intervals. His balance is beginning to return.

Rachet is still almost completely deaf, but her balance is coming back.

Jack is, for lack of a better phrase, f**ked. One of his eardrums has burst completely, he has no hearing, and his vision is swimming like a shark.

======================

The soldier steps out of Rachet's vision, ceases firing.

"BetaCom, this is Alpha 2... Target has bodyguards! Alpha 1 is down, I have lost visual contact with DeltaUnit... What? Copy that...give me time to get to the roof..."

DIEGO AND WEASEL: This floor is virtually identical to the one below, except all the doors are firmly shut and there are now shattered plaster shards all over the floor, not to mention cracks appearing near the end wall...

Weasel does manage to get the knife free, although it takes a few seconds. In doing he has to tear away part of the blur mask, revealing a face biosculpted into a death mask, like those warn at some day of the dead carnivale.

He does find a wallet, and it doesn't immeadiatley electrocute him, which can only be a good sign. The firearm is an extremely fine piece, looks about 10-11 mm, chrome finish. There is a small green LED where the safety catch might normally be, when you pull the cord away from the interface plug it goes red, and then dies. The only other thing in the pockets is a small clear plastic bag with about 4 unmarked white tablets in it.

Above the firing has stopped, and both floodzoners hear (just about) "Alpha 2" talking into his communicator, followed by hasty steps towards the stairwell...

Once the body is sufficiently looted/dead (so much so that even the RippaMan down on the Strip couldn't fix him up) to Weasel's satisfaction he begins moving towards the stairwell door. Opening it, there is no-one on the other side, although he hears movement in the stairwell above him, possibly going up the stairs, onto the stairwell?

Weasel, in his haste and general nihilistic high, does fail to notice something that Diego does... as the blur mask falls way she sees a small earbud communicator wedged in the left ear.

CRESSIN: The firing stops, thankfully for his ears... he only hears pieces of the soldier's frantic report...

"... Target has bodyguards! Alpha ... ... lost visual contact ... ... What? Copy that... give me time to get to the roof..."

A few seconds later he vaguely hears the stairwell door swing...

RACHET: As she moves out of the way, she sees the soldier move down the corridor, and a few seconds later run back again, in the direction of the stairwell. She did hear some speech, but she couldn't make out the words. There is alot of bile in her throat.

I really enjoyed it actually - it kept alot of the things about Gibson's writing that I liked, and I like the way he used emails to push the story along...

When even Gibson has forsaken cyberpunk, then one knows that its time is over.

I don't think Gibson has ever set out to write 'cyberpunk' novels - rather he seems to focus on elements of society and the way the information revolution has affected them. That in fact seems to be the heart of cyberpunk as a genre - he hasn't forsaken it at all - he is just taking ideas he had before and polishing them.

Think about it:

Pattern Recognition is a book in part about the way the net has affected society and its continued evolution, with the central story about a character searching for the creator of an incredible and mysterious work of art.

Count Zero is a book in part about the way the net has affected society and its continued evolution, with a central story about a character searching for the creator of an incredible and mysterious work of art.

The coolhunter is simply the logical extension of the idea that Gibson was exploring with Laney in Idoru, Cayce's intuition just another way of seeing the nodal points.

The major difference between the 3 seperate story arcs is the type of dystopia on offer - in the Sprawl it was pollution and corporations (the problems caused by both were becoming evident in 1983), in Virtual Light et al it was disease and the role of the media (AIDs was finally being recognised as a global plague by 1993), and in Pattern Recognition it is terrorism, surveillance and tailored advertising - major concerns in 2003. Gibson simply takes the great emerging concerns of the days and almost exaggerates them - except this time the world has caught up, and he can do it in a present day setting.

Electronic identity is explored here too, Cayce doesn't know the identity of Madame Anarchia and Parkaboy et al in much the same way as Kid Afrika or Gentry don't reveal their names in MLO, to the point that their handle becomes almost their real identity. In the same way Gibson is still exploring globalisation 20 years on - everything always comes from somewhere, and its never here...

The difference between Gibson and alot of other ideas is that he can continually use the same ideas (even to the point where the mysterious benefactors in different stories have identical taste in hats, and the hero has a name pronounced in the same way as that of another lead in another book...) and continue to write stuff thats still seems pretty fresh and original.

As quitly as she can, Rachet reaches over to where her gun is and picks it up, then she tries to move out of sight of the gunman.

RATCHET: Reaching the gun is simple - moving less so. It would either involve getting up or rolling out the way, both painful, and both alerting attention to her - as happens almost immeadiately. The stormtrooper with the shotgun turns to face her, steps forward towards the door way - a laser dot appears on Rachet's face...

She doesn't hear Diego step out of her room - nor does she hear the blast from her revolver. She does however see its effects, the round that strikes the soldier through his left eye, precipitating an explosion of visera and blood through the faceplate. The man drops backwards, spinning on his heel as he does so.

A few seconds later the corridor shakes. Then she sees the flash of an automatic weapon, and the last soldier advancing forwards past her door, firing towards the end of the corridor... whoever killed that cop must be dead by now...

Walking determinedly from her flat, Diego faces to her right, holding pistol out, discharging it at any hostiles in the way. Heading for Mr. Smooth, she reaches for his neural interface, twisting it roughly if she can, making an effort to pull him toward her as a shield.

DIEGO: Diego steps out of her door, facing right, about the same time as the soldier with the shotgun sees Rachet and steps towards the door to her apartment - both directly into her line of site, and in front of the assault rifle toting soldier she can see at the end of the hallway...

Her first 'discharge' hits the shotgun toting soldier (who was in the process of turning to face her) full in the face. He hasn't hit the floor before she reaches out for the cable...

No one should move as fast as Mr Smooth did then. Neatly sidestepping out of the way he spins around and delivers a crushing kick to Diego's stomach, knocking her against the doorframe. She collapses against the door, still in the corridor, onto her knees with a thump... Mr Smooth brings his weapon to bear - then he hears the banshee scream...

The lig solo spins around and tries to block the skinny punk, knocking him off balance as they collide. But the force of the charge knocks him over as well, and they both fall heavily.

Then the floor gives way beneath her feet, and Diego, along with the punk and Mr Smooth, are falling... when she hits the floor below she falls forward with a thump... half a second later, she looks around to see the bloody results of the scrawny punk's rather...umm...impromptu final attack...

With maniac sound, something in-between of a Indian war-cry, roar and howl (it's a bit difficult to imitate tiger's roar when you've never done it... and you desperately try to roar loud enough to at least hear yourself... when you are temporaly deafened) Weasel (now, as a part-time cop-eater tiger) charges out of Jack's apartment, looking for his prey.

WEASEL:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Weasel explodes out of his apartment door at the same time as Diego is kicked against the doorframe. He doesn't even see the surviving soldier at the other end of the corridor...all he sees is the suit wearing solo, the solo turning his body towards him, bringing his arms into a blocking position.

But the cop eating tiger is not going to be stopped by some fancy moves. In the best imitation of the mighty beast a human (of Weasels frame) could manage, he practically leaps at the suit, knife above his head ready to be brought down in a single lethal slash...

They collide with incredible force, both thrown of balance an falling to the cracked floor - Suit backwards, with Weasel falling on top of him. The suit manages to get a boosted hand on Weasel's knife forearm before he hits, a leg up between his, and as they hit the floor Weasel realises that he has been beaten...the solo is about to pull off a textbook throw, dropping him unceremoniously into the corridor...

The floor has other ideas.

This floor, you understand, has been abused. It was damaged in the quake of '93. It was rocked when the original wall of water hit, shaking the building. Damp and pollution has rotted and degraded the supports. A few seconds ago an explosive charge was detonated on top of it. And now 2 bodies have just hit it very heavily indeed...

It doesn't have to take this crap.

An entire section of corridor - a square stretching from just right of Cressin's apartment to beyond Jack's door - drops, faultlines giving out simeultaneously. Diego, Mr Smooth and Weasel all fall with it, and crash to the floor below, sending plaster and insulation shards everywhere.

Weasel was at this current moment on top of the lig solo and attempting to push his knife into Mr Smooth's face, while Mr Smooth was holding it back with his hand. They were staring into each others eyes. When they hit the floor the shock sends Weasel's head flying forward, headbutting the handle of his own knife.

A few seconds later, his vision returns. He looks down to see his blade sticking halfway out of the still solo's head, between the eyes of the now black blurmask... He can feel the base of the handle imprinted in his forehead...

Above his head, he can just about hear the report of automatic rounds striking the end wall of the corridor above, dust showering through the hole.

(ooc: that was the best way I could think of writing down a "maniac sound, somewhere between a indian warcry and a howl/roar"...heh)

CRESSIN: Something, something loud and uneven, succeeds in penetrating the ringing in his ears for just a few seconds...He opens his eyes in time to see a skinny punk, a friend of the heavy living at the end of the corridor, crash into the over-the-wall solo and knock him over. Then the room shakes...and suddenly they aren't there anymore... they just drop away...

The kid is wailing (you can see, not hear), clutching her ears, and crying. But the sonic assault just doesn't let up, as the autogunner at the end of the hall opens fire wildly, aiming at nothing in particular...

JACK: Blind and half deaf, Jack hears the scream, and feels the shaking... beyond that, for the moment, all is pain...he tries to fight it...

2...

1...

fizz...KAAABOOM

The sonic concussion grenade goes off with an incredibly, painfully loud bang and a blinding flash. The sonic blast is loud enough to send all 6 apartment door flying inwards, tearing 6bs and 6ds off their hinges completely, while toppling the cinderblocks in Cressin's impromptu barricade. Across the entire corridor plaster shatters and two broken lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling shatter.

WEASEL/JACK: The wave is enough to knock Weasel flat, and puts out his cigarette. He can't hear anything at all, the only sensation coming from his ears is an incredible pain. However, he is still conscious, and far from stunned (although his balance will be shot to hell for the next couple of minutes). The door negated some of the sound.

Jack is less lucky. As the door is blown open he catches the full force of a 1 million candela flash and is blinded instantly (these things aren't meant to do permanent damage...theorectically). At the same time one of his ear drums bursts and he screams, falling to the floor.

Half a second later Weasel becomes aware of light and tiny dust explosions as a trooper riddles the end wall of the corridor with caseless rounds. He can't hear a damn thing, but he is still alive, still mobile, and still has his knife, still has a chance... 2 seconds later, a shadow appears in the corridor, close...

--huddling her between himself and the wall, reaching desperately behind to pull the desk door up and between himself and the blast--

CRESSIN: The sonic blast topples the cinderblocks and sends a shower of shards and dust across the two huddling humans. Cressin is overwhelmed by the blast, and feels an immense pain in his ears, a titanic ringing sensation - in taking the time to cover Ma--- he hasn't been able to cover his own ears... He doesn't hear the girl scream as her eardrums burst, but he does see the blood seep from her ears... His vision is swimming and he doesn't know if he will be able to get up...

Diego stuck her fingers in her ears, waiting for the signal to proceed on her fool's errand. Don't hate me daddy.

DIEGO: The deafening force of the sonic wave suprises Diego, but not as much as the door being blown backwards, just centimetres away. The combination of both is enough to knock her off balance for just a second... causing her to stumble to the otherside of the door, the side next to 6a...

Which almost certainly saves her life... Half a second after the flashbang/sonic grenade goes off, an assault rifle appears through the stairwell door and sprays the corridor, the operator firing blind at first, as he forces his way through the door.

Diego's ears are hurting, but she is still on her feet, and while she doesn't know it, she isn't in nearly as much pain as any of the other occupants of the floor - above the blast she still hears the hammer of bullets hitting the far wall of the corridor. In addition she has managed to keep hold of her gun.

It takes 2 seconds for her head to stop swimming to the point where she can actually see properly, just... (although it still hurts like nothing else, and her ears are ringing). From her position she sees a man in a black suit edge along the facing wall, turning around to look into Cressin's apartment, back to her. He is wearing a tight blur mask, like his face is all made of static, while he is wearing a wraparound smartgoggle array, currently pulled up over his forehead - not working?. He looks down at the tattered barricade, stops, then points a chromed pistol in its direction, interface cables hanging from a plug on the back of his neck, behind his collar.

RACHET: Rachet's apartment is much closer to the stairwell, but it is also furthest from the blast. That said, it is still powerful enough to blow the door open, knocking Rachet flat as it swings open and hits her full in the face. The sonic blast seems to rip through her eardrums at the same time, and her vision starts the swim - she momentarilly loses all balance.

She has fallen flat, head backwards into the apartment, at such an angle that she has line of sight where she can see the stairwell entrance door - she manages to stick her head up, long enough to see the first trooper enter through the door, firing down the corridor as he does so with some evil Ronin varient. She sees as he moves across to the side of the corridor her apartment lies on, out of her view.

A second figure enters the room, in a black tailored suit, heavy material, blur mask that makes his face look like static. He moves down the corridor, chromed pistol held forward in both hands - you don't recognise the design (although whether you would recognise any design right now is debatable...) - and out of your vision, past the door.

Then another trooper, black body armour over his torso, fritz helmet, goggles, shotgun, enters, and follows the suit, at a slower pace. He stops, almost directly

in Rachet's view, shotgun lowered slightly. He has no identification of any kind.

Rachet's gun has fallen just within reach...

From the roof, audible again only to Diego: "Copy that, Alpha team... Gamma flight, this is Beta Com, shouldn't be long now, prepare for evac..."

"Martha--Maddie--Marie--come here! Now! In here!" he hisses, trying to whisper over the noise from below, and holds out his arm for her to take.

The girl hears this about half way between the door and the table, and suddenly recognises the voices. She takes a look at Weasel, takes a look at Jack, and shouts "Cressin, is that you?" - She immeadiatly darts around and runs for the door, avoiding a half hearted attempt by Jack to catch her and then dodges past Weasel and to the door faster than he could possibly catch, born out of a life spent avoiding casual violence... almost more like a rat caught in the open than a human being...

(from the roof:) "They've reached the stairwell... Alpha, this is Beta Com - shock and awe the bastards...".

The girl practically throws herself through the door, grabbing the handle as she does so and almost swinging around it as it opens. She might as well have fallen out of the apartment, leaving the door half open. At the same moment the door to the stairwell opens marginally, a black hand appears through the gap, holding a small metal tube with a small red trigger guard, flipped up. A finger moves, a button is pressed...

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

There is a metallic thunk as the grenade is rolled along the floor, a small chrome tube with a little diode display ... it rolls into the middle of the corridor, and comes to a stop (approximately where it says 'corridor' on the map), out of reach. Martha/Marie jumps over it and dives into Cressin's arms.

The diode display counts down...

4...

3...

"Sounds like a plan to me", Aubrey says. "You go get some intel while I see about getting some decent equipment in case we need to go out into the boondocks to get to the target."

Like most cities in this region, Philogaia has its share of firearms retailers, although given the local terrorist activities, the corporate dominated government is making a concerted effort to shut down the smaller, less controllable independant stores, sometimes through questionable means (Petrochem and Arcadiex technically at least part own much of the land in some manner, it makes it easy for them to simply expell people - they don't do it much in order not to scare off more desirable businesses.

Militech maintains a showroom in the city centre, north of monument park. It has less stock than most, but it also maintains standard, US wide prices, while most of the indie stockists have to increase their own in order to survive. As for the Russian firearms flow... well, it can't be that well hidden... the gangs must have an awareness of where they are getting them from, cheap... case of following the trail?

Survival Stores are springing up across town - in fact, there is even a 'Survival Superstore' in the inner city, selling high quality junk to corporates, as well as more useful things - including, increasingly water filtration units and even NBC suits... New Salinas district also has a variety of farmers equipment stores which also stock survival gear, and most clothes stores around here cater to the market. (NSal is also the place to find most of the surviving indie gunstores).

OOC: I've sent a very basic map too those I could...

This building has been around for a long time. It is populated by two groups - one mostly composed of squatters and transients like Jack (who don't know each other, on balance), and the other made up of famillies, including quite a few children (who form their own little support unit). A man named Lazio (in his 80s at least) acts as 'janitor'. He has been around forever, since well before the flood, and seems to stay here out of tradition. Occasionally he asks for cash to make repairs, and he gets it when people can afford it, but he has never asked for a rent, and seems to live in his booth on the ground floor. The older and more dilapidated the building looks, the older he looks, and visa versa. Police haven't been seen in here since before the flood.

There is only one staircase down (and also allows you to access the roof). The lift shafts are empty, and lead to a box on the roof.

===============================

Down the stairs, there are sounds of panic. Closer is the sound of small feet running up the stairs, and heavy breathing - a childs voice, female, shouting. Cressin recognises the voice - a girl, perhaps 8, from the 4th floor? Mathilda, Martha, Marie?. Something like that. Jack doesn't know her at all, he hasn't spent enough time here... She is part of the building's 'improvised cctv network' and chinese whispers society...

" Police... coming up the stairwell... they grabbed the old man...asked who lived on this floor... shot him... Jay said they were police, they had masks and machine guns... 3, maybe 4... thass what he said..."

She just keeps talking, repeating things, the pauses getting longer and wheezier (asthma is very common here)

Maybe 3 floors down a shotgun roars, once, twice. Jack knows that somewhere down there one of Johnny Mescalero's gangboys lives, someone with reason to hate anyone in a uniform. The two shots are followed by a very loud bang and a burst of automatic weapons fire. No more shotgun.

There are more bangstick blasts, from the top of other buildings. Outside and above you hear what could be an AV, a loud whining noise, a different (louder) timbre to the usual customs AV3. This is followed by the 3 second scream of a gatling gun, and another kind of scream above. Bullets impact through Diego's roof at an angle, close by, shattering the plaster. There is a small thump, and blood drips through a couple of the holes.

In the corridor, the girl has been thumping on the door to the famillies apartment. With no reponse, she darts across to Jacks door, hammers her fist on the door and starts shouting. "Please mistah, are you there?" - she is slight, wheezing heavily, and has a mass of scatty dreadlocks on her head, caked in salt.

Below, the hostiles (Police?) seem to be just about reaching the floor below you. Any resistance there might have been is by now hiding in their apartments. Above, beneath the whine of the AV, Diego hears the sound of Jackboots hitting the roof. Perhaps 2 pairs of feet? A couple of sunbeams coming through new holes in the roof are cut off, one of them must be standing directly above the room. Voices from above, barely audible, just to Diego:

"Take the stairwell entrance, i'll cover the lift box...... control, this is beta team, we are in position. Minimal resistance encountered at roof level, neutralised no problem. Holding ground as ordered..."

View - Floodzone. *connecting to feed - South Calexia - engaging drone camera*

Camera Zoom and magnify: Slum Block, former Lorenzo Valdetti Street, 6th Storey...

6 apartments on this level, 3 on each side, heavy doors, windows covered with hardboard. Residents who rarely see each other, except for a familly with two kids in one apartment at left end, opposite subjects apartment. Stairs and lift (no longer working - there isn't even anything in the shaft anymore...

Drone Camera pan to window view, switch to infrared/secondary optics to negate the hardboard covering window (assuming subjects do not have infrared or cyberoptics, drone should remain invisible: Two figures entering apartment - two rooms, kitchen/dining room + living room, with sofabed, old radio set, telephone (...disconnecting...). 1 Bathroom. Boarded windows. Small chest of draws, detecting firearm - weapon silhouette database active - best fit = Dai Lung Cybermag (6mm)* and several rounds of ammunition inside. Subjects have entered living room.

Moving along - several other occupied apartments. Camera is detecting several firearms - No Citizen chips located - repeat, subjects are zeroes and can be eliminated if they interfere.

Listening equipment ineffective - walls too thick - however, this should also serve to mask approach.

Lifting to roof level, locating roof entrance, accesible through door next to lift shaft - detecting living subject - (view of a bored ten year old child, bang sticks, binoculars) - WARNING, DRONE SPOTTED... repeat, disengage drone...

(A series of loud bangs as the spotter lights the sticks, standing directly above Jacks apartment, clearly audible through the roof)

<<<WARNING, PROBABILITY THAT THE SUBJECTS HAVE BEEN ALERTED. RECOMMEND IMMEADIATE STRIKE>>>

(Sounds of gunfire from ground floor)

*This is in addition to the pistol that Jack is already carrying. It has one full clip and six additional rounds, loose in a box.

During the walk, Weasel is going to pay attention to potential "tails", and avaible escape routes.

Escape routes are the one commoditity which isn't in short supply in the region - perhaps the reason that everything else is . Naturally paranoia makes you suspicious of several people you see on the route, but a surreptitious glance or two later on and those suspicions appear to have been unfounded.

The strip is crowded but distinctly full of a kind of infectious nervous energy. No one is really sure what happened last night, or the implications it might have.

Popping down a side street on to a road south of the Strip you come to the slum block. There is no front door, and there are several homeless people sleeping in the foyer. The lifts up to higher apartments shorted out long ago, so you have to take the dirty piss-soaked stairs to reach the apartment (assuming you go straight there?).

I came up media as well, but all I can rate in RL is one weeks work experience with a local paper - It was fun, because I didn't really know most of the basics before I went there, i'd never been taught things like the pyramid before (although, to be honest, it is fairly self explanatory...), so it was a good learning experience, and I managed to get a few articles published (the scraps at the bottom of the press release file that no one else could be bothered to touch ).

While Claire said she liked my writing style, she did tell me not to use semi colons - "the readership may not understand them"...

--Oh, and if you're looking for a better perspective on US events, take a look as BBC news. They've got their own slant, because they're beholden to dumb US policy by a PM I used to kinda like, but the BBC still has a few teeth left.

That said, they can annoy me a little - I don't know if you saw John Simpson 'liberate' Kabul, but it was the most hyperbolic piece of TV journalism I have ever seen. Seriously, he walked into the city a few hours ahead of allied troops, surrounded by small children...

As for teeth, it will be interesting to see how the Hutton enquiry effects the BBC, or in fact British journalism in general - they took a battering over that, it really was an unsubtle attempt by the government to strong-arm the press.

OOC: by "family members" you mean a local equivalent of a nomad clan running the market, or Mafia "family"? Or maybe shopkeeper's brother-in-law with a baseball stick and kabab-runing-girl's twin sister with a razor? Just for clearity - Weasel won't try anything mean here (a good thief does never steal in his neightbourhood).

OOC: A nomad clan is actually a pretty good comparison to the way trash people society has evolved - so while it is likely to be shopkeepers brother in law with a baseball bat, he will also be looking over the other stalls as well... Also a reason why there isn't much competition between shopkeepers here - alot of the time they try to coordinate - except the junk sellers, who just sell whatever they find, whenever they find it...

Espionage, it's another kettle of fish...

Oh yeah, the SpyScraper...

The aircraft are General Dynamics F-36 Comets, af if to prove that corporations really do get the best equipment these days. Fantastic maneuvrability and speed (quite possibly augmented by FBC pilots,knowing Lazarus), altough only two missile hardpoints to go with that enoumous cannon.

I am planning to see if I can find out who's selling all the Russian firearms in town and then well seeing if they can be Persuaded to set up the tree-huggers."

Anywhere you are going to start? Smith gave a couple of suggestions.

You get what you pay for. Depending on your point of view and your opinion of Pigeon Kebab, that is either a very good thing, or a very bad thing...

Beer is a local brand that presumably 'fell of the back of a lorry', but it is more than passable.

This region is neutral ground as far as gangs are concerned. Most of the stall keepers are trash people, and armed. Scattered around the market are likely to be family members whose main role is to stand around looking out for pickpockets, and kicking the s*** out of any gang member who tries to intimidate a stall keeper. This has (and will) happened quite a few times in the past.

The Sharks tend to congregate on the otherside of the Floodzone, you should be fairly safe from them here. That said, there are a lot of streetkids, and they form the closest the 'zone has to a CCTV network... If they really were determined to find you, that would probably how they would do it.

Midday around here, up the street from the trash warrens, is raucous and much busier than most other times/regions of the Floodzone. It certainly isn't a place were you could feel complacent about the location of your wallet... Street kids are everywhere.

There are also food vendors, some of which are quite plain about what the meat is (not a good business policy...), others... not so much. (Incidentally, there are some cleaner (on the outside) food vendors on the Strip) Most of the vendors at least deep fry their rats. If you have more culinary tastes, there is a serious trade in stolen kibble.

That sums up the food situation around here.

The more processed (i.e the less obvious the original ingredients are) the food is, the more expensive it is, but nothing is truely expensive, even by Floodzone standards. Better food is available on the Strip, there are even a couple of small, cheap restaurants.

After about 10 minutes outside you hear the familiar pop of a bangstick, way over at the other end of the zone, then a few more a little closer. No-one really reacts, its too far away and most of their illegal activities can be easily covered up within a few minutes... It is impossible to know what is setting of the warning, could be a single patrol AV, a whole platoon of SWAT troopers or some gang fight.

I have started - it does amuse me that there are 3 different spellings of Krakow in the first 4 pages alone...

I think that when this finally gets written up this will look more like a shadowrun sourcebook than a cp one - we should try and keep the conversational style.

Radom

Radom, the second largest city in the Voivodship, is most famous for the Radom airshow (the largest in Poland) which takes place every september. The airshow has become increasingly politicised over the years - before the NearWar it attracted large numbers of foreign corps seeking to show of their wares to NCE nations, while in more recent times it has become the scene of jingoistic propaganda and air force recruiting, as well as a chance to show of their firepower.

OOC: I did intend to right something longer, but it has struck me that it is taking me longer to search through for references and information than it is to write stuff - for that reason I have decided a better use of my time would be to go through and try and put this into some kind of order for simpler reference.

That will require going through and re-reading the entire thread, so if I start quoting/asking questions about stuff you wrote when I wasn't even aware of this site, don't worry...

Breakfast goes without hitch - no stove explosions, nothing gets burnt, no fires break out...everything tastes fine.

Outside, traffic seems to be fairly light. AVs are circling the corporate zone, a corporate drigible is lazily circling the petrochem building, two lazarus fighter aircraft make a patrol pass over the city (which is far from usual...).

The night itself is basically uneventful - not that there is much of it left by the time you get to sleep... You hear the whine of the CustomsAV throughout the night over the Strip, but things seem to have calmed down.

Comparisons between living in Delta City (TVC Corporate Hub) and the Floodzone:

In Delta City, the police use more AVs than usual, to beat the heavy ground traffic, make quick responses to emergencies taking place inside skyscrapers, and pursue fleeing air vehicles.

In the Floodzone, police use more AVs than usual, because they are harder targets.

Delta City is run by a cartel of banking clans and dominated by the over arching power of the criminally corrupt Republican Government.

The Floodzone is controlled by a group of violent gangs, dominated by the over arching power of the criminal Smuggler clans.

Important floodzoners must continually risk murder at the hands of street gang enforcers and other hoods, often armed with shotguns and other lethal weaponary.

Important Delta City corporates must continually risk assassination at the hands of mercenaries and assassins, often armed with rail rifles, shellfish toxin darts, and other lethal weaponary.

On the other hand, most Delta City jobs require the employee to be at work sometime around 9 in the morning, whereas in the Floodzone they don't care so much...

------------------------

That said, the Floodzone does tend to wake up fairly early (or go to bed very late, depending on your profession...)

The safehouse is on a street that leads down to the landfill to the south. To the north, immeadiately up the street at the end of the block, is an impromptu street market, mostly populated by trash scavengers selling what they can rescue from the landfill - which isn't much. There are also food vendors, some of which are quite plain about what the meat is (not a good business policy...), others... not so much. (Incidentally, there are some cleaner (on the outside) food vendors on the Strip) Most of the vendors at least deep fry their rats. If you have more culinary tastes, there is a serious trade in stolen kibble.

For such a poor zone, the whole scene is suprisingly colourful. The general TVC fashion for bright clothing is still present here. Brown is rare, while strange amalgamations of fabric discarded by the city at large make up alot of the clothing. The Garbage people tend to festoon their clothes with waste, old wrappers, magazine pages, sometimes literally sown into their clothing. Its eclectic, to say the least. Combined with what is some suprisingly warm weather and (relativly) blue skies, it makes the whole scene seem almost carnivale-esque... (although with less dancing and giant feathers...)

As for the house...

Then go around, he mostly check what is the secure level, if we close door, could someone enter the flat from brocken windows ?

Not without a ladder, or some severe acrobatics.

"But tell me one Wasel, I wanna go to my 'previous' staying place to collect some stuff form it, I think that if I want to have it I should do it today, do you go with me or stay here ?"

Your previous place of residence is in a slum block behind the strip, a 6 storey block populated by a variety of drug addicts, gang members, criminals, and a couple of famillies... it has a very heavy lock on the door, and there is an impromptu system of 'Bethnal Green' style policing here - no one cares if you steal from another block, but anyone stealing from his own block gets hung out of a window by the testicles. Means there is suprisingly little crime... especially given how everyone knows each other.

ooc: comp, i'm still waiting on that awarness check from the last tread

OOC: Done, see your pm box.

Late night in Philogaia is bitterly cold, and occasionally punctuated by gunfire (of course, inside the safehouse, the heating works and the double glazed windows blcok out most of the sound...). And in the morning, the radio is reporting a fire in an Arcadiex pumping station, believed to be deliberate arson.

Less clouds in the sky this morning, yesterdays intermittent rain might have passed during the night...

You weren't joking about the driving conditions, were you Mike...

61 cars...I saw the news footage and that was one hell of a pile up...all things considered, its very lucky only eighteen people got injured...

Meh - blame the fog...always works...