|
It was either in the far future, or in the very, very distant past. It
might have been in an entirely different planet, or a different universe.In any case, it was at least a continuum
that didn't instantly cause insanity to those that looked upon it.
Noo.. this one was more evil that that. Insanity was at its most fun when induced with small, careful steps.
This begs to mid wheter any space-time continuum can induce insanity, or wheter they have the any intristic desire
to cause it and WHY AM I ASKING SUCH QUESTIONS WHEN I CAN BE OUT THERE ASSAULTING TELEPHONE POLES WITH GREAT LAWNMOWER
JUSTICE(tm)?!!
*blam*
Moot point.
Brick and Pencil Productions presents
NOT in association with the Illuminati
A
DAC Communityfic
or
How We Might Torture Dan Wood(and not feel guilty)
It was a great big sack of Life Sucks. Or quite literally, thousands of small Nuklear(tm) Marbles. When those marbles
as then let loose onto a
town square upon which hundreds of people walked and milled around - for them to trip and bruise their behinds
before then being ripped apart into many different pieces of flying meat.
It wasn't too long before the booms and the screaming started.
They ducked and weaved through a series of shadowy alleys, trying to
hold back their laughter as they did so. They stopped when they reached
the Docks and hid behind one of the rusted beached hulks. There they
in safety let loose all their delight, giving their harsh barking laughter
free reign, and gaining added humor from how it bounced off the curved metal walls to echo back horribly distorted.
They looked to be three Goth children, wearing black leather festooned with sniny metal strips. Their faces were
painted white, with numbers starkly tatooed on their left cheeks.
"That was kooooool, man! Did you see how the guts were flying?" This
boy has a '23' on his face.
"HAHAH! Damn right! We OWN3D those los3rs good!" said '98'.
'34' looked pensive. "I don't know, man. This is all fun and all, but it feels wrong, you know?"
'23' kicked him. "WUSS! What the fuck are you saying? You growing a
conscience on me?
'34' snarled. "All I'm saying is that it's useless, you know? They'll just be respawned later. Everybody respawns.
I want to do HURT something permanently, you know?"
A look of cold calculation spread over '23's face. It was soon however,
replaced with a look of horror. Blood dripped down the small hole on his forehead, and as he dropped to the metal
floor, his body flicked, turned red and then disappeared. '34' screamed, looked up and saw two men in red vests,
with the word "MODERATOR" stitched into the lapels...
"Oh, shit."
"Banned." the two said at the same time, and pulled their triggers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
THOSE WHO HUNT NEWBIES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode One: The story begins AKA We rip off MGH
*************
The Net was alive. Humanity had taken the next step in evolution, that
is to live beyond the limits of corpoereal flesh. People had now the
option of jacking into the immense cyberspace, and live out their lives
anew. As conditions on earth worsened, more and more people chose to
upload their entire consciouness online, to await the time when the
poisons cleared from the skies and life again returned to the ground.
Vaults had been made to shelter people from the nuclear devastation.
However, it seemed that man's aptitude for destruction had been
exercised too much, and that this time, they've done their job
CORRECTLY. The task of exterminating each other was finally
accomplished - the Earth was dead, and soon makind itself would be. The Vaults wouldn't be able to support humanity
forever, the small pockets of them that remained. There only hope was in the future, the far far future - we're
talking a million or so years here, for the world to recuperate. The outside had been completely sterilized.
Man can't live that long. His machinery however, can - if it didn't
have to bother with keeping people alive, disposing of their waste and
keeping them entertained.
Detached Environment Community was the first of the 'DigitalCities'
built. The people who 'lived' in it just called it DUCK AND COVER or
just DAC instead.
Because people were people, and there were those who instinctively
wanted to destroy Order, even if it was the last bastion of humanity.
These fools were called Newbies.
The Upload was a chaotic process, and everyone who enters the Net gets a complete rewrite of personality. Everyone
is a Newbie at the start,
innocent and anarchistic. However, most outgrow this state and attain
the sense of identity they will assume as they walk through the streets
of DAC, 'Role-playing' that this was the Real World, not an image made
to comfort them as we waited eons upon eons for nature to re-assert
herself.
There really weren't that many people in DAC. Most opted for cold-
sleep, to be reawakened later. Those that do live in DAC, had set
lifetimes so as not to strain the server... but until their cycle ends, they simply couldn't die. Effectively immortal
in the literal sense, Humanity's consciousness was now a precious thing and had to be preserved.
While most newbies turn into Normal People after some time, there are
those who never outgrow this state of being. Newbies aren't children,
they could be cunning and malicious as adults. Heck, a disproportionate
number of them ARE adults. Everyone gets to choose what body they would have when entering DAC, and all citizens
had the right to Play God to themselves. It's just when what they do interferes with other people, is that the
problem starts.
It had been a run-of-the-mill day, generally. The dispatcher called in
three newbies harrassing a drugstore, looking for illegal drugs that
weren't there. Like anyone like them needed mental alteratives- in the
scale of 'I'm Fucked Up' newbieness ranks just above Evil Evil Purple
Furry Thing and below Fidel.
"I RULE OVER YOU A-gluk!!* Newbies had this tendency to yell before
attacking, to sing praise to themselves. When this tradition started, it
wasn't known - but this part of their insanity at least made things work
in the favor of Those That Hunt Newbies. Stainless took the open chance, then whistled at his handiwork. Again,
just between the eyes. That's why he was called Stainless - his work was just that neat. He noted that as the newbie
faded off as it was reset by the Server, to leave just a bold outline made of the word BANNED endlessly repeating,
closely spaced to appear to be a red chalk line,.. there wasn't even a drop of blood on the blue Corvega that it
had been standing on.
Newbies could be dangerous. A lot of newbies had 'superpowers', it takes a certain form of mental flexibility to
dementia to alter one's own
e-physical form to such extent. We normal people outgrow the need for
such attention-getting quickly. If you had superpowers, you weren't
human. And if you weren't human, we're allowed to shoot you with moral
impunity.
The Newbie-hunter ducked as another one appeared, sailing through the
air, looking for all intents and purposes... a large tattery black rag. Death motif? Oh please. Like that's original.
"DIE YOU ANNOYING BASTARDS!" bbrakakakakakakakakakakakak BOOMbrakakakak kakakBOOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Stainless sighed, as his partner let loose with his submachine gun/rocket
launcher composite rifle. Archancelor was a newbie, or rather HAD been a newbie. But his love for heavy ordinance
could be turned towards the Force of Good, as the young man with spiky hair hated other newbies with such ferocity
as had never before seen.
"That's enough, Arch. I think he's dead."
"Are you sure? I think I still see an atom of it somewhere..."
"He's DEAD, man. And so is the building behind him." The tall man nursed a rising migraine. Too much
collateral damage, he hoped that the drugstore that had been standing there just before Arch came in had Newbie
Attack insurace. Or The City wouldn't take it out of his salary again.
Their PipLADs beeped. "I'll take it" he told Arch. "Go check the block.. the report said that there
were six Newbies running around. We only got five."
"Yeah, yeah. Lazy bastard." the teenager muttered.
Stainless opened up the wrist-communicator, and a face flickered into
view. It was of a slight young woman, with gentle elfin features. "Hey, Stainy.." she purred.
"What's up?" Okay, yeah. So she was cute. But Elanire also knew that he hated to be called 'Stainy',
and besides, she was ex-CombatOPS, and dealt with the most demented of Newbies. Even a free-lance moderator like
Stainless, had to admit that she scared the living whey out of him. And here she was, working as their secretary
... life was weird.
"Boss wants ya back."
"But there's still one target we haven't -"
"He says, NOW!" she said cheerily, but for a half-second or so, her face flickered to reflect the expression
of the man she was quoting. Damn scary, how she can do that.
"Okay, okay..." Stainless groaned. He close his PipLAD and hooted at
Arch. "Playtime's over, Arch. It's back to the office we go."
The teenager's seemed to consumed with mournful regret, looking so much like a puppy that someone kicked, that
Stainless felt like
laughing. "The DAC Guards can handle that."
"But I WANTED to kill it."
Stainless shook his head, and walked over to the Corvega. He fiddled
with its latch, and opened it. "Come on, Arch." Into the driver's seat he went, sparing a gaze to the
still burning remains of what had once been his car.
Damn newbies.
Arch reluctantly got into the car, shoved his rifle into the back seat,
and moodily said nothing as their jacked car weaved through the branching paved roads and down to the run-down
districts left behind by Updates, and to their cheaply-rented office.
***********
A squat brick building surrounded by disused warehouses, this was the
perfect haven for anyone who wanted refuge away from both the chippy
braindead optimism of the City, and the creatures that plauge it. Not that it meant this place was safe, of course.
Now and then giant rats would venture out from the sewers, strange ships would moor at the
docks, various things illegal would happen.
Which suited the freelance Moderators just fine. It was convenient to have the Black Market at their doorstep,
and criminals were really nice
folk once you got to know them. As long as you both understood that
a doublecross and backstabbing were traditional with every deal, things would turn out fine. Or dead. It didn't
really matter all that much.
Making their way carefully through claymore land mines scattered all over the floors and corridors, they soon came
to a door, room 341.
THOSE WHO HUNT NEWBIES(TWHN) Enterprises
A NEWBIE PROTECTION COMPANY, the door said. Below it were the words: formerly 129th Precint Annex.
The NPCs had a tendency to be attacked too often. The task of controlling the newbiepedemic used to be part of
the DAC's own police task force. However, things had escalated beyond control as the Newbies for once, banded together
to attack the Police Headquarters. Half the building was atomized before the newbies could all be Banned.
Most of the damage were caused by the Anti-Newbie Task Force itself. If
you remember the adage 'Beware ye of hunting monsters, lest ye
become a monster too', it somehow applied here. Massive property
damage was often the result of a Newbie attack- caused by both sides. The Police force simply didn't have the policies
to cover it - crime, ordinary crime, was bad enough in DAC. To deal with insane superpowered freaks was startingto
drain both reserves and sanity of the police force.
The suicide and discharge from service rate, was really high, three years
ago.
When the Newbie Protection Company was formed and opened itself to
franchising, it was hailed the saviour of the City. A stupid saviour, given what it would have to contend with(miles
and miles of paperwork, more dangerous to the mind than fighting the newbies themselves) but appeciated nonetheless.
Former Anti-Newbie police found themselves
gainfully working again, in a job that they had grown to love.
Stainless pushed aside the door(the lock had been broken not so long
ago, and besides - there wasn't anything to steal in there anyway). It
was a small two-room office. Despite that TWHN employed half a dozen or so freelance Moderators, there had never
arisen a need for all of them
to come and assemble at the office. They mostly just reported in, got
their assignements, and then went back to collect their checks.
Elanire sat behind the desk facing the door, absobed the game she'd
bootlegged from SwordCoastCity,
a far-off DigitalCity where people
role-played a less... normal life. "*ahem*", the newbie-hunter coughed,
trying to draw her attention. No dice. Baldur's Gate XII and Drizzt were
the only things she was able to see. A small rivulet of drool was hanging
down her pert lips. A rather large bowie knife was embedded into the wood of her tabletop.
Stainless sighed. "Is the boss in?"
Elanire continued to fantasize.
"Ookay. So we're just going in now. Stay in your happy happy land." He
wasn't sure which Elanire he liked better - drooling fangirl Elanire, or
testy knifeweilding maniac Elanire(who called herself Firyal, and had the
tendency to make the most innocuous thing explodable).
She really was a nice girl, but having fought and then banned one too many Newbies... Stainless just shook his
head sadly and went into the back room with Arch trailing behind.
Dungy walls decorated here and there with patches of peeling wallper.
Framed were clippings of front pages that proclaimed "NEWBIEPIDEMIC
IS SPREADING!" "EVERYONE
DESPERATE! POLICE FORCES OVERWHELMED BY SURGE OF L33t.",
"CAPS LOCK CAUSES BRAIN CANCER!", and "SOLUTION FOUND! DESPERATE
TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES!" One large photograph,
fading with time, of several young men and women seated together atop a fearsome-looking mech unit. Anti-Newbie Task Force:4199,
was written into the lower left corner.
And in there, sat their boss, a reedy man wearing a pinstripe blue suit and sported prematurely receding hair.
Nevertheless, he looked far younger than his years - and many a time had clients been surprised into thinking that
the manager of this asassin's agency was a teenager barely into college. Still, he was far older than he looked,
and was the division chief of this little company.. Bluepencil was his callsign, B-pen the name he preferred to
be called. He used to be Editor for some newspaper, how he got into the business of Newbie-slaying, was beyond
their understanding.
He clicked off the videophone just as they came in. "Ah, Stainless! Arch! Good to see you boys again!"
he said cheerily. Maybe even too cheerily. You could almost hear 'so I can DEVOUR YOUR SOULS!!' tacked on at the
end of it. "Guess who just called?"
"Uh.. Satan?" B-pen was scary of an entirely different sort. The weird
part was of how he was NOT scary. It was all that effort expended to appear so non-threatening, even downright
semi-pathetic, that was disquieting.
"Haha.. close, but no. It was Kreegle, our Lord Mayor. Seems he has a job out for us."
Uh, oh. This can't be good. "What kind of job?"
"Actually quite simple. A newbie appeared over at his house and kidnapped the Vice-Mayor."
"...."
"...stupid newbie." Arch muttered.
"Yep. We're there to talk Monsieur Killzig out of spilling too much blood
into the Mansion's carpeting."
"We? Uh, boss.." the Aussie began to gesticulate wildy."When you say we, do you mean.. WE? As in
you and us?"
"Stop that, I don't know semaphore. And, yes."
"And somehow not get killed in the process? Boss, we're moderators. Not miracle workers."
"Or martyrs." Arch added.
"You don't have a choice, either." B-pen continued sunnily. "It's about
time that you two were given a learning assignment." While the overall
record of Point Zepo: Stainless and Arch, was good.. they were both still
fairly inexperienced. Most of the newbies they've been sent to eliminate
were the real 'newbie newbies', unknowing of how to control the inane
power that Newbieness brings. Besides, they wear red shirts. THAT WAS REASON ENOUGH. Although all moderators were
expendable(redshirts, neh), Dan, Kashluk, and the others weren't that much fun to throw around - they were of better
use alive and on the hunt.
Stainless sighed again, and resigned to his fate."Okay, okay.. we're
going there. I better get a raise for this."
"Fine."
"I want a raise too!" Arch piped up.
"All right."
Stainless turned sharply. "You okay, B-pen? Usually it would take a
crowbar to pry you away from a dollar."
"It doesn't matter. You're both fired."
The two Moderators dropped. "FIRED?!"
"Now you're both re-hired, on probation. At half normal salary, of course.."
"Listen, you..."
"BUT! Since you've shown such good behaviour recently, I think it's
time YOU WERE GIVEN A RAISE! Now you get to earn as much as other people working and bleeding honestly for their
money, isn't that
swell?"
"... I hate you."
"I know." he grinned.
***************
But before confronting the Flaming Sword of Great Malevolence and
Prussian Chocolate, aka Killzig, certain things must first be taken
care of. This was another thing that separated men from newbies. Real
men make preparations. To weep at a sucking chest wound is considered bad form, so ALWAYS WEAR POWER ARMOR, kids.
Except when you're about to have sex. But you really SHOULDN'T be doing that yet anyways. We'll shoot your parents
for their negligence in teaching you propriety...
Oh, yeah. Sign the petition. Power armor should have breasts. It's
getting harder to tell who's who inside.
Beneath the run-down office building was a basement/garage of sorts. It
was here that several vehicles were parked, most of them semi-obsolete.
The newer ones, like the one Stainless drove in, were 'salvaged' from
the 'battlefields'. Since the owners were already being reset somewhere,
they won't care that their car has been stolen.. that they had even
owned a car in the first place.
Stainless moved to it, but B-pen waved him away. "A Corvega? Too
conspicuos, where we're going... we're taking my car."
"You have a car?" And here they thought he had a geas to remain within
three hundred meters of the office at all times.
Behind an treadless APC that had obviously seen better days, they
found their ride. The blue-clad one gestured proudly towards it.
"A minivan? Boss, you drive a MINIVAN?! Don't you have ANY SELF-RESPECT WHATSOEVER?!!"
B-pen frowned, just a bit. "Technically, it's too small even for that.
It's a compact car, a mini-compact in fact. The chassis class, I think
is called a Mini-Compo."
Arch stared at the small car as if it was a humongous mutated cockroach. Disgust was clear on his face.
"What? Okay, it's small and unimpressive. But it's fast, has a quick
turning radius, and fuel consumption's minimal. Frankly, I think
everyone should drive on of these things... the capacity to dodge
newbie fire is worth the -"
"Self-humiliation" Stainless cut in.
"I was going to say cost." B-pen glared. "This is vintage car! Do you
have any idea how much it's worth now?" He sidled up to the compact
and patted its frame almost affectionately. "It's far better than losing
transportation every other mission. Maybe I should cut off all your
vehicle insurance allocations and just have you all use the subway?"
"Okay, we won't badmouth the car anymore. Can we get going now?" the young moderator yawned out. "I
wanna kill me some newbie."
B-pen reached into his pockets and after some time picking out the
right key from his filled keyring, unlatched the door.. then went
to settle himself in the back seat. He leaned out the left window.
"Hey, I'm not your chaffeur. Drive, Stainy."
Stainless scowled, ground his teeth again, but made no complaints. Arch buckled himself into the front seat.
"Take us to uptown first. We need to pick up supplies first."
"Roger that, boss."
*********
Uptown was like a different world. The twentieth century came alive in
uptown, which was separated into three sections- earlies, golden, and
happening - also 1900-1935, 1935-1969-, 1970-1999. The Cybercities each tried to evoke a facet of what makes humanity.
DAC, being the prototype, chose to devote itself into showing the most frantic period in human history, the 20th
century... the rush of progress and discovery that marked an unconscious need within the racial organism.
Here in Uptown Left, were discos, bars, Trekhouses, and well-advertized
brothels. Cars were of mixed ages, so were the people. DAC was where all the other Cities came together... to taste
what it was like in the other
cities, without actually going there(SFCity was simply too eerie and
Swordcoast City
had strict immigration and tourism laws). Under B-pen's
direction, the mini-compo darted through traffic until it came to a small bar called the 'On the Bounce'.
"This is a 1980s bar in a 1970 region" Stainless noticed."Isn't that against the law or something?"
"It's a 1979 bar. Kind of like Rock meets Disco."
"So... there's a fighting ring inside?"
"Yes."
They disembarked and entered the place. It was filled with shouts and
cheers, as two combatants in the raised dais in the center slugged it
out. The music blared alternately disco fever and pink floyd, depending
on which boxer was winning at the moment. The grungy rock advocate
grabbed ahold of his enemy's large fluffed hair, and slid into a chokehold. As the white-suited disco man tried
to break himself free, the speakers meantime switched to 'Carry
on My Wayward Son'.
B-pen stood by the doorway and breathed in the carnage for a moment.
Then, telling Arch and Stainless to take their eyes away from the
foxy women.. and conceding, stopping to view with them for a minute
the happy shapely bouncing things. 'Highway to Hell' however, reminded them of their duty.
The NPC franchiser made his way to the bar counter. The bartender was
a burly man sporting a full moustache. "Why are you wearing such
an obviously fake moustache?" he asked him.
The bartender beamed. "B-pen! Ah, it's good to see you again, my
water brother(so I can DEVOUR YOUR SOUL)."
"Hiya, OTB. Redux, why the moustache?"
"My wife thinks it screams out 'hands off, faithfully married man!'. What with all the singles in this place"
he shrugged. "The wedding ring that I used to be wearing only made them more excited.. an illicit affair,
you know? But I guess both the Disco chicks and the Rock girls think a full moustache is so.. last century.
"You mean last.. ahh.. twenty-seventh century." B-pen said with a (you
guessed it) grin. "But, if it works... that's good to hear."
"What brings you here to my side of the urban jungle? No, don't tell. Let
me guess.. you want to see what I modded?"
"The mad l00t that only you can mod w00t!"
OTB groaned. "Please, no puns." With a nod to the two redshirts, he
backed away from the counter and opened up the back door. The three
moderators followed him.
A light switch was flicked on.
"I'm in heaven." Arch muttered. It was a large room, with white walls
almost covered over with weaponry of all types, shapes and sizes. There
were two flat glass tables at the middle of the room, and a small
hyperterminal rested near an edge of each.
"Pick and choose, my friends. I'm offering you the special 'water brother'
discount."
B-pen made a theatrical grimace. "I've seen and used all these before,
OTB. Don't you have anything new?"
'B-pen's used a a gun before?' Somehow Stainless found that very hard to believe. 'Pack o' lies.' He always took
everything he overheard with a grain of salt... sometimes he wondered if he was the only sane one in the Moderators
legion. Even though no one
was sane who was a moderator.
But OnTheBounce just laughed. "You lose interest too fast once you finally figure out something. I think I've
got a few that will require you to
put some thought.." He pressed a few buttons on one of the consoles, and recessed walls opened to reveal more
hidden weapon panels. He reached up and plucked a strangely-shaped Assault Rifle. "How about this one? It's
what the elite crew of the wartanc DAC Roshambo weilds for personal firearms. I modded it, of course. Added heatsinks, stripped
the metal casing and replaced it with lightweight cerafibre, changed the .331 AP rounds into a .331 NUKE. The standard
range of this baby is 900 metres on full-automatic, switch it to farsight mode and the sniper range is two kilometers.
If you can see the target, that is. But if someone closer can 'paint' the target, the sight shows a guiding reticule...
and you can take the shot with confidence."
"What does the crew of the battlecarrier DAC Saint Proverbius carry?"
OTB hmm'ed. "This one." He took another assault rifle, one that had a
granade launcher assembly. "Range is closer, but it's meant to be a
skirmishing weapon... you should see the damage this thing can do. With a variety of loadouts, from grenade to
.331 to incendiary to flare to
flak to EMP pulse, it's best for someone used to fighting in close quarters.The SP's are trained to do that - either
they're on their strike craft or they need to slug it out with newbies charging en masse the sides of the carrier.
The DAC Saint Proverbius doesn't have a seige main cannon to take out newbies from a distance like the DAC Roshambo
so they adapted to cause as much damage as possible in the shortest time."
Again, B-pen refused to take the weapon. "I don't know.. it's not really 'me', neh? Neither of these fit my
style." He thumbed the moderators behind him. "But they could use solid armaments... charge it to my
card."
Stainless and Arch positively drooled at the guns given them. "Don't
do that!" B-pen yelled, as quickly handed them his handkerchief and a salary deduction.
"It can't rust, you shouldn't worry." said OTB.
"Don't you have any energy-based weaponry?"
"You know that with the treaty in effect with ScienceFictioncity... any nonconventional weaponry is Out Of
Character and is severely illegal."
"That means.. you have some." he grinned evilly.
"Indeed."
***************
And then so, suitably armed, they made their way further uptown and into the suburbs. Also known as the Goldenhomes,
50's to early 60's region where the all sweetness and innocence in the air had been known to cause cavities in
passing birds a-flight.
-to be continued-
-------------------------------
Next issue:
"So, this is Happy Hills. It's so... happy."
"It needs to die."
"Okay, Dan's out on a scouting run. You, you, you... Operation Human Shield begins now."
"It's a GIANT PURPLE RADIOACTIVE KOALA!!"
"Stainless, go pacify it."
"How about I knock your head and send you to dreamtime instead?"
"Would someone please get my face out of my posterior?"
"I'm g-"
"Don't say it... it's cliché!"
"I'm getting too old for this shit."
"Arggggh.....!"
"IT'S DAN WOOD!"
"You need to stop talking in Caps Lock, man."
=====*********======
X©BrickandPencil Production2001
|