brokendreams000

Oh yeah, that last post was a good place to mark as a completed section. Gadies and Lentlemen, I now bring to you, Book Two. (Title pending review.)

Qc, you get to write a lot becaue I cant think of anything to write. Nyah. Name generated by Random Name Generator. It is now my best friend.

[QC edits for spellngram]

~*~*~*~*~*

Caleb ran up to Steve's terminal. Steve, did anyone follow Emma?

Luckily, no. I can't believe she just waltzes off and comes back drunk like that. Who knows where she was or what could've happened, replied Steve. But I can't help but feel sorry for her. Something really horrible must have happened. Steve didn't tell Caleb that he was actually monitoring Emma the entire time she was outside. His connection was physically severed from Substitute Reality so he never saw the confrontation.

Well, she had better toughen up and stop being such a wuss. We're trying to survive out here, too.

You know, sometimes I wish i could go somewhere and get wasted, Steve replied, his words not conveying the bitterness he felt. I'm stuck in a vat like a brain in a vat. That's all I am.

Yeah, but you're special like that, Steve, Caleb typed, trying to sedate Steve. He shouldn't be saying this bullshit. At least you can do much more than we ever can.

But is it worth it? Steve replied. Caleb sneered. He didn't need more philosophy. Liz and Emma gave him enough trouble with their ideas, whenever they felt like sharing them. Steve interrupted his train of thought. Uhm, I've got something that just came in. It's a class 9 encoded message. It'll take me a while to decode it.

This piqued Caleb's interest. Militias or simply employers would sometimes send messages out to pirate gangs to fetch something. Class 9 was some serious job. Lots of money would be involved. Maybe even some new manufacturing technology they could impliment in their lair. technology was harder to come by than money. Money could be made from nothing; technology needed to be stolen or purchased. Plastic money wasn't taken.

Okay, I think I got it, Steve typed. He was much faster than algorithms as far as cracking code went. I'll bring it up. Line after line of decoded text appeared on the computer screen. It was from a Takako Swanhilde.

~*~*~*~*~*

Okay, this was an inch of crap. Bleh. *scurries off*

Consistency is haaard. >.<

~*~*~*~*~*

Brad walked out of his room to find Emma sprawled unconscious on the floor. Her hair was an absolute mess, she reeked of synthetic alcohol and vomit, and her clothes had somehow become absolutely filthy. Shit, Emma, he thought, what the hell did you to do to yourself this time?

He lifted her up and tried to prop her against something to make her look, at least, a little more dignified. Which was going to be hard, he realized, because her entire front was caked with dry vomit. He brought out a little cloth and tried to clean it up a bit, but realized he was probably going to need the others to help. He was about to call Caleb when he stumbled in the entrance.

"Brad, have you seen - is that - Emma?" His expression changed from resigned worry to disbelief, shock, and concern in a fairly short span of time. He immediately knelt down to try to help Brad. "Goddammit, Emma..."

...

"Hwuh?" Emma awoke, groggily, to an uncomfortably bright light in the sky and two (or was it four?) very loud (it seemed, to her) and concerned voices around her. "God, shut up and let me sleep," she managed to croak out.

"Emma! You're awake - "

"What the hell happened, Emma? If you tell me you went and got yourself wasted again, I - "

"God, my head hurts." Emma tried to stand up, but collapsed on shakier knees than she'd expected. Wow, I must've been really wasted. And this is the worst hangover I've ever had. She'd been trying, desperately, to drown out memories that last night's intrusive visit had brought back in waves. It almost worked, but when she left she was barely able to find her way back to the lair.

Oh, shit.

What if somebody had tracked her back?

"Emma, are you okay?" Brad was more worried now, if possible, than he was when she was asleep, because now he could plainly see how much she'd damaged herself last night. It showed in her eyes, which were awfully red by now.

"Oh, shit. Um... tell Steve to scan for anyone that could've followed me back. ... Oh, me? I'm... I'm fine." And then she slumped back, unconscious again.

"Goddamnit." Well, now that she was completely conked out again, there really wasn't much to do but make sure her little wallow-fest from the night before hadn't jeoparized their security. "Steve!" Caleb stormed off in a hurry.

Brad stayed behind. "Emma..." Delicately, with the utmost caution, he began running his fingers through her hair. "You worry me so much, you know that?" He smiled weakly at his own stupid attempts to try to enjoy what he knew he couldn't have. God, I'm an idiot. He hoped she wasn't going to wake up.

You know, Emma... even when you're hung over... you still look beautiful.

~*~*~*~*~*

So, QC and I talked a bit and decided that we have something that's heading toward complete cliche-ness. Except for we have a more or less original setting and maybe slightly original characters.

Oy, consistency. x.x

*QC edits for spelling n grammar*

~*~*~*~*~*

Emma stumbled. Henry was gone. He had left her alone. No, not quite so. Her train of thought halted to a screech and reversed into anger.

"Who the hell are you?"

The figure continued to look at her. "Same old Emma. Trying to escape from reality again? Don't you understand that you can't keep running forever?"

"What is it to you?" she cried, and ran up to pound the figure. Her blows went right through the hologram.

"Ah, still angry? At whom? Yourself? Your parents? That hologram you were making googly eyes with?"

Emma was out of breath. She couldn't reach whoever it was. "Yeah, well, what's it to you? You can't just go and - and - ruin everything!"

"But what was there to begin with? Illusions? Phantoms of a past life? You run away from the past, and you run away from the present. Your... friends... are looking for you." He smirked beneath his veil.

"Allright, tell me, who are you and how do you know everything about me? What do you want from me? Why me!" She collapsed on the ground. It was bad enough to have lost everything once. She was losing it all again. The fragile shards of her life that she had been putting together since they were broken were smashed apart. The million pieces of things long gone cut her soul. The old wounds bled with vigor. Her body reeled with sobs.

"Please, you can't possibly begin to comprehend how I know everything about you. How you loved Henry, how you live down in the sewers, like a rat. How all of you keep running away. It's all useless. You know it is useless. But," he pasued, and looked down on Emma, who was still silently sobbing on the floor, "I do want something from you."

Emma finished sobbing. She looked up. "What?"

"Just a small job, nothing special. You do those raids all the time. Except it's just ever so diffrent." Emma continued to gaze. "I want you to go to a suburb of Portland, Oregon." Her heartbeat stopped. Her home town. "There should be a research compund nearby. I want you to steal me the plans for their new prototype. I'm sure you can pull it off."

"Wh-what?" She was still shocked. If anyone ever made requests to steal information, it was done in a confidential manner. Not by hacking through a holodeck. And in Portland? "Why so far away?"

"Because I know you'll take the job. I'll contact your headquarters with the details." He disappeared. The room suddenley sprung back to life. She was in her dress, but on the ground. The crowd was amazed. She had just tripped and fell. Henry was right by her.

"Emma what happened, how could you fall?" he asked.

"Henry..." Emma began. But the illusion before her was not Henry. It was not programmed for this. The program would crash in a few moments. She ended it before it did. Everything disappeared again. She was left lying on the floor.

All alone again.

Emma smiled as the familiar gilded walls and arching ceiling of her favorite competition room surrounded her. For now, at least, she was back where she belonged. No more stupid cot, no more running away from the police, no more stupid, stupid crimes. Just the judges, her talent and skill, and her dance partner.

Speak of the devil. She loved this part. Strolling over nonchalantly, in the outfit she had picked out for him, personally ("So you don't embarrass me in Florida"), with the same shy half-smile that she could never remember going away from his mouth, though she had taken enough care to make him closer to her age, now that she was seven years older and all...

"I've missed you, Hen." More than you could ever know... and now...

"Miss me? We saw each other yesterday!" Part of the simulation. "And how many times do I have to tell you, my name is Henry. God, Emma, you really drive me crazy sometimes."

You've always driven me crazy, she thought to herself, and her smile widened. She'd confessed her undying love for him more than a few times in this simulation (always to slightly different, but very interesting, results - her simulation was very good), but today she just wanted some good dancing and maybe a goodbye hug. "So, you ready to win this?"

"We always do." He straightened up, assuming the gentlemanly demeanor he so loved to play around with before competitions. "Shall we, milady?"

"If it pleases you, milord." She giggled. It's been too long, Henry. She let him lead her by the hand to the front of the stage, where the judges were waiting. One of them, an aged ex-choreographer by the name of Raoul, waved his woely antiquated clipboard (he enjoyed simplicity) to the pair. Perhaps, thought Emma, she had overexaggerated the size of his nose a little. I must fix that eventually.

"Entry number six. Very well. Do you need any extra preparations, or are you ready to show us what you can do?"

She called up a display, and adjusted the background music. "No, our music's set up. We're ready."

"You know, the waltz division tends to be very competitive. I hope you have what it takes."

"Trust me," Henry interjected, "anything I might lack in talent is more than made up for by Emma's grace. I assure you, we won't disappoint." He smiled at her. She smiled back. It almost felt real.

She remembered the Chopin in the background, and tugged on Henry's arm to pull him into position. "Come on, clumsy, show me what you can do!"

He laughed, but was careful not to break the rhythm. "Since when have I been clumsy? I haven't actually fallen or gotten out of step in months, and you know it!" She thought he could detect one of those looks again. She didn't see those often in the simulation. She'd taken a lot of steps to make it realistic, so good results like this meant she had done something that sim-Henry had liked. She couldn't help but grin a little as they went through the familiar steps. Everything's alright again, she thought, just her and the love of her life dancing round and round... Even if it's not really him... it's close enough.

The routine went smoothly enough for the next few minutes as she was soaking up the time from Henry and holding him perhaps a little closer than the routine allowed, but it didn't look like Henry particularly cared.

And then he was gone -

A cloaked figure in the corner -

The judges, gone -

The simulation stopped. The cloaked figure walked up, and Emma swore if she could see its face there would be a sinister smile on it, but she couldn't see anything beyond the veil. This wasn't part of the simulation. The security here was supposed to be airtight. What the hell is going on?

"So... Emma, is it?"

Huzzah. I've got 30 minutes to write a mile of text. Go me.

~*~*~*~*~*

Caleb walked out of the console room to the hub.

"Liz, did you see Emma?"

Liz snapped out of her far gaze. "Oh what was that? Sorry, I didn't hear you." Typical Liz...

"Where's Emma?"

"She said she's out for a while. Taking a walk or something. I don't know."

"Any idea where she went?"

"No, and it wouldn't do you any good to look for her either. Maybe you should go ask Steve."

"Sure then. Whatever." Brad walked back to the console room and came to the back of it. There was a small terminal in the back, next to a heavily bolted down door. It was Steve's room. Brad typed in the communication box in the terminal. Hey Steve, where is Emma? The response came almost instantly.

I saw her walking to the the city, but I can't be sure. She could have just turned around outside my view.

Hmph. Well, I suppose we'll just have to wait for her then. Anything interesting going on?

Not really, everything's fine. Well, see you later, Brad

Brad closed the box and walked to his room. Steve was really one-of-a-kind. His parents were filthy rich. NOt just rich, filthy rich. If they so wanted, they could have bought a tropical island somewhere. Or built one for themselves. They always wanted a perfect child. Brad was supposed to be the epitome of human capability: strong, good-looking, able to use over 40% of his brain, and with siber-optics leading directly into his brain. Too bad his mother was murdered with poison while she was pregnant. It was for the money. The world ran on money. Grieving, but still hopefull, his father had Steve's 4-month-old embryo recieve the best of care: but there was only so much the doctors could do. He was still able to use over 30% of his brain, which was fully developed, and his fiber-optic interpretor chip was functioning, but his limbs never really grew out the way they were supposed to.

His arms were small and not at all reminiscent of what they were meant to be: strong; godly, even. When Steve had finished his growth and arrived at the release time, it was clear he was handicapped. A shriveled shell of the perfect child. As was the custom at the time, Steve's father, overcome with grief, committed suicide, but left all his money to the care for his little Steve. When Steve was 4, he had already surpassed 8-year-old intellectual development, but still needed to be encased in, essentially, a power suit. By 8, Steve had the brain of an adolescent, but the physique of a retarded toddler. He did not hesitate to run away from home when he tapped into the mansion's security systems, finding out that his caretakers were not all that responsible, and that once all the money was gone (it was trickling away rather quickly), Steve would be left to die.

Seeing his potential, the gang picked him up. Using what little money Steve had left, and putting an end to his credibility, a state-of-the-art fiber-optic copmuter interface and stasis cell was brought to the middle of an abandoned construction yard by a team of bewildered deliverers. Steve's power suit was still there, in case they needed to flee the lair, but Steve did the maintaining of all those necesities no-one ever paid attention to. Like keeping all the saftey and self-defence systems intact and controlled. Nothing escaped his eye. But that was just part of what he did.

No-one really knew what Steve did in his "room." He never dedicated his entire brain to lair functions, and had a fair ammount of "proccessing time" to spare. Aside from doing the heavy-duty long-distance hacking, he had a world of his own that he lived in. Maybe he had developed a true AI, and had several cyber-Steves helping him and keeping him company. Only Steve knew.

~*~*~*~*~*

Ahh... it went from "ok..." to "crap" at the end. Oh well. Running out of time.

Play "find the allusion." Did you find one here? One in QCs last post?

I'm updating, so ha. =P And no, it won't actually be about lesbians. Yet.

~*~*~*~*~*

Emma felt vaguely guilty about what she was going to do. It's not that she was using stolen credit and a stolen identity, that didn't bother her at all. But getting mad at the guys and then leaving without even notifying any of them was, perhaps, a step too far. She would find some way of making it up to them later. For now, she desperately needed some cheering up, and there was only one way, lately, that she had been able to do it.

She'd become fairly skilled at navigating the web of skyways that took people wherever they felt cheerful enough to go. She took her familiar route, tracing the numbers and color codes on the walls to her eventual destination. Another afternoon at the sims, she decided, would do her a world of good.

The skyways were unusually empty for this time of day. The ones in this part of the city were fairly new, and gleamed with an insistent chrome cheerfulness that did not, in her opinion, match the demeanor of any of the people that were to be found around. Already, the new section of skyway housed scattered beggars, drug lords, the occasional frightened businessman, and one or two disaffected college students. The college students were the worst. Angsty little bastards, she thought to herself.

After a walk that could not, to Emma, possibly be short enough, she found herself abruptly at the entrance to 5U85717U73 R34L17Y. She'd learned how to bypass the retinal scan a couple of months back, and told the doorguard program that she was Sharon Watson, a Martian real-estate agent visiting Earth on vacation. The doorguard, largely unable to tell one way or another, let her in without much of a fuss. The service program took over, floating holographic head and all.

"Where shall we take you today?" it asked, in what it thought was a cheerful and inviting voice. It attempted to smile, but came out as more of a grimace of pain. Or constipation. The program was slightly outdated, but Emma couldn't really care less.

"I'd like to see the catalog, please."

"Oh, certainly." The head liquefied lazily into a touchscreen, and Emma pretended to consider each of the options carefully when she already knew exactly what simulation she was looking for. She'd made a custom awhile back and submitted it (under a different name); the owners of most sim places were willing to accept customer recommendations - they didn't tend to be too picky about moralistic issues, and reasoned that their customers knew what they wanted.

"Oh, this one looks interesting. A Custom sim... um...." She pretended to read the screen. She'd memorized the number awhile ago. "Number 826691858. This one looks good. I always wondered what ballroom dancing was like."

"Certainly, ma'am. And your preferred method of payment?"

"I have credit." She pulled out her stolen card. She'd managed to hack that, too. The normal security features to make sure the card was being used by its rightful owner had been bypassed with relative ease.

"Much thanks from 5U85717U73 R34L17Y. Enjoy your sim!" The floating head disappeared, replaced by an arrow pointing to the room where her simulation would be taking place. Took long enough, she thought.

She entered the room.

~*~*~*~*~*

*Will be continuing this later*

*Wants to finish this scene*

And then the world exploded because QC didn't update. Australia will be dead soon.


The end. Thank you for reading.

Allright, cue music. Enya - Only Time.

~*~*~*~*~*

Emma walked into her room and sat on her cot. She pulled her legs up to her chest, and closed her eyes. The hight of civilization and technological advance. And she was living in a sewer in between two districts - the business and fabrication districts. Generally a grey place. Not at all like where she was rasied up, the edge of one of the few remaining forests. She loved playing in it when she was a child. There was a clearing in the forest she always visited and played in. The wildlife grew accustommed to her, and would accept treats from her hand. Then her parents were killed. She fled underground to hide from whoever would come to take her in, hoping that she'd meet one of the pirate gangs that would take her in. She didn't need anybody to take care of her. Eventually she was found by a gang patrol on an abandoned constuction site, sleeping in a concrete pipe.

The gangs were a constant threat. There were essentially four positions available to societey: entertainment, managment, retail or piracy. A few lucky ones that were skilled at taking tests became scientists, doctors, or lawyers. Food was mainly a non-issue; after climatic changes and the reckless advance of genetic engeneering, one potato had enough calories and nutrients in it to feed an adult for two days. Some rich folks even went as far as paying billions to have their children be able to photosynthesize with their hair. So when there would be no food left, they could survive off literally anything. Hell, noone even knew what the latest genetic experiments held. But it was assured that only the upper-class could utilize it.

The poor that could not afford the "New Food" died off. Overpopulation was a thing of the past. Suicide rates soared. People had nothing to do in life. The ones that remained were always on edge of mental breakdown from daily stress. There was no more "freedom." "Freedom" was for people that were not chained to a job. And the pirates. Stealing from the rich and giving to themselves. Some hated them, some supported them, but most people didn't care. If anything, they kept societey going, adding just the spice the people needed to not collapse in angst. The police took note, and turned a generally blind eye on whatever they did. Not like they were ever let off the hook. The police wold follow the pirates and take them in, but if they made an especially daring getaway, the police would assume the chase over. It was a game of cat-and-mouse. Neither group could survive without each other. The main concern during raids were the companies themselves. The companies were ruthless when it came to the pirates. It was legal for a company to put up automated defence with the intent to kill intruders. As long as there were "Caution!/Cuidado!" signs.

Emma snapped out of her light dream. She needed to take a walk somewhere. Maybe she'd visit the city. It was fine to go up in the city, just not in the fab district. No one would care to notice her in the city. But she'd have to tell someone else. She got off her cot and took off her raider's uniform. Black. Like her life. She put on something to distinguish her from the pirates and the prostitutes. Prostitution had been legalized, but the police did not bother standing up for the rights of anyone caught in the act -- prostitute or not. Just a regular late-teen girl. Perhaps that was what she really was. She shrugged off the thought and walked out to the central hub. It wasn't really a hub, they just needed somewhere to define as the "center".

"Liz, I'll be out for a while," Emma said to Elizabeth, the only one in the hub. "Hold the fort if anyone comes calling."

"'Kay."

Elizabeth, or Liz, as she was called, was one of the younger members. She was abandoned and was raised on the streets, so, naturally, she was withdrawn and a loner. She was also very talented, and was instrumental in cleaning up Emma's mistakes on several raids. Sometimes she'd gaze off and be lost in space, as if remembering something from her childhood.

Emma walked through the sewers towards the city entrance-point. These were the dry sewers, a new set was built under these because the old technology required too much upkeep. She got to a ladder and climbed up and out of the sewers into a dark corner of the older part of town. It was a deserted alley. One of the kinds that you wouldn't find regularly in newer inner cities. Now the only spaces between buildings were streets. People got around through skyways. Big glassed tunnels that were usually packed with advertising, the odd salesman and people walking.

She continued walking through the old town and eventually the graying buildings gave way to the new town: skyscrapers made of glass. They were architectural marvels, and by far some of the more impressive things to look at with the flowing colors of blue, green, and almost clean white. The tunnells reached from building to building, creating an even more impressive view of the tangeled webs of societey. Societey hanging loose like a thread.

Emma walked into an office building and took the elevator to the lowest skyway.

~*~*~*~*~*

w00... much better than last time. See, my world still works. Kinda.

Caleb stared at Brad and Emma as they all finished retreating into the safety of their "headquarters." That's what Caleb liked calling it, anyway. It became habit with the rest of the raiders, but really, it was just a dumpy little hideout that they used to run their black market sales from to keep themselves alive. Nobody really thought of it any other way, though. It was the only home most of them had - orphaned (though some like Emma were already adults), they'd taken to a life of high-tech theft because of their own little talents, or just because it was the only thing that they could do.

"What the hell were you doing up there, Emma?" Caleb started pacing around, the way he usually did when he was aggravated by something one of the other raiders had done. "You know you can't risk stopping once you've already stolen the target. And for something stupid like a kitten - "

"It was NOT stupid, you should've seen the poor thing, out there alone on the streets - "

"Yeah, like us, Emma, and we have to survive too. You almost jeopardized the whole goddamn operation, another second and the police would've - "

"To hell with the police, we made it out, didn't we?" They glared at each other.

"Emma, he's right." Brad decided to make his point while there was a lull in the argument. "You can't risk the safety of yourself and the others just - "

"Brad. Shut it."

Caleb sighed in frustration. There just wasn't any convincing Emma out of doing the stuff she really wanted to do, even if it was something stupid like stopping to pet a kitten. Emma was just like that. Most of the raiders were irritable, more or less, but there was something about Emma. Most of the others had been orphaned early and were totally used to the lifestyle, but Emma hadn't joined till she was thirteen, after all. Maybe that had something to do with it. She was also older than most of the others, except Caleb. A little more used to getting her way. A lot more adult.

"Emma," Caleb managed to say, after calming down a little, "I don't know what's gotten into you lately, but you're being - "

"I don't care." She reared up to her full height. She was almost taller than Caleb. Defiantly, she took off her gear and tossed it on the ground.

"Emma, all I'm saying is I'm worried about you."

"Thanks for the concern, really, but I don't need it. I know how to take care of myself."

I am not gonna get through to this woman today, Caleb thought. "Alright. I'll look at how our sales have been doing. We'll send you and your team out if we need more." He walked away and started yelling at the consoles, and the people who operated the consoles.

Brad wished he could stop staring at Emma's hair. He'd gotten quite fond of it over the past seven months since he'd joined. Beautiful, luxurious curls - he didn't really care how stained they were by the sweat and the stress. Nevertheless, it was for her own good that she learned to keep safety as a priority during raids, he told himself. From what the others had told him, she'd had a problem with safety for a very long time. He'd listened to more than a few hair-raising close-call stories, most of which seemed to center on something Emma did or forgot to do. His opinion of her, if anything, had improved after hearing those, and he spent quite an awful lot of time thinking about her. If only she wasn't so much older than him.

Emma retreated to her little cot, still thinking about the poor kitty. She wondered what it would've been like to keep him. Probably a lot nicer than this old dump, she thought to herself bitterly.


~*~*~*~*~*

*petitions to change Emma's age to sixteen* She's too adult as a 20-year-old, it's kinda boring. I'd have to make her emotionally stunted for it to be interesting at all. XD

QC out. Take it away, Zec!

Emma stopped and picked up the little white kitten standing in her way.

"Aww... aren't you a precious little thing? What is a little kitty like you doing in a place like this?"

"Emma, come on!" yelled Brad as he ran by. "If you don't hurry the police will make sure you're not prowling the streets!"

Emma put the kitten down. it looked at her as if asking the same question that she asked. What was she doing here? Well, nothing, really. The gang and she had just raided a computer store. Any minute now, the police would be on their trails. She had to get back to headquarters.

Emma began to run again. Her feet splashed the mud that was reflecting a dull-grey sky and the concrete monoliths around her. This world wasn't safe. Not after her parents had been killed in their beds. That was when she was thirteen. Seven years ago. While she was in a Florida competition. But after she got back, nothing mattered. Her first prize was for naught. Everything from her life was gone. She didn't have any close friends. The rest of her family was dead. She was an only child.

She reached the entrance to their headquarters. The safest place in a city was down in the sewers where no one could reach you. There were enough places that were abandoned as crime rates rose because of the public's general discontent of the world. With the advances in nanocomputing and successful forages into the world of quantum computing, the wealthy became richer and unemployment climbed.

She was uneasy constantly because she lived off stealing and reselling. Everything she had ever wanted was gone. Life had no purpose. It was grey like the guarded buildings of the city. The normal people got around by hacking. She never pictured herself hacking into a building's security systems just so she could steal enough to survive.

Emma sighed and climbed down into the manhole.
~*~*~*~*~*

Take it off, QC.

It's going to get run into the ground more so than I have done right now. >.<

[QCedit] Fixed punctuation 'n stuff. XD[/QCedit]