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Forum index » Archive » Archive: Deus City » DC: Deus City

Chapter 5: Subcues [solved]

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TGI Fridays
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Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 123

Chapter 5: Subcues [solved]
Geno's Bistro in Red District

The sun should be coming up by the time I make it back to Sam's, but the rain and thunder are so hard and fast that it's impossible to tell if it's bothered to rise yet or not. Water cascades in sheets into the dark grey back streets outside of the big curved window. Sam is at her usual post behind the counter, preparing for the day and serving various things to the small handful of quiet patrons who are scattered around at various tables and the bar.
I'm guzzling a steaming cup of coffee in a light blue mug, my sopping wet hat laid out beside me on my regular table. I try not to think about how my face and hair are damp or how uncomfortable my wet clothes are. Taking my coat off would probably help with that, but it's just too much trouble to bother to take off right now.

Bishop sits in his usual spot across from me. He has surrounded himself with the keyboard, his data-pad which he is mothering, and a few other unidentifiable gadgets which he continually guards from my wet dripping. The table monitor displays the quickly changing but familiar stream of meaningless white text on black that is the city info pipeline. We sit there for a few minutes like that, me enjoying my brew and him stewing over whatever, until he finally speaks.

"I don't know what to make of any of this!"

"Join the club." I reply, but he's really just talking to himself.

"So let me get your end straight," he continues, "What you are telling me is that our very lonely identity chip really does come from a very recently dead priest?"

"Yep. That Father Ziod got real nervous when I showed it to him."

"This doesn't make sense at all! He's dead! His chip shouldn't read as active! I mean geez Sawyer you know full well that these things have med sensors tied into the Global Positioning Network! They deactivate when you die!" Bishop glances up from his data pad at me and lifts his right fist for emphasis, but never stops his constant stream of words. "Wait, you showed it to him?!" I shrug and drink my coffee. "Sawyer, do you even know what it is you are playing with here? I don't care how much you hate them, you so much as fart and they know about it at Medicorp! One of these days when the caffeine and nicotine finally screws you over, at least you can know that your chip will get an ambulance down here for you with a pre-printed body bag!"

I consider this for a moment, but there are no immediate answers visible at the bottom of my mug, so instead I take a big gulp of the steaming black fluid and leave it to destiny. Bishop continues: "There's no way his chip could even register on the network if this Father Beck guy took a nose dive from this church balcony like you say. Unless..." He looks up from the computer screen which is now displaying cascading pages upon pages of text data. He is now wearing a look of sheer horror. I meet his gaze calmly, which is always easy when I have no idea what he is doing.

"Unless?" I say into the cup.

"Oh God Sawyer! Somebody with serious deity-level net access could be going around scavenging subcue chips off of dead bodies and re-activating them!"

"So did you find an obit' on this guy or not?" I ask.

"Well that's the strange thing." He says, snapping back. "I checked central database with a little of my hack and slash love! And apparently your Father Beck died seven years, three months, and� two days ago of massive Cardiac Arrest during evening meal at the Holy Faith United's St. Ajmeri's Cathedral! Sound familiar?" He obliges me with a full-visual interface, and a short static-text obituary appears on the screen complete with news a feed stock picture. It confirms what Bishop has been saying, but the picture is not that of an effeminate red haired Father Beck. He is an old man with white hair and a beard, much to my surprise. "It even says that when Medicorp got to Old-Downtown he was already laid out. No mention anywhere of a swan dive into the church last week, no explanation of why his original death certification, assuming there even was one, was later nullified, much less how the hell you ended up with his still-active ident chip!"

"So basically this chip belongs to a twice dead priest. What else?"

Bish sighs. "Well, I checked out the different sector feed pipelines before they hit the filter this morning for sleeper stories about unexplained deaths. Call it a hunch. I Cross referenced them against what we already knew... and, well, you're gonna love this! I got it off the third tier of Red District's Culturecorp media feed. The story is a few hours old, and there's no audio, but..." Bishop madly types a string of commands into his keyboard and touches his personal data pad. The background changes colors to dark red. A different news story pops onto the Cafe's table monitor: "God-Killer Strikes Again!" along with the various red-schemed ads for high-end products and services one would expect from Culturecorp.

"Medicorp was shocked again today to find yet another mysterious skiver murdered by the infamous 'God-Killer!' The unknown assassin has been scouring the Grey District slum-lands owned by Intellicorp's Senator Alexis Wright, and victimizing those who foolishly think they can live an immoral life off of the international human information grid by committing the worst crime imaginable of digging out their own sub-dermal identity chips."

As bishop scrolls the article down, I notice two digital photos are embedded in the article. The first shot is of the instantly recognizable, well dressed, and smiling Senator Wright in an expensive grey suit. He sits casually at a large grey metal and glass desk. He is an older man with piercing black eyes and grayish white hair. He has a well trimmed mustache and a wry smile. Behind the senator, two oversized fake leafy plants set into grey cylindrical pots sit in the corners, behind which is a floor to ceiling glass wall bearing witness to the office's great height and overlooking the ultra-modern cityscape beyond. I can't help but notice that the Grey district's color scheme reveals the reason for its name. Bishop continues reading the Culturecorp article with his signature animated fervor. I return to my near-empty blue mug.

"These social parasites are finding out all to soon, however, that they are easy prey for a bloodthirsty serial killer who specializes in staging so called 'acts of god' to cover his intolerable acts of blood lust! The killer has stooped so low as to costume his victims in a feeble attempt to disguise his acts as with the skiver who allegedly 'fell' inside of St. Ajmeri's Church of United faith last Sunday." The second photo is a lot more interesting. It's the exterior facade of the Cathedral, taken during the daytime and in better weather. A pair of priests stands in front of the church, some sort of stock or promotional photo. One is unquestionably the enigmatic Father Ziod, but the other is a red-headed and effeminate priest standing in the foreground wearing a purple clergy robe and a nervous smile; an interesting coincidence to say the least. While Bishop furiously continues his dramatic reading, I take the last short sip from my drink, finishing it off.

With a smile at Sam I salute her with my now empty mug. She sashays over with a fresh pot and renews my coffee. Bishop edges his own empty white mug towards the edge of the table, but Sam purposefully ignores it with a content smile. I take a long gulp of the fresh coffee while Bishop reads on. "Most recently, the trail of death led to the Grey District's Red line train terminal, where yesterday another mysterious falling skiver was cast to his doom by this unseen madman only to be torn apart by the magnetic forces below! Thanks to the dutiful reports of loyal citizens in-" I cut his diatribe off there. It's enough propaganda for one day.

"I think I get the idea... Love that Impartial Culturecorp media." I tip my head to Sam. "Thanks." I say, as much for the coffee as for leaving Bishop's empty. She smiles dryly and returns to her duties behind the counter, but stays within earshot of our conversation, occasionally glancing at me with an icy frown.

"You don't like any media Sawyer," Bishop says, "you'd give up breathing if the corporations endorsed it." I don't contradict him. Bishop raises the white mug almost up to his lips, then noticing that it is still bone dry, returns it to the table with a frown, this time closer to the center and away from his other things. He then flicks the shimmery bag with the three subcue chips in it over to my side of the table.

"Tell you what," he says "I'll give you three guesses who one of your other two lonely chips is."

"Would it be the train jumper by chance?" I ask.

"You know it!" Bishop's mouth splits wide into a stupid skeleton grin. He enters a series of keystrokes and a city biographical information page pops onto the table's wall monitor. All thoughts about the probable cost of retrieving that particular page of data are pushed aside by the fact that I recognize the face. He's the same thin, dark-skinned Latino in his mid-thirties with shifty eyes and oily jet black hair. In his bio pic he has a thin goatee and a sneering gash for a mouth. "His name was Benny Gonzalez, his last four transactions yesterday before dropping off the grid were: checking out of an old downtown substance abuse center, a vid-phone call he placed using a terminal somewhere on South Washington 10 minutes later, and his boarding of Transcorp's Redline southbound an hour after that, during which he managed to transfer every cent of his bank funds into an encrypted account! I've been trying to figure out where it went, but the trail has been burned. Fifteen minutes later he was rail goo, minus one very small identity chip which now sits on our table."

I cringe in distaste at Bishop's total lack of human decency, a rare commodity in the younger generation nowadays, but one of the few idealisms I hold onto. "Transcorp didn't flag it?" I ask.

"That's the thing my man! There's no way they couldn't have! The whole thing stinks of cover-up! Unless of course somebody's figured out how to stop time, remove a globally tracked subcue chip from a dead wino 50 meters down in a high intensity grav-field, while off the global grid themselves, and then restart time only to smuggle a hot identity chip out of a high security tracking grid!"

"Where was the 'substance abuse center' this Gonzalez checked out of? Bishop smiles again and punches two keys. The screen changes yet again.

"Oh you're gonna love this one!" he says "The center is in Old Downtown, run by our new friends... The Unified Trans-denominational order of St. Ajmeri's Holy Church of the United Faith Cathedral!

"And the phone call?"

"Didn't think to check, hang on..." Bishop pulls one of the chips out of the bag, glancing nervously around the cafe, then hits a few keys on the board. The screen changes to a phone log screen. "It was to somebody named Mrs. Tara Mercer... Wait, Mercer? That sounds familiar. Holy-!" Bishop stops dead, petrified by the implications of the name. He's annoying but at least he's not completely gone.

"I know I'm not going to like this," I say, "but I'm going to ask anyway. Who's our third lonely chip Bish?"

Bishop leans in conspiratorially and begins to whisper. "That's the missing piece! Our third chip belongs to the late Senator Thomas Mercer, former CEO of red district's Mercer Enterprises! You know them, metro-wide monopoly In Entertainment, Medical and Commerce! Made that chip in your arm! But I didn't think..." I watch with bemusement as Bishop smacks himself in the forehead, then rubs the sting away, either because he did it too hard or had never actually tried it before. "I mean, that just doesn't fit!" he protests. "H-he was fried on a damn golf course, he had his ident chip and everything, I just figured the one we were sent was a forgery and was working up to that, but... it does fit doesn't it? There's a connection. Screw me if I know what it is but it's all there. Three natural deaths, three degrees of separation... all tied to the red-hottest thing to walk into this cafe this week!"

"That 'red-hot thing' was Mrs. Mercer, kid." I say. "Or didn't the computer let you in on that little fact?"

"Whaaat?" Bish's face is screwed up in disbelief. "Senator's wives don't go walking around grey district with extra ident chips in their purses! In case you didn't know it, these little shiny bags are shielded! Only Medicorp is even supposed to have these things!"

"Someone sent them to her." I say pensively "A warning. Apparently that's where we come in."

"What? Like a finger in a box? Ransom? That makes no sense Sawyer, all these people died by natural causes. Genuine 'Acts of God' if you will!" Bishop makes little quotation marks with his fingers to make sure I get him. "Really got those conspiracy nuts going. Speaking of which, you were right, that Duce note you were sent with the Latin on it is just some old literary term." I notice that Sam is now listening intently to our banter. Her eyes meet mine and she shakes her head slowly without breaking eye contact. I smile and Take a swig of coffee, then turn my attention back to the monitor in the wall.

"Show me." I tell him. Bishop rolls his eyes but keys it up anyway. Another screen of information, this time a reference dictionary of literary terms appears. He reads from the screen grudgingly.

"Fine. Be thorough, I still get paid." He says "Deus Ex Machina: literally God from the machine... derives from ancient Greek drama... an apparently insoluble crisis which was solved by the intervention of a god or goddess..." His expression is that of smug delight. "Like I said, it's nothing. Hundreds of publications have been released discussing the topic, essays, the usual crap, but it came up clean on the Securicorp search, and the rest is just old literary refs. Dead-end as far as I can tell."

I frown unhappily, knowing that I'm missing something important. "Maybe." I say, but I am distracted by a very confused looking delivery boy in a grey uniform who at that moment rides up to the cafe, hugging the wall as a shield from the unrelenting waves of rain inches away. The late-teen straddles an old fashioned grey motorized bicycle with a small rear compartment. He has Asian features under his mop of extremely blond hair. Over his shoulder is a grey satchel with the logo "TRANSCORP DELIVERY" on it. He also wears a hooded disposable clear plastic poncho to shield him from the wet wind.

The youth checks a digital pad centered on the handlebars, then snapping it from its dock port, glances at the street address. Satisfied he pulls a very small box out of the satchel and quickly enters the cafe, shaking the water from himself like a sea mammal. The parcel is wrapped in white paper and has various postage markings on it but no visible name or address aside from a sticker with a printed barcode on the top. The Delivery Boy double checks his data pad and speaks to the room. "I'm looking for a Private Detective N. Sawyer?" Bishop and I look to each other then to the young man with obvious surprise. Water rolls off of his poncho, pooling on the floor. He's is holding the package nervously, clearly unused to this part of Grey District. He glances around the room searching for eye contact. He turns to Sam apologetically. "Sorry about the mess ma'am!"

Sam nods at the delivery boy and offers him a weak smile. "I can take that." She says. "Coffee?" The Delivery boy makes his way to the counter, not sure what to say.

"Uh... No thank you ma'am, I'm running a little behind schedule. But If I could just get your scan?" He holds out the data pad first, allowing Sam to pass her right hand over it. A digital chitter sounds and her profile is checked, cross-referenced, debited and updated in some central computer databank downtown. "Ah, yes, well thank you. Have a good day." He says. "Thank you for choosing Transcorp delivery."

The Delivery boy glances at his pad once again and taps it twice with his middle finger as he walks back into the rain-soaked streets. Only once his bike has faded into the gray sheets of water does Sam stroll nonchalantly over to the table and stands over it with her arms crossed. She wears a sly one-sided mischievous smile.

"Didn't know you had a first name Sawyer." She says. "What's the 'N' stand for?"

"Usually 'none of your business'" I say, knowingly endangering myself for some well-deserved spite later.

But Sam simply says "Hmm... Why do I believe that?", and sets the white package onto the table, pushing Bishop's empty white mug aside with her hand. "Your bloody finger, I believe?" Bishop looks stricken, but with a crooked smile I pull the paper off of the little box.

Inside is a shimmering bag identical to the one left by Tara last night. Inside of the bag are a single metallic rice-like Subcue Identity chip and a tiny slip of paper like the fortune from a Chinatown fortune cookie.

I steal a glance to make sure that no one in the cafe has taken undue interest, but they are all too busy about their morning business to take notice of an old man, a kid, and a waitress. So I lift the bag up between my first finger and thumb and turn it, revealing the handwritten 'fortune' in a distinctly feminine script.

Deus Ex Machina

I look up at Bishop determinedly. Bishop's expression is closer to abject horror. Sam merely stands over us, arms crossed, and expressionless like some stoic Greek goddess. I pop open the bag and roll the subcue into my left palm, close my fist over it and pass it over the table's wall monitor. To our shared surprise, the Desktop instantly changes back to the dramatic red interface with numerous flashy icons and pop-ups that is instantly recognizable as Red District's. Prominently displayed are a fiery animated "Culturecorp!" logo and a few dozen ads.

I don't have to try to make a call, the personal settings answer my question for me. The foremost window displays a welcome message for Tara Mercer. A glamorous head and shoulders photo of her is also displayed as part of the welcome. Her smiling lips are the same glossy crimson as her shiny mounds of hair which are pulled back on her slightly turned head. There's no accounting for vanity I suppose.

"See. I told you it was her." I say.

"What does this mean?" Bishop whispers nervously.

"Well for one thing it means that even senator's wives have to put up with their own corporate ad propaganda." I say, clearing the screen and dumping the chip back into the shielded bag. "I think it's time to kill four stones with one bird. See what else you can dig up on the Mercer family history. I'm stopping this little computer game and paying Mrs. Mercer a personal visit." And with that I stand up, and thrust the shiny bag into my still damp trench coat pocket. No rest for the weary or the wet after all. Instead, I flop my hat onto my head and exit the cafe with an irritated scowl. Bishop and Sam stare at me in mirrored surprise as the door swings shut and the dark torrent swallows me up once more.

Sugar for Det. N. Sawyer?

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:17 pm
Last edited by TGI Fridays on Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:04 pm; edited 1 time in total

WolfHawk
Entrenched

Joined: 15 Nov 2006
Posts: 1247
Location: St. Louis

Can't see this one either.

_________________
Having abandoned my search for the truth I am now looking for a good fantasy.

The light at the end of the tunnel may be the headlight of an oncoming train.

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:26 pm

Silent
Boot

Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 56

It seems that I can't see locations with my low GREEN "sockpuppet", with 0 prestige. That means that you may be able to access location based on prestige. TGI Friday has more prestige, hence he can see more stuff. That's my idea.

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:30 pm

VQ.Wavecrest
Veteran

Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 124
Location: Philadelphia, PA

No. I think it's when you unlock the chapter before it...

I didn't see it either, until I completed a few chapters.

Interesting. Very interesting....

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:16 pm

Transtar
Decorated

Joined: 01 Jun 2007
Posts: 165
Location: Annapolis, MD

Answer of 'No':

Correct.

You have received positive Karma.
You have received 5 Prestige.

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:56 am

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