View topic - Chapter 9: Life is but a Dream [solved]

unforum
a.r.g.b.b

Welcome!

New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.

Website Restoration Project

This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.

Announcements

This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.

This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.

Our Esteemed Contributors

The time now is Thu Nov 14, 2024 3:21 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)

View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum

Calendar

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

Chapter 9: Life is but a Dream [solved]

Page 1 of 1 [3 Posts]

Author

Message

TGI Fridays
Veteran

Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 123

Chapter 9: Life is but a Dream [solved]
20/20 Apartments in Grey District

I hate the nightmares.

I sit for a moment staring at the door, then stand up, grab my dry trench, and walk out of the door, tugging it closed and allowing it to slam behind me. For a minute I just stand holding my coat and scan the dark dirty hallway I know so well. Water cascades down the glass of the window at the end of the third floor hallway beyond which lies the fire escape. I stumble down all three flights of darkly stained wooden stairs struggling to put on my outer shell as I descend and turn the screw of reality a little tighter in my mind. I'm seeing things in heightened detail, every niggling nuance and dirty detail.

In the lobby the water flows on the outside of the double glass front doors of the building through which I can almost see the dark street and single streetlight on the other side. The small shabby entryway lit by the same teardrop sconces as the hallway upstairs is taken up almost entirely by the large creaking wooden staircase opposite the door, down which I now slink. To the left of the entranceway extending past the stairs is the hallway leading to the lower apartments. Only the one peeling wooden door labeled "Management" is present on this wall while to my left and opposite is nothing but a series of numbered metal Post Office box style mailboxes, each with its own keyhole. Some are missing doors revealing a dark emptiness, but most have some sort of makeshift label shoved into the tiny label slot. In the center, surrounded by the boxes on the top and sides is a larger door with a slot labeled TRANSCORP: PICK UP TIME 4 P.M.

I sometimes wonder if there is a difference between dreams and memory. Both are unreliable in the cloudy haze we refer to as our minds, and the imagined fires are just symbols for other things. Sometimes even bigger things, the kind you can't put out with water, or a hundred fire trucks. With dreams we wake up and immediately start to forget. A nightmare which feels so real, can slip away a few seconds later. The terror becomes just a shadow of a memory. Like an old girlfriend's name. Or a childhood phone number. Just out of reach of the conscious mind. Something that was once so important, but is now all but gone, and only comes back as a half forgotten dream.

Staring at the rows of boxes, a wave of realization sweeps across me and I reach into my right coat pocket. The white mailer paper from the package this morning is still there. I rub it between my thumb and forefinger allowing its slick synthetic surface to grease the wheels of my mind. I step to the wall of boxes and run my left hand along the outgoing mailbox.

Transcorp.

A name I see a hundred times a day on everything around me. An icon of instant brand recognition. They say that the best place to hide something is in plain sight. Wherever this package was sent from, it wasn't Red District� it was a lot closer to home.

I turn. My deep thoughts give over to mild surprise. The doorway labeled "Management" stands slightly ajar. Has it been that way all the time? I shove the paper back into my pocket and cocking my head, hoof it towards the ground-floor apartment. I push lightly on the door. It gives out a slow groaning creak and opens.

So much for subtlety.

Thunder rolls outside and lightning flashes behind me in the lobby as I'm drawn into the shabby but tidy dimness of my landlady's apartment by something. A memory? Without a real reason I step inside the dingy sanctuary of the old woman I barely know.

It is an efficiency similar to mine, but bigger, and only slightly better furnished with real, albeit old appliances and electronics straight out of the 2024 catalog. Two tall lamps stand on either side of the couch, but only one casts a faint light into the room from its strained low wattage bulb, and I notice that most of the light in the room is actually coming from her small flat wide-screen monitor imbedded in the wall. A grey-suited male Intellicorp newscaster is speaking, but the netcast is at a barely audible volume.

I try to tune most of it out but fail. Either these guys decided to respect Red District's investigation, or the untimely and scandalous demise of Mrs. Mercer somehow hasn't hit the feed yet.

Yea right.

"Yellow District's Senator Moore made a shocking personal appearance in the Green district's residential area today, at the site of the newly purchased Maxwell Elementary School. The senator stood by for the signing over of ownership rights of the school into the Yellow district's "EDUCORP Unified School District". The transaction was immediately followed by a renaming ceremony for the annexed school."

The room goes yellow. I glance at the screen and see that it's a clip of Yellow district's C.E.O. and Corporate Senator Phillip Moore for the second time in as many days, probably a record for city's most famous recluse. I notice that unlike the Culturecorp netcast in the late Mrs. Mercer's Penthouse, he is jovial and smiling. In the short vid clip the balding man has replaced his signature canary yellow tuxedo with a golden one, and he's waving a golden-topped cane with reckless abandon for the dozen or so frightened school children surrounding him. He stands by a golden sign that says "Phillip Moore Elementary School".

Sighing, I turn from the screen and scan the apartment. Something isn't right, but I'm having trouble placing it. The only other sounds are that of the relentless rain outside and occasional thunder in time with the lightning flashes as the disgruntled news man drones on.

"The acquisition of the old "David Maxwell Elementary School" likely marks a sad day in education for the Green District, as it is the final campus to be swept up into the mouth of the gluttonous Phillip Moore. And now for the weather we go to Intellicorp meteorologist Stan Corbin to find out about all this rain. Stan?"

A well worn overstuffed couch sits in the center of the room, an oval coffee table covered with a laced table cloth in front of it. These sit on an old battered oriental rug. Nothing. The two windows light up through the thin white curtains hanging over them when lightning flashes. A small breakfast table with a tiny vase on it and chair under it sit between the two windows. The kitchen area is divided by a simple bar, while the bathroom fixtures are behind a wall divider and a beaded curtain which is tied open. Shelves of matching design are scattered about the room and there are two inset shelves on either side of the wall monitor. Various pictures, books, knickknacks and other mementos attest to the elderly woman who lives there. I stroll casually over to the wall and survey the items on the closest inset shelf while the weatherman begins his dire prognosis.

"The seemingly endless storms currently ravaging the city have made international headlines. With no end in sight from the deluge of storms, questions have been raised about possible relief efforts by our own Senator Wright, who is requesting that federal Defensecorp caches be tapped into if the rain continues and flooding become a serious problem as it threatens to do...

The Newscast continues but I don't hear it. I pick up a framed picture from the shelf. The woman in it is my landlady. I know this instantly, but the chill running down my spine comes when it hits me that she's also the same woman who I saw being zipped into a body bag recently. Or did I dream that? I don't have time to sort it out.

I've figured out what's wrong and I whip around to confirm it.

I love coffee tables. You can always tell a lot about a person based on what's on their coffee table. Some people have family albums, mementos, things that help them remember. Others have those oversized books with full page color glossy photos of distant places they've never been. Nobody has books or magazines anymore. A long time ago a homeless guy once told me he never looked at them. "Why look at what I can't have?" he said. "It's just pornography for hopeless dreamers." I guess he's either chipped or dead.

I round in on the small coffee table. On top of the lace tablecloth is a gloss black leather book with silver lettering. I reach down and pick it up. I run my index finger across the embossed letters.

"Deus Ex Machina."

If there was a God. And he had a coffee table, I wonder what would be on it? I open the book to the first page. The title page. It reads "Deus Ex Machina: The Divine Scripture and Testament of Yaweh-Allah-God and his people." Somehow I doubt it would be any of the above.

I flip casually through the pages and something drops from somewhere inside the book with a little swish towards the table. Before I even look at it I know what it is. An empty small shimmering plastic subcue bag is spinning end over end towards the lace tablecloth.

I snap the book shut with one hand and bend to pick it up, looking through it to confirm what I already know.

Empty.

"Now what the hell is this doing here?" I say aloud, slightly surprised at the sound of my own voice.

Out on the street lightning flashes to answer me, lighting up the room through the two windows with a blinding whiteness. The lights flicker and thunder rolls. It is very close and loud and for a fraction of a second I can suddenly see everything in the room as clear as day.

The empty little silver bag in my hand.

The pictures in the shelf behind the couch.

The questionable stains on said couch.

The horrible wallpaper pattern and the bug crawling up it.

And of course, sticking out from behind the couch: the woman's foot momentarily unable to be concealed by the shadows of it.

I pocket the little bag and moves around to the back of the couch looking down at the body behind it. It is of course my landlady, the woman from the picture, the woman from my dream wearing the same blue fluffy nightgown and just as dead. You see, sometimes the memories come back. Like a half-forgotten dream. That's when the nightmares become real and you have to decide if it was all your imagination or just some weird coincidence.

"Oh... Right." I say, and then walk over to the screen to scan-in and do my civic duty.

* * *

Rain still streaks the curtained windows as the three Grey-suited Transcorp security officers mill around inside my landlady's apartment. I'm leaning smugly against the side wall, still wearing my coat, standing next to the black monitor screen with my arms crossed watching the others work.

They are taking pictures of the crime scene with an oversized 3D lazcam equipped with a flash, and meticulously scanning the room with various other handheld devices for clues and other evidence. One of these emits a thin vertical green beam of light and is being used to carefully scan the walls, another is projecting a grid onto the room into tight segments for the photographer. The third man tries to activate a older model virtual police line but eventually gives up on the defunct antique. All the lights have been turned on and the room is now a sickly green-grey color.

That's when a very wet Detective Kropp bursts through the door with a fierce splashing kick. Ah my hero. He wears a freshly pressed outfit similar to the day before, along with a very grim expression � also similar to the day before. He stands in the open doorway framed by the lobby beyond and speaks without looking up from the clear data pad he holds in his right hand. He dips his head towards the glistening badge hanging cockeyed from his left suspender as he barks into the room.

"Gentlemen! I'm Securicorp Detective Paul Kropp, on an emergency crossover freelance license! I've been put in charge of this investigation, and I'm taking over as right now!" He takes in the room with a quick sweep, coming to rest on me.

Ah, the moment I've been waiting for.

I glance up at Kropp as if I just now noticed him come in and offer him a little salute at the brim of my non-existent hat. Kropp's eyes narrow then he stomps wetly over to me, his eyes filled with rage and his face a twisted red mass.

"You?! I should have known!" he explodes.

"Ah... Detective there you are." I say, with as much casual aplomb as I can muster. "What's the matter didn't you miss me?"

Kropp waves his thick right index finger at me flicking water from his wet hand and hitting my smiling face. I blink it away tolerantly.

"Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you are going to be in for when central finds out you are investigating without a license?!" He bellows.

I answer with a casual wave of my hand. "I'm not investigating anything, detective I called this in."

Kropp Puts his hands on his hips. The twitch in his left eyelid begging me to give him a reason to lay me out cold. "What the happy Hell are you talking about?" he spits out through gritted teeth. He Leaves his left hand at his hip and resumes waving his right finger at me like a mother scolding her child. Somehow more water flicks onto me, and my patience wavers. I narrow my eyes and frown with irritation but hold my tongue. "I got called in on some ridiculous slum-sector overflow garbage about a dead body in this roach motel, and unfortunately you certainly aren't a corpse!"

The other officers have stopped what they are doing, two stare at one another in shock, the third stands awkwardly, staring at Kropp and his waving finger, nobody daring to interrupt the hot headed Red District detective "I thought I had made damn sure I wouldn't see you again after that little ident-chip theft trick you pulled on the senator's wife yesterday! So you better have one cherry red reason for being here!"

I smile mischievously and put on my best patronizing tone. I usually reserve it for Bishop on particularly hellish days, but today I make an exception. "I'll use small words for you." I say. "I live upstairs. I found her about an hour ago. I called these fine officers - who took my statement, and I called your office at Securicorp Central in lovely downtown Red district, which was easy since they sent me a lovely notice earlier today informing me that you had my license pulled. Capiche detective?"

Kropp grabs me by the collar, twists it around and gives me an evil piercing stare, sizing me up. He opens his mouth then closes it, then turns to face the other officers.

"Her who?" He says.

My landlady's foot still ungracefully sticking out from behind the couch. The officers self-consciously look back what they had been doing and pretend to keep doing it.

"Oh... Right." He mumbles, and walks over to the body. I lean back against the wall with my arms crossed for a moment then attempt to smooth out my collar with my left hand.

"That's Linda Miller, my landlady," I say. "Or she was till now. I'm betting you won't find a chip in her to prove it though. Just like Tara Mercer, her husband, and a few others I happen to know you are familiar with." Kropp looks up at the nervous-looking officer holding a data pad. The Officer nods his head in affirmation. Kropp looks up at me, the anger boiling over him again.

"Get out of here." he says, a leaking crack from the dam about to break.

"With pleasure." I say, knowing full well that anywhere I could go would be tracked and logged with even more detail than usual - assuming that's even possible. So I push off the wall and glide out the still open apartment doorway.

"Be sure they spell my name right in the witness report 'Krapp'." I say.

"That's Kropp!" He bellows.

"If you say so." I reply, and disappear out into the lobby and then street before he can change his mind.

It is raining like bullets as I step out the front door of the apartment building. I hurry across the empty river of a street and cringe as the dirty runoff pours over into my shoes. Small consolation is the bulge I feel in my pocket from the silver lettered little black book which I have somehow forgotten to leave at the crime scene.

I suddenly realize that leaning against the lamp post like a drowned rat is a man. Even soaked to the bone I recognize him, he is wearing exactly the same black leather and torn denim getup sunglasses and all, and his long wet blonde hair is still pulled back in a ponytail. His arms are crossed and he is staring straight at me with a big skeleton smile. In his right hand dangles my own rumpled old fedora.

I cautiously splash my way towards the younger man wondering if I'm up for a second run. Much to my surprise and relief however, he stays put, and though he has to shout through the rain for me to hear him, it is exactly what he does.

"Good evening!" He says, like some old friend I've known for years. "You're detective Sawyer."

"Who wants to know?" I say

"It wasn't a question!" He laughs, either at me or himself, I'm not really sure which. "Would you like your hat back first or should I just chuck it away now so I can get a head start?"

He holds out the hat at arms length. I take it and slap it onto my soaked head with satisfaction. I'm already drenched from head to foot, but at least now I can see again.

"Who are you?" I shout.

"Not important!"

"Why are you following me?" I try.

"Ha! I'm following you�?" I can tell his amusement is genuine. "Okay listen detective, you may not have noticed, but I think it's starting to rain a bit! Can we go somewhere and talk?"

I don't usually accept offers from strange men leaning on lampposts, but in this case I make an exception. A bucket couldn't have made us any wetter, but he walks me through a maze of back alleyways that keeps all but the vertical drops off us, until he finds the back door of some dive I couldn't find again if my life depended on it.

Some say the world will end in y, Some say in x. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor y. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction x Is also great And would suffice. WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:56 pm

notgordian
Unfictologist

Joined: 23 Nov 2006
Posts: 1383
Location: Philly

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

I chose FIRE. Because ICE sucks. (I do like Robert Frost though)

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:06 am

TGI Fridays
Veteran

Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 123

notgordian wrote:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

I chose FIRE. Because ICE sucks. (I do like Robert Frost though)

I actually chose

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

ice - I mean who wants to be burned to death?

and that seemed to work as well.

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:12 am

Display posts from previous: Sort by:

Page 1 of 1 [3 Posts]

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

Jump to:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum