The Neon Pussycat

It had been a couple of days since we’d taken over the base. The team was in place and trying to update the base, modernise it a bit, spruce it up, generally make it inhabitable. It was great because things were looking less grey and dirty. However, the downside was there was always someone using power tools or stinking the place out with paint fumes. The downside of a base underground. It wasn’t like we could open any windows.
 
Umbrella had also arrived en masse and were setting up in the caves so there were way more people here. Every time I turned around I felt like I was falling over someone. Ilyara was the same and we were both feeling a little twitchy so I suggested we head back to the apartments in Neo Birmingham for a day or two, maybe even a night out to blow off some steam.
 
We decided to ask Cassie and the Dr if they wanted to come. Cassie seemed to like the idea but also wanted to try and find her vehicle. The trouble was, where we were, it could be anywhere and the search could take weeks. We offered to have a scout about on the way to Neo Birmingham if she wanted to come with us. She agreed and asked if Nadine was coming with us.
 
We approached the Dr but she seemed reluctant. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see how much the city had changed, she was still processing a lot. I offered her the use of my apartment if she needed to be in Neo Birmingham for work at the hospital but again she seemed reluctant to leave the base. After some poking around, we got to the bottom of what the issue was. She didn’t want Max poking into her research. She still didn’t trust him fully. I could kind of understand because her research was exceptionally valuable, and hers. But I did think she might have started trusting him a little bit more by now.
 
Ilyara offered to get one of the Awoobots to guard the medbay. We could program it to send a message to us if anything happened. She softened a little then. We also locked the Cryopod room and she seemed a little happier with our reassurances that Max wouldn’t try to steal, or accidentally blow up her research and the additional security bot. After a little cajoling she agreed to come with us for a couple of nights to get acclimatised to the city and the changes that had happened. She also agreed that a night out and letting her hair down would be a really good idea for her.
 
We grabbed a few bits and jumped into Ilyaras AV before anyone could change their minds. Nadine was not impressed by the anti-grav technology, telling us they had that before the binding. She did, however, seem to like the bottomless champagne and was putting the bottomless to the test somewhat. As promised we did try to sweep for Cassies AV but couldn’t find any trace of it. Either it was nowhere around here or the signal broadcasts had been disabled.
 
Once we got back to the apartments we all had showers and changed. The showers at the base worked fine but, because there was so much sand everywhere, you could never really get rid of it all. We also ordered a whole batch of clothes as Nadia and Cassie only had the clothes they’d arrived in.
 
I walked back to Ilyaras side of the apartments (We’d had an interior door between the apartments installed) and could see Nadine and Ilyara looking out of the window over the city. Nadine asked if all of the cities were this ruined. I’d never really thought of Neo Birmingham as ruined so it came as a little bit of a surprise. Neo Birmingham and Manchester were two of the better cities the free people had, true some of the buildings were a little worn and the technology wasn’t he newest. The ERF had better, newer cities with newer tech but we weren’t ruined. She did admit she was just surprised we hadn’t done better with technology. She may have a point but peoples ideas of what the future would be never met with the reality of what that future ended up being. You only needed to watch movies set in the future and then look at what that future had ended up being to see that.
 
She asked about any other EC members who may have been found in recent years. I ran a search to see what I could come up with. There were about six of seven at most who had been found and declared. But that was the key, declared. It could be that many more had been found but just that we didn;t know about it because they wanted to remain hidden, just as the Dr had wanted to do.
 
We offered to help her locate some of the others if she knew where they were. It could be good for both of us. She seemed a little reluctant to say anything, saying she wasn’t sure as not all of her memories had returned yet. Cryo freezing messed with the brain a little and could cause some amnesia, which was correct. But I also guessed that she didn’t trust us enough yet to give us that information if she did remember. I completely understood and so I didn’t push it with her. You can’t force someone to trust you, it takes time.
 
We spent some time explaining some of the other things that had changed like the currency. She was the most surprised by the force coins as they were a combination of magic and technology, magitech. She is surprised we’ve been able to get the two to work together. She has a point. It is tricky and magic does frequently interfere with my processes. I made a comment about it without thinking and she looked at me sideways, not sure what I meant. Ilyara takes over and explains that I’m an AI. She comes over and starts looking at me more closely, asking if I have learned my behaviour patterns and social interactions or if this is some AI mutation. I don’t explain that I’m a ghost in the machine, I’m not quite sure how she would take that news and, quite frankly, she does not need to know. She does ask about Oxcella, I tell her Oxcella does still exist but is shackled to the ERF and runs their comms.
 
We discussed the binding and what had happened, she asked us about the grey and white space. This was something that wasn’t and isn’t really public knowledge. It was a kind of ‘buffer’ space, places that got squashed in the binding. It was there for a few days but not sure if it’s still around any more. Professor Plank had some theories about a ‘Buffer space’ She asks about Dr Arkham Geiger as he did mention ‘The Other’ She expects him to be dead but he is still, kind of alive. She looks at us eyebrows raised. ‘How can he still be alive, and what on earth does ‘Kind of’ alive mean?’
 
We explain that he was aboard ‘The Gibraltar’, the ECF ship that that had been brought down from the moonstation and sent into the portal. It was when the ship went through that it triggered the binding. When this happened, ‘The Other’ was temporarily visible.
 
Ilyara then told her a story I hadn’t heard before. That Professor Geiger had some kind of facility actually located within ‘The other’ where it appeared time was a little weird. One because he was still alive all these years later. Two because he was able to show Ilyara a newspaper clipping from the future. The newspaper clipping indicates that Ilyara is the one who can create a vaccine against the goo created at the binding. He had apparently given her some data on the goo which she had understood. THis is one of the reasons Ilyara is working on the vaccine, because she knows she will be the one to figure it out. There was a part of me that wanted to point out that maybe she was the one to figure it out because the Professor gave her the data and the itea making it a self fulfilling prophecy. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into the whole time paradox conversation right now. Time was one of the things that could get messy.
 
Ilyara tells her that based on what she’s figured out so far, it has aggressive DNA with a virus vector. Nadine uses Ilyara’s computer to look at the data we’ve gathered so far. She was looking primarily at the enzyme sequence for the 5% unknown portion of the substance. She pulls up the typical human double stranded helix and the Amaranthian triple helix, but she also brings up a quad-helix. This is mutative, adaptive and not-terrestrial. Ilyara told her about the non-terrestrial bodies we’d found at the base and that we’d taken some samples for DNA. She has a look and says the ape like creature is a combination of carbon and silicon based life, and has highly adaptive genes. The adaptive genes are what they used to create project chimera. The creature that we’d had to kill in the caves in the back of the base. It was supposed to be managed on a day to day basis but it had been left to its own devices and gotten out of hand. They had intended it to be sterile and therefore unable to re-create itself. Unfortunately the adaptive nature of it’s genes had meant it had been able to repair it’s own damage and then developed the ability to lay eggs. She is obviously impressed with it, stating that it surpassed all of their expectations, almost with a sense of awe. But then she looked down, following it up with the regret that it had taken so many lives.
 
She tells Ilyara that it’s the quad-helix that’s the key. Not sure how it will help or what she needs to do with it but that will be the key to unlocking the vaccine. She does say that she is willing to help, but that it’s going to take her some time to catch up on everything she’s missed, maybe even up to a year. Now she has access to the hospital's R&D files it will make things easier. She does suggest that Umbrella may be able to help, but also questions how much we do and should trust them.
 
Ilyara suggests that she introduce Nadia to Sarah as she works in that department in the hospital and so they will be working together anyway. She should be home soon so we’ll get her to come out with us and they can get to know one another a little better.
 
At this point OT decided it was time to be fed so he swooped down from his spot in the corner of the ceiling and attached himself to Ilyara. She fed him some banana and casually mentioned that she could also turn into a bat. Nadia went a little white and stuttered a question about how that could be possible. Given that she’d already seen her turn into a wolf I was surprised she’d question it but then, I had to remember it had only been a few days so she hadn’t had long to process these changes. I was about to warn Ilyara that it might not be a good idea to transform in front of Nadia and that she had been though enough when Ilyara transformed. She was trying to speak to OT directly. It was quite funny as I could see OT tilting his head like he was trying to understand and Ilyara dancing around trying to make herself understood, but it clearly wasn’t working. Ilyara transformed back into her regular form and Nadia turned to me ‘Is it always like this?’ I started to say no, that it wasn;t always quite this weird, but then I thought better of it. Yes, it might not be this kind of weird, but there was always something going on.
 
Ilyara offered the girls some drinks and we sat around making more smalltalk. We thought we’d get off some of the heavier stuff to give Nadia a break from it. It also felt a little unfair with the science talk as Cassie was looking a little blank at most of it. Cassie and Nadia seemed to be hitting it off though which was good. They also discussed getting a place together as they were both new to the city but Cassie could help Nadia navigate some of the differences in the new modern world she was a part of. She also had some information on animal hunting and migration patterns and morphologies she might be interested in. Nadia hesitated then asked Cassie if she was a human. Cassie laughed and said yes. From the way she said it, I was pretty sure she thought she was telling the truth. However, I was pretty certain that there was a percentage of something Amaranthian in her DNA. If there was it was a small amount so we didn’t mention it.
 
 
Cassie offers to get a place with Nadia – she has some data that Nadia might be interested in. Cassie is mostly human but does have a slight spark of something Amaranthian – looks like she is telling the truth so she may not be aware of it. Nadia and Cassie talk- she has a lot of data on creatures, morphologies, samples etc. bugging zoologist.
 
I offered to give them both some credits to help them get set up in the city. Cassie said she had some money but Nadia gratefully agreed. She had had money before but it was in her old name, accessing it could trigger someone to look for her now she was out and it was old currency anyway. We sent her some money Ilyara suggested the flat above the empty shop we’d bought if they wanted to rent it. It was big enough for the two of them, in a decent location and they wouldn’t have to worry about any background checks. Even if they just wanted to use it short term until they got settled in the city. They agreed and Ilyara arranged for a load of furniture to be delivered to the flat so it was ready for them. One of the few advantages to the city we lived in was you could order anything at any time and get basically instant delivery.
 
Sarah arrived home so we made some quick introductions and she went to go and get ready. Half an hour later and we were on the way to the Neon Pussycat. It wasn’t somewhere we went often but we had been before and knew a few people who went in there. We also didn’t think it was a good idea to take Nadia to Deep Six. She was only just coming around to the idea that Amaranthians weren’t all bad. Taking her to what was essentially a gathering of senior members of the vampire families, not to mention the others who frequented the club, might be taking it a step too far.
 
Walking in I noticed a few familiar faces. Fisk, Violet and Amy were there. Fisk and Amy were propping up either side of the bar, although Amy was with her friends and Fisk was on his own, although I thought he might be waiting for someone. Violet was with a pale skinned person I didn’t recognise.
 
Ilyara went to the bar to get the drinks while I went with the girls to find a table. Two minutes later and I could see why she’d wanted to go to the bar, there she was flirting with Amy. Fortunately she was also ordering the drinks, although I had to go and help her bring them all back to the table.
 
I’d barely taken my first sip when I saw a rare person walk into the bar. A spliced individual, part cat part human. Other than Dez, most of the non-humans she’d seen ahd looked human so this was going to be a shock. I got her attention and warned her as I thought this would be easier for her if she was prepared. She must have been adjusting to the new reality quicker than we thought as she was more intrigued than anything else ‘Are these things common?’ I bobbed my head around in a non-committal way ‘Spliced individuals aren’t massively common, but they are not unheard of’
 
The door opened and a few more people came in, a human looking girl with a large sword and with her a male Orc with an axe, knives and guns. It looks like they’re looking for someone and are both wearing badges, an Orc skull with a sword diagonally through it and a large caliber round going in the other direction. Looks like a guild or a faction. I ran a search for the image, it is another mercenary faction the symbol appears to be well known and recognised. They don’t have an official name but the one that seems to be attached to them is ‘Monster Hunters’. I got a few images of them on the nexus. From what I could tell they’d done jobs for the city, dealing with invasive species in the sewers. The girl was impressive, there were pictures of her being quite acrobatic and using a sword bigger than she was. They sat down at a table and were just chatting between them, but I did notice them keep looking at the door like they were waiting for someone.
 
I was able to get a good look at Violet and who she was with. From the way she was sat and looking around it looked like she was running security for a pale guy in a suit. He was deep in conversation with a human woman with a dragon tattoo on her leg. From the way she was dressed, the suited and armed guys with her and the tattoo, I guessed she was Yakuza. A different faction to those we’d encountered in Japan but still Yakuza. I took another look at the men with her, they must be bodyguards and they weren’t trying to hide it. I got a good look at the faces and realised they were older gentlemen. If this was the case they were likely Yakuza Ancients. This was a profession where the life expectancy wasn’t very high, so to make it to an older age, you had to be good at what you were doing. I saw them looking at us, assessing us. We were on his radar but they clearly didn’t see us as much of a threat.
 
As I was checking out the Yakuza, we were approached by a blonde human male, he walked over quite confidently and with purpose and asked ‘Are you Ilyara’ while looking directly at her. He was in civilian clothing, no identifying markers, but with a look of intent. He then looked at me, ‘That would make you Eliza? Don’t look so worried ladies, I’m here to do you a favour’ I tried to scan him but I couldn’t get an image, he must be wearing a baffler. He also had leather gloves on. He was there to deliver information on behalf of a colleague who sends their regards. ‘There’s a problem we might want to deal with, it’s on our turf’ I still wasn’t sure who he was but I got a message from Ilyara ‘It’s OK I know who he is’ he must have noticed the message as he nodded and smirked at Ilyara.
 
‘Alan Dartmund gave me this information. Lazarus Meditech have been dumping things, mutant vampires, in the sewers below Ilyara’s patch. Because of where it is, it’s a problem for her to deal with as it could affect her masquerade. He offers his technical assistance if there’s anything we think we might not be able to handle. He says to refer to him as ‘Onyx’ it’s a username known around here and we can ask about him if we want to. If we need to contact him we can do this via a message board on a defunct website. If we put a message on there to him, he will contact us and he pings me the address.
 
He also says if we have any DSD’s or Devices that may be compromised to let him know. ‘He has a way with machines’ and at that he took a glove off. I could see circuitry glittering blue under the skin.
 
Oh, as a gesture of goodwill, take these. And he hands Ilyara a small metal packet. The last thing we heard him say was that we were ‘Not quite what he expected’ and with that he disappeared into the crowd and was gone. I picked up the packet and opened it up. Inside was a collection of plastech sheets with images on them. The table was backlit so I put them out on the table so we could see them more clearly. One of the first images we put out caught my eye. It was a figure in familiar armour. Outcast armour. There was another one that would have caught my breath if breathing was something I did. At first glance I thought it was Scarlett, and given what had happened recently with her being targeted that made me nervous. However, once I took a closer look I could see that it was just a lookalike, well, a double would be a better description. The only difference was the number 15 on her cheek. Looking at this they were in the sewers with a large crate. It was also recent so it wasn’t an old photo of Scarlett, but the idea of there being multiple Scarlett’s out there was also slightly concerning.
 
Other pictures were of an Outcast Commander, other guys in armour and heavily armed. One of the pictures looked slightly distorted, on zooming in it looked like the picture had been corrupted but later cleaned up.
 
There were two guys who looked like assassins, carrying nano daggers and swords. There were also three robotic servitors in one of the pictures which was unusual, I’d not heard of them working with things like that before. One of them had a tech-lance and one and twin SMG’s. The other looked like he had a breaker unit and a hub, possibly set up for hacking.
 
There were a couple of images of the box. it was big, military and sealed with a blue-green light in some places. It looked custom but there were no identifying markers so there was no way to see who had manufactured it. It was entirely likely it was black market as most other manufacturers would normally put some kind of identification on, it also didn;t look like anything any of the normal manufacturers would produce, indicating it might be something exotic.
 
The last slide I put out had a message on it ‘this info was taken from deep in the sewers and delivered by a Rust Priest. If you want more information seek them out, they might be able to help but they won’t talk to me. They have given us their radio-frequency.’ I did have some radio frequencies for some Rust Priests, but it would be good to get the specific frequencies for this particular priest. Nadia did start to ask a question about the photos but we quickly shut it down and put the images away. We didn’t know everyone in here and we didn’t want to be talking too much around people we didn’t know.
 
At this point the splicer got up and walked out. They gave us an appraising look but I couldn’t get anything much from it, the face was decidedly feline and therefore harder to read. Ilyara thinks Fisk may have said something about us, but not sure what it could be. They were wearing a lab coat and an ID badge so I managed to get a name, Professor Cat Sebastian. I ran a quick Nexus search and found out she works at the Neo Birmingham Archaeological Institute. I was right in that she is a feline, Human hybrid, but she’s also augmented. Her left arm is cybernetic, as is half her head, eyes and the lower part of her jaw, although this could be to aid speech. Ilyara nods in acknowledgement but there is no reaction and she leaves. We get a message from Fisk ‘Don’t ask’ so of course Ilyara slinks off to ask the questions.
 
He smirks as she walks over and I can’t help wondering if the message was intended to get her attention. Anyone who knows Ilyara knows you don’t tell her not to ask as it’s the first thing she’ll do. I spot him handing her a DSD device, some information on the grey markets she had been asking for. Zeik is the person we need to reach out to, he’s a truck driver. There is a code-phrase we need. I was listening into the conversation to make sure Ilyara didn’t forget anything we needed to know. He told her Zeik was a middle aged, overweight guy with an augmetic left arm. He gives us some instructions on how to find him and suggests that he might be more than just a driver.
 
She did ask him to come and join us for a few drinks but he says it’s best not to as there are a number of eyes on him at the moment. He will be at the apartment when we get back so they can have a few drinks. He also tells her about a black market vendor who has set up around the back of the club. He sells allsorts, including magical items, weapons, explosives, talismans. I couldn’t see her face but I could picture her eyes lighting up at that.
 
The Yakuza quietly get up and leave, Violet and the pale gentleman she is with stay seated and have a quiet conversation but he very quickly gets up and leaves. As he does, two other gentlemen move out from behind pillars and flank him. They leave via the other exit. Violet remains at the table and finishes her drink but she does message Ilyara that she’s seen her and that she stands out. Drink finished, she comes over to join us.
 
With all of the people moving around I noticed some of the other people in the bar. One is a Dr Issac Gregory, he’s a Dr at Ilyara’s hospital and a Ricardo Mason, a Private Detective Ilyara met in passing a while ago. There’s also a military looking guy.
 
Violet asks Ilyara who I am and ‘How deep is she in?’ as we’ve never actually met before. Ilyara responds with ‘She’s met the Princess, she knows, the others not’ and with that she also introduces Cassie and Nadia.
 
Ilyara nips off to the bar and to say Hi to the Dr, I see her turning to point at me and tune in to her her saying that I’m also a bike enthusiast. I hear him say he’s more into motorbikes than grav bikes. I hear him say he used to race at Harborne but that now he’s older and wiser and a Dr on call he doesn’t have as much time for things like that. He also references taking Ilyara for that ride, at which point I stopped listening. Ilyara was back at the table with more drinks a couple of minutes later.

There was a guy in a duster with a case which he puts down next to him. I get the name Kieran Randall, he is a known mercenary but not part of the guild, freelance and dangerous. He was joined a short while later by another freelance mercenary, Carla Singleton. She also carries a weapons case and has the best shade of pink on her hair which I make a note of. I do a quick search and find that she’s an explosives expert, good with motorcycles and has augmented samurai swords. She has worked for the police dealing with hard to handle gangs outside of the city.
 
The next people to come in were two individuals, one in green armour, semi-wanted, vigilante known as faceless Harry, He takes law into own hands aggressively. With him was a faceless woman, she had a small swarm of microbots around her and was wearing a helmet to hide her face, I can’t really get anything on her. I saw him takes out a cartridge from his helmet, pour alcohol in and plug it back in while she opened a port and puts a straw in. They obviously didn’t want to take their helmets off, even to have a drink. They seem to be talking, based on their slight gestures and the way they are interacting. But with both having helmets on they could be using a closed comms loop. He is hunched over though, keeping his hands close to his weapons, I can tell that he’s scanning the room. I do also notice that she has a rail gun.
Ilyara makes an excuse to nip outside to ‘go and have a look at something’ I knew she was off to speak to the black market guy so I made sure to keep a track of her comms just on the off chance. I did consider going with her but I also didn’t want to leave the girls in here on their own.
 
He is, quite literally, a troll, quite a large one from what I can tell and he’s smoking a cigar, just to buy into the black market stereotype even more. If he’d been wearing a trilby hat it would have been comical. He dismissed her quite quickly but this is Ilyara and she never really takes no as an answer for anything. She tells him who sent her and his attitude changes somewhat and he looks her up and down. He does also quickly guess she’s ‘One of the big 5’ They discuss a few things and she buys some bits and pieces and he gives her his name as ‘Duke’
 
The rest of the night after that was fairly uneventful, but to be fair, we didn’t stay too much longer. Fisk kept his promise though and was in the apartment when we got back. Drinking Ilyara’s booze as well.