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(Setting) Dorky's Barcade
| >Dorky's Barcade, one of the first bars to be acquired by the BTC, and the first bar to also be left behind by them, it's one of the last places to have kept open in Old Town thanks to an increasing fanclub of people that love the novelty of classic, analog arcade games.
>It is a small building with one story, an attic and a basement, originally meant to just be a diner. Old 1990-2010 cartoons and anime run on the TV while old music from there also plays. A novelty treasure
| >Eventually a tall, young man enters the building, wearing a long navy blue winter coat. He takes a look around as he wipes off some snow from the top of his head.
"Hmm... guess I'm the first one here..."
| >After 9pm though, kids are no longer allowed, and it turns into a novelty nightclub, serving flaming novelty drinks and hosting drunken game tournaments-where the reward is more Karmotrine.
| >The time is around 9:30PM, and in the back playing an old arcade game by the name of Galaga, stood a man with huge long black hair to the middle of his back, wearing a black denim jacket with black jeans.
>Quite frankly, he was going tryhard and still getting his ass kicked.
"God...FUCK...DAMNIT! GOD DAMNIT!"
>Depositing another few quarters into the machine, he restarts his life as he waited for the others to arrive.
| >He walks up to the man to take a peek at him playing
"You know the trick to it is to shoot where they're going to be, not where they are."
| >A gruff waiter came over and had both a huge slice of cheese pizza and a beer, which he set on a small table next to Nietzen.
"Here you go."
"Nice to see you again too, Jackson."
"Whatever."
| "I understand, but you can only move left and right. Your momentum isn't fast enough to be able to hit the targets as fast as they fly. Also, the bee things are bastards.
>Nietzen toom a quick glance at the man standing next to him.
"Are you RaIn or CN?"
| "Yup, that's why you got to move ahead of them before they change directions near the end. And I'm CN. I appreciate you not assuming that the video game nerd has to be the hacker. Not that that would be wrong in this case."
| "Well, I mean-FUCK!"
>Another explosion meant another death. Nietzen sighed in annoyance as he grabbed his beer and turned to face CN fully.
"Frankly, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that people often may not be who they appear. I mean you see me, video game nerd in the back of a dusty old arcade, you'd never think I'm a glorified drug dealer. Goes to show, people may not always be who they seem."
>Nietzen took another sip.
"Want a drink? We're safe here, and we have time."
| "Nah I'm good. I like to stay sober if I'm about to do work."
>He leans slightly on the small table.
"Although I get what you mean, my whole shadowrunning team is basically like That, for better or worse."
| "Understandable."
>Nietzen sighed, as he looked down for a second.
"You know, I have thought about stopping here. And before, and really every time we find a new piece of evidence."
>Anime played on the TV as music from some old video game played over the speakers. Clinking of glasses was heard in the other room. The people in this bar were calm, like the atmosphere.
"The more we find, the more disturbing it gets. I knew Glitch City was bad, but...I just don't know."
| "Bud was my friend's name. Buddy Halfegor. One of my best friends. Somebody who I never expected to see a murdered body of. That vision won't get out my head...It was fucked up. I just can't help but get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about how much worse it could get..."
>Nietzen took another sip of beer.
"Just how deep does the corruption run? I don't honestly know if I want to find out..."
| "Trust me man, in the past 8 months alone I've uncovered about conspiracies from all kinds of extremes. It kind of sucks to say this but nothing in this city surprises me anymore. So I just figured instead of sulking about it, I should do something and try to make the city a better place, any way I can. Now I'm not saying you got to go and do That, but maybe a small step you can take is finding your friend's killer."
| "I have this strangely poetic feeling that this is a calm before a storm, CN."
| >(Sent too early rip)
"I have this strangely, poetically disturbing feeling that this is a calm before a storm, CN. That the deeper we go, the worse it'll get for us. I am just...I don't know if I am mentally strong enough to withstand everything that could be thrown at me. If the Reapers really did kill my friend, then why and who are they? Those questions are what I'm talking about. I think we're doing more than just finding a killer."
| >>56240
>CN shrugs
"Eh, wouldn't be the first time this kind of thing blew out of proportion. My zennies is on they'll end up being backed financially by some Corp or something to kill their targets."
| "If Bud was correct, then one of these Reapers is the leader of the Phoenix Corps, who now have enough political power to take over Glitch City. So not only do these killers have money, they also have power. If I am correct, then this could seriously hold some weight..."
>Neitzen sighed.
"...But even then, it probably won't change anything significant or long-term if she is. Leaders in this city before it have been terrible people for centuries. That's just humankind I suppose."
| "Still, I need to find them...I just sometimes wonder if it is worth it. What would it even chamge in the long run?"
>Nietzen set his beer down.
"Why do YOU do what you do, CN?"
| >>56291
"That's one of the big questions isn't it?"
>He chuckles to himself, seeming to play off the question, but then his expression turns gravely serious.
"Honestly, if you asked me this 8 months ago, I would had said I just do this hacking stuff to just put food on the table and other than that just be anonymous online. But with the passage of time perspectives change."
| "I've seen corps fight each other, and create secret black projects or expirements for their own benefits, and they don't care one bit who gets hurt in the process. And time and time again, they would get away with it. So I finally decided that someone had to do something, but something different from the usual straight up gun shows and power plays. In the end violence begets violence, and I'm just tired of seeing people die and my friends hurt. So..."
| "So I decided that I'm gonna change things the way I know how. Not with bullets, but with information and relationships. We all need to be able to make a difference together. Even if one person doing something amount to only a drop in the bucket, when a million people do it, the bucket will still overflow. It's not gonna be easy, hell it's nothing but a huge pain, but if I can help someone else add another drop into that bucket then I'll do it."
| "...Because if I don't, then no one will."
| >56313
>As he spoke, CN exuded a ray of self-determination that was unlike most people in Glitch City. It really showed that sometimes you have to do bad things in order to accomplish good things. It was a test of character, one Nietzen initiated. There was no failure in this test, but simply an answer.
>Nietzen smiled, fairly self-assured.
"I'll drink to that."
>He picked up his beer and sipped again.
"Zen. That's the code you follow. That's what my mom would say, at least..."
| "My parents were both armchair, internet philosophers in their day, both influenced by their upbringing. My mother was of old-world Chinese descent, and although she wasn't religious, she followed old-world Buddhist ideals to a core."
"Selflessness, always. Problems in the world result from the facade of self-importance, she would say. They resulted from wanting. Greed, hunger, lust, all came from wanting, so the solution must be to refuse the self and only ever act for others."
| >Nietzen chuckled.
"My father called her ideals 'Slave Morality'. He was of old-world German descent and was a Nietzsche follower to the core. Nihilistic beyond repair, he believed in the concept of 'Master Morality' and 'Slave Morality'. The power to change the world into a better place, according to him, came from becoming powerful in the eyes of others. Selfish, but benevolent. He believed that one cannot change the world on good actions if they are not noticed or cared about."
| "Both of them could never get along on literally anything when they talked about morals, ethics and ideals."
>Nietzen took another drink.
"So they stopped. They literally refused to talk to eachother about those whatsoever, and focused only on the attraction of character. They liked eachother, but not what eachother believed in. When they had me, I was almost like a 'Bury the hatchet' child. Hence, the name 'Nietzen'. Combination of both sides."
| >Nietzen chuckled to himself lightly.
"At least, until they both used me as their passive-aggressive way to get at eachother. Early childhood was hell, because they would never openly fight, but you always had to walk on eggshells and watch what you said because both parents would fight over me and then blame me for it."
>Nietzen's expression turned grim.
"It turned me into a bitter, sour kid. I remember I told my parents to just break up and quit being fake with eachother."
| "I was 12 when I said that. And shortly after, lo and behold, they decided keeping up a facade for me wasn't worth the effort and split. I was so fucking happy, for as sad as I was. I was sad about being happy. I was confused and it tormented me because I had no idea who to believe in."
"The one good thing it taught me though?"
>Nietzen took a bite of his cheese pizza.
"The world is not black and white. There is a grey area, and there is a balance. Find your comfort in it."
| "Everybody wants to believe that they are doing good by their own moral codes, but they don't care about other people's moral codes unless they collide with their own. Nobody wants to do anything that they themselves would consider to be terrible or unethical, but they don't care about what others consider to be unethical unless it disagrees with them. Nobody is 'Good' and nobody is 'Bad' except by the standards that we ourselves hold them to."
"But I like how you said it anyway."
| >Nietzen smiled and laughed.
"I mean, why else am I hunting after two contract killers when I myself know that I have no combat abilities and I'm likely gonna die doing so?"
"I would never have even considered doing this had my friend not been killed. I wouldn't have even given it a second thought and I'd have just moved on with my day. Only when it affected me did it matter to me, and I'm not too prideful or hypocritcal to admit that."
| "So, I guess that's my reason for hunting after them. They killed my friend, so they need to pay. Have I once ever thought to ask why they killed him? Maybe he needed to die for some 'greater cause' or something...who knows. I just know I miss the hell out of him and want to give him the justice he deserves. So, I'm not gonna stop until I DO find them. And like I've said before, I appreciate all the help I can get."
>Nietzen burped.
"Excuse me."
"Where is RaIn? Think he's okay?"
| >>56370
"Hmm... Yea I can see that, in the end what works for me only works for me. I can sometimes be a huge pain for my team since I'm usually the guy trying to figure out the other teams motivations instead of trying to shoot them but eh, I can go in all day about this. It's worked out so far if I've made it through the craziness of the past 8 months. I'm sure RaIn is fine though. Hes probably just running a little late or something. I admittedly got a little lost here."
| "Ah, okay."
>Nietzen took another bite of his pizza before walking to another console. This was another ancient one, this time an ancient game with a sniper rifle for a controller by the name of "Silent Scope 2".
"Hey CN. What would you say if I said I was in the market for some good old weapons training, for self protection purposes?"
| RaIn almost kicked the door open. Almost. He'd more or less knee'd it open and glanced around the place quickly for two dude's who were just... There. Bingo. Maybe...
>RaIn walks up to the table with the man in the denim jacket abd the long black hair, going out on a bit of a limb after asking someone else and being wrong already.
"Hey, are you by chance FB?"
RaIn pushed up his square rimmed silver glasses over his steely eyes. He was rather tall and had almost white hair. Almost.
| >Nietzen smiled at the intrusion.
"On /cyb/, I am FB. In person, you can call me Nietzen. Nice to meet you!"
>He reached out to give RaIn a formal and firm handshake before speaking back up:
"CN is here behind me, although I don't know if you guys have met already. I know this place is kind of excluded, but that's exactly why I like it. Plus, good pizza, good drinks, good games, good anime on the TV and good music. Helps take one's mind off of what's going on."
| "Anyway though, enough games. Now that you're here, we can discuss important matters in the 'Party room'."
>Nietzen grabbed his plate of pizza and beer and walked over to an old world arcade machine called "Tron"
He shoved it to the side to reveal a hidden door, and inside was a table with some chairs around it, an ancient computer on the left side and some random cybernetic junk on the right.
| >Nietzen walked in and sat down at the table.
"The room is for novelty, a reference to something so old most of us probably have no idea what it is, but it makes for a good room when you want to talk and make sure nobody is listening."
| >RaIn was caught offguard by the handshake. The feeling of flesh on his prosthetic fingers wasn't too common. Nonetheless he followed the man through the arcade, glancing at a few machines and recognizing a few, but definitely not all. The room he was lead too was... Interesting... He dropped his satchel onto the table and zipped it open. Then he pulled up a chair and turned it around backwards. Resting his hands on the backrest.
"Well. Fancy place. Let's get to business."
| >((Gonna be out for a few hours, sorry to mess up the flow))
| >CN follows suit and quietly takes a seat by the table.
"So what did you find?"
| (Ooc: I gotta wake up for work in 6 hours. I will continue this as soon as I can. -FB.)
| >RaIn pulls out several still images, at least twice the size of his hand, along with a flashdrive and a rather small laptop. He flips open then end of one of his fingers, pulls out a short wire and hooks it up to the computer. He starts typing at thin air with his other hand.
"Give these a good look for me, and if you have something on you right now, here's the security footage."
>He slides the flash drive over to CN and fans the images out. There's about eight of them.
| >He takes his cyberdeck from his back and plugs the usb in as he takes a peek at the photos.
| "I have a mobile computer as well. I'll take some of those."
>Nietzen grabbed a couple of the USB sticks and rolled up his left sleeve. Although he had an organic left hand, he had a clear cybernetic implant in his left forearm that served the full function of both a computer and a phone.
>On his left forearm was the console itself, while his left hand was the keyboard and trackpad. He typed with his right hand, and the screen was projected by a projector on his right temple.
| >The microphone and speaker was also in his right ear, but he was able to use his left hand as a motion tracker to move, expand and rotate the projected computer screen.
>Plugging in 2 or 3 USB sticks into a rotating drive barrel in his left arm, Nietzen created a projection screen with a tap of his left thumb onto his left palm. He expanded his fingers and the screen became the size of the far wall, and pushing his left hand forward, it moved and snapped to said surface.
| >Using his right hand to type things on his left hand, he downloaded the contents of the USB and started putting the images up on the far wall.
"Okay, so tell me what we're looking at here RaIn."
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| >Hidden underneath the massive city-spanning Light Highway is a place that most of Glitch City doesn't even know exists. Funny enough, that the road you take to get to another district is the one that completely skips this place.
>This district is Old Town, the place where Glitch City originated. One can see crumbling remains of older buildings that have outlived their purpose.
>Here in this deserted place lie the sultry that choose not to live the way that Glitch City does.