11th August 2021

It's a Wednesday and we're round Simon's for the 3rd session of Matt's Romance of the Perilous Land TTRPG.

​Location: Hykaria - Ascalon

Hykaria; Ascalon’s vibrant capital, well known for its industrious sea trade and commerce, sat upon a glittering coastline and was the jewel of The Summerland, the city welcomed a cosmopolitan population behind its resolute walls and soaring alabaster towers that watched over a sun-soaked ocean approach.

Narrow, shady alleyways cut through urban and mercantile neighbourhoods, criss-crossing wide thrumming white-paved avenues that ran the length of the capital and in one such shady alley was ‘The Hairy Fig’, a grimy wood and dirty glass fronted inn that nestled in an out of the way cobblestoned courtyard through an old archway.
It was here Colan, Titus, Trefor and Hobard had found themselves for the past week, nursing cheap beers in the small inn while sat at worn, old oak tables in a smoky common room poorly lit by dusty slats of weak light that streamed through shutters and was populated by perpetually inebriated patrons who scoured at distrusted outsiders.

While pondering their next action, our company was approached by a woman of middling years with drab brown hair, in a grey woollen frock, a look of  recognition across her face.
Introducing herself as Joan, she explained that the company had once in the past helped a friend of hers and now she went on, it was she who needed help.

Joan continued; Georgina was a friend of hers and had been taken to the ‘battle pits’ and was due to fight in four days. 

The battle pits were known to the company.
Extensive use of the battle pits were made by King Vortimer as harsh punishment; forcing criminals to fight to the death. The barbarism was a popular form of paid entertainment among the elite class of Hykaria who found it sufficiently cruel to slake their baying taste for blood.
The entire affair was managed by the king’s own gold cloaked guards.

Joan went on: Georgina, disguised as ‘George’ had been caught stealing some documentation from the residence of Baronet Philip, a distant cousin of Vortimer and considered to be minor royalty.
George had been accused of stealing information with the intent of harming the city and then slung into the pits.

Intrigued, the company agreed to help Joan.

​The task would require some degrees of subtlety, Joan explained. It would be wise to avoid the watch, she added.
For some time, the company and Joan waited. The gloomy mote filled sunlight that lit the common room lessened before fading altogether as day darkened, replaced by tallow candle light.
Only then did they vacate The Hairy Fig when night had settled over Hykaria They headed into dimly lit streets draped in the blanket of night which were mostly empty, only the bars and major thoroughfares presented any activity which the company deftly circumvented.
The battle pits’ venue was well known to most but more importantly; the location of the holding cells were known to Joan.
She took the company closer to the capital’s centre and as they strode in, they saw spluttering fiery braziers give way to gas lighting which in turn eventually gave way to magical lighting!
Their journey ended in some tightly clustered neighbourhood of timber-framed townhouses that gave the appearance of leaning over them.

Behind shutters, a hundred eyes seemed to pierce the company as Joan gave a coded knock at one particular door while they waited. Swiftly, it swung open, she entered and equally swiftly it shut. The company was alone.
Two minutes and the door opened again, the company was waved in by an old man dressed in some sort of nightgown, consternation written in the creases which decorated the face of his balding visage.
Geis was his name, Joan told the company and he could get them into the pits. Geis warned them that their task would be a dangerous one.

​Once Geis had dressed and pulled on a smock and boots, he led Joan and the company into a twisting warren of narrow and mostly unlit alleys, the moon was nearing its zenith in a cloudless starry sky as they reached a large rust-licked iron disc embedded in the paved ground at a junction.
The company knew enough of cities to know this was a manhole cover that would lead to Kykaria’s sewage network.

With some effort and the correct tools, the manhole cover was wrenched open with a metallic screech.
The company was surprised to find no smell emanating from the opened way. Before they descended, Geis handed a piece of vellum to Joan who in return nodded.

​To the surprise of the company, the tunnel was exceptionally well constructed and was both wide and free of effluence. Whatever this tunnel was, it was not connected to the sewers, at least not directly.
Trefor uttered the words of a blessing and gesticulated, a soft but cold light radiated from his hand. The company marched onwards.

The tunnel led the company north-west, various branches and junctions materialised out of the darkness ahead, branching off into darkness. Joan ignored them, seeming to know her way. For ten minutes they marched without incident; then they saw glittering eyes in Trefor’s light, malevolently staring at them.

Rats were ahead, enormous ones too, which also had little fear of man. With animalistic pace the rats lunged. It was a short fight though, enormous or not, the rats could not withstand the onslaught of the company and soon they were defeated.

Pressing on, the company soon encountered the sprawled remains of some poor solitary soul who had not fared so well against the vermin.
Dead for some time, the cadaver had in part been consumed and what remained had decomposed beyond recognition. Even so, the company could identify the torn uniform of the city watch on the dead man. Whatever had possessed the soldier to enter these tunnels?
With little else of interest, the company continued, soon stopping at what Joan told them; was their destination.
A ladder led an iron manhole above.

Trefor climbed up and with a laborious grunt managed to lift and slide the heavy disc aside a little from his precarious position. Beyond the cover, it was unlit.
Peering inside, Hobard could make out the carved wooden legs, a table directly above the manhole. Further on, he could see some sort of bookcase lined with tomes. Was this some sort of workroom, Hobard thought.

To be continued.

7th August 2021

It's a Saturday and we're logged for some video chat and session 29 of Matakishi's Wired Neon Cities campaign.

​Location: Neon City.

Most of last night had been spent knocking back shots of Obzlo and mainlining Woanqie Xingfa stims in some half lit thumping backstreet Hikage nightclub. Eventually the bassline died, the club wound down for the night and rain had begun to dry out as I got back to my one-bed. Unable to sleep, I propped myself up at the edge of the futon while hugging a steaming poly-pot of self-heating Niaiwo Noodles and watched the unending barrage of insurance and med promotionals swim across the wall-slab’s surface.
Night’s final black rain clouds boiled into oblivion under the onslaught of dawn, morning light slowly crawled across the beige coloured walls of the one-bed, lighting it the golden hue of the sunlit urine coloured tarp that blanketed one side of the room.

Noodles were long empty by the time my media slab pinged, no video, screen logged an unknown contact looking to initiate an audio only team call to all of us. We took the call: Reon Slatern was someone we’d never heard of? Whoever he was, his voice wavered just enough to register fear, something had got him agitated.
Told us he was a groundskeeper employed at the Botanical Gardens in Itabashi-cho and yesterday, he’d heard voices coming from the old church telling him he’d get rewarded if he contacted us.
“Come and get us,” the voices had instructed him to pass on.

Wasn’t much to go on but someone was wanting our attention.
Once Reon Slatern had logged off, it was decided to investigate whatever this was and it would be good to get ahead of it if possible. Mixing this up with supposed extraterrestrial attacks was not good.

The corporate monorail would get us to Itabashi-cho, required riding the tram to Rokkaku Expo Stadium and making the transfer. Luckily our exec passes were still valid.
The monorail was always a pleasant experience with a well maintained interior. Brightly lit, clean and mostly unused carriages welcomed us. Soundproofing and climate control kept Neon City’s most uncomfortable aspects at bay as we sank into generously sized, luxuriantly upholstered faux leather seating.
Acceleration tugged us deeper into those seats as the train powered away and we watched Rokkaku Expo Stadium shrink into The City of Electric Dream’s urban miasma.
Jorengi Temple was situated at the city’s periphery and was the next stop. Even though districts and neighbourhoods blurred past as we flew over, the dense conurbation of central Neon City noticeably lessened as we continued. High-rises and towers became less prevalent, as did grey industrial estates and business parks.
Eventually the skyline flattened, the horizon thickened as the implacable city wall began coalescing into view. Soon the monorail decelerated into Jorengi.

We exited and made for the tram network. Here the Itabashi-cho tram system lacked the neglected facade found on the central networks, much smaller and less travelled, generally, only tourists came this far out.
We rode into the Botanical Gardens district. Neon City’s urban sprawl had not encroached so heavily here, buildings were spaced apart accordingly, giving way to abundant open stretches and verdant spaces beneath a mostly unimpeded vista.

The Botanical Gardens for which the district was named were situated in one such grass and tree ringed open space.
A series of eight huge octagonally positioned geodesic domes, their external surfaces decorated by a latticework of white painted aluminium structs that glinted in the midday sun and criss-crossed over convex panels of transparent reinforced acrylic sheets which glimmered with a blue-white hue of cloudless reflected sky.
Each dome was dedicated to a different biome and at the centre was a gift shop and visitor centre; both relatively empty. Lacking the noisy electronic thrill of pachinko or neon saturated seedy lure of the city’s nightlife, much of the citizenry gave it a distrustful wide berth.

Reon Slatern was waiting for us, the octogenarian was employed here as a gardener. Olive coloured Alicid branded overalls draped over an aged frame while thick soled replica earthy leather brown Harbiefs encapsulated his feet. Sharp Kuaijing replacement eye-lenses stared at us from a creased, browned face topped by thinning wispy steel grey hair. An elaborate tool-filled webbed belt hung from his hip.
A gravelly voice betrayed Reon’s age, he greeted us and took us along one of the Botanical Garden’s paved paths that run beneath a cluster of north European oaks and beeches which had been transplanted to the gardens.
A couple of minutes passed, Reon Slatern halted and pointed off the path. We peered through the trees, while foliage was sparse, the woods were dense enough to create a shady canopy between expansive leaves that tapered off into gloom.
“The voices came from there. They told me of finding bones,” he said, adding. “But I didn’t hear everything and I didn’t want to go in there.”
We thanked Reon and turned off the path
“Strange things happen at night,” he warned as we left.

Trees muffled Neon City’s droning grey noise and shaded us from the afternoon sun as the path shrank away and we became aware of the intangible stillness we were walking into. Grass crunched distinctly underfoot, with movement, clothing crumpled loudly and the cycle of breathing filled our ears as we navigated through the woods.
Half a kilometre in and we began to see rude graffiti sprayed in garish colours across the trees.
Recognised the ganger tags, were for the Bubblegum Loa, a violent street crew known for their affiliation to voodoo and trance music. Multiple disappearances had also been attributed to them.

A little further in and we began to hear music, thumping bass, repetitive electronica melodies at a hundred and fifty beats per minute with soft breakdowns meant we were listening to trance-techno fusion; staple nightclub music.

I could feel Koto tingling, the endlessly playing sentient song that inhabited my brain and haunted my synapses was piqued by what it heard.

Trees began to thin somewhat, revealing a reddening sky slipping through the canopy’s gaps. Soon we arrived at an open grassy clearing.
Stopping at the treeline, we scoped the situation. At the centre was a church, the old-world kind according to vids I’d seen. Maybe relocated here or maybe just a replica?
Regardless, it was a tall, grey, stone bricked edifice with a dull reddish slate topped gable roof that ended in a rising stoney steeple.
Outlined in garish primary colours that stood out even in the late afternoon, neonic tubing trimmed the church while sheets of LED fairy lights had been spread over the church like some polychromatic spider’s web. Rotating spots which had been installed at ground level played their beams across the uneven surfaces. Also decorating the walls were numerous voodoo symbols that had been scrawled over the exterior in uneven paint strokes. Here was the origin of the music.

Koko’s face darkened and she turned to us.
“There’s the smell of some kind of drug here,” Koko said, flicking on her internal rebreather..
Trigger ran a scan on the building with thermals; nothing, blocked due to shielding on the church. I guess it answered whether it was a replica.
A voice rose above clamour, chanting rhythmically in some kind of patois. More voices joined.

Despite the lack of presence in the surroundings, there would be maximum resistance if we mounted a frontal incursion. We needed to go sideways.
Four smallish unlit windows were located near the top of the replica steeple which was a good storey taller than the main church. That was our ‘in’.

Hustled closer to the church, music intensified, chanting increased, bassline thumped harder. Felt waves of it in our guts as we pressed up against the uneven wall. The voice was louder now, shrill and piercing, it began to needle our brains.

Trigger braced himself, a quiet click could be heard and then a hiss as his Shiaosha Robotics Leg Pak activated. Hurled vertically, Trigger managed to get a firm hand on the steeple ledge. Quickly securing himself, he dropped a line down and soon we were all crammed into the belltower.
The way was narrow, clambered down until we encountered the ladder into the ringing room. 

Subdued, unused and featureless save for a number of frayed old bell ringing cords that hung motionless in the centre of the dim ringing room. It was only lit by a thin strip of iridescent-like light blazing through a door left open a crack.
Any noise we might make was drowned by booming music outside.
The door led more or less into the centre of the church. the chancel to one side and the nave to the other

A laser projector punctured the gloom with rows of harshly bright spears of light that shifted across the smoky interior with mechanical precision. Lights strobed and flashed, a kaleidoscopic hue of changing colours swam across the interior and vaulted ceiling.
Revellers here appeared to be paired off. Half naked and coated in neon body paint, they brandished fluorescent glow sticks wildly as they whirled and danced in a chemically fuelled slavish frenzy to the beat; ephemeral, incandescent light trails left in their wakes.

To our surprise, in the chancel, we saw the Muscle Gurlz; wasn’t going well for them, the pair of weight-training guns-for-hire had been restrained and lashed up to the ceiling, having been stripped of everything. They swung there slowly, looks of irritation and disgust across their faces.
Also in the chancel was some kind of slickly gleaming altar that caught the garish light while several revellers adorned in clearly religious garments were in the process of slaughtering chickens. The Muscle Gurlz had at some point been caked in blood while the gore was also the source of the altar’s gleam.

Maybe fifty or sixty pairs of revellers occupied the church, some were tooled up with various shotguns while many also carried machetes. A throwdown in this constricted environment could quickly go south. Needed to make our moves quietly. 

In the chancel Senonable speakers could be seen mounted to walls. Thick rubberised cabling led under the edge of a side door.
Poor lighting, loud music, feverish behaviour from the revellers meant Koko and I, crouching as we moved, could get through the side door unnoticed while Trigger retreated back into the ringing room.
As expected, the cabling led to a standard issue Senonable Sostor server slab. With no enhanced security protocols and the default standard encryption strings, it was a quick hack. Passed control of the server over to Bill.

Trigger was now tapped into the sound system and in the ringing room had grabbed some of the bell ringing lines and pulled hard.

Bill meanwhile used a mental command to activate his Mannikten nanites, his face and skin somehow bubbled, undulating and settling into a new form, allowing him to temporarily alter his appearance while his Buryayi chip implant would adjust his vocal chords.
As the amplified pealing bells cut through clamour like a Wanametosu gunblade. Bill swaggered into the room in the guise of Baron Samedi and now in command of the sound system announced himself with a thunderous room through the speakers.

Had to be fast, the revellers might not stay transfixed in their hallucinogenic stupor too long. Gripping our Intiging stun-batons, we made our move.

Trigger pounced on the three priest-like individuals, enhanced reflexes meant he was immediately amongst them, they toppled noiselessly, unaware they’d been stuck by a swirling, shadowy half-lit blur.
Koko and I rushed for the Muscle Gurlz. Despite being impressed to see us and fatigued from their capture, they flopped into our arms as we cut them down. A couple of taps and swipes on Koko’s control slab meant the flier was inbound. Wasted no time in dragging them out of a back door in the chancel. Trigger not far behind.

Bill kept the enthralled revellers distracted for a minute longer until he flipped a smoke grenade into the church. Churning grey-white smoke rapidly expanded into the nave, engulfing Bill who couldn’t resist a parting shot as he exited into the ringing room.
“Professor Longhair bids you goodnight,” the altered voice blasted out of the sound system.

Bill didn’t dawdle, despite his cockiness, he knew the situation could quickly turn south if he delayed. Pounding up steps, squeezing through a small belltower window, scrambling on to the roof, Bill found a dancing cord waiting for him in the flier’s blustery downdraft.

A minute later, the church was shrinking away on the flier’s screens as it powered away, surrounding trees seemingly closing in.
Once the Muscle Gurlz had gotten second wind, told us their latest gig had them investigating sightings of wild chickens in the woods surrounding The Botanical Gardens. They were getting a payout for every one they recovered.
That was when the Bubblegum Loa had snatched them, the Muscle Gurlz had stumbled into the clandestine chicken farm maintained by the Bubblegum Loa in the woods’ deepest recesses.
Taken to the church, stripped down and strapped up. The Muscle Gurlz had zero chance to free themselves and waited until last night’s drug fuelled debauchery had left the gangers wasted, managed to access the P.A system and sent out a message, hoping it would reach us.

Minutes later and the flier was put down in a clearing close to the farm, a ramshackle combination of wooden and polymer panels, corrugated sheets and planking held together by twisted up chicken wire.
We waited while the Gurlz went and got their dollar.
Koko was not happy with ‘all those damn chickens’ messing up the flier’s interior as Jorengi was left behind.

​Koko banked the flier in the direction of Hikage 
During the flight, an item came down the newsvine: Word had gotten out that Goji Rokkaku was constructing more towers. Crowds had inexplicably gathered at the Rokkaku Tower, angry even if they did even know quite why. Gripping placards and banners while chanting protests condemning The Rokakku Group. 
In response, security teams had promptly driven the activists back while ringing the entire tower with concrete reinforced fencing.
Whatever Goji Rokkaku was doing, he was making a move.

​Next morning and our slabs pinged again, woken from my intoxicant fueled slumber by its insistently cheerful chirp, I listened in on the chat. They were familiar voices.

Tomac Khan, Moroccan Tom and Big Man Arthur Ardley were a trio of building contractors we’d encountered a couple of times, we were solid with them.

The trio had been working a gig contract to demolish The Maria Huang Orphanage For Displaced Children, some unused orphanage in Johoku-Chuo Park.
Had found something ‘awful’ at the site. Rentacop weren’t interested, so they’d called us.
Sounded bad, meant going back to Itabashi-Cho, decided to take the flier this time.

Washed down the last of the Woanqie Xingfa pills with an iced Bevizzo latte knock-off from a Hikage street vendor, betting on the mix of stimulants getting me through the morning. On the flier I watched the city roll by through the screens as we powered away from Hikage. Up here Neon City could’ve passed as clean, unrelenting sunlight seemed to burn grime off the seething, broiling streets and glimmered off glass-walled towers. Just a mirage though, never this clean. Just the city of electric dreams turned nightmare.

Incandescent poly-structural architecture that marked Neon City’s info-vista instantly compiled as I jacked into the GLOWNET. Descending into the data-flows which pulsated through the morphing landscape as bio-images busied themselves at connected nodes.

Didn’t take long to source relevant data.

The Maria Huang Orphanage For Displaced Children had been built to house orphans left homeless by a wayward missile strike on their original orphanage in Rokkaku Dai Heights not long ago.

This kind of public relations stunt which would have involved building and maintaining the new orphanage wouldn’t scratch resources available to Maria Huang, one of the conurbation’s wealthiest residents.
So why, only months later was it being demolished?

Municipal records tracked ownership of all Neon City buildings, the geo-node for its data-image was well known to me, had the lowest possible budget security provisions provided by city finances which made it an easy hack.
Something I’d exploited more than once.
The Iridescent landscapes that inhabited the GLOWNET were reduced to blurs flying past as I transposed directly to the data-image. Launched the back-door routine I’d coded the first time I went into the records, got through the data-images outer shell.and into its vault and files.

Sifting through those files I quickly found a string of records detailing a sale of the orphanage property to a developer a week ago. No name of the new owner listed though?
Nothing to find; no deleted or removed data, no encryption or security walls, nothing to crack, just nothing there.
Kept digging, ran a checker protocol, looking for inconsistencies in file structure indexing and found a numerical gap.
Something was in the nothing. Something someone wanted to hide.
Removing the file’s indexing value had not deleted it, only removed it from visibility. Didn’t take long for a predictive algorithm to calculate the hidden file’s index value, punched the filing data into my Nonohiki, then I was in.
The stealthed file showed that Protobase Global had acquired the building.

Nearly stacked when I emerged from the GLOWNET, barely managed to stay upright and not puke.

Checked with the others, still on route: Johoko-Chuo Park expanded into view soon enough. Like much of the prefecture, the district benefitted from a lower urban density compared to most of the city. Expanses of asphalt and concrete intermittently giving way to verdant flat grassy stretches and clumps of evenly spaced trees 

Coords provided by the trio led to a dour grey, boxy and utilitarian structure with several lesser annexes and wings surrounded by numerous flat concrete spaces and yards.
Having seen better days, it was in the process of being demolished. One wing had been reduced to piles of split grey cladding and broken brick. Several fluorescent yellow building robots stood adjacent, silent and unmoving. Later the trio told us work had stopped when they’d made the discovery.
‘Maria Huang Orphanage For Displaced Children’ read an unlatched sign propped up against a featureless exterior wall that faced the street.

Putting the flier down we found the trio waiting for us, stoney-faced expressions across their faces. Led us behind the orphanage to a rear facing recreational ground dominated by a central swimming pool. Despite being covered by a navy blue polyethylene tarp, the day’s harsh sunlight visibly gleaned off the water beneath in weird rippling patterns.
They threw back the tarp and we saw what was in the water.

There were perhaps forty of them; weighted down with bricks were bodies of children, forty of them, silent contorted forms flattened by the sunlit pool.
Neon City never disappointed when it came to the embrace of darkness.

No wonder rentacop didn’t want to know, levelling this kind of accusation at one of the city’s richest daughters would bring serious heat on them. Maria Huang had too much juice for them to put the finger on.
Instead, it was left to us.

Cursory examinations showed signs of repeated faint scarring across their skin, indicating that they had been subjected to blood removal and organ harvesting. Hard to gauge a timescale without closer examination but it must have occurred before the sale to Protobase.
The entire exercise of the charity event had been a front.

Astiek Steva was a mortuary worker at the Ohkubo Hospital. We were ttght  him and he had the skills needed for this.
Pinged him, he was happy to get the bodies picked up in a wagon, kept on ice and examined.
Less than ten minutes later and a discreetly branded Ohkubo Hospital Perayu Kruskop flier in charcoal grey with blacked windows put down close to our flier. A boiler suit and facemask wearing crew quickly disembarked and briskly loaded up the bodies, momentarily acknowledging our presence as they worked and were gone in minutes.

Time to start at the top. Finding Maria Huang’s address was easy, she lived in Johoko-Chuo Park, barely minutes away in the flier.
Her home grew into view as approached, it was what could only be described as palatial, a bloated edifice to wealth. Several storeys high, the oblong building was clad in eggshell white with sloped ash grey tiled roofs that spanned over two expansive wings, all of which were decorated in gold-coated embellishments, window frames and doors.
Two rows of greek columns met at a central portico at a sturdy pair of what seemed to be real wood doors.
An obsidian asphalt road curved to a broad paved driveway that ended at the portico. The house sat in a lush garden of mown lawns, rows of colourful flower beds and gently spraying fountains that glittered in the merciless sun.
The entire affair was ringed by a tall, iron spike topped white wall.
Circling slowly at a distance, the flier’s thermals and spook-tech showed no activity other than some automated systems, not even staff or servants.

​Astiek Steva came online, pinging our media-slabs.Told us an initial autopsy had indicated that the children were ‘not quite human’, results showed they had been spliced with what appeared to be very specific strands of crocodile DNA. It had given them incredible regenerative capabilities allowing them to endure multiple organ harvesting.
Astiek explained that’s why they were drowned. Told us that it was unlikely they could not be killed any other way.

​Leads were thin on the ground. Closest precinct was in the Jorengi Temple district, they wouldn’t be any help. Our tightest contact in rentacop was Captain Ocano at the Shinjuku precinct.
I turned down the gain on my meda-slabs volume when we hit him up. Even so, his voice somehow still deafened me on the group call! I imagined him gesticulating wildly in his ill fitting and creased chocolate brown polyester three-piece as he spoke to us. 

Ocano had ready access to documentation regarding the orphanage, I could hear irritation in his voice as he gave us the lowdown, including the name; Octavia Raske, the orphanage’s principal.
Also told us the records listed the attending physician as a Doctor Hsu Rou-Tai. The name was known to us.
Other than that nothing we didn’t already know, Ocano added that the public records had somehow been scrubbed.

Hsu Rou-Tai was a fringe, off-the-books scientist clandestinely bankrolled by Protobase Global for black-lab research into longevity treatments.
All this involved the conglomerate, how?

Now with Protobase Global thrown into the mix, ran another search on the newsvines, got a new hit.
Maria Huang’s had thrown a fundraiser for the Rokkaku Dai Heights orphanage that had been co-backed by Annabel Twistom, late wife of Protobase CEO Benedict Twistom. Annabel Twistom had also sat on the Protobase ethics oversight committee.

Got the fundraiser details and ran a hack on it. Looked like the fundraiser had brought in a sizable amount of revenue. No records of appropriation or where the money had gone.

​It was time for an incursion into the Maria Huang mansion.
Jacked into the GLOWNET and quickly located the mansion's data-image; a gleaming elaborately detailed angular stronghold with soaring fluorescent towers topped by fluttering flags.
Like many wealthy Neon City residents, it had extensive but standardised off-the-rack security protocols. I had just the algorithm for that and soon I was past the image and into the data-vault. .
Was pretty lacking, a sift through the directories found no significant documentation or data records. Last thing I did before jacking out was deactivate all security systems.

Put the flier down on the driveway. No one would question this kind of vehicle in place like this. Hustled over to the double doors under the portico’s shade, Koko leant against them, working the locks. Moments later and we were in.

The aircon sat inactive but even so, the interior with its tall airy eggshell coloured ceilings was spacious enough to provide cool respite from the heat.
Neon City’s harsh sunlight had been tamed into a gentle hue streaming through adaptive autoreactive window panes which lit the interior while the mansion’s soundproofing drove Neon City’s guttural drone into a distant, almost forgotten place.
The exterior’s opulence continued inside; the foyer walls were lined with elaborately detailed wallpaper trimmed in gold foil and adorned with various portraits and landscapes. Our grimy boots sank into the lush, generous shagpile of a light grey carpet.

Despite knowing it was unoccupied, we advanced through white and gold panelled corridors with weapons in hand.
The silence verging on oppressive., breathing boomed in my ears, 
There were a number ornately furnished reception rooms furnished with darkly stained cherrywood seating topped by grey-white upholstery that contrasted the pale decorations, several bathrooms adorned in cerulean and white porcelain with gold fittings, an expansive kitchen lined with discreet fixtures and dominated by an impossibly smooth off-white corian central worktop threaded with meandering veins of silver-grey to finally, a study.

Deep in the mansion’s warren, the study was lit by a single diminutive square window that overlooked a small grassy courtyard lined with well trimmed bushes, an auto-gardener buzzing about as it slavishly adhered to its maintenance protocols. The study was a rather sparse room and lacked any kind of data-slab.
Instead a sturdy looking oak desk bristling with drawers was situated along one wall, behind it was a Tanner-Ryse branded real leather office chair.

Drawers that opened smoothly on oiled, well made rollers, brimmed with paper documentation: Diaries, notebooks, invoices and more - someone didn’t trust infotech.
Amongst the paperwork was a hardcopy album, contained photos of Maria Huang that seemed to date back a hundred and twenty years.
Further searching found evidence that she was at least one hundred and forty years old. An example of early longevity tech at work.
We also discovered the printout of a travel manifesto which seemed to indicate that Maria Huang had made a one-way flight to the Glitterband; it listed two large items of luggage as her only additions.
Guess that now she was up there, she didn’t care what was down here. Wasn’t much to help us either. Getting to her would be impossible in the Glitterband.

​The flier was accelerating out of Johoko-Chuo Park, its green sanctuary shrinking when a feed hit the newsvines: Ocano had gone missing.

Feed updated by the time we caught sight of Hikage’s grey residential highrises rolling over the urban horizon.
Ocano was dead. Gunned down at a sandwich vendor on some Shinjuku Station district street food court. Maybe he’d been careless or someone was sharp eyed enough to flag him but whoever had gotten to him was going to have to pay. We changed heading for Shinjuku.

A short flight over, rentacop was already on the murder scene when we arrived. One of their own had been rubbed out, they weren’t happy and they weren’t going to give us anything. Was personal for them but rentacop didn’t have the chops to get a handle on the killer.

Flickering frames constructed themselves out of neonic materials while I jacked back into the GLOWNET as the city’s iridescent, angular info-vista settled about me. With Ocano’s media-slab ID to hand I launched a tracer algorithm, got details of his provider’s server-vaults and node-navvied there.
Like most providers, it had adequate security but its encryption keys hadn’t been set up to deal with the kind of incursions we pulled; my cracking algorithm had us in their system quick.
The provider’s vapidly cheerful data-image peeled away and I dropped into the business like drab grey on black environment that were the file directories. Quickly found logs for Ocano’s media-slab activity.
Showed his last contact was with a Zimak Bukhuoko.

Plenty of public records on Zimak Bukhuoko: He had been voted into the position of Acting Police Commissioner after a recent surprise win following his demand for a recount - a recount which had experienced a dramatic turnabout in results as what appeared to be a sizable number of previously uncounted votes for Zimak Bukhuokohad inexplicably surfaced.

Dug deeper: Turned out Zimak Bukhuoko was a cousin to Yennav Rybasei; our insider and mid-level enforcer for the Armenian Mob.
Koko pinged Yennav, got a brief response; he was busy on a job for someone else. No help there.

Zimak Bukhuoko’s address was trivial to find, decided to scope him out.
Apart from his housekeeper, he lived alone in a governmentally secured penthouse in the Skyscraper district. That kind of security was bad news, not easy to crack, it would also have proactive anti-invasion deterrents. Meant we would have to find a different vector to get at him.
Needed to wait, chilled until midnight.

Neon City became gloomily clad in lengthening shadows during the day’s end as night crept up. Rows of street lights lazily blinked into existence while grids of city windows across scrapers and high-rises auto-activated. Soon, remaining daylight retreated over the western horizon in a thin band of vanishing crimson light. Starless, black cloud filled sky followed from the east as did the nightly downpours, its deluge drumming of the fliers hull.

The flier had been put into stealth, interior lighting and instrumentation was dimmed, turbines ran silently. We were hovering just a hundred metres off of Zimak Bukhuoko’s apartment when we powered the spook tech. Thermals showed he was alone and had retired for the night.
It was time.

Sinking back into the recognisable incandescent reality of the GLOWNET, I returned to the service provider of Ocano’s media-slab. Filtered through his logs again, went deeper this time. Found what I needed - Ocano’s security profile and decrypter protocols, then cloned them.

Exited the provider’s server-vault, back into the city’s info-vista and remote connected through some node-bounces to rentacop’s Shinjuku bunker. Ocano’s credentials hadn’t been rescinded yet, rentacop was always slow so their system thought I was Ocano.
Worse for them, rentacop internal security was always lax, now that I was inside their network, a cracking algorithm quickly got me where I needed to go.
Data-vaults opened up, found the logons for some Neon City judge, used them to run the data systems which issued warrants and directed one towards Ocano’s profile.

Koko put the flier down on the skyscraper’s pad. Locked roof access provided no obstacle to us as we got to Zimak Bukhuoko’s penthouse and pushed the warrant data via the clone to the extensive door security provisions. It went into immediate shutdown, thinking Ocano was here to resolve a warrant.
Didn’t see the need for subtilty, Trigger rushed in, had him stunned and black-bagged in seconds. Dragged him to the roof and on to the flier, he barely struggled.

Zimak Bukhuoko shared his cousin’s stocky frame and receding hairline but unlike Yennav, there was no hard edge under that bulk. A soft man, Zimak Bukhuoko squirmed like the politician he was and tried to evade our questions with a nasally voice.
After taking a tough line, wasn’t hard for Bill to get him singing.

Once Zimak Bukhuoko had taken up his newly appointed position as Acting Police Commissioner, he’d gotten a briefing from Goji Rokkaku and Benedict Twistom.
No one was to investigate the Robot Factory came the edict, along with several other places which would also be off limits.
Hours ago, he’d also received instructions to take care of Ocano. Not only that, he admitted to having footage of the hit happening.
Couldn’t get a name from him though, whoever was pulling Zimak Bukhuoko’s strings was someone that scared him more than we did!
Did manage to get the security protocols for his media-slab though, gave us access to his private data-vault. It didn’t take long to get the footage.

We seriously considered executing and dumping Zimak Bukhuoko. Ocano had been a genuine citizen and solid contact, he didn’t deserve what went down but ultimately, that wasn’t how we ran with it.
Instead, we hit Zimak Bukhuoko with a heavy sedative and kicked him back to his penthouse, left him sprawled uncomfortably on the carpeted hallway.

​It was gone one AM and we were considering our next move when our media-slabs chirped loudly.
Porter Sladek was online. Told us to meet him close to the Rokkaku Tower at seven.