Wired Neon Cities - Session 28

17th July 2021

It's another Saturday evening and we're logged into video chat for the next session in Matakishi's Wired Neon Cities campaign.

---

Location: Neon City.

There was no opportunity to relax in the morning, no slow descent into a Huntudi and Niaiwon noodle fuelled torpor while in front of the wall-slab. Time was ticking against us, we were going up against an unknown quantity and leverage was needed - fast.

Locked and loaded my .45 ACPs, charged the Nonohiki and despite the early pressing heat, pulled on my Verskeit Long Coat, making sure to slot all the ceramic plates. Grabbing a self-chilling can of Kaia, I ran out to meet the others.

It was going to be a long Neon City day.
In our possession we now had a database file that listed the members of the Golden Tibetan Temple of Transdimensional Travellers.

The GTTTT was one of the city’s countless small fringe organisations, the kind set up by nutjobs, amateur conspiracy theorists, delusionists and more to cope with neurosis-inducing life mostly as jobless no-hopers. It kept them busy and more importantly, it kept them off the narrow already burgeoning city streets that permeated the residential districts and neighbourhoods.
In the case of the GTTTT, they were a like-minded group who met up and discussed their extraterrestrial experiences, real or imagined, fake or truthful.
There were fifteen people on that list; we were going to have to speak to all of them.

Two members immediately caught our attention, they were names we’d heard before and the first of these was Tohi Mari. The GTTTT file listed an address at Sensoji in the Akusa-cho prefecture. It also listed her as crew aboard ‘The Lost Wisdom of The Ancients’, a wrecked shuttle.
It was a long ride to Sensoji, took the tram to the Fortified Residential Zone, transferred to the corporate monorail and headed for The Sky Tree.
Theoretically, the enormous multi weaved polyferrous Shinkansen Link cabling that connected Sky Tree’s space-elevator to the Glitterband above should have been visible from kilometres away but rampant pollution in the lower stratas of the troposphere meant it was buried behind layers of hazy, wavering smog. As the monorail quietly sped closer, an apparitional cable gradually emerged against the blue-white sky, smoothly materialising as if from some other material reality until the solid shape was visible.
Another transfer at Sky Tree - this time to the local tram network and on to Sensoji.

Just before noon when we walked out of the station, no way to avoid the day’s uncaring peak heat as we navigated the bustling streets. Even at this almost painful temperature, no one was dissuaded from treading the scorching pavements.

Tohi Mari’s apartment was a typical anonymous place of residence with poly-clad exterior walls, and a windowless security door in a typical concrete and steel housing block.
A knock on the door got nothing, finally a muffled woman’s voice came through, just on the other side, we were being watched via a hidden door viewer.
The voice demanded to know our business and we explained that we were from the GTTTT, Bill held out the GTTTT database being displayed on his Gohotocang media-slab’s screen to where the view likely was..

Tohi Mari appeared satisfied, although the door was unlocked, it cracked open only a few centimetres and she stared suspiciously at us with a half-hidden face from behind a steel security chain.
We told her that we were with the GTTTT, she was satisfied, opened the door and invited us in and sat us down in a small living room, unremarkable save for the noticeably large number of strangely shaped origami birds that sat on seemingly all available shelf space and almost seemed to stare at us.
A Japanese woman with a slight build, Tohi Mari looked to be in her early twenties. Following some conversation, she was willing to tell us about the experiences she remembered aboard The Lost Wisdom of the Ancients.
Tohi Mari was at the time, a serving crewmate aboard the shuttle and was logged on the roster and flightplan at the time of its explosion. She knew she was meant to be aboard when catastrophe struck but her only memory was of being on the moon at the time. Since then, she chose to relocate to Earth. Explanations were vague and led nowhere, suggesting to us that she was suppressing memories.
When asked if she had any other memory gaps, told us that as a child living on Ganymede she had been abducted but had no recollection of it. Only memories of the time about the kidnapping were of playing with strange children and having somehow lost a finger. Tohi Mari lifted a hand and waggled the digits, confirming one was slightly discoloured - it looked like a Qvaozh derma-coated finger replacement module.
Captain Noodles checked her out, confirmed she’d had extra-terrestrial contact some time ago.
Wasn’t much of anything else to be learned here so we decided to visit the next name on the list.

---

​In the Shinjuku Station district lived Wyatt Vanlith.
Time to head over. Rode the tram back to The Sky Tree, from there luckily, the monorail took us directly to Shinjuku.
The district was the primary convergence of all of Neon City’s public transit networks. These services all routed through Shinjuku Station; the enormous glass, steel and concrete terminus that rose over the district skyline.
Despite the number of multi-leveled platforms and massive flow of commuters, the station’s interior deceptively created an illusion of cool roominess thanks to a high ceiling interlaced with rectangular glass panels equipped with auto-shutters.
We walked out of the heavy broiling crowds that populated the station and to Wyatt Vanlith’s home, he resided in one of the small, lower density residential neighbourhoods that existed on the district's periphery.

Eventually we found ourselves at an extended strip of street-level apartments that featured reinforced curtained windows and fortified security doors.
There was no answer to our knocks, before deciding whether to wait or go, an adjacent door opened and out stepped a grizzled, grey-haired neighbour. Seemed eager to chat, perhaps with anyone. Told us Wyatt Vanlith used to be a space pilot.
“Still wore his old cap,” the neighbour stated and went on; Wyatt now spent a lot of his time at Shinjuku Station

Afternoon was getting on but the humidity wasn’t letting up by the time we got back. Took a while, some searching and some questioning but eventually Wyatt Vanlith in his service cap was located at a station annex which housed platforms for the old overground service lines. 
After introductions and we explained our association with the GTTTT, he was happy to talk to us.
Wyatt explained he came here because he enjoyed watching Neon City’s ‘real’ trains and admitted that he was intending on retraining as a train driver!
We steered the conversation to his previous piloting career and Wyatt’s expression grew faraway. Told us he was working the Callisto run and he saw unexplained lights in the Libertad crater many times.
Wyatt was convinced they were extraterrestrial in origin.

After that he discovered the GTTTT and joined due to common interests. 
“They’ve got interesting stories,” he told us. “But some of them are head-cases!”
Finally, he gave us his personal contact details, also said he could be found here most of the time

Hadn’t gotten much from Tohi Mori or Wyatt Vanlith, went back to the GTTTT database and looked for more names.

Two candidates were in Sugamo Jizo Dori Street in the Toshima-cho prefecture. Had to take the corporate monorail again, this time to Ikebukuro, luckily we were already in Shinjuku. From Ikebukuro it was back on the local tram rides into Sugamo Jizo Dori Street.

---

​Another residential neighbourhood, another high rise: Adkale Tvolenky’s apartment was easy to find. We introduced ourselves to the youngish Russian woman who was a retired jet-courier. Captain Noodles gave her a sniff, confirming with a subtle feline nod that Adkale had encountered aliens.
Adkale went on to say that during a gig, she had spotted aliens on a roof. They apparently killed a man before stepping into nothingness.
From then, a sensation of being watched had frequently niggled Adkale, strong enough to make her quit her job and remain in the confines of her apartment.

---

​Also in Sugamo Jizo Dori Street was Hui Pi-Hao. The middle aged man had found an injured large-headed, black eyed child in the grounds close to one of the district’s numerous fringe med-labs.

He went on; a couple days later the PGDF had approached him. They’d wanted to know if the child had spoken with him.
Hui Pi-Hao admitted to lying to the PGDF, telling them he had fallen unconscious during the encounter. He also confided in us that the child had given him something and revealed an impossibly smooth obsidian-like black ellipsoid.
Captain Noodles examined Hui Pi-Hao and looked as puzzled as a cat could but confirmed an encounter had occurred. Later Captain Noodles would tell what he sensed was puzzling, initially he thought the extraterrestrial had been some kind of hybrid but now wasn’t so certain.

---

​It was a long ride back to Hikage Street and the next candidate on the database, it was dark as we hit the final leg of our journey and the nightly deluges had begun. A wind driven rainy street-light lit world inhabited by faceless silhouetted pedestrians passed us through a view provided by glinting rain scarred tram windows, double rows of yellow-white dots dove into vanishing points while gridded window lights extended above.
Noisily, the tram grinded to a halt in Hikage. Back on our home turf, it was easy to find Haley Severt. The district’s northern quarter was distinguished by a concrete and glass arboretum of soaring grey overpopulated high-rises that mostly homed long-term unemployed no-hopers, Neon City’s most populous demographic.
Typically dismal, grey windowless passageways weakly lit by fluorescent wall strips led to Haley Servet’s apartment.

She was young and good looking with long well maintained wavy blonde hair. Like most GTTTT members, she was happy to tell her tale to anyone who would listen or even better; take her story seriously.
A couple of years ago, out with her boyfriend of the time and had gotten very drunk at a nightclub.
Her last reliable memory of the night was exiting the nightclub into the downpours at the small hours. Then, a blur of fragmented events and interactions followed. Nothing but questions after that.
Her boyfriend and her getting ‘taken'? City lights falling away as she was lifted skyward? Clothes lost somehow? Probed in every possible way? Dumped back at her apartment later by a UFO disguised as a sky-taxi and smelling of mint flavoured YK jelly? 
Never saw her boyfriend again, disappeared?

No indication of alien contact, Captain Noodles told us. Looked like she’d had an encounter of the different kind.
Wasn’t much more to get from Haley Severt.

Got too late to hit up another GTTTT member, instead we made for the regular haunt in Hikage.
Washed down shots of Shaikan or Obzlo with Hazhiwa burgers. Buzzing when I got back to the one-bed, crashed on the futon.
Seconds later, dawn was rising. Early urine coloured sunlight blasted the interior.
Got back to the others, more candidates to hit up today.

---

​Sidi Mana lived in Highway Zero; short trip over.
Road traffic in Highway Zero always made noise pollution an immense, endless foreground clamour of constant tyre rumble mingled with a dulling background vibration that could induce nausea, only place in Neon City where the elevated highway dropped to street level.
Close to the ground level highway is where Sidi Mana lived: Outside his apartment we could see some kind of row of purplish foodstuff lining the interior of a front window. Ran recog on the purplish stuff, the GLOWNET listed as some fruit called ‘plums’
The door was answered by a middle aged man who didn’t look like he got out much and was eager for company.
Got invited into his living room, it was dominated by a largish Mayari faux earthenware tub decorated with silver detailing and filled with dirt. From the dirt grew a small tree with the same purple fruit hanging from the thin branches - had to be a plum tree.
Sidi Mana told us it was actually an alien tree? Said he got it three years ago, it grew alien fruit three months a year and he would leave it out for aliens to take.
Definitely looked like plums to us.
He went on: Told us the aliens always took the fruit when he’s ‘not looking’. Led us down a hallway with time-faded wallpaper and threadbare carpeting to what he called a spare bedroom and threw the door open, inside it was filled with a large quantity of mostly rotting fruit.
“Not edible by humans," Sidi Mana informed us.
Another negative result according to Captain Noodles.

Bill convinced Sidi Mana to give us some samples before we left.
Later Bill tasted one of the plumbs; good quality and put the feelers out on the GLOWNET, real fruit pulled a hefty price tag with Neon City’s wealthy elite.

---

​The GTTT listed Choi Ze’s address as in Akihabara. It meant getting to the Skyscraper district and another ride on the Corporate Monorail and eventually into central Akihabara.

Clad in massive neon drenched promos and giant Senonable wall-slabs pumping endless sequences of advertisements out at a dizzying cadence were the streets of soaring retailer towers that permeated central Akihabara.
They brimmed with a mixture of franchises and outlet chains, as well as small independent traders and boutique stores, all selling posters, toys, cosplay inventory, SegTendo game slugs and uncountable paraphernalia for the latest, most popular vidanim shows to burgeoning crowds.
Akihabara streets were crowded even by Neon City standards and conversation was almost impossible; trumpeting over-cheerful jingles, bit-chip sound effects and audio product branding cruelly blared out of every available speaker as they fought for the aural airspace surrounding the rippling swatches of would-be consumers and no-hopers irresistibly drawn to the district’s polyphosohydrosoxide lights.
Youthful cliques cosplaying as the latest character drops from Legion of Luminaries bustled past Neon Noir fanbunnies and bands of brand-coloured FunDepot aficionados as they all flowed to and from whatever retailers were selling their particular flavour of fandom merchandise.

Almost no one noticed the narrowest of shaded alleyways that threaded between two of the towers like a sun-deprived ravine, no one except us.
In the alleyway we saw the erratic movement of flailing limbs, took a moment to decipher, a man was hitting a woman with a hammer.
“Hit me harder daddy,” cried the woman huskily.
“Why won’t you die?” The man yelled, swinging the hammer.
Trigger sprinted ahead, activating his Shiaosha leg implants while pitched forward and was flung at the assailant, Trigger’s tackle and momentum hurled the man into a wall with dull thud and he senselessly slumped down.
Attention was turned to the woman who was crouched defensively along another section of wall, we immediately noticed a long slash along an exposed shoulder so deep it made the skin peel back. Almost no blood in the wound though, instead, part of a plain grey polystrut imprinted with nanoscopically intricate circuit gridding and lined with micro servos was visible.

An android; an artificially smooth and porcelain complexion covered a round face which was complemented by sharp cheekbones, a shortish platinum shag bob and light hazel eyes. A face that somehow looked familiar, a hairstyle, no doubt inspired by the twentieth century.
Ran the face through recog and got a hit, she was a class 6T9 pleasurebot manufactured at a facility in the Glitterband. Pricey tech to be on the low-cost streets of Neon City.
A quick search found an ID card tucked in a wallet on the unconscious man: Name was Kyle. In a cheap slate grey Kuabha two-piece and vaguely combed brown hair, he looked like a typical wage-monkey.
A mixture of irritation and apprehension swam across Kyle’s face when he came to and found himself surrounded by us. He looked at us and at the android.
It didn’t take much questioning to get the truth out of Kyle

The pleasurebot had been bought from a Glitterband retailer called ‘Promised Land’. Kyle told us that it was a mistake; the android was actually a ‘refurb’  - and ‘not fresh’ he added sarcastically. It’s behaviour could not be modified and he wanted nothing to do with it - it was all a waste of money.
Brushing himself down after standing he approached 6T9 and hefted her over a shoulder with some effort.
“Punish me more,’” 6T9 pleaded.
Instead, Kyle carried 6T9 over to a dumpster and slung her in with a thump, she seemed pleased.
With that, Kyle went on his way.

I guess there wasn’t much we could do, Kyle hadn’t broken any laws.
After he went out of sight, we pulled 6T9 from the dumpster. She seemed quite passive and grateful for any abuse we could provide!
A quick examination of her face revealed a microport behind a dermal flap behind one earlobe.
Networking the android to my data-slab was easy, it revealed a cluster of settings that had become corrupted.
Behaviour modifier had been set to a BDSM subroutine.
Autonomous protocols had been turned off.
Changing both of these got nothing, seemed to revert back?

Deeper in the code and I found Kyle’s data. He’d logged himself as the owner and was still logged in - for now. Could see he’s also tried to change the setting and had got nowhere. Found access to his emails. Showed that he’d paid thirty-seven large to ‘Promised Land’. Later, a search through the GLOWNET would reveal nothing about Promised Land. If it was in the Glitterband, wasn’t surprising it geolocked from Neon City.

Deeper still and I encountered an non-indexed cached partition in the residual memory bank that was a backup of a backup. The android’s code had been sourcing this data for protocols.
6T9 had belonged to a previous owner; someone - probably the retailer - had wiped those records from the android but it had been a sloppy job and they’d missed the hidden backup,  Harvard Ellison was the previous owner. Name was familiar, a later check would reveal he was an evangelist preacher that operated in the city. No surprise there. Ellison was one of the many nutjob grifters trying to part no-hopers from their cash.

Clearing the cached data solved the problem, behavioural protocols were now sourced from the correct directory path.
I set 6T9 to ‘demure’ mode and she stopped asking for abuse. Koko then decided that she could help us and ordered a traditional maids outfit for her from GLOWNET retailer Orinoco: Delivery in fifty-nine minutes.

---

​Choi Ze was pleased to see us, he lived alone in a cramped, small-windowed one-bed in one of Akihabara’s densely clustered and overpopulated residential high-rise parks.
Led us into a small, gloomy, sun-starved living room where the under-sized frost glazed aperture offered only a minimal view of the adjacent tower as indirect sunlight streamed through.
Old style paper notebooks were stacked up on otherwise dusty shelves and a clutch of pens were jammed into an empty Hezdez Beanz tin.
Told us that he frequently dreamed of friendly aliens and these notebooks were where he wrote what he remembered of thems. He’d been having these dreams since his youth.

Captain Noodles was not not impressed after giving him a sniff.
He continued, saying they were beings of limitless kindness, Choi Ze also explained that a frequent recurrence in the dreams were of being taken to ‘the carpark in the forest’ where ‘bears’ could be found in the vehicles. Sometimes his mother also appeared in the dreams.

Looked like Choi Ze’s lead was a dead end.

---

​Second name on the list in Akihabara was Yen Xia. Address listed took us back into the heart of the district, on to a branch off one of the packed main thoroughfares to a boutique shop called Filigree.
Located among a small but bustling strip of like-minded independent traders, a glittering, neon-powered sign hung above a reinforced polysiliocrylic shop window. Filigree sold bespoke, locally sourced, artisanal jewellery mostly inspired by various vidanims that had been popular in Neon City throughout the years.
Among the window display we saw a number of pieces with a triangular motif. Prices and quality ranged from cheap, obviously replica materials to high-end engineered precious stone and metals. Serving cosplayers on a budget all the way to wealthy fans that lived in the ‘Zone.
Inside we found Yen Xia behind the counter, a bright and cheerful young Chinese woman who greeted us with a wide, sunny smile.
After introductions, Yen Xia’s brow furrowed as she explained that she had incomplete memories of her extraterrestrial encounters. With an unfocused gaze she spoke of splintered moments of being taken through red tunnels by silent children with big heads. Dim rooms, silver-grey angular shapes, unfathomable background murmurs and almost colourless blue triangles.
She admitted that her memories made her feel uneasy about blue triangles and she made the triangular pendants displayed in the window to ward off her unknown fears.

Captain Noodles bought one of her triangular pendants, the rest of us followed suit. Our own encounters had confronted us with a powerful enemy, needed all the luck we could get.
As we left, Yen Xia wished a good day and hoped to see us at the next GTTTT meeting.

---

​Back to The Sky Tree and back on to the corporate monorail, long haul to Toshima-cho and on the local tram network again. Was getting to afternoon by the time we rolled into the Mejiro Housing Complex.
Flint Arleth lived in one of the district’s many tower filled residential parks and it was a task to locate his low rate apartment in the maze of high-rises. Flint Arleth was a young man and from his artificially torn Breach blue jeans and holed Brook-Atoll white tee, he dressed much in the style that the disaffected, young long-term unemployed in Neon City did. He was happy to meet new members of the GTTTT.  Invited us in but said he didn’t have any drinks to offer us as we were not expected.
It was a typical one-bed, combining sitting and sleeping areas with a window out into the City of Electric Dreams. Rows of generic rocketship models constructed of glued card and folded paper littered much of the available space. Flint was a fan I guessed
Flint Arleth told us that he had visited a city in an advanced alien civilisation with his ‘uncle’ years ago. Showed us a hardcopy photo of himself as a child eating what he called ‘space ice-cream’ against the backdrop of a futuristic city.
We exchanged glances, looked a lot like the Furturepark at Sky Dinosaurian Square.
This was a bust.

---

​Natalya Kampf also lived in the Mejiro Housing Complex. Dusk was approaching and streets were filling. The Complex had a higher than average working population and all those wage-monkeys were streaming out of the office and back home or hitting a bar.
Like Flint Arleth, we found ourselves at another drab anonymous one-bed in another indentikit apartment complex.
The almost sickly-sweet aroma of incense wafted over us as the door was opened by a slim middle-aged woman with a shock of short blonde-white hair, voluminous tie-dyed kaftan and sandals.
Once we’d shown her our GTTTT credentials she was happy to let us in. Her apartment was filled with what appeared to be woollen spacesuits.
“The Lionmen of Venus tell me to make them,” Natalya said, noticing our quizzical expressions.
She went on to explain that they contacted her using ‘mental transmissions’. This usually occurred after she had inhaled ten grams of enhanced bioengineered tetrahydrodelta and was meditating.
We let ourselves out and went on our way.

---

​While exiting the complex, our media-slabs pinged. Display indicated it was one Saber Newman? Had a job for us and wanted a face-to-face. Agreed to meet him at a Mejiro coffee house.

Neon City’s retail outlets were always a curious mix of faceless corporate chains or franchises rubbing shoulders with small independents and mom ‘n’ pops that somehow managed to ride the commercial hegemony they faced.

Gustisano was the second kind of place: A cheerfully bright sign hung above the faux dark walnut wooden framing that surrounded a large window which faced the narrow bustling street. A row of replica wooden bar chairs and high tables shaded by striped parasols fronted the establishment and was filled with customers. Shadows were lengthening and patrons were getting in some last caffeine kicks outside before the rains came.
There was more replica walnut furniture inside along with replica cladding, flooring and a bar trimmed in faux gold-brass piping which delivered steaming shots of Bevizzo or Tendredo Sinatti served in replica china saucers and cups as well as various pastries and cakes displayed in underlit glass bells.

Customers always favoured the outdoor seating, inside Gustisano was subdued. An ambiance enhanced by soft lighting from manufactured old-style filaments that buzzed gently and painted the interior in warm hues.
Putting down in a corner spot with a direct view of the entrance, we dropped some orders and waited.

Wasn’t long before our media-slabs pinged again, newsvines this time.
Just in: Torture and murder in Akihabara, local man found dead in his apartment by neighbours. Recognised the name, it was Kyle. Neighbours reported four individuals matching our discriptions attacking Kyle.
I looked around, it was calm but the clock was now ticking, had to get an exit plan.

Before we could make a move, a customer strode in. Square faced and in his forties with short, thick, bushy grey-white hair, there was a practised ease to how his eyes flickered across the interior before settling on us, catching the dim ambient light strangely in his pupils; implants of some kind.
Most people wouldn’t notice but it was apparent to us that the profile of a katana nestled beneath the parcel-brown Gaongha trench coat that enveloped him. 
A lean efficiency in his movements was apparent as he swept up to our table and put himself down next to Bill. He was some kind of muscle or street bushi, who for though? What was his play?

“Saber Newman,” came the introduction

He leant close to Bill and asked about 6T9, dropping a Preaavar MQ-6 data-slab on the imitation wood grain printed laminate table top and sliding it over. Screen showed a bank account transfer for five-hundred large directed towards one of our accounts. Explained that it was the price he was going to pay for 6T9. Had a good idea who he was working for now. In return 6T9 stared at Saber Newman, ever-so-slightly tilting her head quizzically upon hearing him and blinking.
Bill was inclined to tell him to stuff it but Saber Newman then quietly told Bill that under the table he had a gun on him.
Bill ever so slightly shifted his weight, could tell it rankled him and he wasn’t going to let it go so easily and countered with seven-fifty.
I could feel the rest of us tensioning, ready to shift our own weight.

I could see the bushi think about it, his closed expression softened an increment, he agreed. A few quick finger jabs on the MQ-6 and three-quarter mill had been transferred.
Bill told 6T9 to go with the man. She hesitated a second, glanced from us to him, attempting to process the situation, resolving some parameter conflict in some protocol or other then shifted over, giving us a final look.
Saber Newman gripped her arm, his chair scraped back nosily over the polished imitation wooden tiled floor, he was the process of backing out of the cafe with 6T9 when Bill’s eyes flicked in the direction of Trigger.
‘Get him’, Bill said,

Trigger became an indistinct smear of movement and colour as his augments came online, he pounced, flipping the table while smoothly drawing his Wanametosu.
It was never going to be that easy though. Saber Newman responded at an equally inhuman rate, he’d been expecting resistance. From nowhere a pair of grenades came loudly skittering erractically across the tiled floor, bouncing between chair and table legs, suddenly he was also gripping the adaptive poly-variable gold-trimmed grip of his own sword - a Chirsuka tanto.
Could hear the staff screaming as Bill and I went for the grenades while Trigger clashed ringing blades with Newman. Koko had dived into cover, grabbing her control-slab, drones began spinning up.

Weren’t quick enough getting to the grenades despite crashing through the furniture. Koko directed Nermal to hit them with an EMP; no effect. Flashbangs luckily. Was out for a Neon City Minute though.
Later, Koko told me that Trigger and Newman had been equally matched blow for blow, both slicing chunks out of each other until she had gotten Felix to hit Newman and he went down.

Wouldn’t be long before rentacop got in on the scene. I was good to go once the static cleared out of my optics and black-noise had receded, I scooped up Saber Newman’s data-slab and Trigger had taken his Chirsuka as a trophy, I could see him looking it up and down pensively.
Time to bug out, night had settled on Neon City during our time in Gustisano and the downpours had come with it. Transforming the overbright sun blasted cityscape into a hazy half lit maze of glinting puddle-filled alleyways crossing over with roads lined by twinned rows of glimmering streetlights. Lashed by rain, we ran out into the complex.

Didn’t take long to get to a relatively quiet sheltered spot. Slumped into a dry corner and looped the MQ-6 into my Nonohiki and jacked in. Isolated from the GLOWNET, the MQ-6 was a void, an empty colourless night tundra with a single pixel of light on the indistinguishable horizon; the MQ-6’s code repository.
Navigated close, was a pretty standard directory construct on Newman’s slab. Didn’t take long for a cracking protocol to get me in.

Checked mail logs and a search protocol tagged to Akihabara got a hit, Saber Newman had a rentacop contact at the PD. Had used the rentacop to get heat on us for the murder of Kyle. No way the contact would already know Newman was dead.
Pinged the rentacop from Newman’s account, got them to take the heat off us. It was good, at least for now.

Continued searching; Saber Newman was classified as an indentured servant, meant he resided on the Glitterband, outside old Earth laws that prohibited this type of thing.
He worked for someone called Brandon Brightbyte, put a hunter/seeker on him; an exec for Promised Land.
Kept reading; looked like his continued servitude paid for his family’s oxygen rations on the ‘Band. If you didn’t have the dollar, life on ‘Band was hard.
Saber had drawn a bad hand of cards, his family was going to pay the price now he was dead.
Backgrounded the loop, went on the GLOWNET, back into Neon City’s chromatically shifting info-vista. Scraped node routing data from the mail logs on Saber’s MQ-6 and cloned his credentials.
Angular pulsating landscapes and polygonal neighbourhoods blurred past me as I relocated to the Promised Lands mailing server vault which was housed on their primary data-vault directory. Its data-image was a jumbled blend of focus-group driven logos and branded icons against a backdrop of neutrally corporate colours.
Cloned credentials got through defences, got access to all Saber’s accounts. There was a digital key to an apartment in Neon City, tickets to and from the Glitterband, also included Promised Lands’ very generous expenses account.
Drained all the funds into an anonymous ghost user and bounced it to the Newman family domestic account.
They’d be set up for a while at least.

---

​Was getting late, but the next name on the GTTTT list lived in Asakusa-cho, one prefecture over.
Getting there involved riding the high speed rail link back to Sky Tree again.
The high speed rail link was designed to allow inter-prefecture transit, mostly for low level exec types who wouldn’t qualify for personal corporate transport but might need to move through the city for business, unlike wage-monkeys who would likely barely leave their prefecture.
Luckily there were no restrictions on getting a ride.

The high speed rail link trains were clean by Neon City standards, with relatively well spaced deep seating and serviceable aircon, it was missing the signature profane graffiti that readily adorned the tram networks. At this hour most execs would be hitting the bars or pachinko halls, other than the occasional well suited businessman caught up in what would be no doubt performance reviews on a data-slab, we had the better part of a carriage to ourselves.
True to its name, the train rapidly cut through the rain leaving a spray in its wake and rippling horizontal raindrop trails across the soundproofed windows which revealed a city beyond reduced to an amorphous black silhouette against the carriage’s glaring interior fluorescents. Through darkened glass we watched highlighted city night lights blur through our reflections in speeding parallax.

A subtle tug pulled at my guts, a warning the train had begun decelerating. A series of winking red warning lights that stretched up into the black storm clouds marked out the Shinkansen Link. The vast megastructure was practically invisible against the night sky.
Transferring to the local tram network was easy, out of the spacious well lit rail station with its polished replica marble floor and high ceilinged roof and on to a half lit elevated tram stop constructed of thin corrugated ferrous sheets clamped to small platform attached to the raised trackway.

Precipitation drummed its tune on the steel roof as we waited for an overfilled tram to arrive. Drinkers, good-timers and tourists packed the carriages. Like us they were all heading for the ‘Street of a Thousand Bars’ - Hoppi Street: It may have had a different name decades or centuries ago but now it was known for the hops in all the drinks served in the district’s long strips of popular drinking venues and establishments.

Pushing ourselves aboard the tram and into awkwardly close proximity to other passengers, we rode uncomfortably to Hoppi Street in silence. Rough rail tracks routinely rocked the trams for the entire journey and passengers swayed as one in response during the whole time.
Mercifully, the trip was quick. A rasping hiss issued from sliding doors as they opened and the tram emptied out.

Lines of street lights, neon lit signs and illuminated shop fronts blazed along the broiling sidewalks. Reflecting off slick surfaces and glimmered erratically through undulating rainfall while blaring music and electronic jingles that had merged into an indecipherable clamour which sought to attract the passengers who were venturing out of the tram stop to their chosen drinking destinations.
Database listed one Kawai Miko as living somewhere here. Getting there took us off the main thoroughfares and into poorly lit and slightly less busy narrow side streets, the clamour of Hoppi Street abated as the dim paths wound their way towards the housing neighbourhoods.
The trip ended in a dense cluster of residential apartment complexes that intersected with each other in a neglected housing estate. Once there might have been a stretch of greenery in the central courtyard here; trees, grass, space to relax. Now all we saw were puddles that danced madly under the precipitation, catching whatever streetlights there was and slowlying filling a patch of exposed dirt and mud.

A door led to somes tairs which climbed upwards. a corridor to what was a small apartment -  even by Neon City standards.
Kawai Miko was young, lively, Japanese and dressed in the latest Hika Taki streetwear. The interior combined a living, cooking and sleeping space, a small amount of Talordu branded minimalist furniture adorned the room and few decorations embellished the off-white wall paint and replica pine floor. Despite the restrictive size, the interior’s sparseness gave it an empty look.
Like most of the GTTTT members, she was happy to tell her story to other members.

Kawai Miko explained that she was an aspiring vocalist who earned supplemental income by singing songs in an alien language and selling them on the GLOWNET!
Took a moment for us to respond. When asked, Kawai Miko refused to say exactly how she knew an alien language and admitted that she did not sell much music, mostly just to other GTTTT members.
She played some of her material for us, definitely not Neon City-speak or any language known by my media-slabs audio recog.
Captain Noodles turned to us and elaborated.
“It’s gibberish,” he said.
Another dead end.

---

​Night was beginning to wear on but there was time to check out one other GTTTT member.
Star Bar was a Hoppi Street drinking establishment in the heart of the district, according to the database, this is where we could find Hara Izor.

Briskly, through the deluge we returned back to Hoppi Street’s main commercial zone. Noisy, overlit strips of pubs, bars, watering holes, gin joints and more, populated both the main routes and side alleys.
The constant rain did nothing to deter customers; reduced to anonymous wraithlike silhouettes by a mixture of dazzling lights and permeating rain, they shuffled past in their hundreds which filled the sidewalk and who we had no choice but to navigate.

The address ended at a drinking establishment festooned by intermittently winking and strobing star, planet, moon and comet shaped silver-white neon signage, Star Bar clearly had a motif.

Inside, lighting was unusually low, except for some rotating spotlights that swept the room with smoky light beams. Cosmographically themed interior decorations gleamed distinctly as a result, reflecting off the abundance of space-age styled silver coated surfaces throughout the bar. All the time an ambient ripoff sci-fi electronica soundtrack pumped out on the HSS Sikuneu sound system.
In the gloom, we saw numerous customers slumped at the bar or slouched over a taverna style table in the dim light.
Ordered space-themed drinks when we got to the bar.
Spoke to the barkeep, turned out Hara Izor was the manager at Star Bar, getting to see him was easy. From a back room he came out to the bar and was accommodating once we explained we were with the GTTTT.

Hara Izor told us that a few years ago he had refitted the bat with a ‘cosmic’ theme to attract ‘out of town’ clients he said knowingly with a wink. Leaning over the bar he quietly, almost conspiratorially told us that most of his customers were alien.
Looking round at the drinkers, none of them looked like something we’d describe as extraterrestrial. Captain Noodles wasn’t convinced either.
It was another bust.

---

​Done with the GTTTT for the night, we decided to brave the rains and hit the bars on Hoppi Street. The City of Electric Dreams, though, had something different in mind for us and Koko’s media-slab pinged.

Yeager Malik Introduced himself as the lead engineer of The Moistioned Palm Hotel’s ‘Turbo Encabulator’ recalibration team, whatever the hell that was? Was having trouble with one of the street gangs in Hoppi Street: Wanted a face-to-face and directed us to a warehouse front office in a small half-disused industrial park in the shadow of Hoppi Street’s main strip and behind all of its light, noise and strained glamour.
Few swaying exterior lights reflected off the rippling ever-filling pools that dotted the empty car park we crossed to reach the office.

Except for Yeager Malik, the office interior was as empty as the car park. He kept the fluorescents off, city lights faintly registered through rain smeared streaming windows, throwing weak diffused shadows across cheap Vaidu carpeting while the night’s deluge thrashed on the multi-ferrous corrugated roofing.
Didn’t take Yeager Malik too long to get us up to speed.

Usman Kasim was a gang leader who went by the tag ‘Emir’, also styled himself as ‘The King of Pimps’ and was associated with prostitution mob; ‘The Flash Cartel’.
Word was Emir had beef with ‘Thunderous’ Waka Kane, boss of rival gang ‘The Bōsōzoku Boys’ and also owner of The Moistioned Palm hotel, which was reputed to be a front for the Ikebukuro Construction Gumi Yakusa.
Emir was planning to move against Waka Kane and had been putting the squeeze on Yeager Malik and his crew to make it work.

Emir wanted Yeager Malik to sabotage The Moistened Palm’s Turbo Encabulator. It would result in a series of errors causing a cascading system surge overloading the flux capacitors which would force the hotel to be immediately evacuated.

“That’s when Emir’s muscle would move,” Yeager Malik told us. Ensuing disruption and chaos would allow them to slip in and put a hit on the exposed Waka Kane and wipe his gang out.
Problem was that Yeager would take the heat for the technical breakdown, bringing down the Gumi Yakuza on him.
Pushing back against Emir would also put Yeager and his crew at risk.

He needed an out. Seemed like the best plan was to let him sabotage the Turbo Encabulator, he could then truthfully tell Emir it was done.
Then, independently, we’d reverse it. No one else would know, not even his crew.

Only problem was, could the sabotage be reversed?
No clue what the Turbo Encabulator was, regretted asking Yeager Malik about it.

“For a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such an instrument is the turbo encabulator.
Now basically the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance.
The original machine had a base plate of pre-famulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented.
The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters.
The turbo-encabulator has now reached a high level of development, and it’s being
successfully used in the operation of novertrunnions. Moreover, whenever a forescent skor motion is required, it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm, to reduce sinusoidal repleneration,” he said.

Koko at least seemed to understand and had been nodding along understandingly. She turned to us and said that it could be done.
Plan was set. Yeager Malik would sabotage the Turbo Encabulator at midnight: An hour later, we’d get into the hotel and reverse it.

Needed to case out the hotel, was a brisk walk back to Hoppi Street. Found a good spot at a Ahoumo Noodles street vendor to scope it from a distance.

The Moistened Palm Hotel was a multistoried upright slab of concrete and poly-glass clad in a sandstone coloured facade barely visible beneath a blanket of phasing shaped neon lights strip. Flowing patterns of crude animations played out throughout the phasing and drew the eye towards the enormous sign that stretched over an entrance flanked by two rows of oversized faux palm trees underlit in a golden hue. From this distance and through the precipitation, the garish cycle of flashing lights had been reduced to an ever swirling mix of colours. Even so, the entire venue had the appearance of a hotel from the old world Las Vegas strip.
In the short time we were observing, drunk revellers and tourists were drawn moth-like by those lights into the hotel. Welcomed by cheerfully insincere greeters and shortly to be fleeced of all their Bits no doubt.
Did some more investigating, found a pair of plain steel double doors in a narrow unlit, puddle filled side alley: A maintenance entrance, that would be our ‘in’.

---

​Zoshigaya Park was located at the limits of Neon City, in Toshima-cho, one prefecture over from Hoppi Street and was the address of Fuji Koto, One of the names on the GTTTT database.
Was getting late but still a few hours before we needed to get into The Moistened Palm Hotel. Enough time to get to Zoshigaya Park and back.
Meant a return trip to The Sky Tree and back on the high speed rail link to Ikebukuro. From there, on the local tram network to Zoshigaya.

Neither downpours nor crowds had let up when we exited the tram station, wind battered sheets of heavy rainfall lashed umbrella-toting pedestrians, hundreds of coloured polymer domes lit in yellow-white streetlight bobbed up and down in indecipherable rippling patterns along glimmering sidewalks.
The walk to Fuji Koto’s address took us beyond the periphery of Zoshigaya Park’s usual retail and residential centres, close to the city’s edge where eventually the crowds did begin to thin and city lighting became less regular. To where Zoshigaya Park earned its name. 
This far out led to a large tract of land which had been dedicated to greenery, one of the few in Neon City and only ever located on outskirts far from the dense central conurbation and where commercial demands were low.
A partially lit asphalt path meandered through the park and street-lit spots of glittering illumination revealed a flat, open, waterlogged space topped by real grass and loosely dotted with oaks and beeches heavy with rainwater and which I only recognised from old vidumentaries.

Further up the path, through the rain we caught sight of a remote solitary light, dimmer and lower than the path’s own municipal street lighting. The path split as we drew closer, we took the branch that headed for the solitary light.
It led to a large square of ground fenced off by black painted concrete and steel three metre high railings. Through the gapsand rain streaked darkness we could make out stone headstones with obscured text situated at regular intervals in little plots: A cemetery, only green stretches of land like this had the appropriate space for actual cemeteries and even then, you still needed to be fantastically wealthy to get your patch of dirt.

Adjacent to the burial grounds we also spotted an old world styled panelled porchlight with a quietly humming old world styled filament bulb attached to what looked like an old world styled house. More than that, it looked real: Mostly we’d only ever seen low budget replicas with exterior walls constructed of moulded and painted sheets of toughened polymer.
Here, bricks looked real, so did the glass in old frames.  Ahead a real brass knocker hung on a seemingly wooden sun-faded cream coloured door with cracked and peeling colours.

The knocker produced a sharp ringing rap when used, we waited, an old man in a Ringstick sleeveless faux wool cardigan in light grey with white trim over a beige Avorukhclu shirt, navy chinos and diamond patterned Berryburr slippers wearing a tired, sad face answered: Fuji Koto.

Invited in from the rain, he sat us at a small granite topped kitchen table on high chairs and served us tea. While looking at us over thin rimmed half-moon glasses Fuji Koto explained that sixteen years ago, he’d been walking through the trees with Kuma, his wife, during the evening when the very air seemed to distort and buckle. Fuji Koto said that later he had learned from the GTTTT that it was a fold in reality. He went on, explaining that somehow aliens had been abducted through the distortion. After that he had relocated to Zoshigaya Park, building this house himself in the fashion of the old world to be close to where he had last seen Kuma.
Almost imperceptibly shaking his head, Fujo Koto admitted he still heard her voice all these years later.

We looked at Captain Noodles, he provided us with what passed for a feline shrug. The encounter had been over a decade ago and he could no longer determine whether it had been real or not.
There was nothing else to be gained from Fuji Koto and we left him to his memories.

---

​Caught the rail link again, rushed back to Hoppi Street and The Moistioned Palm. A light dotted midnight city skyline glimmered through water stained train windows while municipalities passed us in a blur, as we focused on the job. On the ride back, Koko ordered some neutral grey boiler suits for us from Orinoco. They were waiting for us at a collection point close to the hotel.

Rain never ended, nor did the neon driven clamour projecting from every barfront in view or jostling, lurching crowds deep into happy hour. Now wearing our Alicid branded boiler suits we bustled across the still packed Hoppi Street and into the side alley.
Doors were locked but not a problem for Koko.
Inside, out of the deluge, were service corridors and access routes, a warren of exposed concrete flooring and undecorated brickwork walls inadequately lit by regular but sparingly placed thin ceiling strip lights.

Had to walk fast and look like we belonged there. Unlikely to encounter anyone at this time especially since Yeager had given his crew the hour off but if we did, they would ask questions.
Yeager Malik had provided Koko detailed instructions which led us to a sub basement and the exact Turbo Encabulator panel he’d used to sabotage the system.
Pulling the service panel off, Koko revealed a square recession brimming with circuitry, wiring, piping and readouts flashing red.
“This is the one,” Koko said, leaning in and sweeping the interior with a flashlight.
The rest of us kept look out as she busied herself on the systems.

There were no interruptions, the work got done and we left without delay, no one was about in the service corridors and we got out. Not ideal to be here when Emir and his gang came on the scene.

---

Ninety minutes later, story hit the newsvines: Responding to reports of a major incident, Rentacop had rolled into The Moistened Palm to end a gunfight between rival street gangs that had left sixty-two seriously injured and fourteen dead.
Later reports indicated further fighting had broken out from the gangs at the Kyukyoku No Hospital in Sugamo Jizo Dori Street.

The next day, Yeager Malik called and thanked us. Explaining that the Flash Cartel had faced unexpectedly stiff resistance and taken significant losses during their failed power play.
He told us that Word had it Waka Kane was unscathed and the Ikebukuro Construction Gumi were now considering moving against The Flesh Cartel.

---

​Late breakfast: Paheheu Pops and Hechunai spider-goat milk dirtied by triple-shots Shiaikan whiskey. Morning buzz to take the edge of the day’s oncoming heat and later, crushing consumer press on the trams.
Only two names remained on the GTTTT database. Time to regroup and make some moves.

Neon City was in full swing, the conurbation’s unending background growl which had somewhat muted by the high-rise’s barely functional soundproofing now hit with maximum force as I walked on to Hikage Street.
Wage-monkeys were long gone for the day but Hikage still thrummed with burnt dead-enders, side glancing malcontents and the unemployed which pretty much described everyone on Hikage.
They haunted the usual corners, caught in surly conversion - the only human contact they had - and occasionally descending into brief dust-ups or sluggishly prowled between ground level retailers without much hope.

Punctuating this on a semi-regular basis were the rattling, grinding elevated trams that sped past, cloudless blue-white sky reflecting off the dust stained windows in bright, painful flashes. Odorous wispish white tendrils billowed off brightly coloured street vendor carts as they loudly hawked their Syntheef dogs and burgers at commuters from the line’s numerous support struts.

Hikage Street’s residential tower clusters shrank over the horizon as a short crammed ride took us into Shibuya Terminal and the vast public transport hub grew to dominate the eastern view.
Our corporate access was still good and the monorail took us to Shinjuku-cho and from there to Kabukicho.

The district was well known for its red-light district. Beyond the usual shops and hospitalities drenched in flashing neon and were rows of love hotels, clubs, massage parlours and more that populated lively streets and back alleys which even in daylight, sizzled with garish fluorescents, overlit shopfronts and animated advertising slabs on every free space all promising to deliver whatever kick clients could imagine and at any given hour, there was no shortage of those clients.

Saba Jinsky’s address could be found beyond the district outskirts where its coruscating neon glare had morphed into reddish hazy light pollution that seeped into the near horizon.
Another anonymous grey ferroconcrete residential block.
Punched the doorbell and waited, Saba Jinsky answered, a youngish woman with dark hair and a heart shaped face in her early thirties was dressed in casual plain slacks and an oversized blousey apricot and lime pinstripe shirt.
Once we had told Saba Jinsky we were affiliated with the GTTTT, she was happy to invite us into her pretty standard looking one-bed.
Saba Jinsky told us that she had been drawn to the GTTTT membership with its stories of extraterrestrial interactions and was adamant that aliens must inhabit the dark side of the moon. She was currently crowdfunding a private space flight to the Cantor Crater.
When asked, Saba told us that she had so far raised thirty-four bits for the mission but was hopeful for the billions required to fund the mission…

Wasn’t any need to get Captain Noodles to check Saba Jinsky for contact, by her own admittance she had never had the kind of encounter we were searching out.
Wishing her good luck with her funding, we went on our way.

---

​Pounding midday sunlight poured on to the bristling, gaudy retail thoroughfares of Kabukicho. Unending, punishing temperature never dissuaded Neon City citizens from hitting the streets. Navigating through the heaving bodies only exacerbated the heat until we reached the shade of the corrugated steel-walled elevated stop for the tram.
Last name on the GTTTT database meant a ride to Asakusa-cho. Fortunately, it was one stop over to Shinjuku Station, from there the high speed rail link would take us directly to the Sky Tree.

The rail link was pretty much the reserve of low-level execs and was, at this time of the day mostly empty. Rows of unused faux leather seating were in abundance, a situation we took advantage of.
Pronounced acceleration tugged us into the deeply upholstered seats as the train pulled out. Active suspension, soundproofing and functional climate control all so lacking on the tram network made this ride a smooth one. The glass-clad multi-tiered Shinjuku Station rapidly slid into the vanishing point while we watched the changing cityscape silently streak past.
The densely clustered grimy sprawl of Kabukicho gave way to the more measured towers and highrises of The Sky Tree.

From kilometres away the enormous Shinkansen Link could be seen stretching above the skyline and out of sight. At first an indistinct murky silhouette behind the hazy smog, then coalescing into a solid definable technologically colossus that bridged the gap to its geosynchronous anchor on the Glitterband.

We emerged on to the busy streets surrounding the link, both foot and sky traffic was heavy. Commercial ventures that supported or profited off the Sky Tree were numerous here as was the volume of cargo haulers and taxis flying in and out of the planetside anchor like angry robotic wasps buzzing around an enormous cylindrical nest.
The gargantuan structure itself inexplicably and constantly sat on the periphery of my vision, endlessly vying for my attention.

A densely packed collection of residential highrises nestled in a concrete park on one of the district’s closeby housing zones. Usually they would’ve posed an impressive sight but against the link, they were trivially small.
In one of those highrises was Rasi Fyeva, last name on the database.
Some searching and we found the address.

Rasi Fyeva was an octogenarian with short steel grey hair shot through with the vestiges of colour, she wore a fading maroon coloured casual sweatsuit that would have been fashionable decades ago.
Once she had been told who we were and what we were looking for, Rasi Fyeva was content to tell us what she recalled of her experiences.
Rasi Fyeva had memories of long ago, spending time living underwater with who she believed were aliens. Questioning revealed those memories were blurry and indistinct with numerous large holes, she couldn’t give much further detail on the events but told that she’s been unable to eat fish ever since.
Captain Noodles was unable to provide us with any further insight into the veracity of Rasi’s statement since this had occurred decades ago.
There was no more information to be gained.

With the last name on the GTTTT database interviewed, nothing was left to follow up and early afternoon had rolled by the time we got back to Hikage Street.
A good time to hit the local bars for an extended drinking session.