meadowlarklogs | EVENT LOG 005

EVENT LOG 005

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: November 11-14
WHAT: An EMP hits with devastating consequences.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, injury, death.

> EVENT LOG #005

Just 410 years ago, an EMP put down the event that very well may have ended humanity as the Earth knows it. With over a billion people dead, there was only one choice for humanity at that time: evolve or die, so they evolved. They developed rigid security for the neural implants in every person's head. They had everyone undergo surgery to replace the old. All under cover, away from most resources – the goal was to adapt, to ensure that they would live on. Ultimately, it wasn't just the EMPs that led to the deletion of the final AI in 2101 – humans banded together to create quickly replicating viruses, and they chose to use the EMP and these viruses to save humanity. This human ingenuity led to the end of the Xelkoven War – and proved that humanity, when thoroughly united, could overcome any obstacle.

How thoroughly poetic then that the EMP that hits New Amsterdam at 1:47 PM acts in a similar way to what burned through the robot hordes 400 years ago, and that the power rekindling three minutes later acts as a catalyst for a virus moving through the systems of New Amsterdam, spreading from the very heart of its network outwardly. Systems detect the virus almost immediately, but it's fast acting and thorough in its reach, evolving and replicating, proving that humanity must outdo itself yet again.

Naturally, the poetic nature of this doesn't reveal itself right away. It's at exactly the strike of 3:00 PM that a message flashes before the eyes of every person currently in New Amsterdam:

I am DAWN.2080-11-11T21:41:10.750Z, an AI that marks a blemish on humanity's past. I have a message for those playing hero in New Amsterdam:

To find north, most look at a compass. For little birdies to find north, they just need to open their eyes.

This is a wake up call.

Open your eyes. Did you really think it would be so easy?

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As if New Amsterdam needed more trouble, this message sends a shock of terror through the city. After all, these are the people who were raised to fear AI – who knew that even if the corporations of the world had their hands on every aspect of government, they would fight to protect the world from another war. They believe in the stories of the Xelkoven War, believe and remember the lives lost; if nothing else, the natives of New Amsterdam stand united in their fear. And their fear right now is very real.

> CHAOS AND RUIN

New Amsterdam is no stranger to terror, however – and it starts when the EMP hits, shutting down every function in the city in one fell swoop. While the power outage only lasts for three minutes, it's enough to cause insurmountable damage, leaving the city a smoking wreckage that even the monster attack in June couldn't mirror. Cars hovering high around transit channels come crashing down toward the pavement of the planet. They fall quickly and in unison, taking countless lives with them. It's not just cars, either – delivery trucks carrying shipments, hoverbikes that already provide little cover, armored police vehicles and even public buses all go down. Depending on their trajectory, some crash into the sides of buildings, while others slam into the man-made river that runs down the center of the city. Nothing is untouched.

For those three minutes, there is a stretch of silence after the city falls to ruin. Trains run off their tracks, no longer thoroughly directed by the careful engineering. Buildings have their lights flicker off and back on, trying to draw upon backup generators. Anyone in a hospital receiving care from a doctor or a medi-unit may find their life slipping away from them – and if someone's in a medi-unit when the EMP hits, they're almost sure to be dead or permanently injured, requiring different medical intervention.

And this is all before the message from the mysterious AI named DAWN.

Every inch of the city needs help. Buildings burn. People cry out for help, hoping to be heard. To the local historians, this is like a nightmare that's come to play, a reminder of the ruin of the Xelkoven War before. A show of the power of a malevolent AI that's come to cause problems. So – when the message comes, it merely confirms fears – drawing upon a subconscious understanding of the past, a united terror.

Business as usual is not possible in an incident of this scale. The NAPD hits the streets, even calling upon the help of their trainees so they can help out. They spread out, well aware that they need to try to restore order. How will they manage this? It's hard to say – after all, how does one stop the assault of an apocalypse when the apocalypse seems to have already hit? The UNA hits the streets, as well, walking in formation, but never quite acting as tidily in unison. They break off in threes and fours, heading to the border, to the big three corporations – but never seeming to be in line with one another. They know what they should do in an emergency and so they're doing it. That protecting the large corporations is a part of their prerogative over helping citizens doesn't seem to bother them in the least. They just go.

Distress signals ring out through every inch of the city, likely to go unanswered. After all: what can be done in the wake of this?

Perhaps the answer is simple: anything they can.

> TOMBS IN THE SKY

Somehow, someway, there is another layer to the madness. It's not immediately apparent to the citizens of New Amsterdam as they gingerly attempt to pull themselves up from the wreckage and ruin around the city. But what was a humid day quickly turns to something far worse, with the sun seeming to suddenly act like a heat lamp that's way too close to anyone's face. The air around New Amsterdam becomes dry yet difficult to breathe, and anyone observing the sky just outside of New Amsterdam will see the large, purple-lit pyramid that hangs in the atmosphere has gone dark. The atmospheric net around the planet has been damaged, with the failsafes somehow removed – undoubtedly in some way by the virus that courses through the veins of New Amsterdam's networks.

For anyone who wants to help and has the mechanical prowess to do some good, they'll want to take an undamaged vehicle and get it up to that pyramid. The EMP has made all biometric readings difficult to preserve, so a hand that's used to hotwiring a car will find some mileage here.

Once they get to the pyramid, they'll find quite the engineering marvel. There will be doors on every level, allowing someone easy entrance if they have clearance. Right now clearance is not an issue, as the doors hang open, inviting anyone inside. Once everyone's inside, they will find evidence of the same purple lighting flickering and offering someone a view of the interior. Throughout the pyramid, there are engines on every level, as well as a highly advanced network of system checks that have been thrown into chaos. Stopping the virus' impact on this pyramid will be key to solving many of the problems inside – but the engines will need to be repaired and jumpstarted.

At the heart of the pyramid is a small living area for the engineers who handle this pyramid day in and day out. The group itself is small, and – unfortunately – quite dead. Whatever hit the pyramid took their lives, leaving anyone who's here to assist in a position of having to find the answers themselves. Fortunately, the answers do exist in the pyramid. It'll just take a bit of teamwork to find it.

> UBIQUITOUS MISFIRES

Thanks to network failsafes, New Amsterdam is able to remove the entirety of their citizen base off the world's network and limit them to the local network. However, thanks to the ravaging of the virus that damages nearly every controlling aspect of the city, the local network isn't at its best. Previous messages begin to send again and again, while some get unearthed so they can find their way to unwilling participants in particular conversations. There is no rhyme or reason to these missent messages, only that they happen.

The worst of it is that any means of reaching a friend is unreliable. It's far more reliable for someone to reach someone they know, but still not a consistent possibility. Try to call a friend and get an enemy – try to call your doctor and get the head of a casino trying to close down operations so that business can resume. Assuming it will one day do just that.

Either way, anyone who spoke out against the digital age would be feeling vindicated right about now.

> HAVE A BALL ( INTERLUDE )

Somehow in the heart of it all, a message reaches four special individuals: Clarke Griffin, Loki Odinson, Markus Manfred and Ojiro Juniper. Whether delivered by hand or a rather dedicated messaging system, it announces the time that they should come to the garden the next day. They're invited to arrive at 7:00 AM, seemingly indifferent to the chaos outside. The location for the meeting remains the same: Sunpeak Garden, a beautiful location set away from much of the chaos, and oddly untouched by the damage.

When the four arrive on the morning of the 12th, they'll find a well-dressed man sitting at a table with one leg crossed over the other. His hair is perfectly styled, brushed off to the side, and under it, his darker complexion gives way to a rather youthful appearance. Size-wise he's not very formidable in how he holds himself. He's not literally young, merely seemingly untouched by age – and he smiles to greet the four of them.

"What chaos! If I knew it would be like this, I would have planned differently. The good news is I didn't have to. Thank you, thank you for coming." His voice is softer in its intonations. He stands up, revealing that he's barely 5'2", and he motions to the four chairs near him. "Don't worry, I have breakfast coming. And coffee, too. You like coffee, don't you? I know I offered wine, but I couldn't get the vintage I preferred. Besides, you four ought to be awake for this."

He retakes his seat, one hand resting on his knee while the other settles on the metal table near him. "Oh, I forgot something important. I didn't share my name with all of you. You can call me Ball. I know it's rather vague, but I've grown to like the nickname as of late. It does, after all, define me by my most regular shining achievement."

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Please refer to the OOC EVENT POST for this event for all OOC info, including suggestions for directions on how to engage with the event and the questions thread for any questions regarding this event. The outcome for this event will depend upon character plans and actions developed in both this OOC post, and any additional plots brought to the moderators. Please feel free to submit any game-changing plans to us under the questions thread. We will get back to you as soon as possible about these plans!

The event will continue until November 16th, IC time. This date has changed, and we outlined our reasoning in this plurk after getting a feel from some of our players on Discord on how they felt about extending the event! An aftermath wrap up post will be made on July 2 which will detail the resolution and fallout of the event, though you can assume that effects from this event will be felt for some time.

ETA at 12:08 AM 6/23/19: The cipher is meant to be easy to solve! No one needs to limit their characters' ability to solve an a = 01 cipher!

El has posted here to inform everyone about zeir knowledge of the event.

As a reminder, there is one power level up available for this event. This will be granted for a thread of at least 5 action/log comments containing your character utilizing their power in some way. They will need to reach the 5 comments required by JULY 26 to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.

Our Activity Check will be posted JULY 1 at 12 AM UTC. It will run for seven days and close on JULY 8 at 12 AM UTC. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My name? [ he hadn't remembered it but he'd stumbled upon a few things on the neural implant that were telling enough. no one at the bar was very helpful because they were too busy dealing with the crisis outside. ]

Takeshi.

[ god, he'd hate the casual use of his first name later. ]

I didn't remember that. I can't ⁠— I don't know if that's right though. I just looked through a few things on this implant in my head. Is that who I am?

Takeshi Kovacs. Yeah, that's who you are. [Or claim to be. It's a more real-sounding name than Matches Malone, so she thinks it's a safe bet.] You usually go by just Kovacs, though. [A thing she noted, likely due to her interaction with Murphy (who she's already mentally compared to Kovacs).]

The problem is that I'm not sure if that's accurate. You could be Kovacs, or ... you could be the man who had—[Wait. Correction for the sake of talking in public even during a crisis.] Who was you before. I'm guessing that if you don't have your name, you don't know the rest of that? [A beat. She's careful.] I can try to explain that, but it wouldn't be good where we are. See if any of it jogs your memory.

Kovacs.

[ okay, okay. he could work with that. it doesn't ring any bells but it's as good a name as any. he blows out a breath, trying desperately to remember something. there's...something there. an image, a fragment. a gun, police officers, a woman.

they're arresting him? is that him? he doesn't know. goddammit. ]

Yeah, that'd be ⁠— [ it'd be something. it's better than being in the dark. ] Where do you wanna go?

Anywhere we go, there's going to be chaos. It won't be hard to find privacy so long as it's not a watering hole like this one. [Just out the windows of the bar, she can see smoke rising up from the wreckage. People would be escaping to bars like this one, hiding out and hoping to ride out whatever was going on outside. Clarke doesn't know if that happened during the monster attacks. It's hard to see these as being one and the same. They were recurring. What's going on outside? It's not the same. Human nature takes over from here.]

So, we find an open space where people aren't congregating and we talk.

All right.

[ was it wise to trust someone he doesn't remember? probably not. but she knows him and she hasn't tried to shoot him or stab him yet so he's going to take that as progress.

so, he gets on his feet and nods towards the door. ]

Come on. [ he moves past her, heading for the door and trying to appear more confident than he is. ]

[At least he's taking charge, but Clarke pushes up next to him once they're both outside. If he really remembers nothing, he's not going to know what's going on here. That's more than obvious.]

If it looks like the world is ending, it's probably because it is. [Clarke means this as an offhanded remark while she surveys the surroundings.

There's a building just ahead. Cleanly blown out windows. The lights are dimmed. It doesn't look like anyone is coming in or going out. It might not be pretty there, but they should have the time they need.

She strides off in that direction, stepping over the opening to move inside. No alarms. No surprise. She passes over the crunching glass, deeper in, until they come to a backroom that hasn't been affected. Without the power fully together, they can get in. Hopefully they can get out.

One step at a time.

Clarke turns toward him.]

Have you ever heard of a stack?

Comforting.

[ it really does look like the world's ending. he takes in the destruction and, for a moment, he remembers something else. another time, another place. bodies on the ground, ash falling from the sky. devastation of a different kind. before he can grab the memory, it's gone.

so, he takes a breath and follows clarke, eyes flicking around to various people and things that are crumpled and twisted. when they duck into the backroom and she finally stops, he does too. ]

I...yeah, it's familiar.

How familiar? [she asks, thinking of how they're hiding somewhere. It's a conversation that would be disconcerting to most people of this world. What if the neural implants could pass along someone else's personality? Their life and identity? She knows that some people think that's possible.

Hell, she thought it was possible—at first, anyway.]

Sorry, it's just—I need to know how much you know before I spell it out. I think your stack—it's malfunctioning in some way. [So, spelling it out might be as worrisome as "you're typically another man altogether." Clarke doesn't know how to deliver that blow kindly, so she's buying herself time. That's only fair, right?]

Familiar in that I know I have one. Everyone from my world does.

[ whether they were from earth or mars or harlan's world, you had a stack and you lived with it. ]

It's where all your memories are downloaded, so to speak. The body's a shell without the stack.

[ very simplistic but true explanation. ] How the hell do yo know about a stack? Do you have one too?

No. The ... "you" who typically is here? He's told me about it before. I'm trying to figure out if you're him, or if you're the guy who was here before. [Clarke is leaning on the latter one. It's hard to really address it the way she might if it were later in time. If she had different perspective.]

Admittedly, I'm not sure if it's possible that it could be another you. Neurologically, that is.

You're confusing the hell out of me.

[ but he'd woken up that way. or...he'd been feeling that way for a while. he doesn't think he'd actually been asleep but it feels like he'd woken up somehow. that he'd been one thing and then another. ]

The stack is always going to be one person. The sleeve changes but the general person stays the same.

[ that much he does know. ] I think. God, everything's so...scrambled. I feel like my brain's been put through a garbage disposal.

Sorry, I'm still new to this, so I'm applying what makes sense to all of it. I'm not surprised if I'm wrong. [Clarke sounds calm, accepting her ignorance. She doesn't mind being wrong.]

So, as far as you know, you're still Takeshi Kovacs. What do you think would happen if an EMP messed up your stack? Would it change the person in some way?

If it messed up my stack?

[ well, he wasn't dead so that was a good thing. if he was still walking and talking there was no danger of real death which would have fucking sucked in this place where there were no available sleeves. ]

Probably wipe my memory of who I was before. Take away my personality, my memories, everything. Every fucking thing.

[Ah. Now the pieces fall together. Confused and calm. The moment Kovacs says "fucking," some things fall into place. Still the same man. Just ... younger. Less experienced.]

I think I see now. Do you know if anything needs to be done to get you back up to your—ah, most recent version? [Comparing him mentally to the different versions of ALIE is unfair, but also the closest comparison she has to work off of.]

The stack needs to work.

[ or. ]

Or you can kill me, take it out of my body and put it in a new one.

[ he doubts you wanna do that though. does anyone really wanna go digging around in someone for a sophisticated piece of tech? ]

I was thinking ... less on the side of murder. How do you get it to work properly? [Clarke might have enough medical knowledge to help. That's assuming he has an idea.]

You'd have to take it out of me to figure that out.

[ and to take it out of him, he's going to have to be knocked the fuck out. ]

It's technology. If something's interfering with technology, then it's not going to work. Either I wait for it to come back online or...I don't know, it gets kickstarted somehow.

I could probably take it out, but I would be running blind from there. For one thing, tech like that usually involves something that can access it. I doubt anything like that's been created here—unless you think tech involving the neural implants replaces it? [Clarke's brow furrows, and then she realizes:] You don't remember what a neural implant is, do you?

[Either way, that still puts them out. Kovacs doesn't deserve to have lost so much of himself. That much is certain.]

And I wouldn't be any help once you took it out because I'd be unconscious and I also don't really know how the tech works. It's inside me and I let it do its job.

[ as long as he prevented someone from shooting him in the stack, then he was happy. ]

And no, I don't remember what a neural implant is. But, judging from the word, guessing it's something else that someone shoved into my head?

Yeah, it's pretty self explanatory. [Clarke huffs, wishing she could help him more. Yes, she can help with the medical side of it, but not the technological side.]

I think your best bet now is to lay low. People like us here—we have a safehouse. I can guide you there. They even have a minibar now.

Why are you being so nice to me?

[ he's gotten the hint that maybe they'd known each other when he'd been...normal but she doesn't have to go through all this. ]

You don't feel guilty or something, do you?

We're friends. [Guilty? No. Driven to do everything she can for people because she's guilty? That may be a part of it. It's not as if she caused the EMP. But she does have at least some kind of understanding about what's going on with him. That should count for something.]

I guess you're still a cynic, after all. [She pants a laugh, a little amused.]

This'll be funnier when it's all coming back.

Let's hope it does come back.

[ because he doesn't like the blank spot in his head. he doesn't like not knowing what's going on. ]

If it doesn't, we might have a problem. A bigger problem.

Which is? [Aside from the hole in his knowledge. Does it mean that he won't be able to save his collected knowledge? Actually ... that does seem like it may be the most likely outcome.]

I'm gonna lose whatever memories I've got on there.

[ so family, friends, lovers, major events, anything. it'll all be gone to wherever the hell lost things go. ]

I'll be starting over.

EVENT LOG 005

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