Ghosts in the Machine -Cyberpunk SRP

[Third Magus]

Re-entry the world of the flesh was always a shock, and these days it seemed to be getting harder. Everything was so dull, so hard and grey back there. Marcus wrenched at the VR suckers on his forehead, ripping them away from his forehead with feverish haste. Hell of a way to treat valuable equipment.

The ansaphone was blinking an evil red eye at him across his darkened apartment. Marcus knew who was calling him and didn't want to hear it all right now. He'd get a cup of coffee, maybe try and cheer himself up with a few ounces of something fun and illegal. Then he'd listen to the ghosts on the machine.

He stared at himself in the dim reflection of the window, backlit by dancing neon. His hair was brown and too short, shaved and clipped to allow the VR suckers purchase on his skin. His eyes were jade green, and currently sunk and shadowed. He looked like he hadn't a decent night's sleep in weeks.

As a matter of fact, Marcus had been using Sleep, the new designer drug for corp execs too busy to sleep, for the last few weeks. Looks like it doesn't work as advertised.

He walked outside, headed for the cafe three storeys below his apartment. The door slid automatically locked behind him.




OOC: Feel free to make up some appropriately cyberpunkish character and just jump in

 

[Third Magus]

The payphone by the counter rang as he passed it. Without even thinking, Marcus reached over and picked it up.

'Marcussssss'. Jake's voice. Marcus sometimes wished he'd never killed the bastard.

There were other voices on the phone, distant and fragmentary. Marcus thought he heard a child's voice in the background.

'Please, won't someone help me? It's cold in here, and dark'

'Leave me alone', said Marcus into the reciever. 'You're not my ghosts'

It had happened, in the first few years of the Great Web. Shoody equipment and careless use had killed people online, fried their bodies where they sat. Their digital VR forms remained floating there, in the network, with some little pieces of of their owners' minds left inside them. Ghosts in the machine.

They tended to converge around frequent Net users like Marcus, tracing his phone line and making frantic desperate calls, as though they had something they wanted to say. The first few times it happened, Marcus would sit up all night to talk to them, listening to their repetitive, idiot words. Wondering what they wanted. Nowadays he tried to ignore them.

And then there was always Jake. Jake was the only one of them who knew his name. Who Marcus had known. Who Marcus had killed...

He got a coffee at the bar, feeling the warmth of the paper cup in his hand like it was salvation

 

[vbabe2001]

Codename: Bunny

Status On The Web: Voyager...

- The door to the bar swung open and the black haired woman strolled in. She tugged on the leather of her black fingerless gloves and caught a glimpse of the boy seating at the bar with a coffee. She strolled up to him and sat on the vacant seat, her black onyx eyes catching the bartender's gaze -

Guy: "Bunny Celestrial, didn't figure you would be here for a long time, the usual?"

- She smirked a characteristic smile and nodded, in a moment a tall Kahula was set in front of her. She flipped him a silver coin and turned to Marcus -

"If you sulk anymore that coffee is going to go stale... "

http://cfgemini.homestead.com/files/bunsbuns.bmp

 

[Third Magus]

Marcus blinked.

'Keeps me awake anyway', he muttered. He cast a sidelong look at the woman, his eyes sullen and suspicious.

'Do I know you?'

 

[vbabe2001]

- Bunny sideglanced Marcus and shook her head -

"You hear the voices don't you? You hear them calling out in vain and pity, begging for help.... ?"

- Her black onyx eyes stared at the reflection which had cascaded through the dark liquid -

"But have you ever been one of them?"

http://cfgemini.homestead.com/files/bunnysig2.jpg

 

[Third Magus]

Marcus hesitated for a long time.

'I hear them all time. I've tried blocking my phone-line from them, but they always use a different address'

His laugh was on the edge of hysteria.

'I even disconnected the line once, but without it, I can't go online, and I need to do that. I just wish they'd be quiet, even for a few hours, so I could rest awhile'

He stared at her, taking in the darkness of her eyes.

'But I've never been one. Who... what are you?'

 

[vbabe2001]

"I was one of them"

- She smirked as she looked at him, tucking a loose ebony black hair behind her ear -

"But I escaped.... "

- She looked around at the others in the bar -

"But here is not the best place to talk about it.. perhaps we should go back to my place?"

http://cfgemini.homestead.com/files/bunnysig2.jpg

 

[Third Magus]

Marcus' mouth went dry. 'There's a way out?'. The voices of the children lost forever in the dark. 'Tell me about it! You have to tell me about it!'

He realised he'd grabbed her wrist, and let go hurriedly.

'Sorry. Your place'. He gulped a last mouthful of the coffee, and then stood.

 

[vbabe2001]

- Bunny's eyes widened as he grabbed her wrist, had he had not let go in the hurry she would of snapped it away from him. She had never been touched.. never.. she came from the inside, and now someone had wanted to know her story. She however, grabbed onto his hand and pulled him into the woman's washroom -

"You want my place? My place is inside "

- She mused and pointed towards the mirror. It appeared to be normal, until she walked up to and literally.. placed her hand through it. It turned to silver liquid up to her wrist until she turned to him and extended her hand to his -

"You must trust me Marcus"

- She grabbed onto his hand and pulled him in with her, climbing over the sink they entered the mirror and in a moment they were surronded by a silver liquid, but they could breath.. and they could move, but they couldn't talk..

Until they reached.. -her- place. It looked like a normal room, a chair, a couch, a bed, a futon. Just a normal room with one single mirror and a computer.

She smiled softly and sat down on the futon, waiting for him to take it all in -

"Welcome to my world Marcus, welcome to the other side"

http://cfgemini.homestead.com/files/bunnysig2.jpg

 

[Third Magus]

Marcus moved his hand through the silver liquid, feeling it flow against his skin, his eyes wide, then turned to face the room again, noting Bunny sitting on the futon, her dark eyes intent on him.

'What is this place? Who are you?'

 

[vbabe2001]

"This is my world, the parrell universe between heaven and hell, earth and the net, reality and non reality.. And I am sure I told you who I was already, I am Bunny... "

- She kicked her leg over the arm of the futon, it dangling against the material -

"This room is my imagination, the mirror is the portal to your world and the computer is the portal to the alternate reality.. to those voices you hear... to the children... "

- Bunny leaned back, closing her eyes as she recalled how she had come to be apart of both worlds -

"I wasn't satisfied with being trapped, I wasn't allowing the restrictions of that world to cage me like some helpless animals... I was created with power and influence.. I was brought into this life by a wish from a little girl..."

 

[Third Magus]

'Incredible', breathed Marcus. He sat down beside Bunny, and stared at her.

'Does this mean there's a way? To free the ghosts in the machine?'

 

[vbabe2001]

"Maybe not all of them... but the ones who have the dream, the ones who aren't completly lost... yes"

- She looked at him with a slight smirk, running her silky tongue over her lips -

"Why do you want to free them?"

 

[Third Magus]

Marcus drew closer to Bunny, running a hand absently along her arm. Her skin was so soft...

'Because I hear them all the time. They don't seem to bother anyone else, but I can't sleep at night thinking about them. I once had a ..., well he wasn't really a friend, but he was someone I knew, and I left him in there to die, because of things he was planning to do'

His face was tormented.

'I just think I could rest, finally, if I knew the ghosts were freed'

 

[vbabe2001]

- She looked at him and at his hand on her arm, with a smile her uniform changed and now she was in a slick pleather cat suit.. it formed to her petite body like a second skin and showed off most of her .. primitive.. features... -

" What if I told you I knew him? What if I told you Jake made friends with me on the other side? What would you say to that Marcus?"

- She smirked as her eyes drew down his body and suddenly he was strapped tight to a flat cast iron bed, restraints holding his wrists and his ankles against the cold sheet metal...

With a snap of her fingers she held the handle to a leather whip, her eyes drifting to the corner of the room as she called his name.. -

"Jjjjjaaakkkkkeee, Jaakkkkkeeee, come out come out whereever you are..."

http://cfgemini.homestead.com/files/bunnysig2.jpg

 

[Third Magus]

OOC: arrghh... post got eaten


Marcus struggled, cursing the bonds. He screamed desperately at Bunny.

'Don't you know that Jake will betray you too!? Everything he touches turns to shit. He can't help it. Why the fuck do you think I killed him!?'

 

[vbabe2001]

- Bunny slapped him, hard across the face -

"Shut up Marcus! Jake loves me, I won't believe what you say! You want to know why the voices call to you? Its because they want to hurt you Marcus, they want you to hurt for hurting Jake!"

*SNAP!*

- The harsh snapping sound of her whip sliced across his chest as she waited for Jake to come at her command. Her tongue ran across her lips as she circled him, like a vulture circling its prey -

 

[poohlive]

It is like a dream, when your inside. There are downloads, realtime conjectures where the pixal graphs are so delectable, and the visual aspect so real, it is hard to know that copper wires hooked up to your brain are forcing these images.
They look real, they resemble reality, but they are nothing more than hundreds of different tones travelling through millions of miles of wiring that runs like water under the city streets.
At times, Dan never wanted to leave. There were times in the beginning where he would set up whole weekends to just be inside, to live the reality of it all, to play in his own little wonderland, without anyone else.
Truly, he lived unlike any other.
It was a dream, one he never wanted to wake up from.
One he never did wake up from.
Inside the world net had hooked him, brought him through. One simple crash and a few failed safety systems had fried his body, killing him instantly, and leaving him stranded within the world.
He didn't believe it at first, didn't understand. Dan went on downloading and looking at images, trying to find new games to play, new people to talk to, and new porn to look at.
Some things never change.
It was when he tried to get back again, tried to ease back into his familiar restrictions. His body was a restriction, compared to the ease of the net, the freeness of everything within a mere thought of his grasp, and then reality, where the concept of touch, hearing, sight, all limits him in ways the net never can.
The ease of getting back to his body never happened. The server had been cut, and he was left inside, without a way out.
No one understood how it happened, no one could figure it out. The soul needs the body to live, but when it comes to copper wires, anything is possible.
His body, deceased. Dan, deceased. He no longer called himself that, because he was no longer that. Dan was a human, with human feelings, and human words, and a body that stopping living a few years ago. Dan died.
He was now Cell. A singular entity within the net with no ties to the real world.
He lived only in limbo, between downloads, inside message boards, his breath the spark of electricity, his nourishment the uploading of a page.
He was Cell.
Cell tried desperately for help. He contacted the heads of the net, trying with all his might to get them to help him, ease his trouble, in the very least free him from this existence. They could do nothing, they tried, the first few months were spent in research to understand this weird phenominon. After a while, they simply stopped.
They ignored him, thinking it was nothing more than a prank, or a ghost in the machine...
He was not a ghost in the machine, he was Cell.
Whatever kind of existance this was, he now lived it, now attempted to relieve himself through a suffering which no human has posessed before.