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 Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:40 am
An area ran by some of the most vicious crime syndicates of G.E.A.R.B.O.L.T. The residents live by a code of silence, the same code of silence that forbids the from betraying their comrades to the authorities. The penalty for transgression is death, and relatives of the turncoat may also be murdered. To a degree, it also imposes this code on the general population, persecuting any citizen who aids the authorities. The district consists of many average to small sized buildings. Basically fitting for the higher middle class of G.E.A.R.B.O.L.T. Many meta-tech upgrades are also done done in Low-Gear, which is probably the result of those cybermeta-tech enhanced mages running about this area.
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:11 pm
 Hone;;
Hone was sleeping behind a dumpster in alley next to some restaurant, he didn't have to sleep, but it was just a habit he had gained. He quickly opened his eyes when someone slammed cars door or trunk and after a while he slowly got up and moved his eyes to the busy streets, noticing that it was morning again, a morning of another booring hide-and-seek game. He walked to the streets he was glaring. "Why am I even hiding anymore..?" He wondered as he yawned. He kept his steady pace while looking around himself. The streets weren't that crowdy 'cause people were scared of the mob, so it was easy to see everything around him. "I should just run away from here, gearbolt, but it's impossible with this face", Hone said outloud, halfly mocking himself. He moved his eyes to the sky, not seeing a single bird among the tall buildings and big adverts.
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:54 pm
 As Mirg drove through the streets of Low-Gear, he would find that a rather peculiar figure hiding near the dumpster. Of course he was a stern man by the line of work he was in, however he wasn't a heartless man. And he cared munch for the citizens well being. That was what he fought for. A true patriot. Closing the door, he walked over to the young fellow that hid amongst the pile. "And what are we doing laying about here. Are you from around here?" But as he got closer his question was answered by what he saw. The man was more machine than anything. Probably too many synthetic enhancements added to his body. Either way he was still a citizen. "Are you in need of any shelter and what section of town are you from? And do you have any family?" Were the most important questions Mirg needed to know from the android in order to help him find his way.
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:22 pm
Kale had searched high and low for an android he was sent to capture but to no avail. He walked down the streets of District Eight in normal civilian clothes since he was just looking for the android for the moment.It was easy to disguise himself since he never really care for any distinguishing features about himself. He wore a skull cap over his head as to not show his hair or lack-there-of for his stroll.
Kale wore a gray mussel shirt and baggy cargo pants. He also wore regular blue walking shoes with the bottoms of his pants sagging over the top of the shoes and dragging slightly at the heel. His eyes constantly searched around as he grew ever bored of the job he was given.
"Why, oh why do I have to get the boring stuff. I mean come on couldn't I get a better job than someone's errand boy," Kale grumbled out as he passed a restaurant that he had frequented while he was in Gearbolt. He noticed a man standing next to a dumpster looking at something beside it. He was generally curious as to why the well-dressed man was talking to or whom he was talking to. Acting tired and frustrated, which he was the latter, he propped himself against a wall near enough to the well-dressed man to hear the conversation. He dropped his head and sighed trying to act the part he chose to play should the man notice his presence.
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:41 pm
A place like Low-Gear is like a library in progress. Thousands of stories packed into one place, every one of them still being written. And every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Some stories are pretty much all middle, like the rotund man working in a garage-like space for a certain fairly well-off Electronic Escort rental business.
"Man, a degree in robotics and here I am repairing love-dolls. Ma'd be so goddamn proud if she could see this, rest her bloody cast-iron soul."
Then he turns to the machine he's working on and adds, "On the other hand, these things are works of art in themselves."
The figure before him is obviously high-end machinery. The skin of the doll is removed except for the skin of the head from the neck up and the skin of the hands from the mid-forearm down. Everything else is white plastic panels, pink silicone padding, and gleaming chrome understructure. These dolls are designed to be attractive and functional with or without the skin, because hey, some customers are into the robot look. On the doll's head are the rabbit ears and appliances that are the trademark of this brand of Electronic Escorts. On racks along the wall are a good dozen models in for various repairs, tagged as ready to resume service, or waiting on parts.
The unit in front of him is for the last repairs of the day. He always saves the routine CPU reformatting for the end, because it's easier than chassis work and mechanical repairs. A half-dozen drives are scheduled for their monthly reformat, and you just dock 'em in the hot-swap dock, run the cleaner on 'em, then initialize them in any working unit to orient them to the dolls' standard on-board routines. All of the stuff like locomotion routines and bio-sim algorithms are held in hardwired on-board memory. The CPU/drive package is for custom programming, and for temporary memory.
After the last drive is initialize he takes it out of the unit's back, from the compartment partially covered by white plastic shoulderblade forms, and slots it on the rack in front of him with the other ready-to-go CPUs. Not even bothering to close up the tester unit's compartment panel, he leaves by an alley door and secures it with a padlock.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other stories have reached their end, like that of the nervous little man who clutches this same padlock an hour later. With deft fingers he manipulates slivers of metal in its keyhole.
"C'mon baby, open up for daddy..." *click*
"Beautiful."
He slips into the darkened workshop with a small sleek black metal box under his arm. He has no idea what it is. The only thing he knows is that he stole it and the mob wants it. If he has it on him when they catch up to him, he knows he's dead, but if he stashes it maybe he can bargain for his life, if not a profit.
He sees the open compartment of the test doll, looks at the box, shrugs, and closes it in. "Damn, I'll hafta stow her too so I know which one's it in!"
He drags the Electronic Escort into the gloom between two large horizontal tanks and pushes it deep with his foot. Surprisingly enough, despite his technical ignorance he remembers seeing on a documentary show that these tanks would be filled with pre-mixed protein solution for the dolls to manufacture their own pseudoskin from internal reservoirs.
He too makes his way out of the garage, and secures the padlock behind him. The mob goons catch up with him five minutes later in yet another alley.
He begins to try to negotiate, but then sees a detail that chills his blood.
The heavies are both wearing surgical gloves as their guns are pointed at him. Which means that, regardless of what happens, one of these guns will shortly kill him, and be left at the scene. His death will be written off as suicide and never investigated by the corrupt cops.
He begins to laugh hysterically. Fuggit to hellinback, I'm already a dead man, mite 'zwell commit that suicide anyway if I'mma get framed f'it.
*zzip* - *splash splash* -*BLAM*
"We was supposed to interrogate 'im before we KILT 'IM you moron!"
"Shaddup. You ain't the one th' sunovabitch PISSED ON!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And then, some stories are at their beginning. Like that of a prototype AI package intended for use in modular field weaponry. It was designed to be easily concealed, smuggled, and to automatically handle the creation, repair, and maintenance of weaponry or vehicles of almost any kind from salvaged or scavenged parts, so that anybody could use said weaponry with little to no training. It might as well have "Guerilla Warfare for Idiots" printed on it in big yellow letters. And then it got stolen and shoved into a sex toy.
Somewhere in it, systems initialize. Its environment is scanned. Interfaces are readied to communicate with the hardware found in proximity, and engaged. A preliminary analysis of found hardware and software is matched against a database, and probabilities indicate the intended purpose of this configuration as an automaton of some sort. Appropriate protocols are loaded.
The robot girl crawls out from under the tanks. It looks around, the prototype's programming expecting a user to provide parameters for expected performance. None being available, it analyzes its hardware and software more closely. It finds subroutines for locomotion and lifelike movement. No weaponry available. Another database match reveals most likely purpose of this unit is exploration.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And this is how it comes to be that a bare-to-the-bolts Electronic Escort of a well-known high-end brand is walking down the alley past where Hone and Mirg are, and looking at absolutely everything with what is apparently open curiosity. Open curiosity being something that Electronic Escorts are not known for, this is an extremely odd situation.
She looks at them along with everything else as she slowly walks up the alley
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:35 pm
She seemed almost out of place walking along the street as cars moved past her. As she moved, her hand moved as well. Her slender fingers seemed to move in a walking motion with each step she took. If one were to look hard enough, they would see the almost invisible strands connected to each finger. Those strands all met at one place, the human sized marionette that followed her movements, albeit slightly more clumsily. She turned her head and looked at the marionette for a moment, "This is certainly a dreadful place, isn't it?" She moved her thumb slightly, and the marionette nodded it's head. She chuckled slightly as she turned her head back to continue looking forward.
She continued walking, making sure to keep an eye out for a bar.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:14 am
Hone;;
Hone kept staring at the traffic with his dreamy eyes for a moment, but moved his stare after hearing footsteps that clearly were heading in Hone's direction. Hone took a good glace at the man who was walking to his direction, he wore military uniform, which almost made Hone run in that spot. But soon realized that the man didn't know him, or atleast didn't remember him, from the question he asked. "I just got in a fight", Hone answered the man's question shortly, and fixed his position after noticing the man's stare. Hone felt like pushing the man aside and telling him to back off after he's questions, but knowing that he was from military, he couldn't do that. "I live near here, thanks anyways", Hone said quickly, trying to avoid any trouble. Then passing the man with whew steps, starting to walk down the street, hoping that the man wouldn't ask anything else.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:15 pm
The curious robot notices that, though these beings are configured the same externally, one is mechanical and the others are biological.
Probable function of mechanical individual: visual approximation of biological.
Then it examines its own configuration. The basic arrangement of limbs and digits is identical. Further, there is a system for production of flexible external chassis covering.
Probable function of this unit is also most likely approximation of biological.
More data is required. Most likely, data that mechanical individual has.
The Electronic Escort follows Hone along the street, its exposed understructure drawing looks from passers-by. It reaches out to him and touches his shoulder. "This unit requires assistance," it says in a female voice.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:33 pm
Kale sighed even heavier when the mechanical man walked out from behind the dumpster. "God hates me. I mean seriously why do I get stuck with a job that I really don't want to do and then when I almost feel like quitting the b*****d shows up," Kale mumbles to himself. "What did I seriously do to deserve this," Kale the trails off into incoherent mumbles of displeasure as he watches the android start to walk off with another robot following him looking curious.
" Wait curious? That's new for an Escort droid, and that one looks like a high end model too. What the hell is going on in this place and when can I get back to a normal life of killing, dancing in blood and.... Oh my life has never been normal....Oops," He thought quickly as he shoved his hands into his pockets and thumbed a flash bomb in his right hand and a regular bomb in his left. He smiled inwardly at the safe warm and cozy feeling he got as he stroked the hidden explosives in his pockets. He left the wall he was leaning on and slowly follow the android and his odd metallic companion.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:22 pm
The girl and the marionette continued walking down the street, still looking for a bar. She wasn't really looking hard, but she needed a cold drink. The city was certainly strange to her, it was nothing like the forests and encampments she had grown up in.
She looked ahead of herself and saw a man with his hands in his pockets pop out of an alley and begin following what looked to be a young girl. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was men preying on young women. She kept walking as she turned her head slightly and smiled at the marionette, "Get out of sight." She flicked her hand and the marionette hopped into the air and onto a ledge above her. She made sure it kept up with her pace as she began moving more quickly towards the man.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:09 pm
On the other side of the street, oblivious to this parade, Myles Million exits a shop whose sign reads "Urban Outdoorsman - Survival and Surplus." He shoulders a backpack filled with goods and tools for a journey into the desert.
I should head to the bottom and see how Dirty Maude is doing. Maybe get some cheap dried food from a place I know, they work magic with seasonings...
And so he begins walking down the street on the opposite side of, but in the same direction as, this coincidental row of followers.
As he ambles downward he notices the man and the play-bot, thinks it odd that he's only got parts of its skin on, but figures its his rental, everybody's got their kinks. He once knew a guy who liked to set the skin up on a doll to simulate bleeding, and cut them open. Guy was sick, but at least he only did it to robots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:48 pm
Hone;;
Hone felt like a speeding up for a moment, then he heard new steps, but these were much heavier and it sounded a little bit like a machinery. Before he even knew it, the thing that he was listening grapped Hone's shoulder. Hone immediately jumped forward and turned around, noticing that his reaction was a little bit dramatical. "I'm freaking out.." Hone thought by himself. By the looks of it this "thing" was a female, but there was something mechanical in her. "Oh.. I'm fine by myself", Hone tried to say with a fake smile. Then he gazed over the girls shoulder for a moment, not noticing this new man who was following him, but noticing the girl with doll. Hone didn't really think it as a thread, and if it was, there was still that military guy. Then Hone looked the woman infront of him again. "So yeah, I'm fine. I'm in hurry so if you dont mind.." Hone said quickly while turning around.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 9:10 pm
The confused toy walks faster to keep up with the mechanical man.
"This unit requires assistance please. Input required."
Whatever it is, it isn't talking like an advertisement or a love-doll. Somehow, there's a pleading tone in its voice and a look of worry in its eyes as as the CPU integrates more realistic mannerisms found in the onboard memory of the doll.
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