→ imeeji: a machine for making things real
Sep. 1st, 2021 03:22 amK, Alone: Days 336 - 355
On Day 336, K set out, half-accidentally, to test the confines of the game world and see if he could figure out what lay beyond it. Taking his motorbike, he rode in a straight line to the edges of Tokyo-F.
Like other explorers before him, he discovered that reaching the asset flip hell that was the outskirts of the city resulted in travelling the lengths of a seemingly endless loop. He chose to persist in traversing it and after several hours of travel, realized that the loop did not reset itself perfectly. Every 'circuit' took about ten minutes, and every completed circuit pushed him slightly further outside the bounds of the city, allowing for slow but incremental progress to be made. Stopping to gather his bearings, K climbed the balconies of a generic, repeating apartment block to see what he could see: this turned out to be not much, with visibility from the top restricted up to the point where looping would occur.
Undeterred, K rode on for a further two hours, at which point he head a strange sound, everything flickered, and he found himself standing in a pocket of liminal space, facing a stack of concrete cubes with a door on the top. At this point, all environmental noise became trapped in a stuttering loop, and the sound of machinery became distantly audible.
Climbing up and entering the doorway - because what else was he ever likely to do at this point? - resulted in the ground giving way beneath him, and the sound of working to become deafening. As he fell, K opened his eyes to discover that he was surrounded in every conceivable direction by the conduits of an impossibly vast machine:
Before he could consider the implications of all this too closely, another sound cut through the churning of machinery and he found himself standing in an apparently ordinary Tokyo street.
On finding his bearings again, K realized that he had somehow travelled from Tokyo-F to the Liar Hell city of Tokyo-D: the domain of the demon Pythia, and somewhere he recognized from the Production's brief sojourn there after Tokyo F was - apparently - taken offline for maintenance. Lost, confused, unable to see a clear way out, but determined to make the most of it and finding nothing out of the ordinary in the city itself, he took it upon himself to investigate a nearby office building. Mostly because it was one of the few places he could actually look at without developing a splitting headache. The front door turned out to be locked, so he decided to break in through a temptingly open window.
The office turned out to belong to Saffron Sativus, a member of the Imeeji production department with the world's best water cooler; a marked fondness for LiliS, ☆ZRAEL and The Merch™; and an unlocked computer. K took the opportunity provided to read a draft email and the attached file:
He photographed these before leaving the office and attempted to forward copies to trusted friends in the city, hoping that they would be sent when his phone actually had reception again, then left the office the same way that he came in, On returning to the street, however, he glimpsed another stray idol: Talon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iamverybadass) of WILD CITY, who he saw getting into a limousine with the demon Asmodeus.
Unfortunately, it would take K a lot longer to find his own way home.
While searching for a way to get back to Tokyo-F, K was mistaken for a cosplayer on his way to a meet-and-greet. Knowing he was in a very precarious position, he had no choice but to play along with the deception, all the while trying to figure out how to get back where he belonged. These efforts did not bear fruit. Bounced seemingly at random around Tokyo-D, not only could he not work out how to reach Tokyo-F, he was eventually found and sold off to one of the other, far less pleasant circles of Hell. He emerged shaken, traumatized and desperately unclear on what had just happened to him - but with all his memories of his past life intact, and a newfound desperation to get back onto the production proper.
With places on the show proper strictly limited, an upcoming event that would see four guest units sent to the city offered him his best chance of a quick return. K was assigned a spot on the temporary unit 10IV, returning on Day 355: a permanent placement, he hoped, would come later.
On Day 336, K set out, half-accidentally, to test the confines of the game world and see if he could figure out what lay beyond it. Taking his motorbike, he rode in a straight line to the edges of Tokyo-F.
Like other explorers before him, he discovered that reaching the asset flip hell that was the outskirts of the city resulted in travelling the lengths of a seemingly endless loop. He chose to persist in traversing it and after several hours of travel, realized that the loop did not reset itself perfectly. Every 'circuit' took about ten minutes, and every completed circuit pushed him slightly further outside the bounds of the city, allowing for slow but incremental progress to be made. Stopping to gather his bearings, K climbed the balconies of a generic, repeating apartment block to see what he could see: this turned out to be not much, with visibility from the top restricted up to the point where looping would occur.
Undeterred, K rode on for a further two hours, at which point he head a strange sound, everything flickered, and he found himself standing in a pocket of liminal space, facing a stack of concrete cubes with a door on the top. At this point, all environmental noise became trapped in a stuttering loop, and the sound of machinery became distantly audible.
Climbing up and entering the doorway - because what else was he ever likely to do at this point? - resulted in the ground giving way beneath him, and the sound of working to become deafening. As he fell, K opened his eyes to discover that he was surrounded in every conceivable direction by the conduits of an impossibly vast machine:
A whirring complex of steel turbines and gnashing gearwork, a single structure working in concert that's far larger than any one thing ought to be! Electricity surges through conduits of thought and soul, and in between all of this machinery there is no room for inefficiency or flaw. No room for the singular acts of sentient beings, organic or otherwise.
Before he could consider the implications of all this too closely, another sound cut through the churning of machinery and he found himself standing in an apparently ordinary Tokyo street.
On finding his bearings again, K realized that he had somehow travelled from Tokyo-F to the Liar Hell city of Tokyo-D: the domain of the demon Pythia, and somewhere he recognized from the Production's brief sojourn there after Tokyo F was - apparently - taken offline for maintenance. Lost, confused, unable to see a clear way out, but determined to make the most of it and finding nothing out of the ordinary in the city itself, he took it upon himself to investigate a nearby office building. Mostly because it was one of the few places he could actually look at without developing a splitting headache. The front door turned out to be locked, so he decided to break in through a temptingly open window.
The office turned out to belong to Saffron Sativus, a member of the Imeeji production department with the world's best water cooler; a marked fondness for LiliS, ☆ZRAEL and The Merch™; and an unlocked computer. K took the opportunity provided to read a draft email and the attached file:
He photographed these before leaving the office and attempted to forward copies to trusted friends in the city, hoping that they would be sent when his phone actually had reception again, then left the office the same way that he came in, On returning to the street, however, he glimpsed another stray idol: Talon (
iamverybadass) of WILD CITY, who he saw getting into a limousine with the demon Asmodeus. Unfortunately, it would take K a lot longer to find his own way home.
While searching for a way to get back to Tokyo-F, K was mistaken for a cosplayer on his way to a meet-and-greet. Knowing he was in a very precarious position, he had no choice but to play along with the deception, all the while trying to figure out how to get back where he belonged. These efforts did not bear fruit. Bounced seemingly at random around Tokyo-D, not only could he not work out how to reach Tokyo-F, he was eventually found and sold off to one of the other, far less pleasant circles of Hell. He emerged shaken, traumatized and desperately unclear on what had just happened to him - but with all his memories of his past life intact, and a newfound desperation to get back onto the production proper.
With places on the show proper strictly limited, an upcoming event that would see four guest units sent to the city offered him his best chance of a quick return. K was assigned a spot on the temporary unit 10IV, returning on Day 355: a permanent placement, he hoped, would come later.
