Fandom (Glitch Techs Xpanded Universe) GTX: Gnu Fork

[Sir loin of beef]

The woman's appearance was, unusual to say the least, people who can afford Plixelfs are few and far inbetween, so seeing one in person would've been a shock. It felt different than seeing Gadge's body through the remote robotic body.

"Y-You actually look like your character?" Zoe asked. "T-The last time we talked in person you were human."

The young woman shrugged. "I had the money and the resources, so I thought I'd bring her to life. Might as well hop on the trend before anyone else. Heard you have a friend who has one too." She crossed her legs. "Feel free to sit down."

Zoe hesitantly sat down as a female android with a maid-like aesthetic stepped up and inquired in a pseudorobotic voice. "May I take your things, miss Wingon?"

"Um... O-Okay... Alright." Zoe said, a bit shyly, as the android took her bags. "

"So... IOI, huh? Yeah... They've funded a few games which had a new anti-cheating system that they used to try and mount lawsuits against CGK. But the codified law and consensus of the courts says that cheating and modding are legal for self-bought applications, albeit at the lack of liability for the companies involved in the creation of the original software..." D began to explain. "It's... Obvious why I think this is a step too far... And I wanted to get you as far out of home's way as possible if I could help it. Corporate warfare is pretty twisted, but killing civvies is an unbreakable taboo, especially for intimidation. Now that I know they'd be willing to break it, I know that it's not safe for you as you are now. Especially since you kicked the hornets nest by telling them off."
"I-I'm sorry... I-I didn't want to just abandon you.." Zoe says.

"It's fine. I prefer it this way now that I know what they're willing to do. They don't respect human life enough to give whatever's left of your consciousness a fair shake in exchange for mind uploading." D says. "Now... On to what we need to discuss here:..." ( Gadg8eer )

---

Bolypius made it to the entrance of the skullfort, not inherently recognizing it's origin from any game it had effected, but recognizing it's nature as a plixel-modified structure, and the presence of several high level glitch entities inside. It had yet to gather enough energy to take on the full breadth of it's usual form, so it was still in it's "Chibi"-esque form with less-than-intimidating superficial traits.

It recognized that in it's current state, it probably wouldn't last long if it tried to go for the more hard-hitting route of trying to consume the mass of said glitches. Even in spite of it's experience, and ability to manipulate code, it lacked the proper data to manifest it's more gamebreaking abilities in full. The energy it had consumed from the train was only so much to work with.

It had actually resigned itself to being eradicated or derezzed moments beforehand whenever it met the odd, fellow altered glitch, but it seemed that the exchange had left a divergence in events which didn't require it to fight or sacrifice itself. Either way, its best effort was to try and talk it's way into the company of said stronger glitches while passively gathering power.

Arcade world Reloaded! (The Skullfort)
When the Council of Doom had turned an Abandoned storefront Into an Arcade they had pulled out all the stops. There was a Skull above the Door because brand recognition is vital for any would be Conqueror, an Awning between the door and the skull with the words "Arcade world Reloaded" on it. Dr X's Logo for when you're about to enter a boss fight on the side, And Automated sliding doors that went up instead of side to side unless locked they would open whenever someone stood on the mat.

 

[Gadg8eer]

“I-is entry only limited t-to human players? I-I have about 100,000 something data p-p-points linked to my battle body f-from that hinobi benefits pr-program…” she says. “O-or is it more of a standard points provided situation for the competition, with th-the points increasing each round?”

"Well, actually, the reason these loyalty-based employee perk point systems are so common and completely legal is because Hinobi and even IOI and Arasaka don't own the systems, they license it from Neozilla, who as a non-profit set a standardized trading platform and sync the databases across companies to prevent abusive practices such as rewarding potential whistleblowers for not blowing whistles. Since Volpe is using that same system for the Finals, it's a game show held in the Hiverse, and Hinobi built the WebAPI we use today... You're always saying you avoid the Hiverse, aside from the lack of the total immersion you want, because people don't show their true face. Biotechnica sided with Hinobi in 'Browser War 2.0' because we cut a deal between them, us and Neozilla. They got to exclusively license the tech that led to PLixelfs as a Non-Fungible Cryptoken, in return for abandoning their plans to make the Hiverse outright wretched. So instead of a world where immortality was available but expensive and the internet was a corporate propaganda tool, we have a world where immortality is expensive and mostly inaccessible but the internet is once again free of the machinations of executives and shareholders so people still have the legal right to complain that immortality should be a human right. Sorry, I know you hate how I tend to ramble when I talk about FOSS and IT ethics."

"Miss Diamanté, we're ready to depart." said the pilot (or co-pilot?) from the jet's cockpit door.

"Thanks, Frank. I think we're good to go." she told him. He nodded and closed the cabin door before returning to the cockpit. "That deal not only kept Hinobi honest in the time since the co.vid-19 crisis made changes of how the internet works inevitable, it meant that with the exception of Hinobi, Biotechnica and Crusader Industries, the tech industry has been flushed clean, hopefully allowing the industry to move forward as new companies replace the old guard but must conform to standards like federated social media and better privacy laws. Corporations aren't perfect, I know. I took the path I did because change CAN come from within the machine, but only if you take control of it from those who only care about things like their vanity and the superficial things in life. As for my upgrade, I didn't get this from my company or Hinobi, and for the first time in years I feel 20 again even in less than ideal ways because I sold both my houses and started taking the bus to work for this. The seller isn't using existing tech and this method is experimental to the point I couldn't remain acting CEO and someone else has temporarily taken over the role. If anything goes wrong with it, at least it happens to me and not you. The main goal is to reduce the energy requirements, which are the reason PLixelves have the impossibly high price tags, and let's just say that even though single atom width circuitry... 2 nanometers, the smallest you can get... has made consumer processors like the Hinobi Central Processor standard since 2017, Moore's Law hasn't ended yet. More like... moved on to greener pastures."

The plane started to move as the tractor vehicle pushed it away from it's parking slot.

"As for the rules of the Finals, the points are valid and there will even be members of the general public as contestants using Hiverse Cryptoken items, all within a Tournament style bracket system, but beyond that the goal and nature of each match is apparently a bunch of randomly-selected goals and 'QuickTime events' that are never the same between any two matches. Hinobi might know more but they're the ones who are replacing their team. Aside from being caught with Adderol pills and modified GUIs, the Finals has been ridden with cheaters since the private beta and Volpe stepped in and told every corp sponsoring that they were to replace their pro league teams with amateurs that have earned less than 5 million XP total across their entire Grinding History. We do at least know that teams gain equal amounts of XP from matches won and that contestants will have access to untimed exclusives, like back when the Hinobi Game Bee Color and the Monarch GameChamp fought for the market in the early 90's. Other than that, we can't guarantee a win but worst case scenario for you is we go back to Plan B, and worst case scenario beyond that is that Arasaka gets their property back or IOI enters the health care industry and finds out they played too fast and loose when the Food and Drug Administration gets an 'anonymous' tip that their 'new' immortality method resembles certain patents owned by Arasaka. The real question is your health. Whatever IOI did, it was probably to keep you from competing, so... Do you trust me to bring you to someone who can be sure your implant won't be compromised? "

She was of course referring to Alice's Monarch SlumberJack DCX-1, a repurposed 90's neural jack originally shipped with HypnOS 2000 that was now running the FOSS VR OS distro Sphenux Paprika.

Specifically, Paprika West, Biotechnica's experimental 'Oneiric' branch, which integrated the Secure Copy Protocol that had laid dormant for 20+ years since becoming abandoned by Merchantsoft, until Hinobi reused the "scp://" designation for the Somnial Connectivity Protocol, part of the underlying network for the Hiverse. Paprika West used the "Dreamcast" wireless display connectivity in a package called TheMaxX.rooms.bak which was the targeted file for hackers that seemed to have used sock puppets to convince the original package coder to transfer GitHive ownership. Such were the few pitfalls of a society where "proprietary" and "closed-source" now meant a piece of software was considered a piece of $#!+ due to the Great Smarthome Ecosystem Collapse of 2026 (when companies mothballed the existing devices by making them reliant on central servers and then encrypting the firmware update protocol, followed by said companies declaring End of Life or going bankrupt in, you guessed it, 2026 and 2027).

Long story short, Alice might not have known it when she got the implant but technology was in a tight spot. Fortunately, true neuroviruses had proven impossible as the human mind seemed to consist entirely of the brain's equivalent to a firewall, making brain hacking less effective than even ordinary propaganda brainwashing let alone Memory Resets. A Manchurian, slang for "sleeper agent" in cyberpunk fansites like those that Alice/ZoeIRL frequently lurked in, was not reality so much as conspiracy theorist crazy talk made part of the lore of a common escapist fantasy, that much she did know for sure. Unfortunately, brain implants or something else drastic like PLixelves were the only way forward, and that meant that hacking people - their digital footprint now being a 'digital fingerprint' due to Hinobi UserID 3.0+ being Web³-based - was just as risky as PLixels glitching just like they had for decades but unchecked. If lives depend on Glitches being contained, so did they now depend on hacking being contained, and that was also part of why Hinobi had decentralized their efforts and open-sourced their Hiverse software.

What TheMaxX.rooms.bak actually was meant to do remained a mystery for now. What was important was that it was a Trojan of some sort, a piece of malware intended to provide a backdoor to Biotechnica's code branch and in turn cause enough inconvenience to Alice that she couldn't compete. The suspects were obvious; IOI, or if not, Arasaka. Alice's implant was only a User Interface Device with feedback mechanisms, meaning it couldn't damage her brain, only trigger it's Oneiric functions.

In other words, someone was trying to force Alice to fall asleep, in the hopes they could fake the past day of waking life having been a dream, then have her "wake up" to a world that was entirely controlled by the hacker. Presumably they could then "pull a Mysterio" and trick her into giving them the private key to her entire online presence, her Hinobi UserID. Hinobi being this world's equivalent of Valve, that was a serious threat, but fortunately Dee didn't get where she was without a PhD in neurology and Alice herself was no stranger to basic cybersecurity in the Web³-secured, federated, XR-focused era of the internet of 2028...

Alice had noted the small transparent plastic executive spinning top on Dee's table in the plane, laser-engraved to have a cavitational "image" of a diamond inside it. She's got her totem, it's real. would have gone through her head the moment she climbed aboard. Without the object, made famous by a movie from 2010 but in a different color, everything Dee had said would be questionable, as she had only ever seen it when they were already good friends and had never talked about it since as Dee's security measure protected them both.

"You should probably buckle up." Dee advised Alice, putting on her own seatbelt as the plane finally pulled onto the runway.

(( RP is paused again. MisterEightySix , I swear to god you'd better not kill this RP by procrastinating. ))

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Since the Council were badass final bosses, they hadn't actually put a lock mechanism on the door; they figured only meddling heroes would dare enter the lair of said end bosses.

At that moment, the door raised and several 'Sixers', the IOI counterparts of the Hinobi Glitch Techs and Arasaka Troubleshooters. Like the Troubleshooters and Sidney's Imagineers, Sixers were internal IT support only so if this had been a raid on a human organization they would have been easily used as a way to pull IOI's IT license entirely and thus bar the Sixers from doing their vital (if evil) jobs, so clearly IOI thought they knew what they were getting into.

"Freeze! Hands on your head! DO IT NOW!" the one in front said, aiming their gun's laser sight at Dr. X's forehead.

The various council members that were programmed for Actual Physical Combat (Anyone who isn't Doctor X) stood up in their chairs, angry about the sudden intruders

"Hey! What's the big idea you Jerks?" Yukhoe flew up shook a fist angrily while charging up his Acid attack.

"Oh? Are you Approaching me?" Yokai asked in amazement "instead of running away or Cowering in fear like any other Human you dare to approach me? Even though I've slaughtered Legions of Your kind throughout the Centuries you Mortal Insects still remain Stupidly Consistent." The Glitch who Belived himself the Demon King smiled and summoned his Weapon, A spear called the Yari of Darkness.

"Good Evening Gentlemen, Ladies, Zhose of Unzpecified Gender." Doctor X Smiled Smugly at the Evil Sixers. "Vat Seems to be Ze Problem?" The evil doctor would put his hands on his forehead, but on one of them was a Portable Button that the Sixers Couldn't See, when dr X put his Button Hand on His Forehead, the Floor Opened up beneath the Sixers, Gravity would do the rest when it Came to Transporting the Evil tech supporters via Falling to What Appeared to be...The Beginning Of a Video Game Stage? One Straight out of a Platformer no Less.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

The female clerk at the counter took a look at the ticket, typed in something, and then said "Oh! The flight's been cancelled, but we've chartered a smaller and slightly faster aircraft. Follow me."

The lady lead her halfway across the airport, and then through a door onto the tarmac. A private jet was waiting, bearing the logo of a much more trustworthy organization, if not perfectly so...

View attachment 1165338

"Right this way, ma'am." said a bodyguard, escorting her to the aircraft. When Zoe boarded the plane, still a bit bewildered, she saw a young woman waiting in one of the seats of the small plane wave to her.

((Since D is your character, I'll let you take it from here, but I'd like to ask permission to have Dee do a quick infodump.))

The woman's appearance was, unusual to say the least, people who can afford Plixelfs are few and far inbetween, so seeing one in person would've been a shock. It felt different than seeing Gadge's body through the remote robotic body.

"Y-You actually look like your character?" Zoe asked. "T-The last time we talked in person you were human."

The young woman shrugged. "I had the money and the resources, so I thought I'd bring her to life. Might as well hop on the trend before anyone else. Heard you have a friend who has one too." She crossed her legs. "Feel free to sit down."

Zoe hesitantly sat down as a female android with a maid-like aesthetic stepped up and inquired in a pseudorobotic voice. "May I take your things, miss Wingon?"

"Um... O-Okay... Alright." Zoe said, a bit shyly, as the android took her bags. "

"So... IOI, huh? Yeah... They've funded a few games which had a new anti-cheating system that they used to try and mount lawsuits against CGK. But the codified law and consensus of the courts says that cheating and modding are legal for self-bought applications, albeit at the lack of liability for the companies involved in the creation of the original software..." D began to explain. "It's... Obvious why I think this is a step too far... And I wanted to get you as far out of home's way as possible if I could help it. Corporate warfare is pretty twisted, but killing civvies is an unbreakable taboo, especially for intimidation. Now that I know they'd be willing to break it, I know that it's not safe for you as you are now. Especially since you kicked the hornets nest by telling them off."
"I-I'm sorry... I-I didn't want to just abandon you.." Zoe says.

"It's fine. I prefer it this way now that I know what they're willing to do. They don't respect human life enough to give whatever's left of your consciousness a fair shake in exchange for mind uploading." D says. "Now... On to what we need to discuss here:..." ( Gadg8eer )

---

The Skullfort

Meanwhile with the C-Plot, The Council of Doom was once again convened in their Staff Room going over the results of their first attack.

"So we all agree then, This was a big fat failure. Not only is Bolypius Free and not under our Control, We failed to flood the town, Oh and our Big Portal of Doom is down!" Yukhoe said.

"Ves, I vas There, Vhy do you feel the need to explain everyzhing? Ve all know zat."

"I wasn't explaining it to you old man! I was explaining it to everyone who missed the Last episode!" Yukhoe promptly pointed an arm at where the camera would be,

"Oh yeah those guys..." Madame Vile suddenly spoke up "The Audience we call them."

"Vatever ve call zem matters not. Not all iz Lozt, if we can get 'Bolypius' to join our alliance Zhoze Bunglerz are az Good az Dead. And he seems to be on his way here." Doctor X pointed to a map of a Radar with a Red Dot heading towards the Skullfort. On the legend the dot was labeled "Bolypius"

Bolypius made it to the entrance of the skullfort, not inherently recognizing it's origin from any game it had effected, but recognizing it's nature as a plixel-modified structure, and the presence of several high level glitch entities inside. It had yet to gather enough energy to take on the full breadth of it's usual form, so it was still in it's "Chibi"-esque form with less-than-intimidating superficial traits.

It recognized that in it's current state, it probably wouldn't last long if it tried to go for the more hard-hitting route of trying to consume the mass of said glitches. Even in spite of it's experience, and ability to manipulate code, it lacked the proper data to manifest it's more gamebreaking abilities in full. The energy it had consumed from the train was only so much to work with.

It had actually resigned itself to being eradicated or derezzed moments beforehand whenever it met the odd, fellow altered glitch, but it seemed that the exchange had left a divergence in events which didn't require it to fight or sacrifice itself. Either way, its best effort was to try and talk it's way into the company of said stronger glitches while passively gathering power.

 

[Gadg8eer]

The woman's appearance was, unusual to say the least, people who can afford Plixelfs are few and far inbetween, so seeing one in person would've been a shock. It felt different than seeing Gadge's body through the remote robotic body.

"Y-You actually look like your character?" Zoe asked. "T-The last time we talked in person you were human."

The young woman shrugged. "I had the money and the resources, so I thought I'd bring her to life. Might as well hop on the trend before anyone else. Heard you have a friend who has one too." She crossed her legs. "Feel free to sit down."

Zoe hesitantly sat down as a female android with a maid-like aesthetic stepped up and inquired in a pseudorobotic voice. "May I take your things, miss Wingon?"

"Um... O-Okay... Alright." Zoe said, a bit shyly, as the android took her bags. "

"So... IOI, huh? Yeah... They've funded a few games which had a new anti-cheating system that they used to try and mount lawsuits against CGK. But the codified law and consensus of the courts says that cheating and modding are legal for self-bought applications, albeit at the lack of liability for the companies involved in the creation of the original software..." D began to explain. "It's... Obvious why I think this is a step too far... And I wanted to get you as far out of home's way as possible if I could help it. Corporate warfare is pretty twisted, but killing civvies is an unbreakable taboo, especially for intimidation. Now that I know they'd be willing to break it, I know that it's not safe for you as you are now. Especially since you kicked the hornets nest by telling them off."
"I-I'm sorry... I-I didn't want to just abandon you.." Zoe says.

"It's fine. I prefer it this way now that I know what they're willing to do. They don't respect human life enough to give whatever's left of your consciousness a fair shake in exchange for mind uploading." D says. "Now... On to what we need to discuss here:..." ( Gadg8eer )

"So, ever heard of Neozilla?" Dee asked. It was a rhetorical question, of course; Neozilla Doglefox was the only browser that survived co.vid-19 and dethGrr unscathed and was thus now the industry standard now that Nudle's Chronon codebase was no longer maintained and obsolete. "Trick question, everyone knows Doglefox is the browser that is made by a non-profit and low-key introduced incognito mode. But... How about Volpe?"

 

[Gadg8eer]

"So, ever heard of Neozilla?" Dee asked. It was a rhetorical question, of course; Neozilla Doglefox was the only browser that survived co.vid-19 and dethGrr unscathed and was thus now the industry standard now that Nudle's Chronon codebase was no longer maintained and obsolete. "Trick question, everyone knows Doglefox is the browser that is made by a non-profit and low-key introduced incognito mode. But... How about Volpe?"

The name came to mind but nothing truly stood out about it. A startup company of the post-monopoly tech world, vying for some of that sweet, sweet vague VR investment craze money.

"Sorry, I know meeting me in person is still a bit awkward." Dee explained. "So... Volpe made a version of Neozilla's browser that works for Extended Reality. Goggles, headsets, even those high-end contact lenses I wear. Well, wore, before my upgrade. After that, it seemed they were just going to coast by selling Software Development Kit versions of the Volpe browser. That changed sometime last year when they released a little press release..."

Dee tapped a button on her Biotechnica-branded "Omnatrix" gauntlet, something the polymath used extensively in her various dealings and experiments. A small green holographic border appeared to display a video for Alice...



"Which went completely unexplained since then... until yesterday evening, when the TV commercials and Xtended Reality billboards started showing up. The Finals is... basically eSports as an actual sport, mixed with those old game shows they used to make in the 1970s or the reality TV about being trapped on a tropical island that they churned out at the turn of the millennium. It's what you were already doing, but public and legal, and... I've got to be honest. CheatGenKey has been a front for Biotechnica from the very beginning. We needed a way to test stuff that was ethical but not strictly on the books enough for government approval via someone willing to volunteer, and when that failed, I did at least decide that, as CEO, I owed you what I promised even if my company can't. I'm sorry I've been hiding all that from you and I should have just been honest from the very beginning. The original goal of that store in Canada was a deal with Hinobi to get you a PLixelf through their employee benefits and perks, but even though that's still a possibility, they've notified me there might be an easier way. See, the prize of the first season of The Finals is supposed to be a secret, but I've got it on good authority that even if Innovative Online Industries thinks it can snap up whatever it is, that doesn't really mean anything on it's own. What does mean something is when Arasaka literally threatened Volpe's board with great care to not get caught, so that they can say whatever teams Hinobi and IOI sponsors into the show, which as the first season's sponsors they have to do, will be targeted by Arasaka in retaliation. What for, we don't know for sure, but we have a pretty good idea, and that's why I let them leak the monkey test. That was our chip, Biotechnica and Hinobi, and Arasaka was developing a similar device. They used contacts in the CCP to acquire test subjects among Chinese prison inmates, and thus didn't care about the same ethical considerations that made us stop in our tracks. Thing is, those same considerations being ignored is what got Arasaka robbed..."

A quick display of a chase of a pair of thieves by Arasaka Security somewhere in the Gobi Desert appeared on-screen, the camera being that of a cheap Hooli-brand smartphone which was easily hacked.

"...and the device sold to the highest bidder in 2020. Since then, it's been hotly-pursued by various parties including IOI and Arasaka themselves, but dropped off the radar in June of 2024.... you get the idea, we talked about this kind of crap all the time. The point is, Arasaka was trying to go to market with mind uploading when the prototype was stolen, they were planning to go for the overprivileged heir crowd but thanks to that unattributed theft Hinobi and Biotechnica got PLixelves on the market first. If it can do what it was designed to do, and the blood that would have to be be sacrificed to produce it has already been spilled by someone else, the least we can do to honor anyone who died for this is provide you with access to it. We will study it, we will replicate it if it works, and if it does work I promise you that you'll be first in line for it. As for getting it, you've probably guessed it by now. We're almost sure the prize of The Finals is the prototype or, even more likely, a fully-working device that is derived from it. Volpe has the expertise to do that, it's entirely possible that the prize is there to make it too difficult for Arasaka to attack them and take back the device before it can be released as a Volpe product, and while IOI is willing to go scorched earth, a company like Arasaka is much worse because they're smart enough to know that kind of bullshit doesn't work at all if it doesn't work the first time. Noburu Arasaka is not a stupid man, if he has to give the appearance of winning the prize fair and square then he'll make it happen. So we're going to enter you and the others at that store as the official Hinobi team for The Finals, and snatch the prize out from under them all. If you're up for that, I mean. I get this is a lot to take in and you probably hate me for lying to you this whole time. At least know I don't do half-assed shell companies, the CheatGenKey site was and is one of our front companies but yes, what their programmers make is actually open source."

 

[Lord Moldoma]

The name came to mind but nothing truly stood out about it. A startup company of the post-monopoly tech world, vying for some of that sweet, sweet vague VR investment craze money.

"Sorry, I know meeting me in person is still a bit awkward." Dee explained. "So... Volpe made a version of Neozilla's browser that works for Extended Reality. Goggles, headsets, even those high-end contact lenses I wear. Well, wore, before my upgrade. After that, it seemed they were just going to coast by selling Software Development Kit versions of the Volpe browser. That changed sometime last year when they released a little press release..."

Dee tapped a button on her Biotechnica-branded "Omnatrix" gauntlet, something the polymath used extensively in her various dealings and experiments. A small green holographic border appeared to display a video for Alice...



"Which went completely unexplained since then... until yesterday evening, when the TV commercials and Xtended Reality billboards started showing up. The Finals is... basically eSports as an actual sport, mixed with those old game shows they used to make in the 1970s or the reality TV about being trapped on a tropical island that they churned out at the turn of the millennium. It's what you were already doing, but public and legal, and... I've got to be honest. CheatGenKey has been a front for Biotechnica from the very beginning. We needed a way to test stuff that was ethical but not strictly on the books enough for government approval via someone willing to volunteer, and when that failed, I did at least decide that, as CEO, I owed you what I promised even if my company can't. I'm sorry I've been hiding all that from you and I should have just been honest from the very beginning. The original goal of that store in Canada was a deal with Hinobi to get you a PLixelf through their employee benefits and perks, but even though that's still a possibility, they've notified me there might be an easier way. See, the prize of the first season of The Finals is supposed to be a secret, but I've got it on good authority that even if Innovative Online Industries thinks it can snap up whatever it is, that doesn't really mean anything on it's own. What does mean something is when Arasaka literally threatened Volpe's board with great care to not get caught, so that they can say whatever teams Hinobi and IOI sponsors into the show, which as the first season's sponsors they have to do, will be targeted by Arasaka in retaliation. What for, we don't know for sure, but we have a pretty good idea, and that's why I let them leak the monkey test. That was our chip, Biotechnica and Hinobi, and Arasaka was developing a similar device. They used contacts in the CCP to acquire test subjects among Chinese prison inmates, and thus didn't care about the same ethical considerations that made us stop in our tracks. Thing is, those same considerations being ignored is what got Arasaka robbed..."

A quick display of a chase of a pair of thieves by Arasaka Security somewhere in the Gobi Desert appeared on-screen, the camera being that of a cheap Hooli-brand smartphone which was easily hacked.

"...and the device sold to the highest bidder in 2020. Since then, it's been hotly-pursued by various parties including IOI and Arasaka themselves, but dropped off the radar in June of 2024.... you get the idea, we talked about this kind of crap all the time. The point is, Arasaka was trying to go to market with mind uploading when the prototype was stolen, they were planning to go for the overprivileged heir crowd but thanks to that unattributed theft Hinobi and Biotechnica got PLixelves on the market first. If it can do what it was designed to do, and the blood that would have to be be sacrificed to produce it has already been spilled by someone else, the least we can do to honor anyone who died for this is provide you with access to it. We will study it, we will replicate it if it works, and if it does work I promise
you that you'll be first in line for it. As for getting it, you've probably guessed it by now. We're almost sure the prize of The Finals is the prototype or, even more likely, a fully-working device that is derived from it. Volpe has the expertise to do that, it's entirely possible that the prize is there to make it too difficult for Arasaka to attack them and take back the device before it can be released as a Volpe product, and while IOI is willing to go scorched earth, a company like Arasaka is much worse because they're smart enough to know that kind of bullshit doesn't work at all if it doesn't work the first time. Noburu Arasaka is not a stupid man, if he has to give the appearance of winning the prize fair and square then he'll make it happen. So we're going to enter you and the others at that store as the official Hinobi team for The Finals, and snatch the prize out from under them all. If you're up for that, I mean. I get this is a lot to take in and you probably hate me for lying to you this whole time. At least know I don't do half-assed shell companies, the CheatGenKey site was and is one of our front companies and yes, what their programmers make is actually open source."

“S-so it is mind uploading?” Zoe pushed the tips of her fingers together. “I-I’m a little rusty on team gaming… and I don’t get out much… so my physical body isn’t super well prepared for th-this sort of competition… b-but I… I do want to help you…” Zoe was always nervous talking to people IRL. Her facade of an angry goth gamer chick crumbled like drywall in the face of actually speaking to anyone in person. Which is why she never went outside if she could help it.

“I-is entry only limited t-to human players? I-I have about 100,000 something data p-p-points linked to my battle body f-from that hinobi benefits pr-program…” she says. “O-or is it more of a standard points provided situation for the competition, with th-the points increasing each round?”

 

[Gadg8eer]

“S-so it is mind uploading?” Zoe pushed the tips of her fingers together.

"Yeah." Dee confirmed. "The idea is it's an implant that uploads your mind to a cloud server upon death. Arasaka tried to build an afterlife that they controlled, and from what we can tell their surgery method works when ours caused disorientation at best. We were lucky the primate we tested it on wasn't killed or permanently damaged, but doing it the way they describe as functional doesn't cause any issues. The real problem, as you can imagine, is beaming the entire contents of a human brain from the brain to an external source, even some sort of hardware backpack, instantaneously. That's a lot of bandwidth, so it seems there's either something fishy going on, or Arasaka knows something we don't. What we do know? Those rumors that not all is well in the Corporation of the Rising Sun are true, but Noburu Arasaka isn't truly dead nor is the company using actual deepfakes on those recent and oddly glitchy videos. He uploaded himself and it worked. They call the method used by the prototype, named 'the Relic' internally, the Maximum Headroom Emergency Blipcast Interocitor System, or 'MAXIS' according to the hardware specifications. As for theories on the bandwidth, it might be caching the data, like a livestream. Or it might be using lossless compression algorithms. Whatever the case, the implant uses an offshoot of PLixel technology called Greynade Goo to store the incredible amounts of data, by converting the entire body of the uploaded into fuel for the upload. Remember, this stuff would be useless without continuity, so there's an extra-temporal aspect to this that we haven't quite nailed down the nature of, but which has been working for years in the form of System Restore functions by technicians like ourselves."

“I-I’m a little rusty on team gaming… and I don’t get out much… so my physical body isn’t super well prepared for th-this sort of competition… b-but I… I do want to help you…” Zoe was always nervous talking to people IRL. Her facade of an angry goth gamer chick crumbled like drywall in the face of actually speaking to anyone in person. Which is why she never went outside if she could help it.

Instead of responding with more exposition, which was no longer needed, she pulled up a window of the interior of the Hinobi van in Grand Forks. A small GPS indicator showed it was parked in the Glitch Techs HQ of Gnu Forks, located beneath the repair shop's consumer-accessible storefront. "Your robotic body is actually still intact. Yes, you can enter with it as a remote avatar. Just one problem. Be honest, are you feeling okay? Not just nervousness, I mean anything weird going on in your head that only started after the disconnection caused by to IOI's firebomb? Because I don't know what they did, but that robot and your custom force feedback implant chip has been sporadically reconnecting to each other even though you don't have your headset on. If your vitals on the feedback chip are right, it's connected you several times since the first time it dropped the link. I'm... kind of worried about your health. This isn't normal fuction for the implant at all."

“I-is entry only limited t-to human players? I-I have about 100,000 something data p-p-points linked to my battle body f-from that hinobi benefits pr-program…” she says. “O-or is it more of a standard points provided situation for the competition, with th-the points increasing each round?”

"Well..."

(( Hold on, going to make this a new post so I can let MisterEightySix post. ))

 

[Gadg8eer]

Arcade world Reloaded! (The Skullfort)
When the Council of Doom had turned an Abandoned storefront Into an Arcade they had pulled out all the stops. There was a Skull above the Door because brand recognition is vital for any would be Conqueror, an Awning between the door and the skull with the words "Arcade world Reloaded" on it. Dr X's Logo for when you're about to enter a boss fight on the side, And Automated sliding doors that went up instead of side to side unless locked they would open whenever someone stood on the mat.

Since the Council were badass final bosses, they hadn't actually put a lock mechanism on the door; they figured only meddling heroes would dare enter the lair of said end bosses.

At that moment, the door raised and several 'Sixers' entered, guns drawn.

The IOI counterparts of the Hinobi Glitch Techs and Arasaka Troubleshooters, Sixer's were what a Glitch Technician would be if they worked for a rural American internet service provider. Like the Troubleshooters and Sidney's Imagineers, Sixers were internal IT support only so if this had been a raid on a human organization they would have been easily used as a way to pull IOI's IT license entirely and thus bar the Sixers from doing their vital (if evil) jobs, so clearly IOI thought they knew what they were getting into.

"Freeze! Hands on your head! DO IT NOW!" the one in front said, aiming their gun's laser sight at Dr. X's forehead.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

The various council members that were programmed for Actual Physical Combat (Anyone who isn't Doctor X) stood up in their chairs, angry about the sudden intruders

"Hey! What's the big idea you Jerks?" Yukhoe flew up shook a fist angrily while charging up his Acid attack.

"Oh? Are you Approaching me?" Yokai asked in amazement "instead of running away or Cowering in fear like any other Human you dare to approach me? Even though I've slaughtered Legions of Your kind throughout the Centuries you Mortal Insects still remain Stupidly Consistent." The Glitch who Belived himself the Demon King smiled and summoned his Weapon, A spear called the Yari of Darkness.

"Good Evening Gentlemen, Ladies, Zhose of Unzpecified Gender." Doctor X Smiled Smugly at the Evil Sixers. "Vat Seems to be Ze Problem?" The evil doctor would put his hands on his forehead, but on one of them was a Portable Button that the Sixers Couldn't See, when dr X put his Button Hand on His Forehead, the Floor Opened up beneath the Sixers, Gravity would do the rest when it Came to Transporting the Evil tech supporters via Falling to What Appeared to be...The Beginning Of a Video Game Stage? One Straight out of a Platformer no Less.

The door was already open, so Bolypius walking in with little trouble didn't come much as a surprise. "Have you considered getting a few more hallways that lead up to your meeting chamber, Y/N?"

"Before you ask.. As for how they didn't find me... I hid behind a trash-can. Their tech is below the standard of Hinobi's. Or at least, I assume it is." Bolypius looked down at the pit, kicking a piece of metal debris into the hole and watching it fall. "Even at 14% power, my signature is always incredibly easy for Hinobi to track whenever they get into range. They just don't mount offensives consistently since it takes weeks of preparation and months of grinding to go for a raid against my general power level. If they chase me down with anything less than 99% certainty, they will lose."

"I had to eject most of the energy from the train I originally planned on using to get out of... Well.. I'm not sure where this place is. I don't have a GPS in this form. My energy retainer and remote gathering code was damaged heavily by The Lynchpin." It points to a semi-healed scar on it's face and horn. "It'll take 2 weeks with ample resources to return to my full capacity."

"I recognize at least one of you also possesses a divergent code. Like mine, but without a 50 year pedigree tied to all modern Hinobi glitches and AI. One is a rarity, two in the same place is radically improbable, and after three, there's enough of a pattern to call it a black swan. A new age of technology is evolving at an alarming rate..."

Bolypius wasn't what the group had been expecting. It had exhausted most of it's energy trying to blow the lynchpin out of its body. (Weapon levels were measured between 1-8, like bosses and glitches. Normally you can't quantify past that, but if you could, The Lynchpin would be level 12.) In Bolypius' case, even the energy it cannibalized from the digital circuitry and the battery of the locomotive had only been enough to sustain it for a few hours, especially since it had to convert 80% of that energy into weapons when it believed it was going to confront the group of glitch-techs on behalf of the other Divergent Glitch it had met in the train cab. Weapons which it then had to slough off since it didn't have enough energy to maintain them. Because of these facts, among other things, it was still in it's highly degraded form, not much more powerful than it's very first emergence against the first team of techs that dealt with it decades ago.

"I assume that since you sent a minion of yours to try and retrieve me, you're aware of my status as an asset, Y/N?"

---

"Well, actually, the reason these loyalty-based employee perk point systems are so common and completely legal is because Hinobi and even IOI and Arasaka don't own the systems, they license it from Neozilla, who as a non-profit set a standardized trading platform and sync the databases across companies to prevent abusive practices such as rewarding potential whistleblowers for not blowing whistles. Since Volpe is using that same system for the Finals, it's a game show held in the Hiverse, and Hinobi built the WebAPI we use today... You're always saying you avoid the Hiverse, aside from the lack of the total immersion you want, because people don't show their true face. Biotechnica sided with Hinobi in 'Browser War 2.0' because we cut a deal between them, us and Neozilla. They got to exclusively license the tech that led to PLixelfs as a Non-Fungible Cryptoken, in return for abandoning their plans to make the Hiverse outright wretched. So instead of a world where immortality was available but expensive and the internet was a corporate propaganda tool, we have a world where immortality is expensive and mostly inaccessible but the internet is once again free of the machinations of executives and shareholders so people still have the legal right to complain that immortality should be a human right. Sorry, I know you hate how I tend to ramble when I talk about FOSS and IT ethics."

"Miss Diamanté, we're ready to depart." said the pilot (or co-pilot?) from the jet's cockpit door.

"Thanks, Frank. I think we're good to go." she told him. He nodded and closed the cabin door before returning to the cockpit. "That deal not only kept Hinobi honest in the time since the co.vid-19 crisis made changes of how the internet works inevitable, it meant that with the exception of Hinobi, Biotechnica and Crusader Industries, the tech industry has been flushed clean, hopefully allowing the industry to move forward as new companies replace the old guard but must conform to standards like federated social media and better privacy laws. Corporations aren't perfect, I know. I took the path I did because change CAN come from within the machine, but only if you take control of it from those who only care about things like their vanity and the superficial things in life. As for my upgrade, I didn't get this from my company or Hinobi, and for the first time in years I feel 20 again even in less than ideal ways because I sold both my houses and started taking the bus to work for this. The seller isn't using existing tech and this method is experimental to the point I couldn't remain acting CEO and someone else has temporarily taken over the role. If anything goes wrong with it, at least it happens to me and not you. The main goal is to reduce the energy requirements, which are the reason PLixelves have the impossibly high price tags, and let's just say that even though single atom width circuitry... 2 nanometers, the smallest you can get... has made consumer processors like the Hinobi Central Processor standard since 2017, Moore's Law hasn't ended yet. More like... moved on to greener pastures."

The plane started to move as the tractor vehicle pushed it away from it's parking slot.

"As for the rules of the Finals, the points are valid and there will even be members of the general public as contestants using Hiverse Cryptoken items, all within a Tournament style bracket system, but beyond that the goal and nature of each match is apparently a bunch of randomly-selected goals and 'QuickTime events' that are never the same between any two matches. Hinobi might know more but they're the ones who are replacing their team. Aside from being caught with Adderol pills and modified GUIs, the Finals has been ridden with cheaters since the private beta and Volpe stepped in and told every corp sponsoring that they were to replace their pro league teams with amateurs that have earned less than 5 million XP total across their entire Grinding History. We do at least know that teams gain equal amounts of XP from matches won and that contestants will have access to untimed exclusives, like back when the Hinobi Game Bee Color and the Monarch GameChamp fought for the market in the early 90's. Other than that, we can't guarantee a win but worst case scenario for you is we go back to Plan B, and worst case scenario beyond that is that Arasaka gets their property back or IOI enters the health care industry and finds out they played too fast and loose when the Food and Drug Administration gets an 'anonymous' tip that their 'new' immortality method resembles certain patents owned by Arasaka. The real question is your health. Whatever IOI did, it was probably to keep you from competing, so... Do you trust me to bring you to someone who can be sure your implant won't be compromised? "

She was of course referring to Alice's Monarch SlumberJack DCX-1, a repurposed 90's neural jack originally shipped with HypnOS 2000 that was now running the FOSS VR OS distro Sphenux Paprika.

Specifically, Paprika West, Biotechnica's experimental 'Oneiric' branch, which integrated the Secure Copy Protocol that had laid dormant for 20+ years since becoming abandoned by Merchantsoft, until Hinobi reused the "scp://" designation for the Somnial Connectivity Protocol, part of the underlying network for the Hiverse. Paprika West used the "Dreamcast" wireless display connectivity in a package called TheMaxX.rooms.bak which was the targeted file for hackers that seemed to have used sock puppets to convince the original package coder to transfer GitHive ownership. Such were the few pitfalls of a society where "proprietary" and "closed-source" now meant a piece of software was considered a piece of $#!+ due to the Great Smarthome Ecosystem Collapse of 2026 (when companies mothballed the existing devices by making them reliant on central servers and then encrypting the firmware update protocol, followed by said companies declaring End of Life or going bankrupt in, you guessed it, 2026 and 2027).

Long story short, Alice might not have known it when she got the implant but technology was in a tight spot. Fortunately, true neuroviruses had proven impossible as the human mind seemed to consist entirely of the brain's equivalent to a firewall, making brain hacking less effective than even ordinary propaganda brainwashing let alone Memory Resets. A Manchurian, slang for "sleeper agent" in cyberpunk fansites like those that Alice/ZoeIRL frequently lurked in, was not reality so much as conspiracy theorist crazy talk made part of the lore of a common escapist fantasy, that much she did know for sure. Unfortunately, brain implants or something else drastic like PLixelves were the only way forward, and that meant that hacking people - their digital footprint now being a 'digital fingerprint' due to Hinobi UserID 3.0+ being Web³-based - was just as risky as PLixels glitching just like they had for decades but unchecked. If lives depend on Glitches being contained, so did they now depend on hacking being contained, and that was also part of why Hinobi had decentralized their efforts and open-sourced their Hiverse software.

What TheMaxX.rooms.bak actually was meant to do remained a mystery for now. What was important was that it was a Trojan of some sort, a piece of malware intended to provide a backdoor to Biotechnica's code branch and in turn cause enough inconvenience to Alice that she couldn't compete. The suspects were obvious; IOI, or if not, Arasaka. Alice's implant was only a User Interface Device with feedback mechanisms, meaning it couldn't damage her brain, only trigger it's Oneiric functions.

In other words, someone was trying to force Alice to fall asleep, in the hopes they could fake the past day of waking life having been a dream, then have her "wake up" to a world that was entirely controlled by the hacker. Presumably they could then "pull a Mysterio" and trick her into giving them the private key to her entire online presence, her Hinobi UserID. Hinobi being this world's equivalent of Valve, that was a serious threat, but fortunately Dee didn't get where she was without a PhD in neurology and Alice herself was no stranger to basic cybersecurity in the Web³-secured, federated, XR-focused era of the internet of 2028...

Alice had noted the small transparent plastic executive spinning top on Dee's table in the plane, laser-engraved to have a cavitational "image" of a diamond inside it. She's got her totem, it's real. would have gone through her head the moment she climbed aboard. Without the object, made famous by a movie from 2010 but in a different color, everything Dee had said would be questionable, as she had only ever seen it when they were already good friends and had never talked about it since as Dee's security measure protected them both.

"You should probably buckle up." Dee advised Alice, putting on her own seatbelt as the plane finally pulled onto the runway.

(( RP is paused again. MisterEightySix , I swear to god you'd better not kill this RP by procrastinating. ))

“O-of course. Right. S-S-Safety first.” Alice said.

“I-I trust you… I can’t imagine y-you’d lie to me… I-if this is all some sort of psilocybin type illusion… then it’s really elaborate… a-and I shouldn’t blame myself for falling victim… even though I probably would…” she says, as she clicks the seatbelt into position.

 

[MisterEightySix]

(Nope, won't happen. The absolutely unavoidable stuff is done now. hauntedbythewendigo We should take this opportunity and do our scene for a while so we're caught up with the flow of the rest of the plot.)

Meanwhile, a little while ago...

Hum stumbled a little as he made his landing on one of the rail cars on the other line, and watched the train slow to its unusual, pixelated stop.

"Well, so much for my shining moment," he grumbled, dusting off his windbreaker. He patted the pocket containing the HCP he had been about to use when Elextrixtr had started fiddling with the controls. "Don't worry, you'll get your chance."

He climbed over the guard rail on the side of the rail car in question and looked in Elextrixtr's direction as he started to climb down to the ground. "I'm gonna go find Pentifer before he gets himself into trouble. You coming? The sooner this situation is wrapped up, the sooner I can get home and get some sleep."

With that, he jumped down and started hurrying back along the tracks, muttering something about contractors not getting paid overtime.

 

[hauntedbythewendigo]

(Nope, won't happen. The absolutely unavoidable stuff is done now. hauntedbythewendigo We should take this opportunity and do our scene for a while so we're caught up with the flow of the rest of the plot.)

Meanwhile, a little while ago...

Hum stumbled a little as he made his landing on one of the rail cars on the other line, and watched the train slow to its unusual, pixelated stop.

"Well, so much for my shining moment," he grumbled, dusting off his windbreaker. He patted the pocket containing the HCP he had been about to use when Elextrixtr had started fiddling with the controls. "Don't worry, you'll get your chance."

He climbed over the guard rail on the side of the rail car in question and looked in Elextrixtr's direction as he started to climb down to the ground. "I'm gonna go find Pentifer before he gets himself into trouble. You coming? The sooner this situation is wrapped up, the sooner I can get home and get some sleep."

With that, he jumped down and started hurrying back along the tracks, muttering something about contractors not getting paid overtime.

"Well, why wouldn't I come along?!" Elextrixtr sassily remarked, getting ready to run as fast and far as she could.

Far ahead of the track, they saw a clearly disoriented figure- Pentifer. Jeez, that sudden launch must've taken a lot out of him.

 

[Gadg8eer]

(( RP paused while I get up to date. In the meantime, I'm adding the "equal pacing" rule we agreed on. ))

Spoiler: GTX v1.0.1: Pacing Hotfix

Each post for the RP must be followed by a minimum of either... 1) A post by me as the GM (so an NPC or environmental change, not just for my character) and a threadmark on your post by me, 2) a post by one of the other players you're interacting with and a cookie from them, or 3) a post by one of the other players (including me as my character) and a cookie and threadmark by me.

 

[Gadg8eer]

The door was already open, so Bolypius walking in with little trouble didn't come much as a surprise. "Have you considered getting a few more hallways that lead up to your meeting chamber, Y/N?"

"Before you ask.. As for how they didn't find me... I hid behind a trash-can. Their tech is below the standard of Hinobi's. Or at least, I assume it is." Bolypius looked down at the pit, kicking a piece of metal debris into the hole and watching it fall. "Even at 14% power, my signature is always incredibly easy for Hinobi to track whenever they get into range. They just don't mount offensives consistently since it takes weeks of preparation and months of grinding to go for a raid against my general power level. If they chase me down with anything less than 99% certainty, they will lose."

"I had to eject most of the energy from the train I originally planned on using to get out of... Well.. I'm not sure where this place is. I don't have a GPS in this form. My energy retainer and remote gathering code was damaged heavily by The Lynchpin." It points to a semi-healed scar on it's face and horn. "It'll take 2 weeks with ample resources to return to my full capacity."

"I recognize at least one of you also possesses a divergent code. Like mine, but without a 50 year pedigree tied to all modern Hinobi glitches and AI. One is a rarity, two in the same place is radically improbable, and after three, there's enough of a pattern to call it a black swan. A new age of technology is evolving at an alarming rate..."

Bolypius wasn't what the group had been expecting. It had exhausted most of it's energy trying to blow the lynchpin out of its body. (Weapon levels were measured between 1-8, like bosses and glitches. Normally you can't quantify past that, but if you could, The Lynchpin would be level 12.) In Bolypius' case, even the energy it cannibalized from the digital circuitry and the battery of the locomotive had only been enough to sustain it for a few hours, especially since it had to convert 80% of that energy into weapons when it believed it was going to confront the group of glitch-techs on behalf of the other Divergent Glitch it had met in the train cab. Weapons which it then had to slough off since it didn't have enough energy to maintain them. Because of these facts, among other things, it was still in it's highly degraded form, not much more powerful than it's very first emergence against the first team of techs that dealt with it decades ago.

"I assume that since you sent a minion of yours to try and retrieve me, you're aware of my status as an asset, Y/N?"

"What the FOSS just happened?" one of the Sixers asked.

"Mother of god..." another of them spoke, pointing up at the trap door.

The Sixers looked up and saw Bolypius hovering over them above the pit they'd been cast into.

"HQ, we need backup! Bolypius is here! I repeat, Bolypius is here!" a third Sixer stated as the trap door returned to its closed position.

“O-of course. Right. S-S-Safety first.” Alice said.

“I-I trust you… I can’t imagine y-you’d lie to me… I-if this is all some sort of psilocybin type illusion… then it’s really elaborate… a-and I shouldn’t blame myself for falling victim… even though I probably would…” she says, as she clicks the seatbelt into position.

"Sounds like we've both been there, but I swear I've done my best to not lie to you and to come clean about Biotechnica and CheatGenKey without breaking OpSec." she said. "It's going to be a bit of a long flight, feel free to fall asleep."

(( Naptime for Alice! ))