[Rampancy] (Contracts & Employment Agency) The Pied Piper, Stage One: Meeting the Matryoshka

Alice quietly slid into the seat, staring at the message for a while. Sure, LANE would be busy with the interrogating... She slowly reached out, and selected an answer.


Yes.


Right as LANE asked if she was ready, Alice glanced over and nodded to him. "Ready, and with a mech to boot! This is going to be so much fun!" She couldn't help but squeal in joy as the mech rose and the cockpit closed, herself a bundle of joy, like a child on a roller-coaster. "WHITE_RABBIT, ready with mech to aid in escort. LANE, we form up and get this mission rolling again?"
 
Lance chuckled, "Hell yeah. Lets rock and roll folks!" he responded with enthusiasm, looking to the nearest APC, "Lets go boys, we got ourselves a singer to secure and escort. Keep the air cover on rapid response, and perhaps most importantly, if anything tries to violate our airspace and won't be warned off by warning shots or verbal cues, smoke it. If it comes in an aggressive manner, smoke it, no warnings if its clearly heading right for us."
 
WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


Almost instantly after picking yes, your implants synchronized and you felt like you were having an out-of-body experience. The implants hummed to life as you felt a minor click at the base of your skull. The view was black at first, but the camera drones ejected from the mech and gave you a wonderful third-person view of yourself in this walking tank.


ALL UNITS


Moving forward, the escort party would begin rolling down the road to the pickup location. Upon making your way down the road, what you saw was an interesting scene. There were people knocking at the door, holocameras flashing and press-drones floating around with glee. What presented itself to you was a peculiarly dressed woman. She wore a black trenchcoat with a hood. It covered her face, obscuring it even in the light. However, there was a bit of a reaction to her nonetheless.


"Matryoshka! We want to see the Matryoshka! Step aside and let us meet the Mad Matryoshka!"


WHITE_RABBIT would be the first thing the crowd truly recognized, and in an LAV directly behind her was LOTUS and LANE, with LOTUS driving and LANE on the machine gun. LANE was able to get a good view of their reaction from his position, while LOTUS needed to step out of the vehicle. The crowd saw the local government's flag on it, and they seemed to go into an uproar and appeared to form a mob. However, the cloaked figure held its hand up and they all stood perfectly still. She pointed to the LAV that held LANE, and in the silence of two seconds she spoke a single sentence.


"I was wondering what held you up."
 
Lance grinned, chuckling slightly, "Oh, just the crazy ex-owner of that pretty looking mech there," he responded gesturing towards the mech that WHITE_RABBIT was in. "We have however, dealt with the situation and arrived to insure your continued safety till your show, Matryoshka. You can call me LANE. This is LOTUS, and that is WHITE_RABBIT," he said this, gesturing to each of the other employees.


"We are prepared to continue escorting you as soon as you are ready to leave."
 
ALL UNITS


"Actually," this made the figure chuckle, "I'm not really her. I was somebody hired from on high to make sure she didn't get scooped up by somebody who wasn't Long Corporation. Don't worry, though. I'm not here to do anything other than observe. These people have thought I was her for a while though, because she dresses like this from time to time. You calling me as if I were her shows some insight. Are you fans, too? Oi, I'm rambling. I'll get her."


The figure turned around, opening the door, and when the crowd began to press forward he spun around twirling two daggers. He held them in a ready position, and a feminine figure poked her head out from behind him as if she were a cartoon character. One of her pupils were mismatched, almost sized wrong. It was obvious that she had eye implants. Well, at least one. She had three dots under her right eye, and her left had some eyeliner. Her attire was brightly colored, and her hair had a red stripe, a green stripe that ended in a bun, and blue hair from the bun down. She had a purple dress, wearing cut gloves that exposed her long fingers which had a special finish on the nails. The purple and black looked like the audio scope of a fresh beat. One that was mirrored on a portion of her visor, which was a holographic screen that covered her eyes and extended around to the sides of her head.


"Oh they are the ones! I get why the crowd freaked out. But please, pretty-boy, you can put those knives away~!" She giggled after speaking with sexual undertones at 'pretty-boy,' and the hooded figure relaxed. "These people are fine. I can tell. And I wanna ride on the big mech!" She giggled, almost prancing through the silent crowd to admire WHITE_RABBIT's mech. "You hacked one! Oh I like iiiiit!" At her squeals of glee the crowd seemed to relax, almost unphased by her exceptionally zany behavior.


Almost as if possessed, she spoke in a high tone of voice and spouting out technical terms and analyses of the parts of WHITE_RABBIT's toy. She stopped mid-sentence, and turned to the whispering crowd of fans who seemed to suddenly be concerned at her stopping the insanity. "Oh yea, you guys are here! I'll play you a show tomorrow night! I gotta get to a sa-"


She laughed loudly, falling back on her rear with her hands on her stomach. Her top was tied across her chest at the back, hanging over her stomach but leaving her back exposed. The top ended at her skirt, which was purple as her top was. Her boots were largely purple, going up to her knees with multicolored stripes and laces. "I can't tell you sillies where I'll be! That'll invalidate the purpose of my rendezvous! Rendezvous, rendezvous... I like that word! Ah, alas I'm yapping again. Before the show have this: HE HAS AN AUTOGRAPHED SET OF DESIGNER IMPLANTS FOR THE FIRST PERSON TO KISS HIM!" She pointed at the hooded figure while bearing a devilish smile, and the figure made an audible grunt of terror and twisted around into the building. He locked the doors, and through a small window of - hopefully - bulletproof glass you could see him rushing to bar the doors. She turned to you two, her laughter revealing she might have been lying.


"Can I ride on top of the mech?! Please!" Springing up from her seat on the ground, she pointed at a part of the mech that could hold her, and even had rails. There was a 'CAUTION NOT A SEAT' thing there, but it seemed harmless. She clapped her hands a few times, seemingly begging as she hopped up and down with energy.
 
Alice smiled in the cockpit. "I like you already! Uh... I guess it's okay to sit there... assuming we don't have to deal with anybody." She was secretly a fan of sorts of the Matryoshka's, not the kind that went bonkers... besides, it was only for one song. Alice sighed and pulled out a can of coffee, drinking it while the mech sent her whines and protests about having someone sit on a part that it really didn't like having people sit on. "Say, could someone please give me directions to the rendezvous location? ...Rendezvous... that is fun to say! Dang it!" She glanced back as Matryoshka climbed up on the mech, making sure she was... mostly secure. "Oh yeah, the callsign is White Rabbit... y'know, like Alice in Wonderland. It's a pleasure to meet you, Matryoshka."
 
Lance was a bit uncomfortable, "Well, if you insist, I suppose we can't exactly disallow it... it'd be safer for you to get in this LAV with the armor, as we've already been attacked once, and to be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure as to what you've got to defend yourself if attacked or somebody tries to do a grab and go."


Lance chuckled, "And by the way, my callsign is LANE. I'm a Nemo family trained soldier, so you know you're in good hands. WHITE_RABBIT is the best hacker I've met, and we've got plenty of firepower to cover our tails if we need to make a quick exit... Also WHITE... this is the Rendezvous location... we'll be heading to the safe house from here. The vehicles should have the location accessible for us to see now."
 
ALL UNITS


"I'll be fiiiiiiine..." She groaned at LANE, rolling her eyes. However, her face flipped into cheeriness almost the instant he chuckled and introduced himself. "A Nemo? Well, I feel safer then. I've heard there's been some family disputes lately though... Those Calverts, that's gotta be fun right? Just don't get hooked on me honey," she winked, "Seven ex-hubbies says something about my attachment issues."


She skipped over to the mech, and with a coil she jumped straight up to the panel. She took on an almost cartoonish smirk, pointed forward and shouted something in Korean, said a phrase in Russian, then said "ONWARD, great RABBIT! INTO THE RABBIT HOLE OF THE MATRYOSHKA!"


LANE, aka Lance Nemo


Shifting into the LAV's driver seat, you lead the convoy down the road. Upon making it to the safehouse, however, there was a large cluster of people at the marked location. Your HUD didn't read that they were Ultranationalists. Everyone in the convoy was tense, and you could feel it. "Hehe, don't worry," Matryoshka chimed into the communicator, "This is actually the safe-house."


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


The safehouse had tons of people around it, and your passenger giggled in glee. It was a very popular coffee shop, filled to the brim with people. As the convoy made it into view and parked, the people got curious. "Gimme your speakers," the Matryoshka said more as a warning instead of a request. She hit a firewall and a few other boobie-traps you had set up in your systems as a passive precaution, then she made a groan and slapped the top of the mech in frustration.


"It'll be so coooooooool! And it'll help me get the crowd to play nice while we move to defend the safe-house."
 
He shook his head and sighed, "Crazy pop star performer junkie psychos..." he whispered under his breath as he drove the convoy forward, scanning constantly for threats along the way. When they finally arrived, he sighed in relief... until his sensors showed the crowd, where he promptly let off a vivid string of cussing. "Holy shit fuck hell Progenitor be thrice damned because when I find the idiot moron of a numbskull shithead who slipped the location of the safehouse I'm going to rip him apart and grind his bones up into powder for my bullets to blow his still living brains into pulverized atoms so damn small that his own whore raped mother of a bastard won't be able to find enough to cry over!" he then realized his mic wasn't on for anybody but his copilot to hear. He turned to the copilot, looking serious, flipped on the convoy mic, and then repeated, word for word, what he had initially said, without missing a single speck of anger. He then looked back at the copilot, winked, made a "stay quiet" motion with his fingers and, without yet missing a beat, kept the convoy moving.


"All convoy wings are to converge on the safe house along the pre-determined points. Flanker A come in from the north, Flanker B from the southeast, the main colum will roll up from the southwest simotaniously. All birds are to secure the airspace and expand our air control of the safe house," Lance rapidly started barking out orders to the convoy units, hoping they could still secure the area even with the crowd.


"Matryoshka, you do realize that with this crowd here it'll be many, many times more difficult for us to provide protection for you, right? Especially as we don't even have a body-double right now to fake out anybody watching us?" He spoke directly to Matroshka for this.
 
LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"Silly goose!" She laughed, "This is the best place. It's in the open, with lots of people. If Ultranationalists try something here, it'll cause a spectacle the world over. I've had fun with more than enough national governments to have a few marionettes in place. I just pull the strings, then they dance like mad fools!" She laughed openly. "And these people are my people, if you catch my drift."
 
He shook his head slowly, "Your people? They're brainwashed aren't they?" he kept looking around, "The main problem I have is that if the Ultranationalists do try something, we won't be able to properly protect you and exfil you to another location during their attack."
 
LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"They're not brainwashed, but... I want it to be a surprise! There's a safehouse in there, and... All the fun things are inside! There's some explaining to do, but I'll talk inside. JUST GIMME SOME SPEAKERS!" She lay flat on her stomach on top of the mech, flailing her arms and legs up and down to cause a racket on the topside. She stopped, making a pout-y face.
 
He shrugged, "I"ll.. take your word on it then. If WHITE won't give you the speakers, you can use the LAV's loudspeaker."
 
ALL UNITS


She got this huge grin on her face, and sprung off the mech. She dove in, flying over the passenger's lap and landing directly in front of the loudspeaker's control panel. All around her holographic panels opened up, filling the space around her with floating computer screens. She slapped one to the speaker's main console, and it showed a cartoonish image of her face going "XP" with two fingers up. It read "In use by MEE! =D" in the text. Unorthodox at best, the passenger was blushing as she was practically sitting in his lap. She sat upright, saw his blush, and laughed loudly before grabbing the back of his head and giving him a very animated kiss. She winked at LANE, and stuck her tongue out as she seemingly launched off the guy's lap. He had no idea how to react anymore, if his face was any indicator. LOTUS didn't seem entirely impressed.


"Alright everyone!" she shouted into the speakers, and everyone in this store turned with some surprise. They didn't seem to realize that the Matryoshka was there until now, but they were containing their excitement. "Who wants to PARTY HARDY?! You gotta have a party!"


She materialized floating turntable screens under her hands, and with a spin she threw her hands back and made a mad grin. Playing a catchy opening that turned into her singing, the Matryoshka began to dance gently and as if she were at a cross between a high-class jazz club and a rave. She threw her hands off the panels and began waving the arms around as if directing the crowd. And, sure as Hell, they followed. Her crazed movements seemed to have some manner of method to them, but it was too hard to really discern it. She pointed to LANE and WHITE_RABBIT to exit their vehicles, and pointed at the crowd. Almost as if a carpet rolled down the throng of people they split up, leading into the coffee shop.


"Everyone jump in! You guys can't guard a party while bored! Alternate in shifts, let all of you get some fun in!"


The song changed, and



They became more active, but at the same time more relaxed. As if the music was gently guiding them. LOTUS got out, irritated about something. She followed the mad Matryoshka through the crowd, slowly. She motioned the others follow, as did Matryoshka. However, it was apparent that the two had completely different personality disorders.
 
Lance did his best to keep his cool about him, and was honestly damn near disturbed by what he was seeing. "They're damn near enslaved to her music..." he muttered as he dismounted, keeping his rifle slung and instead letting his hands fall down to the pistols he had holstered. He knew that if things went south for some reason, the rifle would take too long to move in the confined crowd, though to be honest, he wouldn't have felt bad if he ended up gunning down any of the seemingly mindless music slaves.


"I don't do parties Matryoshka, just my job," he responded as he followed her somewhat, after motioning for the soldiers to dismount their vehicles before he went for the coffee shop. "I want a loose perimeter with a rotating shift set up. 6 hours at least for sleeping, 1 hour on guard, 1 hour off for whatever. Keep the perimeter loose, don't hustle the civilians unless they start to cause trouble. Eyes in the sky, I want 80% of you resting at any one point. Set up a rotating shift among yourselves, though I need you ready to respond at a moments notice, so no off-duty time for you. EVERYBODY though needs to be able to respond in minutes to any threat. We're not going to have a heavy guard awake the whole night after all, just enough to buy us time to get the rest of the group active and our birds flying. Better safe than sorry in the skies birds, if the air space gets violated I'd rather you all jump up a dozen times on a false alarm than get caught on the ground by one actual attack."


He shook his head, "And for fuck's sake... don't do anything you wouldn't feel comfortable with your mother and grandmother and all your friends and family reading about."
 
ALL UNITS


"I have to admit... I'm catching myself humming along a time or two. I'm curious as to how she's doing it..." LOTUS said, shocked. The crowd looked like anything of a normal rave, and people began illuminating their own attire appropriately. If it weren't for the fact that there were clothing lines made with built-in LED lightshows that could be turned off and on at will of the wearer, it would be a little startling.


"They're not slaves to me, they're slaves to the music! We're all slaves to it, really. Every day of the week I can't live without jammin' and that's why my life's always slammin'! I'll explain it all inside!" She was yelling over the crowd, who threw their hands toward her as one would a celebrity passing the crowd. She spun, lowered her head, arced her back, and held her hands out. A line of 'PLEASE DO NOT CROSS OKAY?! <3' tape. Essentially hazard tape, just with a winking cartoon of Matryoshka's face, just like in the car. The throngs bent over it, and she ran down cackling madly as her palms met with those of her fans.


LANE, aka Lance Nemo


The shifts assigned made some of the mercs annoyed, partially because LOTUS created a list of who gets first shift alphabetically by name. A few dreading the fact that they had last names like Reynolds or Zimmerman. A particular soldier, whose last name was Jamison, was distressed to find out that for once his name didn't get him put in the very first guard shift. The first guards were happy to go to their first shift, because that meant they got all the time in the world to goof off in the party. Those who were in their 'happy-hour' first made a single comment that stood out to you.


"It's like I'm high right now, but wow! I don't feel impaired, just good! The music... it feels so great! Man I should go to these more often!" He then began to dance astoundingly well in his combat gear, doing a shuffle and then jumping down to do a head-spin. It was as if the music literally was moving through him.


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


Watching the world around you through the eyes of the metal behemoth you sat in, the party was an amazing sight. People just spontaneously moved by the Matryoshka's music, and the effect of the crowd was astounding. However, there was a hunch you just couldn't shake. The level of connectivity with the dataverse was exceptionally high, even for a coffee-joint like this one. The people seemed to be much more active in the dataverse, and packet exchange was off the charts. The charts read that the exchange rates skyrocketed as the Mad Woman got control of the LAV's speakers. She was nowhere to be seen though, obviously having gone inside.


ALL UNITS


After making your way into the coffee shop, you'd see a bunch of people sitting down with various memorabilia and merchandise for her concert. They looked like her roadies, setting up shop in this 'safehouse.' The woman in question though was nowhere to be seen. Then, one of the men fell over on his face as she ran up to LANE. "You guys finally made it!" LOTUS began to say something about the security of the shop, to which she replied "Sh, no words, only dreams." She winked and poked LOTUS' forehead while making a 'boop!' noise. She made a karate-esque pose and kicked a wall after making a loud 'whaaaaaa~!' noise. The wall lit up in the oranges and yellows of holographic panels, then it slid sideways to reveal what was easily described as a junkyard. There were posters and soda cans everywhere. Papers holding sheetmusic and a few newspaper clippings with notes scribbled all over them lined the walls where the posters and hulking machinery didn't. She chopped her hand down on a chair, then swept everything off it in a melodramatic pose. She repeated this process four times with varying noises, revealing leather chairs with extremely comfortable padding and a single lounge chair. Asides from maybe a few crumbs from pastries, they were clean enough to not revolt most people. She sat down on the lounge chair, taking a 'French girl' pose and resting a hand on her hips. She used her free hand to motion for a drone, which buzzed over to her chirping in a dead form of Greek. She exchanged words fluently with it, and it zoomed off.


"So, once you all are comfortable in one of my many safehouses, feel free to ask me anything! Well, I'll go ahead and tell you the answer to life the universe and everything is 42, but that should be old news by now!" She winked at LOTUS, who seemed to be annoyed by her charge's insanity and remained standing, "Relaaaaaaax, I'm having fun. I'll calm down eventually. But seriously, ask away. I don't even care if Long Corporation wants to ask questions, I'll answer those too. They're paying me n' stuff, so why not?"
 
What was that bit about only dreams? Abbot wondered out loud into the microphone connected to Lotus.
 
ALL UNITS


"What were you talking about, with dreams?" LOTUS asked, almost absent-mindedly repeating what Abbot said into the microphone. To that, Matryoshka laughed whole-heartedly. She began tapping on her chair, humming a tune that was crazed but at the same time methodical.


"By dreams? I meant that I've always been this way. A mad, patched up, Matryoshka!" Upon saying that, a Russian nesting doll materialized in her hand. Or, a holoscreen image of one. She opened it, revealing a patchwork one inside. Opening it, she revealed a slew of reports and papers on a holoscreen desk, all about implant technology and schizophrenia. "You see, I used to be something more sane. However, when I discovered the joy of music, I felt the need to share. Aren't we all just a little bit crazy? I was horribly so once." She giggled, "You'd think I still am, but no! I'm not just any crazy, I'm the crazy!" She made a wide toothy grin. "I suppose the 'only dreams' line came from something I told my first audience. I was at a recital that I may or may not have actually been signed up to play at. I was a kid in high school, who had been cruelly shoved on stage by some peers. They laughed at me, but what they didn't know was that I had seen the threads that connected them all. You call it the Dataverse, or in some cases the 'Net.' I call it music!"


She cackled, and the drone caught her drink as she deliberately knocked it off the edge of her chair. "You see, what people don't realize is just how nestled into their skulls their implants are. When people dream, it's their implants resetting their RAM on top of the brain doing its normal thing. This causes a synergy between the two. I developed - in one of my paranoid-schizophrenic 'the world wants to eat me alive' fits - a way to tap into that. Everyone's brains emits waves, and so does everyone's implants. I have developed an application that lets me reach my hand all inside your head and shake my hand around to make you feel all good and happy!" She rolled in her chair, folding her legs toward her chest in a sexually suggestive pose, using her index finger to lower her bottom lip and shift her eyes into sinister seduction.


"You probably think I'm a monster. Well, then you don't know what I'm capable of~!" She stretched back out, and fell limp in a yawning fit. "I make my music at live shows hit all the good parts of someone's brain. I make them feel the effects of whatever drug would make them feel the best, without ever having the drug. All I do, is put in a program for their implants to 'convert' some data into chemical brain messages. It's like an app they don't ever see again. I did studies on it - my first couple of concerts where everyone thought I was just some crack-whore flailing on stage were the 'tests' where I got data. I found that these things have no side-effects, nor negative effects. Essentially, my music is happiness. I make them feel my music in places that they didn't know could feel music."


The dolls closed and then vanished. She looked at WHITE_RABBIT with a playful smile, LANE with a wink, and LOTUS with a dark grin, "I can show you first-hand if you're feeling 'experimental.' You'll see why I can make a show sell out and get rave reviews when I don't actually play music. I did that once. Or was it thirteen times? I don't know these days. Too often."


The fact that she bridged her life story off of a line of 'only dreams' was something exceptionally odd. In case anyone in the room had any expectations of normalcy from this woman, anymore.
 
Lance's hand naturally drifted down to his pistol upon hearing the crazy talk of messing with people's implants, "Is that even... legal?" he asked. Shortly afterwards he realized what he had just asked and chuckled, "Then again, legality isn't a huge issue I suppose..."


"And if that happens to be the case, that you're basically just hijacking aspects of everybody's implants, why weren't we effected? Why aren't the soldiers really effected except when they're on the breaks from their guard duty?"


He shuddered, "I don't know if I'd feel comfortable letting you mess around with my implants... but then again, I doubt I could very well stop you at this point either if you chose to do your thing."
 
LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"I have an AI assigned to the party outside. It thinks it's just monitoring shifts, but really I've got it set to sync people into the party's dataverse-bubble when they get into the break. I don't just hack everyone. And because it's not harming anyone, it isn't illegal in most cases. National governments though, they think I can literally control minds. No, I can just provide positive and negative reinforcement through the raw switchboard of feel-good and feel-bad chemicals in the brain." She giggled, "I wouldn't do it to you if you didn't want me to. As long as you keep your hands off that gun, anyhow. I'm not hostile - just a little nuts. But then again, aren't we all a little nuts?" She closed her eyes and smiled.
 
He shook his head, "I think I'm good... though I still feel that you basically do control people who get tapped into the music system at all... I don't have any further questions though."
 
ALL UNITS


"Well then, I should be fine here. Feel free to participate in the party, or stick around here. The coffee shop owners are used to me doing this kind of thing, I do it every time I'm in town. They have bunks ready for you two, I kind of told them about it ahead of time." She relaxed, holding her feet up and stretching her legs before resting her legs on the backrest and essentially sitting upside down in the chair.


// MISSION CLOCK: OFF


// MISSION: SUCCESSFUL


// EMPLOYEES CLEAR FOR RECESS BETWEEN MISSION STAGES


// AWAIT COMMUNICATION FROM CEA AND LONG CORPORATION


(This is a multi-stage operation. Long Corporation will post its official giving of the rewards here as I create the Stage Two thread.)
 
(unfortunantly i lost all my pms, No one has responded to those related to rampancy or this mission, and as sutch.... I have no freaking clue as to whats supposed to be rewarded including the bonus.... If I can get croc to reply to my research pm and the pm related to this post Id be happy to dish out rewards though.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 4 (members: 0, guests: 4)

Similar threads

Sora No Kami
A vicious dance with death (RP 1x1 based on the song "My R") TW: Self-loathing, Suicune
Replies
1
Views
202
Sora No Kami
Sora No Kami
Back
Top