The Vivacious Deadlock: S3G6: Round Three: The Sable Masque

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Empress Phere stood at the head of the table, surveying her newly won parliament. She had been very lucky, plucked straight from one position of authority and deposited into another. Admittedly she was in charge of a small time gang of punks, and her so called parliament was taking place around a surgical table with which she had just killed their previous leader. It wasn’t exactly ideal but it was better than shivering in the street. Her parliament consisted of five cyborgs; all the people that were on the premises in fact. Though according to Byte, who had seemingly appointed himself liaison and second in command, they had plenty more people out on the streets. Byte was obviously there, her right hand man (apparently) standing at her right hand (literally), also present was Tek and Abys, who scant minutes before had been holding her at gunpoint, a girl with a robotic spine and a shock of electric blue hair called Syn and a heavily scarred behemoth of a man called Levi. According to Byte; Tek did the tech (makes sense), Abys was all about the special ops, Syn was the gang surgeon and Levi was security.
“So, first order of business.” Empress Phere began, “I hear that we have been expending most of our energies into searching for this Stolen Tome. I am given to understand that so is every other gang in this town, and I can personally tell you that there are seven new players in town who will be looking to get their hands on this tome as well.” She paused. “I thereby posit that we should stop looking for the Stolen Tome immediately because that situation is about to turn into a serious clusterfuck.” She paused and looked at the gathered cyborgs. They seemed a little disappointed (they were really looking forward to when the entire city was Cyberpunk) but they didn’t seem contemptuous. “Instead what we should be doing is leaking information to all the other local gangs, tell them where the Tome is and let them fight amongst themselves for it. Byte, that’s your job. Try to leak it subtly so they don’t know it’s us feeding them the info but by the end of the hour I want every lowlife in this city at that castle. Abys, you’re reconnaissance, get to the castle, get footage of the Tome and get out. I hear you have stealth implants that completely camouflage you, so that’s what you should go with. Under no circumstances engage the enemy. We might need that footage to convince some of the more reluctant gangs. Levi, we need to tighten up security round here, there’s certain people that if they find out that I’m here they might come after me. I’m not keen to find out.” Phere paused to consider if there was anything she had not covered. “Okay, that’s it I guess.” The assembled cyborgs began to disperse, rushing off to carry out the tasks she had assigned them.

Shortly Phere found herself alone in the workshop, Tek had been in and provided her with a high-tech radio thing. Rather embarrassingly he had had to explain what the thing in question was and how to work it. This was the major technological discrepancy that Phere was finding at the moment, that pieces of technology that would be considered simple to these people would have been baffling incomprehensible to her own, but yet she had seen the technologies of the Deep Forge, machines such as would make these look as primitive as a nail hammered through a board. With her feet up on the desk in front of her, Phere clicked the radio on and listened to a report from a Punk who had successfully managed to leak the information to The Good Bad Uglies. As she did so she watched him, walking down the haystrewn streets of the Western Quarter. There was a couple more reports of successful leaks to various dangerous gangs, with confirmations that said gangs were heading towards the castle, when there was another message entirely.
“Hi! Hello! Hi! People? Hi!” The voice was computerised, dull and monotone and yet there was something about it that sounded almost melodious. Either way the message was incongruous enough that it warranted further investigation. Phere viewed the sender; in a cold grey corridor in front of a pair of heavy elevator doors four people, if you could call them people, were in the middle of a discussion and there was a little machine trundling around in haphazard circles seemingly indifferent to the conversation that was going on. What was going on here? Why was she getting messages from this random collection of weirdoes stuck in the middle of the most monotone place she had ever seen? She listened in for a moment; the gist of the conversation seemed to be that the guy with the green skin and the whole mess of shit on his back wanted out of some tournament or something and supported usurping the host, while the others were not so keen. It took her a moment to figure it out, but when she did she snapped back to reality instantly. They were in another of these battles. She hit the button to send a message but got only noisy static for her trouble. She leapt up out of her chair and rushed off to try and find Tek; she had to communicate with these people. It was imperative she find out the extent of what was going on here.