Vip3r - Submersion II
| Vip3r - Submersion II | |||||||
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ShadowHaven Betz | Mitsuhama Computer Technologies | ||||||
| Vip3r | |||||||
Summary
Vip3r retrieves a file from the Resonance Realms on Betz's behalf. In the process, she learns some details about her past that give her the strength to finally face it down.
Background
Vip3r met Betz on the Matrix a couple months after MCT let her go, and Vip3r immediately spilled her whole story to her--about her arrest, about prison, about the lab--because she was the only person she'd come into contact with who could possibly understand what she's been through. Vip3r has also owed Betz a favor since her first Haven run, and Betz has finally decided to call it in.
The Meet
Betz calls Vip3r to inform her that she plans to cash in on the favor she's owed, but that she'd like to have dinner with her first. She drops a location pin for a warehouse in Tarislar, and tells Vip3r to meet her in four hours. When Vip3r arrives at the agreed-upon time, the warehouse is unguarded and empty, save for Betz who sits at a set table in the center. Vip3r remarks on how good it is to finally meet her in person, and after they share a meal together, Betz tells Vip3r that she needs her to obtain the financial records of Uyeno Satoru, one of their VPs who presided over technomancer-related research and development projects.
Loath to do anything that will put her back on MCT's radar, Vip3r almost refuses, but when Betz informs her that she won't need to hack into MCT's systems to get the information—it's been deleted, and can now only be found in the Resonance Realms—she reluctantly accepts.
Betz has a bed with a life support system set up at the far end of the room, and has enlisted the help of a trusted medical professional to supervise. Vip3r straps in, and begins her journey toward the Event Horizon.
The Run
Despite never having navigated to the Resonance Realms before, Vip3r manages to find her way quickly and easily, and soon finds herself in front of the Great Firewall. She sees two hazy figures emerge from the flames. As they approach, she recognizes them as her adoptive parents, Ken and Laura Tanaka, and notices soon after that they're dressed in businesswear with MCT uniforms and badges. At first, she's angry—why wouldn't she be, when they abandoned her in prison?—but they explain to her that, despite having been MCT corporate citizens since long before they even met her, their goals weren't the same as the corp's. They wanted to keep her hidden and safe, but there was nothing they could do after her arrest. They weren't ignoring her calls; MCT actually prevented them from going through, and they never learned why she had disappeared.
When she was transferred to the lab she was held in, the Tanakas finally learned of her whereabouts and were able to negotiate for her release. They never made contact after, because they were afraid she would want nothing to do with them.
Shocked and overwhelmed by the revelation, Vip3r doesn't know what to say. Their images dissipate into smoke, and the Firewall parts, allowing Viper to enter the Resonance Realms.
She appears on a small rowboat in the middle of a vast and eerily silent ocean, with a shipwreck behind her. In the absence of any visible land, she rows back toward the ship in attempt to find any survivors or anything of value. She hears a sound inside the ship's cabin and finds a chest, which she pries open, and which suddenly transports her elsewhere.
Vip3r is now floating in a void before a massive tree that she immediately recognizes as the World Tree, which is the paragon that she follows and which facilitates the connection between the Realms and the standard Matrix. In awe, she can't help but marvel at it for a few moments, taking in the scene before her, laying her hands on the branches and feeling the resonance flowing through it. There are creatures—sprites—living within the Tree, and she notices a trail of ants that seem curious about her. One of them asks if they can help her find something. Vip3r tells the sprite that she's searching for Satoru's financial records, and it tells her that the Endless Archive's librarians should be able to help and offers to take her there. Here, it's represented by a large knot in the tree, but inside, the Archive is an unfathomably vast library, maintained by owls and full of all the information that's ever existed; even things as seemingly inconsequential as winning lottery numbers from 75 years ago can be found here.
Again, she takes some time to take it all in--the massive, towering shelves built for beings that aren't quite metahuman, the incredible wealth of information at her fingertips—and finally asks one of the sprites for help. It tells her that it can't bring her to the information she seeks, but it can give her a card from the catalogue that will help her find it. She accepts, and follows it through narrow rows of bookshelves for what feels like days—or weeks?--until she and her guide finally come to a massive stack of drawers. The owl pulls out a card and hands it to her, but when Vip3r tries to make sense of the organization system, she realizes it's impossible. She tries to focus on the card, and feels like doing so might be bringing her closer, until she rounds a corner and bumps into a massive, dark-feathered owl with piercing red eyes.
“I can bring you to the book you seek,” it tells her, “but I need you to do something for me.” Vip3r has encountered dissonant sprites before, and this owl speaks with the same grating, discordant tone.
“Well, what is it?” She isn't terribly thrilled about the idea of cooperating with a dissonant sprite, but there's no harm in hearing it out.
“Take this to the World Tree,” the sprite says, holding out a book. “It needs to be seen. People need to know.” There's an inscription on the cover that Vip3r can tell is in Japanese, but she can't quite understand it. She reaches out for the book, and as she takes it, her mind is immediately flooded with simsense and trid recordings of the research project she was involved in; some of which are even from her perspective. It's too much for her to handle; she drops the book and refuses to share this information, saying she can't suffer through these experiences again or expose other people to what she endured. The sprite counters by saying that spreading this file will sow distrust of MCT, damaging their legitimacy and bringing the truth to light, and after some hesitation, Vip3r finally reconsiders and picks up the book again.
An agreement made, the owl takes flight and tells Vip3r to follow it. She struggles to keep up, but ultimately succeeds until it finally comes to a stop in front of a bookshelf that it indicates is where the information she seeks can be found. A quick perusal of the shelf reveals the financial records she came here for. She takes it, pockets it, and leaves.
Back at the World Tree, Vip3r faces a dilemma. Her deal with the sprite required her to take the file to the Tree and disseminate the information—not to send it to a specific location, or to plaster it all over the Matrix. An attempt to commune with the Tree and decipher its will provides little help to her decision of where to send it. She ultimately decides that it should be sent to the place where it will do the most good, but in the absence of any knowledge of organizations that help technomancers on a large scale, she concludes that the best person to send it to is the Eighty-Eights Triad's Incense Master. As an out-and-proud technomancer himself, he would at least be likely to use it to protect the emerged members within the syndicate. She makes a copy of the file to give to Betz, sends the original off, and then leaves.
The sinking ship has filled with significantly more water. Vip3r manages to jump down into the lifeboat, and row away from the wreck, but her drugs have worn off and the crash is hitting her hard. She's torn from the Realms by dumpshock, and wakes up in the medical bed, gasping.
Aftermath
Betz attends to Vip3r immediately, bringing her water and letting her know she's been out for over 16 hours. Vip3r tells her that she's obtained the files that she was sent in for, but when she goes to send them, she discovers that the records from the technomancer study were so large that they've taken up the entire storage capacity of her commlink, even overwriting part of her operating system. The two of them work together to transfer the files onto a set of datachips as Vip3r tells Betz what she experienced in the Realms.
When Vip3r checks in with the Eighty-Eights, she learns that the files she's sent have mostly been used to blackmail MCT. Little has been done beyond that.
Rewards
- 15 karma
- -20% submersion grade 2
- Betz Loyalty 3
- +1 Chip with Betz (bringing Vip3r to even)
- Vip3r takes the Fight or Flight Filter echo.
An absolute drekload of survivor's guilt.
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Vip3r
This was... a lot. I've known deep down that someday I'd have to face what happened to me, but I guess I've been wanting to avoid it all and just live.
I think that this journey into the Realms has helped me. I'm strong enough to face it now, and I think I can use my experience to help other technomancers.
First, though...? I want to know the truth about the Tanakas. I'm not going to believe what I saw without proof.