8am. They need to wrap this up in around twelve hours. Go up an apartment block full of the White Rabbits. Only they don't realize that the Vultures are already here, or at least are soon to be, and violence is imminent. Christmas dinner is a long way away.

[JOB PREP] Let's Build an Adventure

[PC PREP] Gearing Up the Team

[Play Starts] Hour 0

8am. Wednesday, 12 December 2024. Standing on a hill near the two remaining towers of the Metroplex. Rain is drizzling down. The air too warm for snow, but sleet is possible if the weather swings worse.

The Metroplex Towers stand taller than anything in this section of the GLOW, like two and half fingers into the sky with a fair sized gap between them and the better sections stretching out for kilometers. The final plan had four buildings spread out across a half-kilometer square turned 45° with one northeast (3), southeast (4, unbuilt), southwest (1), and northwest (2, mostly destroyed).

Impressive structures by height alone, several windows are broken, graffiti is commonplace, and the lack of cleaning 'Synths means Soulburn has slowly but steadily built up layers of rime on the outside. The buildings have aged thirty years in the past ten.

Thick, high walls separate the inner complex from the outside, though none of the intended defenses work outside of what the residents have installed themselves. The interior of the complex is a large courtyard with surrounding gardens, though the primary thing growing in latter are strange weeds and empty Ash bottles.

The intended spiderweb of skybridges and trollies has not come to fruition with the absence of two of the four buildings. Only a few skybridges between the two cattycorner buildings are left remaining, and not all in good conditions. Others have shattered and fallen or were left incomplete. Vines and trash dangle from both intact and broken ones, alike, as numerous unhoused people have made homes in a few. A risky endeavor to cross.

The burnt remains of MP2 stands to the northwestern side. The Soulburn dances oddly, there, and despite some rooms being available to at least get out of the elements, few feel comfortable inside the husk for long.

I pull out my drone. It looks cheap as shit. Like something you might get with your big-boy allowance assuming your parents were not, you know, rich-rich but still had enough money to get their dumb spawn drone-buying quantities of allowance.

I know, shouldn't talk shit about other people's kids. It lacks...elegance.

At any rate, the whole point of this thing is that it is supposed to look like it cost only a few hundred Noodles and has deprecated since then. Like it's not worth it to even try hock it for a few quick hits of Ash because it might just explode on you. Which is how you know, if you know me, that this thing is reliable as your dad's disappointment. It's a brick that breaks the laws of physics to fly just fine while being able to take several hits from direct gunfire.

Better still, it does exactly what I want it to do. Fly. Talk to me. Potentially divebomb the person trying to shoot me. It has a few algorithms and responses, but it absolutely does not think for itself. It is my second best friend.

I tap the non-GLOW phone against it to sync up the two systems. I requested Arkyu get me a phone which 100% has no Aether. Model you might see in Nebraska. And yes, we do have cell-phone towers here. Not as many as, well, Nebraska but you can't have your fancy international travelers not able to load to upload all the outrageous shit they see while touring. They might rent an ASE while in the 'Burn, but they ultimately want to impress friends back home and outside the GLOW's limits, an ASE is just a marble carved with thousands of nanometer glyphs. Pretty, but not worth the 3k+ price tag.

Unfortunately, within a few seconds of it hitting the air it detects there is some passive scanning in the area and the on-board computer plots a path that keeps it from entering the area directly. I can get some data from it, but I was hoping it was able to get close enough to scan for Null Boxes.

There is a good half-kilometer of no-man's land around these structures, where the architects had planned for affordable food, clothes, and...I don't know...sex-toy shops to go.

The one block of now shuttered businesses that managed to open before it was obvious it was all going to shit looks like a death trap. I can practically feel the eyes hiding out in those buildings as my drone circles over it.

"Ok, plan B," I say to Bugbear without fully telling him what Plan A had been.

My ASE is currently on a watch band with my HUD up. I dial into Arkyu's office group and Genny's face shows up. "Eye, we got any notion at all about where the Joker is at in the deck?"

"You know how she shuffles the damned thing," Genny says back, sticking to the code because even though it is unlikely someone is listening in, it's not null, "Joker could be anywhere. Just deal and we'll see what hand shows up."

Fuck. "Understood." I kill the connection. If they managed to dig up any intel, then we could possibly just taken elevator or go up MP3 and take one of the skybridges across though, that being said, even from here I can zoom a bit with my HUD to see the skybridges are probably bad news. Half look collapsed and one has a burning barrel in the middle of it, smoking pouring out into the gap. Another has an arm hanging from the side and I don't know if I am looking at a corpse or an Ash-head so high on Soulburn dreams that he, or she, doesn't care.

This means we will have to go up from the bottom and try and figure it out as we go. Ah, well.

Still, I am impressed, looking up at this terrible task. These buildings are fucking huge. There are three 200+ story buildings back near the heart and several 100+ story ones throughout The GLOW, with a few floating skyscrapers going even higher by technicality, but you can see how massive this would have been. A game changer. A place where Mom and Pop Joe could have something to call their own. There was supposed to be shops and hospitals integrated into these, but first they got the people in.

Then it went to shit. And folks were suddenly contracted to live out their days in buildings that smelled of smoke and required escaping out aforementioned no-man's land just to do some shopping.

"You ready?," I ask Bugbear.

"Are we on Plan C, yet?"

"Yeah."

He lets out a long sigh. As he starts walking down the hill so we can circle around to the entrance gate - the entire Metroplex is surrounded by security walls a dozen meters up and two meters thick - I call him back.

"Here," I say, tossing him my Aether-Bubble. He catches it and doesn't ask if I am sure. The way they are supposed to work is you slap a button and the device hardens a lattice of Soulburn in roughly a three layer bubble shape around you. Allows you to hit the ground from a great distance and then bounce, with the innermost layer protected from the blow by the design of the outside structure.

Only last time I tried to use one the inner layer didn't form and I broke both my legs. I also squished the gunman who most definitely would have slaughtered us once we landed. Took me two months to fully walk again and I still get twinges on cold days. Like today.

I only trust Aethertech like I trust a hungry, hungry hippo. I trust it to one day kill me.

Speaking of a death wish, I detour around to those completely-not-empty empty store fronts and set up a little insurance. One of my two explosives. It would be dumb to go around blowing up too much stuff inside so this will be a distraction, at best.

Hour 1

9am.

The gate on the south side of the complex is wide enough for two large-sized vehicles to enter/exit at the same time along with pedestrian footpaths. The metal barrier that could be activated has been replaced with shipshod materials repurposed from around the complex leaving only enough room for a single mid-sized vehicle to enter or exit without time taking to disperse some of the refuse.

On the other side of it, past the first of the two large buildings, is a large open area designed to be a recreational space for those needing to get outside. Concrete structures, an outdoor park, walking path, skate park, pavilions, and playground equipment have all be heavily defaced and covered in more makeshift structures. It smells like a hundred people with proper sanitation on the best of days. This is not the best of days.

We approach the "gate" which is the point where the wall was supposed to give way to a large metal aether-controlled barrier that could be brought up from the ground to seal it off if needed. Now it's stuck down, the controls cannibalized for cheap scrap. In its place, on top of the half-meter wide slab of metal sunk into the nusphalt, are various piles of metal, scrap, and a few burned vehicles, leaving only a 3m wide gap on the left side.

And in that gap, a couple of young idiots with distinctive bunny ear headbands are standing. They aren't showing any obvious armaments, but I'm less worried about what guns they might be hiding and more what sort of insta-alert they can send. If they wake up Alice, now, the rest of this is going to be much worse.

I don't smile. Don't act fancy. Any of that. I just walk up. I have a bag with a bow on it. Bugbear has a wrapped box. Inside mine is just a half-eaten box of chocolates. In his is a broken down projector. This is our basic cover. Just a couple of visitors bringing some gifts. It won't do jack once we get into proper Rabbit-ville, but before then it gives people a pause.

I hope.

As we get up to the two Rabbits, the taller of them, with long hair and what appears to be white ink tattooed directly into their face, looks us over and shouts...

..."25 Nood, or get fucked."

25 New-Dollars? That wouldn't buy you even a slightly-fancy dinner in The GLOW but it is still a fair chunk of change just to enter the complex. I click my tongue. If I put up too much of a fight, I risk getting attention or inciting violence early. If I don't put up any fight, practically ditto.

I pat my pocket, making a big deal like I have to keep shuffling my fake gift around.

"We were just going to see our friend Sam in MP3, fellas," I say even though white-face is probably AFAB or at least femme-presenting, "Ain't that right, Hankry?"

Bugbear just nods and keeps his eyes half closed like he is nursing a hangover. He's probably using his ASE, sitting in the middle of his fake glasses, to calculate distances and nearby folks in case this goes more south than normal.

"Which apartment?," White-Tattoo asks.

"361, left side by the fountain."

"They got a fountain?," the other one says. Older, smaller, darker than White-Tattoo. I curse. Little details sometimes work but I was going on an old pamphlet that said that some floors had fountains and indoor park spaces.

Right as it looks like they are about to ask me another question, one of the heavy metal sheets that had been welded to give a slight protection from the weather to folks standing here gives way and slams down, splattering rain and mud on White-Tattoo.

I walk past and whistle as I flip a anonChip with nu50 on it. "Here, use this to get those shoes cleaned. It looks like they were nice shoes." It did not, in fact, look all that much like nice shoes but it looked like they cared for them.

I keep going, braced to start running, but they just glance my way. I think they bought it, sort of, but if they see us inside they will be not amused that we are in MP1 instead of 3.

From above, picture something that looks a whole lot like a Two of Diamonds. One that was meant to be a Four:

Two huge buildings make the "diamonds." The ruins of the third building like a strange blotch on the card. A giant empty space opposite it. The corners, in Spring and Summer, turn green from the badly kept plants and better kept community gardens. The ponds probably look almost inviting on hot days.

In the winter, it's just shades of gray and brown.

Underneath the towering towers, sorry for that, you get the Atrium. The way the road works is you pull around MP1 or you walk to the center or you skip the car and just walk to the center. Apparently the corner between MP1 and the never-finished MP2 was going to be a metro station. That's just grass, now.

The center, the "atrium" is a place with various concrete structures. Kind of stuff you can picture, possible. Stage made of a concrete slab with concrete seats going up in concentric half-circles. Pavilions, though several have taken hurricane damage and never been fixed. A playground with a surprisingly clean slide and a shockingly damaged swing set. Practically, typical stuff.

We go up and around the MP1 body and then there's a door at the top of its diamond and we go in through the lobby.

The crowd is sparse, here. That's not a shock. What is a shock is how much the folks have worked over the place. Empty cans have been picked up and placed in piles rather than scattered about. Bottles are at least near rubbish bins. Trees have blinking light strung on them. Red and Green ribbons are tied around light poles. There are even a couple of ServiSynth elves singing Christmas carols.

Sure, a couple of the elves look like they have been kicked and beaten, but they are at least moving their broken mouth to make song.

It's kind of unnerving.

I contemplate dropping some yeast to ferment more chaos but I decide against it. No matter what bullshit we are about to cause up there, down here is a different story.

I'm just glad I placed the bomb far enough back no one will get hurt.

Probably.

Hour 2

"Shut the fuck up!," I say, testily, at Bugbear.

"Uh," he says back at me, genuinely confused, "I didn't say anything."

"That's the fucking point."

We are entering into floor 54. By stairs. By. Motherfucking. Fifty. Three. Flights. Of. Stairs.

Bugbear, bless him, had suggested we take the elevator and just get out every few floors until we found signs we were in the right place. I told him that was stupid because if, say, a couple of heavies got in with us, we'd be trapped.

Now, the bastard has the audacity to seem barely winded after we get here. I'm breathing like a damned fat-fuck rhino giving birth. He's not breaking a sweat.

After spending all this time walking up here, looking for any sign that we were in a Rabbit-controlled floor, we finally found it: a big as fuck all rabbit face spray painted on the wall. A sign for the normies to not exit. Here be bunnies. All that shit.

Now the plan is to exit and...I don't know, improvise.

Standing in the hall, looking up and down, the place wipes any trace of good will and peace among men from my mind. This floor is a shithole. Trash is everywhere. One in three doors seem to be missing. It stinks of piss, stale smoke, and a half-dozen other odors it would take an entire chemlab to parse. Someone has written in a) brown paint, b) lots of blood, c) literal shit, d) all three, e) something worse on the walls right opposite the stairs we took. It says, and I quote, "Cuck dhem Ful."

I don't fucking know.

There are also lots...and I mean LOTS...of drawings. Rabbits. Mad-Hatters. Strung out caterpillars. Grins. A fat woman with a big hat and a well-painted speech bubble screaming "OFF WITH THEIR HEAD!" and then a bunch of heads of famous cartoon characters. I suppose anti-capitalist propaganda. Compared to the shit-skids, pretty impressive.

It just...itches me to look at it for some reason.

There are two bodies present in the hall, just the angle we can see, and from here I can't tell if they are living or dead.

The only spark of Christmas joy is what seems to be an entire box of glass ornaments smashed to shit and back and then what looks to be blood around them. People stepping on them? People rolling in them? I'm too old for this.

We are in the wide outer hall of the floor, which will go all the way around. Every five or so rooms, give or take a broom closet, other halls cut through. This translates to around a hundred or so living spaces plus a dozen or so spaces for "mixed use" though I know from the briefing that those aren't really in use. At least not regularly.

I don't know if this is the only floor the Rabbits control. Or if this is just the start of their territory. BUT...we have to push through until we can figure something out.

I have my other bomb. My plan is to use it as a distraction. You know of something more distracting than exploding a bomb in an apartment complex? No, me neither.

However, if they only run this one floor then that means I'm crashing down dead bodies and broken ornaments onto people's heads below. Folks whose primary sin was not fleeing the area when the Rabbits moved in. Not innocent. Innocent fled the GLOW years ago, but not part of the job. That bothers me to bring in folks not part of the job.

So we have the other bomb outside and I can blow that. Which might start an evacuation. I now wish I had set up something more. Started a panic down blow and tried to ride the wave.

Once again, stuff is getting too weird right to start. Like always. Hell, I half suspect that Arkyu only sends us on missions where our particular brand of chaos might cause...

Then I stop. Mid thought. "Oh fucking no," I say. Out loud. Like a character in a movie.

"What?!," Bugbear says back to me, from where he is. Standing over one of the bodies and trying to figure out if the person is alive. If he had a stick, he'd be poking it.

I don't say anything, not right away. But that picture has finally finished itching my neurons.

Arkyu. RQ. The motherfucking Red Queen.

She just sent us to the lair of a gang called the White Rabbits with a penchant for Alice in Wonderland themed artwork.

Led by an alpha-bitch named "Alice."

I could believe it to be only a coincidence.

If I was stupid.

Doug's Commentary

About "vs the Christmas Miracle" and Credits