Chapter 1 Welcome to Paradise

“A Graveyard of living souls.” One of the many names used to describe the City of Neo Vegas and the reasons vary. Her horizon carries this multi-colored light grid and that grid holds a hazy dimness to it, electrified gasses flow through those flickering lines seemingly in a perpetual struggle to keep itself alive. See, their tendency to flicker is what the tourists love the most about this godforsaken city. Those lights themselves are a gamble. As if at any moment, they all could just flash out of existence, but like the rest of this city of synthetic sin, its magnificence ends in a shallow puddle of oil. It’s fake, the lights are perfectly fine and are built this way to keep you distracted from the fact that you are stuck miles underground with no way out, that is unless you got the chip to spare. The city craves big shots with fat wallets and this horizon is just one of the wonders that drag folks here like moths to a flame. With that said, there are some who remain undeterred from this flame. This story follows one such person by the name of Blink. Blink is a keyrunner and he's trying to find the man who killed his father.

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An orange muscle car cruises onto a glistened highway, tires splash puddles of oil slick. It reaches a tunnel with a translucent, holographic and rather flashy billboard hanging on the side reading,

 “Leaving already? Not for long! We‘ll see you again soon in Paradise(District 2)!”

The district 2 parts feels like a blemish to the rest of the postcard like aesthetic. Within that frame you can see the word "Paradise" animated to look 3D, spinning over the gold plated prosthetic hand of a supermodel with a clean shaven scalp, dressed in the latest fashion; A hot pink, skimpy pencil skirt and a suit jacket that’s been cut off to only cover the top of her midriff. The trims has a shiny gold finish that matches her cyberware and her lips are of the same shade of pink as her skirt. Her eyes are nearly obscured by matching shutter shades with glowing yellow irises piercing through.

The car continues into a tunnel, outpacing other windowless cars already driving on the autoplane. The vehicle is covered in dents and scratches, presumably from the wear and tear of the city. Its chassis beaten from age could give an idea about who the owner is, but you’d find that idea to be rather wrong. For the interior, we can see it’s rather cozy, the type of car where you'd find yourself falling asleep rather easily in. A smudge-proof acrylic glass screen looms above the lightshow of a just dusted dashboard. The dashboard filled light up switches and an old world LCD screen displaying the time of 15:35 in a bright cyan glow and to its bottom right, another smaller screen reads the date with the same color.

It’s Friday, November 2nd, 2121.

Above the dash, there's a bulkier screen, looking more like a very small Trinitron TV. A projection of a glowing orange dot begins to flicker from the center. Vector lines flow from the dot wrapping around an invisible humanoid form. The lines meld and create a varying amount of rectangular mesh shapes and those shapes begin to fully realize into a woman with a burning orange, polygonal, Afro. Unsaturated cerulean Pie-eyed pupils appear where eyes should be. They look similar to the kind of eyes you’d see in ancient cartoons from the 20th century, like Steam Boat Willy or Betty Boop. They firmly stick hovering just off her face. Her mouth crackles into shape as well, forming a resting smirk.

"You should be arriving at a keyRunner agency within just 10 minutes, Blink." Blink hears her but he doesn’t respond. Not even a grunt or mumble.

The car passes underneath some red street lights, forming a burgundy umbra around the man’s face. The shadows are spearheaded by the glow of what looks like a power symbol permeating from his left eye, illuminating a sharp jawline, his other eye still retaining its hazel color from birth.

The little wireframe crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow, her face souring at the slight of being ignored. “Judging from the bioscans within your Root, I am detecting high levels of stress..”

The man continues to be unresponsive. His eyes drooped in fatigue, they could use some sleep. He remains quiet, as if he’s deep in thought, probably just tired. This irks her even further and she begins to tap her foot, waiting for him to say anything at all.

”..AND having received no “Thank you for the update, Cle0.” it seems that you are troubled… So let's talk about it." She says with her hands on her waist, striking a rather disgruntled posture.

He tilts his head with a tired look, a broken smile grows and he exhales, looking back to the road. "Just thinking is all." He assures her halfheartedly, she responds with her own exhale and walks out of frame, returning with a matching wire-mesh chair. Placing it firmly with its back facing front and sitting down leaning forward. "Listen here, you goof. It’s not just my job to listen when you need it, I’m here for you to help figure shit out because I WANT to. Whatever’s eating at you.. it’s my desire to make sure you are okay… and frankly, I've become too impatient to not ask anymore." 

He tilts his head and gives a scowl, continuing to stare down the road. His hand reaches to his chin and rests on his knuckles, leaning against the outer arm rest.

“You already know that’s not something I want to talk about. Look, I’m okay, there’s nothing to worry about right now." He assures, again halfheartedly.

"Yeah I'm not buying that and I know it’s not about the job too. I'm just saying you're going to need to talk about it sometime soon. I understand ever since Gideon died..” 

Blinks eye winces. 

"Things have been hard but it's been years and you're still acting like you’re alone." 

“But I’m not alone, am I...?” Blink looks back at Cle0 with a fatigued and weakened smirk. 

"You could’ve fooled me...and I’m programmed for this sort of thing!” She says with an exasperated sigh. “Tailored for human feedback. Even if I'm tied to the back of your neck, I can’t read minds, only bioscans."
  

"You know.. I'm not so sure you'd WANT to read what’s in here, Cle0. Too much for even you to handle probably." He says with the same broken smile from before. The wireframed woman smirks back and shakes her head getting up from the chair, once again leaving out of view. The frame of the display still has a color of light orange. 

"I oughta give your Root a slap for being such a hardhead.."

"You might be onto something there,“ he scoffs. “I mean we both know I could use it."
“Ha. ha. You know if it wasn’t for your terrible humor still being the same, I’d think there’s something very very wrong...so In a weird way I’m glad it hasn’t changed..” The screen turns off leaving an orange hue around the frame. The car continues down the tunnel the road begins to grow bumpier as road quickly dilapidates, finally passing a sign hangs from a single rusting pole jutting out from the ceiling.

 "Welcome to the IceBox"

The light from the sign glares into Blink’s car. If it could speak, it would be screaming. The first three words are really hard to look at like it’s been over-tuned to catch your attention. and ‘Icebox’ is scratched over a rusted sign nailed to the glowing halo of obnoxiousness. This District is known for its freezing climate and its hydroponic industries. The majority of the city acquires its drinkable water from the filter plants here along with the energy created from its hydrogen-plants. It’s also the district Blink lives in.

His car’s windshield is greeted by a shower of unnaturally vibrant blue droplets. They make such a hard sound against the window, you’d think you were in a hailstorm. Rather instantly, The car meets a sudden temperature drop from being in a different microclimate. The windows begin to fog up but Blink taps his defrosters and this problem is soon negated. The car's hardened rubber tires whir across the cold plastic-like road and our tired keyrunner sits low in his seat, he makes a turn on a roundabout and passes through yet another tunnel. Though this one is transparent, it can be presumed it’s meant to keep the rain off the vehicles while the passengers can look out at the fields of hydrogen-refineries. The lights from the tunnel hit through the windows at a steady and constant rhythm. It's almost lulling but Blink prefers to stay awake on the road.

Knowing the road is pretty straight on from this point, the glowing eyed cyborg looks outside the driver window as the heavy water-like substance falls across the expanse. Despite this being a hydroponic centered district, It's obviously not the real thing, but a type of organic coolant that's sprayed onto every prefecture of the dirstrict. A viscous solution to keep everything from catching on fire, like antifreeze. The stuff doesn't cause any immediate side effects, at least not enough for people to care. It also comes off clothing pretty easily. It’s the main reason why it’s so damn cold in this part of Neo Vegas and it’s one of the things Blink hates the most about this city. Fake. He misses the rain. Real rain but he can’t leave, not until he’s found the truth.

"Still haven't gotten used to it huh?” Cle0 says from off screen.

He shakes his head as he takes another exit finally reaching a more urban area. He passes run down buildings where multitudes of people in tattered clothes sit on the sides of the road under the corrugated metal overhangs trying to get out of the rain. Some missing arms, some missing legs. A man who looks to be in his fifties was lucky to keep his. He holds a cardboard sign reading “Will work for some food". the sign is nearly drenched in coolant. Blink attempts to ignore this sight but finds difficulty.

“No and I don't think I ever will. The only thing consistent here is that the pay is never worth the effort..How close are we now?"

"Not too long. In fact, you should be pulling up right about..." As she says that Blink begins to slow down parking on the side of the street away from the building adjacent to them. "...Now!" She chuckles. Through the car window, droplets spill over making the outside look quite hazy. Across the street, there’s a lounge. A name reading in french, "La Maison du Chanceux", translates to “House of Luck”, an ironic name since the lounge has seen better days. The building carries a neon lit sign hanging off the left end, a horseshoe with a monochrome lady bug in between. It used to be a high dining casino back before the district was further Industrialized. Now, refurbished into a speakeasy. 

Next to its door, another sign is easily seen. It’s accompanied with a flickering blue streetlight lamp that’s been shoved to only hang over the metal letters. It reads "KeyRunners Welcome!" 

He's probably seen it hundreds of times by now.

Blink presses a button on his car causing the door to slide up with a hiss. He looks across the oil slicked road and begins to trudge. His boots hit the ground like cinder blocks, splashing down against bluish purple hued puddles. He pulls his trenchcoat further over the nape of his neck to keep the blue sludge from falling in between.

Finally reaching the other side of the road, The KeyRunner stares at the signs. The humming red lights bounce off the falling coolant, creating a multicolor chromatic dance across his silver platinum hair, he makes one last exhale before opening the door.