introduction log.

[falsitates]

JUNE 1, 2021

The first day of summer - it’s unbearably hot. Temperatures are high and relentless, and without a single cloud in the sky, the sun blazes down heavily on the unlucky few stuck outside.

Weather predictions warn of an intense heatwave that’ll last all week long. The young and elderly are advised to stay indoors and hydrated, and anyone with the symptoms of a heat stroke is urged to head straight to the city hospital. Schools are temporarily closed until new air conditioners can be installed, and businesses come to a slow grind as many call out sick from heat exhaustion.

The city warns that it’s going to be a long seven days.

  NEWCOMERS

You wake up.

You’re left to your own devices. You have a vague memory of the last few moments of your time back in your world, in familiar surroundings, but you’re now somewhere new. Whether you’ve awoken on an unknown rooftop, in a stranger’s bedroom, behind cell bars, or under six feet of water - you know that you’re no longer at home.

You’re on your own for the time being. You must escape whatever predicament that you’ve found yourself in and find answers to your own questions. What brings you here? How did you arrive? What happened to your friends and family? You have an hour to explore and speak with the people of this world before your time runs out.

Something then vibrates in your pocket.

  RESIDENTS & NEWCOMERS

Your phone vibrates.

It buzzes incessantly until you pick it up, but when you look at the screen, it’s blank. It will not turn on, no matter how hard you press the buttons. It’s possible that it overheated and shut down, but it’s unusually cold to the touch, almost as if you’re touching a brick of ice. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, white text appears on a black background.

Decryption confirmed.

Condition green.

Booting program.

The screen goes dark once more. Seconds later, new words are typed.

WELCOME TO [ AVA ]

→ MISSION 001
HEAD TO THE CITY CROSSWALK BY 1500. FIND THE [ OTHERS ]. YOUR REWARD WILL BE ANNOUNCED THEN. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.

  WELCOME TO [ AVA ]

You can't avoid the mission; you don't have any choice. Any attempt to ignore or avoid it is futile, as convenient coincidences occur all around you as a motivator to go.

Did you have work? For some inexplicable reason, your shift has been cancelled. Were you trying to get some rest? The fire alarm went off and you were evacuated from your home. Did you attempt to travel to another part of the city? The sidewalks and roads have been closed due to a sudden blackout.

No matter what you do, you are compelled to head to the city crosswalk.

For the middle of the afternoon, it's unusually quiet and empty. Despite the heat warning, there should still be more than just a handful of you and a few others, but you won't have the time to ponder about it. Your phone finally reboots and appears to be back to normal - or so it seems. You've got a new app.

[ AVA ]

It's an icon with a white eye. It stares at you, and the screen remains frozen until you press it. It then starts the initialization process.

WELCOME TO [ AVA ]

PEACEFUL DAYS ARE OVER

ALEA IACTA EST

The text vanishes, revealing the app's interface. It's an online social media network with public forums and private messaging, but it's completely devoid of content. It currently only contains the user profiles of those who have signed up for the app, and you are one of them. Your full name, date of birth, personal address, height, weight, and a mugshot that you don't recall taking are all listed on your profile.

You quickly discover that you have no way of deleting or even editing your information. You can't even get rid of the app. The option simply does not exist.

Minutes after opening [ AVA ], you receive a notification. There have been two new forum posts. MISSION 002 and MISSION 003 are the names of the new threads. You open them to read.

→ MISSION 002
NEWCOMERS, WELCOME TO VITAE. YOUR GOAL FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS IS TO SURVIVE. IF YOU ARE ALIVE TO SEE THE MIDDLE OF THE MONTH, YOU WILL BE GREATLY REWARDED.

→ MISSION 003
RESIDENTS, BE AWARE OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THIS CITY. ONLY TRUST THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW. YOUR COMPENSATION WILL BE PROVIDED IN TWO WEEKS' TIME.

These threads allow you to leave comments. What do you do now?

Comments

[curriculumachine]

| information, app details


i. residents/mission 001
(west end apartment complex, convenience store, & the crosswalk)

[It's too hot to sleep.

Mike had gotten home shortly after dawn and the sun was already sweltering, heating the apartment building's misshapen metal door enough for only the briefest of contact. Inside, the temperature was only slightly cooler, as expected of a run down older building with no air conditioning system. There's no elevator available at the B-side entrance and after climbing five flights of stairs to his apartment, he'd dropped his bag on the kitchenette counter, turned on the industrial fan for carpet drying that he'd borrowed from work, and passed out on the futon. Only to wake up all sweaty and overheating after ten minutes. He's spent most of the morning drinking quickly warmed beer and sitting directly in front of the noisy metal fan in nothing but his underwear. Someone banged on the door about the "roaring motor noise" earlier; he thinks it was Mr. Kincaid from the down the hall, but fuck that guy. Kincaid leaves his television on all day at top volume when Mike is trying to sleep, and the fan noise is now classified as some kind of inadvertent payback.

Sleep continues to elude him despite exhaustion, and his skin remains uncomfortably sticky. He's just finishing flat beer number five when his phone vibrates. It takes him a second to register the quieter sound under the fan, and an additional ten minutes of constant buzzing to get off the floor and grab the phone sticking half way out of his bag on the counter. Intending to just shut it off, it appears to already be, buttons unresponsive. Whatever. After setting it back on the counter, he belatedly notes that it was cold and reaches out to touch the screen again, pausing as it comes on by itself, displaying the message; one Mike deems a wrong number or force-downloaded game app. He thinks nothing of it again, continuing his day of sloth.

Until 2:13. When the smoke alarm goes off, one he had detached from the wall years ago and then again when they'd installed a new system. That one required more than just battery removal, and there's no way the alarm is working with missing electrical components. Yet, it's blinking above his door and shrieking shrilly. Footsteps sound in the hallway, frantic as is custom of a number of his floor neighbours, children yelling about fire and making siren noises because they want to see the firetrucks with the Pokemon. There is a faint smell of smoke, but Mike can't be sure if the building's on fire or it's the dumpster in the alley behind the apartment complex again.

After finally getting dressed, in grease-stained cargo shorts and a ripped t-shirt, he reluctantly leaves the building, immediately trudging away from the other displaced residents to avoid discussion; as much as one could trudge in plastic flipflops. A creature of the night for the last four years, Mike squints at the daylight penetrating his sunglasses and heads for the convenience store. The neon beer and lottery signs are off, and a small cardboard plaque on the door states they're closed due to malfunctioning air conditioning. He can see the crosswalk from here, and there's some sort of pull to it, whether mysterious or an imagined sensation from the beginnings of heat stroke or inebriation, and Mike's drawn to bright white lines. Once there, among a few other people, some he recognises and some he doesn't, the phone in his pocket vibrates again and only now does he think about that weird message. He's here and it's 3:00.]

Nh...

[That's either a greeting or a "what the fuck?", but it's all the nearest person gets as a conversation starter.]


ii. missions 002 + 003

[Mike spends all of one minute scrolling through this new social media app, uninteresting to someone who solely uses his phone as a phone. Missions. This is some viral marketing thing.]

How do you unsubscribe?

[That's all he cares about, weird ominous deathtrap allusions completely ignored.]


iii. wildcard
anything goes;
pm, hit my ooc intro, or laike to plot.

[ape]

There’s no option for that . . . I’ve tried everything. [ ezekiel slides through the forum and missions as he considers it outlays himself, then commenting with a glance up: ] Maybe a hard reset?

[ no way to delete, no way to silence or turn off his notifs— the settings are completely gone for this app, and that’s the only thing that brings him to the conclusion of malware. that is, if it weren’t for the strange barrier in the sky. that’s what’s tipping him off and setting up flags of inconsistency and worry that something . . . strange was happening. colleagues who hadn’t had the same thing didn’t realize it. ]

[curriculumachine]

Maybe...

[He's not exactly sure how to do a hard reset, but it should be comparable to taking out the phone battery, which is what he's now attempting.]

What do you... think's going on?

[He doesn't care, but it's awkward to keep standing around here with these people and he's forcing himself to engage.]

[ape]

I think there might've been something in the last cigarette I had?

[ or maybe his coffee? brownie? kids these days still made edibles, and oh boy did he wish he was just having a crazy episode he could write about later. and then never take brownies from his younger students ever again, and always check his cigarette pack, and—

he's trying to cope, if his awkward chuckle says anything after the offhanded comment of being high, because what else could explain this. ]

That was a joke, I don't actually— [ ahem, ] Anyway, I don't know. It feels like something out of TV.

[curriculumachine]

[Mike's has similar thoughts, because he's currently drunk, and blaming this on substance use is just as valid as other potential explanations.]

I thought... that too. Viral marketing.

[But for what? He may be taking Zeke's TV comment too literally.]

[ape]

You wouldn't happen to know what the fever is this season, would you?

[ speaking of viral marketing; he teachers young people and knows a thing or two about memes in his own area, but . . . he adjusts the bridge of his glasses that keeps sliding off his nose thanks to this damn heat. ]

I don't remember the last time I watched TV.

i've returned late, feel free to drop this thread o/

[curriculumachine]

What?

[He doesn't understand that fever pun, not one for memes and prone to taking things as they're stated; he's now a little confused, but whatever.]

Me either. I don't have one.

no worries!

[ape]

Oh, I meant, [ ah, slightly awkward! he clears his throat and thinks of the next word, something clear to understand. ] never mind, if you don't have a TV.

[ he wouldn't know, anyway. ]

When's the last time you've had water?

[curriculumachine]

[Mike makes a tiny perplexed noise, and his response is slow, because he's trying to retrace this conversation as he's likely missed something if they're suddenly talking about water.]

Just water?... Yesterday?... There's water in beer. I thought we were talking about... apps. Or marketing.

[Or television.]

II

[hippocarnival]

I think it's ransomware. [Does it claim rewards, sure, but it feels kind of like a threat. He doesn't like being told he can't leave, even if he had nowhere else to be.]

There's some lights in the sky too, you think it's related? [He points up.]

[curriculumachine]

[Glancing up, the lines and lights in the sky only serve to start the beginnings of a headache, whether from their brightness in the sun or just shifting positions that quickly. Ugh.]

Might be.

[There's a long pause before an offhand theory forms.]

... is the university doing some shit art installation again?

[hippocarnival]

[That's what happens when you day drink.

Yuya chuckles.] That wouldn't be so bad, right? But it's kind of unsettling it showed up with this app.

[curriculumachine]

Think it's aliens?

[There's no inflection in his voice to indicate whether it's a serious question or a mocking rhetorical one.]

[hippocarnival]

Do you think it's aliens? [He's not answering this question first.]

[curriculumachine]

No.

[Aliens could find more interesting people to fuck with.]

[hippocarnival]

Yeah, it's probably something from our world. [He's not sure if he believes it's spirits, mostly because spirits probably wouldn't code a weird app into their phones, right? Then again, maybe they've adapted to the modern age.]

It'd be a lot more fun if it was aliens though.

[curriculumachine]

Nh...

[He disagrees, in no instance would this app thing ever be fun.]

What do you think they want?

[The non-aliens.]

i

[ehero]

[ It's a good thing that Judai has dealt with plenty of grumps before, so Mike's grunt of greeting or wtf is accepted as the beginnings of a conversation. ]

Did you get the same notifications?

[curriculumachine]

Yes.

[They may not have, but he's going to assume Judai's at the crosswalk for the same reason.]

Do you... know what it is?

[The words are slow and droning and it appears he may have forgotten what he wanted to say for a second, and then picked it back up.]

[ehero]

Hmm, they're missions, aren't they? Though I don't really get why we have to do them.

[ He scratches at his forehead as he thinks. He's not well-known for his brains, so he will be kind of useless at this whole mystery-solving nonsense. Plus, it's really hot so it's hard to focus. His jacket is wrapped around his waist, but wearing a black t-shirt isn't helping at all. ]

[curriculumachine]

[There's a dead eyed stare, hidden behind his sunglasses.]

Do you usually have missions?

['Missions' aren't normal, and they need explanation themselves.]

[ehero]

Yeah, but they're normally nothing like this.

[ His missions involve investigating weird duel spirit incidents, so this is completely out of his field. ]

I've never heard of AVA before as well.

[curriculumachine]

Nh...

[An acknowledgement that Judai said something, but it's not made clear whether Mike is actually listening. He is, but hasn't formulated any response and isn't likely to; he has no insight to impart or questions to ask. Something will happen to reveal the intentions of these missions, or it won't. He's content to do nothing about it in the meantime.]

[ehero]

[ Judai doesn't choose to pursue this line of conversation anymore, though mostly because he's distracted by the shuffling inside his bag. There are soft sounds of meowing as little tiny paws start to poke out. ]

Oh, sorry, Pharaoh. Here.

[ He kneels down to set the bag on the floor, opening it so the cat can be free. It jumps out and lets out a big yawn. It gets a few pets on the head before Judai stands back up. ]

So, are you from this city? Or did you just wake up here as well?

[curriculumachine]

[Mike almost walks away while Judai's attending to the cat, but he's too slow to make the decision, and there's another question before he takes a step. There's a quiet noise of irritation; it's not directed at Judai, but everything that's happened to direct Mike to this encounter in the first place. It's too hot to hang out at the crosswalk with this guy and his cat. He frowns very slightly, an almost imperceptible twitch of his mouth, and scrapes his shoe against the asphalt. His flipflops are melting. Hn.]

Yes.

[Did he answer the question? Was there only one? Whatever.]