Side effects of Deep Trouble include fever, nausea and death

[Scott of Hyperborea]

(a continuation of the story begun in Four out of five doctors recommend Deep Trouble)

You end up in a small, grimy apartment on a small, grimy street in a small, grimy part of the sanct. You see "FUCK THE SYSTEM" spray-painted prominently on walls, along with the circle-A anarchy sign and, inexplicably, "VOTE NO ON LISBON". Apartment 1-22-40 has little to recommend it beyond its neighbors, but at least the lights are on.

Inside, a man with spiky hair and piercings in uncomlooking places ushers you into a makeshift theater. You sit down around the back of a group of perhaps fifteen or twenty people, all tourists with that "How did I end up here?" sort of look on their faces.

The movie begins.

You are reminded of those "dead baby jokes" you used to hear on the more tasteless corners of the Internet. "What's the difference between a pile of a hundred dead babies, and a Ferrari? Answer: I don't have a Ferrari in my garage." The first scene of the movie looks like the setup for such a joke. An open stretch of ocean, broken only by the occasional dead baby being tossed back and forth by the waves.

"Abortion," says the narrator in a lower-class Yardistan accent. "Some people say it's a woman's right to choose. Other people say it's murder. But nowhere is it practiced on quite the same industrial scale as the sanct of Deep Trouble in Straylight."

A diagram of the famous Garret Process of inserting genes into germ cells.

"The Garret Process allows parents to build so-called 'designer babies' - when it works. What Amara Pharmaceuticals hides in the small print is that two-thirds of the time, the modifications fail, and the modified child develops abnormally. It's why most Garret Process therapies include the use of a fertility drug that promotes multiple-births. Of the two point eight children conceived during the average Garret Process fertilization, on average one point one are successfully born. Doctors advertise that the removal of the failed foeti is painless and convenient - and they're right. The whole process has become so automated that no one need even acknowledge its existence. This spot of ocean, where several currents meet and the debris dumped off Deep Trouble tends to end up, is the only evidence."

Return to the picture of dead babies floating on the sea.

"The Sisters of Viviantia, a nonprofit right-to-life group, estimates that the sanct of 13,000 performs 5,000 abortions per year, including those of off-sancters who visit for Deep Trouble's renowned reproductive therapies. To some, like the Brookshire Secular Alliance, these statistics are not troubling."

Picture of a group of Brookshirerithians, waving signs like "Get the Kaiser out of my uterus".

"But even secularists have voiced concerns at the sanct's legal definition of the practice, which allows the "abortion" of children as old as four years."

A video clip of a Deep Trouble researcher, speaking to a seminar of some sort. "Flaws in the Garret Process can reveal themselves at any stage of life. Developmental abnormalities that passed undetected in the womb might only come to light when the child is old enough to crawl, or walk, or form zir first words. If that happens, we need the option to show mercy on these children by terminating what promises to be in any case a painful and hopeless existence. The Sanct Board has determined that a child only achieves personhood when ze has a rudimentary command of language, and I think it's a wise decision. If the child can't even speak to us, how do we know it even wants to keep living?" The image of the researcher shifts to grainy black and white, and ominous music sounds.

"Data on infanticide in Deep Trouble is understandably hard to come by, but the practice is both common and accepted. Some sources suggest as many as hrgdlk wmbr vvvvzzzzzzzzz....."

The tape has jammed, or the projector has broken, or something. The man with the piercings shouts different variants of "FUCK!" for a while, and then, still muttering, puts in the second tape.

A man is interviewing a cyclops. The cyclops is dressed in denim slacks and an ordinary work shirt. He appears human save that he has only one eye, on the left of his face. Not only is the right eye missing, but there is no sign that it was ever supposed to be there. The skin covers the eye socket in an unbroken sweep.

MAN: Why did you sign up for the experiment with Amara?

CYCLOPS: I needed the money. Five thousand erb, a lot of cash at the time. My son had breakdown, and we needed some extra to pay for his healthcare.

MAN: Explain breakdown to our viewers.

CYCLOPS: It's one of those emergent chaotic processes. If the genes are engineered wrong, they might not fit with the rest of the genome, and there's a conflict. The body's self-repair functions keep it at bay most of the time, and then one day, the dam breaks and you've got five or ten different cancers.

MAN: So your son also had genetic engineering done to him?

CYCLOPS: Yeah, the more effective germ-cell kind. It was our fault, really. We were short on money, so we went with Turgin Premium Life, even though their reputation wasn't so good. We should have sprung for the Amara Gold.

MAN: If you knew Turgin had such a bad reputation, why did you order genetic engineering for your son at all?

CYCLOPS: You know how it is. The advertisements, where a boy with crooked teeth and lots of acne walks in for his first day of school, and all the other kids are pointing and laughing at him. Then 'This doesn't have to be your child.' We love our son. We wanted him to start on an equal playing field with the children of those rich kids from Hub. We would've aborted him if we'd known, but the breakdown didn't start until he was eight or nine.

MAN: I'm sorry to hear that. Let's get back to your experiment with Amara. What kind of drug were you testing?

CYCLOPS: Cosmetic. Supposed to induce the skin to grow over unsightly blemishes. My eyes weren't all that unsightly, but my skin grew over them anyway. Doctors were able to save the left, but the skin had fused too completely with the right one by the time I was able to get an operation. I hear they ironed out the eye problem, and the cosmetic's a big success now. Even the Kaiseress uses it, though you didn't hear that from me.

MAN: And did you sue Amara?

CYCLOPS: Couldn't. I'd signed a release form waiving my right to sue. It was a condition of participation in the trial.

MAN: But surely release forms don't cover...

CYCLOPS: We're all adults, here in Straylight. We know what it means to sign a contract. if I didn't want to waive my right to sue, I shouldn't have participated in the trial.

MAN: So what do you do now?

CYCLOPS: I'm in one of the smaller MUD communities off the platform. I do inventory at an algae farm five clicks from Deep Trouble Main. I started with a diving job, but I'm not so good at spatial tasks because my depth perception is like hell. The algae farm's nice and easy, and no one judges me there.

MAN: Explain "MUD community" to our viewers.

CYCLOPS: Mutants / UnDesirables. When you've got someone with partly transparent skin, or one eye, or tumors in conspicuous places, the normals don't want them around so much. I don't think it's aesthetics so much as it reminds them of their own mortality. The surrounding algae farms and resource extraction rigs are almost entirely MUD. We look after one another, and the businesses are pretty lucrative. Seafloor 8, Deep Trouble's main subaquatic dome, is run by Dan Hu, a guy with an arm coming out of his head. My farm is easy to navigate and requires only simple agricultural work, so a lot of the eyeless and vision-impaired end up there. I'm a senior manager now. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, and all that.

MAN: So you're forbidden from living on Deep Trouble Main?

CYCLOPS: No, of course not! Citizens of Straylight are free to move around as they please! But no one would offer someone like me a job on the main platform; they'd tell me to go look on a MUD. Most businesses on Main Platform wouldn't even let me on the premises for fear I'd drive away customers. And of course there are only two ways of getting around the platform, YourPath and ArrowWay, and both companies have a no-MUD policy except in cases of emergency or pre-approved visit. If I tried to use either I'd probably be arrested, and of course there's no way out of the docks without one or the other.

MAN: How would you describe your quality of life?

CYCLOPS: Pretty good, actually. My first wife left me a few years back, but I have a new girlfriend on the farm and we're getting married next month. My son recovered from his breakdown and now works for Amara, where he's got promethin-cis-6 treatment and is taking the anti-promethinases, and when he has kids they're guaranteed Amara Gold and will probably become top execs. So our family's really one of those Straylight success stories you always hear about.

MAN: Thank you.

The tape finishes and ejects. The man with the spiky hair mutters "FUCK!" a few times, even though everything seems to have worked perfectly, and inserts a third tape.

"This is Brookshire Broadcasting's nightly News at 11. Glen Freeman, on the run for the past three years, has been arrested in Backbone Site on patent violation charges relating to the illegal synthesis of anti-promethinases."

A mugshot of Glen Freeman, now prisoner number 20882. The picture switches to a spokesperson for Amara Pharmaceuticals.

"The hard-working men and women at Amara Pharmaceuticals put in years of effort to create the promethin series of therapies. By trying to profit from them without fairly compensating us, Glen Freeman tried to deny the very basis of commercial exchange upon which our society is based. He is no better than a common thief, and we applaud the brave men and women of the Straylight Militia who have finally put him where he belongs - behind bars."

The screen goes black, followed by (in one of those decaying, urban fonts) GLEN FREEMAN: THE PRISON MANIFESTO. A shot of Glen Freeman, in his prison cell, talking at the camera.

"There are two types of gene therapy," Glen is saying. "First, you can use a retrovirus to inject a gene into every cell of an adult human. It works, to a degree, but it's crude and you can only make blunt high-level changes to the genome that way."

A caption: Glen Freeman has a Ph.D in molecular biology.

"The second kind is germ cell therapy. Edit the unfertilized egg, and you can do pretty much whatever you want. Biologically, it's a gold mine. The advantage of both of these methods is that the therapy only needs to be done once, and then you're changed forever. Of course, that's a disadvantage from the sellers' point of view. Let a parent buy the top germ therapy for zir kids, and the kids will never need to give you another dollar until they're old enough to have kids of their own. Where's the money in that?"

"Amara's most valuable product is the cis-6-promethin gene - that's a variant of a neuroprotein that increases IQ between 25 and 40 points. That's the difference between the class dunce and the class valedictorian. This is an especially problematic case for them: they're worried someone will get the gene and then use their enhanced intelligence to go work for a competitor. With a retroviral therapy, you could make the subject sign a non-competition agreements, but if you're giving it to unborn kids they can't make binding contracts."

"So Amara uses the promethinase enzyme. They inject an embryo with the gene for the enhanced protein. They also inject the embryo with a gene for promethinase, an enzyme that destroys the protein. Then they patent anti-promethinase, the chemical that inactivates the enzyme. So now kids get born with normal intelligence, and don't get the benefits from the gene until they take the anti-promethinase drugs. Which, of course, Amara only gives to those who comply with its terms."

"First, I had to pay them twenty percent of my income yearly. That was just the beginning. I also had to sign a contract agreeing not to criticize Amara Pharmaceuticals or their policies on promethinase in any public forum. Then I had to promise not to work for any of Amara's competitors, or any competitors of companies affiliated with Amara. Then I got the drugs."

"So, around the time I was twenty six, I said, you know fuck this. I stopped taking the drugs, and started speaking out against Amara's policies. Even got on TV a few times. But...you don't know how it feels, to be three or four sigmas above average g your whole life, and then go back to being a normal. There was one day, when I opened up my favorite webcomic and couldn't get any of the jokes. That was the day I started buying black-market anti-promethinases. Only for a few months, of course, to rachet my intellect up to a level where I could figure out how to synthesize it myself. Seven years, I was on the run from the law before they caught me. And now I'm here."

"They told me if I stopped sending out these videos, they'll give me my drugs back. Fuck that. There's nothing you can do with intelligence anyway in here. So listen to me. Screw this whole libertarian ethos thing. We need the government to step in and make the anti-promethinases public domain. I guarantee you that ninety percent of the Deep Trouble scientific community agrees with me, but they're legally prohibited from saying so because of the contracts. Meanwhile, if you're on anti-promethinases, find a black-market dealer. There are some good ones in Discontinuity. Go to the West Harbor, find the guy with the red ring on his shirt, and tell him "There is no friend, anywhere." He will know what to do."

The tape ended. At around the same time, someone started knocking at the door.

"WHO THE FUCK IS IT?" asked the boy with the spiky hair. A girl with a blue mohawk materialized next to him and shouted the same question, laced with a few more curse words.

An older man came in. A USB port marked his pineal eye, a connection to the basic computer implanted in his skull. "I hear you've been showing anti-Board videos to tourists in here."

"Fuck, it's the landlord," the girl told her male counterpart. Then, defiant, "There's no law against showing videos."

"Of course not," said the landlord. "But the Board just offered me two years' rent to kick you out of the building, and considering what a mess you make around here I'm inclined to accept. You've got three days to find a new place. Although," he added "if you've gotten yourself on a Board blacklist, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who will accept you."

Another man came through the open door. "Ah," he says, and turns to you. "I'm Mark Killarney, from the Tourism Authority. I'd like to apologize on behalf of the people of Deep Trouble for allowing these young hooligans into tricking you into seeing their propaganda, which is of course completely baseless. As compensation for your lost time, the Authority has decided to offer you all a free dinner at the StratoVeranda tomorrow night, a 120 erb value, and to give you each complimentary copies of this glossy coffee table book: Systemic Expansion: Better Living Through Biology. Come on now. We've already called a taxi to take you back to your hotels. The dinner passes are in the car with the driver."

The thought of a free dinner at a fancy restaurant blocking the past forty-five minutes from your mind, you and your fellow tourists happily descend the stairwell to the waiting taxi.

[Ari Rahikkala]

This is excellent. The setting for this bit was somewhat more den-of-cyberpunk-ish than I expected, but the story's certainly more pleasant than any Gibsonian "high technology makes the people violent and the weather rainy" dystopiophilia. The guy with the USB port on his forehead was a bit too weird though IMO. If I wanted to interface from inside the body with something via USB, I'd just use wireless and carry an adapter/antenna, or put the port somewhere where it's not quite *that* visible...

[Scott of Hyperborea]

In a society where the gap between the rich and the poor is biotechnological, MMIs become a form of conspicuous consumption. Yes, wireless would be more convenient than a USB port. The same way carrying a diamond ring in your pocket would be more convenient than wearing it on your hand.

[Yes, you caught me. But darned if I'm going to edit the story just because you make a perfectly good point.]

[Ari Rahikkala]

Conspicuous computer ports as a status symbol... I like it!

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I'll bet there are people who can't afford a real computer but have some minor plastic surgery done to stick a USB port in their forehead anyway. Then if anyone asks them to upload some data, they say "Oh, sorry, it's broken right now. You know how unreliable these things are"

[Andreas the Wise]

OOC: My first thought, when I saw the title was " , Scott's written another thing!"
Now my second thought is ... "who says it has to end here?"

He went to the taxi. He attended the dinner, and laughed and joked with his other tourists, and acted, like them, as if he'd forgotten everything that had happened below. He went back to his room, and did not climb out the window to go back, and did not make covert phonecalls in the bathroom, and did not go and send cryptic, or even non-cryptic emails out. He was dealing with people more intelligent than him, and he knew it. He just hoped the hope of all who challenge a society far smarter than they .... that he had a few tricks up his sleeve that they didn't comprehend. And one was almost a months training in the Raynor Isles ANOVA. So this is what those Biotopians had avoided becoming. Thank Sakat for that plague ...

The next day, he left the sanct as he was scheduled to. Many of the other tourists were staying on for more than a week, but he had been here a week already, and thought it best not to disrupt his pre-arranged schedule. By evening he was setting down in Melangia (Raynor Isles would have been too suspicious) and, he hoped, the authorities had forgotten about him. If they hadn't, their reach didn't extend into Atterock, and the Baron had ways of hiding people that they could never have guessed. But first, he had a meeting to make.

He walked up to a house in Melangia, and knocked on the door. Number 8. An interesting number. He was let in by a small Melangian, who showed him through to the cellar. They were old friends and would be having a glass of wine away from their wives ... or so it would appear to anyone watching. In reality, the man walked into the cellar and teleported to the private residence of the Baron, to an area with no windows. An hour later, he would leave via the same cellar, teleporting out. In between, he was meeting with the Baron.

"It's worse than we expected," he said. "They indeed claim to be the successors of the Biotopians, before Kildarians drove them out. They make no mention of Libertopia ..."
'And lucky for me they didn't,' the Baron thought. 'Poor chaps, don't realise that magic came to power just before the plague ... and that, before they were defined by hatred, they were defined by something far more unique ...' "An oversight, I'm sure," he said aloud.
"Their company claims success in virtually every area of biological advancement imaginable - except that of conquering aging. With the exception of one individual. Maria Morimoto."
"I must search the history books for her before Straylight," the Baron said.
"But others tell a different story," the man continued. "They claim there is only a 1/3 success rate - and waves of abortions as a result. Up until the age of 4. FOUR. They claim the majority of mutants or defective individuals are called MUD, and work on the outskirts - algae farms and the like."
"And the people who told you this - you saw them?"
"With my own two eyes," the man replied. "And the authorities came soon after, and gave the other tourists and I a dinner to forget. They have money aplenty, clearly."
'I wonder ...' the Baron thought. Aloud, he said, "You have done well. Now, for the final part of your lesson - the tracking system they could never have guessed. You have seen these people. Now, you can scry them." They went to a pool of water - a ceremonial Sakat divining pool - and the man, one of the most promising Libertopian mages, scryed. The Baron saw the people. Unfortunately, their surroundings were unclear. He fixed their image in his mind. You could only scry what you have seen - and only the best can scry what they have seen in the scryings - whether of themselves or others. He was the best.
"There is one more thing," the man finished, as the image dissipated. "They spoke of a place where the babies wash up ... the aborted ones. I saw it on a film. Could I scry it?"
"Try," the Baron said, but, as he suspected, the man could not. "With time, you will learn," the Baron said. "For now, return. You have done very well - and you will have one of the top positions in the new shadowfighters, when they arise." The man thanked him, and left, leaving the Baron alone with his thoughts ... and fears.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Now I'm... confused...

[Andreas the Wise]

Well, I was going to wait till Scott responded and then advance the storyline and explain somewhat more. For now, a lot of its hinting.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Well, Andreas, I'm not really sure where you're going with this. I was going to say I'd described the character of the County sufficiently and call it a day. You might be able to convince me to keep this going, but you'll have to give me more of a cue.

[Andreas the Wise]

Oh, just someone investigating reports of government cover up, huge evil corporations etc ... someone with historical interest.
(most of the post above was just the guy getting back undetected so he could scry (something Deep Trouble wouldn't expect), so that I can later make contact with those blacklisted people ...)

[Andreas the Wise]

Maybe if I write some more you can see if you have something to go off. From my perspective, its probably trying to find (and if I find one, bust) a conspiracy. And solve history. Yours, I assume, would be to cover up the conspiracy .... and develop it further. But of course, as the whole interplay developed, other factors might come up ...

The Baron was unsure what to do. He was rarely in such a position, and so he savoured the moment, while considering what had led to this.

One the one hand was a troublesomely small set of notes from a Melangian historian, dating back to before the plague. Their description of Biotopia and Libertopia would considerably surprise the residents today. The Raynor Isles own historical records had been lost to the plague, but these few notes had been saved in Melangia, like much Kildarian history, and as the Baron rose in the esteem of his subjects, so more and more historical data was available for his viewing. The plague was well documented. It had begun from ships in the Raynor Isles, trading across Kildare. Both sides had claimed the other started with experiments going too far ... but had recently come to peace as the Baron had explained, carefully, that it was a plot by shadows. So far, they were buying the story, but unless he could produce hard evidence for what was basically a historical theory from putting several other diverse events together, he knew the peace would not last much longer before it succumbed to the imbued response of centuries of hatred. And he would need the Raynor Isles' support if the Duke made any more moves against Atterock.

On the other hand he had this - proof that a small Straylightian Sanct did claimed to have stemmed from the Raynor Isles. He'd heard wild rumours of this before, but the nature of Straylightian Sancts was such that most Shirithians heard little about what went on in them, and they were considered "a little weird." But just imagine, assuming the story was true, what historical records they could have. However, such records were tied up in a company of ... questionable motives and means. He'd heard wild rumours about genetic mistakes gone wrong, of eugenics on a national scale ... and, apparently, some people on the Sanct in question believed it to be true. If there was truth in this ... well, getting his hand on those records would be much easier if he were at the head of a team busting an unethical corporate monster, than by his own means. Morimoto, in particular, was careful not to reveal anything more than the company approved history to the outside world. And that intrigued him.

And on the third hand, or, perhaps, tentacle, because he was, as ever, Sakat's servant ... was the question of fighting shadows. He had promised the counts this. "Light and Dark have battled for aeons, and Brookshire drives back the darkness, but who is there to drive back the shadows?" he had told them. Those who stood for themselves, rejecting both light and dark ... again, his knowledge was sketchy, but in magical history, at least, his conjectures were generally right. And he conjectured there was some sort of shadow involvement centred around the Raynor Isles ... and he was going to get to the bottom of it the best way he knew ... by analysing history, and defeating the bad guys with magic. Even if they were, in fact, only businessmen. Or something more sinister.

And on the final tentacle was the matter of politics. The reach of the company in question was phenomenal - at least on the sanct. There was no way that an official Atterockian delegation would get anywhere in digging up historical records - especially since the company probably didn't want any digging to be done. But spies were an accepted part of politics. The Babkhans spied on everyone. SHINE had tabs on people, Melangians even. And a few well placed ... well, call them spies, the Baron thought of them as Shadow-Fighters in training ... busting an evil company? That was practically normal, by Shirithian standards. If there was nothing too sinister, it would be good training before they got to real shadows. And if there was something more ... well, they had every right to be interfering. Besides, any company which defined appropriate abortion as "before they learn to speak" rather annoyed him.

So, how to do this? He wasn't sure how much planning and reach to attribute to the company, but better safe than sorry. His last operative could not return. He had to find the other people who's basic training in ANOVA thus far, and natural cunning, would be enough to help them dig further. Depending what they found ...
He would get his secretary to prepare a list of suggested names. In the meantime, he would see if the company responded to his original operative. And if his ... other business contacts ... could get him some more info on the sanct. Ah, the delight of knowing Manuel ...

OOC: I have a rather fun way for Libertopia to have transformed from a free-market society to being dominated by the mage guild just before the plague. I know why the plague occurred (it was to provide a cover to destroy several key historical documents and prophecies). I know the mage vs technology was engineered so nobody would investigate the history prior and work out why the plague first started. And I have rather developed Shadows as a magical race, though I haven't told many others yet about them, I'm waiting for the right Gralan expedition (for now, think of the universe as divided into three factions - Good (which I sometimes refer to as "light" - the cedrist gods, the Gralan mages, angels etc); Evil (which is referred to as "dark" (and as a dark far more than the absence of light - more like anti-light - the demons of Balgurd, the Remnant, the Whisperer, general Gralan demons etc); and the third force, which deliberately aligns itself with neither, but actually works hard to not support either. Merely being arrogant and self serving is actually rather on the "evil" side. To truly serve yourself and not just proxy evil takes a lot of effort. The particular force most coordinated at it at the moment is the Shadows/Reflections/Echoes I'm developing as a new set of Gralan bad guys). They want power rather badly. And so someone wanting to live forever actually sounds rather a shadow attitude, if my description makes any sense.

I'm not expecting to actually find an evil shadow running the whole Corporation or anything like that. I'd be perfectly happy if they just had a very minor role setting it up at the start (and I can find a good excuse for Biotopia going from bio to technology in general). Busting a ... well, not even evil, just 'unethical' corporation cover up conspiracy would be fun. If you'd like to play such a side, I think we could get something really interesting going. If you'd like to play up that the conspiracy is on the side of the others and the corporation isn't really bad, just hiding stuff for a good reason, that's fine too. I'm just hoping you would like to develop the whole genetics corporation/anti-corporation stuff further because it seems to me far, far too cool to leave as just a post. It should be a long story, or at least a treasure hunt ...

Does that explain/give you stuff to go on?

[Andreas the Wise]

Of course .... piracy was another matter entirely.

While the possibility of travelling to Deep Trouble on a real pirate ship was so tempting, Andreas considered it far too obvious. Amara Pharmaceuticals may not yet know about his interest in them. But they would have heard of the theft of northern Mar Sara, and they'd be smart enough to recognise a pirate. Cheerfully for him, they probably weren't smart enough to recognise a magical illusion. Or, indeed, the other magical tricks Andreas had up his sleeve.

He had arrived under with the passport of one John Smith, a real citizen of Old Hallucination, who had volunteered for the 'honour' in exchange for a small erb based remuneration. John had never travelled before this, apart from an annual pilgramage to visit his mother in Lesser Attera, and should be entirely unknown to Amara Industries. With the help of an illusion belt, Andreas was his spitting image, and had studied enough of his history to answer basic questions. Besides, nobody was looking for John Smith. They were looking for a pirate. Or 'The Troublemakers.'

And trouble was exactly what Andreas intended to start. He had thought long and hard about who could aid him in this theft, and opted, in the end, for no one. At least, no one specific. Just a simple arrangement - a phonecall earlier in the week. Andreas was currently outside Amara Industries, and entering, as a tourist, for the general tour. He listened as they expounded the wonders of Deep Trouble, and glanced, just twice, at his watch. If everything went according to plan, someone should be acting on his phone call just about ...

B000/\/\. There was an explosion outside. The tour instructor reacted as expected - apologising for this slight inconvenience and asking the tourists to make their way to the exit. At that moment, the alarms began to ring. The tour instructor was forgiven for missing that one of his tourists had dissapeared.

Thirty seconds later, Andreas was still invisible, but now inside one of the cleaner's doors. The lock had been surprisingly easy to pick ... perhaps this wasn't an important area. The private side of Amara Industries was not as flash as the rest. Perhaps MUDs did the cleaning work, and they weren't considered important enough to have nice looking corridors. He made his way along the corridor, until he finally found the door he wanted. Archives.

Outside, 'The Troublemakers' were trying to get past a string of guards who had descended from all over the complex at the sound of an explosion. Perhaps they shouldn't have used the dynamite a stranger left for them after he phoned. But one would later escape with his camera intact, and one was all they needed ...
But that is another story.

Andreas, still invisible, looked at the archives door. Typical organisation. The front of the door would have several elaborate locks, he was sure. The cleaners entrance had a simple key card lock. Typical "advanced" arrogance - probably didn't even consider that others might use a MUD passageway to get in. Still, no chances. Instead of even trying to open the lock, he planeshifted the other half of the door into the ethereal plane, and walked through, replacing it. Now he was in. To see if there was anything worthwhile ...

It took a minute, searching through the files, to find what he wanted. Buried at the back of one filing cabinet was a "History of Biotopia and Libertopia" - and by its colour, it was Audente era. Andreas placed it into a plastic cover then pocketed it. He was moving to leave when he saw a file labelled, "Classified." Curiosity was a curse ...

Stolen: 1 authentic "History of Biotopia and Libertopia" scroll
1 file labelled "Classified" from Amara Industries