Renraku Arcology - The Tree of Life, IC Options

[Ronin Soul]

Chapter 1: Lockdown
19th December, 5:42pm, Renraku Arcology, 26th Floor
Outside you can imagine the whir of sirens dipping in and out of the buzzing of traffice. You can almost hear the sound of the rain you see patting against the windows you sometimes walk by.
Despite the fact the Arcology is in the middle of Downtown Seattle, the Sprawl feels a long way away.
"A few security procedures." Tsukume Hiromitsu mutters, just as much to herself as to you all as she leads you through the maze of cubicles that seem to take up the entirety of this floor. She's as odd person to be working with black assests, constantly looking flustered, like she's lost something important and is trying desperately to prove that everything is fine and accounted for. She seems to know what she's talking about but most of the time it's like she's talking to herself, with all of you reduced to bystanders. And she doesn't seem very fond of any of you, particularly Albrecht, who she avoids eye contact with as much as possible. Instead she speaks either to herself or to Inoue Kasama, a Red Samurai who seems to be serving as her bodyguard.
She leads you along a winding path through the cubicles, most of them filled only with the glow of dataterminals in standby mode. Finally she comes to an office with a closed door. She quickly swipes a card through the reader and opens the door.
"My office." She explains, almost apologetically as she leads you in. The office is just one room, but it's bigger than it looks on the outside, easily seating all of you. Tsukume herself sits behind the only desk in the room, her faces dyed a lifeless green by her dataterminal.
"As you know Renraku is very enthusiastic about the Arcology coming online. Naturally to ensure it opened as soon as possible they cut a few corners." She pauses, as if she can't believe she's sharing this.
"Corners that Hiroshi Ushida would prefer Dr Huang and Mr Aneki didn't know about."
She pauses, as if she is about to get to the point. But before she can continue, the lights dim. It only lasts for a second before they come back to full brightness. Inoue looks around at the ceiling.
There is an audible whirring noise and the dataterminal blinks. Instead of the green it previous was, it reflects of Tsukume's face in a pulsating series of light and dark.
"What in the...?" Tsukume sputters. Her head tilts to her side for a moment, then she shakes her head.
"That's odd." She says, "the communication network is down. Captain Kasama," she calls to her bodyguard who is standing beside the door, "go to the security station and find out what's going on. The Matrix looks like it's down."
Inoue nods and wordlessly leaves the room. Tsukume watches him go, her fingers resting on her mouth. She mutters something in Japanese - "Of all the times..."

19th December, 5:42pm, Renraku Arcology, 202nd Floor
"Well this is going nowhere." Phillip Clarke, programmer and Decker extraordinaire (at least in his own mind) observed wryly. Sitting beside him, the figures and numbers on the display in front of him reflected off his thick rim glasses, Dr Kabuo Amori frowned.
"It makes no sense. Output should be in the high positive. Instead it's in the mid negatives and falling."
"Minus 36 and dropping." Clark confirmed.
"It's almost like something is using more processing power than it should." Amori concluded, his tone telling just how ridiculous that sounded.
"Yeah," Clarke snorted, "like a hundred times the power it should be using. Not even the AEP uses that much." He paused looking at the figures.
"I mean, once this drops to Minus 67..."
"Something is using as much power as the Seattle RTG." Amori finished the thought. Neither of them were willing to add the unspoken.
and we don't know what it is
"And we can't can't just shut it down to examine just what's happening." Clarke said in disgust.
"Not without shutting down the SCIRE grid." Amori agreed. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back. "I don't need this" He said, "not today."
"How old is she turning?" Clarke asked with a smile.
"Nineteen." Clarke replied, also smiling. "I finally got her that deck she's been wanting."
"Speaking of which..." Clarke said, leaning forward, "Gabby, how are you doing?"
The third figure in the room lay motionless behind them on what looked almost like a dentist chair with wires and power chords attached randomly. Her fingers played over the keyboard of the deck resting in her lap.
"I can't see anything." Her reply was transmitted directly into Clarke's and Amori's headphones. "I mean, everything looks normal. Resolution is a bit choppy, but this is a big shopping night." More figures danced across the screens in front of Clarke and Amori.
"Hang on a sec..." She said suddenly, "that shouldn't be there..."
"What shouldn't?" Amori asked.
The only thing that transmitted back was static. The screens in front of them suddenly winked out. And behind them, Gabby screamed.