Day 1 Night

[12npcs]

[ Over the murmur of conversations, explorations and violent attempts at escape, there comes a sound tick tick tick tick tick.............. CLICK.... The sky above snaps across the dome from blue to black... and everything goes dark.

A glow comes from the front door of each of the inns and one by one, you can see street lanterns begin to light up steadily past each of the gates.

The only flickering, organic light comes from above in the tower, spluttering high, high above everyone, through the slats of the closed shutters. After a moment, it's gone. ]

Comments

[allsneakandnoplay]

[That he's used to... frowns.]

Wait, really? Just in movies? One like me isn't exactly commonplace, but...

[tearsinnajar]

"Like you?" You mean there's more?

[allsneakandnoplay]

. . . [frowns at her.

frowns at the nearest ninja turtle within eyesight.

frowns back at her.]

Cyborg technology's been in the public market since the late two thousands, and it's become more widespread since 2015. It's expensive, but it's no secret.

[tearsinnajar]

Whoa, wait a minute here, it's 2011. At least it was the last time I checked.

[... And she raises her hand to her head to check again for signs of blunt force trauma.]

[allsneakandnoplay]

2011?!

Great. . .

I don't think you hit your head, I think everything is just nuts.

What is this? A bunch of different people and fictional characters from different space times... this has to be VR...

[tearsinnajar]

Or somebody's dosed me up with a lot of drugs.

[allsneakandnoplay]

That's another option. But this doesn't feel like any drug I've ever taken. I feel completely fine.

Putting aside how everyone's story is they were in totally different places doing nothing in particular before they got here... It's all so complex. An entire city, with totally unrelated people in it, all sharing the same simulation? It's impossible. And everyone being AI doesn't make any more sense. Nothing can support this number of artificial human interfaces. Nobody's even repeating a walk cycle. And why so many different types of people?

Why ninja turtles?

[tearsinnajar]

You recognized them too?

[allsneakandnoplay]

You do too?

At least that's consistent...

[tearsinnajar]

All the boys in my class had those action figures when I was in grade school.

[allsneakandnoplay]

I didn't really see them until I came to the states and by then I was in high school. It doesn't exactly get old, though.

Never thought one would tell me they were more realistic than me.

[tearsinnajar]

At least I don't recognize you as an action figure from the 1980's? Unless you're from one of those Terminator sequels I haven't seen.

[allsneakandnoplay]

Eughn. No, and you're not missing anything. Those got out of control fast.

[tearsinnajar]

Ah, so you're not just a robot-ninja, you're a movie enthusiast as well.

[allsneakandnoplay]

A guy's gotta have some pleasures in life. When he's not getting flung into some alternate clockwork town reality, that is.

What about you? Other than the total lack of cyborgs, it sounds like we're at least familiar with the same things.

[tearsinnajar]

I'm a journalist—I don't really have a lot of time for movies or television these days, but I take a lot of long flights.

[allsneakandnoplay]

Journalist, huh...

I'm guessing you don't know what that guy's talking about, with this Twelve Heart business.