Dispatches from Xi Days 36 – 41
by KrazyFace, HSM team writer
Entry: Day 36
Yesterday was a hard day. I know it wasn’t really Stapler I destroyed in that bomb blast, but some of the things he said, it sounded just like him so much. If only the old Stapler at the back of the Xi Museum was working again, at least that way I could visit the real Stapler and give my troubled mind some reassurance that what I did yesterday, was blow up a dummy and nothing more. Who knows, maybe in the future we shall see old Stapler again in some form; for now though, I must keep my eyes looking forward.
Today’s Primer mail brought with it some disheartening news, for the fight I had with Stapler and my attempts to rid the Continuum of the bomb scare were, it seems, in vain. A visit to aszero.com produced another scribbled “comic strip” of AS-0, in it they basically said that there was more than one bomb. I headed to Axiom HQ immediately to check the death clock. It did not inspire me, to say the very least; that is, the damn thing was still running! The only possible reason for this was that the code inside Bad Stapler was not the only one, or was maybe just part of the whole bomb. Either way, it meant I had to find one of the Zeros and try to get some answers from them.
I had a scout around the Continuum and both myself and Jess noticed the Zeros have removed their simulacrums from the areas in which they’d been sitting for the last few days; this was not the development I’d originally hoped for. In fact, the opposite was true of this whole thing. I need to find at least one of them before the clock reaches the final digit.
This place however, is their world, and that means they could be anywhere.
Entry: Day 37
In light of yesterday’s events, I’ve been continually searching for the AS-0’s with no luck – until this morning. Axiom had been scanning the Continuum for any of the Zero’s signature codes since we learned of their vanishing yesterday too, yet hadn’t found anything either.
However, it appears that a scan of Continuum anomalies kicked up a very small increase in Continuum Light People – these are small moving structures that represent other agents and people within the Continuum. As I said, the increase was minuscule at best, but enough to alert my Primer of a 43% possibility of it being something to do with the Zeros. Considering the increment in Light People was a paltry three it seemed too much of a coincidence to ignore. Jess contacted me and asked me to use my scanner to track down the three Light People so they might do some concentrated scans of them, just to make sure.
I spent the best part of the day chasing shadows on my scanner, and very nearly being chased myself by Bully Drones, but it turned out to be rather useful in the end. We didn’t just find one of the Zeros, we found all of them. It may have taken longer than I’d liked, but they’ve now been taken into Axiom for further questioning. Whatever Axiom decide to do with them, they had better do it quickly. The death clock in Axiom HQ is still running, although it hasn’t secured any new digits as of yet, which means we may still have time to find and dispose of whatever extra unseen threat that lays low from us.
Entry: Day 38
The anomalies I chased down and captured yesterday have been confirmed by Axiom as each member of the AS-0’s. They now have them all in singular holding cells within the HQ. We were supposed to have them held there for questioning, so we might determine the whereabouts of the other bomb, the Zeros however, had a very different idea. Even though these are only representatives of the AS-0 team, that these are no more than simulacra, they can obviously still put up a fight. They chose to turn violent on me rather than answer any of the questions I had, so rather than come away with information for Axiom, I came out of the interrogation room with very little information and just some bruises instead. It wasn’t exactly what any of us were hoping for, but given how badly the fight ended for them, I’d say it’s a safe bet that they might be a little more cooperative by this time tomorrow. So far the only thing we could derive from today’s events is that each simulacrum of the Zeros are themselves bombs.
I think since Axiom have had me at the forefront of this whole situation since they first tore a hole in the Continuum, it’s likely to be me who will be tasked with extracting whatever other information I can from them in the next day or two. I can’t say that I’m particularly happy with the direction Axiom are making me take right now. I’ve always said that violence on the whole is generally an unnecessary avenue in most situations, particularly on those imprisoned or held against their own free will. In this particular situation violence becomes something else entirely; it becomes torture.
Is this who or what Axiom are trying to shape me into, a mindless thug that will do only the bidding of their master? Right now, I feel self-contemplation has no place, there is now a serious a bomb threat here in the Continuum that’s about to rip this whole place apart, and I must find out how to nullify these before it’s too late. Once this is over, I can only hope Axiom have less missions involving brutality for me or I may begin to fear for my very karma.
Entry: Day 39
Once again, HAZCON has been increased to level three. Considering yesterday’s outcome, it has become necessary for anyone within the Continuum who is not directly involved with Axiom to be evacuated from the area. When we first thought the bomb resided in only Stapler we took the compulsory steps to deal with the situation. This time however, it appears we are at a loss. We do not have time to build another three separate bomb casings for controlled explosions, nor do we have the time to root around inside each simulacrum to diffuse them individually. In fact, I’m lost for what our next move should be at all.
Being at the end of one’s tether is what can only be described as a very uncomfortable place to be. Yet it is here that I find myself right now; lost, worried and frustrated at my own inability to see any way out of this dire situation.
With this running through my mind I thought I’d pay my last possible visit to the Zeros, those whom I’ve spent half my time chasing since I arrived in this place. Strangely, I’m rather glad I did. When I spoke to flaminatorix all she did was ask me why they would destroy what is theirs, insinuating that this was all a deception, but we know already that the Zeros have destroyed their last creation. When I spoke to Tiberius he insisted that the bomb had already been destroyed and they were (the simulacra) nothing more than messengers, what’s more, Sandboxx asked me if I was absolutely sure that he had a bomb inside him since he apparently didn’t feel like he did!
I know this is most likely nothing more than another ruse to stop us from even looking, but what if they’re telling the truth? What if we really have dealt with the threat already? What if, when that clock reaches its final digit, nothing happens? The flow of time it seems, is the only river of truth left.
Entry: Day 40
After some concentrated scans on the AS-0’s we have in Axiom HQ, Axiom have confirmed the presence of the same string of code found inside Bad Stapler. So they really were just trying to stop us from looking any deeper. I’m glad someone at Axiom had taken the initiative to do this since it gives us concrete information to work with. This, unfortunately, is not the end to the info Axiom have managed to gain since yesterday.
It appears that Sandboxx himself (not the simulacrum we have in capture) had entered the Continuum yesterday and had contacted various agents across the space and passed onto them small packets of information. When put together they read as a cry for help from Blaise Briscbois being held capture. So Blaise really is one of the Zeros, but apparently not by choice. What’s more though, the information he passed onto us tells of his kidnapping. It seems to be that while he was walking home one night, the other Zeros pulled up to him in a vehicle, grabbed him, blindfolded him and threw him into their trunk. Thankfully he was able to keep his smarts about him enough that he could give us some indication as to where they had taken him. Unfortunately the info he’s given us only narrows it down to a particular city – Montreal. It seems I’m in the wrong country to be taking any further action at the moment.
Axiom, however, are a world wide organization, and because of this we will be able to send some agents out into the real world to perhaps locate Blaise further. It’s a big city and it’s going to take some teamwork to find him. That is of course, if this isn’t another one of AS-0’s wild goose chases. My mind stays open, but I wish good luck to the agents already out there in search of Blaise in the real world.
Entry: Day 41
It appears that Sandboxx AKA Blaise Briscbois managed to get to one of the Zero’s PS3s again to contact us, turns out that the PS3 in question belongs to none other than Stickman (who Blaise thinks may be Quebecois) and what’s more, he got his PSN I.D off his machine too; Stickman_2012. The leads we’re receiving are gathering up, and the more we can get, the sooner we can get to Blaise and rescue him from his captors. There was more information from him other than that however, it seems the room he’s being held in isn’t exactly sound-proof. Among other information regarding his whereabouts, Blaise had also reported to us that Stickman received a visitor yesterday. I quote from our communications:
Blaise: “She’s English and as soon as she talked I came out in goosebumps. I swear, it’s EatFlamingDeath. I don’t know what this means but I’m scared.”
The way the other AS-0’s have been talking about Sandboxx on their website seem to suggest they’re not actually holding him capture at all. But they’ve all cried wolf so many times now I can only assume it’s another smoke-screen attempt. Regardless of who is at the heart of this kidnapping, it seemed that some serious detective work was desperately needed to put a finer pin-point on Blaise’s location as soon as possible for his extraction. Given the two captors were stupid enough to mention road routes near their positions and coupled with the sounds Blaise had told us he could hear it didn’t take me very long to get a more accurate positioning as to where he might be. For the time being, I’ve requested that agents be sent out into the real world to see if they can retrieve him from the coordinates I’ve given them.
As I once again play the waiting game I’ve decided to help Axiom evacuate the Continuum. So far, we’ve managed to withdraw about 45% of Continuum personnel, but the clock is still ticking, and Axiom and the agents are no further forward in finding a solution to our triple bomb problem either. What’s worse is that we’ve had to spread our forces thinner than we’d like in the pursuit of rescuing Sandboxx. Father Time, it appears, is not on our side. Perhaps Lady Luck will lend us a hand instead…
January 22nd, 2013 by KrazyFace | 5 comments
KrazyFace has been a gamer for longer than he can remember. In fact its been so long he's pretty sure he started gaming with rocks and sticks in a cave someplace off the coast of Africa, when it was joined on to France. However long its been, he's got enough experience behind him to know a good game when he sees one. He's also a bit of a Home addict, you'll find him in there whenever he's got spare time - or not playing a game.
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Hello lovely people who may read my Xi journals! I hope you’re enjoying what I’ve reported so far?
I’d like to publicly announce that Sony have banned me from the account I use for my reports on Xi due to a misinterpretation of events regarding a conversation I had with some Nazi Extremists in EU Home yesterday. It seems standing up for one’s self within Home is against their policy, as a result I am no longer able to access the Home account I report on Xi from. Because of this the final days of Xi will not be reported on at the usual pace that you may have become accustomed to, it should be around a full week (maybe more) after the events of Xi that I can submit my final reports.
A phone call to Sony’s help line insisted that under no circumstance can the ban be lifted, for this I deeply regret the lack of Xi content on HSM and take full responsibility.
Have fun in Home people, and remember, when someone insults you, sit down, be obedient, and let them publicly shame you in front of everyone. DO NOT try to defend yourself.
Great read as always Krazy. I wish the people at Sony would look closer at the conversations people have sometimes. I have had friends banned for the same reasons. I guess the best policy is to use your ignore feature and walk away, that is what I do. I certainly hope all the others got a worse ban than you did based upon what I heard in your comments. I think anyone who picks on someone deliberately for no reason should be banned at least a month the first time.
Thank you Burbie. I know, hindsight is an obvious thing after the event isn’t it? I probably should have just left after the first racist remark was made but I find racism hard to tolerate -- in any form. Although I kept my cool about it, it seems that just by my asking of what they were was enough to provoke the wrong response from the Mod who read the transcript. I’m still not sure why I’ve been banned to be honest, I certainly have no explanation as to why from Sony in any way -- no email, no nothing!
Oh I’m so sorry to read this, Krazy
Though, not to be annnoying…. When someone insults you, report, ignore and block them. Any retaliation runs the risk of breaching ToS youself, and it doesn’t matter who started it or who provoked whom…. it matters if any rules were broken.
I personally feel a human element could have adjusted the outcome of this, but chances are the moderators hands are tied -- any offence must be acted on if reported or observed, end of story.
I’ve PM’d you a possible way to continue your reports…. again, I’m sorry to hear this, really am -- I know you;ll not have been out of order at all, merely retaliating to a troll.
Not cool
I think when Xi is over we need to package all these articles together as a HSM guide. They have been informative and fun to read!