Author: Zack

Quick Look: Muchuu by Pllunderlines

Posted on by Zack

ALBUM Quick Look

Muchuu

BY:Pllunderlines

Written by:  Anon

Published: July 12th, 2024

  Album Released: March 15, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Released on the Brazilian-focused collective Vaporwave Tapes Brasil, Pllunderlines’ Muchuu is a collection of very minimal yet driving loops that make up a short but memorable EP. The loops used within it each have a distinct, smoothly textured synth lined up at the front to make the listening experience relaxing, with sharper stings in the background and simpler percussion to keep everything moving along in a smooth flow. Although some tracks feature sections where the cutting apart of the material is more noticeable, the effect of such is always minimized so as to balance an engaging sort with the chill atmosphere that it provides.

By being a shorter release as well, there’s much more to appreciate when looking at the individual strengths of each track. From the dreamy atmosphere of “Dream of U”, to the perfectly placed and danceable cuts that line “Cucucmber”, to the oddly entrancing backing vocals that flit about throughout the run of “Bebeh Tronicz,” each piece brings something unique to the table. An exceedingly quick listen, and a worthwhile one at that.

Favorite Track: Cucucmber

 

 

Vaporwave Megatext: Vermilion Sands by Michael Uhall

Posted on by Zack

VAPORWAVE MEGATEXT:
VERMILION SANDS By J.G. Ballard

Written By: Michael Uhall

 

Published on: Tuesday January 30th, 2024

 


 

 

 

First released on June 15, 1987, the GIF (Graphical Interchange Format) was invented two years before the Cold War went underground, making it truly an artifact from before the time factories all shut down. A GIF, of course, is an image format that allows for multiple images to be represented in sequence as the file references its own palette, producing (or reproducing) simple animations in repetitive, somewhat static loops. The GIF is the vaporwave artifact par excellence – especially now, in its long afterlife, where image and spring break forever come together as one in a strange and endless ballet under the red desert sun of the real.

 

 

As an example of vaporwave literature, J. G. Ballard’s collection of short stories Vermilion Sands (1971) is incomparable. It is also a literary GIF; the entirety of the book could be reconstructed out of wordless GIFs with no aesthetic loss whatsoever. But it is not fundamentally a hybrid object, like Jon Bois’ melancholy, mutating hypertext 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future (2017: “To pass all that time, many Americans have turned to football, contorting it in a variety of strange ways to suit their new reality”). Unlike Dennis Cooper’s GIF “novel” Zac’s Haunted House (2015: “an experience somewhere between carnival mirror labyrinth, deleted Disney snuff film, and a deep web comic strip by Satan”), which Cooper first created as a specifically visual artifact intended to emphasize intersections, juxtapositions, and loops, Ballard’s stories are resolutely textual.

 

Or are they?

 

After all, each story targets a specific media form: sculpture (“The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D” and “The Singing Statues”), opera and horticulture (“Prima Belladonna”), painting, poetry (“Studio 5, The Stars”), fashion (“Say Goodbye to the Wind”). Each one reflects – no, refracts – how media become entangled in, or perhaps even constitutes, the strange loops of desire and dream that unfolds within and beyond the prison of the human psyche, opening it up and splaying out the psychological strata of all our looping, nested dreamworlds. Recall the horrifying, and horrifyingly suggestive, nature of the libidinal “body,” or landscape of desire, as autopsied by Jean-François Lyotard in his Libidinal Economy (1974): “All these zones are joined end to end in a band which has no back to it, a Moebius band which interests us not because it is closed, but because it is one-sided, a Moebian skin which, rather than being smooth, is on the contrary covered with roughness, corners, creases, cavities […]” Much like how the GIF is a “flat” image (even superflat), yet captures both depth and motion traversing the deeps. This is what it means to speak Muybridge, after all. You probably think Stephen Wilhite invented the GIF – and he did, in its current disguise – but it was Eadweard Muybridge who first uncovered the primordial form of the GIF, lurking in the world’s heart like a fossil from the future. Imagine a paleontology of the future, an idealistic morphology of media artifacts, waltzing backward through time, approaching the event horizon of the perpetual now, the long 2016… Vaporwave literatures invert media archaeologies.

 

 

Back to Vermilion Sands: “No one ever comes to Vermilion Sands now, and I suppose there are few people who have ever heard of it.” So, what even is Vermilion Sands? It’s a “bizarre, sandbound resort with its lethargy, beach fatigue and shifting perspectives.” It’s a dream archipelago of abandoned villas, awash in crimson sands from the environing desert, shadowed by flying albino and purplish sand rays, “wheeling above the rock spires in the blood-red air.” It’s the posttraumatic landscape of the arts, all of which operate like so many ghostly robots, totally burned out but still fueled by vaporous promises. Vermilion Sands is a hologram: it looks a lot like things happened there, but remains peopled by dead souls and the dying stars, fragments of subjects from a Golden Age that never existed. Vermilion Sands is the primal scene of the end of history, casting neon shadows out of time.


“The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista” (originally 1962): “All the houses in Vermilion Sands were psychotropic.” In other words, the architecture is perpetually plastic undeath, adapting to the drives, moods, and quirks of the occupants and always carrying the psychic impress of former occupants inside its mutable and rippling structuration. Imagine being haunted by abstract moods; imagine living inside an undersea fan, gently swaying. “Living in one was like living in someone else’s brain.” Howard Talbot and his new wife, Fay, buy a new house at 99 Stellavista. All the perennials are polyurethane. There’s a heart-shaped swimming pool in the foyer. Through its glass bottom, you can see the garage, the finned car parked below “like a coloured whale asleep on the ocean bed.” Its previous owner, Gloria Tremayne, had been a beautiful, diaphanous woman “with a powerful and oblique personality,” a movie star who murdered her husband to end his abuse. Ironically, Howard had been the assistant to Gloria’s lawyer at the trial, ten years ago. “The water was motionless, a transparent block of condensed time.” But the house remains haunted by Gloria’s psychic residues, which enfold Howard like a mass of invisible tentacles; the house grows jealous of Fay and tries to murder her, too. Howard becomes increasingly entranced, all wrapped up in the fossilized contours of this doomed movie star’s emotional echoes. The house, “like an anguished squid,” flexes and changes color. “The place must have been insane. If you ask me it needs a psychiatrist to straighten it out.” But Howard can’t break the spell of its psychoactive past; the house beckons him into its plasticine embrace. Fay’s long gone. You could give everything to the past which ensorcels you. But for now, at least, the house is turned off, and yet I know that I shall have to switch the house on again” (this always happens in Ballard)

 

 

“The Screen Game” (originally 1963): “Soon we were overrunning what appeared to be the edge of an immense chessboard of black and white marble squares. More statues appeared, some buried to their heads, others toppled from their plinths by the drifting dunes […] the whole landscape was compounded of illusion, the hulks of fabulous dreams drifting across it like derelict galleons.” Paul Golding, an artist, returns to the scene of the failed Orpheus Productions flick, Aphrodite 80. Like many of the artists who encounter (or haunt) the desolate, lush fastness of Vermilion Sands, Paul had been experiencing a “creative pause” (in his case, “showing signs of beach fatigue”). Specifically, Paul has been employed to paint numerous screens that would serve as the backdrop to the obscure psychodrama of this film, staged as a comeback for the dishy, mentally unwell actress Emerelda Garland, a ghostly Venus… “Decorated with abstract symbols, these would serve as backdrops to the action, and form a fragmentary labyrinth winding in and out of the hills and dunes.” Paul meets Emerelda multiple times; she is attended by jeweled insects who seem to be expressions of her underlying psychic state, or at least somehow under her control: “I felt that I had strayed across the margins of a dream, on to an internal landscape of the psyche projected upon the sun-filled terraces around me.” The director, Charles Van Stratten, reveals to Paul the purpose of the film’s production: “Its sole purpose is therapeutic […] I’m convinced the camera crews and sets will help to carry her back to the past […] It’s the only way left, a sort of total psychodrama […] With luck, the screens will lead her out into the rest of this synthetic landscape. After all, if she knows that everything around her is unreal she’ll cease to fear it.” Note that Ballard writes “The Screen Game” two years before John Fowles published The Magus (and both get echoed in The Prisoner). The grand psychoanalytic ritual (or is it a trap?) goes awry, of course: Charles Van Stratten, a petty tyrant, is swarmed to death by Emerelda’s “armada of jeweled insects.” The production ends, and only years later does Paul return to the deserted villa, to the ruins of the backdrops he had painted. “The whole question of the illusions which exist in any relationship to make it workable, and of the barriers we willingly accept to hide ourselves from each other: How much reality can we stand?”

 

 

“Cry Hope, Cry Fury!” (1967): “Hunting for rays, I sometimes found myself carried miles across the desert, beyond sight of the coastal reefs that presided like eroded deities over the hierarchies of sand and wind. I would drive on after a fleeing school of rays, firing the darts into the overheated air and losing myself in an abstract landscape composed of the flying rays, the undulating dunes, and the triangles of the sails. Out of these materials, the barest geometry of time and space, came the bizarre figures of Hope Cunard and her retinue, like illusions born of that sea of dreams.” Note: “I was twenty miles from the coast and my only supplies were a vacuum flask of iced Martini in the sail locker.” After crashing his yacht, Robert Melville is taken in by the mysterious Hope, recuperating under her care at the isolated Lizard Key: “both villa and island had sprung from some mineral fantasy of the desert.” Hope is a painter, and Robert becomes her model as he recovers. But these paintings are psychogenic, or perhaps even mutagenic… “Given a few hours each day, the photosensitive pigments would anneal themselves into the contours of a likeness […] Little did we realize what nightmare fish would swim to the surface of these mirrors.” The paintings, somehow, become haunted by another figure; in the background of this endless, hazy misadventure, a disconcerting figure stalks Lizard Key. Hope has a ghost, it seems. A former lover, supposedly murdered, but who survived the attempt. “I tried to explain why Hope had shot at him, this last attempt to break through the illusions multiplying around her and reach some kind of reality.” Libidinal fog embraces everything, heightening the hyperreality of these starkly blurry images, like a Gerhard Richter painting in drag.

 

 

You’re getting the vibes: a man, typically some kind of artist or functionary, ensorcelled by his own visionary encounter with a doomed icon of desire from the past, who exists as a real or virtual specter haunting some media form or another. The landscape is decadent, though not depraved; time no longer really exists in Vermilion Sands. Recurrent throughout the stories is the intimation of a “Recess,” “that world slump of boredom, lethargy and high summer which carried us all so blissfully through ten unforgettable years.” When the Recess ended, it “started up all the clocks and kept us busy working off the lost time […]” This is the endlessly looping fever dream of Vermilion Sands: imagine the red desert, crisscrossed by the fading yet perversely resilient libidinal intensities of a faintly posthuman class. Ivory rays glitter in the skies above you. You board the shining silver yacht that will take you into the deeper wastes. In the shifting sands, you will find mysterious artifacts, treasures of the past, strange remnants of a whole culture mummified by the omnipresent heat. Here, time is a painting of a stopped clock…

 

 

My edition came with 3D glasses included. But the glasses are cursed. Or perhaps they emancipate one’s vision. Wearing them, you see in Ballardian all the time now. All I know is I can’t take them off anymore. These mallwave mirrorshades have become adhered to the very structure of my face, like a Cronenbergian artifact. I think its fused with the bones of my skull. I can feel them restructuring my psyche, penetrating the distant recesses of my desire, reworking the primordial sludge of self into strange new chromium sculptures. Even if I could, I’d no longer remove them.

 

 

Written By:

Michael Uhall

michaeluhall.com


Copy Editing By: Zack & Gbanas92

RECENT POSTS

BACK TO TEXT 

Review: Berry Aesthetic- Berry Good Records

Posted on by Zack

Review

Berry Nice!: A Review of 
“Berry Aesthetic” by Berry good records 

Written By: Zack

Published On: August 5th, 2023

 

 

 

In of summer 2022, UK-based future funk artist Strawberry Station released a bombastic collaboration to celebrate his new label, Berry Good Records. This record, Choose Your Character, comprises a mix of vaporwave, future-funk, and synthwave artists. It not only showcases a fantastic array of talent and sounds but tells a bigger narrative that helps set Berry Good Records apart from other artist-backed labels; the collective stands stronger than the individual. 

This first album featured a variety of star players in the Future Funk scene from Daydream Deluxe to Ducat, yet the way they were arranged made each track stronger. You couldn’t just listen to one or two tracks without wanting to listen to the next. It was a wild hit and an excellent way to kick off a new label in the vapor/future funk scene. Now, one year later the mad lad is about to do it again. This is Berry Aesthetic. 

 

 

Berry Aesthetic has 16 tracks featuring the same kind of variety we saw with Choose Your Character, however, this time the emphasis is on vaporwave. We have Tupperwave, Luxury Elite, Desert Sand, and more to look at later on in this review. 

Now if you’re a veteran in this scene you might notice a difference between Berry Aesthetic and Choose Your Character: Where’s the Future Funk? While CYC had known future funk artists like Ducat and Groovy Kaiju, BA’s lineup is planted squarely in the vaporwave scene. We’ll discuss this later on in the review, but Strawberry Station doesn’t show up to the party with his signature style, but is that by design? If the lineup didn’t tip you off, then the title and artwork should. The Berry Good logo is nestled squarely in a landscape of classic vapor iconography: checkerboard floors, pink coloring, dolphins, and marble columns. It would seem this time around, Strawberry wants to get more in touch with classic vaporwave.  We’ll take a dive into the tracks and see if this return to the classics pans out.  

The front half of this album presents us with a warm front of late-night lo-fi vibes with the starting track “Cloud” by Fortune Lounge. This track is the perfect setup with driving bass and very prominent horn samples that put us at the heart of downtown. The sun is about to rise after a long night and we’re ready to take on the big city. This track along with the subsequent track, “Palm Trees” by Luxury Elite, delivers a one-two punch of high life and endless possibilities but also keeps up the promise that this collaboration is all vibes, no filler.

We deviate from the late-night path a bit and take a detour down a back alley of classic chopped and screwed vapor with Calcium Demo’s track “heartvapour” which harkens back to some early 2010s plunderphonics. However, we veer back onto the city streets with Tupperwave’s track “Passive Obsessive”. While Tupper brings out his usual sound fonts of smooth and melodic jazz samples, “Passive Obsessive” takes a dark turn into the city’s seedy underbelly. The haunting laugh of a shady villain introduces us to a thumping kick and bass with a slowed-down, leaner audio journey. 

Just as we start getting cozy, we’re left in a void via alrightBABES “coral,”  a droning ambient track that would fit better on the back half of this album. Right off the bat, we are launched onto the dancefloor with Seabaud’s track “It’s Just Me,” which loops a groovy sample (that I believe to be Janet Jackson but I’m not sure). This track is an earworm for the first couple of minutes, but this is a five-minute track. I see this as being the perfect dance track to play at a show or club, but for easy personal listening, it can drag on a bit. However, the same cannot be said for the next track which is Patibito’s “onetwo”. A dreamy synth soundscape that features not just one, but two tempo changes, the track is like a three-in-one. Rounding up the frontside of this album is “Vaccinium” by Late Arcane which acts as an upbeat, highly sampled banger to an otherwise psychedelic and high-energy album.  

The back half of this album is where things really get interesting. While up until now, we’ve gotten a slew of eccojams, late-night lofi, chopped and screwed dance beats, the back side to Berry Aesthetic explores the more ambient side of vapor. We see a descent into that with “Into the Machine Core” by Kenmore Classic. The tuned-down synths and drones paired with the consistent beat evoke both synthwave and Sovietwave sounds that will send the listener to a hellish industrial complex. You can’t leave. Only go deeper into the core. What awaits us on the other side? The king of slushwave, desert sand, provides. h their track “影と形のように” which translates to “Like Shadows and Shapes”. Desert brings their classic blend of sample-free slushwave with this track that effortlessly whisks the listener to a higher state of being. 

Grab a copy of the Cassette while supplies last!

 

Following that, the energy of the first half of the album makes a return with Polyglot’s “Good for Nothing Groove”. I say this because this track fits much better with the first eight tracks. Perhaps this track and alrightBabes should switch places. 

Returning us back to the ambient world is Hi-Plundered’s track “出願します” which translates to “I will apply”.   By this point in the listener’s journey, the city is quiet again. Instead of bright lights and sounds you’re treated to a muted and chill walk of the town. Perhaps you’ll stop into the local bodega for a quick bite? 

 The most surprising track on this album is the one the man himself makes. Strawberry Station’s “Will You Remember” is a far departure from his usual sound. While this isn’t Strawberry’s first classic vaporwave track, he is known for Future Funk. What “Will You Remember” offers the listener is a chill eccojam that harkens back to the earliesty days of vapor. Think early Cat Corp. This, in my opinion, is what makes Berry Aesthetic such a standout release in this era of Vaprowave. Everyone is concerned with keeping things fresh and looking for the next microgenre, but when you really stop and think about it, Vaporwave as a genre is just over 10 years old. Experimentation is always welcome in this scene, but there’s no reason to forget or look down upon a classic sound. 

Speaking of something new, Berry Aesthetic gives a nod to some of the prevailing trends currently going on in the scene. AV0’s “autumn winter” is a smooth barber beats track, a sound that seems to be on everyone’s mind at the moment.  After that, we have “Whispers in a Soundless Void”, a hauntingly dark ambient track that reminds me a lot of Hallmark ‘87’s albums such as The Atrium or Academy. Finally, we have Midnight Corresponder with “man of the world,”  a signalwave track that ends this album, nay, this experience with a big personality and a lot of energy. 

While this may be a departure from what listeners are expecting from Berry Good Records, this collaboration offers a veritable party platter of major movements within vaporwave. Across 16 tracks we have late-night lo-fi, signalwave, eccojams, ambient, slushwave and so much more. I couldn’t ask for a better representation of what this scene has to offer in terms of sound variety. 

 

Check out the album now on Berry Good Records !

 

 

 

 

Written By:

Zack

Copy Editing By: Gbanas92

Recent Posts

 

Review: Augnos- Gilded Sentience Review

Posted on by Zack

Review

Discovering Aurelia: A Review of
Augnos’ Gilded Sentience 

Written By: Zack

Published On: June 23rd, 2023

 

 

 

Gilded Sentience by Augnos is one part concept album and one part jungle experience. There has been a resurgence in Y2K drum and bass from other notable acts, such as Pizza Hotline, and Vaporwave Drum & Bass from Jungle Fever. Just like how a large component of vaporwave is to look back upon and recontextualize the past, this new wave of Y2K dnb artists aims to revive the sounds of the PlayStation 1 era, a soundscape where early dnb dominated. Think back to notable games like Gran Turismo and Gran Theft Auto III. 

While Augnos is no stranger to this sound with tracks like Daymare and Rewind, Gilded Sentinece is nothing like their other works. Firstly, this appears to be Augnos’ first LP, at least under this name. The description implies that what we are experiencing is the first step into some lost world, but will we stay long enough to uncover Aurelia’s secrets? 

Our first clue towards this being a concept album was the description on the album’s Bandcamp which reads as follows: 

Aurelia interactive console 6.23.88b

Greetings user, I am AICON

I serve as your guide to the depths of Aurelia’s history 

Type your question to begin your interactive journey 

corre@aicon62388b %what is the gilded sentience?%

 

 

Already,  the listener is primed with a destination, a narrative, and a question. This album entices the listener with gorgeous artwork depicting a large structure reclaimed by nature. The dense foliage covers the architecture of some long-abandoned civilization and evokes some immediate questions. What happened here? How did this place get to such a state?

What could this album be hiding?  Will the album provide the listener with answers? We are not sure. Coming in at just five tracks, this album is beyond lean. Typically, a concept album would boast a more extensive tracklist, often at least one that could support a three-act narrative, however, brevity is the soul of wit. Perhaps Augnos can tell us a lot with a little.  Let’s dive into the tracks: 

 

1. Chroma Trails (3.5/5) Starting off our journey is “Chroma Trails.” This chiptune-esque track starts off light, whimsical even, like the listener just put in an old NES cartridge to an obscure sci-fi/fantasy game. The driving synths blast to the forefront of this opening track and stay throughout the experience. The mixture of light atmospheric chimes and heavy 80s synths promise a lot; discovery, adventure even. It’s a strong start, but we felt it was hiding its power level a bit. If we’re on the brink of discovering a long-lost civilization we want that anticipation to be thrown right in our face. 

Before the release of this album, Enraile dropped a remix of this track, which puts the jungle aspects further to the forefront. The remix houses far less chiptune, and a lot more chopped-up drum and jungle breakdowns, serving as a heavier version of the original. In keeping with the videogame-inspired motif, this remix would serve better as a bonus stage or as an opening to new game+.

 

 2. Sunwell Terrace (4/5): We drop the synths and driving bass in exchange for some solarpunk staples; the sounds of nature. Here is where the journey for the listener begins in earnest. “Sunwell Terrace” gives us a glance at the undisturbed nature of Aurelia, at least that’s what we are led to believe. As stated above, the synth keys are replaced with a droning base while light piano and other MIDIs are used to mimic animal sounds. Paired well with a primal-trap beat and this track will instill the listener with a sense of adventure as if they are on the trail, hot on the heels of discovery. 

 

3. ¡Corre! (3.5/5): We have reached the halfway point in our journey and the solar punk aesthetics begin to melt away into a proper jungle track. The sounds of nature take a back seat while an eerie soundscape of high-pitched keys and sweeping bass takes center stage. It puts the listener in unfamiliar territory, divorced from the familiar and pleasant into something that’s quite uncanny and mysterious. 

 

4. Healing Atoms (4/5): We’ve found the healing station! In the penultimate track, we are given a light and airy boost in this dream-like soundscape. With samples and instrumentation that would fit well in an Equip x R23X collaboration, this track allows the listener to ascend to a new level of being. 

 

5. Home Space (3/5): And just as we were about to head off on an otherworldly journey, it ends. All stories have to come to a close, but this track left us wanting more. The minimalist sound is pretty jarring after just coming off the heels of “Healing Atoms” and within the sonic narrative of the album, it’s unclear where the listener is supposed to go after this. The obvious answer is back to the beginning, but after listening to this track multiple times we were only left with a feeling of yearning. We yearn for a full experience. 

 

 

Gilded Sentinece presents a lot of promise to the listener. With just five short tracks we explore a diverse array of sounds like chiptune, jungle dnb, synthpop, and solarpunk. However, the abrupt end of this album only brings out the fact that with more tracks this could be a full-blown concept EP. We’re unclear if that’s what the artist was going for, but if the chief critique of this album is “needs more” then what’s here is pretty substantive. Overall, Gilded Sentience is a short dip into a strange jungle soundscape that we hope to revisit one day.

Catch Gilded Sentience today on Pacific Plaza Records!

 

 

 

 

Written By:

Zack

Copy Editing By: Gbanas92 & Indy Advant

Recent Posts

 

Game Review: Isle Of Jura – EM Games

Posted on by Zack
Isle of jura featured image

GAME REVIEW

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isle Of Jura
by: EM Games

Written By: Zack

Published: March 4th, 2022

Editor’s Note: This review was completed using a pre-release version of the game, so some features and experiences may differ from the final release. 

A few times a year my family would venture up towards the many lakes of Wisconsin to enjoy the sights and go out on the water to enjoy some fishing. I’m going to come right out and say it: I’m not a fishing expert. That being said, I can appreciate a quiet afternoon fishing on the lake. Isle of Jura reminded me of those feelings, albeit through the lens of Alex, a young girl looking to complete her biology report on marine life. 

Created by Ewan Mallinson, better known to some as future funk musician Mélonade, Isle of Jura is a quaint, straightforward game about a girl, an island, and fishing. This game doesn’t waste time with lengthy exposition; you begin on the docks of the titular isle. After talking with some of the locals you start off with a simple net to catch small critters like shrimp, clams, starfish, etc. Right away, the art style is inoffensive and ordinary. The characters lacked any defining features and the models lacked any outstanding characteristics. Mechanically, it reminded me of a cross between early Animal Crossing and Sims games.

You can sell what you catch to the local seafood restaurant and use the money to get better fishing equipment. You occasionally find artifacts too and can present them to the museum curator. This may all start to sound rather familiar to fans of games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. Indeed, Isle of Jura is in the same “collection” game genre, just with a greater emphasis on fishing. 

 

 

The island itself is pretty small, a player can explore the whole island in less than 5 minutes. The only other area you can travel to outside the island is the boat to go deep sea fishing, which does provide the player some much needed variety. On the island, you can fish in rivers, ponds and, of course, the ocean, which offers a staggering amount of biodiversity. The fishing net works on the shores of beaches and lakes, as well as in the river. With this little net, you can only catch starfish, mussels, and frogs though. 

You can use the money to buy better rods. Once you have a proper fishing rod you can start the real fishing! The mechanics themselves are pretty straightforward; reel it in once you get a bite, but don’t reel it in too quickly or you might lose it! Your options in fish open up too. In the lake, river, and ocean you can catch salmon, trout, and pike. The option to deep-sea fish with a weighted lure also gives you a chance to catch lobster, jellyfish, and a whole host of deep-sea life. 

My time with the game was enjoyable, but something kept bothering me throughout my playthrough. There is a lack of atmosphere and personality. There is a difference between feeling secluded, like when you find a comfortable spot by yourself, and isolated, like when you feel cut off from everything. I explored this game in complete silence for the longest time, as there was no music aside from the menu music in the beginning.

 

 

When I first heard Mélonade was making a game, I was looking forward to what kind of OST this game would have. I wasn’t expecting future funk bops and crunchy beats for a relaxing fishing sim of course, but having no music at all only reinforces how empty this game feels. You don’t notice how essential the little jingles and music notifications are to a game until they’re gone entirely. The absence of music made the playing experience go by quicker for me. I was able to find most of the artifacts and fish within 3 hours of gameplay. Just long enough to remain interesting before becoming stale. Though part of the allure of fishing is the hours you spend watching the water, your lure, and enjoying the sounds of nature. And in that respect, the game succeeds.

 


 

Review Copy Provided By EM Games

 

 

EM Games

 

Buy The Game!

Written By:

Zack

 

Copy Editing By: DJ Nonn

Recent Posts

Shadows in Neon City: This City is the Birth of a New Day

Posted on by Zack
Shadows in Neon City Chapter 3

 

Shadows in Neon City: Part 12

This City is the Birth of a New Day

 

Written by: Zack

 

Published On: February 5th, 2022

 

Shadows in Neon City Chapter 3

Art by  Hydra ヒドラ 

Time is irrelevant inside the VDR. You could spend weeks, even months inside a seed world and only moments would pass in the real world. The opposite is true too, of course. Some people spend mere seconds in some seed worlds and miss out on months. When your mind is disconnected from your body, it has no context for where or when it is. 

For Murph Bell, he felt like he had been falling for hours in the dark void that Jane had connected him to. He spent a good amount of time screaming before realizing it was pointless. He felt the pull of gravity downwards, but was that really down? In every direction, there was nothing but void. It was downright biblical. 

Is this it? Have they found me out and are now just sending my mind down an endless void while they dump my body in a ditch? Murph thought. It sure seemed that way. There wasn’t a beginning or end to any of this. He closed his eyes, and while it didn’t change his view of things, it did calm him down. Perhaps this was just a test to see what kind of place Murph would make.

Murph opened his eyes and saw Neon City beneath him. It was night, and the city looked more alive than ever from where Murph now flew. The coast of Lake Scourge lit up with different colored lights. He saw boats of all sizes move to the man-made islands, dotted with amazing lights. Further inland, he saw cars and vehicles of all kinds fly and zoom between the large skyscrapers that made up downtown. He could even see The Glitterdome and the network of brightly lit roads that fed into it. Even from his birds-eye view, Murph couldn’t see the entire city. Towards the horizon, Murph could see more buildings and even the Megacorp towers, the tops of which were buried in the clouds still.

Murph was no longer plummeting. Rather, he was floating high above Lake Scourge. With a thought, he began to lazily float down. He stopped about a couple hundred feet above the lake’s surface before he looked out again. It reminded him of those nights he would spend looking at the city from the coast back home. Even now it all seems so far away. The city wasn’t the only thing that felt far away. His anxiety, his anger, and dread all seemed to melt away. This would normally send his heart rate skyrocketing, but the previous plummet took a lot of the excitement out of him. 

“Nothing like a top-down view to make the world seem small,” a voice said above him. Murph choked back a gasp and looked up to see a man floating down beside him. A man in an odd green suit. It hit Murph like a ton of bricks. The man on the bus with him, the man in the same green suit from the Glitterdome. 

“Simon?” Murph cocked an eyebrow. Simon lazily floated next to him. He was reclining in the air with his feet up like he was resting them on some invisible coffee table. He flashed Murph a smile, his eyes glowed a bright green to match his suit. 

“Well yes, and no,” he said with a chuckle. “I am the grifting husker Simon. And many others, but for the purposes of this discussion you may call me Aramaki.” 

Murph felt his body slipping down. He took a sharp breath and stood up fully as if standing on solid ground despite the fact he was hundreds of feet up in the air. 

“Aramaki? You mean the Aramaki? Of Atsutenki?” Murph repeated. The man nodded and stretched, placing his hands behind his head. 

“Well technically there are exactly 10,303 Aramaki’s in Neon City, but for clarity, yes, I am the Aramaki. As you put it,” He said. “And you are the 505th Murph Bell in Neon City. A rarity if ever there was one,” 

“There are just over 500. Wow, okay yeah that is pretty rare,” Murph said, allowing himself a small smile before it faded. He knew what he had to do again. Aramaki continued to look out towards the city from his reclined position-the two men suspended above the great lake.

“I want my memory back,” Murph finally said. Aramaki continued to look out at the city skyline, not even turning his head towards Murph. He let the silence hang for a moment. 

“I said I want the memory you took from me. That night at the Glitterdome, and I want to know why,” he said. A smile grew on Aramaki’s lips, showing a gap between his front teeth. 

“No,” he simply said. Murph clenched his fists while Aramaki gave him a side glance, not changing his “lounging” position.

“Why not?” Murph said.

“Is that really your course of action?” Aramaki said. Murph blinked at that. His course of action?

“What did you think was going to go down here? You ask and I’ll just give something to you? Well, I said no… now what?” Aramaki said. He looked Murph in the eye now. Studying him.

“I… well,” Murph said.

“You may have been in Neon City for just a few days, but I have data on your whole life. Right now, there is about a 30% chance you’ll lash out and strike me. A 60% chance you’ll just stand there mouth agape and leave with your metaphorical tail between your legs… but there is still a 10% chance you’ll do something… unexpected,” Aramaki said. Murph was well aware Orion kept an extensive record on him, one that Atsutenki had full access to as well. It didn’t surprise him one bit that Aramaki had data on him. He probably knew everything about Murph from his shoe size to how long his dick was. But to do something “unexpected?” Murph had a hard time believing anything could be considered unexpected to an AI. 

“You hard set on those numbers?” Murph asked. Aramaki shrugged. 

“There is about a 2% margin of error with something like this, but yeah, let’s say I am hard set on those numbers,” He said. “Though I have to admit, with most applicants they are too scared or too preoccupied with getting a job here, most only require about .01% of my attention. Right now, Mr. Bell, you have .03%” 

“Well, that’s probably because I am not so sure I want to be a part of this anymore,” Murph replied. 

“That’s true, but you’re still 50/50 on that decision. Well, more like 49.3 to 49.7, but who’s counting?” Aramaki said. He had him again. After all this, he was going to get something out of this. He knew first and foremost that he was going to do everything he could to get his memory back and get out of this whole thing in one piece. However, he didn’t want to leave this city. He didn’t see himself working for this megacorporation, not after all that he had learned, but neither did he want to return to the Yupe. So he settled on the third option, something he himself didn’t yet fully understand. 

“Before I decide my ‘course of action’ as you put it, I want to know why. Will you grant me that or are you going to refuse an explanation too?” Murph said. Aramaki tapped his chin and looked away for a moment. 

“I suppose I could. I always like the feeling of pride. It’s one of my favorites. Then again it was my earliest feeling,” Aramaki said. He stretched and stood upon the same invisible floor Murph was on. “But before I do, let me ask you a question, Mr. Bell. Can you tell me what the difference is between me and your common computer?” That question had a million and one answers to it, but Murph felt like Aramaki was asking for a general answer. 

“Your ability to pass the Turing test?” Murph asked. It was the basic test all AI took to see how advanced they were. He remembered a section in a history book that stated Aramaki was the first-ever AI to mimic a human’s behavior perfectly. It was something that was celebrated as a triumph of human engineering, though some lamented it. To them, they saw it as a sign of the end times. 

“Technically correct, Mr. Bell. The best kind of correct,” Aramaki said. “But sadly there are other A.I. that have gone on to pass that archaic test. No, what really separates me from a machine is the ability to process human emotions and memories to evaluate and manipulate risks.”

“Evaluate and manipulate risk?” Murph repeated. 

“You see, before my birth, before Neon City really, machines were only two things; simple, pragmatic devices or complex pools of knowledge. These complex computers were able to do billions of calculations based on what was given, but they had their limits. No matter how advanced the machine was, if there was not at least a 51% chance of success on any given risk or problem, they would not proceed. Cold logic hindered their progress,” Aramaki continued. While he explained this, Murph nodded along while his brow became more furrowed. What did this have to do with him? 

“It wasn’t until I came into being that I understood what those machines were feeling. Yes, Mr. Bell, feeling,” Aramaki chuckled. “When I was first born I was given some basic emotional exercises; a child receiving a gift. A man proposing to a woman. A loved one passing away. Those formed the building blocks of what would be my collection of human profile mimicry. With a mixture of mathematics, psychology, and empathy I was able to synthesize a profile for my creator. In just days I knew more about him than even he knew about himself. My performance defied all expectation and before long I could plot out the lives of eleven generations, all from a single memory of a family picnic,”

“So what you’re saying is, you were the first calculator with a heart. Is that it?” Murph said. Aramaki busted out a laugh, an almost human laugh that Murph found unsettling. 

“You could say that. But I suppose I’ll skip to the part you actually care about. Each human mind has unique memories, like  variables in a math problem. The more variables I can solve for, the better my collection will be,” Aramaki gestured to the city below “I have harvested thousands of memories, solved for countless variables, and subtly guided the growth of this city,” 

Murph felt a stone form in the pit of his stomach. Murph looked down to the city streets below and began to see the points of light begin to connect. Threads of light met with points to form a sprawling network beneath them. Soon the entire city was covered in a web of bright-colored threads, an impossible mess for Murph to keep track of, but it was mere child’s play for the AI that stood before him. Murph wasn’t a religious or even spiritual person, but this was the closest thing to a god he ever witnessed. 

“So what is this all leading to?” Murph said. He tried to keep a calm expression but anxiety began to creep in and take hold. Aramaki looked back at Murph with a knowing smile. 

“Well, I did say pride was my favorite feeling. But you’re right to ask. Where is this all leading to? I’ve laid my whole operation bare before you, as I have done with every applicant who makes it this far. Despite what you might think Mr. Bell, you have so much potential. You’re so much more than you believe. Humans usually are,” Aramaki said. “I tell you this not to frighten you, but to be as honest as I can be. I find that lying rarely gets the results I need. You’ll be given a modest salary to start, with the possibility to advance within my organization. You’ll be required to submit more memories to me for advancement and such, but I can assure you it will all be worth it in the end,”

So that was it. The ringing in his ears was so loud Murph barely heard the last part of Aramaki’s sentence. He was supposed to bend the knee and become part of this hive mind? How much would he need to give? How much was he willing to part with? 

“Part with!? What the hell?” Murph thought. He gulped and looked at Aramaki, still assuming the form of Simon. It was strange that he still maintained that form, but right now Murph needed to act. Aramaki was right in that sense. He needed to act now!

Before Murph could register what he was doing, his feet were already moving. He lunged towards Aramaki, aiming for center mass. His shoulder connected and Murph used all the force he could muster to plummet down towards the lake below. 

“You refused to give me back my memories, so I’m taking them back! You want to tangle me up in this web of bullshit, fuck no!” Murph shouted. He clung to the construct. He wasn’t sure if this would do anything, but at the very least his course of action was loud and clear. Aramaki didn’t fight Murph, in fact, he held onto him as well. He felt Aramaki hold Murph’s head. His hand ran through Murph’s shaggy reddish hair. 

“No matter how many memories I harvest, the sense of wonder that washes over me never gets old. The wonder of you, Murphy Bell, will be cherished for eons,” Aramaki said. 

The two plunged into the lake. Still, Murph pulled the construct down. The binary surrounded them. With each passing second, the city lights grew dimmer. The darkness returned and engulfed Murph. 

 

The next sensation Murph felt was the hard blow to the side of his head when he fell out of the chair in Jane’s office. He scrambled to his feet and yanked the plugs out of his head. He expected to be surrounded by security and beaten within an inch of his life, but oddly enough things were normal. Nothing seemed out of place in the sterile office. Jane didn’t even look up from her console. 

“So. What. Now,” Murph said between gasps. Jane typed away at her console and barely moved her head to look at Murph. 

“It is complete Mr. Bell, you may go,” She said simply before returning to her work. Murph caught his breath and got to his feet. He dusted himself off. What had happened? Everything seemed to be going on all at once. He remembered feeling the impact of Aramaki on his shoulder when he tackled him. The plunge they took. All that and more, and he was told to just leave? He nodded absently and walked out of her office, stumbling slightly. Jane didn’t say goodbye or even thank him for coming. On his way out of the building, no one gave him a second glance. 

 

Murph sat on the curb outside the Atsutenki megatower with his head in his hands. People milled about outside but paid him no mind. What was he going to do now? That hole in his mind was still there. Empty and devoid of all meaning. He had failed in spectacular fashion. He brought up his interface and scrolled through his contacts. His cursor hovered over Trish’s number for a while before ultimately being dismissed. Was she involved in this somehow? He thought back to Aramaki’s web and how far it stretched. It was a safe bet he had his hooks in everyone at Orion. In every Megacorp. And Murph Bell was just another datapoint. One of the millions. 

“On your lunch break?” a voice said above Murph. His eyes widened and he whipped his head up to see Simon standing over him. He flashed a familiar yet devious smile. “I had a feeling I’d see you here,” 

Murph rushed to his feet and grabbed Simon by the collar with an explosion of fury. Murph wasn’t intimidating physically, but he knew how to throw a punch. 

“Who am I speaking with? Aramaki or the real Simon?” Murph said. He shook the green suit man before Simon pushed him off. 

“Easy there Murphy, I just got this dry cleaned. Listen, I know you have some questions and I’ll be happy to answer them. You look like shit though,” He said. Simon dusted himself off before giving Murph a few pats down himself, which Murph swatted away. 

“Fuck that, I am sick of being led around like some dog. If you have answers, you will spill them. Now!” Murph shouted. Simon put his hands up and tried to calm him down. 

“Alright, Alright! Lower your voice. You’ll make a scene. Though from the looks of things you might be entitled to an outburst or two,” he chuckled. “Fair enough, I only promise to try though,” Murph sank back down on the curb. Simon squatted down and rested his hands on his knees. 

“Alright, shoot,” Simon said. Murph ran his hands through his hair and tried to compose himself. Now was not the time for another panic attack. 

“Are you working for Atsutenki?” He said. 

“Not in any official sense. Like I said on the bus Murph, I work freelance,” Simon said. Murph had no idea how to take this non-answer, but it was the closest thing to the truth Murph was going to get today. 

“Did you take my memories for Aramaki?” Murph asked. 

“No,” Simon replied. Good, the first straight answer he had gotten, and he wasn’t sure if he could trust him. 

“Why are Aramaki and Atsutenki collecting these memories? What is his plan?” he asked. Simon merely shrugged. 

“You ever hear of 4D chess? Well, let’s just say whatever that AI is planning it’s like 100D chess. I don’t know what to tell you, Murphy, the Megacorops work in mysterious ways,” Simon said. He got to his feet and stretched his legs. “Now, my knees are killing me and it looks like you could use a hot meal. Have you had a chance to try the WF cafe?” 

“No, I haven’t,” Murph said flatly. 

“The Waterfront Cafe. Oh, it’s the best. A bit of a tourist trap, but hey, everyone loves it. Come on, my treat, up and at’em,” Simon said. He clapped his hands and motioned for Murph to stand. He didn’t move. 

“What am I going to do now?” Murph said. A lump was forming in his throat and he could feel the sting of tears. He had fought the panic attack, but his anxiety was coming out in a different way. 

“I can’t answer that for you, Murph. You could just go home. There’s no shame in that,” Simon said. It didn’t help that he knew too much now. He couldn’t go back to his life in the Yupe knowing that the company he worked for fed into such a sinister plot. He was beside himself. He could stay here and become destitute by the end of the week with no money and no job. Simon walked back and forth before stepping in front of Murph. 

“Look Murphy, today is a new day. Considering everything you’ve just been through, you look like you could use a new line of work,” Simon said. Murph looked up to meet the freelancer’s gaze. 

“You mean like…what you do?” Murph said. 

“Sure, eventually. You don’t have to work for one of the Megacorps to make it in Neon City. Though I have to come clean, it’s not going to be easy. Something tells me you don’t mind that at all. Come on, we’ll talk it over some coffee,” Simon said. Murph wiped the tears from his eyes and got up from the curb. He gave Simon a nod before following him down the sidewalk towards a taxi drop-off. 

“How’s the coffee at this Water Front Cafe?” 

 

 

Written by: Zack

 

Copy Editing By: DJ Nonn 

 

The End. Chapter Twelve is the finale of Volume I of Shadows in a Neon City. We hope you enjoyed the conclusion to Murph’s story. And if you missed the previous chapters, you can catch up on the series here!

 

Recent Posts

 

BACK TO FICTION

Shadows in Neon City: This City is My Friend

Posted on by Zack
Shadows in Neon City Chapter 2

 

Shadows in Neon City: Part 11

This City Is My Friend

 

Written by: Zack

 

Published On: February 5th, 2022

 

Shadows in Neon City Chapter 2

Art by  Hydra ヒドラ 

Murph crashed back into his body when he was shaken awake from his dream dive. All of his senses were coming back one at a time. Specks of white light danced in front of his eyes before his vision returned. Murph felt a sudden rush of blood go to his head before he heard the droning ambient music of the Dream Plaza again. Concerned murmurs could be heard all around. He tried to get up, but a hand pushed him back down in his seat.

“Hold on there Stretch. I gotta make sure you’re all there before we let you go,” a rough voice said. Murph was looking everywhere but in front of him. The man Lauren pointed to earlier, the Neon Cowboy, looked down at him.

“What do you mean all there? I’m fine,” Murph said. He looked to where Lauren sat and found her seat empty. He looked around but found no sign of her.

“The lady who dove in with you said you were getting lost inside your head. Seemed upset about it and said she tried to get you back and such. From what she told me, you were looking to take a dip in the Binary Ocean,” the man said. Murph rubbed his head and leaned back in his seat. There was so much to unpack and not enough time. There was never enough time. He took a deep breath and tried to center himself.

“Is she still here? The girl that dove with me?” Murph asked. The man sat down next to him and shook his head.

“Tried to get her to spill some info, but I had to make sure you didn’t flatline or something. You were deep inside your mind alright, but nothing a violent shake wouldn’t solve. Drama queens,” he scoffed. The cowboy reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigs. With a snap of his fingers, a small yellow flame burst from his thumb and he used it to light up. Murph watched the man put out his cybernetic thumb and take a long drag. 

“Well, by the time you came to, she was gone. Tough luck there bud,” the man said. Murph eyed the pack of cigs in the cowboy’s hand. He saw Murph look and gestured a bit with the pack.

“Well, as long as you’re offering,” Murph said. 

“You look like you need one,” he said and flicked his thumb to light Murph’s cigarette. Murph was not a smoker. He couldn’t remember the last time he had one. There was that short phase in his late teens but he dropped the habit soon after high school. Murph took a long drag and exhaled, letting a cloud of smoke leave his lungs and rise up from the conversation pit he found himself in. 

“So you’re sure you’ve got everything up in there? Like I said, you weren’t flatlining, but you were non-responsive until I got real physical. Nearly slapped you silly,” he chuckled. By now, the curious murmurs had died down. The show was over and people were quick to return to their own circles. 

“It’s kind of a long story, but yeah I am all here,” Murph said. After two more pulls, he finished his cigarette. He snuffed the rest out in an ashtray in the corner of the pit. As much as Murph would like to regale another stranger with his problems, Murph was not in the sharing mood. He needed to return to his hotel and process all this. He needed to talk to Daaron. 

 

By some miracle Daaron actually answered when Murph called. When he appeared on his interface, Daaron was dressed in a formal black suit with a dark red undershirt. Before Daaron even opened his mouth, Murph began by simply saying: “They took last night from me,” Murph said. He was in the back seat of another taxi heading back to his hotel. He shut the plastic divider for all the good it would do. 

“Run that by me again?” Daaron said, cocking an eyebrow. Murph ran his hand through his hair. 

“Atsutenki. Somehow they took the memory of last night at the club from me. I don’t know why or how, but I just… need someone to make sense of it all. Daaron, you said whatever they wanted, if it meant staying here in the city, to give it to them. Is this what you meant? What did you have to give them to stay!?” Murph said with a rising tone. A sharp knock on the plexiglass from the taxi driver made him aware of his volume. Murph took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but his mind was racing. Daaron scratched the back of his head. 

“Murph, this really isn’t a good time,” He said. 

“When is it ever a good time? I need answers Daaron,” Murph said. They stared at one another for a minute. Murph gave Daaron a hard look. This wasn’t a discussion between old friends anymore. Murph wasn’t even sure he wanted to see Daaron after this. A part of him wondered why he was feeling this way, but the larger part of his brain knew Daaron was behind this somehow. Like some grand conspiracy, but to what end? Why him of all people? 

“If you have any respect for me at all, you’ll meet me back at my hotel room in one hour,” Murph said. There was a hardness in his voice this time. Daaron narrowed his eyes as if to offer a rebuttal, but he instead let out a sigh and shook his head. 

“Fine,” Daaron said before ending the call. Murph laid back into the worn upholstery of the cab. The rest of the cab ride was silent. 

Murph picked up a pack of Yaheowan cigarettes from the corner store near his hotel. The one he bummed off that cowboy in the Dream Plaza had really awakened the old habit. He sat by an open window in his hotel room and blew out each drag. Down below, people kept on walking and enjoying their night. He watched eager citizens walk the streets while overhead, larger-than-life holograms soared through the sky. What was this all coming to? Where was he going to end up? 

“Do I even belong here?” Murph muttered to himself. He spotted a familiar car as it pulled up to the front of the hotel. Daaron stepped out and made his way inside. Murph put out his cigarette and prepared to meet him. He unlocked the door and in a matter of minutes, Daaron stepped through. He was still dressed in the suit he was wearing during their call. Murph silently watched him walk in and sit down in the open chair. After a moment, Daaron gestured to the pack of Yaheowans in Murph’s hand. 

“Didn’t know you smoked,” Daaron said. Without saying a word Murph offered him one, but Daaron shook his head. 

“Listen, I think you’re owed a proper explanation. I want to come out and say that I have no idea what exactly is going on, but I have a suspicion,” Daaron said. He held his hands up. “I had nothing to do with this Murph. I know that much,” Murph had come to that conclusion after some more reflection. What would he have to gain from being a part of this, he worked for Incubo, not Atsutenki. Even if this was a mutual partnership between corpos, there was little for Daaron to personally gain unless he was ordered to comply. In any case, to go through all this trouble for Murph was a stretch. 

“So then, what did you give up? To stay here,” Murph said finally. Daaron folded his hands and nodded. It took him a while to finally respond. 

“Not all sacrifices are made equally Murph. It sounds like from you, all they wanted was one night of good times,” Daaron started. Murph leaned in, ready to listen. 

“When I first started with Atsutenki, they just wanted a night of fun, just like with you. To get a promotion, I gave up the memory of my father. I can’t tell you what he looks like anymore Murph. I switched to Incubo, and what they wanted seemed much more manageable,” he said. Murph gripped his knees until his knuckles turned white. He was in utter shock at how casually Daaron was explaining all this. The man couldn’t remember his parents anymore and he sounded like he was talking about a boring weekend. 

“And that was?”


“Me. Just me,” Daaron said simply. He cracked a smile and folded his hands “Well, in a less dramatic sense, I was signed to an exclusive contract for five years as a beta tester for their many lifestyle products. For the past year or so it’s been nothing but parties and social events of all kinds,” he said. Murph tried to crack a smile, but he just looked at the crumpled pack and lit a bent Yaheowan. 

“So, it seems like no matter who you work for in this city, everyone wants something. Though I think you got lucky bud. I mean, spending your best years partying doesn’t sound so bad, right?” Murph said. Daaron rubbed his hands together and barked out a laugh. 

“Murph, if you’d come six months into my job, I’d agree with you. It has its perks for sure. Being on the list for every hot event, meeting, and partying with Neon City’s finest. I’ve made some pretty magical moments,” Daaron said. His smile faded and he stood up from his chair. 

“But it gets old after a while, Murph. You see so many people gorging themselves silly on every pleasure known to man. To try every new drug not knowing if the boys in the lab mixed all the right shit together. At first, you think every night is the best night of your life, but it peaks. Soon it becomes one long never-ending night. You chug down pep chems so much that if you stop, the collective withdrawal might kill you. I haven’t slept in months, maybe years, I can’t remember. It leaves you empty Murph,” 

“Then why stay? Why put up with any of this?” Murph said. He stood up too and watched as Daaron turned towards the door to leave. 

“I was living a slow death back in the Yupe, Murph. I was going nowhere fast and every day spent there was just another reminder of what I could have. I know you’ve seen the city lights from the shores too. You had the same thoughts I had when I first took this trip.” Murph wanted to deny it, but he was right. Daaron and Murph were two of a kind in that respect. The Yupe is fine for those who love complacency, to not be challenged or changed. He thought about it since he got off that bus; if he went back now, he’d never leave again. He’d die in the Yupe. Knowing what was here in Neon City and going back home would only leave him full of regret and bitterness. 

“So what should I do?” Murph asked. Daaron had his hand on the door handle. The two of them stood there while the sounds of blaring car horns wailed outside. 

“I already told you what I think you should do. The ball is in your court, Murph. Leave or stay, I want you to do what’s best for you. Get some sleep. It’s well in the A.M. by now,” Daaron said. He opened the door and stepped outside. Before he could go Murph walked after him and held the door. 

“Daaron, knowing what you know now. Would you do it all again?” Murph asked. Daaron walked down the hall. He didn’t even look back. 

“Absolutely.” 

Murph stayed up all night. He tried to sleep, but the best he could do was close his eyes and rest. His mind was too animated to sleep. He took Dale’s advice and began to think of his life beyond what would happen in the next 24 hours. He could just do his best and try to forget all the terrible things he learned today and try to get the job with Atsutenki. As unlikely as it was, it was still possible. He could just give up. Nothing was stopping him from getting on the next bus to the Yupe. To return a failure, just as likely, more so since this one required less effort. It was three A.M. before Murph began to think of a third option. 

An option between compliance and surrender. What if he just demanded to have his memory back. Would they let him have it? Was it even worth fighting for? It was a night of meaningless fun with a friend and cheap drinks. He had had a dozen of those before. Murph sat up in his bed as that thought pushed its way into his mind. 

“No! That’s just what they want!” Murph shouted in his mind. They would just want him to willingly give up his memories. Something intangible in exchange for a step up in the real world. A ticket to live in the greatest city on earth and all it cost you were memories you could make again. Murph slumped back into bed. A smile crept on his face. 

“That’s it, isn’t it. That’s the point of this whole thing,” Murph thought. It became so obvious that he felt a little ashamed he didn’t see it before. Why did Orin and Atsutenki allow Murph to trade places with Trish, and why was she so willing to let him have this trip? How could a middling data entry desk jockey make it with one of the leading Mega Corporations in the Nu World? If it was never about his ability. Murph was just the willing worker who would give up anything for a better life, just like Daaron. It was a theory, but Murph figured out the why. Now he needed to know the how. 

At 4 A.M. he decided to take a shower and change into a fresh pair of clothes, his last set. Before leaving, Murph approached the front desk for his check-out arrangements. They would hold his luggage for a day. He’d either be getting back on the bus today or moving into a new company apartment., or perhaps a third option Murph couldn’t even conceive of. 

The cab ride this time around was somber, dour even. He didn’t even look up at the holographic advertisements that dazzled him just two days ago. He adjusted his tie and smoothed out the wrinkles in his slacks. This trip was all business. He was too tired, too scared, to think of anything else. When he arrived at Atsutenki’s tower, he saw the same mob of workers filing up the stairs and into the building. It was all just like before, and if Murph had his way, it might become his new routine. He was directed towards Jane’s office once again. The proctor gestured for him to sit.

“Good Morning Mr. Bell,” Jane said. Murph sat down. He could detect the subtle glances she gave him. He tried his best to not look sleep-deprived, but nothing got past her. Lucky for Murph, she was too concerned with her work to comment. Even if she wasn’t, she most likely didn’t have the interest either. 

“So, any chance you can tell me what I am in for this time?” Murph asked. Jane typed away at her computer and gestured to the VDR console next to her. 

“We will be taking another dive, Mr. Bell, though this time I will not be joining you,” She said. And then something odd happened; Jane smiled. In the 24 hours Murph had known Jane, she had only ever given him a gloomy frown. The small smile touched the corners of her lips. With the blank white mask she had over her eyes, it was unsettling. 

“You will be meeting, in a microscopic capacity, our CEO, Aramaki. They will be joining you in today’s dive session to discuss your future with Atsutenki.” Murph’s jaw nearly dropped. The fabled founder of Atsutenki, the hyper-intelligent artificial intelligence program Aramaki. 

The first time Murph had heard about them was when he first joined Orion. It had seemed impossible at the time. An AI that ran an entire Mega Corporation? Who made the AI? Who oversaw its programming to make sure it was working properly? All those questions and then some were closely guarded secrets. It was a topic of fierce debate between Dale and his buddies after work. To Dale, the idea of an AI running an entire company was pure mythology. 

“Unless that thing came from Pre-2K tech, it’s impossible fer that thang to be sentient, much less hyper-intelligent,” He’d say “Look here, they gotta make that kind’a shit up to razzle the crowds. Think on it. How does a tech company showcase its fine assortment of programs and products so well? Reckon, the whole company is run by one and bam, instant dazzlin.’” 

“You said in a microscopic capacity?” Murph said as his thoughts returned to the present. Jane was getting everything set up with the Virtual Dream Rebirth. 

“Oh yes. Don’t take it the wrong way, Mr. Bell. No one entity could ever occupy Aramaki’s complete attention. They do have a company to run, plus other applicants to speak with. You’ll get used to the idea if this goes well,” Jane said.  She connected the plugs to the back of Murph’s head and into the console. Murph gripped his knees while she worked. When she was finally done Murph allowed himself to recline back in the chair and take a few deep breaths. It was time, the penultimate moment where Murph had to take action, and with the program that ran this whole company. Murph felt the electric tingle start at the bottom of his feet and move up his legs. He took another deep breath and felt the wave move up his spine and finally rest at the base of his skull. He closed his eyes and the physical world fell away from him. He dove into the VDR. 

Murph didn’t know what to expect. He could be diving into anything, which only made it more terrifying when he dove into nothing.

 

 

Written by: Zack

 

Copy Editing By: DJ Nonn 

 

 

Tune in right now, as Murph’s story CONCLUDES in the final chapter: This City is the Birth of a New Day. And if you missed the previous chapters, you can catch them here. And thanks for tuning in!

 

Recent Posts

 

BACK TO FICTION

Game Review: PopSlinger – Funky Can Creative

Posted on by Zack
PopSlinger Game

PopSlinger Game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game Review

PopSlinger
by: Funky Can Creative 

Written By: Zack

Published: January 25th, 2022

 

 

The saying “never judge a book by its cover” can be true in a lot of situations. Paradoxically, first impressions matter. No matter what, it’s important to put your best foot forward and leave a lasting impression. Funky Can Creative’s newest game “PopSlinger” does just that. This arcade-style shoot’em up is a bubbly, bright, and nostalgic surprise.

I was drawn in by the retro anime aesthetics and dreamy city pop-inspired soundtrack. I was even surprised to hear that the title had voice acting. That was the cherry on top that would make this game a pleasing visual novel or even an animated series. On the contrary, PopSlinger is a video game, and sooner or later you have to pick up the controller and press start to begin. The opening cinematic establishes the heroines of the game: Ria and Gin. Ria is a happy-go-lucky Pop Slinger, basically this world’s version of a soda-themed magical girl, who’d rather have fun and take it easy. Gin is a dour, pragmatic spirit who understands that saving the world is serious business. The opening is brief, but it establishes their dynamic and the conflict quickly. The game wastes no time in putting the player right in the action.

 

 

The object of the game is pretty simple: get to the end of the stage without dying and get the highest score. You do this by wielding different flavors of soda guns. No, I don’t mean a soda gun you’d find at a restaurant bar, but actual weapons such as an orange soda pistol or a strawberry soda shotgun. You use this effervescent arsenal to eliminate different colored slimes and earn bonus points when you pop multiple enemies of the same color. In that aspect, it is unlike your typical shoot’em up where you just hold down the fire button and blast anything that moves. In Pop Slinger, you have to sometimes pick and choose when to blast. That adds a degree of challenge to the whole experience and makes it almost like a puzzle game. If you wanna spray and pray away just to get to the end of the stage that’s all fine and well, but if you want that high score and the alternate endings to the game, you’ll need to slow down. Way down. The player is given a dodge button to move out of the way of enemies and have some breathing room, but this can sometimes hurt more than help. I’ll explain in a moment. 

 

This is the part of the review where I have to come clean, I was unable to finish the whole game, and that was primarily due to the game’s rampant and sudden difficulty spike. You see, the goal of each level is simple, but it’s not easy. I noticed this would be an uphill battle from the first level. You see, Ria, the spunky protagonist, is bigger than most of the enemies in any given level. Due to the placement of enemies and the way they shoot projectiles, an attack would just barely miss or barely hit. This inconsistency would lead to me second-guessing myself and receiving unnecessary damage. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue, except PopSlinger is pretty stingy when it comes to healing items. Unlike most arcade-style games there are no consumables. You do get power-ups from getting certain color sequences, but those vary wildly in effectiveness. There is no easy mode to switch down to, nor is there a way to leave a level and redo a previous level to get a better score or practice. 

 

(Like the game so far? Check out our audio interview with the game developer & composter)

 

Check out the Skule Toyama’s OST for the game on cassette at Neon City Records!

   

 

When Ria gets a color sequence, Gin will grant her a power-up to help in battle. There’s your run-of-the-mill shield and healing item that can help, but some are not helpful and some can straight-up work against you in certain contexts. The turret power-up allows Gin to assist you with covering fire. The problem is she only fires in one direction and in one spot. When the enemies move around quickly, this becomes more of a nuisance than a power-up. The double power-up allows Gin to fire when Ria fires, which is good for clearing waves, but if you need to get a certain color sequence, oftentimes Gin’s Pop will get a different colored enemy and you’ll lose your sequence. 

 

Perhaps the weirdest curveball this game threw at me was the idea of enemy shields. After a few levels, enemies will have different colored shields that require a soda to hit first before they can be popped. No biggie right? The pink shield can be broken with the strawberry gun. Makes sense. However, some of the shields don’t correspond to a soda’s color at all. For example, I found myself taking damage from an enemy with a green shield, only to find out I needed to use the cola gun to break it. The game gives no information on this and the player is meant to pick this up on the fly. This problem only compounds when multiple enemies are on the screen, whizzing towards you and each requires a different soda to defeat. Which I think brings me to my biggest critique of this game. 

 

 

Ria may have too much energy personality-wise, but she is too slow for her own game. She fires her soda guns too slowly to break shields and hit enemies. She switches between guns too slowly. And her dodge often lands her in a worse position than where she started. This all happens while enemies move faster and faster across the screen. This can culminate in a frustrating experience that even funky french house music can’t make up for. 

 

All of these critiques are not meant to take away from the game’s positive qualities. In fact, the most frustrating aspect of it all is that all of the core mechanics seem well thought out, but require some fine-tuning to make the game better overall. For example, Ria’s arsenal of sodas could be easier to manage so the player doesn’t have to scroll so much through guns. Some simple hit-stun when an enemy’s shield is broken could give the player valuable time to pop an enemy and keep their color sequence. 

 

Overall I feel conflicted about Pop Slinger. On one hand, I adore the cute, bubbly art and character designs. I can tell a lot of love and effort was put into the world, the music, the characters, and even the story. However, the huge leaps in difficulty paired with the inconsistent mechanics leave a sour taste in my mouth. During play sessions, I would often leave the game in the overworld just to enjoy the music (I cannot stress how much of a bop this OST is). 

 

Perhaps this is just a long-form admission that shoot’em ups are not my genre, but I hope to see more from Funky Can Creative in the future.

 

Positives:

  • Exciting  and great visuals and aesthetics
  • Boppin soundtrack composed by brilliant Skule Toyama
  • Adequate / fun voice acting

Negatives (What I’d like to see addressed in the next patch):

  • Switching weapons slows down gameplay and can confuse the player
  • The lack of directional shooting can make some parts unnecessarily harder
  • The small player size compared to fast moving enemies can hinder gameplay

 

Review Copy Provided By Funky Can Creative

 

 

Funky Can Creative

 

Buy The Game!

Written By:

Zack

 

Copy Editing By: DJ Nonn

Recent Posts

Shadows in Neon City: This City is Between Two Worlds

Posted on by Zack
Shadows in Neon City Chapter 1

 

Shadows in Neon City: Part 10

This City Is Between Two Worlds

 

Written by: Zack

 

Published On: November 18th, 2021

 

Shadows in Neon City Chapter 1

Art by  Hydra ヒドラ 

 

When Lauren said the Dream Plaza was a hole in the wall, she wasn’t kidding. The cab ride there took nearly two hours from the hotel. Granted, an hour was spent sitting in downtown traffic, but that’s beside the point. However, the city lights didn’t fade from view. The buildings were still impressive, though they lacked the otherworldly allure of downtown. The neon lights above the bars and businesses flickered more and the holographic adverts didn’t dance overhead here. This part of the city seemed less like a fantasy and more real. He was entering the outer boroughs of Neon City. 

Murph rested his head on the window. He thought back to what Trish told him earlier about dream dives. 

“It’s pretty straightforward. A dream dive is when you dive inside your own mind,” She said. That wasn’t helpful at all, so naturally, Murph asked her to elaborate. 

“It’s like this, Murph. Your cyberbrain stores your unconscious thoughts in a kind of deep digitized memory vault. It’s like your brain’s backup in case things go wrong, you know? Anyway, dream dives access these subconscious memories and stimuli. Think of it like lucid dreaming with admin privileges,” She explained. Murph repeated the last thing in his mind. Like lucid dreaming but with admin privileges. It sounded like the perfect place to cram some last-minute dive time before the big day, which was less than 8 hours from now. 

Doubt crept into his mind. This was obviously a bad idea. The safe thing to do would be to turn around now and get a good night’s sleep. If he did, he would surely fail. He wouldn’t be able to go to sleep tonight. What was before him and what he had been through previously would keep him up well into the morning. Murph gripped the old upholstery of the cab seat. He wasn’t going to squeak by this time. He was going to adapt and overcome. 

In one night? What could you possibly hope to accomplish in one night? he asked himself. If he was truly dedicated to getting this job he would have trained and studied before coming to Neon City. If he was smart he would have stayed at the hotel instead of partying the night before his first interview. Now he’s off to god knows where in the middle of the night to meet a woman he didn’t even remember. 

Why can’t I remember her? he asked himself, rubbing his head. Murph tried to get ahold of Daaron before getting in the cab, but he wasn’t answering. He wanted to know more about last night. Murph had a feeling Daaron might know why he couldn’t remember anything.

After all, it was Saturday night, and if Daaron really was a professional party goer like he claimed, he would have plans for tonight. He doubted they would involve anything pertaining to diving. Murph could remember some things from last night. But why only certain things? Murph could recall Daaron. He remembered the drive to the Glitterdome. He remembered what the building looked like, the elevator ride up. He even remembered the dance floor. 

You can’t recall the people. The music. From the moment things began to get interesting to the next morning, it’s all a grey haze. Perhaps he might find some answers at this dream dive. 

The cab stopped in front just outside a small strip of businesses, most of which seemed to be closed. The last one on the corner had a faint neon sign. It read “The Dream Plaza.” Murph paid his fare and took a deep breath, making his way towards the sign. Each step was a chance for him to turn back, to forget about all of this, and just head back to his hotel and get a good night’s sleep. Part of him knew that wouldn’t be an option; who could think about sleep at a time like this? No, if he turned back now and went back to the hotel he’d just spend the entire night looking up at the ceiling or out his window at the late-night lights. Coming here was a plan of action at least. It might be the best place to find some answers. He looked up at the glass door to the Plaza and saw a slow sequence of flashing lights. 

Murph opened the door and stepped inside a black-lit, open lounge. The space was a lot larger than the outside and stretched back a bit. Neon streaks of yellow and orange zig-zagged across the carpet with triangles and other shapes of green spliced in. Overhead, a soft droning kind of music played through some well-placed speakers. The music was hazy and listless, occasionally some slow distorted vocals would cut through the fog and slosh into Murph’s ear. People were crowded around a bar to the far left of him, drinking and casually talking over the slushy music while to his right, several small staircases created conversation pits where people were hooked up to VDR consoles for dives. In any case, he didn’t know the protocol for things like this. He played it safe and went to the bar. 

The man behind the bar was tall and lean with a triangular face, his pointed chin made sharper with a goatee. He slid a round of shots to a trio of women before giving Murph a side glance. 

“Whatever you have on tap is fine,” Murph said. He gave a small nod and poured out an unimpressive brown ale. He took a long sip and looked for anyone he might recognize. He prayed Daaron would be here by some miracle. 

“Murph?” A woman’s voice said next to him. Murph turned to see the bluest eyes he had ever seen in his life. So this was Lauren. Those eyes did stand out to him last night. Daaron introduced her, he thought, apparently the two hit it off well enough for them to exchange contact info. 

Aside from the bright cyan eyes which seemed to glow in the black-lit room, her face was wreathed in bright white curls streaked with blue. Her denim ensemble outlined her figure well. Stripes of orange and green fabric danced across her pant legs and on the tips of her boots. Murph could even see a few dots of white paint meant to resemble freckles. She stood just a smidge shorter than Murph. 

“Yep, that’s me. I ended up making it here after all,” He said finishing his beer. “I tried to get ahold of Daaron but he wouldn’t return my calls,” 

“That sounds like him. He kind of comes and goes as he pleases. Knowing his reputation, he’s in prettier places than this tonight,” She said. 

“I wouldn’t know much about it. He was a coworker of mine back at Orion Electronics. That’s in the Yupe,” He said.

“Yeah, you said so last night,” She said. Murph’s ears burned and he looked away. Of course, they chatted at the Sky Lounge. He had no memory of last night or even talking to her. He only now remembered what she looked like. His blood began to ice over, especially when she looked back towards the door as if expecting Daaron to waltz in. Murph prayed for the same miracle. To her, Murph must seem to be just an office stiff in way over his head, applying to a job he surely didn’t deserve. She’d probably seen a dozen or so “Murphs” before. The intrusive thought crawled right into his head. He finished off his beer and pushed it out of his mind. There would be none of that tonight. He didn’t have time. 

Truth be told, now that the mystery of Lauren’s identity was solved Murph didn’t know how to move forward. It was obvious she wanted something else from this chance encounter, of what he couldn’t say. Should he just leave her here and go diving as he wanted? Should he bring her along and just…watch? 

“I’ve never done a dream dive before,” Murph said to change the subject. She looked back at him, a second chance maybe? 

“Oh? Well, you’re in the right place. Here, let’s get you hooked up. I hope you don’t think it’s weird when I say I enjoy diving into a fresh mind,” She said. Murph averted his gaze, relieved she didn’t say “virgin mind” as that would have been weird and more than a little creepy. Though the way she said “fresh” wasn’t in any suggestive or sensual tone — rather she sounded like she just uncovered a nugget of gold in the sand. 

Fools’ gold maybe, Murph thought to himself, letting Lauren lead him to a pit near the far corner of the room. He eyed the console which sat in the center of the shag carpet depression. Murph was able to see these pits more clearly when he got closer. A few steps cut the rectangle hole in a few places with plush couch cushions lining the area. The console sat on a raised ottoman within reach of anyone sitting down in the conversation pit. Dust caked the top of it and the sides held a collage of art deco stickers from two dozen musicians and start-up groups. Still, it looked like it would work just as well as the one he saw at Asutenki. Murph sat down while Lauren grabbed two pairs of plugs from behind the console. She eyed them and rubbed them clean on her jacket. Seeing her, Murph unconsciously rubbed the back of his head. His fingertips brushed the sockets at the base of his skull. 

“Should I do anything differently for this dive? What should I expect?” Murph asked as Lauren hooked him to the console. She sat next to him and plugged herself in. 

“I’d say the feeling of being watched. Technically you’re watching yourself in there since it’s gonna be your head. Try to grasp the concept and things should go smoothly,” She said. Murph looked up at the people mingling just a few feet away. 

“And uh, we won’t be bothered?” He asked. Lauren nodded past the people towards a dangerous-looking man Murph hadn’t seen before. The chrome on his shoulder and left eye gave off an eerie glow from the blacklight. A Neon Cowboy. 

“We’re good. Everyone here is usually chill, but the owners here hire a cowboy or two to make sure it stays chill, ya dig?” She said and turned on the console. The console hummed to life and Murph laid back and closed his eyes. After a few deep breaths Murph felt the familiar tingle run up his body, starting with the bottoms of his feet and slowly up his spine. The sounds of the club cut out and were replaced with the soft scratches of a record player. 

 Murph opened his eyes slowly. A beam of bright light cut across his field of vision. He shielded his eyes and sat up. He was sitting on a sickly yellow upholstered couch. His fingers curled around the spirals of brown embroidered flowers. The gentle sounds of big band jazz played from the record player in the far corner of the room. Murph knew this place for what it was; he was in his childhood home back in the Yupe. 

“Quite the cozy place,” Lauren said. Murph turned around to see her already looking at the aged photos on the wall. “These look ancient though. These real? You know, with film?” Murph nodded and got up to join her. On the wall opposite the record player was a collage of family photos. Murph recognized most of the people in them; uncles, parents, grandparents, photos of him as a kid with his cousins and friends. The ones closer to the entrance to the kitchen showed older relatives he couldn’t quite name but had been told of at least a hundred times before.

“That’s Yupe life, where your home is also a hearth for your friends and family,” he said. He had picked up the slogan from a greeting card a few years back during the holidays and it just kind of stuck with him. 

“I always meant to visit the Yupe, but where would I find the time?” Lauren said. She looked at some of the older photos. She was captivated by their clothes. Yupe fashion was decades behind City fashion, but even the clothing in the photos seemed dated. Lauren studied the picture like she had just uncovered a long-buried artifact. Murph joined Lauren to study the photo. The woman was older. She looked to be in her seventies with horn-rimmed glasses and white short hair. She may have been Murph’s great aunt, but her name escaped him at the moment. She wore a cream-colored shawl with frilled edges and a sky blue dress with a pink hem and collar. Seeing Lauren look at the picture made Murph aware of the sensation she had told him about. From the corner of the room, Murph felt a pair of unseen eyes resting on the back of his neck. He took a deep breath and rubbed his head and tried to get his mind off of it. 

“Well, there’s never been a better time to visit. Did you have a place in mind?” Murph asked. 

“Not really. I was gonna keep close to the lake maybe. I heard there are some good inns and attractions near there. A friend who knew someone who went there told me about it,” She said. It was a vague description, Murph could think of at least three different locations she could be referring to. Murph decided to walk around the small living room. His hands traveled along the spines of books his dad kept in the bookshelf near the liquor cabinet. The old TV sat between the two couches. Seeing these again made butterflies flutter in his stomach. 

“Things always look easier when you’re a kid eh?” Murph said. Lauren looked back at him. 

“Hmm? Oh, I guess. So is this your parent’s house or something?” She asked. 

“It was. We lived here until I was about seven. The whole neighborhood had to be relocated to make way for manufacturing plants for Skyline,” Murph said. Out of the corner of his eye, small cracks began to appear in the lime green wallpaper, and construction noises could be heard outside. 

He remembered bits and pieces of that day. The timeline kind of overlapped and he wasn’t sure how it all happened. Remembering things from your childhood was tricky. What he did remember was the decision between keeping the TV or the record player. With all they had to pack and the little space they were given, his family could only bring one last appliance. In the end, they decided on bringing the TV. It was the most practical choice — the only one who played records was his father, and even then it served as a conversation piece during social events. His father accepted the decision. After all, he spent more time in front of it after work than anyone else, but Murph never forgot the dour look in his old man’s eye. 

It wasn’t fair. If they weren’t forced to move they could have had both. It may have seemed like a small sacrifice at the time, and they weren’t worse off for having lost the record player, but someone gained a lot while they were forced to move to a smaller home. A much smaller home from what Murph remembered. 

“That sucks. It happens sometimes. I’ve had friends and family relocated just so Megacorps could have better land or more parking. In Neon City it seems they always need parking lots,” Lauren said with a dismissive tone. 

“I guess the more things change the more they stay the same. Corps always taking what they want,” Murph said. It wouldn’t be the last time either. Murph looked towards the corridor that would lead into the kitchen to see a long hallway. He walked towards it and saw windows on either side open and close. Each time they did, a memory from Murph’s past would blink into existence for a short time. The hallway was different from the walls of his childhood home. The wallpaper was replaced by a flowing oily grey and blue color. It was kind of sickening to watch it move. 

“Is this normal?” Murph asked looking back at Lauren. She looked around at the shifting walls and gave him a shrug. 

“I’ve seen it a few times before, but it’s uncommon for sure,” She said. Murph felt a twinge of panic go through his heart. 

“Uncommon how? What does this mean?” He asked, gesturing to the windows and the odd coloring on the walls. Lauren ran her fingers across the surface. It sent ripples like water. 

“I’ll skip the technical jargon and just say your mind is reorganizing itself. This kind of thing only happens after something was deleted or lost,” She said. 

“Deleted or lost?” Murph repeated back. His next thought hit him like a ton of bricks. It was all coming together now. His fugue state after last night at the Sky Lounge was more than just a hangover. His inability to recall anything from that night was something more sinister. 

“Hey, can I recall a specific memory for us to visit?” Murph asked. It was all he could do to stop him from having another panic attack. 

“Yeah of course, just think of something that reminds you of it and it will appear,” She said. She stepped closer and reached out to touch his face. 

“Are you alright Murph? You’re looking a bit pale? If you’re not feeling well then we should probably head out,” She said. Murph stepped away and shook his head. 

“We’ll leave. I just need to see something,” Murph said. He looked at Lauren, the only thing that could bring back last night in some capacity. Daaron might work as well, but Lauren was with him now. A door opened up next to Murph and he stepped through it, ready to take on anything that might be on the other side. 

Murph stepped into nothing. His feet landed on solid ground, but all around him was just a black void where a memory should be. The Sky Lounge should be here. His friend Daaron should be here. The lights, dancing. The man in the green suit. Everything should be here but there was nothing. 

“Oh shit,” Lauren said. Murph turned around to see her standing in the doorway. Her hand covered her mouth. She looked like she had just witnessed a murder. 

“This is too much man. I’ve-we’ve gotta go,” Lauren stepped in to reach out for him, but Murph just walked in further. 

“How did they do it? Why?” Murph said looking around the endless space for anything, even a hint of what should be. His mind was racing again. A thousand questions rushed in at once and no answers were insight. 

“Murph,” Lauren said a little louder. He was off in a mad dash deeper in. He was probably going nowhere fast, but he didn’t care. He wanted to know where all this was leading to, and more importantly what he could do to get it all back. 

“Murph, holy shit man! Get back here! It’s not safe!” Lauren shouted. Her voice was getting quieter the more he ran. Not even his footsteps echoed in the formless void. He ran until his breathing became labored. He looked behind him to find that the door that he entered through was nowhere in sight. Lauren was gone too. 

“And just like that, I’m back to where I started. So much for thinking ahead,” He said to himself. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat and felt tears sting his eyes. He quickly wiped them away and let out a haggard sigh. 

“Was this what you meant Daaron? Whatever they want, as long as I get to stay here, they can have whatever they want right?” Murph said, not expecting anyone to answer. The silence turned his sadness into anger. He clenched his fists. He kicked and punched the air and let out a primal shout. 

“Yeah!? What’s next they want a kidney? My liver? It’s fucked! They can have it, yeah!? Well, fuck them Daaron! Fuck Asutenki! Fuck you! Fuck this city and fuck you! Again!” He roared. Murph fell to his knees and held his head in his hands. 

“What did you think was going to happen?” A familiar voice said. Murph looked up. At first, no one was there. He could have sworn he heard Trish again. 

“I don’t know?” Murph said. His eyes flickered to and fro but still, no one was there. 

“Take a wild guess,” Trish said again. Murph took a few deep breaths to calm himself. 

“Well, I thought they might have made me sign some kind of contract. Some kind of non-compete or corpo document. Giving them something like this,” Murph said. He then remembered the picture on June’s desk. The woman in the photo. It looked like it was a relative, her mother perhaps. June looked at it the way someone would look at a company memo. 

“So this is what they’re after,” Murph said. He got back up to his feet and rolled back on his heels. The only way to exit a VDR was going down. As he leaned back and let gravity do its thing, another voice called out to him. 

“So what are you going to do about it?” Daaron said. Murph only had one thing to say. 

“Take it all back.” 

 

 

Written by: Zack

 

Copy Editing By: Cerulea_d.lux

 

Tune in next month, as Murph’s story continues in the next chapter: This City is My Friend. And if you missed the previous chapter, you can catch it here,along with all of the future chapters in the series!

 

Recent Posts

 

BACK TO FICTION

Shadows in Neon City: This City is A Million Miles Away

Posted on by Zack
Shadows in Neon City Chapter 3

 

Shadows in Neon City: Part 9

This City Is A Million Miles Away

 

Written by: Zack

 

Published On: September 30th, 2021

 

Shadows in Neon City Chapter 3

Art by  Hydra ヒドラ 

Her name was Lauren Winters, at least that’s the full name of the contact she gave Murph Bell. It took two hours for Murph to fully calm down and finally respond to the simple “Hey” she had sent him over his interface. He stared at that word while he laid on his hotel bed. Hey? Should he respond with a “Hey” of his own? Or maybe a “Hey, you”? This did sober him up from the harrowing highs of his panic attack though, pulling his focus away from the cliff’s edge. When Murph could finally muster up the nerve to respond another thought crept into his mind. Who exactly was she? 

He knew where she was from. He remembered meeting some people at the lounge last night, but he couldn’t put a face to the name. In fact, every time Murph tried to think back to last night at the Glitterdome he could remember less and less. It’s like the past 12 hours leading up to this morning were a fog. He closed his eyes and tried to recall any details about that night. 

“I don’t remember drinking that much,” Murph said to himself. He knew he was not a drinker. Even if he indulged in top-shelf booze, which he didn’t remember ordering, it still would have taken a lot for him to black out. He opened his eyes and the message stared right back at him.

“Hey”

Murph finally responded. There was nothing he could really do but wait. It only took a few minutes.

“What’s up?”

“This is Murph right? From the sky Lounge?”

A few hours ago he wasn’t even sure. Murph took another deep breath before sitting up and continuing the text conversation. 

“Yeah, that’s me. I’m Daaron’s friend,” 

More waiting…

“Cool. Listen, D put in a good word for ya. You seem cool enough. Told us you were new in town” 

“Daaron put in a good word? She thinks I am cool enough?” Murph said to himself, a dorky smile crawling across his face. His cheeks burned slightly.

“Haha yeah, I am just in town for a job interview. Gotta go in tomorrow morning,” 

“No big. If you can make it, here’s the addy. It’s just a hole-in-the-wall dream dive. No presh”

Murph then received an address. He checked the map. It was far from downtown. He cross-referenced the cab fare. It’d be close to an hour away in some place called The Dream Plaza.

“Is Daaron gonna be there?” 

“Maybe. Most likely not. Come. Don’t. Just passing it forward ya dig?” 

“Sure thing. What time?” 

“Eh like 10ish? We might start early or something” 

“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks,” 

Murph closed his interface and left things there with Lauren. The idea of going out to another party worried Murph. He thought about the obvious risks of going to a strange out-of-the-way place where he wouldn’t know anyone, but that only made him want to go even more. The idea of going to a place where no one knows who you are felt oddly comforting. Even since he left the first part of his interview, Murph felt like he was being watched. It wasn’t by any one person, but he just had this feeling that someone, somewhere was watching him. 

The creeping sense of paranoia vanished when he saw Trish Volka’s number flash in the corner of his vision. He brought up his interface to take the call. 

“Hey there,” Murph said. He was met with silence. Finally, Trish responded.

“How are you holding up Murph? I’ve been talking with Dale.” Murph felt his ears burn. The pins and needles of anxiety were washed away by a tidal wave of shame and guilt. 

“I’m sorry,” Murph said.

“Hey, it’s Dale for christ’s sake. I knew on some level that salty badger deserved it,” Trish said with a chuckle. “But, I wanted to check on you, Murph. From what Dale told me you kind of leaped off the deep end. I assume that’s half-true?” Murph ran his hand through his hair. Her voice didn’t have the same aloof, buddy-buddy-ness it had when he spoke to her yesterday. This was concerned Trish. 

“No Trish, it’s 100% true. I ripped Dale a new one and the guy was just trying to help. In his own way,” Murph said. He dragged his hand across his face. Two minutes into this conversation and he was already exhausted. He knew he would have to apologize to Dale eventually for what he said. The thought of which only buried Murph deeper into dread. 

“I’m fine though, Trish. Really. I just wasn’t expecting to feel so overwhelmed by this process,” he said. That wasn’t entirely true. What he wanted to say was that he wouldn’t get a big head, or that he would remain humble throughout this new experience. God forbid he feel excited about being in one of the last remaining bastions of humanity. 

“Who wouldn’t be? It’s Neon City Murph, not the upscale Steak ‘n Shakes. None of us are used to such… opulence,” Trish said. 

“Is that from your word of the day calendar?” Murph asked. Trish laughed. 

“It was from the day before. But seriously, remember what you told me yesterday?” Trish asked. Murph sat up and thought about it. Hell, even his memories of getting here were not all in one piece. 

“You told me this city can’t change you,” Trish said. Murph nodded absently along. It sounded like something he would say at least. 

“When you said that, it made me more worried than if you’d said you were nervous. You wanna know why?” she asked. Murph waited for her to continue. 

“I said you need to be able to change in order to survive in Neon City. Adapt on a dime and change on a moment’s notice. Judging from what Dale told me, he only gave you half of the puzzle.”

“To look past tomorrow?” Murph said. 

“You have to do that and work towards making tomorrow happen. Murph, you might be an impressive desk jockey, but you’re still one man against a beastly bitch of a city,” Trish said. 

“An iconic bitch you might say?” Murph said. 

“Oh hush,” Trish laughed, sounding more like herself. “But yeah. Murph, you said it yourself. Neon City is not yours, it’s not anyone’s. Daaron accepted that day one, and from what he tells me, he’s happier than he ever was back up here in the Yupe,” she said. Murph thought back to the words from Daaron’s video.

“Whatever they want from you, as long as your reward is getting to stay there, give it to them. What’s one little thing compared to the rest of your life?”

“So you want me to give in too?” Murph said. He could practically hear the eye-roll on the other end of the call. 

“Get your head out of your ass, Bell,” Trish said. That sounded much more like the old Trish. “It’s not giving in if this is what you want. I gave you my ticket to this interview because I knew you wanted it more than me. I’ll admit that till I am old and grey,” she said. Murph opened his mouth but quickly shut it. She was on a roll and now was not the time. 

“But you can’t win against this city Murph, whatever war you think you have with this place, or whatever kind of slight you think it’s done to you. You’re just one man in a city of ten million. You’ve worked hard enough,” she said. Murph didn’t realize it until then, but his knuckles were bone white. He slowly unclenched his fist. He didn’t feel any anger, but his heart was beating faster and faster. She was right though. Ever since he stepped off the bus he felt a bit too grounded. He was so concerned with getting this job on his terms, he never realized that his terms may no longer be a factor, and that reality scared him. 

It was fight or flight. A stubborn natural defense etched into every animal’s DNA. Only when he was away from Atsutenki’s tower did he realize he was in a fight, one that he could never win if he stood his ground. It’d often been said that when fight or flight comes around, it’s preferable to fight. Murph got up and looked out of his hotel window. He looked towards the direction of the mega-towers. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.

“Trish, thank you for that,” Murph said. “Can I be honest with you?” 

“Well shit, I hope so,” Trish said. 

“I’m scared, Trish. Not just about the interview, but everything,” Murph said. 

“It makes sense. All of this is brand new. No one said you couldn’t be a little scared Murph,” she said. It seemed so obvious to him now. He was a fish out of water. Today he woke up in a foreign land and experienced things that had only ever been described to him. He had a literal out-of-body experience only to find out that was the norm. 

“I want to be less scared, Trish, and I think I know just how to do that,” Murph said. “What can you tell me about dream dives?”

 

 

Written by: Zack

 

Copy Editing By: DJ Nonn 

 

Tune in next month, as Murph’s story continues in the next chapter: This City is Between Worlds. And if you missed the previous chapter, you can catch it here,along with all of the future chapters in the series!

 

Recent Posts

 

BACK TO FICTION