[b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]knowing junta the idiot’s in a self-pity spiral about being dead weight
[b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]so i’m pushing his last piece now so he can suck it up and hack people telling him he does good work
[b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]even though he’s the dumbest boy alive for doubting it 
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]you know this is the public channel right
[b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]yea
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] sick

[hider=Going Green]
It all started with an attempt at fad diets. 

Listen, that in itself is worth saying, because most attempts to radically modify biology started with farm animals. The earliest biopunks were radical bodybuilders messing around with the implants and augments originally meant for beef stock. A 5% fatality rate is unacceptable for legitimate human use, but well within acceptable loss margins for agricultural purposes. And on the black market, well within tolerance for the kind of bodybuilder that would otherwise turn to synthol. A lot of what would become the legitimate furry movement built off this early foundation. 

The go-green movement, though, in all its names? That one’s uniquely a human vanity project from the inception. Usually it’s a misunderstood science innovation that spawns a fad diet, capitalizing on the sum-difference between cultural awareness of an idea and real knowledge of it - you can chart it in horror movie monsters and superhero origin stories, jumping from ‘radiation’ to ‘quantum’ to ‘nanomachines’. Greening is a rare, wild instance of the tech chasing the fad, starting out with custom minor organ implants and targeted pancreatic or bone marrow splicing, stuff that became way more generally useful only [i]because[/i] it was widespread adopted here, first. 

It’s lost who originally pushed the idea in the late 2040s, catching on by the 2050s. The real story’s lost in a sea of real-fake doctors and celebrity endorsements. We can trace acai berries to two dipshit white hippies in the Amazon because there wasn’t a wave of litigation chasing them for doing it. Going green started more like the antivaxxer movement. It’s only possible to pin down the people who made it popular. 

See, chlorophyll turns water and sunlight into [i]sugar[/i]. It didn’t matter that you were still digesting it, original proponents - like Timothée Chalamet and a young Hershey Dandenong - said it could help cut sugar out of your diet, and that had appeal. Some original proponents likened it to a nicotine patch, others saw it as a radical solution to diabetes. Almost totally complete nonsense, but what fad diet isn’t?

The second wave was aesthetic, and took off even before the fad diet angle wore out. Some people loved the green skin look, especially the entire generation of girls who had hit puberty watching the 2035 Batman Beyond revival ([i]Future is Now[/i]), and its teenage reboot take on an antihero Poison Ivy - a bi icon for a generation that couldn’t buy the line that ecoterrorism was bad. 

That’s where the meme hit critical mass, and mutation was inevitable. When enough people share two different cultural spaces, the overlap goes from an intersection on a venn diagram to its own circle and splits off like parthenogenesis. Like how you start with American audience samurai movie fans, and that overlap creates both Star Wars and Westerns. Both a new appeal with a new audience, neither of which having to identify with either of the original circles in the venn diagram that created them. 

The next few waves of the go-green movement pinged off like neutrons firing from a split atom. Some drew heavy inspiration from Henry David Thoreau, who had written [i]Walden[/i] starting with an accounting of just how expensive his idyllic life had been, its upfront costs. Here naturalist philosophers found common cause with radical survivalists, who took heavily to radical chlorophyll mods in an attempt to reduce their caloric intake. Aevum has a few of their sovereign-citizen style encampments in its green spaces, like secular Amish communities. They’re a great place to get handmade furniture and homebrewed liquor. Personally, I recommend the plum port from the radical homeless camp in Medici district of Renn. Hermes as some of the best on Aevum. 

You can tell these folk from the rest because they’re big on mavrophyll. The designed black pigment absorbs way more light energy than natural chlorophyll, and this lot’s more concerned with the efficiency than the look. That being said, I did see one mavrophyll-dyed guy in Ares with a silver-ink tattoo of a snow owl down his arm, and I nearly made some major life choices off that look. 

Others only care about the what the look signifies. There’s plenty of ways to actually turn your skin green semi-permanently, but for some people it’s still way more about what the green means, that it’s real chlorophyll. This sort are usually hardcore vegetarians who won’t even eat synthetic meat, run community gardens, waify guys that wear sundresses, that sort of thing. It’s a fifty-fifty split you’re seeing the platonic ideal of a preschool teacher, or just a shy misanthrope who’s too conflict averse to make a point of it. It can be hard to tell the difference at first, but figure out if they want to talk to you about their garden, or if their garden’s the only thing they want to talk to. 

There is one last category I’ve chased up on that I’m interested in. [i]Umaryll[/i]. This took some digging, but it’s a portmanteau between ‘phyll’, obvious, and ‘[i]umarell’, [/i]less obvious. Apparently it was an Italian(?) slang term for the old men who’d hang around construction sites, watching the workers. Its literal translation ‘little man’ threw me off, obviously. The shortest umaryll I’ve seen was half again my height. 

See, this is one of those things about the technology following the fad. Enough people got bone marrow splices for dietary reasons that a rare one-in-a-hundred-thousand shot of mutation happened to at least ten people. Some of those ended up being pretty fucking nasty, obviously. The first umaryll came about by an accident like the collapse of the space fountain at a cellular level.

It comes from old tech, really bootleg shit. Before the perfection of the full-code rewrites we enjoy today, stuff like this was done externally. A generic clone organ was grown in architecture, like a pancreas, and then rewritten with a carrier virus. The rewritten custom organ could then be transplanted, made in isolation, knowing it was viable [i]outside[/i] of the patient’s body first.

The problem with stuff like bone marrow is it [i]really [/i]wasn’t worth the surgery, so it was a staging ground for a relatively minor, targeted rewrite treatment, done at a time where that had only ever been considered for last-resort life-saving medical treatments. The kinks weren’t worked out, is what I mean. It was a total alignment-of-the-planets moment in history, where they were confident enough in the tech to use it on millions of people, but a mistake this bad was still possible in the edge cases. 

In these rare cases, the carrier virus went rogue and survived in the patient and started attacking cells they were never supposed to be able to infect. This was already scary as hell, because that kind of mutation opened the door back up to [i]transmissibility[/i], the possibility the virus could jump the patient it was originally tailored for. Fortunately none did, at least none I’m aware of. 

Six people died when either their red or white blood cells all turned green, though at least two survived without an immune system long enough for the damage to be reversed. Maybe a dozen more had extreme cases of sugar shock when their body started producing more sugar than it could handle. That was just when the mutation stayed where it was meant to, just did more than it was meant to. 

Maybe twenty had their cells become structurally plant-like. A few died when their lung tissue developed rigid cell walls, or something just as gruesome. One or two survived, though it’s impossible to track them or their doctors down. If someone has that information, let me know as soon as possible? 

More than chlorophyll, their bodies started producing meristem cells, and enough of their cells were rewritten enough to take advantage of those cells. Their cells also had radically different telomeres, that like plant telomeres didn’t suffer from senescence, which- 

I already see my editor’s red pen being thrown at my head. Just because I had to read a science journal to write this, shouldn’t mean you have to read one to know where the huge leafy men who feed birds in the park came from. 

Basically, the treatment cured aging, but even the perfected version came with some nasty side effects. Get a big enough cut on the palm of your hand, and you might end up trying to grow a second thumb, that kind of thing. And when cells did die, or get old, the treatment didn’t [i]heal[/i] them. It made new cells to support the old ones. 

This is where you get umaryll, the tree men in the park. For a few years this really was the best thing going for extending quality of life. Cut them open and you’ll see they probably have six or seven smaller kidneys budding off, or a liver the size of a basketball. What matters is it all works. 

We still have no idea how long they’ll really live for, how effective the treatment really was. The oldest are barely in their hundreds, most are maybe ninety years old. We don’t know yet how big they’ll end up growing, what their problems are going to be, and how we’ll deal with it if it happens. 

The ones we see will be the only of their kind, the treatment stopped being offered twenty years ago. Less radical and invasive solutions to aging came out in the years after, but these old folk are stuck with what they have. Their bodies have been too changed too much for too long. None of the ones I spoke to, though, seemed bothered by that. 

It’s easier to make sweeping statements of some cultural groups than others. Groups with shared ideas tend to attract more similar people than groups with shared experiences, and umaryll are as diverse as any group of people their age can be.

But as a group they are remarkable. They all seem to have a sense that they’ve cheated death. They carry with them the incredible patience of all people who have lived a full life. Their heavy bodies move slowly, but without pain or error. The same is true of their thoughts and their speech, the price paid for minds and memories that stay sharp and ageless. 

It’s possible that one day, they’ll perceive the passage of time as a tree would. From their slowing perception, hours will feel like minutes. It will become impossible for them to talk to anyone who isn’t like they are, except maybe through letters.

I can only imagine them as happy for it. They’ll watch the construction sites rise like circus tents, their gardens bloom faster every year. Giant hands sew without tremor, and feet without need of shoes walk the endless train lines, just to see where it takes them. 

An umaryll named Fatima, ninety seven years old, told me that she has no regrets. She tells me that every day the sunlight feels sweet on her mossy skin. More than twenty years later, and she still hasn’t gotten tired of that. 

[list][*]JuntaSThompson[/list]
[/hider]

[b]Persephone:[/b]

[b]DM[/b]
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]If you had permission, and you can get the owner to attest? You should be fine. If anything, you have a good case for harassment if you wanted to pursue that.
[b]HartlyDworkin:[/b] I wouldn’t, but it might be useful to say that you would? 
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]You should be fine, but just keep me in the loop if I’m wrong.

Easy.

That just leaves getting Junta’s stuff. 

Fulfilment Centers™  were where Amazon™  warehoused employees in factories of nightmare logistics. By the 2030s the concept had engorged into a company town model, bringing in cheap service workers in subsidized housing and retail environments to supply a life of luxury anywhere in the world to the high-level tech workers it was trying to draw in, the real money makers behind its cloud and web services. 

It was this company town model that would end up becoming Thrones, and goes a long way to explain how Aevum could be post-scarcity but not post-capitalism. 

Amazon™ itself, though, went through a crisis of mismanagement. What’s interesting is that this mismanagement was the same policy and treatment of its staff that had made it such a grindingly efficient global power house. The wheel turns. In the words of a post-Yugoslavian game theorist: “The closest I have come to proof of a loving God is that I have done the equations, time and time again, and in every one, kindness is always optimal.”

Now Amazon™’s legacy is vertically integrated malls, its Gratification centers™. Obliterated is the logistics network on Earth that gave them their competitive edge, Aevum leveled that playing field. The thin shadow of the former supergiant is brick and mortar “everything” stores. Click and collect. I’d say they’re just another Walmart like they’d set out to ‘disrupt’, but Walmart shuttered in the late 2030s, dead as Sears before it. 

Easy to tell why Junta would carve out a space here. Beyond the stores to graze there’s a swimming pool with showers, laundromats, and employees with zero job loyalty watching them.

Getting to Junta’s stuff is easy. There’s a bunch of ways you can get to the bottom of the elevator 3 shaft - Pull some doors open and climb down when nobody’s looking, climb out the fire escape of an elevator car when nobody’s in it, or you can come up with something a bit more creative. How’d you do it, and why was it even easier than you expected it to be?

It’s getting his stuff out that’s going to be the problem. A chunky government surplus laptop plugged into a maintenance outlet at the bottom, an improvised pantry of dried goods and spices, a minifridge, a years-old rice cooker, and a brand-new hotplate still with the store security tag on it. A camera bag with good kit in it, and a drying rack with a bunch of different coathangers on it from a bunch of different stores, keeping the few outfits he wears in rotation. A stacked couples-camping sleeping bag and double-thick insulation mat at the bottom of the shaft. 

Including a branded high-vis vest that’s definitely too small for you, but still an idea for how he got all this [i]down[/i] here. 

You are definitely not supposed to be here. Nobody is. All this stuff made it down here one piece at a time, over at least a couple of weeks, trying to keep beneath notice. 

You don’t have to take everything though. The more you take, the more trips you make, the harder it’s going to be to do this clean. But you can at least make some priorities on how you’re going to escape the mall.

Oh yeah. Figuring out what’s legit and what’s boosted is going to be important. That stolen hotplate never flags off, because it never left the mall. Make a [9] difficulty check to figure out and disarm that shit, + Clever and whatever you can justify. Fail and you don’t notice you missed something. 

[b]3V:[/b]

[b]Sliding into your DMs:[/b]
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]Putting your address on the discharge papers, he’s all yours
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]He’ll be there soon, and I’ve told him to stay
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]No matter how many times he apologizes for the inconvenience you are [i]not to let him leave[/i]. He’s only got one arm. Tie him up if you have to. 
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]These charges won’t stick, but squatting could. And squatting would be a circumstantial charge that he 
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]Doesn’t matter. 
[b]HartlyDworkin: [/b]He should be there soon. 

Junta looks even more himself than usual. The usual dark bags under his eyes could be used as a kitchen shelf, all sickly Victorian orphan child aesthetics notched to eleven. His arm’s in a sling under the torn-up mud-splattered suit jacket he’s wearing - Persephone musn’t have gotten his stuff to him yet. It hangs limp in front of him, like he’s shuffling around holding an invisible mug of tea. He’d probably like a real one. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles like a kid being brought before the principal. “I can just work something else out. Not your problem.”

[b]November: [/b]

Vehicle is fine for this one, the building sits right on a rail node. Book a freight ‘pod’ and it’s, like, fifty steps with a pushcart to unload the goods. Nodes aren’t [i]stations[/i], they’re basically designed for exactly this, logistics junctions where the rail veins become street capillaries. Just need to make sure you’re not hitting someone else’s timeslot for the node, but that’s no worries. Trivial to make the booking with a front, or else legitimate businesses would have a miserable time trying to get their packages delivered. The kind of pod you’d be wanting is also just the default way people move house, or office, whatever. 

Who’s going on this mission?

[Here’s the scene:
Cybersecurity 10: Find and disarm the obvious tracers and trackers in the system before you move it.
Cybersecurity 16: Find and disarm the [i]secret bonus real problem tracker and tracer[/i], hiding behind that. If you can’t, how was this guy so good (or [i]lucky[/i]) that he could give you something you’d miss? Fail by 5 or more, and November doesn’t notice the virus she picks up (for now).
Basic Tech 7: Disconnect the system without breaking anything. This should be trivial for you, but there’s always that Irish sod Murphy. 
Strength 9: Figure out a way to get all those heavy parts [i]up the stairs[/i]. The elevator doesn’t go down to that floor. 
Cool 10: Ah. Fuck. Baba Uvsenski 003 is [i]this[/i] building’s manager?! And she wants to make smalltalk on the ground floor. She’s not [i]suspicious[/i], but she is [i]inquisitive[/i]. If Blue is on this mission, roll with Advantage - regardless of who actually has to talk to Baba. 

After that, it’s just loading it all into a pod and getting out. Too trivial for a roll.]

Halfway through, Muffi messages you through the app: 
[i]Check your score. Another contractor won their appeal against Howie Mendelson, and all his scores are getting scrubbed. I believe he gave you a six? Congratulations. I’m putting through your papers for Thrones now. You’re cleared for the rest of the week. Things should be ready for you by tomorrow. [/i]