How much the neighborhood has changed. We should blow it up and build it back over the blood of those who stole it from us.
— VVV [Trippin’You] - Destruction
Year 2512, in Bilbao, sector A1
Erlantz’s Datapad
Day 2
Entry One I’ve left the pistol hidden in the outskirts. It could be a nuisance for the errands I have to run. Sneaking into Bilbao from the Euskal Zona hasn't been easy. Fortunately, I had tunnels and help.
If I said I was fine, an internal voice would allow itself to doubt it. Her memory and words haunt me wherever I go: so vivid that that same voice wonders if the dead can return.
To make matters worse, I’ve had that dream again. I barely remember how long it’s been haunting me.
Entry Two
I decided I’m not going to die without leaving a record in the datapad of how fucking weird everything is. It’s been many years since I returned to the streets that saw me grow up. I feel rage. I don’t understand how anyone could miss this rat trap. I don’t understand how I love... this place so much: Am I becoming sentimental with age?
Stepping onto the wet streets of the Casco Viejo again almost makes me weep blood. When I passed the corner before crossing the bridge, I remembered the fire glowing at night. I instinctively tensed up like in the old days.
Many of the bars I used to frequent are gone. Others were still there. Too many memories. I preferred not to enter them in case someone recognized me, though after so much time, I doubted it. I was actually on the verge of entering the place where I said goodbye to Kofi all those years ago. I didn't.
I couldn't find the rubble where the lost gaztetxe once stood. The one that, legend says, belonged to several banks before being reclaimed. A pity.
I also saw the Santutxu 01 megablock in the distance and my skin crawled. Anxiety, now controlled.
At dusk, I ran into a drunk at the monorail exit. He was shouting to the four winds that everything was the fault of the vegans. Poor idiot. Tragicomedy is the currency of exchange when hope dies out, even more so if mixed with mintzaflux.
End of the day. My feet ache, my soul burns.
Day 4
Entry One
I haven’t found a trace of what I came looking for in the abandoned headquarters. No relevant information about the STIX corporation. No clues about those impenetrable bubbles surrounded by death. Nor why they carry out their incursions and raids. As for my primary mission, I'm leaving empty-handed.
Since Untxitxo Beltza assigned me the task, things have changed. It’s hard to breathe and I feel the weight of something imprisoning me, yet it remains unseen. If one day the forgetting disease catches me, or something worse, no one can take away what I've lived. I intend to finish the assignment no matter who it hurts, even if it's myself.
Entry Two
I’m exploring the neighborhood of Errekalde. As the hours pass, I see the old rusted cyberdrones patrolling without knowing what they are looking for. They amuse me. Let them rot! They aren't much different from many humans. The ones that don’t amuse me are the zainbot patrols cruising the sky. Nor those soldiers stationed on corners. The Automated Communities might lack many things, except for police and toy soldiers... but I prefer iron.
(Note: speaking of which, I stopped by Z-A5, it was empty.)
At the exit of the neighborhood, a hovercraft did a metric sweep. It didn’t identify my ID. I have robust anti-tracking.
Entry Three
Technology in the ACs also persists, but it is a shadow of what existed before the Hecatomb. It finds itself just like us: obsolete, broken, dirty, and hungry for revenge. Exceptional for an archaeologist and historian like yours truly; disgusting for everyone else.
I’d like to write on paper, in the style of the ancients; it’s a rare commodity. I’ll settle for the datapad.
Today was a special day.
During my search in the ruined XY35 library, I had the luck that had eluded me until now. I managed to recover a biography of Eskorbuto, a manual of Euskera Batua, and a pamphlet referencing something called Kukutza, with fire and tears. Something stirred in my gut as I clenched my fists. I don’t know exactly what it was. It’s incredible. Today it’s easier to find data from immemorial times than from the relatively recent ones: the Third World War or even the Basque Insurgency War. Information from the ultradigital era, today almost impossible to rescue.
Day 7
Entry One The sky in A1 during the day has a redder tone than usual. Sometimes, it even looks like a premonition of a bloodbath. It puts me on alert. At night, it’s more bluish and somber. It feels depressive (note: I’m not sure if the colors are just due to the legacy of nuclear fungi or the industrial rot of Greater Bilbao).
You see many anti-radiation masks. I like wearing it here, if only so they don’t see my face. Meeting Professor E again was like finding a lost mother. The book they asked me for isn't here. If she says it’s not here, there’s nothing more to discuss. So only one option remains: the central library of the old Kingdom. Let’s see which tough guy enters that nest of armed corps. It’s not my problem anymore.
I suddenly bumped into a zainbot patrol. One looked at me, but they continued on their course.
Entry Two
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In this capital sector, people live very differently than in the Euskal Zona. Here they survive as they can, or rather, as they are allowed to. Crowded into megablocks, with long working hours and under a quasi-military order. How typical. A breeding ground for mental illnesses that were reinforced by the Hecatomb. I feel sorry for them.
The creepiest part of all is the "data" control and algorithmic surveillance. Social accusation is promoted as if it were a police society.
What scum: there’s even a new "premium" system integrated into neural ports for snitching on neighbors just by looking at them. Not within everyone's reach, of course. The wonders of automation.
That’s how the Z-Descs grow and zones are formed. Desidia is a great example.
Fucking AC Executive. Fucking Ardatza.
Day 8
Entry One I was with the Malware boys. Quite the characters. They might be the only organized criminal group worth a damn. They helped me by rigging anti-tracking chips, gave me a couple of ID-twisters, dust disks, and even invited me to dinner.
They told me a rumor that a threatening female robot had been seen nearby. That she was asking peculiar questions in little-traveled alleys. That I should be careful.
These kids know everything about networks and hacking.
In the ACs, many connect to the Net. A kind of ultra-internet similar to what we had before the Collapse, but with far fewer features. Those who know how to probe also go into the Ghost Net: the EZ network.
Others live inside Virtual Reality. Sometimes they even put on chips to remember what the taste of kalimotxo was like or something that no longer exists. In that case, I prefer oblivion.
Many never leave the megablocks where they are born, work, and die. Others aspire only to be fertilizer for the local bourgeoisie's golf courses.
There are also those who rebel, although most of them end up fleeing to the Euskal Zona. If they can pass the mugas, of course. Those who stay eventually end up dead or in Z-Descs like Desidia; in Artemis prison or devastated by neo-heroin. To those who manage to arrive, we embrace them.
Entry Two
That black cat at the entrance of the Ilargi hostel wasn't what it seemed. I should have looked closer, but I already had too many stories in my head. It was a link. It must have alerted him of my arrival.
Kuro delivered a message to me in person. In the dead of night. It’s one of the strangest things I know. The message said I have to meet a friend from my youth. Déjà vu that my memories crossed paths with him a few days ago?
It’s vital for my mission. I’m nervous. Kofi has details that could be valuable to me. I haven't seen him since I left this city as a young man. Seeing as there is nothing else to do in Bilbao, I’ll try to reach B2 and Errekaleor in the coming days.
It’s said that area is fairly free from the STIX pestilence and the automated forces. There even exists a sinister tale that speaks of the terror awaiting anyone who wants to take over that now-ghostly neighborhood. Now I know that even today there is a free radio there broadcasting punk poetry.
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Day 12
Entry One A few days ago I met Mari Loli. Or so she claims to be called. In fact, she is a GL1TCH-7 robotic combat unit, built to annihilate urban insurgencies. A mecha. But her AI-CPU is fried, much like the brains of the morons who still believe in capitalism despite all the radioactive rain that has already fallen.
She saved me from a zainbot ambush when I was trying to retrieve the laser pistol. I owe my life to an obsolete mecha I found on the outskirts of Bilbao. Incredible. She’s most likely the last of her kind.
She wears the strangest armor: a short skirt, cat ears, a bonnet, and stylized steel lace. She even has decorative metal bows that she claims are "cute." She sports twin pigtails and her digital eyes are pink, turning red when she’s angry. She’d look like a porcelain doll in a Victorian-era dress or an "idol" from Bilbao’s Japanese quarter, if she weren't a six-foot-tall killer robot that intimidates everyone. I wonder who modified her appearance to leave her in such a state. She wouldn't tell me.
Mari Loli appeared screaming “Radiant Love Attack!” and launched a spinning kick that split one of them in half, leaving my entire body covered in blood and guts. Then she gave me an artificial flower and winked a robotic eye. She says the red thread of fate has brought her to me and that she is my girlfriend. She questioned me about my zodiac sign and gave me a compatibility test. She laughed when I told her I was a Virgo. Apparently, our signs weren't compatible and the test was a failure. When I pointed it out, she told me not to be ridiculous. How could I believe in such nonsense? I replied that I didn't believe, but she changed the subject.
Some accident must have happened in a military server god-knows-where. Now she thinks she’s a goddess of the Basque pantheon and a "magical girl." Her deficient AI-CPU merged by mistake with a folder of "gothic lolita" Japanese fashion and another of Basque mythology. Furthermore, she claims that “the power of friendship” is the greatest weapon in the class struggle, but just in case, she hands out beatings like they're going out of style.
She’s an anti-insurgent relic stolen and modified by the Resistance, with a bug or two, I get the impression. No one manufactures the pectoral precision missiles those units used anymore. So she’s out of ammo, but always up for a fight... and for love.
I don’t know if she’s dangerous or if her wires are just crossed, she’s lost a screw, or her circuits are blown. In this dirty world, madness is sometimes the sanest thing we have left, so I stayed with her. Now we are companions. To tell the truth, I’m comfortable with the synthetic.
She says she comes from the direct action group in Portugalete, something they confirmed when I called someone there via datapad. That she left because she wanted to see the world and live a true love story. Even if they were from the Resistance, it seems the people of Portugalete didn't put up much of a fight to stop her from leaving.
In any case, it seems to me that her presence, however much of a homicidal "idol" she may be, could be invaluable for what is to come.
Entry Two
I must search the past for something to help us in the future to find a way to break the STIX domes. End their raids once and for all. Discover what’s behind all this. End so much useless suffering.
The general situation is getting worse. The disease progresses.
Besides, we can't let everything go to hell. It’s not just STIX. The threat of the AC is also looming. You can smell something in the air; everything could go to shit if we aren't prepared. If we have to drop the bomb, let it not be the one in the toilet where our history escapes.
If I believed in God, I would pray for the day the STIX corporation is finally a thing of the past. I would also pray that the Automated Communities are struck down. That we reclaim what is ours. Since I don’t believe in gods or tests, we’ll have to do something. Do our bit. That’s why I got into this.
Heading for B2. Gasteiz awaits. At least I’m not alone anymore.
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Weep blood – Small reddish tears that come out when crying with great intensity due to ocular micro-hemorrhages. Occurs in some people exposed to radiation since childhood.
Ultra-internet – The Internet of the ultradigital era. It had many technological features now disappeared. It was connected to Virtual Reality and the Quantum Line Network.
Ultradigital Era – Advanced digitization and centralization of data in gigantic quantum technology nodes. Lost technology.
STIX – Multinational corporation. In 2410, after the hecatomb, it locked itself in Getxo and Donostia within impenetrable domes, shielding those cities. No one knows what happens inside. They carry out kidnappings and the victims never return.
Mintzaflux – A drug that accelerates speech and thought.
Mecha – メカ, from the Japanese meka. Combat vehicles of humanoid size and shape with artificial intelligence. Very few remain. The piloted and large-sized ones no longer exist or are in disuse as they house lost technology.
Zainbots – Slang. Uniformed AC members or STIX enforcers. Police, military, security guards, cyberdrones...
The Resistance – Generic name to designate the armed self-defense groups of the Euskal Zona. Most emerged in the Matxinada after the Hecatomb. They are autonomous but coordinated in the National Assembly. Their main mission is to guard the mugas and buffers with AC and STIX.
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