Phase Q/Recreations
Running through the night, the small but bright lights adorning their protective vests form intricate patterns, ants dancing in a maze.
Some sneak through underground tunnels. Some run through the open streets in full view of the hovering Triad machines. The whole movement seems at the same time highly synchronized yet highly chaotic.
Back in makeshift labs spread around the country, and elsewhere on the planet, and even in virtual labs floating through space, support personnel piece together the necessary information, communicating with their field agents.
With a sensor here, a controller there, and an actuator elsewhere, the agents put together a new system. This time, though, many of the parts have antimass coatings, making them effectively invisible, undetectable.
The system starts to move. It takes on a life of its own. Soon, it can redirect its connecting light beams, reorganize its fundamental components, and even reconfigure its basic operational design.
The creation itself now has many moving parts, yet no part defines the creation. Rather, it operates as a kind of abstraction on top of the original parts. It manipulates thoughts, representations, images. And it interacts with other agents throughout the materialspace.
The Flowrisers have constructed a new tubeworks. This time, it is alive.
The first order of business is to take over Triad forts. With insight from the new tubeworks, young Flowriser incarnations go out and launch rockets at the Triadic defensive installations. Then, among the ruins, they freely collect documents, armaments, and anything else of value that they find.
Next, the Flowrisers install intercoms in the main Triad media centers. Better to have a direct in.
With the new tubeworks up and running, Flowrisers spread out throughout the country, reestablishing nodes. Each node interconnects a functional team in the tubeworks with a logistical area in materialspace. Through the nodes, the overarching Flowriser rebellion conducts itself. Groups of nodes intermittently combine into nodesets, easily parting and reforming.
While the individual Flowrisers retain their own bodies and personalities, they also take on a new aspect as functional elements in the movement -- the Progression. This role requires a combination of mental training and the installation of a piece of equipment that mediates between a brain and the tubeworks. Once a pledge has become a fully enabled Flowriser, that primary identity gets installed, superseding the ordinary default persona.
Flowrisers report that they enjoy the sensation of converting from an unadjusted person into a new form. They say that it feels like connecting with their community for the first time. Many regular people look skeptically at the topic, which is somewhat unusual for a conventional frame of mind. And the Triads react with outright revulsion.
Once a person has become a Flowriser, they generally seem less present, in some sense, less involved in the everyday activities in the country. However, they do take on a heavily active role with their mentality and brain implants, performing operations in the revolutionary movement.
Now, it seems that the tide is turning.
Phase Q: An interactive adventure.
