Club 99

The Guardian Tower, Mecha Stronghold of Guardian Family is on the North East of New Leningrad of Troika, in the Troika Federation. Troika is a peninsula near to the Soult Pole of Fenrir, but has a barely equatorial clime for half the Fenrir Year thanks to wind and oceanic currents. The River Dom Pedro II that touches the walls of Guardian Stronghold only freezes when the hot currents stop. In Fenrir Winters. When that happens a thick layer of snow accumulates everywhere in NLT.

Across the river, about six kilometres from it, at street level, you find the oldest Club 99 in Fenrir. If you know where to look, and can talk your way through the many closed doors that separate the labyrinthine commercial hub where the Club is located from the less shady streets most people have free access to.

You need contacts or specialized knowledge to reach that smoky lair. People dinking and playing games in the establishment are not necessarily full time criminals. Some of them may even be upstanding members of society. In a branch or another of society. However, they share an interest that is framed as strange and unadvisable.

On the bright side, being here is a premium opportunity to cross all the main components of civilization in Lira Stellar System. Sharing the company of each other, with some degree of cordiality. Normal humans, mostly soldiers of fortune in one way or another. People who live in the feudal system of some Mecha Tower, including some now and them a member of some minor branch of Guardian Family itself. Mages, a high number of them. And subjects of Nocturnal Courts, including actual vampires even, sometimes. Mostly not. Vampire thralls are way more common among the patrons.

You can even find, any day of week, some subhumans. Lucky ones, elite of their kind, who got lucky enough to secure themselves jobs and somewhat normal lives despite their status of legal property. Written in the unchangeable laws of Alexandria, mostly taken by the letter in Troika Constitution.

Not by the hearth by most Troikans, true be told. Subhumans do enjoy better chances here, nowadays, than their ancestors used to have in the Seeding Ship Troika XIX.P3. Origin of most families in the peninsula.

If you make the right questions, to the right people, in the right tone, in this shady room, you may get yourself an appointment. With one among many very specialized surgeons.

That is, likely, the reason why you came here.

Unless you happen to be the artist selling those paintings in some walls. You are certainly not here for the drinks, they are severely overpriced, if you don’t have the house discount for partners, friends, and subhumans. Besides, the glasses are bellow average standards of cleanness. And you have less chance to step on a barata, or cockroach, by accident in some bars in the favelas at the west fringes of Leningrad than you have here.

Realistically, is impossible for humans to fight vampires or shadows. With the right guns, and technomagic bullets, is possible for a human to kill the average vampire, and even a shadow, from safe distance. With luck, and assuming a lot of things do not go wrong for the human. However, once we have short distance, the human is defenceless prey. Even if you consider the human has some technomagic sword, and is wearing armour.

Even the weakest vampire…, blablabla.

That is the general attitude of vast majority of humanity on Gerunda. On Litmus things may differ a little, on account of vampires being unable to reach the surface of the planet. Since the planet does not rotate. Takes centuries for the night came, due to a very exceptional eclipse. Therefore, vampires must stay in caves, and humans must visit those caves by their own volution knowing they will be under risk of being selected as prey and hunted. The social contract behind this is more complicated than it is in the other two colonies. In Fenrir, humans do not buy the whole inevitability of their defeat.

They know vampires are necessary, and therefore humans must be hunted, and must lose most of those hunts. Despite that, they are not inclined to play the hopeless prey. Most of them dedicate serious time to learn how to fight back. To make things interesting, if nothing else.

Of course, vampires being former humans, that means Fenrir vampires already start with more combat training and experience than their counterparts on Gerunda and Litmus. Least as far as statistics are concerned.

The technology inherited from Sun System gave all human colonies in Lira System a start in light and strong materials, body armours, and power armours. Exoskeletons designed for combat where common in military and private-security forces in Sun System, since the second half of the first century of Baby Steps Age. The technology improved a lot between that and the third century of Expansion Age, when the fleet left to colonize Lira System (then know as Mystery System).

Like all tech from Sun System the unique circumstances of Lira causes difficulties and degrades the materials. On the other hand, those who can afford technomagic treatments may obtain power armour that are even superior to those you would be able to get anywhere else in the galaxy.

Whith training, and a good non-magical weapon, and an honest non magical blade, a human can actually hold back most young vampires. Possibly even cause so much difficulty to a vampire like that, that this fellow will choose to look for another prey.

Any vampire bellow 500 years, as a vampire, will stop moving for some time if decapitated. Or if you just put a machete through his brain. Without technomagic it will not last long, but may last long enough to allow the human his chance to escape without donate any blood to the vampire cause.

Vampires are not supposed to seek vengeance, and they cannot legally target specific humans. The hunt should be always random. Is acceptable to follow one specific target, brake in a home, make great effort to catch one individual, but is has to be done in one sequence of actions. Once the vampire stops the chase he should start again the process of choose a target.

If you carry technomagic with you, they you will be able to seriously hurt a vampire. In ways that even older and more powerful vampires need considerable time to recover from. Given enough luck, you could even destroy a vampire for good.

Not a good thing to do, since vampires are needed to protect humanity against the far more dangerous shadows. Nevertheless, it is your right to try your best to kill the vampire who chooses hunt you. Both sides accept the fact that some vampires will die in the hunt, same way some humans do. As a matter of fact, even on Fenrir, humans die far more often than vampires.

So, no one will question your actions if you kill a vampire. As long as he was hunting you or any member of your family when he was destroyed. If the prey was your neighbour, or a random person in the streets, there is a conviction for **** coming in your direction. No doubt.

Military level power armour is not the best thing a human can get to raise a few steps closer to the combat capabilities of vampires. They are the alternative most people consider, what is accessible. Some countries regulate power armour more, others less, but there is always a relatively large ways to get access to one. Without doing anything too seriously criminal.

The “Club 99” is a ghetto where circulates a particular sub-culture that pushes the boundaries of human possibilities.

Usually, you find this people under the protection of Mecha-Lort strongholds.

Exchange a hand, a leg or an eye for a mechanic equivalent is no big deal really. Even if you include a gun and a knife in that arm, wheels under your feet, and some high-definition cameras in that eye. Any replacement of body parts is a fashion statement ratter than anything else, as long as you don’t change your DNA, and don’t sacrifice your potential for biological reproduction of human species. For angels and demons, your taste in prosthetics is irrelevant.

You could of course, and that goes without saying, get yourself a natural body-part, cloned from your own DNA. Would be less expensive, and would just take a few extra weeks.

The “Alita” folk, both in Sun Sys and here in Lira, are not in that level.

To get yourself any meaningful advantage in combat. Anything that would justify the trouble. First step is to replace all bones in your body by some highly resistant material. A few hundred options are reasonable, common sense allied to availability narrows the scope to half a dozen or less. Also, you must keep in mind that if you want to remain legally human any prosthetic you get will not change your longevity one second above the 300 years allowed by the Consensus of Alexandria.

To be a cyborg like that is almost never a crime. However, the materials and the operation are illegal, almost everywhere. Then, to get the operation is not enough to have an obscene quantity of money. You must also find yourself questionable contacts, close to illegality.

Unless you happen to live in a Mecha-Lord stronghold, in which case you only need permission from the family who owns the place.

Or if you are a vampire thrall. Then you need the permission of nocturnal authorities.

Everyone else will be dealing with shady folk.

Enchanté de vous connaítre! By the way. That would be me.

Once you got the right bones, makes no sense to stop there. Since the variety of accessories that match your new chassis is astronomical. You can replace practically every muscle in your body, and there are infinite combinations to do so, depending on the specifics you have in your imagination. Strength, speed, durability.

Naturally, as you keep going, you will be left with less blood running through your body. What may incidentally make you a less practical source of nutritive juice for vampires.

Your neuro-system has to change as well, of course. It means you will need special maintenance. Which few professionals can provide. Expensive stuff.

Mixing technomagic and vampire blood is possible to achieve solutions that are not only way better in terms of velocity and strength, but also last more than a human lifetime. If you don’t do anything too crazy with this body, I mean.

The cost, wow! Prices for any piece of technomagic are high even without the vampire blood treatment that makes spells durable. You get what you pay for, in this case, if you do business with the right professionals.

Even in the best case you will still not have much of a chance against a Nocturnal King, or Queen. Buth some **** individuals in Club 99 clientele can give even the average 1 thousand years old vampire a run for his money. With the right weapons, and a top of like exoskeleton on top, for good measure.

Vampires do have supernatural advantages. In the end, humans are not cut to compete with those absurd powers. Do not expect a fair fight.

Despite all, this fight is possible. As a fight. This **** case of hypothetical cyborg could win against a veteran nocturnal knight. That, by itself, implies that such fellow would destroy without much difficulty practically any vampire bellow 500 years. Also, this human cyborg can hold his ground against most shadows that vampires face every night.

If we had enough of those cyborgs, if the cost to create them wasn’t do high, and if we didn’t needed vampire blood for that. Well. Maybe humanity would not need vampires at all.

Well, except that vampires are also needed to make Mechas. Who are our only defence against the larger shadows that come down from the sky every night.

Nevertheless, even if they don’t change our need for vampires, is good to know those cyborgs exist. Would be nice to know they are possible, even. If they didn’t existed.

Because it shows that humans are, at least potentially, not defenceless. Even against some vampires who are more powerful than most of them.

On the other hand. In true, cyborgs are very exceptional human beings. Way less numerous than vampires, even.

What is the thing about cyborgs that make them so relapse in regard to basic hygiene standards? Some vampires have that too, but not all of them, and vampires have absolute immunity against diseases. Breath is optional to them, so smells are not an issue either.

On a Historical Note, that isn’t a novelty of Fenrir. Or even of Lira.

The sub culture that expresses itself in 99’s like this has three main roots in Sun System, outside Pre-Baby Steps literature. In real world.

One his from around 500s of Baby Steps, but flourished in the 650’s, on and around Neptune. With reinterpretations around Saturn and different ones in the Fringe Shipyard Dock communities of early Expansion Age. This is high-status, clean, elegant and minimalistic. With drops of Taoist Mysticism. Sometimes for fun, sometimes in serious. Those people are certainly adept to scrupulous levels of hygiene, oils and incenses. Regretfully, that is not the core influence embraced by most Club 99’s and their patrons.

They follow instead the cyborg subcultures developed between the 300s and 700s of Baby Steps, in Mercury, Venus, and all around that lowlife, half-time criminal, junkyard that flourished between the two planets closer to the Sun, in ‘Sunsy’.

As the Baby Steps progressed, and humanity became more deeply obsessed with the great project of populate the entire Universe. Starting by our galaxy. There planets closer to the Sun became less attractive for conventional individuals. More interesting option for those who, with or without reason, believed they didn’t had the choice to be accepted in better neighbours.

That feeling of self-despise expresses itself, among other things, by the prevalent inclination to low hygiene as element of decoration. Both internal and on the streets.

The superior immunity systems of cyborgs, along with sensorial filters, allows deeper explorations of those sentiments. In places like that, where cyborgs and cyborg-enthusiasts are the main costumers.

It is really not as bad as I make it sound, I am sure you will agree. Still, no one can deny it is noticeably bad.

Shake the right hand, and you will step our of this place by some hidden door. To reach after a few minutes an impeccably clean environment. Not all workshops where vanilla-model humans are turned into proper borgs are as clean as a surgical room should be. However, despite all means to prevent infection, that is still how the better professional doctors work. Even here, even in places like this.

You already gave someone the broad lines of what your expectations are. For certain, you also provided some prove that you are able and willingly to invest the kind of money that needs to be invested to get you what you are looking for. That is the time and the place to decide specifics.

The next step is getting the surgery, and that is irreversible. If you are not completely insane you will have a Guardian Angel accompanying the negotiation of price and specifications of product. Assuming you are legally human. The Angels only provide service to humans. Some demons can manage to do the same for a vampire thrall or subhuman, occasionally. The next best thing would be someone you trust, who has reputation in the community and would be able to cause trouble for the clinic if they don’t provide exactly the service you are paying for.

Only angels are know for doing this mediation job for free. Or as free as anything can be on Fenrir. With anyone else is more advisable to pay in money today than in future unspecified favours.

Generally speaking.

I am just saying! You do you, of course.

Is customary to pay your doctor, and your intermediator, a drink in the 99. After the surgery, some now and them. You will be coming back, more likely than not, since most cyborgs need regular maintenance. Most of them also expend the rest of their lives looking for optionals to incorporate in the war-machine their bodies have been turned into.

Most surgeries happen close to the club, but not all of them.

Some of the most prestigious doctors have access to medical facilities inside Guardian Tower.. Specially those who work with high level technomagic exclusively. The prices for that kind of comfort are in a different category. On the other hand, you can assume the need for maintenance will be much less frequent. Also, you may get a room for recovery inside the Stronghold.

Mecha-Lord Strongholds are arguably the safest places in all Lira System. With arguably exception of Nocturnal Court Castles. If you happen to be personal guest of a Vampire Monarch.

Or, perhaps you are just here to satisfy your curiosity. Some anthropologist wannabe seeking inspiration for a pseudo-scientific paper. Or journalist or officer of law seeking the honour and privilege of an early grave. Again, I must say: you do you!

No objection from my part. I am not what counts for practical purposes as “the law” in those parts of the city.

Can promise you, those who are didn’t missed your presence.

You don’t belong here. Your way to walk does not fit in any category that I can recognize. So, naturally, those who watch this place are researching your past and present. Testing whatever identity you may have, to see if it is legit. If it is, and you are not a problem for the Club, you have nothing to worry about. Except germs.

Otherwise, is way too late for you to leave this room and reach safety.

Whatever the case is, your best move is to sit, relax, and drink.

Possibly even flirt a little. Flirtation is very popular behaviour in 99 culture. Although, not entirely risk-free for vanilla models. Don’t ask me why, I would not spoil the surprise.