Transcripts
Each post will contain 3 stories from Maximum Mike (voiced by Mike Pondsmith)
Is there some hidden truth into them? Some subtle metaphors? It’s your call.
Why someone is taking all the valuable stuff from Earth to Luna?
- Yo, people.
- So, I don’t know if you saw the news, but there’s a Klimt exhibit that’s opening for California Museum of Art, San Francisco in a few weeks.
- I like Klimt.
- I was planning on going myself, but I figured there’s no point.
- I mean, after all, it’s nothing but high quality forgeries.
- What?
- You mean you think they keep any art on Earth?
- Nope, from Picasso to da Vinci, Pickman to Mapplethorpe…
- …I’ve been told they’d been taken to a secure vault on Luna.
- Why?
- Well, that’s unclear.
- Reportedly, it’s because after the 4th Corporate War nearly brought an end to civilization, some of the richest people on Earth got together and made an insurance policy of sorts.
- Keep the cultural heritage of the Earth in a secure place, out of harm’s way in case of another, more serious war.
- And on the face of it, that’s not really that bad.
- But I’ve heard a darker rumor.
- I’ll fill you in but first, let me tell you a little story.
- Long time ago, I knew a guy who owned a small restaurant. Now, things were good for a while, but times change, tastes change, rent goes up, way up.
- So, he decides to cash in on his insurance policy by setting the place on fire.
- Now, don’t worry, not giving away any secrets here.
- I mean he was caught, convicted, served his time in a braindance cube, and now he walks the streets a free man.
- But you know how they caught him?
- Before he burned down his diner, he took out all the expensive kitchen equipement and sold it.
- Dead giveaway.
- So, think about this.
- Someone up on Luna is taking all the stuff on Earth they think has value.
- Maybe they’re not just hoarding it, maybe they’re planning something else?
- Think about it folks.
- And the next time you see a rocket launch in the space port, ask yourself this, ‘what if that’s the last shipment?’
Is Rache Bartmoss a monk walking around Night City?
- So people.
- Listen up, I’ve got a story to share with you.
- Recently, I’ve been hearing about this monk that’s been walking around Night City Streets, healin’ the sick, but only those he deems worthy.
- Some of my listeners seem convinced that he’s no other than Rache Bartmoss.
- Huh.
- Rache Bartmoss.
- Yeah you know - the guy, the chief architect of the Net, later its badass destroyer?
- The rumor’s always been he got taken out by a killsat in the early days of the 4th Corporate, but…
- …no one ever took responsibility for that strike.
- Is it possible Bartmoss set his creations wild and then faked his own death?
- Did he bring down the Net he created because it had turned into another tool the corporations could use…
- …to track us, and ultimately completely subjugate us?
- Think about it.
The real origins of the Net
- So hey, people, listen up.
- I’ve got a story to tell.
- Goes back to an old friend of mine, netrunner whose name I can’t say on air from reasons of personal and global security.
- She once told me that she knew the real origins of the Net.
- This friend, she’s been around.
- She started running back before the DataKrash when the deep Net was open to all.
- She survived the Krash, dodged the RABIDS, persevered through the NetWatch purges and watched the Blackwall go up with her own virtual eyes, and she’s not one to make up fairytales.
- So, why am I telling you this?
- I’m telling you this, because what she told me seemed unbelievable.
- At first.
- So she tells me after a bottle and a half of Joe Tiel, « Mike », she says, « the Net isn’t what it seems ».
- She continued by asking me a question.
- « Why do you think Bartmoss named the, daemons anyway? Because that’s what they are. »
- Rache didn’t invent the Net, he discovered it.
- She looked me dead in the eyes and she said: « The Net is Hell, and Bartmoss opened the door. »
- So, over the next few hours she lays out her case.
- She talked about the similarities between… how did she put it… hyperfractastratified…
- …computational data synthesis and the practices of the legendary Scholomance.
- She said that NetWatch has its origins in the Vatican and that the Blackwall sings in Aramaic.
- Now, listeners, you know I’m a skeptical guy. I don’t run every rumor I hear, despite what my detractors might say.
- And I might’ve kept this one to myself if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve known her for ages, and she’s not a kook.
- So what do you folks think?
- I’d love to hear from some of the runners in the audience.
- I’m here to listen.