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Pandora Downloaded – A Cyberpunk thriller / crime drama by yuki2501
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Cover for 'Pandora Downloaded'. A futuristic tech market similar to the Shenzhen Electronics Market in China. View from one of the corridors. On the left: stands for home AI upgrades, phones + VR. The AI upgrades stand has boxes of A.I. software with the figure of a Victorian maid. On the wall there's a religious propaganda poster featuring a dark-skinned AI goddess praying, her wings made of binary code. On the right, customer service for biomod companies, a biomodded video store and sex work agency. The corridor has a steel bar separating the flow of customer traffic in two directions. The crowd are people of all races, Latinos, Asian, white, wearing all kinds of biomods: horns, tentacles in the heads, fangs. On the right corridor, walking away from the camera, there's a horned dude has a sleeveless jacket with an outrun-style logo saying "Get an avatar and (glitched text, unreadable) yourself." On the left corridor, walking to the viewer, there's a beautiful and busty woman with gray jeans and ample cleavage white T-Shirt with the text "Mom's out, let's have fun" in leet-speak. She is smiling seductively. Her skin is gray-scale, as if seen from a black-and-white camera. Her eyes are emerald-green. Five people behind the woman there is a tall and muscular Egyptian revivalist wearing traditional Egyptian clothing and with the tattoo of Anubis in his arm. He seems to stare menacingly at the viewer. Above one of the corridors there's a graffiti in Spanish warning about fraudsters.

Cover for the novel "Pandora Downloaded."

You're walking in the New Hong Kong Tech Market; the corridors are being split so people can walk in one direction without stumbling upon each other (makes it harder to pickpocket).

At your left, at the stand "Home AI upgrades (certified)", there's an Asian-African woman with green hair and pointy ears wearing some sort of kimono. The AI firmware boxes contain the latest model of Ada, the General Purpose Home AI with auxiliar babysitting capabilities, emergency situation responses, cooking, cleaning and general host services. For use with humanoid automatons and AI-enabled cookware.

On the wall next to the woman there's a religious propaganda poster depicting an African woman with white hair and wings made of binary code; the caption reads "She who is us understands." The She-us cult worships a motherly hivemind AI and is the fastest spreading religion among the marginalized populations of New Hong Kong.

Behind the Home AI stand there's a stand for "Phones + VR", where cellphones and VR hardware are sold to people who don't have the budget for full-fledged brain implants. The person attending has a smiling Budai statue next to the memory chips.

At your right, you can see a stand for "XXX Cheap Escorts, biomodded". It's an escort agency specialized for clients with specific needs. Naturally, they also sell all kinds of porn, cheap catalogues for local sex clubs and user reviews.

Sitting next to the XXX stand, is an "Ese", a Hispanic dealer who specializes in rare goods and services; not necessarily legal. He has VR glasses and a portable keyboard controller on his hands. Or is that a portable videogame? You never know, he could even be controlling an AI-modded avatar to do his spying for him.

Behind the escorts stand there's one that says in Spanish "racial surgeries / voice change". Because Chinese and Afrodescendant people are often discriminated, the business in charge of this stand modifies your facial features and skin color to one of your preference: Japanese, Hispanic, Caucasian. It's not mentioned in the banner, but this business also performs chest, facial and voice feminization / masculinization surgeries for people who want to change their gender.

Behind all stands there's a banner saying "CUIDE SUS BOLSAS" (Take care of your bags). There's a warning sign on the left alerting people of thieves. The banner is overwritten with red graffiti that says "OJO Aquí tranzan", Spanish for "Beware - conmen here". The O letters "OJO" are painted to make them look like eyes.

The list of floors and business in the market is shown from a hanging banner. The floors are listed as following:

  • Floors 1-2: Software and General Electronics
  • Floor 3: Food court, VR Cafes, Restrooms
  • Floor 4: AI and Home Appliances
  • Floor 5: Implants and Cybernetics
  • Floor 6: Androids, Adult section
  • Floor 7: Bio mods (sales ONLY)
  • Floor 8: Personal security - Train station

The ceiling is illuminated by efficient lighting panels. One of the panels is burnt and does not illuminate. The ceiling has fogged glass panels that let the daylight in. One of the ceilings has been vandalized with a trolling QR that insults whoever tries to scan it.

People in front of you are of all races, but most of them are Latino. They are wearing different biomods than the ones used by the rich snobs in the citadels; those use anthropomorphic characteristics and animal shapes like bat wings, werewolves, weretigers, and faeries. No, the people in the ground use their biomods for self defense and to assert dominance: Horns, hair tentacles, arm spines, shoulder protection, orc teeth, venomous fangs and even venomous tails. Fortunately you don't see the most extreme mods here, just your usual horns and face mods.

Near the background you see members of two very contrasting religions: The Haredites, a neosemitic religion, follow religious ordinances regarding food, dress and relationships, some too extreme even for Catholics. They're a closed group and they don't recruit members; they are mostly peaceful.

The other member of a new religion is a muscular Egyptian Revivalist wearing a Tattoo of the jackal god Anubis on his arm. Judging by his attire, he must be a Medjay. However, Medjays are peaceful, so why is this particular man having such an aggressive look? Something must be wrong here. Now that you think of it, there have been reports of avatars being stolen. What if this Medjay is actually an avatar thief? And what happened to the original Medjay?

Never mind. Just don't make eye contact with him.

You get distracted by the attractive woman looking seductively at you. Her cleavage is obviously inviting; you remember that scammers here accuse people of sexual assault and blackmail you into paying hefty amounts of money just to keep their mouths shut. Fortunately, there are cameras in here so should anything happen, you can call security.

Her T-Shirt says something in leet-speak: "Mom's out, let's have fun." Okay, this girl might actually be an escort wanting some clientele? Either way, do not trust her. And why is she wearing gray skin makeup? Ah, she must be a statue girl; one of those street performers.

...or is she?

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