Propaganda 24 ch09

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              |S        |
              |SCENETOWN|
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               | PART3 |
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     REAL LIFE IS ONLY AN ILLUSION.
     THE SCENE IS YOUR TRUE STORY.







I was generally so upset with all the
comotion going around that I spent the
day wandering in IKARIPARK. I needed
time to think, time to get control of
the entire situation. The QUITTER-case
was getting out of hand and OXYRONpolice
were not closer now than the first day.
RELAXmagazine were reporting a fiasco,
but then again, they always were.
"Damn tabloids", I said to myself as I
strolled the beautiful part set to the
north of Scenetown. It was a cold day.
Autumn was taking a quick turn and as
I breathed, the oxygen came out as
heavy smoke from my lungs. I was reg-
retting I had given up smoking a while
back and looked at the clouds coming
out from my mouth.



I met up with MR.WAX down at RASTERBARS
later that afternoon. He had called me
quickly over the cellular earlier that
morning and insisted on meeting me this
very day. He had some very important
news to deliver, he told me. He had
sounded nervous and I had  he impression
there was something going on at CHRO-
MANCE-camp.

As I entered RASTERBARS I waved a little
over to the bartender. I really liked
the place and spent most of my earlier
days in Scenetown here. Most of us did
actually. On the walls were old black
and white pictures from celebrities that
had either eaten or drunk here in the
past. There was IRATA sipping on a cup
of coffee, JACK ALIEN eating a pig,

the entire IKARI+TALENT-coop celebrating
their 24th year on numberone-spot. There
was an endless piece of history within
these walls. It may not have been the as
in the old days, now that HITMEN were
running the joint but CURLIN did a de-
cent job in the kitchen, so you could
still get a good meal here. Many of the
oldtimers hung out here on Fridays to
talk about the past and the days before
scenetown. It was only Wednesday today
and the place was nearly empty apart
from some swapjunkies drinking the hazy
afternoon away. Swapjunkies were sad
people who had done their share of mega-
swapping. They were torn, beaten and
trashed and were basically swapped to
pieces. They'd sell their soul for a
crack or a demo. Beggars, junkies -
you call them want you like.


There was a ROB HUBBARD-lookalike doing
an uplugged on stage and he was just
doing the ZOIDS-classic. Not bad actua-
lly, but the guy needed a haircut and
and a shave.

"AH MONSIEUR! MR.WAX IS AT HIS USUAL
TABLE!", said the waiter and it sounded
to me as if he had swallowed a frog.

I nodded and walked to the back back of
the room where MR.WAX was sitting. He
looked even worse than the cheap HUBBAR
D-immitation, looking at everyone and
everything suspiciously.

"SHIT, WAX! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO
YOU? YOU LOOK LIKE JUST GOT FUCK FUCKED
ON A RELEASE!"


"KEEP IT DOWN, KEEP IT DOWN - I'M GLAD
YOU COULD MAKE IT."

"NO PROBLEM WAX, BUT YOU REALLY LOOK
LIKE SHIT. WHAT IS IT?"

MR.WAX started talking slowly as I put
my teeth into a big DEFFBURGER. MR.WAX
didn't seem all that hungry as his
PEACEMAKER&CHEESE remained untouched on
its' plate. I could probably have eaten
that too, I thought as MR.WAX rose his
voice slightly.

"I NORMALLY WOULDN'T WANT TO T
ALK TO PEOPLE FROM OTHER GROUPS, BUT
I FIGURE YOU ARE THE ONLY WHO CAN HELP
ME RIGHT NOW."



"SHOOT."

"THINGS HAVEN'T BEEN ALL THAT GOOD FOR
CHROMANCE RECENTLY, YOU MAY HAVE NOT-
ICED. ONLY SMALLER RELEASES, AND THAT
OFTEN FOR THAT MATTER EITHER. SEEMED AS
THOUGH WE HAVEN'T LUCKY SIDE SINCE THE
BOMBING BOMBING OF BASS PLANET"

I couldn't agree more. CHROMANCE had met
just about every setback there was and
their sysop SCRATCHER was partly to
blame. He had taken part of the famous
SCENERS REVEALEAD-show on SCENETV and
during the interview he had declared
that he really cared a lot for quitters
and helped them out as often as he
could. The statement created a minor
chaos in scenetown. Quitters were scums

of the world and deserved nothing else
than to be formatted. It was most likely
that the statement had led to the bomb-
ing of BASSPLANET. And no matter how
cruel it may have been, people were glad
about it.

I look d over my shoulder to make sure
that nobody was listenting to our conv-
ersation but I only saw swappers and a
tired trader hooking up his APROTEK on
a table close to ours. A slow version of
SANXION was playing on stage.

"YOU KNOW JEAN AND LION, DON'T YOU? FINE
KIDS I RECRUITED FOR SUPPLYING GOOD
GAMES."

"SURE", I said



"WELL AS  GAMES WERE STARTING TO SHOW UP
AT OUR OFFICES, FINE GAMES TO I MAY ADD
- MULE2, JURASSIC PARK, TRAILBLAZER -
THE LOST TRACKS AND MORE, WE WER CONFI-
DENT TO BE RELEASING MORE THAN ANY OTHER
GROUP THIS YEAR."

"YEAH?" - this conversation was becoming
quite interesting.

"WELL, THINS IS, EVEN THOUGH GAMES WERE
COMING OUT QUICKLY, WE WERE NOT GETTING
THEM OUT. SURE, WE CRACKED THEM, BUT
SOMEHOW WE WERE ALWAYS -ALWAYS- BEATEN."
                                     MR.
MR.WAX was getting a very mean, ugly
look on his face. He was far away from
the distinguished gentlemen I used to
dine with at A TOUCH OF CLASS.


AT FIRST I SUSPECTED BURGLAR, THAT PIG!
I CHECKED ON HIM AND HIS COMPANY BURG-
LARS INC., BUT NO SIGNS OF BREAK-INS
WERE REGISTRED. THEN I SUSPECTED ALPHA
FLIGHT BUT THEY GET THEIR OWN SHARE OF
OF STUFF BUYING ORIGINALS FROM OTHER
SOURCES SO IN THE END I HAD TO DIRECT
MY ANGER TOWARDS MY OWN GROUP. NEWSCOPY,
I THINK THERE IS A TRAITOR IN
CHROMANCE."

I didn't know what to say. We all had
had problems with deserters, people who
sold information to other groups, but
not people stalling releases on this
level.

"WHY ARE YOU TELLING THIS TO ME? FOR
ALL I'M CONCERNED, IT MIGHT AS WELL

HAVE BEEN ME AND F4CG."

"DON'T THINK I HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT
THAT MYSELF I AM PRETTY USED TO SOME
OF YOUR SCAMS, BUT WHEN IT COMES DOWN
TO BASIC, YOU GUYS ARE THE ONES WHO
KNOW US THE LEAST. BESIDES, WE NEVER
GET THE SAME GAMES."

"MAYBE YOU'RE RIGHT. BUT WHAT CAN I DO
TO HELP YOU? I'M NO BETTER THAN THE
REST."

"YOU KNOW PEOPLE. PEOPLE IN THE RED
SECTOR DISTRICT, PEOPLE ON THE MAGAZINES
AND THE COPS. MAN, DO ME A FAVOUR AND
TALK TO THEM AND SEE IF ANYBODY HAS A
CLUE. I DON'T WANT TO BE THE ONE START-
ING ANY RUMOURS THAT LATER APPEAR IN TH
PRESS. I HAD ENOUGH OF BAD COVERAGE IN

THE TABLOIDS."

I was grateful for the confidence he had
shown me but I wasn't quite sure I could
help him out.


"LISTEN WAX, I'LL DO WHAT I CAN, BUT.."
I was interrupted by a tap on my shoul-
der. I turned around and saw the waiter
practically hanging over me.

"LISTEN UP BOY, WE'RE DISCUSSING PERS-
ONAL MATTERS HERE. WHY DON'T YOU TAKE
A HIKE AND LEECH SOME WARES OR SOME-
THING?", MR.WAX said clearly annoyed.

"I AM SORRY TO DISTURB, MESSIUERS, BUT
THERE IS SOMEONE HERE WHO MUST SEE YOU",
the waiter said. The French tone and

accent was hilarious and I couldn't help
smiling. I looked over and saw 3 guys
standing by the bar. SEVEN, DIGAHOLE
and ZYRON.

  ____________________________________

"SEND THEM OVER", I said.

The waiter made a gesture towards the
three and they moved over to our table.

"THIS WAS AN UNEXPECTED TRIO TO SEE
THIS AFTERNOON.", WAX said.

ZYRON looked like he had had a rough
night, and by far he was living up to
his image as a rockstar in scenetown.
He was constantly touring in sold-out
arenas and his collections sold very

well. SEVEN was quite a new habitant
of scenetown and had become one of the
public faces in HITMEN, while DIGAHOLE
had settled with his wife DIGAGRAVE in
the fashionable 8BIT HILLS a while back.

"WELL, THE NEWS WE BRING ARE GRAND."

"OH?"

"ALPHA FLIGHT ARE WORKING WITH THE
OXYRONPOLICE"

"TELL US SOMETHING WE DON'T KNOW.", we
said very ironically.

"YEAH, THOSE AREN'T NEWS. RELAX HAS BEEN
PUBLISHED UNDER OBSERVATION OF ALPHA
FLIGHT THE PAST MILLION YEARS. IT WAS
AN ALPHA FLIGHT MAGAZINE FROM THE BE-

GINNING, YOU KNOW"

"YEAH, BUT THERE'S MORE TOO IT YOU KNOW.
IT TURNS OUT ALPHA FLIGHT HAVE BEEEN US-
ING QUITE AWFUL METHODS IN COVERING THE
NEWS OF SEVERAL PEOPLE. ONLY 4 HOURS AGO
A SET OF AFL-PAPARAZZIS WERE SENT OF TO
THE HOTEL WHERE HOMEBOY AND HOMEGIRL
WERE DINING..", ZYRON said.

HOMEBOY had been steadily hunted by the
press since he had taken a short vaca-
tion from sceneactivities and had been
upset by the fact several times at our
traditional dinners at CBA'S place. Who
wouldn't have? Paparrazzis were awful.

"..SO TWO HOURS AGO, RELAX CABLED OUT
NEWS THAT HOMEBOY AND HOMEGIRL PURSUIT
WITH THE PAPARAZZIS.  THE NEWS IMPOSED

THAT THAT HOMEBOY AND HOMEGIRL WERE
KILLED AS THEIR CAR CRASHED IN THE
TUNNEL OF WARES, CLOSE TO THE HOTEL.

MR.WAX was in shock. HOMEBOY had earlier
been with CHROMANCE before he joined the
clan of ONSLAUGHT.

"TAKE IT EASY. THAT'S NOT THE ENTIRE
STORY. AN HOUR LATER IS WAS CLEAR THE
NEWS WAS FALSE. HOMEBOY NEVER DINED AT
THE HOTEL AND THERE WAS NEVER ANY ACCI-
DENT. ACCORDING TO SCENETV THE ENTIRE
AFFAIR WAS PUT TOGETHER BY ALPHA FLIGHT
TO CONFUSE AND MESS UP THE ONSLAUGHT-
ORGANIZATION. DURING THE MOMENTS OF CON-
FUSION, ALPHA FLIGHT RELEASED THE FIXED
VERSION OF ICEGUYS, A GAME EVERYBODY
WAS EXPECTING ONSLAUGHT TO RELEASE.
SCENETV ANNOUNCED EARLIER THAT ONE IS

TALKING ABOUT A CONSPIRACY FROM AFL SO
THAT THEY COULD RELEASE THE GAME UN-
DISTURBED."

"I'LL BE DAMNED.", I said.

"SO NOW BOTH OXYRON AND ALPHA FLIGHT
ARE ARRESTED AND UNDER INTERROGATION.

"ALL OF THEM?"

"NO ONLY RRR AND MARC, BUT THEY'LL PRO-
BABLY BE OUT BAIL BY TOMORROW"

"HAS JAZZCAT MADE ANY STATEMENT?"

"NOPE, HE'LL APPEAR ON THE MARTIN GALWAY
SHOW THIS EVENING. SO WILL TTS. PEOPLE
ARE FURIOUS ALL OVER TOWN."



"WITH ALL RIGHTS", I added.

"YEAH, BUT IT'S CLEAR THERE HAVE BEEN
CASES OF CORRUPTION WITHIN THE OXYRON-
POLICE AND SOMETHING WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN
SOONER OR LATER."


We nodded and tried to embrace the sit-
uation. ROB HUBBARD's fake was still
playing as we were in deep, deep
thoughts.


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       SCENETOWN WILL NOT CEASE.






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   *  ELECTRIC'S ARE STOLEN FROM THE
      PIXEL MUSEUM.

   *  RRR & MARC RELEASED ON BAIL
      AWAITING TRIAL.

   *  ONSLAUGHT'S REVENGE ON APLHA
      FLIGHT.

   *  THE CHROMANCE-SPY REVEALED.


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             IN SCENETOWN 4