WestWallward Police Step Back, Water and Gangs Flood Forward

by Kat Lazaruzz

Refugees and water flooded WestWall over the past two weeks. Somehow the Wall in WeCentWa, after threatening to leak flood water and ocean into the residences, has been stabalized. WeCentWa is now the primary location for refugees from the flooding, who have not been allowed to move upcity as the travel lockdown continues. The chaos has also benefited crime in the WestWall, with gangs stepping into more prominent and public roles in the communities.

Our correspondents in the region report that Enclave PD evacuated WeSoWa sub0 through 6, with a mere 3 levels remaining safe for habitation, and most of those increasingly unaccessible. EPD established refugee camps of WeCentWa subs 1, 3 and 5. However, in the past week law enforcement seems to have abandoned the area, leaving very few officers in place. The consequences may include destruction in WeCentWa's well-known sculpture-focused core park.

The Enclave Council has continued to cut off regular travel cut between the Wallward communities and the Mids (much less the Uppers) which means resources have become sparse where they are needed worst.

Gangs, most prominently the Russian-transplanted Vory V Zakone and the native sons of the Cosa Nostra, have stepped into place across WeWa, providing protection, smuggled resources, and basic necessities at a markup, but thus far with no pushback by relieved citizens or the apparently well-compensated cops.

"We believe that tampering and hacking in the lower levels of the city are causing the instabilities there and we must put hard Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics into place at the physical and virtual borders of the Wallward regions in order to secure the stability of the entire Enclave." - HC Spokesperson Cu Graves

HC takes credit for the Wall's safe-state with a software patch to the wall's regulation and processing systems, but if that was true, why do they remain unable to stop the water rising in WeSoWa? For whatever reason the wall and the other Virt-based systems seem to have stabilized in WeCentWa, providing some small relief to residents. But communications have been limited to keep all but the most basic text comms internal to the Wall levels.

HC has justified their blocking off of the major Virt pipes by claiming that the Wall regions are responsible for their own chaos, system instability and disorder. They continue to deploy the mercenary corp "The Free Battalion" to secure major transit and comms points at the border. The result has been that many basic functions of life, access to resources, jobs, major banking systems, have been cut off.

Meanwhile, many of the refugees in WestCentralWall struggle to even cross the Core where, for the desperate, the last remaining transit station open between the Wall and the Mids remains heavily guarded in EastNoWa.

Read the rest of our in-depth report in our Virtual Space…

Law and Order is the Pulse Pounding Beat and The Enclave is The Drum

Tools for your Citizen Reporting Kit

It's the Billionaires' Ball! With no sense of irony the five billionaires running for president of the United States have taken a break from their tours of the 34 states and assorted floodplains to raise money for the public election fund, intended to support campaign activities by those unable to self-fund.

No worries though, they're here to reach across the theoretical aisle that differentiates these megarich candidates for various parties in order to make sure your local rep can buy a Woogle ad. HC Ex-CFO Tuck Braedy, farmer-cum-governor Ralph White, gun philanthropist Lars Weyer, retired venture capitalist Lara Voier, and virt entertainer Austin Paulsen sold seats at staggering costs to their friends and wannabes and raised some enormous amount of money that is dwarfed by the income they earn off of regular banking interest.

Press was, for some reason, not invited.

However, leaked recordings show that the primary topic of discussion by the Rich and Richer was the current state of affairs at The Enclave. The malfunctions from The Wall and the various riots have them worried that someone might upset the current state of affairs and potentially topple them from the tippy top. Every candidate (who was worth more than a billion dollars) stood up and gave little speeches about how they would preserve the status quo and our sources assure us that the one thing they all agreed on was bringing down federal enforcement officers should chaos spread beyond The Enclave. HC CEO John Dyer was not in attendance. But when we asked his PR flacks for a comment, considering HC's personal investment in merc enforcers in The Enclave, he declined to give one.

We gathered a number of on-the-ground reactions to the announcement that you can find in our Virtual Space. If you'd like to join them, we have the tools here!

You should already have a profile registered with the authorities. Once that's done and you've got the initial work under the belt, you'll likely have to register your new higher level of experience! You'll have to register the new stats that come with joining our great adventure of reporting on morons every day for the next two years.

Here's how it works:

Add +1 to a rating : You can mark permanent changes to a specific rating, though your profile should note a limit beyond which you can't go. Consider what each rating can do for your character and choose carefully. You can't go beyond your registered limit.

Take another Move from those available on your profile : Everyone's profile has a variety of moves you can make. If you're going up a level you can take one of the moves that you haven't already marked as having.

Take a Move from those available on another profile : All the profiles we've supplied show what they can do under the Moves section. You can learn something new and unusual though! If you do you can take a Move that describes your new skill from any of the other profiles below, just check their Full Descriptions to think about what you'd like to do.

Gain an Ally/Gain a Team : You can gain some support staff that will be registered as working with you! You may already have some people you know that you're picking out, or just putting it out there that you're recruiting and getting some folks to show up. Allies and teams work similarly, they both are organized around a single motivation, even if a team comprises of 2 to 6 people. However, members of your team may have their own motivations outside of the team's requirements.

The motivations you can register for your new Ally/Team:

• Subordinate (motivation: to follow your exact instructions)
• Lieutenant (motivation: to execute the spirit of your instructions)
• Friend (motivation: to provide emotional support)
• Bodyguard (motivation: to intercept danger)
• Confidante (motivation: to give you advice and perspective)
• Backup (motivation: to stand with you)

Ally/team members should have names registered along with what their background is too, how they look, and any special skills they bring.

Register a Haven Feature : Have you got a serious home base to operate out from? Are you intending to improve it? Then you need to add that information to your profile! Select a new haven option from the list in the Expert profile. You have added this facility to your haven.

Don’t bother trying to register a new feature if you don’t already have a haven!

FLOOD FIVE

The five top stories we are keeping our heads above this week

BlubBlubGlubBlub | A new way of living is emerging in the last unflooded sublevels of WeSoWa. Residents in sub7-9 have found themselves with no access to cross-sublevel buildings that were once a part of every day life. The core park is, of course, unaccessible. Options for entertainment and interaction seem few and far between. However, The Enclave's citizens are a hardy bunch and while the water is unsafe for swimming, boating has become a frequent past time and even a necessity for those looking to visit their neighbors. Boat-based social events and concerts are now a mainstay for WeSoWa.

Virt Streaming Star Takes a Stand | VirtLucho has been one of the more low-key of the sports to find streams and viewers in The Virtual. We, personally, prefer The Real for our headbashing. However, one of the Lucho streamers has been taking some wild journeys into the gamespaces and The Real as of late. While we're not sure which is which in his streams, what has been clear is his highlighting of poor conditions for refugees in the Wallward regions. While we're not sure anyone who was on Twhip House can rise above the Z-list, this is the best way anyone could. El Hombre Magnifico has been streaming irregularly but his conversations with Wall residents have been some of the best things to escape comms lockdown.

EastNoWa Port Sees Industrial Meet Desperate | EastNoWa had one of the transit stations least used by citizens of The Enclave before the lockdown. Instead, it was the largest industrial port for transit from EastNoWa and NoEastWa, which contained some of The Enclave's largest factories and its food processing district. Now spicy vat chicken and terrible poverty sit side by side in the transit tubes, with the chicken usually getting priority. EPD and The Free Battalion continue to run security in the transit hub, but they are joined by ColSec the private security arm of ColFoods. ColSec reacts to theft of food and cutting in line for a transit tube with equal measure, and that measure is overwhelming fatal force.

VibeTown Explodes off of Theater Scene | The Mid Core has been the happy home of the theater district since the walls went up. Rarely has there been more excitement there than a heard of fans trampling someone for an autograph. However, flames crisped the neon lights and ancient CRTs of the Jacklin Theater last week when improperly stored throwbacktech used in the nostalgic play VibeTown came into contact with its store of hydrogen peroxide (used for its now famous glow stick dance number). VibeTown is currently closed seeking funding for repairs and scouring the Virt auctions for a new supply of shake weights. It is believed that a Flare incident may have been involved, but officials all deny that.

Battle Rolla Split by ICE and EPD | Battle Rolla is one of the few times all districts of the Enclave upper to lower come together to beat each other senseless but with the new security measures at the Wallward borders we are seeing two parallel tournaments, as Mid and Upper teams compete amongst themselves while the stars of the Wall are fighting it out for top ranking.