https://everythingspeakstome.com/files/original/8a69d17fc3f8cc6956b3868ba80c1f9a.jpeg bd7261b7fce5f2ac794d1a5a2b025d4d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource After The Rise ... Description An account of the resource Using elevations and water level projected on EyesOnTheRise.com, these speculative fictions explore the world that was Miami after sea levels rise 6 or more feet. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Administrator Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Please post your written submission in this field. The images you would like to include should be posted as attachments below. Murder on the 104 Part 1 Coaches “Leon, wake up, you are gonna miss the 104 again. Make sure you do not forget your headphones, I don’t wanna hear you complain all day” Mom said. I could tell she was annoyed by the way she sounded. I could hear the creaking of her new implants every time she got upset. They creaked so loud because our family could not afford the better one’s from the family RipperDoc. My implants were fairly simple, they consisted of two things; one of them being my new arms that help me lift heavy things while I am working at my dads factory job and two, are the new eyepieces, thanks to Implatech, and installed by my RipperDoc, James. The old fella treats me like I am one of his own, cuts me a deal on the Uzo eyes Mark III. This model automatically scans my surroundings and sharpens my eyesight. Mom always got scared that if we got to many implants we would become like those cyber psychos we would hear on the news. She always said, two was the max. My father and I both agreed and our implants are basically the same, except he has the older models Mark II for eyes. I rushed down the stairs nearly falling on my face because of how fast I was going. I reached for my bag and all I heard from dad was “Headphones are in the bag son be safe out there”. My dad is my best friend but he can be a hardass when he wants too. As I walked out the door, I was grateful that the water level had stayed at ankle height so I could easily sprint towards the train which was leaving in about four minutes. We were fortunate that my green house and a few others were safe from the rising waters that happened 5 years ago. That's when some believe that climate change and our half ass countermeasures finally caught up with us. I ran like I never ran before and I could hear the faint whistle slowly making its way to my neighborhood. “Hurry up Mr. Leon” said the Roboducter, He was a built in AI into the train. Probably the toughest four minutes of my life but I was almost there. My heart sank into my chest when I saw that train move, I was gonna miss it. I was seconds too late. The train was gaining speed in front of me. That is when I saw an arm extend towards me and a voice yelled “Grab on!” It was my friend Jose Antonio. He is always the first person to get picked up by the 104. I was running to at least make it to make it to the sixth and last car on the train. “Grab on!” said Jose, He had a bit of a better arm enhancement than mine called the gorilla arm. A step up from mine,with a silver inlay across the arm that increased the strength and grip at anything he pulled. He pulled me up and we both hugged as soon we were at arms reach. We even laughed in the process. Jose was a little bit more ripped than me. He was wearing black cargo pants and a rock band shirt from the 80s, a rock and roll t-shirt with the logo of VH with a line drawn across. “You owe me one amigo,” said Jose as he smiled. I smiled to go along with it and plopped myself on the last seat on the “coach” section of the train. It was pretty crappy but it was what we could afford. The wealthier passengers sat in the first three train cars that have more comfort, a bar in each train car and new TVs. The one thing that made me jealous of the luxury cars were the neon lights that can be changed by the user. Compared to the last three cars, seats that felt like metrorail seats from Miami 20 or 50 years ago. LG TVs from 2023 that could barely work. The “Oh shit bars” as I call them, the handle bars to hold on just in case you wanna stand or the train stops abruptly. “Want me to play you a tune before we get to campus” said Jose. Sure enough I told him, even though I was going to put on my headphones and listen to my fathers music mix that he makes me every year. Jose still pulled out this sweet acoustic guitar and strum a soft tune. I put my blue headphones on and put on a song my dad recently added to the playlist by a group called the Funkadelic’s, it was a groovy song that put me in a good mood. I hope it lasts a few more stops till we get to campus. A few minutes went by and there were already a few of my friends on the train with me. The Twins, Stanley and Anthony Johnson, you can almost tell that they were not twins yet they would get upset if someone told them they weren’t. They Cracked a few good jokes to make the crowd laugh but you just knew there was something off about them. Their enhancements were very different from each other. Stan had what they called an iron lung which provided a metallic case that helped with better and longer breathing.Which in turn increased your stamina. He also has legs that can withstand jumps from any height without damage. His brother Anthony or Tony for short has the Uzo eyes Mark IV better form then mine. He got it as a gift from his pops just like the nanotechnology implants both “siblings'' got. This technology heals them from any cuts or damages to their body. The irony is that they spend so much money on implants that they could not afford to buy a house on land. They live in a MFH or the motor floatable homes most people now live in. More passengers came into my car like water through an open window. Two of those passengers, Skylar Thompson and Rebeca Diaz premed major students both with robotic fingers required because of their major. Skylar and I were close as I got up from my seat and hugged her. Her and I were the only ones in the coach cars that were lucky enough to be saved and have kept our original houses. She sat next to me because the rest of the remaining seats were occupied. As I try to make small talk I notice bright orange hair and holographic glasses at the other end of the car as a small petite figure which I quickly recognized as Anne Fitzgerald, a stranger to me but in one of my classes. Made her way to her group of friends in this crowded train like she was six foot ten. She sat next to Luigi who seemed to be having a great conversation with Jose. Added to this group was Mikal, a strange fellow. Always hiding in the corner acting broodingly and never wanting to talk. I always assumed that it was because he spoke little english. No one really knew. The final member of the “Coach Crew" as Luigi called it was a girl named Danielle Marie, she wanted to be a nurse in the near future but could not afford the robotic fingers like Sklyar and Rebecca. All I knew about her was that she worked three jobs and was always tired. Part II The Pricks Three more stops later, Skylar taps my shoulder, “The Pricks are here”. She was referring to the people in the first three cars. She calls them the Pricks because what else would you call someone that's pretentious, arrogant and full of money. The first one that we see is Joanna Perez, daughter of the Miami Implatech branch CEO.You could see that she was spoiled by daddy’s money. With all the enhancements you can think of, from the best eyes,hair , arms,legs and even chest. She wanted to stand out even though none of her peers ever looked at her. She was also extremely ignorant and pretentious so she fits in the category of the Pricks pretty well. The next was this big ape-like fellow named Steve Jackson. He was always mean to everyone that wasn’t rich. I guess he followed in his dad’s steps according to what my pops told me. They both went to college here and he would always push my dad around. Skylar even pulled up a picture of Steve’s dad. It's scary how these two both look so much alike. As if they were cloned. No one really ever messed with him. When you're 6'4" and completely shredded, no one dares to even look at him the wrong way. He even came to our car to boast that he has a new program running in his system that makes him an even better fighter. “Asshole….” said Stanley in a very soft monotone voice. If they only had programs that made you a better person. Before I could even finish this thought, Stanley was picked up from where he was sitting and thrown to the wall. “Don’t ever talk to me like that again or I’ll stomp your head in” said Steve. Without thinking as pure reflex Anthony threw a punch but missed his target completely. “Nice try asshole, happens again I’ll tell the world what you did and you’ll be screwed” said Steve. I had taken my headphones off now because things were getting serious. As I glanced over to Steve he yelled, “Warning to all of you, do not mess with me” As he leaves back towards the luxury cars. “What a prick,” said Jose. Most of us Coach riders gather together in the last car. We were a close knit group that circumstances brought together. The Traffic from other trains and boats kept delaying our arrival so to kill time we decided to watch the crappy TVs or watch the soft waves hit the train. “Hey guys check this out” said Rebecca as she points to TV #1. There was no sound but we could all read the ticker below the news announcer that read that there was a Cyber Psycho running loose in downtown Miami and close to our area. It was rumored that one of the programs developed by Implatech had been stolen and tampered with before final testing. This program, as usually developed for the military, was supposed to create a time warp that slows time for your enemies and keeps you acting and moving in real time. Cloak as it was called as a prototype sent a shockwave that did slow time but ended up killing people around you. “Scary shit I wonder who the killer might be,” said Anne. The next stop brought the two “bitchiest” individuals onto the train according to Rebecca and Skylar. Jessica Fuentes and Enna Giraldo, both best friends but could not get enough of Joanna. Praised her like some sort of princess, we all assumed that the ass kissing had something to do with free implants courtesy of Joanna’s dad who runs Implatech. Enna has not been as lucky as she wished. Joanna always picked favorites and it did not matter how much ass Enna kissed, all the best implants seemed to always go to Jessica. It was scary to see how someone is so desperate for body enhancements, the sheer amount could make someone go through cyberpsychosis and in the end lose their mind. Joanna was waiting for her two buddies in the main car, car four which is where everyone gets on. She was so happy to see her she could not conceal a huge smile that seemed to cover all of her face. But with Enna everyone in our car noticed that her smile changed quickly. From being happy to a more guarded and sinister look. An expression only someone from the Pricks could make. “Hi Enna” sarcastically, said Joanna. “Man these people sound like they're hiding more problems than we are,” said Anthony. I told Luigi thanks for putting all the microphones in all the cars, a real nice touch. “No problem man, it is good to know what these assholes talk about,” said Luigi. We noticed Enna smiled back at Joanna’s response and gave her a “Hello” in return trying not to ruin anything with Joanna just in case she ends up giving the enhancements to someone else. God forbid her friends looked better than she does. At last after all the delays and stops we made our final approach to campus. Part III Eyes without a Face. Skylar got up to go talk to Anne and I was left alone to finally enjoy my music. As I listened to the smooth words and rhythm of Billy Idol’s Eyes Without A Face, I felt adrift almost in a trance falling asleep. All of sudden my head hit the floor of the train. The fu-. A loud scream echoed through the entire train. I got up and realized I was the only one there in the last train car and could see campus within a mile from where we were and more regular houses and more MFHs. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Skylar and Anthony running towards me from car four, “Leon thank god you are ok, that cyberpsycho , it killed Jessica, she’s dead, she's dead dude” said Anthony in shock. I was still dazed from hitting my head on the floor, I could not focus and make sense of what I was being told. We rushed to car four and saw Jessica’s body slumped sitting down on the bench. I ran to the body. “No Leon, wait” said Skylar. What I saw will probably give me nightmares. Jessica’s face was caved in. Her eyes were gone. She was slaughtered. I ask myself why?No one deserves this kind of death. All I heard from car three was a loud punch. “You son of a bitch why did you do it, was it because you wanted to be like us but could not afford it huh, asshole” said Steve, as he repeatedly punched Stanley. I rushed over to car three. As I was making my way towards Steve, I saw Enna comforting Joanna. I was able to grab Steve by his shoulder but he would not budge, it was almost like his body was made of iron. A quick elbow knocked me on my ass as Steve looked over me, “Stay out of this” said Steve as he stormed off towards campus. I was sure he was gonna call in the cops. I helped Stanley up. He seemed to ok, I could see the nanotechnology already working was creating skin grafts were bruises were seconds ago. “I’m good Leon thank you, all I was doing was talking to Jessica and went to the bathroom. I came back and she was dead and before I could say anything Steve grabbed me. I was able to pull on the emergency brakes which inevitably brought the train to a stop” said Stanley. The police arrived in their hover bikes and told everyone to leave and go about their day. I walked to the last car to pick up my gear when I noticed that everyone was terrified. Everyone in the Coach Crew respected Jessica except for Skylar and Rebecca who seemed to be laughing it up over something but I didn’t really bother as I walked to class hoping to make it on time. Math and History went by quickly. English was gonna be a different story, everyone on the train was gonna be in that class. Room 6244 was an empty classroom with VR headsets hanging from the ceiling for every student to wear. I was their first and waited for the horde to arrive. First came Enna and Joanna. I told her sorry for her loss as she flicked me off. Then came The Twins, Jose Antonio and Luigi. As they sat next to me and plugged in, I kept thinking of Jessica's face. Steve and the rest plugged in 5 minutes late and out came Professor Booth, an AI implemented by the school board to help teach and facilitate. Once Miss Booth had spawn in so did the class with a 360 degree room with windows of a beautiful mountain top. “Psssst Leon come here” I turned quickly to see Anne’s character in VR whisper me over. I move over towards her side. “I saw Anthony get into a screaming match with Steve while I was in the bathroom in car four. I overheard Anthony mention to Steve, that if he ever blurts something like that again he will regret it and that he was gonna take something he loved '' said Anne. I told her she was crazy, Anthony would never threaten anyone. “I know I know but I saw it with my own two eyes, I even recorded it here I’ll send it to your HUD” said Anne as her eyes lit up and I got a video link. I thanked her as I took off my headset and watched the video play. It shocked me to hear a friend say these harmful things. I tried to reconcile past it and started heading out of the room as class had just ended. Anne and I both looked at each other and with a shocked look on my face we walked together to the train without saying a word. As we arrived to the station I saw that Rebecca and Skylar were already there. I slid them the video with a message of not saying a word until we were all inside the train. The 104 came up the rails with it’s 6 car steam powered locomotive rushing through. I felt a hard shove on the shoulder as Steve pushed me out of the way with Joanna and Enna following behind. I noticed now Enna was now showing sympathy towards Joanna, guess she really hungers for enhancements, or maybe she really does care. We all got in through car four and without a moment's notice everyone went their opposite ways but it was not without a quiet “Prick” coming from Skylar, both Enna and Joanna look back with a disdainful look. I rushed to the longest bench in the coach area in car five and decided to take a nap. As I was doing that I noticed outside through the window the clouds forming telling of an imminent storm. Clouds that I had never seen before. I was not the only one that noticed the severity of the storm clouds. Below me at a frenzy pace the house boats were automatically anchoring down. With my eyes closed I put my head down for what seemed like a second. I woke up to Anne slapping me awake. “Wake up!Leon” said Anne crying spontaneously, “it is Skylar” Goddammit, as we both ran to car six and saw Skylar’s body viciously stabbed with a broken glass shard from a window that appears to be shattered and the rain flying through into the car. This was worse than the last murder, her face was unrecognizable, fingers missing just like Jessica’s eyes. Her face was full of holes and her body was beaten to a pulp. To her left was Rebecca with her arm completely ripped from her body. She was hysterical saying she knows who did it, Steve was trying to calm her down. “Who did it Rebecca, who did this to you guys” Steve asked. With her only working arm she pointed at Anthony “It was Him” said Rebecca. “He did it”. Everyone’s head turned to Anthony as his face turned pale. Part IV Last Stop “What do they mean by this Anthony, what the hell did you do?” asked Stanley as he pressed his brother to the wall. “I mean we used to date but that was it, I was just coming to help” said Anthony slurring his speech and talking fast. I knew something was off, the train had stopped, everyone in the same car together, the killer was here watching. I could feel it, maybe it was Anthony!Then the train jerked after being hit by a big wave hitting the train. Everyone stumbled and we heard a loud crack!Everyone got back up and low and behold Anthony's neck was snapped and his head was facing the opposite direction. I heard myself scream in fear. Enna yelled “Oh no Rebecca!” As I turned I turned towards the scream I saw Rebecca slumping over with the knife that was used to slaughter Skylar in Rebecca’s neck. Ok something definitely is off here. Nothing makes sense, an invisible killer? As all of this was happening the rain kept getting stronger. The water was rushing in through the open windows inside the car. The last car was filling up with water fast. We needed to get out fast.We called 911 and opened up the flotation device and separated car 6 from the rest. All of us watched as car 6 and the three corpses floated away. We all made our way to car 2 where we sat down and discussed what the hell just happened. An ignorant mood was felt inside the car, the killings the floodings, and even the rain seemed to have only affected us. “I can’t believe they're dead, I know they were different but they were still human” said Joanna almost sobbing. “It’s ok, we are alive” said Enna. I walked over to Steve who seemed to be in shock over what had happened. Who knew someone so tough could be so weak mentally. “Alright Steve, what the hell did Anthony do?” He looked at me bewildered, like a deer blinded by headlights. “I was walking home at night and saw Anthony breaking into an Implatech store and stealing some modifications,” said Steve. I knew it, I told him. There was no way the Twins could even afford those types of mods. “I was gonna talk to Joanna to do something about it but she is not the kind of person to comprehend things well. All she cares about is money and mods, wouldn’t be surprised if she was the killer” said Steve. All I could do was laugh. With the train still at a standstill because of the weather I decided to just sit down and feel for the first time those once in a lifetime first class seats. It felt like I was sitting on silk and sat in such comfort and I almost dozed off to the sound of the rain. When I heard a voice that sounded like Anne from across the car. “Enna what is this” as she is holding what looks to be Jessica’s eye that appeared to have gone missing from the scene. “Oh it is nothing” said Enna as she hastily puts it away. “Enna, why do you have Jessica’s eye?” said Joanna. Did you do this as I asked loudly? “Oh my god are these Skylar mod fingers too” said Anne. “Ok ok I am sick of this shit, I just wanna go home, we should restrain Enna before it is too late” said Mikal. He spoke in perfect English to everyone’s surprise but he made a good point. “How could you do this? I thought you were my friend,” said Joanna. “My friend you treated me like shit, you never treated me with the desire you gave Jessica” said Enna. Things got so tense I knew things were about to get crazy. Steve tried to grab Enna, when all of sudden the neon lights shifted green and Enna took off what looked like a wig. “I’m done hiding amongst you sheep. You all must die” she said. It was her, all along, but why? was it payback for the mistreatment? Why kill Skylar and Rebecca was it only because she was called a foul name? I could not stop thinking how petty all of this was. When all of sudden she lunged over at Steve and ripped both of his arms off, it was a massacre. Steve blood was gushing all across the car. I could barely even tell what was going on, Enna was moving fast, she had the cloak. Her movement made us seem paralyzed, unable to react. After Steve came Anne, her bright orange hair was set ablaze by Enna’s cybernetic enhancements, I tried to put it out but it was to late she was cooked all that was left was her fried head. Enna was laughing sinisterly as she keep killing everyone as fast as she could. Luigi and Jose tried to put up a fight but Luigi got an arm through his chest and Jose was thrown out into the pouring monsoon that was happening outside, so we did not know if he was alive or dead. My only option was Steve’s modification for skilled hand to hand combat but I had to act quick before she targets me. Steve, choking on his blood, called me over. “I know why you are here, just take it and let me go” said Steve. I thanked him and jacked into his mainframe and got the download. All I could hear was her laughs as she kept slaughtering everyone on the train. I needed to put a stop to this quick before more people die “Enna please stop, you doing this won’t make you my friend I already called the Police they will be here in six minutes” said Joanna. Fuck if that’s all I had, I have to move quick and subdue her. I told Stanley to grab whoever was left and move quickly while I distract her. “Oh no none of you can leave” said Enna. Thanks to Steve I was able to land a solid punch that landed her flying to the metal wall that rocked the train. “You!, I would like to see you try that again '' said Enna as her forearms became razor sharp blades that she stole from an Implatech store. I saw from the corner of my eye Stanley, Joanna, Mikal and Dani escape to the previous car. I knew that now was my time to attack. En garde bitch, as I grabbed a metal railing and broke off as a sword. “Oh this is gonna be fun,” said Enna. As I could hear the MDPD sirens rang out in the distance. She smiled which was weird as I came for the first overhead attack. She kept smiling as if she had something planned, I had her, she was down I was pressing the sword down smiling that I can finally be somebody, be a hero.Bang! The door from car three blew open and police came rushing in. They say when you die you do not know when it is going to happen, everything cuts to black. Bang! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Murder on The 104 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Luca Ordonez Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/17/23