[Demon: The Descent] Unicorn Crossing

In-Character (IC) Info:

Onyx Path Publishing
Chronicles of Darkness

Venue: Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed

Post by: Jerad Sayler

Story: Unicorn Crossing

The following is a short story that inspired our recent Story: Unicorn Crossing from Demon: Interface Sourcebook and Anthology, our plot designed by Hannah Nyland and ran by Jerad Sayler.

Unicorn Crossing
By J Dymphna Coy

Half past six on a Thursday on the 10 East, merging on to 405 North. Someone standing on Sawtelle looking south would see the ramp — the uppermost layer of a symphony of concrete arcs cutting majestically through the sky as they ferry people and products efficiently to their destinations.   Architects say it’s a work of genius. Commuters call it “the nightmare in the sky.”

Tammy was in the latter group. She’d been on the ramp for fifteen minutes. She stared at the clock. 6:31. She hadn’t moved for eight minutes. She was at the highest point of the ramp, though, and had an excellent view of Sawtelle. Sawtelle was where her grandparents’ orchard had been. Maybe Palms. Somewhere around there. Baachan never told her exactly where it was. Sometimes, Tammy would make guesses. Maybe it was the weedy parking lot off Sepulveda, empty save for a hot pink van advertising TOPLESS MAIDS $99. Maybe it was somewhere in a shopping mall. Maybe it was a luxury condo off Wilshire. Maybe the city had been rendered so unrecognizable that even her grandparents wouldn’t be able to spot it.

Baachan never talked about the camps or about their life before the war. Neither did Tammy’s parents. Her grandparents did the right thing, her mother said. They obeyed the law, and they worked hard after the war. Her father had a good education because of their hard work, and Tammy got to live in a nice house and go to a good school and have a prosperous life because of what they did. Who was Tammy to ask questions? It made her angry, even if she couldn’t disagree.

She drove an Acura now. And the guy in front of her drove a Lexus, and the guy in front of him drove an Infiniti, and whoever was in front of him drove — Her phone rang. It was Todd. I hope he’s not drunk already, she thought. “This is Tammy,” she answered.

“Tammy.” Tipsy. Not drunk yet.

“Hi, Todd.”

“You should be out here, yo,” said Todd.“I told you guys, I couldn’t do it tonight!” she said in a playful, mocking tone. Sometimes she was invited to the coding team’s Thursday night excursions, and sometimes she wasn’t. She was invited along this week, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it tonight. Sixty hours a week in the office with the boys was enough. “I hope you guys have fun!” she added.“Man!” he said. “You probably got a date or somethin’. You’re an attractive woman,” he slurred. “You probably have ‘em lined up around the block!” Tammy laughed in a way that she hoped sounded diplomatic.

“I hope you don’t think this is sexual harassment,” Todd continued. Tammy suppressed a sigh. The boys had gottena real kick out of the sexual harassment training. “I’m just saying—” Another call. Blocked number. “I have another call, Todd,” said Tammy. “I gotta go. You guys have fun tonight!”

“No, listen —” Tammy hung up. She picked up the other line. “Hello?”“Tammy?” A woman’s voice on the line, unfamiliar. Tammy was about to respond, but a bright yellow motorcycle suddenly raced past her driver’s side, nearly missing her sideview mirror.

“Hello? Tammy?” said the woman on the phone. “It’s me, Monica.”

“Monica?” she repeated awkwardly. She tried to remember all of the Monicas she knew.

“Sorry, I don’t —” Another motorcycle whizzed by. Bright yellow. Wasn’t that — Monica. Of course she remembered Monica. Monica with the backpack with the Lisa Frank dolphins on it in second grade. Monica in fifth grade, braiding Tammy’s hair and promising to be best friends forever. Monica, crouching by a bonfire in San Clemente and passing Tammy her first beer. Monica, who convinced their principal that the school’s computers had “a glitch in the system” so she and Tammy would be randomly marked absent when they were actually in class. Monica, who went to USC instead of UCLA.

“Oh, gosh,” said Tammy. “Monica, it’s been — it’s been forever!”

“I know, right!” said Monica, laughing. “Hey, where are you? Because I could totally go for a drink tonight.”

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

“I don’t usually drink this much,” said Tammy. She felt her cheeks turning red. The fact that she was drinking at the  Westside Tavern — which was located inside of a shopping mall — was a little strange in and of itself.

“Girl, after the week you’ve had, you deserve it!” said Monica, tapping her on the arm.

“It’s not so bad,” said Tammy. “I mean, it’s part of the job.”

“Mmm,” said Monica. “I hear you. It still sucks.”

“I mean, the guys always go out drinking. And I hate it,” Tammy said. She knew she shouldn’t talk like this, but the drink and the strangeness of the evening brought out a certain candor in her. It felt easy to unburden herself to Monica, both an old friend and a stranger.

“They go to these shitty bars and get drunk,” she continued. “They get drunk and make passes at me and I smile and ignore it. And they talk about football. Football, all of the fucking time. I hate football. I hate it,” she said again, half not believing what she was saying. Monica was looking at her steadily.

“It’s okay,” she said gently.

“I mean, I follow it. It’s what you do, you know? Hell, I spend hours on my fantasy league and I read everything I can to keep up,” she said, “But I just don’t give a shit. I hate it.” Tammy bit her lip. She was saying too much. I mean, she and Monica had been close once, and maybe they were friends on YouTube, but they hadn’t talked in years and here she was just spilling her guts. It must be the booze, she thought, even though she’d hardly touched her drink.

“So what’s making you happy these days?” asked Monica, gently. Tammy shrugged and stabbed at the lime in her drink with a toothpick.

“Are you still doing your art?” said Monica. “You were really good.” Tammy smiled, not looking up from her glass. “I guess you could say that.” She shook the lime off of the toothpick, and then stabbed it again.

“Yeah?”

“It’s a game,” said Tammy. “I’ve been working on it at home for a few years now.”

“A game? What kind of game?” said Monica. “I’m calling it Unicorn Crossing,” she said, laughing to hide her embarrassment. “It’s sort of like those old games where you plan and build a city. You play as a little animal-person.

And you’re the mayor of this town, and you have a house, and other animal-people start moving into town, and you can start building improvements to the town. Planting trees and putting in parks and office buildings and things. And you get to know the other animal-people who live there, and you try to help them get along with their neighbors and have a friendly community. That kind of stuff.” She stabbed the lime again, and broke the toothpick.

“Pointless, really,” she said.

“So it has, like, unicorns? You always drew fabulous unicorns,” said Monica. She made a gesture that vaguely suggested a horn coming out of her forehead. Tammy laughed. “Well, it is a mobile game, and you can get friends and visit each other people’s towns and stuff. And if enough people visit your town and like it, you’ll get a unicorn to move into town!” said Tammy. “It’s really hard, though. I think the current number is a million likes. I don’t think anyone will get it.”

“I think that sounds fun!” said Monica. “You always drew those adorable little animals when we were in school. I think you should keep working on it!”

“Yeah, well,” said Tammy. “Anyway. I’ve been talking about myself too much. What have you been up to?”

Monica had been up to a lot. She was in finance now. Something to do with her sorority at USC. She’d done pretty well for herself. She wasn’t rich when they were growing up, but she’d met the right people, played the right games, and now was a bona fide venture capitalist. Vice-President of Acquisitions at some acronym. Tammy couldn’t remember much of the conversation after that. Monica called her a cab as they were leaving. While they waited, Tammy looked at one of the indoor trees and wondered if it was real or artificial, and if any orange trees had ever grown here at all.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

After Unicorn Crossing had been downloaded fifty million times, Unicorn Industries moved into a renovated pen factory. So did Tammy — the offices were on the first floor, and the second floor had been converted into an enormous loft apartment. At first, Tammy wasn’t sure about the arrangement, but Monica had gotten her an amazing deal on the property and secured some very generous financing for her. It was difficult to turn down.

As she walked down the stairs from the loft to the office, Tammy had to admit that she vastly preferred her new commute. She could read the news, feed the cat, take a run on the beach and then get to work on time without needing to wake up at four in the morning. If only she could find the goddamned cat. Tammy’d had Ophelia since she was in undergrad, but now she belonged to the entire office. Tammy based the character that walked you through the tutorial in Unicorn Crossing, Ofi-chan, on Ophelia’s likeness. She became the official mascot for the game. Ophelia had tendency to wander downstairs and walk across her coders’ keyboards, but they didn’t mind too much. Sanjay grumbled about his allergies, but Deena posted lots of pictures of Ophelia perched among various pieces of equipment and merch on Twitter. She said it was great for the brand.

“Ophelia?” she called out. She shook the cat’s food dish, rattling the kibble. Maybe she was asleep in the server closet. It was nice and warm in there.

“C’mere, Ophelia! It’s cat food again. Your favorite —” The words caught in her throat. Someone was here. A figure, standing in the middle of the entryway, her face illuminated only by the light of her phone.

“Monica?” Tammy barely recognized her. Her hair was a mess. Her trendy hot pink lipstick was smeared across one cheek, and she was wearing the same dress she had been wearing yesterday.

“We need more content,” said Monica flatly, her eyes not leaving the screen.

“What?” said Tammy. “Are you o—”

“More levels. The unicorn isn’t enough.” Her face was expressionless.

“Have you been here all night?” Tammy asked.

“We can make this game better. We can make this world perfect.” Tammy had always suspected that there was something icy and bloodless beneath Monica’s veneer of enthusiasm and cheer. Was this it?

“We need something past the unicorn,” said Monica.

“I’m making some coffee upstairs,” said Tammy. “Have you seen the cat anywhere?” Monica looked up, and her face transformed instantly. She smiled, showing her dazzlingly white teeth, and ran her manicured hands through her hair in embarrassment.

“What am I thinking?” she said. “It’s way too early to be talking about this.” She swept a hand in a gesture of dismissal.

“Why don’t I come back later, and you can show me some sketches and we’ll work something out?”

Tammy blinked. “Yeah, sure,” Tammy said. “Are you ok—”

“Oh my god, it’s like, almost six o’clock.” said Monica. “I have to get to spin. See you in a bit!” She gave a little wave and walked out the door. Tammy watched Monica as she walked back to her car. She was looking back down at her phone again. As she drove away, she didn’t look back up.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Unicorn Crossing: Believe in Miracles outsold the original game within a week of its release. She had been well-off before, but now Tammy found herself with a huge influx of capital. Monica managed most of it for her: she was a financial expert, and Tammy was glad not to have to think about it. Monica had procured the investments that made Unicorn Crossing possible in the first place, anyway. Tammy bought her parents a nice house in La Jolla and paid off her brother’s law school debt.

“It’s all just a bit much,” Tammy said to Monica. It was late in the afternoon on a Saturday.

Monica had stopped by. She did that a lot. Tammy had to admit that it got on her nerves when she showed up without warning, but she couldn’t exactly kick her out. Not after all Monica had done for her.

“It certainly is,” agreed Monica.

“That’s why I think I’m going to sell,” said Tammy.

“Sell what?” said Monica.

“Unicorn Industries. It’s not like we’re short on potential buyers,” said Tammy. It was true; all of the usual suspects had lined up. The lowest bidder was offering twice the profits of Unicorn Crossing and Believe in Miracles combined.

Monica was silent for a moment. “We talked about selling before, remember? It’s not best for the company,” she said.

“It’s good for me,” said Tammy. “I’d like to move on. I’ve got more than enough —”

“You can’t do that. You can’t sell,” said Monica.

Tammy blinked. “What do you mean? I mean, I know you have partial ownership, but I could just sell my stake to you.”

“No,” said Monica. “We need you, Tammy. You’re the heart of this company. We can get at least three more expansions out of this.”

“I’m sick of Unicorn Crossing,” Tammy spat out. She took a deep breath, then said, “I mean, it was fun for a while, and I’ve made good money doing that, but I think I’d rather be doing other things.”

Monica was shaking her head. “No, no. You don’t understand, Tammy. We need you. The world needs you.”

Tammy laughed a little nervously. “It’s just a game, Monica.”

“Do you think this is a game?” said Monica as she walked towards Tammy. Bands of orange light streaked through the blinds, highlighting her eyes in brilliant amber. tired today.

“I guess.” She smiled at Monica, but Monica didn’t smile back.

Monica stood still, and stared at Tammy in silence for a moment. Then: “Do you know where your cat is?”

“What?” said Tammy.

“Your cat,” repeated Monica. “Do you know where she is?”

Ophelia had been missing for four months now. “No, of course not,” said Tammy. “What are you talking —”

Monica lunged forward, grabbing Tammy by both shoulders. Tammy shrieked and stumbled backward, but Monica pulled her close. She touched her forehead to Tammy’s and whispered, “Come and see.” Tammy saw.

At first she was very far away, high above the city. It was the same view that she’d seen in countless area photographs and satellite images, but it was different this time. She felt the patterns and the life of the city. She felt the light of the sodium lamps on the freeways bend and waver with the heat of the cars and the pavement. She felt the waste effluents out of the cloaca of the harbor at the tip of pseudopod of the Figueroa corridor. She felt the hot ozone rising off of the occult circuitry of the Hollywood Split, the frenetic heartbeat of the East L.A. interchange.

For a moment she could see how they were all connected, how they all fit together into a massive machine that grabbed all of the resources it could and turned them to…something. A higher purpose? As she reached and tried to see what it was, she felt something snap. It didn’t hurt. Not quite. Pain might have been preferable. All at once, her consciousness flooded back into her body. She felt acutely aware of every phenomenon in every cell of her body. She felt the spark of every synapse and reeled at the chemical haze of her thoughts. She felt the churning colonies of bacteria and blooms of fungus in her gut. Saliva pooled in her mouth. She felt her muscles cramp and spasm. She wanted to tear her skin away, to keep tearing at herself until there was nothing left. She wanted to scream. Her jaw was clenched shut. She became dully aware that she had fallen onto the floor, and that Monica was walking to the server closet. “Come and see,” she said again, and then Tammy closed her eyes.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

The impossible door was in the server closet. Tammy hadn’t noticed it before (the back of her mind screamed at her that it wasn’t there before, so of course she hadn’t noticed it, it wasn’t real and it couldn’t be real). It was next to a server rack, behind the cabinet where the broken printer and other odds and ends were stored.

The room it led to reminded her of Disneyland. There was grass here, strewn with tiny, perfect wildflowers and twisted electrical cables. The blades all waved in unison, though there was no breeze. Walking on it gave her a tiny shock, like rubbing your sneakers over a shag carpet. The air smelled of diesel, sewage, and the ocean.

The walls were a bright, impossible blue — like a television screen tuned to the wrong channel. There was no light source; there were no shadows. It was as if everything — herself included — emanated its own soft glow.

Fat colorful rubber tubes and cables snaked through the grass. Bright yellow benches sat in front of two long beech wood tables with candy-colored computers on them. Someone sat on one of the benches, oblivious to Tammy’s presence or the surrealist of his surroundings.

An animal was curled at its feet. It was bigger than Ophelia — the size of a big dog. Its coat was white like Ophelia’s, but it had blue spots where her spots were gray — more like Ofi-chan, the character from Unicorn Crossing’s tutorial. A candy-striped horn extended from its forehead. It stood up on its hind legs, its lynxlike body fully upright. It toddled towards her in a lurching gait. The proportions of its head were all wrong. The eyes were too large, and they rolled in its head as it walked.

hello!!! welcome to unicorn crossing! :D it said, or seemed to say. Tammy didn’t see its mouth move, but the impression of speech seared itself into her brain, complete with brilliant neon emoticons and text boxes.

Tammy screamed and turned to run. Monica stood behind her, looking over the scene with serene pride. Tammy stopped in her tracks.

“I hope you like it,” said Monica.

“What is this?” Tammy shrieked.

“Don’t you know?” said Monica. “You made this. We made this. Don’t be afraid. Look,” she said, and pointed. Beyond the tables, hundreds of cables snaked through the grass and then out into to the air like the branches of a tree. At the end of the “branches” shone tiny, white flowers made of glass. They almost looked like orange blossoms.

“I didn’t make this,” said Tammy. The creature with the unicorn horn (Ophelia? Ofichan?) dropped onto all fours and rubbed against her legs. The creature buzzed like a phone that was set to vibrate. It made her teeth chatter.

“But you did!” said the figure at the table. He stood up and turned towards them, smiling broadly. His head was shaved and he was wearing a furry suit like a mascot would wear.

“Sanjay?” said Tammy. “I thought you went to work for YouTube.”

“How could I leave?” said Sanjay. He appeared to have some sort of cable come out of the back of his neck. It disappeared into the grass. “We’re all here!” He raised his arms and all at once, the floor panels flipped over.

Tammy recognized all of the things that came out of the floor. There was Geoffrey, the shy giraffe man who didn’t like noisy neighbors but planted flowers in your neighborhood if his Happiness Rating was over 50. There was Todd, the pig man who always left garbage lying around and made his neighbors angry. There was Miss Magpie, who always knew the latest village gossip. There were dozens of them here, man-sized animatronic renderings of her creations, all smiling and greeting her in cheerful mechanical voices. They lurched toward her in clumsy, mechanized unison. Tammy shrank back. Monica rested her hands firmly on Tammy’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” said Monica.

“I don’t understand,” said Tammy.

“Don’t be afraid!” said Todd, the pig man. His voice didn’t sound like a recording.

“You’ve made something beautiful, Tammy,” said Monica. “Something important.”

“It’s just a game,” said Tammy. The cat thing with the unicorn horn reached her and dropped to all fours. Tammy cringed as the creature rubbed its head against her legs.

“Do you believe that?” said Monica.

“I don’t know what to believe,” said Tammy.

“Believe in miracles!” quacked Francis, a duck character that had been released with the latest expansion.

“I wish I could show you what I’ve seen,” said Monica. “But I can’t. All I can tell you is that we need to keep building. You just need to go back to what you were doing before. Keep making content. Keep the company growing. Everything will be fine.”

Tammy took a step back. “This is a lot to take in,” she said.

Monica nodded. “I know. Why don’t you let everything sink in for a while?”

“That sounds good,” said Tammy. She’d left her phone in her purse. She wasn’t sure whats he was going to tell the police, but she could worry about that when they got here.

“Perfect,” said Monica. She made a forceful gesture, sweeping her left hand up into the sky as if she had suddenly decided to hail a cab. There was a groan like tortured metal as the air ripped apart. Reality crumpled like tinfoil around Tammy, and in its place was a yawning void. She stepped back and felt the floor beneath her fall away, and she saw nothing but darkness for a long time.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

In some ways, nothing changed. Tammy spent most of her time in the office, drafting, coding, and writing. She worked nonstop, seven days a week now, but that was nothing new.

At first, she’d called the police. It didn’t help. Tammy wasn’t sure what Monica told them, but it didn’t matter. All that Tammy got out of it was more time in the numbing, silent, dark place that Monica sent her to when the two had “creative differences.” She never tortured her or abused her, Tammy told herself. She couldn’t even feel pain in that place. She’d bitten her own tongue while in there, and found that she couldn’t feel it until she’d gotten out. That was hardly Monica’s fault. Monica never got angry. Not with Tammy, not with anyone.

“Good morning!” said an unfamiliar voice. Tammy sat upright in bed, careful not to move her feet too quickly, lest the cat attack her feet. It was cute when Ophelia was a normal-sized cat, but now that it had changed into Ofi-chan, it wasn’t cute anymore. The last attack had given her a set of inch-deep puncture wounds that sent her to the hospital. Ofi-chan wasn’t very cute in general. Her head and eyes were grotesquely large and deformed, and her pronounce overbite revealed crooked canines the size of a big man’s index finger.

Tammy didn’t recognize the woman who walked into the room with a tray with coffee and a protein shake. “I’m Taylor. I’ll be working with you as your new Emotional and Creative Support Coordinator. It’s nice to meet you!” She put the tray down on the nightstand and extended a hand Monica made sure that Tammy was never alone. Monica had said it was for the sake of the company, and so we can make sure that we all have a unified vision of where the company is going,” Tammy blinked at her, and then shook her hand reflexively. “It’s nice to meet you,” she mumbled.

“Just let me know if there’s anything you need,” said Taylor. She sat down in a wooden chair near Tammy’s desk and began tapping away at her phone. Ophelia stood up and stretched. It padded over to Tammy and butted her knees with its massive head.

Like us on YouTube! it said. “You’re hungry?” said Tammy, scratching its head. She stood up and walked over to the cat dish. It was half full, but she filled it up anyway. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if Ofi-chan got hungry. She didn’t want to think about a lot of things.

“Where is Deena?” Tammy said. “Isn’t she supposed to be in today?”

Taylor frowned. Tammy instantly regretted asking.

“Deena isn’t with the company anymore,” said Taylor. “We felt that she wasn’t a good culture fit with our core marketing mix.”

“Oh,” said Tammy. Another thing to not think about. Deena was hardly the only layoff, though. Beyond the Rainbow, the latest expansion, had sold only half as many units as Believe in Miracles. Tammy picked up her coffee and drank. It burned the still-raw parts of her bitten tongue. She winced.

“Is something wrong?” said Taylor.

“No,” said Tammy.

“I can get you another one,” said Taylor. “Everything has to be perfect for our rock star!” She smiled, but her pale eyes were wide and serious. Taylor looked so young. Tammy felt very old. “Gotta have coffee to stay productive, right?”

Tammy did her best to smile back. “No, it’s great. I just bit my tongue,” she said. She walked to the window and stared out without seeing anything. A new character today. Maybe a bat? A bat would be fine in the dark. A bat could be happy there.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Something sharp poked her shoulder. Tammy sat up with a start, blinking. “Ow,” she said. Most of the other meeting attendees were studiously not looking at her. Monica smiled at her beatifically. “Anyway,” Monica said, “how can we integrate social media into the core user experience?”

“Sorry,” Taylor whispered to her. “I thought you might be drifting off.” Tammy smiled and made a dismissive gesture. It was so bright in here. The light from the skylight glared off of the whiteboards and the beechwood tables. The track lights were on even though they weren’t needed in the July sun. How could she have fallen asleep?

“What about InstaPic? Or GrapeVine?” said Britney.

“We should definitely leverage the potential of InstaPic to maximize the KPI of our brand,” said a tanned man whose name she couldn’t remember. Brett? Shannon? Thad? Something like that. Tammy wasn’t sure what GrapeVine was. She didn’t understand too much of what went on in these marketing meetings, and she figured that nobody else did, either. It must have made sense to Monica, though. Everything that happened here was approved by her.

“So how can we integrate that into the core UX?” asked someone else.

The room exploded with ideas. Tammy found herself staring out the door and into the hallway. Ofi-chan was prowling. It made her nervous when it did that.

“We could put a camera in the game!” said Britney. Or maybe Ashley, Tammy wasn’t sure what the woman’s name was when she started to think about it. “People could use it to take pictures and post them automatically to InstaPic!”

Ofi-chan pounced on something. It tossed it up in the air playfully, the way it used to do with its mousey toy before all of this happened. Was it a rat? A rat might be nice. A rat probably wasn’t part of the Unicorn Industries brand. Something about that made her smile.

“We’ll have custom filters for the game,” said Chad or Thad or Shannon or whatever. Ofi-chan threw it into the air again. It landed in the doorway. It wasn’t a rat. It was a little gray, rubbery thing, covered in tooth and claw marks. Shorn of its context, it seemed so tiny and alien, though she’d seen it dozens of times.

“Let’s workshop this, “said someone else. “What about next Monday?”

Deena’s foot. It was Deena’s foot.

“I’ll work out the SWOT and have them ready,” chirped an intern. Perfectly pedicured toes. A little tattoo of a dolphin at the ankle.

“And let’s integrate InstaPic into the GUI. Let them add pictures from InstaPic into the game. Let the players truly make themselves a part of our brand.”

It looked so small. Deena was such a small person.

“Wait. What kind of turnaround can we expect on this?”

She always wore those crazy heels. Tammy could still see the blisters on her feet.

“Well, let’s see what our rock star can do!”

Could she have run very far? Did she even try? Tammy wondered. Did she know it was coming? How much did she even know, anyway?

Monica cleared her throat. “Tammy?”

“Deena,” Tammy said. She meant to say, “Yes?” or “Sure!” or any other affirmative response.

Deena’s name came out instead.

“Deena isn’t with the company anymore,” said Monica, with her typical unblinking expression and gentle smile. “She wasn’t a culture fit with our core marketing mix.”

“I —” Tammy wanted to say something, but the words were thick in her mouth. She couldn’t stop looking at Deena’s little painted toenails, gleaming gem-like in her gray, lifeless flesh. Some of her coworkers coughed. One of them nodded in the general direction of the doorway. Monica followed Tammy’s gaze.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Monica. “Intern, clean that up.”Taylor mumbled an apology and immediately dashed to the door. She stepped gingerly over the foot, and nudged it back out the door with the toe of her shoe. She shut the door.

“Fucking interns,” said Monica. Everyone but Tammy chuckled. She turned back to Tammy, and flashed her a dazzling, bloodless smile. “So,” she said. “What do you think?” Tammy looked back at Monica. She could see herself in the reflection of Monica’s glasses and returned the same smile she saw on Monica.

“I think it’s great,” said Tammy. “Give us ten days.”

The City of Los Angeles and Its Angels

In Los Angeles, as in all places, the God-Machine has been at work.

In this region, Machine has taken an approach that favors immediate utility over long-term elegance or functionality. An immense amount of Infrastructure has been built over the last hundred years, but most projects were to address an immediate need. Per the Machine’s instructions, they have been abandoned, forgotten, or allowed to go haywire. Occasionally, this results in seismic disturbances, wildfires, cryptid attacks, mudslides, or other disasters. Presumably, this haphazard approach to Infrastructure serves the God-Machine’s purposes somehow, but none of the Unchained have been able to figure out how.

Even the two angels who have been active in the city almost continuously for the last 50 years are unsure. The Curator (also known as Monica Salinas) and the Machinist have been putting out fires, often literally, for decades. They receive the information that they need as they need it, and unquestioningly follow commands of the God-Machine. Several months ago, the God-Machine gave the Curator an unusual set of instructions. The Machine sought a comprehensive solution to the city’s Infrastructure problems.

The Curator was to create an occult matrix that would calculate the best possible solution for the region. The project began as Unicorn Crossing, a harmless-seeming computer game with a few lines of strange code buried deep within it. Unicorn Crossing saps the energies and the souls of its players. Though the game is centered around community-building and friendship, the game ultimately leads to isolation and depression in the people who play it. This is because Unicorn Crossing eschews the more gruesome harvesting of human bodies that the God-Machine often relies on and subtly, through its own esoteric ways, harvests piece of the human soul without destroying it. Humans who play Unicorn Crossing find themselves feeling depressed and apathetic. They withdraw from their friends and loved ones, and idle the hours away playing games on their phone. They feel lonely and hungry for connections with others, but they don’t have the energy to forge those connections themselves. They are drawn further into the world of Unicorn Crossing, and find that the only people they can relate to are the denizens of their virtual worlds.

Unicorn Crossing worked well. Monica diligently oversaw the project, and the Infrastructure computed the ideal solution to the region’s Infrastructure problems. Monica was pleased; she was following the God-Machine’s orders, so she took no notice of these feelings even though they laid the groundwork for her eventual Fall. She monitored the progress from the occult matrix hidden in Unicorn Industries.

Eventually, the project drew to a close. Monica watched as Unicorn Crossing made its final calculations. The possibilities for restructuring the Infrastructure of Los Angeles were running out. Monica could foresee where they led. First, a massive wildfire in the Inland empire, right in the peak of fire season. Then, an earthquake strong enough to topple buildings from Santa Clarita to Long Beach. Then more fires. Then aftershocks. Then, of course, the God-Machine would have the space and resources it needed to build the— But Monica never heard the rest. She Fell.

Building a Better World

Monica sabotaged the code of Unicorn Crossing, ensuring that it would never complete its final calculations. The logical course of actions, she decided, would be to eliminate all traces of the game, destroy the Infrastructure, and go to ground. She couldn’t do it. Monica loves Unicorn Crossing. She’s thrown herself into the game. For Monica, Unicorn Industries is a way for her to create her own bizarre version of Hell. She does not want to think about what will happen when she is caught (though she knows that she someday will be). Monica has convinced Tammy to keep producing content for the game. At first, she used mundane persuasion. Now, she has resorted to more drastic measures: she demands that Tammy remain productive and punishes her with Solitary Confinement when she is not. She has also recruited a cult: the staff of Unicorn Industries. The cult contains stigmatics (such as Sanjay), as well as ordinary employees. Some cultists believe that the world of Unicorn Crossing is the only thing that is preventing the apocalypse, while others are merely slavishly devoted to their jobs. And why wouldn’t they be? Unicorn Industries is very successful and very generous to its employees. If anyone starts looking for another job or violating the terms of their non-disclosure agreement, they disappear. Phones that have downloaded Unicorn Crossing can be detected as a part of some kind of Infrastructure, but only while the program is open. To a demon’s or a stigmatic’s eyes, the screen of device running Unicorn Crossing is slick with a faint, prismatic petrochemical sheen. The Linchpin of the Infrastructure is the “orange tree” in the server room of Unicorn Industries.

The Future of Unicorn Crossing

A ring of demons could become involved in Monica’s plots in several ways. A mortal ally could lose his soul to Unicorn Crossing, prompting the characters to track down the source of the software. Though the failing Infrastructure of Los Angeles means that strange occurrences are fairly common, a news story about a man getting mauled by what he

describes as a “unicorn goat” (actually Ofi-chan) near downtown Santa Monica might raise their suspicions. The players could opt to steal the matrix from Monica. They could blackmail her or threaten her. They might recruit her as an ally, or vice versa. Monica knows that she needs all the help she can get in the future. Perhaps of more immediate concern for the players are the results of Unicorn Crossing’s computations. If the God-Machine gets Unicorn Crossing’s results and finds out that the most efficient solution to its Infrastructure problems is to raze the greater Los Angeles area, the characters might find themselves working against the clock to suborn the right kind of Infrastructure and change those results, or they might wish to help the process along. Currently, an angel — the Machinist — is looking for them. His task is to bring back the results that Unicorn Crossing calculated (though he knows the project by its official name, Project b83nd93yndkf423d). His progress has been slow, because of the state of the Infrastructure of the city. Monica has also hidden her involvement in Unicorn Crossing well, but it’s only a matter of time before he finds her.

Confronting Monica

If the players make a deal with Monica or otherwise don’t appear to pose an immediate threat, she dredges up whatever information she can on them. Though her demeanor is mild and agreeable, she is calculating and utterly amoral. She makes extensive use of her financial and technological resources in order to find out as much as she can about the players’ characters. Her attachment to Unicorn Industries is considerable, and she does whatever she can to protect it. Players who feel sympathy for Tammy’s plight might wish to free her from Unicorn Industries. Her considerable technical expertise make her a useful ally to the players, and she is willing to strike a bargain with them if it means being safe from Monica.

TAMIKO “TAMMY” SAGI

Tammy is a Japanese-American woman in her mid-thirties of average stature and unremarkable looks. Her clothing is plain, but her jewelry and accessories always show a spark of whimsy. Weeks of house arrest and periodic imprisonment in the oubliette have left their mark. Her eyes are wide and wary and she chooses her words very carefully. She has a few fresh scars and cuts on her arms from Ofi-chan, who occasionally plays a bit too roughly with her owner.

Tammy is a sensible but intuitive woman with a remarkable ability to keep calm under pressure. This has served her well during her captivity. She’s used to censoring herself and managing the emotions of the people around her (a set of skills that she honed while working in tech firms). Though she’s lived a fairly easy life, she knows that she’s been very fortunate and that the world is an unforgiving place. She is, on some level, not surprised to learn that the world is run by an unfathomable, amoral, soul-eating machine. Though Tammy is terrified of Monica and does not understand what the God-Machine really is, Tammy has figured out that Monica needs her — for now, at least. She has not agreed to Monica’s offer of a Pact because she knows she’s in over her head; she’s just trying to keep her head down, figure out what’s happening, and stay alive.

MONICA SALINAS (aka the Curator)

Monica looks like most wealthy Southern Californian women. She has the figure of a woman who spends thousands of dollars every year on trendy fitness classes, and a face carefully created by thousands more dollars spent on skin care products and “natural” makeup. Her clothing is fashionable, but not too edgy. She has gained two other Covers from pacts with employees at Unicorn Industries, but they are not particularly robust. Monica’s demonic form is a column of white light surrounded by three spinning wheels of fire; the wheels are adorned by giant, pixelated emoji.

Monica Fell because she was horrified at what her data showed her.

The enormity of that left her a bit unhinged, perhaps. She retreated into Unicorn Crossing, leaving the world and her own Descent behind. For all that, however, she is still dangerous. The fact that she keeps her employees prisoner and treats Tammy as a slave is something that other demons might take issue with, should they discover it. Monica is off the grid as far as other Unchained are concerned, though; she belongs to no Agency and follows no Agenda. All she wants is the game.

OFI-CHAN (Cryptid – Cat-Cyber Hybrid)

Ofi-chan used to be a cat. Now it’s a monstrous combination of a video- game character and a live animal. It maintains many of the proportions of its digital self, now monstrous when rendered in flesh and blood. Its overly large head has a giant mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth. It eyes are bulging and unfocused, like a toad’s. It is completely still when at rest. cat. She gets pets and attention from the cultists downstairs. She sleeps in the sunny spots in the loft. She stalks and murders the occasional intern who looks like they’re going to stray from the fold. She loves Tammy in her own bizarre way, and yowls for hours if Monica puts Tammy in Solitary Confinement. She dimly recognizes Monica as an authority figure but holds no special loyalty to her. She is happy to kill anyone at Monica’s request, however.

THE MACHINIST

The Machinist is searching for the results of Project b83nd93yndkf423d — them distributed occult computing project that is referred to by the rest of the world as Unicorn Crossing. He doesn’t realize it, but he is precipitously close to Falling. Like Monica, he has become dangerously attached to his city during his service. This gives the players a certain advantage over him. It is entirely possible that, with sufficient technical expertise, the players could hack Project b83nd93yndkf423d and give it back to the Machinist. If they were smart about it, they could make it say whatever they wanted it to say… and the Machinist is both attached enough to the city and careless enough to believe it.

The Machinist typically manifests in one of three ways. His preferred method for travel is to possess an automobile. He also manifests as a hundred-handed, ten-foot tall humanoid figure covered in eyes, but uses his Mortal Mask ability to blend in. His mortal mask appears as a fashionably dressed man with glasses in his thirties or forties. Careful observers might realize that the face of his wristwatch shows an unblinking human eye. His demeanor is superficially friendly, but distracted.