Avalon's Reign: a cyberpunk tale is a cyberpunk tale written by Seann Barbour. It can be read here
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The year is 2049 and Prifleden is the drug of choice, the only drug to give you the maximum amount of pleasure for the least amount of money. Maxwell Kant is a police officer with a newly installed pair of OSIs (advanced eyes that allow him a sort of super-HUD) and a sister running for political office on an unpopular platform. That platform, of reforming both the prison system and the education system, does not fly well with the corrupt executive Sullivan, which arranges the murder of Maxwell's sister.
Something else is going on, too. There's something wrong with the game Search for Avalon. And people are having the same dream, a dream of a junkie getting hit by a car. A junkie taking Prifleden...
Avalon's Reign' provides examples of:
- Augmented Reality: What the OSI gives Maxwell - the chief mentions that it provides facial recognition software.
- Brain/Computer Interface: The OSIs seem to have a limited ability to interface with people's brains.
- Bread and Circuses: Purgers are a subculture that eschews mind-altering chemicals because they see them as a way for the corporations to keep people pacified. Whether they're correct or just paranoid (or both) is yet to be seen.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Tim Sullivan.
- His subordinate, Dirk Chambers, also qualifies.
- Cold Open: The first post features none of the cast, and it isn't for a few posts that its revealed that the beginning was actually a dream shared by a number of people
- Cyberpunk: Of course.
- Cyborg: cybernetic implants such as OSIs are commercially available, and institutions like police departments even pay to augment their workers.
- Driven to Suicide: The woman who narrates "bvision_02"
- Electronic Eyes: The Ocular Screen Implants (OSIs)
- Fantastic Drug: Prifleden, non-addictive and completely safe...or so they say.
- MegaCorp: Played with. While a single MegaCorp doesn't exist, Heather points out during a conversation with her brother that a number of seemingly different corporations are, in fact, tied together in some way.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: For some reason, a lot of people are having the exact same dream. Including Maxwell.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: It is, after all, a cyberpunk tale.
- Working for a Body Upgrade: The police department paid for Max's OSIs, as well as for a number of other employees'. However, only people who actually work out on the streets, like detectives and officers, actually get the implants. Desk workers like Nolan are determined not to need them (since the procedure is expensive).
