THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED [S!1][ROUND THREE: PORT CERIDWEN]

THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED [S!1][ROUND THREE: PORT CERIDWEN]
#69
Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND]
Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

“You really expect me to call you Mister O?” She had said her name was Saint. At the moment she was perched upon the countertop in the kitchen. She’d removed the bandana that had previously been covering her mouth, to reveal a stud in her lip in addition to the other piercings she sported. She said the bandana was to block any stray globs of blood that might come flying her way during a zombie fracas. Her crossbow lay on the table next to her and in her hands a cup of tea. She fished in a pocket, produced a flask and poured a little of its contents into the drink. “This is genuinely what other people call you?”

“Yes.” Mister O replied. It was too late in the day for her to risk heading back to her camp now. She said she’d sleep here tonight and go get the others in the morning. This suited him just fine.

“Bullshit.” Saint retorted. “I’m not calling you Mister anything. What’s your real name? Oliver…?” she had to think for a minute before she could come up with any other names beginning with O, “Owen?”

“Yeah you got me.” Mister O said with a frown. “My name is Owen, mystery solved.”

“Hah, yeah right.” Saint replied gulping down her hot tea. “No, really Mystery Man. What’s your real name?” she paused thoughtfully “Is it Oswald? I could totally understand not wanting to admit that.” Mister O declined to respond and the pair lapsed into an awkward silence. “Okay, fine.” Saint said, sliding from the countertop. “If you don’t want to say then I guess it is none of my business. I have a better question for you anyway.” She walked past the hotelier and the miraculously working television and through the door into the dining room/living area. Mister O followed her with a certain weariness that suggested perhaps he would have been happier had Saint headed back to collect the other survivors.

“So, ‘Owen’,” Saint shot Mister O a sly smile, “what was up with that guy?” She knelt down beside the bed where Sara had been sleeping when she had arrived and pushed over one of the empty bottles that Darren had left next to it. She turned back to Mister O. “This isn’t another sore subject is it?” she asked.

“No.” Mister O replied hesitantly. “There was something wrong with Darren’s girlfriend. I was prepared to take whatever steps were necessary to eliminate the problem but he was not.”

“Oh.” Saint said. “Oh right I see. Zombies are a fucking pain, right?” she paused. “Should have never let him get attached to her. Blow her brains out soon as she got bit, he probably won’t appreciate it all that much at the time but later on when he’s still alive thanks to you I’m pretty sure he’d see you were doing what was for the best, right?”

“It wasn’t exactly like that.” Mister O mused. “But it’s close enough.” Saint straightened up and walked back over to where Mister O stood near the doorway.

“What is your story Mystery Man?” she asked. “And don’t give me that Owen bullshit. I think you have an interesting story to tell me.”

“I’m just a simple hotelier thrust into a difficult situation.” Mister O said innocently.

“Yeah, well we’ll see won’t we?” Saint asked with a smile.


--------

It all happened very quickly. One minute Maria had been strolling through the clanking steel corridors of the ESS Pyreness with Kriok and Freefall following her like a pair of sullen teenagers, the next she was sprawled out on the pavement. The preceding minute or so had rushed past so quickly she could scarcely comprehend it. She attempted to climb to her feet, an act that took a couple of goes and help from Juliet, the robot spider woman who had pulled them from the Pyreness, before she managed to do so. Even then she felt awkward and unsteady and had to reach out and rest an arm on Kriok’s shoulder for balance. They were on a street corner of a seemingly empty city. Behind them the shattered remains of an electronics store where a couple of televisions still functioned; they were bulky things with rabbit ear antennae. Dark shapes moved through the striking red sunset sky; zeppelins emblazoned with the © logo and massive searchlights shining down onto the city below them. Maria glanced from Kriok to Juliet to notice she was the focus of their attention and their furrowed brows.

“What?” she asked, withdrawing her arm from Kriok’s shoulder in case this had been some kind of breach of nerrin etiquette. Kriok looked at her as if the reason for her dumbfoundedness ought to be self evident, but when it was clear that it was not she spat it out.


“You’re a robot spider woman now?” she asked. Saying it out loud she felt kind of silly, it really was self evident, yet Maria didn’t seem to have noticed. The receptionist frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maria asked. It was at this point that Juliet who had also been confused by this development, turned her attention elsewhere, to the zeppelins moving overhead.

“Yo girls,” Juliet interjected, “really think you should save this for laters. Stand out here much longer we’re gonna have to throw down with the pigs.”

“…What.” Kriok said. It was not really a question, Juliet was already out of earshot scuttling away down the street, sticking as close to the walls as possible. Kriok started after her and paused when she heard the sound of a large pile of metal crashing to the ground.

“Ouch.” Maria said from where she lay sprawled out across the road. “Umm… a little help?”


Kriok hesitated for a second, and then darted back to Maria’s side and helped her up. The most confusing thing about her transformation, Kriok reflected as they hurried after Juliet, was not the transformation itself; Kriok had encountered plenty of ridiculous things since her abduction. It was the blasé, ‘it’s not even really a thing’ attitude that Maria seemed to have about it. Okay she thought, fine, whatever. If you don’t have a problem with bizarre transformations then what do I care?

They caught up with Juliet as she was prying open a manhole, and one by one they climbed down into the absurdly spacious and remarkably clean sewer below. Maria had a tough time of it and made more than a couple of comments about ‘how strange it was she was having trouble with her legs and she had no idea why’. A grated over and far too narrow channel of sewage ran through the middle of the tunnel. It didn’t even smell down here, not that the pair of mechanical arachnids would have noticed anyway.

“I would like an explanation to precisely what is going on here.” Kriok said as they made their way through the sewer tunnels. Her manner was straightforward, matter of fact; a simple and quite reasonable request to be filled in on what exactly was going on.

“Chill out girl.” Juliet replied. “When we get to the HQ Master Fragment will give you the DL on all this whole crazy thing.”

“Master Fragment?” Maria asked.

“He’s the dude who built us.” Juliet said, shooting Maria, or perhaps more specifically, Maria’s new shape, an apprehensive gaze. The rest of the journey, five or ten minutes of trudging through seemingly identical tunnels, was conducted in as near silence as makes no odds. Eventually the sound of muted conversation drifted down the tunnels and up ahead they could see the shape of a barricade, manned by another spider woman who gave Maria a strange look as they passed through. Beyond the barricade an effort had been made to make the tunnel look more homey; garishly coloured leather furniture, chintzy lamps and a tacky plastic dining table upon which there was a pizza box containing a couple of slices of steaming hot pizza and an entire stack of empty boxes.

The room was rather surprisingly busy, not at all suiting whatever expectations Kriok or Maria might have had for the place. People stood in small groups around the room chatting amongst themselves, and besides Maria, Juliet and the one who was guarding the barricade there were no more spider women. Each individual group tended to look like they belonged together; they were dressed similarly, of the same species in non-human cases, or had the same animation style/lack of animation. Sat upon the couch smoking a cigar and looking generally unsatisfied with his lot in life was a bulky businessman in a purple suit. Where his face ought to have been there was a bulbous wisteria jellyfish hood. When he noticed Maria looking his way he sneered and shifted his body, as though he had suddenly found something very interesting to look at on the opposite wall. Sat next to him was an old man, a cyborg with long grey hair, a little wispy beard and a kimono. He clapped him on the shoulder and then stood at Juliet’s approach.


“Master Fragment,” Juliet said, “these people are from the channel that is under attack.” The cyborg looked Maria and Kriok up and down, frowned for a moment and then shrugged.

“Greetings.” He said; his voice was low and raspy. “Pardon my rudeness, I had not realised the channel you were from was so alike to our own. I am Master Fragment, but you can just call me Fragment. You have already met Juliet and Cleopatra,” he indicated the spider lady guarding the entrance, “the man with the head of a jellyfish is Patrick Passendale, and the rest of them I find it difficult to remember all of their names.”

“I’m Maria and this is Kriok.” She made the introductions for both of them as Kriok frowned impatiently. “We aren’t from that channel actually.”

“Regardless, you are part of this conflict now.” Fragment replied. “You have seen what the ‘Copyright Police’ are capable of in their petty desire to quash a person’s creative freedoms. Those who are not one hundred percent original will find their world torn to pieces by them for a supposed crime inherent in how they were created. You see Passendale over there? At one point our only purpose in this world was to battle his forces on a weekly basis, putting an end to whatever his latest insane scheme might have been. Then we both learned about the forces of the copyright police and our history was put aside. I am sure that if he believed he could negotiate a deal with those heartless swine he would do so, but as he cannot we work together.”

“Doing what exactly?” Kriok asked.

“Evacuating those under assault by the copyright police.” Fragment said simply. “Providing a safe haven in which those persecuted do not need to fear their wrath.”

“This does not seem very safe.” Kriok replied. “I saw copyright zeppelins searching the city above.”

“Safety is relative.” He replied. “Our channel is ‘legally different’. They cannot take such drastic action as they would against other channels, and as long as we are fighting against ‘the man’ we are safe from the static.”

Kriok looked thoughtful for a moment. This channel, featuring mechanical spiders who communicated solely in some bizarre alternate vernacular, strangely seemed to be about the most sensible place she had been so far; nobody seemed to have any expectations of her and she was not being constantly taunted by static apparitions. “Fine,” she said, “good luck with that.” Kriok looked ready to make her excuses and head off for a little alone time, when Juliet piped up:

“Master Fragment,” there was a sudden edge of urgency in her voice, “the situ in Galaxy Guardians… it’s pretty damn brutal. It’s like a freakin’ bacon factory, we just can’t deal.”

Fragment stroked his beard thoughtfully and with a solemn air to his voice he asked: “Can either of you hold your own in a fight?”

“I’ve never really been in a fight…” Maria said thoughtfully. Though she did not vocalise the thought, the way she trailed off made it clear she thought Kriok could handle herself. Fragment pounced upon this implication before Kriok could refute it.

“Thank you.” He said. “I hate to have to ask such a question, but these are desperate times; we are fighting a war we have no hope of winning, one in which we are fighting to survive. Every competent fighter is a precious resource, one we cannot afford to squander.”

--------

The hospital receptionist was a massively overweight woman with scraggly black hair and an enormous wart upon the bridge of her nose. She was the kind of character designed only to make things difficult for the protagonists, to be overly rude and obnoxious in order to provoke an ever more frustrated (and hilarious) reaction from the protagonists. Darren was almost immediately aware of this from the way she sat; her feet up on the hospital desk, her face buried in a tabloid newspaper, but even with the information that she was a roadblock designed to raise his hackles he could not help but get angry. She infuriatingly ignored Darren’s attempts to get her attention, eventually culminating in him shoving her feet from their resting place, at which point it became apparent she could no longer ignore him.

“What is it?” Her voice was a masterclass in condescension.

“My friend,” Darren pointed to the chair in which he had rested the unconscious body of Sara, “has been unconscious for an entire week. I’m really worried about her.” This was met with a stony glare and an uncomfortable silence. After a good half a minute with no response whatsoever, the receptionist shoved a sheaf of forms and a pen across the desk, grunted, and returned to her newspaper. “Excuse me.” Darren’s attempt to get the woman’s attention fell upon deaf ears. He was almost at the point of vaulting the desk and throttling her till she acknowledged his existence when she spoke to him again.

“Fill in the forms sir.” she said rather pointedly. Darren gave in. He snatched up the forms and the pen (which was leaking and quickly covered his hand in ink) and stamped back across the lobby to where Sara still slept. He was in the process of filling in the incredibly in-depth form when the automatic doors slid open. In strode a mechanical man carrying a child cradled in one arm and hauling a jet black humanoid by the wrist with its other. A trail of rainbow paints splattered across the floor where Tschichold’s feet scrabbled for purchase against the clockwork knight.


“Let go of me!” He demanded. “This hospital is hideous. I need to fix it!”

The shouts made Darren look up from the forms, where he was presently filling in Sara’s favourite colour; blue. He recognised the pair immediately. In his panic to try to save Sara he’d almost forgotten that he was in a battle, the fact had just at some point became irrelevant. Seeing them again brought it into sharp focus. These two would probably not hesitate to kill him, and not just him, Sara as well. As much as he would have liked to stand up to either of them and protect Sara, he reckoned it was probably a much more realistic option to get the hell out of there. As he got to his feet he glanced around at an apathetic waiting room filled with patients who were not even acknowledging the existence of the knight or the painter. It took him a moment to realise that they were not people so to speak, they were hazy and indistinct; they were just extras.

“Excuse Me.” Alaster tried to attract the attention of the obnoxious receptionist as Tschichold huffily smeared the armour with bright orange paint. “Hello? Excuse Me…” It stooped to read her name tag, “Jacqueline.” Alaster reached over the desk, grasped the newspaper from Jacqueline’s hands and ripped it away. She was left holding a collection of torn strips of paper and wearing a quite different expression from the one she had with Darren. Alaster had very clearly gotten her attention. “Ah. Hello There Jacqueline. My Son Requires Urgent Medical Attention. He Inhaled Fumes From This Individual.” Alaster shook Tschichold and dragged him in front of the desk as if presenting him for the receptionist’s consideration.

There was a long moment of silence, even Tschichold stopped demanding his release to stare at the receptionist, his face screwed up in distaste. Paint dripped from his free hand which he held up in between him and Jacqueline.
Purple. Red. Blue. Orange. Yellow. Pink. He cycled through colour after colour before eventually letting his hand drop having concluded there was likely no colour that could be applied to this woman to make her aesthetically pleasing. “Oh god!” He yelped. “You are hideous!” With that the spell was broken. Jacqueline shoved a sheaf of forms and a pen across the table, grunted and returned her attention to the strips of torn paper, desperate not to really acknowledge what was going on.

Alaster released Tschichold, who no longer being anchored by the weight of the guardian, stumbled and slammed into one of the large glass windows, leaving behind goopy blue handprints. Tschichold peeled himself from the window, wheeled around upon Alaster, raised a chiding finger and said:
“YOU… are not a very nice person!” That being said he spun upon his heel and strode back outside to where he had been repainting a particularly unsightly mural before Alaster had dragged him in here.

Alaster grabbed the sheaf of forms with its free hand and lifted them to its face. He scanned a couple of lines and then tossed it unceremoniously over its shoulder.
“My Son Requires Urgent Medical Attention Now.” It announced. “Hello? Jacqueline?” Alaster reached over, grabbed the receptionist by the collar and lifted her into the air. “Perhaps I Did Not Make Myself Clear. My Son Requires Urgent Medical Attention.”

Darren was stood staring at the spectacle that was unfolding before him. Sara had at Darren’s clumsy inattentive manipulations, slipped from the uncomfortable hospital chair. He couldn’t help but notice that while Alaster and Tschichold were not exactly getting along they were hardly behaving like enemies. Perhaps, he reflected, some kind of understanding had been reached. Darren figured if he was forced to be here and he didn’t want to kill the others maybe at least a couple of them felt the same. Plus they wanted to kill the inn, whatever that meant, and he was not in the inn. If he had his way he wouldn’t even be returning there. It couldn’t hurt could it? Darren bent down and lifted Sara from where she lay sprawled half in and half out of the plastic hospital seat.

“Okay.” Jacqueline croaked. “Fumes wasn’t it? Let me call a doctor.” Her arms flailed for the intercom on her desk but could not reach. “If you could just put me down…” Alaster reluctantly lowered the receptionist to her feet and she quickly snatched up the intercom and requested that a doctor head down to the accident and emergency waiting room rather urgently. Jacqueline gasped for breath now freed from the guardian’s grip. “If…” she coughed, “If you could get the other guy that would probably be a good idea.” Alaster turned and strode back out of the automatic doors after Tschichold, leaving Jacqueline to notice Darren and Sara. He’d approached the desk while Alaster was still menacing Jacqueline but hadn’t really felt the need to draw their attentions at that point.

“Hello.” Darren said brightly. “I was wondering if you could get someone to take a look at Sara here.” Jacqueline scowled at him briefly and then Alaster was dragging Tschichold back through the door.


“Noooooooo!” He cried. “I was almost done! It was almost perfect!” Alaster ignored him, its attention now focused on Darren.

“Are You The Doctor?” It asked. “My Son Requires Urgent Medical Attention.”

“No,” said Darren, “The name’s Darren. I’m with the Inn, or I was with the Inn. We’re both stuck in this battle to the death. I thought we could come to some agreement to help one another.”

“At The Moment The Priority Is To Find Medical Attention For Timothy.” Alaster replied as if this dismissed all matters that did not relate to Timothy seeing a doctor.

“Yeah that’s what I mean.” Darren insisted. “My friend Sara needs help as well, but this woman is being very difficult.” There was a pause as Alaster looked down at Darren and Sara.


“Fine.” It replied eventually, it turned and addressed Jacqueline. “Help This Man As Well.” Jacqueline was already reaching for the intercom. She requested another doctor, and then as an afterthought she requested any doctor that was around but not really busy doing anything to get themselves down to the accident and emergency waiting room.

“What exactly are we talking about here?” The receptionist asked. “Did she trip and bang her head or what?”

“Well…” Darren was not sure how to start this sentence. “There was all this static, like it was consuming everything and she was just stood there staring into it, and then she collapsed and she hasn’t woken up since.” Jacqueline’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. She was suddenly reaching for a telephone and dialling 5-5-5.

“We’ve got a potential static infection.” She said. “The hospital in Stoner Comedy. Come quickly, she’s been infected for about a week.” Without so much as a glance at Alaster or Darren Jacqueline was suddenly vaulting her desk and dashing through the exit to the hospital. The sound of murmuring filled the reception and suddenly even the extras were fleeing for their lives; an indistinct crowd of people you’d be unable to identify if you saw them again were all but trampling one another in their urgency to leave. In the distance there was the squeal of alarms getting closer. Alaster glowered at Darren.


“What Have You Done?” It asked.

--------

Dusk eventually fell upon the Traveller’s Rest. At some point the bulb had burnt out in the dining room and so Mister O had gone on the hunt for some candles, eventually locating an entire box full of them underneath the sink. Saint had took the initiative and made a meal for the both of them. Mister O had not been hungry and had said as much. Saint hadn’t seemed terribly insulted; in fact Mister O was beginning to doubt that she could be insulted. He’d attempted to be off-putting in the hope that she’d stop asking awkward questions but it seems the evasiveness had only made her more enthusiastic.

Mister O was stood in the kitchen flicking through the channels hoping to find some trace of Sara. He’d tried to shrug her off when she’d physically left the inn. He couldn’t do so entirely though, one little fact kept nagging at him, the fact that she was not exactly a physical problem. He gave each channel a cursory glance; after all there was no guarantee that she would be a main character in whatever channel she and Darren ended up in; she could just be in the background. But then by the same token of logic she might not appear on camera at all. He knew that trying to locate her like this was a futile endeavour. He needed some time to himself. Something he didn’t get.

Saint had tided up the dining room, or at the very least she had taken all the crap and shoved it somewhere where in the half light of the beautifully arranged candles he could not see it. There she lay on the mattress in the centre of the room, wearing one of the Traveller’s Rest maid uniforms and a wide smile. When asked exactly what she was doing she’d told him she thought he should loosen up. That they were the only people that were not dead for miles around, that this world was slowly dying and it would not be all that long before she was dead and he was dead and the whole damn world was dead. But she’d said they were alive tonight and they should make the best of it, have a little fun while there was still fun left to be had in the world. She’d guessed that he didn’t exactly indulge himself a lot.

He’d made his excuses and gotten out of there.

Saint tossed and turned on the uncomfortable mattress. The Mysterious Mister O had been pretty clear; he was not interested. He didn’t care for the idea of a night of passion, no matter how it was dressed up. Part of her would have liked to believe that he was just not a passionate person, but such thoughts were wishful thinking. She knew she was not to everyone’s tastes and she didn’t let it bother her. It was not like the rejection was keeping her awake; the too thin mattress upon the hard wood floor was taking care of that all on its own. ‘Owen’ had gone off to keep a look out, take first shift so to speak while she got some shut-eye, but this was not working.

Saint walked barefoot through the ground floor of the hotel, peering her head into each of the darkened empty rooms in her search for the Mystery Man. True to her expectations she could not find him anywhere. She opted to leave a note in the kitchen, scribbled down upon the first scrap of paper she could find. She went out into the lobby and up the stairs to the first floor. The hallway light flickered intermittently as the old bulb threatened to die on her. The ever present sound of groaning zombies was for once almost overpowered by the eerie howl of the wind. The air felt cold against her skin and her eyes felt heavy. She grabbed a door and pulled it open. Inside there would be a nice comfortable bed for a nice comfortable nights sleep.

The door slowly swung open upon the darkened room. Saint stopped dead. For a minute she stared into the blackness, her hand was ready and poised to flip the light switch on, but she was reticent to do so. The noise had thrown her, it was like her mind had been paralysed. She knew what she would see but for the moment didn’t know what that would mean, what that could mean. What that would say about Mister O. She’d thought him a harmless if secretive individual. Had she misjudged him? She clicked the lights on and there she saw what she knew she was going to see.

Two people asleep in a double bed. One of them was a girl with long blonde hair; lying next to her was a guy with short dark hair and pale skin.

She recognised them. Darren and Sara. She’d last seen them fleeing through the hotel. Mister O had said that they’d got out somehow, yet… here they were. Saint’s blood ran cold. What exactly was going on here?


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Re: AIRING SOON..... - by GBCE - 11-24-2011, 03:06 AM
Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND] - by Ixcaliber - 02-28-2012, 01:33 AM