Re: THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED [S!1][ROUND TWO: ETA CARINA]
04-12-2012, 11:51 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.
In the scant seconds that had passed in between Saint plunging the knife into the sleeping woman and emerging bloodied from that room, Mister O had seemingly recovered. He was on his feet, dusting down his suit, looking for all the world as though he had not been writhing in agony upon the floor mere moments ago. Saint strode down the hallway, eventually coming to a stop in front of the proprietor.
“I just stabbed some woman while she slept; I think I am entitled to an explanation.” Saint asked. She was no longer angry or afraid. She was perplexed; the things she had seen inside Mister O’s office, they made no sense, and what she had just done, well that made even less sense. She was kind of irritated; she felt like she was trying to put together a jigsaw only nobody had seen fit to give her any edge pieces. There was a good moment of silence, almost a repeat of what had happened in Mister O’s office before the static had cut in.
“Okay.” Mister O relented. Even as he did so he looked uncertain, as if he could not fathom how to even begin to explain this. “I think I could use a cup of tea before we get into it though.” He pushed open the door to his office and stepped inside, holding the door open for Saint who, with a sigh that suggested she knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere, followed him. For a moment the world around them cycled, a flurry of places manifesting and then being whipped away in an instant. It took a lot to unsettle a hardened survivor a zombie apocalypse like Saint, but this made her feel uncomfortable; uncertain and unsteady upon her feet as though the floor was about to ripped out from beneath her. She grabbed onto Mister O’s arm until finally the world settled down. It took the form of a street-corner café except devoid of people. Through the glass windows it was clear to see it was a sunny summer day. Saint quickly retracted her grip as the proprietor of the mysterious inn wandered behind the counter and made himself a pot of tea. “Would you like anything?” He asked.
“Yeah, an explanation.” Saint reiterated. “Look, it’s okay, I’ll believe you.” She paused as he shot her a strange look. “Clearly whatever is going on here, it is weird and you’re thinking it’s going to be too weird for my poor little brain to comprehend right? Don’t worry about that. Whatever it is I can handle it.”
“Okay.” Mister O eventually began to explain. “This is a dream.” The look that crossed Saint’s face suggested for a moment that she not only didn’t believe him, but that she was unimpressed with his clichéd plot twist.
“I could almost buy that.” Saint replied. “I fell asleep downstairs and this is all some crazy dream-”
“No no, you aren’t dreaming.” Mister O interjected. “This is a dream, this place.” He looked around the empty café and then clarified. “I don’t just mean here, I mean the entirety of the inn.” He picked up the cup of coffee and walked over to where Saint was leaning upon one of the wooden chairs. “Without the dreams of the guests the inn is nothing more than a burnt out husk.”
“I don’t know.” Saint replied, running her hands along the smooth wood of the chair. “This feels pretty real.”
“Well,” he paused as he took a sip of the cup of tea, “that is because it is real. Everything in the inn is as real as you or I, just a dream at the same time.” Mister O regarded Saint’s expression and concluded that this hadn’t really helped. “Think of the dreams as the building blocks that make the inn. Instead of bricks and mortar we’re made of dreams and sometimes the dreams look like bricks and mortar, but sometimes they look like other things as well.”
“So…” Saint was quiet for a moment. “The woman… The static got into her? Into her mind and infected her dreams.” Mister O’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Yes, exactly.” He replied. “And when you killed her, that part of the dream was removed.”
“And here in your office, these places; these are the places that your guests dream about?” Saint asked.
“You’re taking this rather well.” Mister O observed.
“Would you prefer I fling my arms up in the air and go ‘oh my gosh this can’t possibly be true’?” Saint asked with a smirk. There was no reply. “Come on Mister O, you were supposed to be the one explaining this to me. Tell me what happens to your guests.”
“As I’m sure you’ve already figured, they work here at the inn.” He said with a half-smile of his own. “I can’t run this place on my own you know. To them it is as though they’ve always worked here; that strange logic you find in dreams.” They lapsed into silence for a moment, the only sound Mister O sipping at the piping hot cup of tea.
“Okay, I believe you.” Saint said eventually. “It’s one hell of a story but I’ll buy it. There is just one thing that I don’t understand.” Mister O who had been so relaxed for once, suddenly tensed up again. “Why?”
--------
While Mister O and Saint had been discussing important matters, Maria was being interviewed by the incredibly unimportant Wesley Cockburn; reporter and private security specialist who she reckoned really just wanted someone to tell him how fantastic he was. When the Broadcasting Standards Authority scooped up the various remaining contestants from the battle Maria persisted a little longer than any of the others, though she was not to know that. There was a minute or so after they had gone when she had a feeling of uneasiness in her chest, like a cord that had been tied tight around her was pulling her onwards. She groaned in pain and requested an end to this interminable interview, although of course she was not so rude as to say that exactly. It wasn’t until she was almost doubled over that Wesley even noticed her discomfort and offered her his shoulder. As he guided her to a seat, she was pulled away; pulled back to the inn as though she was connected to it by an invisible bungee. And thanks to her grip on him at the time so was Wesley Cockburn.
Maria caught only part of the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s address, having been pulled back into the inn only once it was already in progress, and much of the rest of it was disrupted by Wesley demanding an explanation that she couldn’t give him. She did however manage to get the gist that they were no longer in a battle to the death even if she couldn’t fathom the jargon the Broadcasting Standards Authority was bandying around as explanation for their unplanned sojourn. Before she could go and get Owen or Saint, hell before she could even properly process the information for herself, the inn was moved on again.
--------
Amongst the glaring neon signs that illuminated the Eta Carina strip, there was suddenly a new one; a crescent moon lit up in purple. The building that it was attached to had not been there just seconds ago, but despite the bustling crowds there was no fuss. Perhaps it was because you would be hard pressed to find a person upon this strip who was both sober and observant enough to say with any certainty that the building had just appeared, but perhaps it was that these people were seasoned multiversal travellers and if they were surprised at the sudden appearance of a casino/hotel perhaps they should get back into their own universe before they encounter something truly unsettling.
While The Traveller’s Rest was larger than it had been in either of the previous rounds, it was runtish compared to the buildings that surrounded it. In any other place they would be considered skyscrapers, the only reasons they were not here was that there were no buildings with which to compare them and perhaps that there was no sky to scrape. Inside Maria strode across the casino floor, barely sparing a glance for the empty tables and quietly humming slots machines that she was already intimately familiar with. The clacking of her high heels echoed through the empty space, or would have done had it not been drowned out by the hurrying of the reporter/mercenary Wesley Cockburn as he tried to keep up with her.
“I am a very important man, I’ll have you know.” He said. “Stop wasting my time and tell me what is going on here.” From his perspective this room moments ago had been a rather elegant dining room, and then suddenly it had changed. The room had flowed around him, the dining table had split in half and moulded into blackjack tables, the legs of the chairs had flowed together and become stools, the walls had slid away and slot machines had risen out of the ground. It had taken little more than a moment and Maria was acting as though this was how it had always been. If only he’d had his camera with him.
“I’m very sorry Mister Cockburn, but I’ve already explained I don’t know what you are talking about.” As they reached a door upon the back wall, Maria turned and instructed Wesley to stay here while she went to talk to the proprietor. However as he opened the door she saw him and his wife emerging from his office down the short hall. If she hadn’t known better she might have said that for a minute before the door closed fully, it seemed a shade too bright in there.
“Owen, Saint, did you hear?” Maria asked. Owen looked the same as he ever did and not just because of the effects of the inn. His usual attire was a fancy business suit and tie, perhaps the one he wore now was a little more fancy than usual, probably even a designer brand, but overall the same look was achieved. Saint was dressed similarly though in a pale red. Her piercings, her shaved head and the peeking out of a tattoo on the back of her neck made her formal attire look sort of incongruous, but it was something that Maria had long ago gotten used to.
“Yep.” Owen replied with a smile. “A new location, and this time we should have actual tourists. This is fantastic news.” Maria paused momentarily, she’d been excited about the announcement but for very different reasons. Why was it that all that Owen could think of was business? It was like he was blind to the danger that they had, up until very recently been in… but… since that was over now she could hardly hold it against him. If he wanted to be happy that this was a far better locale than back home, then well, he was welcome to do so. She guessed she wouldn’t be getting to have a day off then.
Owen and Saint emerged from the corridor and took in the casino floor with a measure of seeming surprise. “I’m going to guess this place has sort of a Vegas vibe then?” He mused idly, his gaze eventually resting upon Wesley. His face flickered between confused, pleased and then confused again when he saw the weapon strapped across Wesley’s back. “Our first guest?” He guessed.
Before Wesley was able to respond, Saint cut in. “You’d better hope so.” She frowned at the empty casino. “How are we supposed to run this place with just the three of us?” Maria frowned at the thought and its disparity from that which she remembered. She’d never questioned how they had managed to run a casino with just three people before, but she couldn’t really understand why that had never been a concern until now. She turned and looked at Wesley with a certain level of scrutiny.
“Wesley how would you like a job as hotel security?” she asked. After a pause she turned to Saint and Owen and introduced the reporter/private security specialist.
“Are you sure he’s up to the job?” Saint asked, all business.
“Yeah, you should have seen the alien zombie things he and his team killed back in this crazy desert place.” Maria replied.
“Okay fine.” Saint said. “Consider yourself hired, Mister…?”
“Cockburn.” Wesley replied. “Wesley Cockburn. And don’t I get some say in this?”
“Trust us Wesley; this is better than our standard hiring policy.” Saint smiled.
In the scant seconds that had passed in between Saint plunging the knife into the sleeping woman and emerging bloodied from that room, Mister O had seemingly recovered. He was on his feet, dusting down his suit, looking for all the world as though he had not been writhing in agony upon the floor mere moments ago. Saint strode down the hallway, eventually coming to a stop in front of the proprietor.
“I just stabbed some woman while she slept; I think I am entitled to an explanation.” Saint asked. She was no longer angry or afraid. She was perplexed; the things she had seen inside Mister O’s office, they made no sense, and what she had just done, well that made even less sense. She was kind of irritated; she felt like she was trying to put together a jigsaw only nobody had seen fit to give her any edge pieces. There was a good moment of silence, almost a repeat of what had happened in Mister O’s office before the static had cut in.
“Okay.” Mister O relented. Even as he did so he looked uncertain, as if he could not fathom how to even begin to explain this. “I think I could use a cup of tea before we get into it though.” He pushed open the door to his office and stepped inside, holding the door open for Saint who, with a sigh that suggested she knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere, followed him. For a moment the world around them cycled, a flurry of places manifesting and then being whipped away in an instant. It took a lot to unsettle a hardened survivor a zombie apocalypse like Saint, but this made her feel uncomfortable; uncertain and unsteady upon her feet as though the floor was about to ripped out from beneath her. She grabbed onto Mister O’s arm until finally the world settled down. It took the form of a street-corner café except devoid of people. Through the glass windows it was clear to see it was a sunny summer day. Saint quickly retracted her grip as the proprietor of the mysterious inn wandered behind the counter and made himself a pot of tea. “Would you like anything?” He asked.
“Yeah, an explanation.” Saint reiterated. “Look, it’s okay, I’ll believe you.” She paused as he shot her a strange look. “Clearly whatever is going on here, it is weird and you’re thinking it’s going to be too weird for my poor little brain to comprehend right? Don’t worry about that. Whatever it is I can handle it.”
“Okay.” Mister O eventually began to explain. “This is a dream.” The look that crossed Saint’s face suggested for a moment that she not only didn’t believe him, but that she was unimpressed with his clichéd plot twist.
“I could almost buy that.” Saint replied. “I fell asleep downstairs and this is all some crazy dream-”
“No no, you aren’t dreaming.” Mister O interjected. “This is a dream, this place.” He looked around the empty café and then clarified. “I don’t just mean here, I mean the entirety of the inn.” He picked up the cup of coffee and walked over to where Saint was leaning upon one of the wooden chairs. “Without the dreams of the guests the inn is nothing more than a burnt out husk.”
“I don’t know.” Saint replied, running her hands along the smooth wood of the chair. “This feels pretty real.”
“Well,” he paused as he took a sip of the cup of tea, “that is because it is real. Everything in the inn is as real as you or I, just a dream at the same time.” Mister O regarded Saint’s expression and concluded that this hadn’t really helped. “Think of the dreams as the building blocks that make the inn. Instead of bricks and mortar we’re made of dreams and sometimes the dreams look like bricks and mortar, but sometimes they look like other things as well.”
“So…” Saint was quiet for a moment. “The woman… The static got into her? Into her mind and infected her dreams.” Mister O’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Yes, exactly.” He replied. “And when you killed her, that part of the dream was removed.”
“And here in your office, these places; these are the places that your guests dream about?” Saint asked.
“You’re taking this rather well.” Mister O observed.
“Would you prefer I fling my arms up in the air and go ‘oh my gosh this can’t possibly be true’?” Saint asked with a smirk. There was no reply. “Come on Mister O, you were supposed to be the one explaining this to me. Tell me what happens to your guests.”
“As I’m sure you’ve already figured, they work here at the inn.” He said with a half-smile of his own. “I can’t run this place on my own you know. To them it is as though they’ve always worked here; that strange logic you find in dreams.” They lapsed into silence for a moment, the only sound Mister O sipping at the piping hot cup of tea.
“Okay, I believe you.” Saint said eventually. “It’s one hell of a story but I’ll buy it. There is just one thing that I don’t understand.” Mister O who had been so relaxed for once, suddenly tensed up again. “Why?”
--------
While Mister O and Saint had been discussing important matters, Maria was being interviewed by the incredibly unimportant Wesley Cockburn; reporter and private security specialist who she reckoned really just wanted someone to tell him how fantastic he was. When the Broadcasting Standards Authority scooped up the various remaining contestants from the battle Maria persisted a little longer than any of the others, though she was not to know that. There was a minute or so after they had gone when she had a feeling of uneasiness in her chest, like a cord that had been tied tight around her was pulling her onwards. She groaned in pain and requested an end to this interminable interview, although of course she was not so rude as to say that exactly. It wasn’t until she was almost doubled over that Wesley even noticed her discomfort and offered her his shoulder. As he guided her to a seat, she was pulled away; pulled back to the inn as though she was connected to it by an invisible bungee. And thanks to her grip on him at the time so was Wesley Cockburn.
Maria caught only part of the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s address, having been pulled back into the inn only once it was already in progress, and much of the rest of it was disrupted by Wesley demanding an explanation that she couldn’t give him. She did however manage to get the gist that they were no longer in a battle to the death even if she couldn’t fathom the jargon the Broadcasting Standards Authority was bandying around as explanation for their unplanned sojourn. Before she could go and get Owen or Saint, hell before she could even properly process the information for herself, the inn was moved on again.
--------
Amongst the glaring neon signs that illuminated the Eta Carina strip, there was suddenly a new one; a crescent moon lit up in purple. The building that it was attached to had not been there just seconds ago, but despite the bustling crowds there was no fuss. Perhaps it was because you would be hard pressed to find a person upon this strip who was both sober and observant enough to say with any certainty that the building had just appeared, but perhaps it was that these people were seasoned multiversal travellers and if they were surprised at the sudden appearance of a casino/hotel perhaps they should get back into their own universe before they encounter something truly unsettling.
While The Traveller’s Rest was larger than it had been in either of the previous rounds, it was runtish compared to the buildings that surrounded it. In any other place they would be considered skyscrapers, the only reasons they were not here was that there were no buildings with which to compare them and perhaps that there was no sky to scrape. Inside Maria strode across the casino floor, barely sparing a glance for the empty tables and quietly humming slots machines that she was already intimately familiar with. The clacking of her high heels echoed through the empty space, or would have done had it not been drowned out by the hurrying of the reporter/mercenary Wesley Cockburn as he tried to keep up with her.
“I am a very important man, I’ll have you know.” He said. “Stop wasting my time and tell me what is going on here.” From his perspective this room moments ago had been a rather elegant dining room, and then suddenly it had changed. The room had flowed around him, the dining table had split in half and moulded into blackjack tables, the legs of the chairs had flowed together and become stools, the walls had slid away and slot machines had risen out of the ground. It had taken little more than a moment and Maria was acting as though this was how it had always been. If only he’d had his camera with him.
“I’m very sorry Mister Cockburn, but I’ve already explained I don’t know what you are talking about.” As they reached a door upon the back wall, Maria turned and instructed Wesley to stay here while she went to talk to the proprietor. However as he opened the door she saw him and his wife emerging from his office down the short hall. If she hadn’t known better she might have said that for a minute before the door closed fully, it seemed a shade too bright in there.
“Owen, Saint, did you hear?” Maria asked. Owen looked the same as he ever did and not just because of the effects of the inn. His usual attire was a fancy business suit and tie, perhaps the one he wore now was a little more fancy than usual, probably even a designer brand, but overall the same look was achieved. Saint was dressed similarly though in a pale red. Her piercings, her shaved head and the peeking out of a tattoo on the back of her neck made her formal attire look sort of incongruous, but it was something that Maria had long ago gotten used to.
“Yep.” Owen replied with a smile. “A new location, and this time we should have actual tourists. This is fantastic news.” Maria paused momentarily, she’d been excited about the announcement but for very different reasons. Why was it that all that Owen could think of was business? It was like he was blind to the danger that they had, up until very recently been in… but… since that was over now she could hardly hold it against him. If he wanted to be happy that this was a far better locale than back home, then well, he was welcome to do so. She guessed she wouldn’t be getting to have a day off then.
Owen and Saint emerged from the corridor and took in the casino floor with a measure of seeming surprise. “I’m going to guess this place has sort of a Vegas vibe then?” He mused idly, his gaze eventually resting upon Wesley. His face flickered between confused, pleased and then confused again when he saw the weapon strapped across Wesley’s back. “Our first guest?” He guessed.
Before Wesley was able to respond, Saint cut in. “You’d better hope so.” She frowned at the empty casino. “How are we supposed to run this place with just the three of us?” Maria frowned at the thought and its disparity from that which she remembered. She’d never questioned how they had managed to run a casino with just three people before, but she couldn’t really understand why that had never been a concern until now. She turned and looked at Wesley with a certain level of scrutiny.
“Wesley how would you like a job as hotel security?” she asked. After a pause she turned to Saint and Owen and introduced the reporter/private security specialist.
“Are you sure he’s up to the job?” Saint asked, all business.
“Yeah, you should have seen the alien zombie things he and his team killed back in this crazy desert place.” Maria replied.
“Okay fine.” Saint said. “Consider yourself hired, Mister…?”
“Cockburn.” Wesley replied. “Wesley Cockburn. And don’t I get some say in this?”
“Trust us Wesley; this is better than our standard hiring policy.” Saint smiled.
Heaven Help Us | Make Room!!!! | I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You