Re: THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED [S!1][ROUND TWO: ETA CARINA]
09-06-2012, 09:00 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.
Montecorbier was fond of cigars. Underneath his space-teak desk, he had a box of those carefully-cured and fermented goodness – all hand-wrapped, of course. He loathed to had them done by machine; that method was simply not expensive enough.
Right now, he had the choicest-flavor on his lips. It was blend of space-tobacco (grown in the closest technical thing to zero-gravity), starwhale ambergris (came from the finest bowels of those celestial cetaceans, also extracted alive), and the space-remains of his fallen enemies (so he claims) all wrapped up in thinnest, freshest, and greenest square of skin from a Tender. It tasted sweet like victory with a wonderfully bitter aftertaste of vengeance. It was a custom blend. His blend. Montecorbier’s blend. The best blend. He would have treated the cigar with a little more respect but right now, he was doing a number on it – what with the spraying ash and the passionate chewing of the soggy, spit-soaked end. It was no surprise. After all, he was tremendously pissed.
“What.” The cigar twirled like a ballerina in Montecorbier’s mouth. It was a rather distracting sight –especially under the spotlight of his flared nostrils. “What. Is going on.”
“Let’s just say,” The woman cooed with the consistency of a cheerleader. She was a pretty thing with a nice figure, a nice pairs of heels, and a lustrous cascade of platinum blonde curling around the edges of the chair she lazily lounged on. She smelled faintly of chlorine and secrets. After all, she was at the pool. “There might be variables.”
She smiled. Her face was vapid honesty but her eyes told otherwise.
“Variables, of course. Of course,” the former mastermind grumbled between puffs of noxious smoke. His nicotine-tempered tone was smooth as whiskey and bitter as vodka, but it was pretty clear that he was getting increasingly frustrated. “Like how the Feedback Loop just jumped from five billion to five quintillion.”
“Mhm.” A small feminine cigarette appeared in the woman’s fingers. It was a clove cigarette. A fairly mundane addiction when juxtaposed to the upper-scale echelons of Eta Carina.
“And it’s still climbing,” Montecorbier snarled.
“And it is.” The woman blew out an elegant plume of smoke. “I suppose you have a job for me, Monty?”
“Go there, come back alive, and tell me what is up with the Feedback Loop. I want everything. EVERYTHING.” Expensive ash flew everywhere, landing on his desk, on the woman’s dress, and other difficult places. “EVERYTHING to know about this whole damn place.”
There was a period of heavy silence, a silence that was later broken by an “understood.”
“Well,” Montecorbier clamped down hard on his cigar, nearly slicing the poor thing into two. If there was one thing he hated about heists past and present, it was the lack of control over his situation and he needed to make sure the Feedback Loop was under control. His control. “GET TO IT!”
---
Tschichold lay splayed on the cushions of exotic comforts. He had a sort of look on his face that brings to mind a catatonic hospital patient but still, he managed to carry it in stride. What milquetoast mediocrity and irritability he had was supplanted by a charisma astounding enough to make celebrities weep. His charisma came from many sources. One source was his suit.
As everyone knows, suits make everything classy – just like the cabaret of womenfolk surrounding him.
Around the shadowy painter, there were ladies. Lots of them. All buxom and beautiful to the point of scarily suspicious uniformity that brings to mind factories and capitalism. They were wearing more mascara than they were clothes and judging from the needlessly close proximity of their bums to his face, Tschichold highly doubted they wore underwear at all. It was kind of obvious the point of their job was to show how awesome and rich he was, but could they not get too close. He was getting uncomfortable – and slightly aroused maybe. But mostly uncomfortable.
“Well,” Freefall threw up her arms in frustration – or at least Tschichold thought she did. It was hard to tell from the distance – especially since psychoactive substances and blinking do not mix very well but he was going with his gut feeling. Little did he knew, the gut feeling was just his paranoia. “I really don’t want to know how you got here.”
“It’s complicated,” the painter slapped yet another manicured hand away from his shoulder. He was fighting a losing battle against the advancing army of close-contact sycophancy, much to the chagrin of his no-touchie policy. “Very complicated.”
“I guess.” The superheroine’s face was not one for plausibility.
“It’s weird.”
“Yeah.” Whatever conviction she had for his excuses was rapidly dwindling.
“It’s boring.”
“Uh-huh.” She obviously did not believe him. At all.
“Listen. The point is I am your boss and you don’t ask bosses questions” Tschichold hissed between his teeth. He was not enjoying the advantages of his job. At all. “Especially if they are covered in bitches.”
“Uh, sure. Listen,” Freefall was speaking like someone who wished she could spend her time at another place in another time. To be fair, anything would be a lot better than dealing with an anal-retentive trainwreck of a painter. “Can I speak with your manager or Aaron or something?”
“I AM THE MANAGER.” It was quite impressive his screeching managed to pass through the choking thicket of giggles and perfume.
“Well, that’s just great,” Freefall snapped back. “Don’t you have someone to answer up to? Like you know, a certain wizard?”
“Well yeah, he’s kind of is my boss. He did drag me into this,” Tschichold admitted she had a point but he was not exactly willing to let go. “BUT I ANSWER TO NO MAN.”
“Then, why did you call me over?” The superheroine’s tone was getting a bit more demanding with every word. “You do have plans for me, do you.”
“Why, yes.” A slash of a smile appeared on the artist’s place.
Freefall did not like this at all.
---
Harrison watched the masses below shrink to incomparable ants as the machinery droned to a deafening crescendo. The view of Eta Carina was quite impressive – to a newcomer. However, the consultant had ascended-and-or-descended so many times that the showgirls and spolights had become yet another thing to ignore. It was a pretty easy viewpoint to ascribe to especially how hinky casino protocols can get. Plus, he had other matters to attend to.
“So,” Aaron pursed his lips to a thin line. It was emotionally concealing but Harrison swore he could almost see a smirk on the corners. Almost. “I suppose I have no more matters to attend to.”
“Y-yes,” the consultant found his mouth going a bit dry. How could this man unnerve so much with a sentence? It was like he was some sort of wizard. “I think there is no more.”
“Good,” the midnight-suited man uttered just below his breath. He only had been on this position for a short while yet he already had the charisma of a mastermind. The juxtaposition was quite intimidating. “Because I have a bit of business to take care of.”
“Business?”
“See for yourself,” Aaron dropped a thicket of manilas and papers onto Harrison’s lap. Harrison was…not quite sure how to react to this. It was a mélange of business contracts, stocks, company dossiers, and blueprints. Tons of them. The mere sight of its scintillating complexity was enough to make the man’s head swim. It seems all these various papers and red tape…they were pointing to something. Aaron was planning something.
“That’s impossible!” Harrison could only exclaim.
“Yes,” Aaron narrowed his eyes and lean forward. “And I want all of this done.” A pause. “Soon.”
Harrison could only stammer in return.
---
“What. The fuck.”
Tammy was not a fan of organics. They were feeble, mechanically inefficient, and were an offense to his olfactory receptors. However, the emotion currently running through his circuit-boards was not revulsion but rather shock. Well, the artificial-intelligent equivalent of shock, anyway.
“I hired her.”
“What the flying fuck.” No alien language in this world could describe what the robot experienced. He was not exactly surprised at Freefall’s sudden employment. Eta Carina was seedy as it was annoyingly rich and it was rather commonplace for various establishments to hire criminals to do grunt work. However, criminals are not usually hired to psychoanalyze managers – which was what the superheroine was doing right now. Hell, even the room was gussied up to look like a therapist’s office.
“She’s my emotional counselor now,” Tschichold explained from across the couch. “Don’t worry it’s all legit. I even got her a psychologist license.”
On Freefall’s neck there was a placard with the words of <font color="#814444">“EXPERT PSYCHOLOGIST” hastily scrawled on as if by a painter on psychoactives. On Freefall’s hands, there was a lined notepad – all unmarred and clean and other analogues of pristine. On Freefall’s face, there was an expression as if she heard it all – and she wished she had not.</font>
“Okkkkaaaaaaaaaaaay,” Tammy was not really sure how to react.
"oh god why" Freefall mouthed but no one could hear her at all.
“I guess I’ll go…guard the bathroom. Or something.” The excuse was flimsy but the former roboreceptionist was willing to take any chance to slip away from the door and roll frantically down the hallway. He was trying not to think too hard about what he saw and to be honest, it was a good idea.
---
As the cash keeps coming in – so does the mess. Thanks to Aaron’s little economical stunt, the bowels of the Feedback Loop were getting more difficult to clean –but someone had keep it under control. Someone being the small army of custodians. It was a difficult job especially when everything else was autonomous (artificial intelligence was and would always be a trend), but at least it paid well.
The maid had work for ten years. Ten damned years in this casino – and that was not including the overtime. She had replaced many towels, unclogged many toilets, and vacuumed more bodily fluids than she cared to think about. In short, she was prepared for everything – so she thought. A rag in her mouth was not exactly part of her job description per se.
“Sorry hon, need to borrow your uniform for a bit,” a woman purred close. The maid had no idea who the stranger was and how she got here especially since the casino was still in mid-flight. The one quality that stuck out was how blonde she was, but it was hard to tell when you were succumbing to the symptoms of chloroform.
Montecorbier was fond of cigars. Underneath his space-teak desk, he had a box of those carefully-cured and fermented goodness – all hand-wrapped, of course. He loathed to had them done by machine; that method was simply not expensive enough.
Right now, he had the choicest-flavor on his lips. It was blend of space-tobacco (grown in the closest technical thing to zero-gravity), starwhale ambergris (came from the finest bowels of those celestial cetaceans, also extracted alive), and the space-remains of his fallen enemies (so he claims) all wrapped up in thinnest, freshest, and greenest square of skin from a Tender. It tasted sweet like victory with a wonderfully bitter aftertaste of vengeance. It was a custom blend. His blend. Montecorbier’s blend. The best blend. He would have treated the cigar with a little more respect but right now, he was doing a number on it – what with the spraying ash and the passionate chewing of the soggy, spit-soaked end. It was no surprise. After all, he was tremendously pissed.
“What.” The cigar twirled like a ballerina in Montecorbier’s mouth. It was a rather distracting sight –especially under the spotlight of his flared nostrils. “What. Is going on.”
“Let’s just say,” The woman cooed with the consistency of a cheerleader. She was a pretty thing with a nice figure, a nice pairs of heels, and a lustrous cascade of platinum blonde curling around the edges of the chair she lazily lounged on. She smelled faintly of chlorine and secrets. After all, she was at the pool. “There might be variables.”
She smiled. Her face was vapid honesty but her eyes told otherwise.
“Variables, of course. Of course,” the former mastermind grumbled between puffs of noxious smoke. His nicotine-tempered tone was smooth as whiskey and bitter as vodka, but it was pretty clear that he was getting increasingly frustrated. “Like how the Feedback Loop just jumped from five billion to five quintillion.”
“Mhm.” A small feminine cigarette appeared in the woman’s fingers. It was a clove cigarette. A fairly mundane addiction when juxtaposed to the upper-scale echelons of Eta Carina.
“And it’s still climbing,” Montecorbier snarled.
“And it is.” The woman blew out an elegant plume of smoke. “I suppose you have a job for me, Monty?”
“Go there, come back alive, and tell me what is up with the Feedback Loop. I want everything. EVERYTHING.” Expensive ash flew everywhere, landing on his desk, on the woman’s dress, and other difficult places. “EVERYTHING to know about this whole damn place.”
There was a period of heavy silence, a silence that was later broken by an “understood.”
“Well,” Montecorbier clamped down hard on his cigar, nearly slicing the poor thing into two. If there was one thing he hated about heists past and present, it was the lack of control over his situation and he needed to make sure the Feedback Loop was under control. His control. “GET TO IT!”
---
Tschichold lay splayed on the cushions of exotic comforts. He had a sort of look on his face that brings to mind a catatonic hospital patient but still, he managed to carry it in stride. What milquetoast mediocrity and irritability he had was supplanted by a charisma astounding enough to make celebrities weep. His charisma came from many sources. One source was his suit.
As everyone knows, suits make everything classy – just like the cabaret of womenfolk surrounding him.
Around the shadowy painter, there were ladies. Lots of them. All buxom and beautiful to the point of scarily suspicious uniformity that brings to mind factories and capitalism. They were wearing more mascara than they were clothes and judging from the needlessly close proximity of their bums to his face, Tschichold highly doubted they wore underwear at all. It was kind of obvious the point of their job was to show how awesome and rich he was, but could they not get too close. He was getting uncomfortable – and slightly aroused maybe. But mostly uncomfortable.
“Well,” Freefall threw up her arms in frustration – or at least Tschichold thought she did. It was hard to tell from the distance – especially since psychoactive substances and blinking do not mix very well but he was going with his gut feeling. Little did he knew, the gut feeling was just his paranoia. “I really don’t want to know how you got here.”
“It’s complicated,” the painter slapped yet another manicured hand away from his shoulder. He was fighting a losing battle against the advancing army of close-contact sycophancy, much to the chagrin of his no-touchie policy. “Very complicated.”
“I guess.” The superheroine’s face was not one for plausibility.
“It’s weird.”
“Yeah.” Whatever conviction she had for his excuses was rapidly dwindling.
“It’s boring.”
“Uh-huh.” She obviously did not believe him. At all.
“Listen. The point is I am your boss and you don’t ask bosses questions” Tschichold hissed between his teeth. He was not enjoying the advantages of his job. At all. “Especially if they are covered in bitches.”
“Uh, sure. Listen,” Freefall was speaking like someone who wished she could spend her time at another place in another time. To be fair, anything would be a lot better than dealing with an anal-retentive trainwreck of a painter. “Can I speak with your manager or Aaron or something?”
“I AM THE MANAGER.” It was quite impressive his screeching managed to pass through the choking thicket of giggles and perfume.
“Well, that’s just great,” Freefall snapped back. “Don’t you have someone to answer up to? Like you know, a certain wizard?”
“Well yeah, he’s kind of is my boss. He did drag me into this,” Tschichold admitted she had a point but he was not exactly willing to let go. “BUT I ANSWER TO NO MAN.”
“Then, why did you call me over?” The superheroine’s tone was getting a bit more demanding with every word. “You do have plans for me, do you.”
“Why, yes.” A slash of a smile appeared on the artist’s place.
Freefall did not like this at all.
---
Harrison watched the masses below shrink to incomparable ants as the machinery droned to a deafening crescendo. The view of Eta Carina was quite impressive – to a newcomer. However, the consultant had ascended-and-or-descended so many times that the showgirls and spolights had become yet another thing to ignore. It was a pretty easy viewpoint to ascribe to especially how hinky casino protocols can get. Plus, he had other matters to attend to.
“So,” Aaron pursed his lips to a thin line. It was emotionally concealing but Harrison swore he could almost see a smirk on the corners. Almost. “I suppose I have no more matters to attend to.”
“Y-yes,” the consultant found his mouth going a bit dry. How could this man unnerve so much with a sentence? It was like he was some sort of wizard. “I think there is no more.”
“Good,” the midnight-suited man uttered just below his breath. He only had been on this position for a short while yet he already had the charisma of a mastermind. The juxtaposition was quite intimidating. “Because I have a bit of business to take care of.”
“Business?”
“See for yourself,” Aaron dropped a thicket of manilas and papers onto Harrison’s lap. Harrison was…not quite sure how to react to this. It was a mélange of business contracts, stocks, company dossiers, and blueprints. Tons of them. The mere sight of its scintillating complexity was enough to make the man’s head swim. It seems all these various papers and red tape…they were pointing to something. Aaron was planning something.
“That’s impossible!” Harrison could only exclaim.
“Yes,” Aaron narrowed his eyes and lean forward. “And I want all of this done.” A pause. “Soon.”
Harrison could only stammer in return.
---
“What. The fuck.”
Tammy was not a fan of organics. They were feeble, mechanically inefficient, and were an offense to his olfactory receptors. However, the emotion currently running through his circuit-boards was not revulsion but rather shock. Well, the artificial-intelligent equivalent of shock, anyway.
“I hired her.”
“What the flying fuck.” No alien language in this world could describe what the robot experienced. He was not exactly surprised at Freefall’s sudden employment. Eta Carina was seedy as it was annoyingly rich and it was rather commonplace for various establishments to hire criminals to do grunt work. However, criminals are not usually hired to psychoanalyze managers – which was what the superheroine was doing right now. Hell, even the room was gussied up to look like a therapist’s office.
“She’s my emotional counselor now,” Tschichold explained from across the couch. “Don’t worry it’s all legit. I even got her a psychologist license.”
On Freefall’s neck there was a placard with the words of <font color="#814444">“EXPERT PSYCHOLOGIST” hastily scrawled on as if by a painter on psychoactives. On Freefall’s hands, there was a lined notepad – all unmarred and clean and other analogues of pristine. On Freefall’s face, there was an expression as if she heard it all – and she wished she had not.</font>
“Okkkkaaaaaaaaaaaay,” Tammy was not really sure how to react.
"oh god why" Freefall mouthed but no one could hear her at all.
“I guess I’ll go…guard the bathroom. Or something.” The excuse was flimsy but the former roboreceptionist was willing to take any chance to slip away from the door and roll frantically down the hallway. He was trying not to think too hard about what he saw and to be honest, it was a good idea.
---
As the cash keeps coming in – so does the mess. Thanks to Aaron’s little economical stunt, the bowels of the Feedback Loop were getting more difficult to clean –but someone had keep it under control. Someone being the small army of custodians. It was a difficult job especially when everything else was autonomous (artificial intelligence was and would always be a trend), but at least it paid well.
The maid had work for ten years. Ten damned years in this casino – and that was not including the overtime. She had replaced many towels, unclogged many toilets, and vacuumed more bodily fluids than she cared to think about. In short, she was prepared for everything – so she thought. A rag in her mouth was not exactly part of her job description per se.
“Sorry hon, need to borrow your uniform for a bit,” a woman purred close. The maid had no idea who the stranger was and how she got here especially since the casino was still in mid-flight. The one quality that stuck out was how blonde she was, but it was hard to tell when you were succumbing to the symptoms of chloroform.