Re: Journal of Sociology [S!6] - [Round One: The Pacific Spire]
07-10-2012, 03:35 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.
The elevator hummed off, doors closed and impenetrable, Mag-Lev weight and counter-weight vertically shifting, shifting, and just like that, they were gone.
Nemo’s arm, the gun, the bullets, the firing mechanism, the scrambled serial number, he let them hang in the air. For those extra few seconds, he was twisted and tense, prone body twisted to aim at nothing, a pause, punctuation to a declarative sentence.
breathe in
Finally, then, he unwound, let himself lie, arm falling and clattering with the distinctive/familiar noise of gun on tile. He played the past five minutes in his head, over and over. He thought about the rhythm. Combat is rhythm. Mathematics. Musical notation in the form of form; body as instrument, movement as medium, staccato bursts of action, legato Martial technique, formulaic progression of Theory, pitch and pitch, in both tonality and of angle, all of it boiling down, in this instance, to the ding of an elevator and the pistol-whipping of a frantic young woman.
breathe out
You’ve been out of practice for quite a while, haven’t you? That’s ok, though, here and now, facedown on the cool, tile floor. Lessons will be learned, re-learned. That’s ok. You’re free. As free as you’d ever want to be. You’re ok. Everything’s ok. A triangle still adds up to 180º when on a Euclidean plane. And squares, 360º. Your hands are capable of destroying the infrastructure of human existence. You’ve killed thousands with the errant flick of your wrist.
breathe in
Nemo got up, slowly, gloved hand resting on the wall, balancing, adjusting. Hands + Knees, then just Knees, then Knee, then that dark space of effort required to return to his feet. And with that, he was up.
breathe. conceal your weapon.
Nemo, silent, like a wraith, walked up to the elevators. Two double doors, gleaming stainless steel. There wasn’t a real point, when he’d arranged his stop at floor All The Way To The Top. Namely, Parachuting, Paratrooping, and Parasailing R&D, apparently, if the placard was to be believed.
That did give him an idea though, although it had been one that had been simmering in his mind at one point or another since his introduction to The Pacific Spire, more of an actualization of an idea, in that way, the finalization to a concept that could be defined simply as: Jump.
ding
Blake (the more murderous and unlikable one) didn’t recognize Nemo, of course. He was Just Some Other Person I Don’t Fucking Care. But either way, this particular floor and this particular set of elevators must have had the magical property of surprising everyone ever; both suddenly taken aback with the sight of the other, they just sort of stood their for an apologetic moment. Shocked silence—you could hear a pin drop.
At which point, Blake lunged at him, boxcutter glinting in the clinical light.
Mr. Richards, very clearly, was not expecting black-ops-approved disarming maneuvers. He was, again, surprised to find the blade he was commanding just moments previously lightly pressed against his neck.
Oh. And the gun. He hadn’t noticed that, before.
“Hello there.” Nemo said softly, his mouth just a few inches from his new hostage’s ear.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Nemo took a moment of pause. “You’re the other one, aren’t you?”
“What!?” Blake replied, half-squirming in a rage. “No, no, I’m the original. He’s the fake! He is!”
“Really, you’re more... impulsive than I expected you to be.”
The hostage paused for a moment, thought. “That means you know about the competition.”
“It’s also very likely that I’ve met your doppelganger,” Nemo replied with a grin. “You can call me Joseph. I work here.”
“I doubt that.”
“That’s fine,” Nemo replied with a shrug, gun and blade menacingly wavering with the movement of his shoulders. “I’m the one you can kill you in a moment’s notice. Now, please, let’s go for a little walk, shall we?”
Slowly, they walked down the hall, locked together, clasped with bullet and blade, four empty footsteps on tile slowly making their way down the hall. step-step, step-step. step-step, step-step. Another placard, down the hall, labeled an upcoming door as “Parachute Technologies.”
“We’re going there?” Blake asked, after a few more minutes in silence.
“Yes,” Nemo replied.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“You’re going to help me acquire a parachute.”
The elevator hummed off, doors closed and impenetrable, Mag-Lev weight and counter-weight vertically shifting, shifting, and just like that, they were gone.
Nemo’s arm, the gun, the bullets, the firing mechanism, the scrambled serial number, he let them hang in the air. For those extra few seconds, he was twisted and tense, prone body twisted to aim at nothing, a pause, punctuation to a declarative sentence.
breathe in
Finally, then, he unwound, let himself lie, arm falling and clattering with the distinctive/familiar noise of gun on tile. He played the past five minutes in his head, over and over. He thought about the rhythm. Combat is rhythm. Mathematics. Musical notation in the form of form; body as instrument, movement as medium, staccato bursts of action, legato Martial technique, formulaic progression of Theory, pitch and pitch, in both tonality and of angle, all of it boiling down, in this instance, to the ding of an elevator and the pistol-whipping of a frantic young woman.
breathe out
You’ve been out of practice for quite a while, haven’t you? That’s ok, though, here and now, facedown on the cool, tile floor. Lessons will be learned, re-learned. That’s ok. You’re free. As free as you’d ever want to be. You’re ok. Everything’s ok. A triangle still adds up to 180º when on a Euclidean plane. And squares, 360º. Your hands are capable of destroying the infrastructure of human existence. You’ve killed thousands with the errant flick of your wrist.
breathe in
Nemo got up, slowly, gloved hand resting on the wall, balancing, adjusting. Hands + Knees, then just Knees, then Knee, then that dark space of effort required to return to his feet. And with that, he was up.
breathe. conceal your weapon.
Nemo, silent, like a wraith, walked up to the elevators. Two double doors, gleaming stainless steel. There wasn’t a real point, when he’d arranged his stop at floor All The Way To The Top. Namely, Parachuting, Paratrooping, and Parasailing R&D, apparently, if the placard was to be believed.
That did give him an idea though, although it had been one that had been simmering in his mind at one point or another since his introduction to The Pacific Spire, more of an actualization of an idea, in that way, the finalization to a concept that could be defined simply as: Jump.
ding
Blake (the more murderous and unlikable one) didn’t recognize Nemo, of course. He was Just Some Other Person I Don’t Fucking Care. But either way, this particular floor and this particular set of elevators must have had the magical property of surprising everyone ever; both suddenly taken aback with the sight of the other, they just sort of stood their for an apologetic moment. Shocked silence—you could hear a pin drop.
At which point, Blake lunged at him, boxcutter glinting in the clinical light.
Mr. Richards, very clearly, was not expecting black-ops-approved disarming maneuvers. He was, again, surprised to find the blade he was commanding just moments previously lightly pressed against his neck.
Oh. And the gun. He hadn’t noticed that, before.
“Hello there.” Nemo said softly, his mouth just a few inches from his new hostage’s ear.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Nemo took a moment of pause. “You’re the other one, aren’t you?”
“What!?” Blake replied, half-squirming in a rage. “No, no, I’m the original. He’s the fake! He is!”
“Really, you’re more... impulsive than I expected you to be.”
The hostage paused for a moment, thought. “That means you know about the competition.”
“It’s also very likely that I’ve met your doppelganger,” Nemo replied with a grin. “You can call me Joseph. I work here.”
“I doubt that.”
“That’s fine,” Nemo replied with a shrug, gun and blade menacingly wavering with the movement of his shoulders. “I’m the one you can kill you in a moment’s notice. Now, please, let’s go for a little walk, shall we?”
Slowly, they walked down the hall, locked together, clasped with bullet and blade, four empty footsteps on tile slowly making their way down the hall. step-step, step-step. step-step, step-step. Another placard, down the hall, labeled an upcoming door as “Parachute Technologies.”
“We’re going there?” Blake asked, after a few more minutes in silence.
“Yes,” Nemo replied.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“You’re going to help me acquire a parachute.”