Re: Journal of Sociology [S!6] - [Round One: The Pacific Spire]
10-07-2012, 03:43 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sanzh.
"Talk to me, Krieger. Tell me just what is I've just seen."
If Sir Bradley was shaken at all by the experience of the moments earlier, it was impossible to discern. His posture was attentive, excited, only barely leaning over the conference table they now stood around; his face was a mask of enthusiasm. He was still wearing his full-body hazard suit, having only undone the helmet seals to reveal his bushy, impeccably-rugged mustache. Krieger had taken the time to remove the suit-- it was ill-fitting, pinched at the joints, and the rubber undersuit chafed and stung. If Sir Bradley were experiencing any of the same discomfort, it was imperceptible.
"Well, sir." The assistant began. A projector hummed to life, displaying the opening slide of the presentation created minutes ago-- if Krieger knew anything, it was that adherence to protocol was important, and corporate protocol made it clear that any meaningful exchange of information was to be done with the accompaniment of little slides and pointless charts.
"Our preliminary findings--" the presentation switched to a set of bullet-pointed lines, "--indicate that we have, in fact, broken reality. A rough measurement revealed the elevator shaft has, erm, extended forty to seventy feet above the height of the Pacific Spire. Outside measurements indicate that the outside has not changed to account for this, er, discrepancy. Sir." He paused as he finished the sentence, waiting for Bradley's response.
"That's a, uh, pretty uncertain figure there." He replied.
"We believe the exact height changes, sir. Once the, erm, intruders were subdued, our scan and subsequent visit higher up the shaft seemed to reveal as much." Krieger's answer had a nervous inflection. No one had mentioned the woman now locked in their holding cell, or the other who had, by all accounts, disappeared into thin air. Of all of the anomaly's mysteries, they were the only ones with no explanation, no rational cause. For the empirical minds of the managers and engineers, such irregularities were swept under the carpet and ignored.
"So, where's the science in all this?" Bradley asked.
"The science, sir?"
The executive shook his head and sighed. "The science, Bradley. I've had my share of engineers telling me they can't achieve the impossible, and now that the impossible is right here, I want to see it achieved."
"Sir, with all due respect--"
"Krieger, let me tell you something. I founded this company with my bare hands and the miniscule scraps I had left of my college fund. I had only one dream, one vision. To monopolize science. And now, after fifty years, I might finally see that dream achieved, Krieger."
Bradley stood up, pacing around the conference table. "I'm old, Krieger. I've lived through the days when we'd settle our disputes in a civil manner, by buying out all of a company's shares and gutting them into a pitiful subsidiary. When hostile takeovers didn't require firearms. Krieger, all I ask is that with whatever science is in that elevator shaft, you let me live to see my dream. Is that too much to ask for?"
"...No, sir." Krieger eventually responded.
---
After however much time spent in unconsciousness, Elise woke up. Her hand immediately went for a crossbow that wasn't there.
She stood up immediately, checking herself the split-second she was upright. Her plague-suit was intact, beaked respirator and makeshift armor and all-- she had that much. But the weaponry, the backpack, the journals and survival gear and alchemical mixtures, all those had been confiscated. She reached for a pocket, wishing the vial of medicine she needed was still there.
Damn it, damn it! She wanted to scream as her pocket found nothing, but her body refused, its nerves and muscles still frayed from the electric convulsions and unconsciousness of earlier. Silently cursing herself for her stupidity, for her own rash actions that now seemed all too likely to kill her, she tried to think. Her mind tried to push back the notion that her recklessness was now going to invalidate her life's work, instead working to examine her surroundings. She took a deep breath, the respirator's workings sighing as she did. Her body stopped quivering with anger, letting her focus on her surroundings.
The room she was now in was barren and coated in a thin film of dust, with a miniscule assortment of furnishings and only scrawled graffiti as decoration. One wall had a large mirror, its surface scratched and marred; another had a bulky metal door. A light brightly flickered up above, as though to clearly illustrate Elise's dismal surroundings. Underneath her mask, she scowled-- there wasn't enough here for her to engineer an escape. She would be forced to wait.
A minute passed, then two, then ten. Each second that ticked away was a painful eternity, a excruciating reminder of her failure. Elise angrily paced across the room, her boots scuffing against the concrete floor-- she stopped only to adjust her armor, tighten the seals on her mask and straighten her cloak. Part of her felt the gradual symptoms of her affliction almost taking root. She thought she felt weaker-- she wasn't sure, but loudly swore at her captors all the same. Banging on the door and mirror produced no response, not even a guard coming in to stop her.
Elise stopped. She could hear a voice from outside.
---
Initially, Krieger wasn't sure whether he was impressed or intimidated by the new progress the scientists had made. Not much time had passed since the preliminary analysis of the anomaly-- and even less time had passed since Sir Bradley's demand for results-- but they were achieving phenomenal effects. As he examined the laboratory space, curiosity had quickly turned to fear.
But even though he did not understand the physical principles-- of violation thereof-- he could see the scientific creations were bordering on malevolent. Much of their experimentation was above his level of understanding-- Krieger had always been more focused on navigating the corporate strata, on directing the actuarial parts of a company, and ultimately had neglected his scientific understanding down to just the thin veneer necessary. But when one team had taken a radioactive sample up to the elevator shaft and had returned with it powering what they called-- between congratulatory high-fives-- a "hand-held quantum destabilizer"? And another was attempting to replicate the "localized space-time folding", and a third had filed an unexplained request for a half-dozen interns as test subjects?
Krieger was pragmatic-- he lived for his work, and his work was the fine-tuning of corporate machinery. But even for a self-described bureaucratic fixer, what he now saw was nothing short of chilling. Sir Bradley had requested science, and Krieger was beginning to see the inventions that fell underneath that umbrella definition. The entire company had been possessed by their discovery, working and devising mechanisms that should never have existed. Even now, they were gearing up for a new attempt to conquer the Pacific Spire, armed with the infernal devices the physics-bending anomaly had allowed them to construct.
He flipped through the intruder's journal. The scientific team, once the intruders had either disappeared or been disposed of they were quickly erased from the narrow focus of the corporate echelons. He had taken a moment to look through some of her confiscated goods, and the journal had been the first thing he wanted to investigate-- and as he read further, he realized just how fortuitous his decision was. Page after page detailed arcane formulae and barely-comprehensible instructions, right up until the page describing the dead reanimating and attacking the living. Some instructions were there, long-since crossed out and replaced with frenetic, scrawled warnings.
Any other day, he would have dismissed her writings as those of a schizophrenic, costumed mad-women. But as he read them now, a cold truth to her words enveloped him.
His company-- no, their company, Krieger could not allow himself to associate with them-- couldn't see this. If their minds had idly wandered to weapons of total annihilation, he shuddered to think of what they would do with an opportunity to create an undead army. He needed to see her. He saw no way of stopping this awakening leviathan, and no one within the company could be trusted-- she was the only possibility open to him. A desperate prayer almost escaped his lips as he made his way to the company's holding cell.
---
As Blake traversed the corridors, he found himself adopting the comfortable mantle of anonymity. No one on these floors recognized him-- they just assumed he was another employee from some other department, and not to be disturbed as he went about his business. He was fine with that; them deciding to inquire about him would have been another petty annoyance that he lacked the patience for. Having a moment to collect his thoughts and plan was a welcome relief-- there was still much for him to do. After checking a corridor to make sure it was unoccupied, he leaned against a wall, affording himself a brief reprieve.
"Hey, you. Come with me, I need someone to watch over this. Er, in case something goes wrong." Krieger interrupted. He didn't recognize the intern slouching against the wall, but in this situation that was exactly what he needed-- somewhat not ingrained in what he recognized as an increasingly deranged chain of command.
"And why should I--"
Blake stopped. He still had a thin veneer of cover, and he wanted to maintain it for as long as he could. Deciding to play along with this employee's demands, he cleared his throat-- whatever pointless .
"Sorry for that. Lead the way, sir." He said, trying to mask the disdain lacing his feigned boot-licking.
On the other side of her holding cell, Elise watched the door open. Two figures entered-- one of them well-dressed, the other more recognizable as Blake Richards. Hesitation clouded her mind as she tried to piece together how he was here, how he could have not only extricated himself from the elevator shaft but somehow wormed himself into a position of trust. She stared at him, gauging his posture and reaction as the two filed in.
Blake noticed her glimmer of recognition-- he certainly hadn't forgotten her from the Sociologist's introduction; given how ridiculous her attire was it was difficult to forget, even amidst the confusion of being thrust into a battle to the death. His face responded by shifting to a mask of callous disregard and moving to the fringe of the holding cell. He'd need a chance to assess her before making any sort of decision, especially if she had met his counterpart.
Krieger motioned to a seat at a table. The woman complied, her goggle-covered eyes fixated on him as she sat down. "Is there a name you'd like me to use, miss...?" He began.
"Stop with the pleasantries and tell me what is you want." Elise brusquely responded-- she had little patience, not when her life was steadily ticking away. Part of her wanted to assault him and try to escape, and that instinct was only barely restrained by her last encounter and the sore aching of her body.
"Very well then."
Krieger assessed the prisoner cautiously. It was hard to read her-- her face was obscured by the bleached-white beak of her mask. Even then, however, there was a lot he could tell. Her posture was belligerent and betrayed an obvious aggressive streak-- no doubt a result of being interned, but it was still curious. Most intruders they had captured resorted to passivity and resignation when they learned who their captor was; this one was either surprisingly confident or she really was the delusional woman her journal indicated. He retrieved the notebook and placed it on the table, carefully flipping to the page describing the first of the ghoul encounters as he set it down.
"What can you tell me about this?"
Elise grabbed the journal, quickly flipping through its pages. "How much did you read?" She angrily asked.
"Answer my question first, please."
Elise stood up, provoked by his questioning. She almost collapsed once more under the sudden exertion, but remained standing. "I don't know what you're asking for, but you're not going to get it."
Krieger immediately drew a handgun in response. He had hoped he would not have to resort to this, but it was clear that he would need to be more forceful in his questioning if he had any hope of discovering what she knew-- he was certain she knew something, anything that would give him the means of stopping his company.
"What, you really think that is going to stop me? There's no will behind your threat, you know."
Krieger aimed the gun, shakily raising it to threaten her. "I need to know why you were in that elevator shaft. I don't know how you knew about it, or what your intentions were, but it's obvious you know something about how to stop this hurk--"
In a single swift motion, Blake's box-cutter interrupted Krieger, its blade piercing his neck. For a moment, there was a soft gurgling as blood pooled and rippled down his neck, a few choking breaths as he struggled to breathe, and then he was dead.
And with his death, the last vestiges of any dissent to the company's grandiose scheme to conquer the Spire also died.
"Talk to me, Krieger. Tell me just what is I've just seen."
If Sir Bradley was shaken at all by the experience of the moments earlier, it was impossible to discern. His posture was attentive, excited, only barely leaning over the conference table they now stood around; his face was a mask of enthusiasm. He was still wearing his full-body hazard suit, having only undone the helmet seals to reveal his bushy, impeccably-rugged mustache. Krieger had taken the time to remove the suit-- it was ill-fitting, pinched at the joints, and the rubber undersuit chafed and stung. If Sir Bradley were experiencing any of the same discomfort, it was imperceptible.
"Well, sir." The assistant began. A projector hummed to life, displaying the opening slide of the presentation created minutes ago-- if Krieger knew anything, it was that adherence to protocol was important, and corporate protocol made it clear that any meaningful exchange of information was to be done with the accompaniment of little slides and pointless charts.
"Our preliminary findings--" the presentation switched to a set of bullet-pointed lines, "--indicate that we have, in fact, broken reality. A rough measurement revealed the elevator shaft has, erm, extended forty to seventy feet above the height of the Pacific Spire. Outside measurements indicate that the outside has not changed to account for this, er, discrepancy. Sir." He paused as he finished the sentence, waiting for Bradley's response.
"That's a, uh, pretty uncertain figure there." He replied.
"We believe the exact height changes, sir. Once the, erm, intruders were subdued, our scan and subsequent visit higher up the shaft seemed to reveal as much." Krieger's answer had a nervous inflection. No one had mentioned the woman now locked in their holding cell, or the other who had, by all accounts, disappeared into thin air. Of all of the anomaly's mysteries, they were the only ones with no explanation, no rational cause. For the empirical minds of the managers and engineers, such irregularities were swept under the carpet and ignored.
"So, where's the science in all this?" Bradley asked.
"The science, sir?"
The executive shook his head and sighed. "The science, Bradley. I've had my share of engineers telling me they can't achieve the impossible, and now that the impossible is right here, I want to see it achieved."
"Sir, with all due respect--"
"Krieger, let me tell you something. I founded this company with my bare hands and the miniscule scraps I had left of my college fund. I had only one dream, one vision. To monopolize science. And now, after fifty years, I might finally see that dream achieved, Krieger."
Bradley stood up, pacing around the conference table. "I'm old, Krieger. I've lived through the days when we'd settle our disputes in a civil manner, by buying out all of a company's shares and gutting them into a pitiful subsidiary. When hostile takeovers didn't require firearms. Krieger, all I ask is that with whatever science is in that elevator shaft, you let me live to see my dream. Is that too much to ask for?"
"...No, sir." Krieger eventually responded.
---
After however much time spent in unconsciousness, Elise woke up. Her hand immediately went for a crossbow that wasn't there.
She stood up immediately, checking herself the split-second she was upright. Her plague-suit was intact, beaked respirator and makeshift armor and all-- she had that much. But the weaponry, the backpack, the journals and survival gear and alchemical mixtures, all those had been confiscated. She reached for a pocket, wishing the vial of medicine she needed was still there.
Damn it, damn it! She wanted to scream as her pocket found nothing, but her body refused, its nerves and muscles still frayed from the electric convulsions and unconsciousness of earlier. Silently cursing herself for her stupidity, for her own rash actions that now seemed all too likely to kill her, she tried to think. Her mind tried to push back the notion that her recklessness was now going to invalidate her life's work, instead working to examine her surroundings. She took a deep breath, the respirator's workings sighing as she did. Her body stopped quivering with anger, letting her focus on her surroundings.
The room she was now in was barren and coated in a thin film of dust, with a miniscule assortment of furnishings and only scrawled graffiti as decoration. One wall had a large mirror, its surface scratched and marred; another had a bulky metal door. A light brightly flickered up above, as though to clearly illustrate Elise's dismal surroundings. Underneath her mask, she scowled-- there wasn't enough here for her to engineer an escape. She would be forced to wait.
A minute passed, then two, then ten. Each second that ticked away was a painful eternity, a excruciating reminder of her failure. Elise angrily paced across the room, her boots scuffing against the concrete floor-- she stopped only to adjust her armor, tighten the seals on her mask and straighten her cloak. Part of her felt the gradual symptoms of her affliction almost taking root. She thought she felt weaker-- she wasn't sure, but loudly swore at her captors all the same. Banging on the door and mirror produced no response, not even a guard coming in to stop her.
Elise stopped. She could hear a voice from outside.
---
Initially, Krieger wasn't sure whether he was impressed or intimidated by the new progress the scientists had made. Not much time had passed since the preliminary analysis of the anomaly-- and even less time had passed since Sir Bradley's demand for results-- but they were achieving phenomenal effects. As he examined the laboratory space, curiosity had quickly turned to fear.
But even though he did not understand the physical principles-- of violation thereof-- he could see the scientific creations were bordering on malevolent. Much of their experimentation was above his level of understanding-- Krieger had always been more focused on navigating the corporate strata, on directing the actuarial parts of a company, and ultimately had neglected his scientific understanding down to just the thin veneer necessary. But when one team had taken a radioactive sample up to the elevator shaft and had returned with it powering what they called-- between congratulatory high-fives-- a "hand-held quantum destabilizer"? And another was attempting to replicate the "localized space-time folding", and a third had filed an unexplained request for a half-dozen interns as test subjects?
Krieger was pragmatic-- he lived for his work, and his work was the fine-tuning of corporate machinery. But even for a self-described bureaucratic fixer, what he now saw was nothing short of chilling. Sir Bradley had requested science, and Krieger was beginning to see the inventions that fell underneath that umbrella definition. The entire company had been possessed by their discovery, working and devising mechanisms that should never have existed. Even now, they were gearing up for a new attempt to conquer the Pacific Spire, armed with the infernal devices the physics-bending anomaly had allowed them to construct.
He flipped through the intruder's journal. The scientific team, once the intruders had either disappeared or been disposed of they were quickly erased from the narrow focus of the corporate echelons. He had taken a moment to look through some of her confiscated goods, and the journal had been the first thing he wanted to investigate-- and as he read further, he realized just how fortuitous his decision was. Page after page detailed arcane formulae and barely-comprehensible instructions, right up until the page describing the dead reanimating and attacking the living. Some instructions were there, long-since crossed out and replaced with frenetic, scrawled warnings.
Any other day, he would have dismissed her writings as those of a schizophrenic, costumed mad-women. But as he read them now, a cold truth to her words enveloped him.
His company-- no, their company, Krieger could not allow himself to associate with them-- couldn't see this. If their minds had idly wandered to weapons of total annihilation, he shuddered to think of what they would do with an opportunity to create an undead army. He needed to see her. He saw no way of stopping this awakening leviathan, and no one within the company could be trusted-- she was the only possibility open to him. A desperate prayer almost escaped his lips as he made his way to the company's holding cell.
---
As Blake traversed the corridors, he found himself adopting the comfortable mantle of anonymity. No one on these floors recognized him-- they just assumed he was another employee from some other department, and not to be disturbed as he went about his business. He was fine with that; them deciding to inquire about him would have been another petty annoyance that he lacked the patience for. Having a moment to collect his thoughts and plan was a welcome relief-- there was still much for him to do. After checking a corridor to make sure it was unoccupied, he leaned against a wall, affording himself a brief reprieve.
"Hey, you. Come with me, I need someone to watch over this. Er, in case something goes wrong." Krieger interrupted. He didn't recognize the intern slouching against the wall, but in this situation that was exactly what he needed-- somewhat not ingrained in what he recognized as an increasingly deranged chain of command.
"And why should I--"
Blake stopped. He still had a thin veneer of cover, and he wanted to maintain it for as long as he could. Deciding to play along with this employee's demands, he cleared his throat-- whatever pointless .
"Sorry for that. Lead the way, sir." He said, trying to mask the disdain lacing his feigned boot-licking.
On the other side of her holding cell, Elise watched the door open. Two figures entered-- one of them well-dressed, the other more recognizable as Blake Richards. Hesitation clouded her mind as she tried to piece together how he was here, how he could have not only extricated himself from the elevator shaft but somehow wormed himself into a position of trust. She stared at him, gauging his posture and reaction as the two filed in.
Blake noticed her glimmer of recognition-- he certainly hadn't forgotten her from the Sociologist's introduction; given how ridiculous her attire was it was difficult to forget, even amidst the confusion of being thrust into a battle to the death. His face responded by shifting to a mask of callous disregard and moving to the fringe of the holding cell. He'd need a chance to assess her before making any sort of decision, especially if she had met his counterpart.
Krieger motioned to a seat at a table. The woman complied, her goggle-covered eyes fixated on him as she sat down. "Is there a name you'd like me to use, miss...?" He began.
"Stop with the pleasantries and tell me what is you want." Elise brusquely responded-- she had little patience, not when her life was steadily ticking away. Part of her wanted to assault him and try to escape, and that instinct was only barely restrained by her last encounter and the sore aching of her body.
"Very well then."
Krieger assessed the prisoner cautiously. It was hard to read her-- her face was obscured by the bleached-white beak of her mask. Even then, however, there was a lot he could tell. Her posture was belligerent and betrayed an obvious aggressive streak-- no doubt a result of being interned, but it was still curious. Most intruders they had captured resorted to passivity and resignation when they learned who their captor was; this one was either surprisingly confident or she really was the delusional woman her journal indicated. He retrieved the notebook and placed it on the table, carefully flipping to the page describing the first of the ghoul encounters as he set it down.
"What can you tell me about this?"
Elise grabbed the journal, quickly flipping through its pages. "How much did you read?" She angrily asked.
"Answer my question first, please."
Elise stood up, provoked by his questioning. She almost collapsed once more under the sudden exertion, but remained standing. "I don't know what you're asking for, but you're not going to get it."
Krieger immediately drew a handgun in response. He had hoped he would not have to resort to this, but it was clear that he would need to be more forceful in his questioning if he had any hope of discovering what she knew-- he was certain she knew something, anything that would give him the means of stopping his company.
"What, you really think that is going to stop me? There's no will behind your threat, you know."
Krieger aimed the gun, shakily raising it to threaten her. "I need to know why you were in that elevator shaft. I don't know how you knew about it, or what your intentions were, but it's obvious you know something about how to stop this hurk--"
In a single swift motion, Blake's box-cutter interrupted Krieger, its blade piercing his neck. For a moment, there was a soft gurgling as blood pooled and rippled down his neck, a few choking breaths as he struggled to breathe, and then he was dead.
And with his death, the last vestiges of any dissent to the company's grandiose scheme to conquer the Spire also died.