[OPEN] BABES IN TOYLAND

[speakveryclearly]

Date & Time: December 20th, 2013
Location: New York City!!!
Characters: HOLIDAY SHOPPERS. Please note that with mod approval, any character is allowed to have joined the mob in front of the transporter, regardless of whether they responded to the network post advertising this event.
Summary: In a bid to conserve energy, over a dozen transports do all of their Christmas shopping at once. I hope you brought money!
Warnings: None for now!

All the transports are dropped into New York at 6:00, simultaneously but scattered. Coding the drop points for this mission was hell.

It turns out that the weather is actually fairly mild on this date; there is snow neither in the air nor in the ground. That isn't to say there's nothing of visual interest: All the lights of the city are on at this hour.



The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree was lit back on December 4th.



Shop until you drop, Transports.

Comments

[inhumanity]

[Maybe this will be a truly peaceful adventure of two companions having a fun drive through New York.

Nah. Just give the poor victim time to call the cops.

Christopher moves in whimsical gestures, but he watches carefully. Call it a survival tactic. Munakata's response is observed and remembered, without any sign that he witnessed it at all.

Leisurely, they travel through New York's streets. (If anyone can travel New York's streets in a leisurely manner.) Christopher is even obeying all the rules of the road, particularly the primary rule: be safe.]

I don't like cars. A human-made being in a human-made object in a human-made space is just boring, don't you think? It would be better if we could drive right out into nature.

[permit]

[ the traffic is unusually slow for new york -- a small detail he easily attributes to the fact that they're in the high-end part of town, driving through valet parking lots and concrete streets paved to make the trip easy for those who can afford it.

in this much, he thinks, he can find some truth to christopher's earlier chagrin. ]

A human-made being in a human-made object in a natural space.

[ he repeats, lazy and yet with care accenting every syllable. he keeps his eyes on the road, shifts only with the stray rubble they grind beneath their wheels -- and smiles a little wider when they turn the corner and meet the worst of it, the thick of new york traffic in all its angry honking glory. ]

It'd be desecration, don't you think?

[inhumanity]

That's certainly one way to look at it. I'd just call it an inconsistency.

[Christopher doesn't lose his patience. He looks ahead, taking measure of the congestion, the paralysis. His thumb strokes the wheel, absent, as nothing happens.

But where his body speaks of with a kind of negating acceptance that might suggest a great deal of progress down the Noble Eightfold Path, his voice remains as animated as the host of a children's television program.]

Let's establish a points scale! Tell me, shall we make the goal one hundred points or a thousand? Personally, I think it's always more fun to be overambitious than underambitious, but I'm willing to negotiate a lower number with you. Seven hundred and fifty? Tell me what you prefer.

[permit]

[ . . . here, then, is movement.

his finger tapping against his knuckle; a glance trained in his peripheral. ]

Points.

[ echoed but not unkindly, answered in the bland way a member of an audience might. ]

I suppose it would very much depend on what earns what.

If everything earns a hundred, then wouldn't it be more challenging to go for a higher point total? Negotiation - [ it's somewhat stressed -- the care he takes to mind the nuance in the manner christopher had phrased it. ] can begin when we've established that.

[inhumanity]

[Christopher glances towards Munakata with the low, lazy grin of chaos about to break loose.]

Ten points for CEOs. Fifteen for mere street thugs. Twenty points for members of organized crime.

Twenty five for cops and government agents.

[Christopher turns the wheel towards the curb and gives a boost of gas. They're on the sidewalk—people scatter—Christopher clips an open door on one end and the back of a car on the other before he manages to spin them straight back around. With very little caution, he enjoys the bonus lane for cruel drivers: the sidewalks of New York.]

Oh, and subtract seventy for hitting children!

[Well, at least he'll be getting them out of traffic, with all those people running away.]