Operation: Roll Out

[initiates]

Date & Time: January 31st - February 4th, Present Day Exsilium Time
Location: Neo Las Vegas, in what formerly was called Turkey.
Characters: All Transports!
Summary: Transports have been sent to Neo Las Vegas to gather information on the origin point of the United Earth and the UE AI. Conference sabotage and the rest is expected and invited!
Warnings: Gambling and alcoholic beverages quite likely! Please PM the mod account for anything else.

By day, the landscape isn't desert, precisely, so much as it is dry. Winter's settled in and found in the biting chill of the wind when it finds you standing on the street. Hovercars and taxis thrum down the cobblestone streets, cavorting and honking like a noisy crowd of inelegant, overweight geese. Men walk by on stilts half in make-up, on their way back to their stage for the next night. Walks of shame are taken proudly in this district, one of the few approved and sanctioned vacation zones in the United Earth.

Evidence of law enforcement can be found all around, but they seem altogether too pleased to be there too. Talk with any one of them about crime rates, and they're liable to laugh at the idea. Those who come to gamble know the house is rigged to win. It's not about making or breaking the bank -- people whose funds dip too low are politely escorted back to their rooms and given a set of normal playing cards -- but it is about enjoyment.

Of the flesh too, and it'd be difficult to find anyone working in Neo Las Vegas who suffers from modesty, or anyone visiting who seems unwilling to politely ask visitors and staff if they'd like to keep them company for the night. In fact, Transports may find themselves needing to turn down multiple such requests! The refusal is always taken well. These are people looking to have a good time, and that's all.

No chance taken, nothing gained, right?

At night, the city really comes alive, the lights in all the hotels and casinos turning the Neo Las Vegas Strip into a carnival of sensation. Drinks and recreational drugs are freely passed around, men and women engage in a variety of sexual and other hedonistic excesses without regret, and the beautiful interiors and ostentatious or playful exteriors of the buildings hide and reveal a rich tapestry of events, delectables, and desires waiting to be fulfilled.

Neo Las Vegas is a fun place, and it is a safe place, and it is Where the Conferences For Our Future Are Made. Playtime is on, gang.

Comments

excellent

[lazyinlove]

Stanley.

[The kid volunteers anyway, sighing with relief. He holds a clumsy hand out when Doug sways, but it's just a token effort even if he thinks he means it. There's no way he could actually offer any real support to a guy Doug's weight. It's lucky that the wall is there instead.]

So...this is your hotel?

[mallarkey]

Um -- yeah.

[ Well, he's pretty sure it is; he gives it a look as if double-checking, but he's also not in much of a mood to mind if it's not. He can stay wherever.

He reaches his hand towards Stanley's, assuming he was offering a handshake. Eloquently he goes on: ]

I'm Doug. Is it yours? ... Also? Sort of hard to tell how spread apart we all are here. Lots of people.

[lazyinlove]

[Sure, there can be a handshake. Stan accepts and shakes, clumsy but firm, genuine. He has to lean against the wall to get his balance back after. Between the two of them, they're probably making for a ridiculous sight to any passerby. Luckily, this seems to be the place to get away with it. No one even slows to peer at them curiously. Drunken idiots are a pretty normal sight here.]

Uh...it could be?

[He glances around, taking in the people now that Doug mentions them. Yeah. There are a lot. Lots and lots. Of people. The sidewalk looks like...a people river. Stan grins quietly to himself at the image.]

New York's worse.

[mallarkey]

[ Doug's eyes skate back and forth, looking at Stanley when he talks and at the passersby in between words. He's not even familiar enough with the crowd of Transports to know if most of the people walking by are from Vegas are aren't, but in a way it doesn't matter. What does? At the moment he feels like not much. ]

Yeah. I've only ever been to New York once and it was incredible-- wall to wall people almost, you could get away with anything there! Here too, maybe... if it's all legal.

[lazyinlove]

Pretty much.

[Stanley grins a little at that. The only nice thing about the after-apocolypse. No one gave a shit what you did anymore.

Though the smile fades away just as quickly, as the problem with that thought thinks in. Yeah. No one gave a shit anymore at all.]

[mallarkey]

[ Doug might feel similarly if his life hadn't already functioned in that vein -- don't give a shit. At least not about anything or anyone but yourself and your family. The orphan perspective could be a very survivalist one; his thinking hasn't needed to adjust that much. ]

I like the lights. [ It's a little disconnected and a lot slurred, but he's still thinking in the vein of: Vegas. City. He tilts his head up. ] Except I think I miss the stars. Can't really see 'em anymore.

[ But he couldn't get off the moon fast enough. ]

[lazyinlove]

Yeah.

[Stan glances up too, to not look at the stars apparently. He frowns a little at that as well. The stars weren't all that easy to see where he came from either, but he knew some places around that you could try if you really wanted to. Here there wasn't much chance.

Back in New Exsilium there were stars, though. Millions of them. He had to agree with this drunk guy. Stars were pretty cool.]

You have stars at home? You must've right? Knew whaddi meat about New York. You know New York.

[They must be from the same place, more or less.]

[mallarkey]

Yeah. Yeah, we do. More of them, too... than New York.

[ It's coherent, at least. Doug still looks upward, squinting at the sky and trying to make out stars even though the bright city lights make them all but invisible. ]

Further down we had lots of stars. Didn't live in a city most of th' time, so you could fall asleep and look up at them.