exsiliumlogs | Operation: Roll Out

Entry tags:

Operation: Roll Out

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh? Have I done anything so great that they've already decided to erect a palace for me?

[ Okay, he really knows better, but it's fun to pretend otherwise!

Out the door they go, him all too happy to let her lead. ]

And it highly depends on the stakes as to whether I like gambling or not.

Edited 2014-02-09 07:03 (UTC)

( She snorts, breathing in sharply afterward as the chill air finally hits her full force. )

What are the ultimate stakes here?

( She looks up, into the dark of the night sky. Stars are next to impossible to see on this part of the strip. It's such a stark contrast to New Mexico. A tangle of memories from their time in the desert circles back around. She wonders why she remembers that right now.

Her nose wrinkles remembering what had happened when she'd tried to kiss him, way back. He'd deserved that hand licking. )

Think we'll ever get another saddle?

Lives. [ He manages to say that without sounding melodramatic, which alone is a feat. ] It's always lives, no matter where you are. It just isn't as obvious here.

[ Anyone else could have said money or simply fun being at stake, but that's only in the games. They're here for something bigger and, while he would very much enjoy just sleeping this trip away, he's found it's less and less an option the longer he's stuck in this world.

While she looks at the sky above, he looks at the space around them. Filled with exasperating people, full of life and color. How fake is it all? Or are they really happy here? ]

And I don't know. It's possible, although we might not want to go looking for them in this place...

Mmm, probably not. ( She leans into his shoulder, amused at her own thoughts. ) Not for stars, either.

( They had another block to go before the lights of Caesar's Palace would peek out from behind the other blinking, brilliant casino's beckoning them onward and inward. Such an odd decadence. Stranger still to have it call back to history in any loose sense, like it does here. )

How often do you gamble your own?

[ How ironic that she'd say that, considering she's hanging on to a star's arm right this very moment. That, however, is a meaning and a history from another world, lost in this one.

As they approach the Palace, Caesar can only frown at it, disapproving.

That's a place he would never lend his name to, even if it's meant to be named after a completely different Caesar! ]

As much as I gamble anyone else's, I suspect.

( The day she sees anyone treat Caesar like a star is the day she doubles over laughing and falls to the floor to roll around as tears come to her eyes and she's incapacitated for fifteen minutes.

... But she'd probably like the stars in his unfamiliar sky, at the very least, alien as they'd be. )

That's what I thought.

( Too often, in her opinion, but a good kind of too often. He didn't gamble with everyone else and assume he was going to be untouched. It meant more, working with someone who took risks along with you, than working with someone who ducked out on the responsibility and congratulated themselves over it. )

It's one of the things I like best about you. Even if it drives me up a wall.

( Sometimes. Usually during what she perceives as being the stupid times, but she knows it's an element of caring about others and not being the one who prioritizes the war over the individual at all times. She can, and has, done just that. But she chooses to be selfish sometimes too.

It doesn't make her a good person. She doesn't expect it ever will. But it matters to her.

Like it mattered each time someone gambled recklessly with their life for no reason. )

Have you ever ended up reading about Rome?

[ Hey now, with a name like his, there's plenty of places he could stroll into and everyone would know who he was! Who his family was, anyway. It counted. Sort of. That, however, isn't up for discussion today. One day, perhaps, but not here. More importantly, what Collette does say manages to be wonderful and painful all at once.

Not the Rome part, though. Who cares about Rome? Obviously not him, otherwise he'd have stopped being confused by her endless jokes about it.

He has to wonder. What kind of person likes such a trait best, even though it drives her to distraction? It's not like he couldn't say the same for her, with how needlessly reckless she is. It's aggravating without the side-effect of looking noble somehow, the way she barges into a danger that could have been avoided. Not always, of course, is she that way, but teaching her to stop and think has always been one of those ongoing struggles between them. Although that's also why she understands it, isn't it? They've been over that before, too, a long time ago. She was a soldier and he was a tactician. Their fates were always going to be tied to a bloody fight, somewhere, somehow.

And this was getting far too deep and thoughtful for his own good, he realizes, just in time to shake the sad look he's briefly given Collette and return to his typical neutral, seemingly carefree expression. ]

Not really. There were never any signs we'd be going back to that time, so I did most of reading on the more modern eras.

( She'd still say it didn't count, when she knew, but it'd bother her. The being known without being known, like it negates a person for the sake of a name. She'd never embrace that kind of concept, having fought so hard for so long to be recognized as Collette, a person separate from a physical disability.

They aren't equivalent, but she'd find it strange, without seeing at first the parallels to her own world's celebrity culture. It wouldn't take her long to catch on... but that's neither here nor there.

She catches something of a sadness in his expression, giving his arm a light squeeze. She's more than capable of reaching all levels of him now, compared to how she was before, but her first instinct still fell back on what she used to do. Collette's free hand goes to find his, tugging to upward and toward her as they wait for the light to change.

She kisses his hand if she can, no longer watching the colors of the light change from orange to teal. )

It's better that we don't. Rome was pretty cool, but it wasn't exactly forgiving. More like this giant empire that absorbed everything it could. One day you were Anglo-Saxon. Then you were claimed for Rome.

[ It's a little funny how she still does that. Of course he lets her, even if it looks so strange now that she's closer to his height these days. ]

You know, you can reach more than just my hands now.

[ But that isn't meant to scold her, only an observation. ]

So that's Rome. Sounds a little familiar to me.

[ Although he isn't thinking of the United Earth. It has a more Harmonian feel to it, especially if the ridiculous amount of grandeur this resort they're heading into has any truth to its design. Though the light is changing now, so it's time to pull his hand back and tug her along into crossing the street with the rest of the pedestrians. ]

You saying you want me kissing something else?

( She let amusement lighten her tone as they moved across the road, in the crush of bodies making the same crossing. )

Harmonia?

( The United Earth felt too big, and different, to be the same idea as Rome. Then again, maybe it was that she didn't see the big appeal in Utopian societies. Perfect everything? Perfectly boring! )

I do have a face.

[ Which he points out mostly in hope of keeping her from suggesting other places. ]

And got it in one. You have been paying attention after all!

( A wise move on Caesar's part. Collette likely would have mentioned something else, evidenced in her playful grin. )

I always pay attention -- mostly always! When I'm interested in the subject material.

( She steps up onto the curb on the far side a beat ahead of him, taking advantage of the additional height to half turn and look briefly down at him. )

On all that face of yours, where should I be kissing? I wonder.

Edited 2014-02-17 05:45 (UTC)

[ He pauses briefly when she gets the curb up on him and turns to look down. Why, he'll just shrug. ]

I'll leave that up to a professional like you to answer.

[ Because honestly, it's not like there's anywhere worrying on his face he'd rather have avoided! ]

Now, what were we going to do in this pla--

[ He would have finished that if an uproar of cheering and music hadn't cued up from somewhere ahead of them. The Palace resort boasted a lot of interesting features, but the one being the loudest right now was undoubtedly their big copy of a coliseum, covered in garishly bright and blinking lights announcing match-ups and fights on big screens mounted on the sides of the building. ]

( She leans in to kiss him, but the same interruption that cuts off his sentence redirects her attention. Collette pulls him up and along after her, bouncing up and down trying to see over the heads of the crowd. )

What's going on? Is there something up there?

( A roar comes out of the coliseum, fireworks launching over the giant round stadium. )

Gladiator?

( It's the one thing she does see - the word spelled out in the fireworks. Along with the image of two figures with swords apparently attacking each other. How fireworks could manage that, she has no idea. )

We have got to see one of those things!

[ He'd failed to notice the incoming kiss, in any case, having already turned to look at the overly loud coliseum (not that anything here isn't also overly loud), so not much is lost. ]

I-- [ Oops, being jerked along as she hurries off. He'll manage to keep up, briefly finding it funny how for once he's the one lagging behind! ] What? The fireworks or the matches?

( She laughs, jostled as she is in the crowd. )

The matches, of course! These fireworks have nothing on Paris.

( Or the bittersweet taste that leaves in her mouth, a familiar warmth spreading through her body. Whatever! No time for that right now anyway. There was an entire fake coliseum to see!

The crowds split and flow toward different entrances, all set on their own forms of entertainment for the night. Collette thinks she's following signs that say "Coliseum this way," but it's difficult to know for sure.

Only then there they are, corralled through arches and walkways to a broad open expanse of crafted and light interior. Sand lined the bottom of the Arena, several chariots being driven around the outer edge by horses in plumage instructed by men and women in completely non-Roman outfits. Collette thought they looked more... Scottish than anything else. )

No way... those have to be mechanical!

But those fireworks were low tech...

[ How they could have nothing on the fireworks Paris had goes straight over his head! Otherwise he'd agree, but for the same entirely non-firework related reasons. Not that it would matter right now, just the same as she's thinking.

He manages to keep up with her through the crowd, even if it takes some pushing, and then he's back at her side once more when they finally do arrive inside the coliseum. He looks down at the arena, frowning. Even without knowing all about Rome, coliseum's aren't an entirely foreign concept. While Caesar may have (potentially) been of the same mind on previous other things a moment before, on this he is not. ]

Don't be too sure. Remember what we were saying about robots before?

[ How little the UE seemed to invest in them? In higher technologies? ]

( She flashes him a grin, knowing he's right, but wondering just how brutal the collapse was from now until three hundred years forward, to eradicate horses in that time. Or had they? If they were in the United Earth now, perhaps the same would hold true in the now that came after they meddled. Or maybe horses had always survived, buried deep within the heart of a misguided, utopian government.

Wait, she meant totalitarian. Yeah! )

Think we can get down to them? I miss seeing horses that I don't turn into. You don't think they make people fight to the death here, do you?

( She leaned out over the railing, both hands locked on to the bar even as she strained to see everything she could. Here, the excitement of the crowd has filtered through, making her jittery with energy alone. She's finding it markedly difficult to stay still. )

[ Time changed. Who knows, maybe they'd survived somewhere, somehow. He looks around for stairs or any other way to get closer to the front seats of the coliseum. There are, of course, long rows of stairs leading down, as if this were like any other kind of sports stadium. ]

We can get closer, but if you mean out onto the field, you're out of luck. [ They really don't want to be out there. He'll point towards some stairs, though, if she decides to go for it. ] And this is a gladiatorial ring, Collette. Do you really think all these people come here to see both sides walk away alive?

[ Of course, he'd love to be wrong this one time. What a barbaric sport that is. ]

( Collette bets she can find a way to get down there without difficulties, using time stopping and morphing, but she lets that entertaining thought remain in her head. her look cast Caesar's way is honestly surprised. )

Actually, yeah? Look at the people we're surrounded by, C. Not one of them actually likes danger, they just like feeling like it's close.

( She leaned in and spoke in a low voice closer to his ear, more to finally cater to not talking about the United Earth in any obvious capacity than to be flirtatious. )

You don't murder your own people. Not for entertainment like this, in a city devoted to playing around both in and out of bed.

( She pulled back, looking actually concerned. Part of it was playful, but there was more a depth of understanding in her eyes. )

The worst answer isn't always the one most likely to be right. Besides, do you really think I want to watch anybody else die?

( She punches his shoulder before taking off down the stairs with a grin that may not make it all the way to her eyes. )

Gotta keep up, Mr. Silverberg!

They likely wouldn't consider the people being killed their own people...

[ Was his answer, in a similar low tone, but before he can say anything more, she's off for the stairs and he has to fight the crowd to keep up.

If only it were so simple as her not wanting to see anyone die, that it would make it so here. He would be far from upset should he turn out wrong, of course, but this was a coliseum. People were going to fight. Had they really turned it into nothing more than a play for the audience? Would these people even feel bad if they watched someone cut down for their enjoyment? ]

( The mockery people considered a form of callback flattery is outside of the realm of homages paid in his own world. Collette is used to the watered down replications, the dangerous-but-safe, all the things that her context of modern (past tense as it was to now) created her expectations.

She's seen such horrible things, and lived through such horrific events, that she doesn't want to suspect those first. Understand they may be possible, allow Caesar to be that voice of reason she'll shelve because that takes care of that, certainly, but it's the truth behind the lines of tension in her shoulders that she means to be surprised by technology and not -- in so many words -- surprised by the cruelty of mankind.

Though Caesar is far from wrong. People have adored the safety of someone else's carnage, something they can distance from and decry as entertainment instead of horror, for centuries. It's civilized if the ones who fight choose the fight, or are lesser beings, or any of the numerous explanations and justifications that allowed people to sleep through their nights uninterrupted by a greater consciousness of what right and wrong might be when granting others the basic human right of existence as an equal, thinking party in the world.

She doesn't look back for him, trusting he'll either find her or she'll navigate the crowds to find him again later. Her attention is on the ground, watching the horses and their charioteers pull back out through grand gates at the far end.

Someone called out over the crowds, announcing the next match. Three people, two of them women, walked toward the center of the sands.

"Playing the role of the lion, Cassandra Chevek! Playing the role of the tiger, Jamal Samitz! With our gladiator of the hour, Umbar Qual!"

All three bow in turn, and the two nominated as animals back away. The same persistent style of holograph that had plagued them on arrival settled over the two performers, transforming them from human to impressive, beautiful, oversized and stylized versions of the very animals they'd been named.

The battle that began from that point forward was very much art, a sort of high energy impossible dance with the holographs responding to any touch of the gladiator's sword.

Collette leans in, enthralled by the spectacle. Simple death matches might have had the blood-lust appeal, but this had its own excitement and exaggeration.

For one, she knew a lion and tiger would never be able to move in some of the ways the performers made them, and would be much more brutal and efficient than either seemed willing to allow.

She quite suddenly suspects none of them have observed either feline in person. Everything reads like a cumulation of observations from Discovery Channel, if such a thing still exists. It's incredibly jarring. )

That's not anything like how a big cat can fight.

[ Caesar will eventually manage to make his way back to her side, but only after the mock fight has begun. Some small part of him is relieved to see it is just some big play to them all, seeing how the animals are simply people in holographic costumes. That's bizarre, though, to watch. ]

You're right. [ He squeezes in to stand at the railing, too, and lean over to watch. ] They're just doing their best to mimic, but the human body isn't meant to move like a cat.

[ The cheering of the crowd makes it apparent that no one else particularly cares (or, at least, mostly no one else) whether it's accurate or not, though. The noise rises around them with every stab, then falls into hushed gasps every time the gladiator goes down, then loud again with whoops and jeers when the man rolls away at the last second. ]

Well, he's certainly in no danger of dying, so that's good...

( Her expression clears up some when he joins her, though she hadn't expected a response to her statement. Heck, she didn't notice she'd been talking out loud. Collette bumps her shoulder into his arm, snorting and rolling her eyes. )

See, they're not so bloodthirsty here! As they could be. Wait, where did the flaming ring of fire come from?

( She points down into the arena, where a ring of flames has been slowly brought up to the surface from below. The gladiator is running toward it, full tilt. Right when it seems she'd simply run into the lower arc of fire, she jumps, doing an impressive flip through the ring and landing with a whoosh of sand on the far side. Both "big cats" follow after, and the fight resumes much as it had been before.

Only with a ring of fire still there. Burning. Collette can't help herself. She laughs. )

Why's it still there?!

A part of the arena, no doubt.

[ Caesar watches the mock fight a short while longer before groaning and slumping against the railing in a show of how terribly boring he's finding this. So they don't kill one another in the arena here, great, but that also sucks every ounce of interest out of it. ]

They aren't even very good at this, you know. They could at least throw in a dragon if they want to do something eye-catching...

Operation: Roll Out

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