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

[therapeutics]

[ normally, information-gathering is julia hoffman's thing. she can do it in an instant, but it isn't fun when it has to be dragged out of them, and hypnosis wouldn't be a viable option in a place like this. certainly, she's made foolish decisions before, but that? that's crossing the line. even she has enough sense to refuse to attempt to pull that off.

so what little information she's gathered is sitting in her pocket, recorded discreetly from her tablet (she really needs to get a tape recorder for her sessions at home, she thinks - and then she remembers, and she has another drink), while she herself sits perched on a little stool at the casino bar. she bites a cherry off a stem and continues to watch everybody lose their money. it's actually pretty amusing. ]

[lazyinlove]

[The next stool over belongs to someone who has decided that spinning around is kinda fun. Isn't that swell, Jules?]

Sup, doc?

[therapeutics]

[ the bad news is, that stool? mad squeaky. julia tries to sip her drink in peace before she's acknowledged and then - nope. ]

Christ, kid, there are people trying to concentrate in here, you know.

[lazyinlove]

On what?

[The thing is, he's not even trying to be a smartass at the moment. Or annoying, for that matter. He's just a little hopped up on a handful of illicit substances, and it's harder to sit still than usual.]

[therapeutics]

The casino.

[ sad as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. she takes a glance over to him, then nods out toward those playing. ]

Gambling does involve some form of mental focus.

[lazyinlove]

[That might be a good point, if the kid didn't glance up as though surprised to find himself n a casino at the moment.

Oh. So they are. Weird.]

Nah. How hard is 21 to win?

[therapeutics]

[ she's familiar with that reaction. and she pauses for a moment, leans over, takes a good look at his eyes. whether there's something evident there or not, she leans back, mouth twitching as she looks away and lifts her drink again. ]

How stoned are you?

[lazyinlove]

[His eyes are indeed a little flat, pupils a bit off, sclera a bit red. There's a pretty high likelhood -ha! get it?- that he's a bit stoned, yes. Maybe even a lot stoned. He answers her question with a playful quirk of the eyebrows and the vaguest hint at a smile.]

Take it easy on the pot, kettle. We're on vacation.

[That's what missions are, as far as he's concerned. No one is blowing you up, and you don't have to do what the farmer says. It's pretty sweet.]

[therapeutics]

Yeah, a vacation to collect information, you know.

Did you get any?

[ she is willing to bet all the money in this casino that the answer is "no." ]

[lazyinlove]

Mmhmm.

[It's an agreeable sort of hum, but non-committal. Sure, he's got some information. Never mind that it probably isn't what he was supposed to be finding out. He generally assumes that someone more responsible will come along and do that part o missions. It's not really his idea of fun.]

[therapeutics]

[ alternatively, despite his age, he's here to do a job, and julia does have a sense of responsibility. a warped one, but a sense nonetheless. she gives him a sidelong glance. ]

Yeah? Like what?

[lazyinlove]

I dunno if you're cleared for that information.

[Disapproval is nothing new to Stanley, and consequently, he's immune to it. He fishes an ice cube out of his glass and sucks on it, indifferently.]

[therapeutics]

What do you mean, not cleared for it? I'm working with you, aren't I? [ in the colloquial, you little shit. ]

[lazyinlove]

Can't be. I'm not working with anyone.

[That much is rue at least. He spins the stool around again, only halfway, from side to side. Squeak, squeak.

[therapeutics]

Oh, Jesus Christ, we're all on the same team! [ u little shit. ]

remind me to stop tagging at 5am. gj me.

[lazyinlove]

I never signed up.

[Squeak.]

a+++

[therapeutics]

Wait, what?

[ she's not angry. not really. just, honestly, really, really confused. ]

Then what are you doing gathering shit if you're not part of the operation?!

4:30 is okay tho I think

[lazyinlove]

I dunno. Bored?

[He's having a vacation is what he's doing, honestly. Look, no snowdrifts. That's cool, right?]

yes.

[therapeutics]

Well, at least you're honest.

[ either that, or just being dumb, because teenagers don't need to be doing grown up work what is happening here wake up america. ]