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

[lazyinlove]

He laughs. It's loud and clear and musical, surprisingly genuine. He can't remember the last time he laughed like this, but it must have been when he was pretty young. Maybe there's something about big crazy imaginary creatures that amuse in ways no other things can, and so his childhood laughter comes back to him briefly.

Only until he reaches for it with the wrong arm, though, and ends up hissing and spitting in pain again. After that the laughter dies quickly, as though it was never there at all. BUt he uses his good arm this time, and hops aboard. Why the fuck not?

[crocodilesmiles]

Collette doesn't question why he laughs. She laughs so often, she's glad someone else has to face the absurd with amusement.

Not that he seems totally in touch, and she can tell he's injured.

Nonetheless, she pushes off the invisible barrier, pushing up into the chill night air. They pass the level of the roof, fire bursting from the joints of all her paws, and she runs through the air, higher at first, then gently sloping down. She wonders how far out this all goes, this barrier, but instead of finding out, she stays with what Caesar's intimated before.

Do we want to draw their attention here?

She touches down on the rooftop, sinking down low, until her belly fur brushes the ground. < Ride's over! I need to demorph, we can get you to someplace for your arm then. >

[lazyinlove]

Woah. Woah, firepaws. That's crazy. Maybe not quite as crazy as the whole big furry cat thing in the first place, but definitely a close second.

He wants to ask about it, but then she's talking in his head again and using unfamiliar words...demorph? What?

Well...getting his arm patched up probably is a good idea, yeah. It kinda hurts. A lot, actually. So he slides off, and gives the big kitty an absent pat. Good girl.

[crocodilesmiles]

Collette shakes herself off, her stopwatch falling out of her mouth along with her shoes. Pawing at it until it catches, Stan soon has Collette with him again, sitting on the ground and reaching for her damp sneakers.

She grimaces.

"Let me get my shoes on, then we can get going."

On the bright side, she no longer feels drunk.

[lazyinlove]

It's weird how Collette instantly becomes a girl again after the big magical cat business. Maybe she's better at that than her wolf powers or something, who knows. He debates asking for a minute. She wouldn't get too bent out of shape about it, right? Well. Maybe it's better to wait until after someone patches his arm up or something. He can manage that.

"We can find a hand dryer first if you want."

The corked fingers and whatever he did to his arm and shoulder aren't exactly going anywhere. And he's still pretty tisy, unlike her. It seems like a reasonable suggestion. Her shoes are wet. Wet shoes kinda suck.

[crocodilesmiles]

She gives up on her shoes with a sigh, tying the laces together and swinging them over a shoulder. "Nawh," she says, "I'll just do socks for now. Can I see your arm?"

Collette stands in a full body effort that sends her stumbling and arms flailing, all for the sake of balance. She does find it, planting her feet a little more than shoulder distance apart. Ah-hah! All right, she's got this!

[lazyinlove]

"It's kinda sore. Can we maybe not touch it?"

Stan grumbles a little, suddenly less amused now that the giant weird falme throwing cat is out of the picture.

[crocodilesmiles]

"Sure, but that means we really need to get you down to a medic or the hospital. What hurts?"

She gestures for him to follow her toward the door, shoes shifting on her chest.

[lazyinlove]

"Kinda...all of it." Stan grimaces, but he's not about to argue against some medical treatment. That seems like a good idea actually, yeah. It's not the first time he's wrenched something hard enough that it feels possibly broken or dislocated, so he's not that worried about it. But yeah, he'd like to get it fixed.

[crocodilesmiles]

Collette frowns, then gestures for him to follow. "Okay, let's get down the stairs and onto the elevator. We passed a urgent care center downstairs, so let's hit that up!"

Which led to her attempting to lead him downward.

[lazyinlove]

"That's convenient." Mumbles Stanley, but he follows anyway. Collette hasn't ever tried to trap him somewhere and kill him before, anyway. It's probably fine now.

[crocodilesmiles]

"I'm pretty sure everything about Neo Las Vegas is meant to be convenient," she said, opening the door. It was a straight shot down the stairs to the elevator, where she pressed the call button.

[lazyinlove]

The ease of scoring was pretty convenient, Stanley supposed. And so were the plexiglass clouds, if you fell off the roof or something.

Plus the roller coasters that looped between buildings were way better than a tour bus. "We're gonna take the elevator, right?"

Nill had insisted on stairs that one time, so it was better to ask. Cause he so didn't feel like taking that many flights of stairs at the moment. Not even just down.

[crocodilesmiles]

"Duh!" she said, laughing. "We won't be flying, and why would we walk the stairs? I like that I can now, don't get me wrong, but the elevator's way faster, and way safer for you right now."

Pending the whole place didn't lose power, and then the elevator fail-safes all simultaneously failed.

But what were the chances of that?

"We have to get down to the elevator though, so that's down this flight of stairs and through the next door. Come on, you can lean on me if you need to!"

[lazyinlove]

"No way. Have you seen yourself trying to walk? 'm Good."

Stan answers, following where Collette leads. It's not said to be cruel or mocking, simply an observation, but...well, he probably could have worded that a little better. It's tough to take the extra time for niceties when you're in pain.

On the bright side, if she gets pissed and ditches him she's already told him that what they're looking for is just downstairs somewhere. He'll probably be able to figure it out anyway.

[crocodilesmiles]

"Wow, Stan!" She laughed as they descended into the hall. "I'm not that bad! Now I'm not even drunk, too, so I can at least be a very soft pillow to any of our falls. I'm good at that," she said.

"The falling part!" The hall is warmer than outside, the air stale. Collette wrinkled her nose, gesturing for Stan to follow her to the elevator. "What do you think the tallest elevator ever built was like?"

[lazyinlove]

"What?" Stan frowns at the question, and stops to consider it. Why does she want to know about elevators? His arm hurts. Can't they just go get someone to snap it back in place or whatever and forget about the stupid elevators?

[crocodilesmiles]

"Maybe a hundred stories... at least these ones are fast!" She ushered him into the elevator, pressing the button for the Lobby with a quick grin.

She ushered Stan out once they were on the ground floor. She spied the first aid center past the slot machines and dancing mechanical penguins. "Left and down that way! Almost there, Stan!"

[lazyinlove]

Woah. Where'd those penguins come from? He got distracted for a moment, staring at them uncertainly. Could Collette see that, too? There wasn't something weird in that tequila was there? That'd suck. He didn't even really like tequila. It was just that Michelle liked tequila...

"Wait a sec."

Injured arm momentarily forgotten, Stan reached out a hand to see if he could touch one of the penguins. He started to, anyway, but then he caught himself and snapped it back against his chest in an almost defensive maneuver. No. Can't just go around touching things. Things hate to be touched sometimes. But they could look, maybe. That was probably okay.

"Hey, wanna go ta the zoo?"

[crocodilesmiles]

He reacted like he was being burned, and it was enough to draw her attention and concern. That wasn't his injured arm, but who knows? Maybe it'd tweaked the other, and he was reacting in turn.

Only then he asks about the Zoo, and she isn't sure about any of it anymore.

"We can see after you get your arm looked at," she said as she ushered him into the clinic door.

"Can you guys help? My friend's arm broke when we fell down upstairs!" Her concern didn't need to be pantomimed. Collette waved one of the attendant physicians over, who grimaced as they approached.

"Another one? All right, let's start with some basic information, and we'll need to do a scan to make sure the break's clean. What's your name, sir? Have you been drinking?"

[lazyinlove]

Stan laughs at the question. Has he been drinking? Dude, people have just been handing him stuff left and right. Boy, has he ever. But that's not why they fell off the roof. He should probably clarify that, right?

"Nah, she wobbled. And I didn't want her to fall. So we fell."

[crocodilesmiles]

"Only his arm didn't appreciate the falling." Collette gestured to Stan, looking concerned. The medic moved in, pulling a palm-sized scanner out of his pocket.

"Yeah, you hear all kinds of stories just like that. Try not to have too much fun, will you? Setting bones is pretty boring. Come back to us with something real interesting, then we'll see about some sparkling service for you, yeah?"