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

[khajidont]

[Jaime waits for Adam to elaborate on that matter, mostly because he has no idea what the guy means, but no answer is forthcoming. This is about genetics, as far as he's concerned, not about space travel - though if they wanted to tackle how far they've gotten in space travel, that would be pretty cool too. He's down for gathering as much intel about as many things as possible while they're here in enemy territory.

A little doubtfully:] Is that supposed a metaphor for something?

[awarlock]

[Sorry Jaime, you're stuck with one of the broodiest people here, who just happens to feel like going on about people in relation to what he knows. So yes, it's a metaphor. And Adam doesn't stop there. He plays around with the complimentary conference pen in his hand, paused as the speaker raised his jovial voice and makes a joke. When the laughter settles down, he grumbles out.]

Men like these — they take and take. Nothing is to stand in their way. Satisfaction is a term for the weak that their world will not tolerate. This is all just a means to an end.

[khajidont]

[Whoa, okay, that's an intense speech! And totally not what he was expecting when he had leaned over to advise him to look less unhappy instead of more unhappy. It's not like Jaime's the best actor in the world (okay, he's on the bad side), but he manages to escape looking quite so thunderous.]

Well... no arguments here, [he says, a little awkwardly.] But at least we've got the chance to listen this time.

[awarlock]

I don't disagree. Information is powerful. What we do with it, even more so.

[And then he breaks the pen in his hand and the broken off piece flies away into the crowd. He doesn't look like he even noticed. Instead he calms down and looks at the boy beside him, finally.]

This time, as oppose to what?

[khajidont]

[Jaime watches the pen flying off into the crowd only to hit the back of one man's head, whose hand reflexively jumps up to slap curiously at the unexpected contact. Adam doesn't really look all that concerned about it, but he supposes that pen-throwing is probably one of the more innocuous ways of drawing attention to themselves.]

This time as opposed to every other time we don't get to see what's happening. Here and now, [he says meaningfully, knowing full well that this is the first time he's ever been on UE soil for anything other than a rescue mission, and certainly the first time they've been able to at least peer into the inward workings of the enemy.]

[awarlock]

[he admires jaime and his conviction. with so many uncertainties before them, it's hard to keep that.]

Do you think we're seeing the full picture now?

[because to adam, it just looks like they're seeing what they want. a way to do something, but what of the undercurrent, the things that aren't just a man talking about an idea.]

A man like that doesn't propose an idea without knowing that the results are in his favour.

[khajidont]

A little bit's better than nothing. [It's bluntly said, but at least he's honest about it. He's not sure if people on the inside even know the full picture. The full picture is big and unwieldy and complicated, and he probably wouldn't know what to make of it even if it was staring him in the face.]

But just 'cause we're only seeing what he wants us to doesn't mean that that doesn't tell us something too, right? Like, say... who he's trying to convince, and why. [He kicks his legs out a little in front of him, tired of spending so long in uncomfortable chair after uncomfortable chair, and jostles the woman in the chair in front of him. He offers a sheepish apology to her as she turns to glare at him before returning back to the topic at hand.]

And something this big, they've gotta be putting a lot of money into it. Money that won't be going to other things.

[He's not actually that great at deduction, but he's been compiling information for long enough to know what to keep an eye out for. They're all important details, even the tiny ones, and he fully intends to write them down properly later on. Who knows what's going to come back to bite them in the ass later on?]