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

[alittlesweptup]

That gets a sharp grin out of him-- "Yeah alright, like the Batman movies. But we're talking Tim Burton's, not the train wreck with George Clooney yeah?" The drink's overpowering anyway and Charlie's only taking small sips himself; it tastes like a martini with too much vermouth, sticks in his mouth like plastic (which should be bad, but somehow isn't awful).

"You know, there're probably quieter places than here." He gently raps his knuckles on the table. "Could find you a nice, homey strip club or something to kick your heels up in." Which he manages to deliver almost seriously, though promptly ruins it with an arch eyebrow and a sidelong look.

[crocodilesmiles]

She snorts, wrinkling he nose and making a shooing gesture at Charlie. "No, no, no, no, no! I'm thinking more... theme park. Indoor slides, swimming pools, the whole works!"

All the exciting things she hasn't had the chance to participate in before. She's not even sure half of those exist in this place, but it seems like a decent bet.

"Totally meant the Burton films, by the way."

[alittlesweptup]

"Indoor theme park isn't going to cut down on the loud and pushy bit, love." He swirls the drink absently in hand before taking another tentative sip. He's already eaten all the weird fruit garnish - not quite olives and not quite anything else either. "But fair enough; there's probably at least one or two of those hiding about."

And good on her for the Burton films - all soggy neon and a significant lack of nippled batsuits. Charlie sets the drink aside, hooks his elbow on the table and absently butts his chin against his knuckles.

"Maybe we can snag a copy - put it on if we ever get the bloody theater back, yeah?" Which is fantasy and he knows it; if there was ever a likelihood of hitting a reset button before the bombing, the moment's probably passed. Still worth mentioning.

[crocodilesmiles]

She likes his fantasy, one that has her closing her eyes and humming something tuneless and relevant to her era. She has trouble grasping even now how disproportionate age and decade were with Transports from any Earth recognized as similar to her own.

"I'd like that," she says, "Grand Re-Opening of Charlie and Associates!"

Precious memories of a place that had been. One they didn't have the option of reclaiming as it was, but she enjoys the thought. It's warmer than Exsilium has been lately.

[alittlesweptup]

"Well, Suppose it can't be Cutter and Associates," he muses, wrinkling his nose. "Sounds a bit like a butcher's."

Warmer, simpler, neither of them playing at espionage or politics or whatever it was the pair of them sunk time into these days. Sitting in some neon-bright bar in neo Vegas, it's easy to pretend that he's not going back to some snowpocalypse where he's built some expectation for himself to work on maneuvering through the rocky relationship between them and the New Initiative or whatever they're calling themselves.

"We'll have to come up with a proper schedule as well - none of this nonsense where he let it go for months at a time like the last run."

[crocodilesmiles]

"We might have to ban Statham," she said, trying to disguise her smile. She wished they could be back in those days, where things held together and survival wasn't as cold and off-putting, friends weren't as long gone, hundreds of thousands hadn't died under the United Earth's tyranny in one brief, brilliant flash.

Before winter had come.

Freaking Starks!

"For being too much action hero for our theatre."