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

"My eyes are green. Everything compliments them."

As far as he was concerned, anyhow. For the holograms sticking to him, he made a point not to look at them again, as if pretending they weren't there would make it so, and followed along after Collette, hands stuffed into his pockets. He took his timed compared to her headlong rush onward. When he passed over the hotel's threshold and the flowers finally scattered, that was an immense relief.

Just imagine if those things lasted the entire trip...

"As long as there's a bed and a warm shower, I don't care what my plans end up being," he admitted, pushing by the glass bead vines as well. "I don't believe anyone has offered to share a room with me just yet, however."

He'd have been the most complimentary flower child...!

Collette hummed in reply, glancing toward the front desk. She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly aware how little like a tourist she really looked. It was the difference in how she carried herself compared to the people around them, though not in her enthusiasm or tendency toward smiling in relief. They' weren't bogged down with suitcases -- that was the thing!

"We can see if Ahiru'll take you on," she said with a wrinkle of her nose and a wink. Her mind was mulling over options to explain the rest. So far she favored luggage being lost in transit. Right when we need to be here for a conference, talk about terrible timing!

"Ahiru? No. She snores," Caesar declined the idea outright, mostly to take the chance to, once again, poke fun at their easily mocked friend. Well, easily mocked in his opinion, anyway. Then he strode on by her and straight towards the front desk, with nothing more than a hope that the AI set everything up for them beforehand, because, really, how else could they stay here for a whole conference?

"Hello. We're checking in. The room should under the name Silverberg."

Already paid would be his other hope.

She stifled her laughter, shooting him a look in objection. "Caesar! She does not! Unless you know that," she said, feeling mischievous. "And I need to tell Ahiru about your unsavory tendency to creep up and listen to sleeping people snore."

Her expression wasn't precisely schooled into anything serious with the desk attendant looking to Caesar, and her contribution was to lift a hand and splay her fingers in a lazy wave. "We?" she said under her breath, amused once again.

The attendant looked through her records, tapping on keys on the touchscreen behind the desk.

"Welcome to El Fortuno, Mr. Silverberg. If you will please step up to the retina scanner?"

She gestured to a device that looked like a monocle on a stand next to the desk.

"Left eye," she said. "If you please."

Collette briefly wondered if she had a room to actually check in to so she could do the retina scan, too, but it'd always seemed unlikely. Unlike most folks, her last name had never been on network, and she'd never sought to rectify that information misstep. She kind of liked the walking element of the unknown, like one of the very few links to back home she had anymore. That element of secrecy that had saved them for a while.

Secrets. When had she gotten so used to keeping them? When had she really grown into being the sort of woman who could?

She stepped up to the desk, waiting until after he'd scanned his eye. "These are the room keys?" With a nod, she scooped them up, putting on an air of musing concern. "Our luggage was lost on the way in - is there any way to get double of what comes standard in room?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Silverberg," said the attendant. Collette didn't manage to hide her dry look, followed by an equally dry interjection.

"Smith. Miss Smith. Lovely to meet you, Andy!" A glance at the woman's nametag was enough to personalize the correction. Smith had to be one of the most common names she could remember off the top of her head.

Collette Smith. She smiled, laughing inwardly, as she turned and walked away toward the elevators. Next time it'd be Collette Doe.

The retina scan was unexpected, but he didn't let it show much. If there was an uneasy look towards it, it lasted but a second, and then it was over, done, and passed with flying colors. What a scary thought, though. Did that mean the AI put him into the UE's network somewhere?

Probably. How else would this work out the way it did, it not for that?

Those thoughts wouldn't linger, though, when Collette made a point to correct the attendant. Caesar turned to give her a bemused look. It wasn't without some humor in it, of course, but still! He exchanged looks with Andy, giving her a faint smile.

"Suddenly I think I should be feeling more offended than she is," he joked before turning to follow after Collette. He caught up with her at the elevator, just in time to push the button before she could. "Not quite ready to be mistaken for a married woman, I see."

Her finger hovered over the already pressed button before she turned to Caesar and stuck out her tongue. The epitome of mature responses was clearly merited in this moment.

Her hand fell back, coming to rest on her hip.

"About as ready to paint myself in henna and make vows over fire as you are to slip a ring over someone's finger and do whatever it is you guys do for a marriage ceremony." Her own jest about traditions as separate from the ones most American girls believed in goes unnoticed with her present audience. She snorted after her tease, giving a shake of her head. If there was no reason to pretend, then she was distinctly uncomfortable with pretending. Marriage wasn't supposed to be so light and lightly forgotten. People enduring things together... she's seen more of what it is when people can't than when people can.

She stared at the light above the elevator, counting numbers as it came back down from the upper floors. Better to make light of it, and not confess to the things she didn't like about the weakness of the human condition. "I'm far too young and adventurous to be married! Ask me about that again when I'm like, twenty-three or something."

The elevators arrived. Collette stepped through the opening doors as soon as it was evident no one else was darting out.

"Fire?" Caesar asked, eyebrows raised high. He had considered asking about the henna instead, but as he at least knew what fire was, that one, he imagined, might make easier sense. Provided he got an answer at all! Because they were already on the move again, even if only a few steps into an elevator.

"But fine, then. Twenty-three or something it is," he added with a shrug, turning around to face the elevator doors once he was in and they were closing. Don't mind him as he lounges against the back wall of it. "Though you'll be so old then..."

Sooooo old.

His lounging means she claimed control the buttons. This turned out to be an error, because she systematically pressed all of them.

Look, she's always wanted to do this, and this is probably the one time she'll get away with it and not have someone remember her as that woman -- outside of Caesar.

Her reply was fairly cheerful as she went about her button pressing, coming dangerously close to sing song. "If I remember right, it's a symbol for starting a new household! The groom's supposed to do the lighting. It's all very masculine." Now she sounded teasing. She hadn't been to many weddings herself, but she'd listened to people discussing and planning them. The sad fact was she was more used to seeing ones presented on television as visions of white and flowers and straight walks down aisles to say "I do." I do what? It wasn't much of a vow in her opinion. People do all the time, and this sickness and in health thing? Wasn't that a given?

Learning about the culture around you from television is a terrible way to absorb. She preferred the mixture of the new and the traditional, though she doesn't so much say that as bank on Caesar not knowing anything about these cultural conflicts. He can't find her any weirder for saying what she thinks than he will anyway, and it's not a loaded statement.

She really loved that, but how to tell someone that it's their lack of knowledge about her own conflicting cultural backgrounds that makes them easier to be around at times without it sounding like she's calling him ignorant of things he seriously can't know? Hah! She didn't try.

She quirked up an eyebrow and looked back at him over her shoulder. "Old? At twenty three? I think that practically qualifies as ancient! Not that I'll be using a cane any more or less than I do now..." she said. "Though the sudden interest in marriage ceremonies sounds suspicious coming from someone like you!"

She liked the assumption that somewhere, somehow, she'd make it to twenty-three. It made her smile all the more bright as she finally turned around to lean her back against the wall right by the buttons, cavalier and honestly unconcerned by their particular conversation. It was another amusement in a long line of amusements in her life. "What do you guys even do when you do go crazy enough to get married?"

Somehow, Caesar was pretty sure he'd used up all of his 'start a fire' quotas for this life, which would be why, when she went over the explanation, that he couldn't help looking highly amused. He wouldn't say why, though. That seemed so long ago by now, the entire war that raged across the Grasslands, the Fire Champion, the runes. Two years...

"Hey, you brought it up first," he drew away from dwelling on any kind of fire to raise his hands, palm out, before him. Maybe to ward off the question! Although he went on to answer it, regardless. "There's a dowry and an engagement ring involved, then stuff in a church or whatever, I guess. Do you really think I've ever managed to stay awake through an entire ceremony?"

Much less went to all that many? They were of absolutely no interest to most of his family.

What about her traditions seems so amusing to him she hasn't a clue. Collette tries to figure out if it bothered her or not, but without a firm reason for feeling like what ws said had importance to her personally, she determines no, it doesn't really bother her. Her own beliefs aren't ones she discusses all that often, for all she'll toss anyone else's down on the discussion table.

"More like the check-in lady did!" she said, protesting his choice in words. His answer had her giving him a curious look. "You've been to more than one ceremony?" Even more perplexing... "A church of what belief? Do you have a pantheon of gods, or one big lord of all that is and will ever be, or what? Go figure part of it would try to sound religious like back home. Do you even believe in any of that stuff?"

Caesar could only shrug. He'd been to those he couldn't hide his way out of! Once he'd gotten older, however, that issue solved itself as he grew wise enough to avoid nearly all the social functions of Toran's well-to-do. He frowned at the rest of her questions, though.

"I thought I mentioned something about that before," he mused aloud, briefly wondering if that had been someone else entirely. "There's one god, supposedly. It's also believed that the True Runes are pieces of God. Then you have the various places that have churches and cathedrals and what have you dedicated to various Runebearers from the past."

As to whether he believed it or not, again, another shrug.

"I know someone recently made an attempt to kill God through the runes and I know that the True Runes are dangerously powerful. Whether that means there is one or not, I'm not planning on picking any side at all."

All of it sounds like pieces of familiar stories, a patchwork landscape of things she can understand well enough to relate to, if not know well. She'd thought more about Gods and divinity and God, the Lord whose name wasn't to be taken in vain, and her own conclusions came down to the hopes she holds closest.

"Bet you believe that other people believe in taking a side pretty strongly. Unless your wars have never been holy, but if someone was trying to kill God..."

The doors to the elevator slid open, and she startled. Ah, what sort of topic was this, anyway? Collette's sideways fall into being a soldier hadn't been for religious reasons. She knows the histories well enough to guess at some platforms used to decry superiority, and she can imagine, in a world with magic, that True Runes are all the motivation you need to have people claim or believe or abuse as they pleased.

"Either way, believer or non believer, the True Runes are powerful. How does someone end up being a Runebearer?"

"If memory serves, there haven't been too many purely over any one religious belief or other. War is more complicated than that, so there's not really anything holy about any of them. Unless you count the way wars tend to crop up when the True Runes end up in basically anyone's hands..."

Literally and figuratively! The Runes did fight, sure enough, as that batty priest had claimed, but even those Caesar wouldn't call holy wars.

He took a second to frown at the elevator door as it closed again and moved on to the next floor of many floors she'd triggered. He didn't even know which was theirs!

"And it's not difficult. You either locate a True Rune and take it for yourself or you just have the worst luck and one makes the choice for you."

She looked surprised at what he said.

"What do you mean, one makes the choice for you?" The doors opened again with the next floor, and she waved to the male maid who stood with his cart peering in at them. He looked quizzical before waving in return. One of the tiny robots from the lowest levels beeped by his feet.

The doors closed again, bringing them up another floor.

Caesar waited for the doors to close yet again before bothering to answer.

"They have minds and likely agendas of their own, so it's not entirely uncommon for them to jump ship to whatever unfortunate bystander is closest at times where they're suddenly let loose. That's part of what makes them so dangerous, the unpredictability."

Collette shivered. "That is way creepy. What do those things even do to a person?"

Something about involuntary infestation will always rub her wrong. The elevator speeds past floor 4, not stopping in spite of the button being pressed. Collette wondered if the same would happen for the thirteenth floor.

"Aside from giving them ridiculous amounts of magic to throw around, supposedly immortality. I've been near a few of them myself, but I've never really stopped the one guy who's had one long enough to play twenty questions."

Mostly because Geddoe was the biggest grouch in the universe, but hey, there had also been that war on to worry about instead.

She wrinkled her nose. "Wow, that sucks. The whole near immortality thing. Or ridiculous amounts of magic, too, when you think about it..."

Collette laughs and shakes her head again. "It's so weird hearing myself talk about that so seriously when I grew up thinking magic was a part of fairy tales and that was all."

"Depends on the person. Some might get along just fine with their rune, for all we know," Caesar added, not at all putting forth any firm opinion on the runes one way or another. They were a thing that happened. You couldn't always like them, sure, but in a war, it was nice to have them on your side.

"And it's not as though everyone is magical where I'm from, you know."

"Most people who have them don't actually talk about them?" She guessed that made sense. The elevator guessed they were at another level, doors opening and closing. She barely looks their way this time.

"So?" She quirked up an eyebrow. "You have magic at all. That's amazing! Though wait, are you telling me you're not magical?"

Her eyes were twinkling with amusement. "Caesar! You're only a normal, overly well bred man? Betrayal!"

"I know some who would contest the 'well-bred' part of that," he pointed out mildly. Mostly Apple, he imagined. Possibly his own father, though only when being caught slacking off. "And no, they really don't. It'd be nice if they did, but many of them tend to drift away from being in any one spot or near people after awhile."

"Well bred never meant mannered," Collette said in return. She waved at a group of young men the elevator opened to, pointing up when another made a questioning face and pointed down. She shot him a smile when he looked mock sad. He flashed her one back as the doors closed.

"Do you really blame them? If it does make you immortal, only other people like you are going to keep living. Time gets all weird, everyone and anything you care about dies, and it keeps on happening. Talk about a reason to go all hermit on the mountain!"

"I never said that I did," Caesar pointed out, but with a shrug. That didn't matter so much, since it was a point they could agree on. "I certainly wouldn't want to live forever, no matter how much power that might entail getting. It would be such a pain after awhile."

The doors opened again and this time he looked.

Then the doors closed.

"Uh, do you even know which floor is ours?"

Edited 2014-03-20 04:32 (UTC)

"Twenty-fourth," she said nonchalantly, lips curving up into a smirk.

Yeah. And they were only halfway there.

You're welcome, Caesar.

"Have I told you lately how I love that you're not the brother with the power hungry goals? Because I do. Do you think this place includes room service?"

Caesar made a point to ignore the comment about his brother. Any response would just encourage her to ask more about him and, frankly, it was a topic that would put him in a foul mood no matter who, what, or where was involved.

"And you just had to hit every floor's button. Of course," he grumbled, finally disapproving of what had before seemed like harmless mischief. Now this was going to take forever! "And even if it does not, it'll be impossible to bill us for real. That's basically the same thing."

Operation: Roll Out

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