Chapter 15: The Sacred and Profane

[Momo Kurokawa]

"Anthony, you should take the remains of this goon to a Genetech tab and see if he can be identified. If he can't talk, maybe his remains can." Momo orders Anthony. She opens up the glass door to her squid mecha and jumps down to join Anthony. "If you can figure out who he is, then maybe his family could be visited, or we could learn where he worked." Momo suggests.

"Bah, we have that meeting to go to. Just have it sent to the lab and looked over. I'm heading to the Economic Council meet. I don't have time for this. That mammoth meat gave me bad gas."

After saying this, Momo passes gas loudly. "Excuse me." She says shyly.

"Well, hopefully the meeting isn't gased out."

With that, she programs her squid mecha to return to Tokyo, then heads into a teleportation booth for the meeting. When she arrives at the meeting, she takes her seat in the place that says "Intelligent Design."

[Heikki Toivonen]

Heikki hears a crash, so he wanders into the TV room where he finds Amelia, a crushed table, Bonifaz, and a stranger. Heikki looks around the room not sure what to say. He looks down at his feet and then at the broken table.

"I think...we have some gorilla glue. I'll...try to fix it." He says quietly. He looks at the stranger. "I'm Heikki. I live here as well."

[Li Violette]

After a short rest, I leave my Beijing apartment for the Ecomomic Council meeting. I have my own teleportation booth in my apartment, which makes it easier to live in Beijing, but work in Switzerland or Tel Aviv, wherever we decide to have our meetings. I arrive at the meeting early and see that only Momo Kurokawa and Annette Rosenthal are here. I don't care much for Annette and thankfully, the seat of the Speaker is nowhere near her seat. My seat is nearer to the front, which is nice, since I get a closer view of Ariel when he speaks.
I take my seat and look over some of the reports that I didn't look over this morning.

[Emmet Fawkes]

Bishop watched Amelia, intrigued. Machine eyes. He didn't understand the mechanics of androids, but he'd already wanted to study on such things, maybe he could try building one? Maybe he could make his own little android for his home? Those were the type of things he could gush about. A blushing Bubblegum for a sidekick.

“Make a...?” He encouraged, blinking at the Claymation snowman. Still airing. Still airing. What was this, a twenty-four seven kids show? One which brainwashed the children? When Amelia finally decided the snowman's name would be Adam Smith, he only guffawed loudly, sitting straight in the chair now. The table that the android exhibited her joy to broke into a splintery mess. Her strength!
“Mighty strong arm you have there, Bubblegum,” he cooed in his grating tone.

Another young man... or woman entered the room, no, obviously a man. Androgynous. Bishop could easily admit that the man was pretty, deliciously so. Coughing to clear his throat, he glanced up at Heikki whom seemed shy or something, offering to fix the table.

“Pleasure to meet you, Heikki,” the masked man purred, clasping the straps that were tied around his head tighter, “My names Bishop, but you could call me... Bee if you'd like.” Honestly, he enjoyed toying with people, even if he seemed eerie to say the least.

[Kyra Majarae]

Kyra narrowed her eyes and looked at Ivan. She folded her arms and then listened carefully. "I see.....it makes sense....Grandpapa Majarae...my mother's father.....I don't know my real father....my mother left him because he was dying...." She thought of Jack and she growled. "Would Jack be our brother as well?" She growled and waited for his answer.

[Bonifaz Artz-Lehrer]

"If you get bored here, you should trying fucking her." Bonifaz says of Amelia. "No leave it broken Heikki. I'll just buy another one." He says of the table. But when Heikki starts bending and looking at the table to fix it, Bonifaz decides that watching Heikki fix the table will be entertaining.
"Nevermind, it is an antique. Better fix it. When you're done you can cook us dinner." Bonifaz orders. He isn't sure what he is hungry for. "I don't know what I want. Maybe something sweet. Nevermind dinner, you can just make us a dessert."

[Ivan Koporb]

"Jack is clown-faced psychopath, da?" Ivan's response was more or less an affirmative answer since he just described Jack. "Your father is not my father. My father is Russian man. Mother vas a whore...After hearing that so much from my father I am beginning to think he meant literally." Ivan shrugged. "I do not know vhere my father is, I ate another boy at school, so I vas sent to psychological prison." He gave a bow as if introducing himself as something marvelous. "I am result of experimentation and living in Gray Zone."

[Heikki Toivonen]

"Hello Bee." Heikki says softly. He glances at Bonifaz then at Amelia. He looks over the table and listens to Bonifaz's orders. "I could make something. My favorite is Strawberry shortcake." Heikki nearly whispers.

"But I think you like chocolate. What do you want Bee? I just want to make sure...everyone here is happy."

Heikki thinks for a moment about what Bonifaz said about Amelia. "You shouldn't do that. She might get dirty inside. It might make her... malfunction more."

[Jumala Keitoleinen]

Keitoleinen orders his staff to try to clean up his mansion a little and tells his secretary to look into construction companies so he can rebuild his mansion. With this bit of business done, he heads to the Economic Council meeting. He takes his seat by the plaque for SOTA. Near his plaque is Allmart and Crest Mining.
These meetings are always boring, so he brought a doodle pad with him. He starts drawing a pineapple and other various scribbles so that if he ever plays Pictionary again, he won't lose.

[Emmet Fawkes]

“Fucking an android?” Bishop mused to himself, rubbing his shoulder thoughtfully. He hee-hawed harshly at the prospect. “I don't think that'd work, Boni, unless you know otherwise?” He was insinuating a lot, and laughed merrily at his slyness. It wouldn't be very surprising, Amelia wasn't ugly, neither was Bonifaz, but he still compared androids to robots—he didn't think they even had genitals, who'd take the extra measure to add some?

Bonifaz enjoyed toying with others too, just for the sake of entertainment, anyhow. He could tell. There was nothing wrong with that. If you were smart enough to do it, by all means, watch people as if it were a stage. A brilliant stage with actors. This mansion was more fun than he thought. He was delighted that Heikki called him Bee, most people he spoke to like that would be dumbfounded, try to have a go at him, or storm away. Strawberry shortcake sounded delicious.

“Strawberry shortcake with chocolate would be delish,” Bishop chorused in his sing-song voice, eyeing Bonifaz, “Chocolate's food for the soul.”

“Poor girl,” He sympathized, glancing over at her. Maybe Heikki was right. It'd be like dousing her in water. Well, if he was right about the android and robot theory. He looked back at Heikki. "Don't worry, kiddo, I wouldn't try to damage her more."

[Heikki Toivonen]

Heikki pours some glue on the table and sticks the legs back up into it. He presses it and holds it there for about a minute, maybe longer. "The glue needs to dry, so i'll go make us that food." Heikki says, standing up. He feels relieved that no one is going to do anything nasty to Amelia, since although she is just a machine, Heikki does feel for her. She acts human enough anyway.

"It shouldn't take too long." Heikki assures them and disappears.

[Kyra Majarae]

Kyra clapped her hands and hopped up and down. This was exciting! She looked at Eve and smiled. "You hear that Eve! We have other siblings! Isn't this exciting!" She kept clapping and was very excited, but suddenly started pouting. "How many of us are there?" She kept pouting and waited for his answer.

When he introduced himself, Kyra smiled and held out her hand for him to shake. "I'm Kyra Majarae and this is Evana Majarae. And you are Ivan....Majarae?" She looked confused.

[Bonifaz Artz-Lehrer]

"Oh, Creditors...they're like...intelligent, credit obsessed sex toys." Bonifaz laughs. "You would be surprised by some things about Creditors. For one, they can actually eat food. They really don't eat it, but they can at least consume it and start it for later disposal. I think the original idea was that they should fit in with humans. Of course, being programmed to go after people with debt sort of...does away with any sort of conformity. Who knows, maybe Annette gave them naughty parts so that she could have some fun with them. The old hag probably wouldn't get any elsewhere." Bonifaz jokes.

He watches Heikki go to make food and feels in an excellent mood.

[Amelia 20]

"Don't crush me in that machine! I will do better next time. I am so loyal!" Amelia pleads with Bonifaz, even though it really isn't directed at him. She sits down on the sofa next to him and touches his shoulder.
"in the meadow we can, Adam Smith."
"Adam Smith, wealth of nations...give you the Invisible Hand job."

"This is Annette Rosenthal. Annette is getting stranger all the time. build a snow man! jingle jingle!"

[Ivan Koporb]

Ivan shook his head at Kyra's question. "No, Koporb. Russian Father. Mother left me vith him. But is same mother, this I know to be true." Ivan just shrugged at the question about how many there were, taking Kyra's hand in his cold one. "Four that I know of. Us and leetle Jacky." Ivan gave a dry, raspy laugh from deep in his throat. The combination was rather odd since it sounded labored and hearty at the same time. "You are going somevhere, da? You were saying to your watch about making room." It wasn't necessarily that he wanted to go, he was making sure so he knew when it would be time to take leave of the pair. He didn't really feel like going to France.