Chapter 16: Fear and Trembling

[Alter Grossman]

Alter comes to, but she is still very disoriented. She begins coughing, and brings up a lump of congealed blood. Her face and blouse are crusted with dried blood. She groans when she notices the nihilists.

"Why didn't you tie me up?" she asks, although she doesn't expect an answer. "Ugh... I feel sick." Alter staggers over to the sink next to the washing machine, and vomits. Castor oil is an emetic, and she is suffering from it. She wipes her mouth on her already filthy sleeve.

"What did you drug me with?" she asks, swaying. She tries to get back to the chair, but falls over first. She is dehydrated from blood loss and the castor oil.

[Aubrey 16]

Aubrey followed Annika to Keito's mansion, and stood to the sidelines while she talked to Alter, who Aubrey decided she didn't like. Who was she to be calling Annika a useless piece of junk? Brat.

But when Alter decides that she's going to Germany, Aubrey agrees with Annika on the matter of her going alone. Humans. They were always getting themselves in some sort of trouble. Shortly after the brown haired woman leaves, Aubrey turns to Annika.

"I'm going to follow her, and make sure she doesn't get into trouble." She leaves Keito's and follows Alter to Germany, and eventually to the nihilist meeting in Munich. She doesn't enter, or allow herself to be seen when Alter enters, but waits near the house, for some sign of trouble.

When she hears a distant banging, she looks up and sees smoke coming out of one of the windows. Sighing, she shakes her head, and takes out the card Alter had handed everyone earlier. She dialed the number into her phone, and hit talk, of course she didn't answer. Aubrey took this as her que.

She stood at the front door, and was faced with a dilemma. She couldn't intrude upon the privacy of the people living in this home. But if she knocked, surely, they would deny her entry. Well...Alter was in there, she reasoned, and if there was smoke, she was probably in trouble. These people could be in violation of the law! And being a Creditor, she was supposed to uphold the law, and debt, and all that. So, she opens the door, and allows herself in.

Aubrey follows the sound of people talking, and someone coughing down to the basement, where she finds a badly dressed group of people. She scowls at the lot of them. A gas mask? Ew, who actually wears those? And that man with the tattered clothing, Aubrey shuddered, and could've gagged.

"I am Aubrey 16, come for Alter Grossman. Release her now, or you'll have me to deal with!" She says, being as threatening as she could manage.

[Alter Grossman]

Alter is surprised that a creditor has shown up, and even more surprised that it is one of the useless creditors from before. Alter supposes that the creditor came because she hasn't been answering her phone.

"Oh... I think I am hallucinating again because you're actually good for something this time. Grab the guy in the gas mask and take him back to HQ. He's one of the party crashers, and he killed a few people while he was at it. It's all on the security footage," she tells Aubrey. "I'll make my own way back somehow. Or something. Really, I'm fine. They drugged me with something, but I'm sure It'll wear off."

She sways. "Wow, when did the walls in here turn purple? Did you paint them when I wasn't looking? That was nice of you, I like purple." Alter vomits again, but this time she doesn't make it to the sink. "Well, that's disgusting."

[Toolah "Tuvi" Renee]

Eventually, Tuvi grows tired of waiting for Dinari and heads home. No wonder people think she and Dinari have a thing going on... she lives with him. She lays down with her laptop to type out a business plan for Dinari for some company he wants to take over. She takes a sip of her blood-infused wine and lets her mind wander.

[Archer Aylmer]

"My god, Bishop. What did you DO?"

I can't believe that this many people are after him. There's a creditor here now and I'm not sure if we can take it down, or if we even want to. Both Alter and the machine don't seem to have a problem with anyone but Bishop, and I'm not convinced he's worth all the trouble we're going through. For now I just stay seated on the steps and don't do anything.

[Emmet Fawkes]

Bishop watched as Alter came to and staggered to the sink, vomiting blood and that lovely mixture he poisoned her with. Thank god he didn't overdo it, they'd have a dead body on their hands. She needed to be hydrated though, or she'd literally throw up everything in her stomach. Rubbing the back of his head, he glanced towards Bonifaz and then to Amelia, “Get her a jug of water or something, she's making an awful mess.”

Honestly, the one thing he did mostly with his Castor oil was make soaps, dyes, paints and cosmetics. It was unpleasant, but it had its uses. He pursed his lips beneath his gas mask and watched as she wretched on the floor.
“That, Miss. High and Mighty, is Castor Oil, known to induce vomiting and all of those horrible symptoms—not good for medicinal uses, but pretty good for making soap.” Bishop explained jovially as he leaned towards her, then hopped a few steps back, he didn't want her ruining his guards uniform.

Bishop was about to continue speaking, but a pink-haired Creditor made her way downstairs and he scowled for once—uneasy with facing so many of these robots. “Bubblegum number two, if you drag me away to HQ, Alter Grossman will eventually dye from dehydration and... well, you know? Throwing up all her insides.” This he said as casually as he could, stepping around the chair that Alter was sitting in before, leaning on the top of it lazily.

“Boni, does this place have a beacon or something?”

When Archer asked him what he did, Bishop shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know. He just wanted to get his mask off and sleep in privacy.

“You'd think I killed the Moderator himself, huh? I just mind my own business."

[Durante Dushkriti-Fahid]

While Annika made the phone call, Dante paced for a moment. He was suddenly real worried about Alter Grossman, maybe it was intuition, or maybe he was doubting himself because of what Annika said. It probably wasn't a good idea to let Alter go by himself--she looked like a strong chick, but still, these were thugs they were dealing with. Thugs that didn't care whether or not you were a women, if you were in the way, snip snip slice slice.

Dante stopped pacing, took his cellphone from his pocket and dialed in Alter's number.

Ring.

Maybe she was alright?

[Aubrey 16]

That was the second time Alter had called a Creditor useless. And this time, it'd been Aubrey herself. She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She was only tempermental when she was being insulted.

She looked to the man in the gas mask. "Look, its not like I'm dragging you away to some prison." She said through her teeth, sounding much less professional than she had a moment ago. It didn't bother her much, professionalism wasn't her forte, it was more Annika's thing. "We just have to ask you a few questions, it's the man in the purple suit we're after."

She isn't completely lying, as far as she knew they were still after the purple suited man, whom she was almost sure wasn't this man's accomplice.

"Just get Alter something to drink, and we'll all be on our merry way."

Of course, Aubrey isn't really expecting things to be this easy.

[Alter Grossman]

"Castor oil?" Alter laughs. She keeps laughing, until she's coughing again, and then vomiting again.

"Castor oil? I read Mussolini poisoned political prisoners with castor oil. That's very... What's the English word? Melgeleg b'Anglit? I think it's ironical. Because you're nihilists, and you poisoned me like a fascist. Anyway, I can get a drink of water practically anywhere. You have no ground to stand on. Aubrey 16, I don't know if you can carry us both. If you can carry us both, get us out of here. If not, take him, and I'll make my own way out. I can drink water all by myself, without any help."

Alter laughs again as soon as she's done vomiting. "You? Kill the Moderator? You wish, and so do a lot of other people. No, no, you just killed some more inconsequential members of the Blessed. And you know where the other terrorists are, don't you? Don't you? Uh, dizzy. Ani margishah cholah." Alter slips into Hebrew. She is still confused, but is slowly getting her senses back.

[Bambi Engel]

"Certainly not!" Bambi says with a sudden jump, having been lost in her own thoughts after the meeting had officaly ended. She had had no time to begin properly filling out papers to plan the Manala mas between the party and the meeting. She had the theme planned out, but she wasn't sure what to do about security.

She'd have to look over the Creditor work hours and see how many could be accumulated without putting a dent in the Creditor work force. "Well, I was thinking about what you said at the Banquet and was thinking we could have a ball, of sorts."

She folds her hands in her lap, still glancing around a bit nervously. Habits were hard to break. "Classical music, that sort of thing. What did you have in mind?" She questions, whatever Annette had in mind was sure to be the thing to do.

[Kyra Majarae]

Kyra watches all the commotion comense and she studies with very observant eyes. She looks at Eve and smiles. "Energetic bunch aren't they?" She laughed and sat down to watch what was going on. Then another creditor came in and she stood and sighed softly. "Come along, Eve. We have places to go." She leaves and runs off with Eve close behind her.

[Evana Majarae]

Eve stayed put, ignoring the commotion. She had no idea why they were where they were and was only focusing on trying to stay calm. After all, it was new places that also made her paranoid. She couldn't help but get another uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach as her eyes shifted around warily.

She quickly followed her sister without hesitation and put one of her hands on her gun for security. "Where, Kyra, are we going?" She asked, getting a little annoyed with all this running around.

[Annika 25]

Annika is pleased when Tyler answers the phone. She wasn't sure she would catch him since he seemed like a hard person to get in touch with.
"I am Annika 25. I am calling you because I would like information about security at the party and a list of guests who attended. Since you were the head of security at the party, maybe you have some insight to who the man responsible for the bombings was and of anyone else suspicious at the party. Any information you can provide us with would be appreciated." Annika says to the man.

[Annette Rosenthal]

"Classical music, that's a good start." Annette replies to Bambi. She smiles and pulls her cigarettes out of the pocket of her suit jacket. She doesn't light up though. "Well, security is very important for this party, so is location, so we want to make certain it is secure...first and foremost. That is why having it in Switzerland may be the best idea. We could have it at a nice, remote, alpine resort. The snow and mountains will be a nice setting for the Manala Mas party."

Annette thinks about other details. "Food is also important. We should have traditional Manala mas foods like sugar cookies, hot cocoa, and chocolates..but also other foods for a main meal. The sugar cookies should be shaped like dollar signs, or R's for Rands. The colors of the party should be red, green, black and gold. Red and Black are the colors of the Manalists and Green and gold are the colors of Global Bank. We should have some ice sculptures as well. I like swan shaped ice sculptures."

"Entertainment could include Classical music and perhaps ballet dancers." Annette also suggests.

"Now, do you have any ideas to add to this, Bambi?"

[Kyra Majarae]

Kyra smiled at her younger sister and stopped at a booth. She flipped her hair back in a ponytail and smiled a flashy white smile. "We are going to Paris. We are going to hide, until someone makes a move and then I'll have to leave you, but only for a little while. I promise to return. But in the mean time....we really need to get going, before a creditor follows us." She jumped in the booth with Eve and then appeared a few blocks away from the manor.

Once at the manor the chef came to Kyra. "You must be starved! Your dinner is waiting in the kitchen. And what can I fix for the young one?" She smiled at Eve waiting for her order.