Chapter 18: A Parable for the Terrible

[Li Violette]

"Scrag has been keeping the new building a secret...even from me. But...I am sure he will have me give a speech when he is ready to unveil his plans." I reply to John. The room is dark. I eye him curiously.

"I'm curious...do you know anything about that new building? It has been covered throughout its construction.." I whisper.

"I'll keep it a secret..." I add.

[Heikki Toivonen]

"Yeah, I was aware of that ...fact about Finland." Heikki replies to Archer. Then it seems that Niilo has spotted them and decided to walk over. Heikki is a little surprised that Niilo knows of him.

"I guess I had no idea that people knew of me." Heikki replies modestly. He goes to the back of the van and gets a box with red leaf in it. "Anyway, I understand that the Enlightened Brotherhood wanted to buy some red leaf...for the purpose of spiritual development."

[Freak Boy]

"Green tea sounds fine, thank you," he said. "Sorry, didn't know this place was straight edge. My bad." Freak Boy found it amusing that he did coke in a drug and alcohol free house. Of course, he daren't say anything, lest he offend or get his ass busted. "The lifestyle where I'm from is very different... I'm sorry."

[Master Scrag]

"The greatest tribute to me, is your own greatness and your own commitment to excellence." Scrag replies. He digs his wrinkled, tan hand into his black, weedy cloak. He pulls out a copy of the book of Manala. "If you have not read this book, you may have it. Inside is the secret to Greatness." He hands the stranger the book.

"May you create your own blessings. May the strong ever be masters of the weak."

With this simple blessing, the Master has nothing more to say. He continues walking, heading back to the Highest Temple.

[Ariel Tal Shachar]

The Moderator turns to Anthony. Because of his visual impairment, he didn't see Anthony come up to his right side. He turns and looks at Anthony. "Yes, there is still time to submit your design. I will not announce the winner until the end of the party." Ariel replies to Anthony. Thus far, there have been many designs submitted. Ariel may decide on more than one. He is starting to take Li's advice about the blimps a little more seriously. "What do you have?"

[Hilja Kukkanen/Sasha Pisarev]

"Yeah, we don't have drugs in the house because it gives an excuse for the Manalists or the Anti Drug Commission to come in here and arrest us. We don't want to do anything that draws EXTRA attention to us. We try to be low key. The fewer criminal things we can do the better. Less chance of getting caught doing something anyway..." I explain to Freakboy with a shrug.

The teapot whistles and I pour the hot water into various mugs. I put a teabag in each.

"I suppose it is sort of lame. It isn't that we are against drug use ...we don't like the drug laws either...but, I guess it is just one less thing they can come after us for."

[John Sweet]

Oh shit! John thought. He thought at least the Moderator and The Speaker would know about the building. He had no idea it was such a high-strung security project that required so much cover-up. He had no idea of the urgency of the building's secrecy. He knew the general public was to have no knowledge of the building's even existence, but had no idea that the higher figures in society even knew nothing about it.

It didn't matter much, John received such an ego boost from the mere thought he, and Scrag, knew about the inner workings of the building.

Still, he needed to keep some confidentiality with the building.

Motioning for Li to come in closer for the discussion, John said, without whispering, but still not very audible, "Okay, essentially the building will take care of the rebels who are caught. People will be sent there, taken care of, and then released when needed back into society. We've run some test programs with Dr. West of Genetech on the biological needs and aspects of people and other races of this planet, and it seems that things will run better. Of course, I told you nothing of any of this."

[Niilo Ukkonen]

Niilo walked toward Heikki. The man seemed surprised about something, but that didn't really matter. Niilo was going to get his red leaf, and that was all that really mattered.

Niilo and his boys and girls had pretty much lied to Heikki and his people about the whole red leaf thing. They were going to use to towards spiritual development, but not the whole package. About half was going to go simply to use with the whole "I'm addicted to drugs, so gimme!" thing. But Niilo didn't feel too much remorse on the whole thing 'cause he told the partial truth.

After a few minutes, Niilo got to the van.

"So you must be the Heikki dude I heard about," he said to begin. "I'm Niilo, it's a pleasure to meet you."

[Fitzhugh Dubois/Arah]

"You should've taken your chance," Arah said while patting Fitzhugh on the shoulder. "You could've kicked his ass, taken his shit, and walked away triumphantly, you stupid bastard."

"You know what?" Fitzhugh said, turning to Arah.

"What?" Arah responded while smiling to show what little human remains of dimples he had. He look at Fitzhugh in a mocking manner. One that begged for a punch.

Resisting his violent urge, Fitzhugh said, "Never mind, lets go back to Paris. I've got work to do."

And with that, the Demon and the Vampire walked to a nearby teleportation booth and teleported away.

[Jack Kruschev]

Smiling, Anth continued.

"Genetech has actually been using it for quite some time now." Anth pulled out a small container with what looked like a nat. "For the sake of irony, I've named this species of bug "Liberium." It means "Free" or "Liberated" in Latin.

Basically, what the bug does is detect certain words. Words like "rebelion", "revolution", and anti-manalist are among them. What they do then is release a hormone in their body that triggers others of the species to release a different hormone. Detectors underground, that already exist, will detect these hormones and Creditors can be sent to the area within moments. We, Genetech, have been using these little guys to find out what people want for a couple years now. We really owe our success in recent years to them."

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[††Venice "Cephrien" Ashgrove††]

Ceph shook his head to Hilja's offer and propped himself up against the frame of the entrance to the Kitchen. He crossed his arms. What he came here to do was now done.. so what now? Right now, he was contemplating on whether or not he should go back to Li.. Then again, she said she would tell the party that he had only gone to the bathroom.. It would be strange if he never came back..

Not that anyone noticed him leave in the first place.

[Archer Aylmer]

From outside the van I watch the exchange between Niilo and Heikki intently. It's sort of awkward to be in the middle of someone else's drug deal, and really, a more conspicuous situation could not be thought of. In a van. In an alley. All of my drug deals are usually done at the houses of whomever I'm selling to, or at whatever house I'm occupying at that given time. I look around, getting a little paranoid by the whole thing.

[~Ophelia Vespera~]

"Well.. A little flower delivery turned into a much bigger chain of events. One thing led to another and now I'm here." Ophelia chuckled to Ceph, "What a blessing! I really thought we would only meet in the new world or in heaven. I was actually sad when you walked out of my shop. It's usually only once in a blue moon I meet a thoughtful person."

She took the address paper from Hilja with a thank you and folded it up.

"I hope we meet again soon. When we're both not in such a rush. You are welcome to come by my shop anytime."
Ophelia patted Ceph gently on the arm, and picked up her partially dried cotton poncho to put on as she walk towards the door.
"Thank you for everything, Hilja.. and, uh, "Freak Boy".. I hope to meet you two again as well. If you're ever in Rome, please visit."
She waved to them all before stepping back outside into the crisp evening air and heading towards Linnea's place. It didn't take so long this time to find where she was going with actual directions written down.
She went up to the door of Linnea's place and knocked, waiting patiently. Hopefully she was home, and if she was home, hopefully awake too. It was getting late.

[Freak Boy]

"Makes sense," he said to Hilja. "I understand a thing or two about caution and preparedness. I gotcha." He waved goodbye to Ophelia as she stepped out. "I am a big enough fan of the liquor that I'm willing to take a risk here and there, but I'm smart about it. I tend to keep a low profile in those situations."

[Aubrey 16]

"Truth be told, Ms. Rosenthal, I strongly believe you'll be taken seriously no matter what you wear." Aubrey stated. She wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing, but she knew Annette would take it as a compliment. "I really do think you should consider the pizzazz, though." She added in a slight undertone.

The pink haired android trailed just slightly behind Annette. "Your safety is, of course, of upmost importance." She told Annette, nodding her head. "Unfortunately, not everyone is as dedicated and hard working as you are."

Aubrey was so excited to see Annette's reaction to the party.