Chapter 19: Faith in The Fantastic Delusion

[Heikki Toivonen]

Heikki was excited to leave Helsinki for Germany, even if it was his home. However, it seems they won't be returning to Germany now. He always feels safer in Germany. "I don't think we can really do anything against the anti drug commission. They are just too powerful." Heikki replies to Bonifaz.

Heikki knows that Archer probably doesn't care much about the loss of the lab, but, maybe he will surprise them. "Do you feel like doing anything about this?"

[Malak Al-Dabaran]

Malak is at the podium and sees some people trickle in to the meeting. It has taken some time for people to show up, but he attributes this to the fact that it is hard to find the HQ for Socialist Revolution in London. That is a good thing, since it has kept the Invisible Hand away...thus far.

Malak waits for some more people to take their seats.

"Hello and welcome everyone. It's good to see this sort of turn out." He states, even though there is only about a dozen people there right now.

"The first part of our agenda is the international report, which will be given by Armin Lehrer. That will begin in five minutes and will be followed by questions and an open floor for speakers." He explains.

[Annette Rosenthal]

Annette listens to what the Master has to say, and is somewhat pleased with the announcement. She has been upset about the rebel problem for some time and is glad that greater measures are being taken to deal with the few rebels that exist in the world.

It was a good party. She got some nice gifts and there was some good news. It was the best birthday she had ever had, even though there was some chaos caused by dinosaurs and Creditor imposter strippers. Secretly, she actually enjoyed the Creditor strippers, so, she didn't make a scene over it like she did the dinosaurs.

Now, with the party winding down, she walks over to the Moderator and Max Alexander to listen to their conversation about the new surveilance system.

[Dinari Dollar]

Dinari walks over to Max as well, since the Moderator is talking about the project. He crosses his arms and leans back on his feet, wobbling back and forth boredly. "I can get the blimp project going right away. I'll put some of those sweatshop workers to work helping create the blimps. I think I could even hire some more people for the duration of the project." Dinari says to the Moderator.

[Kith Keitoleinen]

"Armin Lehrer.." Kith thinks to himself. He gets up out of his seat and bends down to Cephrien's ear.

"I'm going to step out for a moment. I will be listening from outside the meeting." Is all Kith says. He gets up and leaves the room. He stands outside the old caffeteria, but offers no explaination as to why he had to leave for a moment.

He stands there and listens in, watching as people trickle in to the meeting. At least his keen ears allow him to hear the speeches just fine from outside the large room.

[Linnea Korpela]

Linnea stared a moment at Keito's dirty feet on her clean kitchen table, this made her slightly more angry then she already was. Then she suddenly remembered that Ophelia was still there, Linnea had forgotten for a moment that she had guests once she opened the door. Dealing with Keito always toke her whole attention.
"Something happened to her van...that's why she didn't make it with the flowers," Linnea stated with a matter of fact voice that wavered into a nervous mutter. She still wasn't on to why he was there at her house.

[Jumala Keitoleinen]

"Oh, I see...that explains things.." Keitoleinen replies to her. Of course, not getting the flowers has caused her to be cold and upset. Had she gotten them, she would be happy and affectionate.

He does however notice that she is starting at his legs (because his feet are on the table). He smiles to himself because he believes she is checking him out. "You know, you just always act too stressed. I think I know what you need...."

[Linnea Korpela]

Whenever Keito was around Linnea was stressed, she couldn't help but be stressed the way that he treated her and it never seemed to change around people either, he would be just as disgusting in public as he was when they were alone. Being alone with him was something that Linnea tried to avoid.
"And what do you think I need?" she retorted but then suddenly thought she realized where he was going with this. Tensing up, she winced as she waited for the sick reply that would come out of his mouth at any moment.

[Armin Lehrer]

Armin heads up to the stage after Malak announces that he will be speaking. He steps up to the podium and Malak takes a seat up in the front row. Armin has a can of Countess Cola with him and takes a sip before he starts talking.

"Hey everyone. I guess I'm giving the International Report. It's sort of long, so I'll try to make it fast and talk about some of the more important events that have happened in the world lately. Now...if any of you were watching the news, you probably saw that annoucement today about a new prison in Rome. I think that's pretty bad for us."

"I also heard that there's going to be a new monitoring system. Freakboy, a comrade from the united States, was talking about it back at my house."

He looks over at Cephrien and Freakboy.

"Can either of you two tell us a little more about that project?"

[Jumala Keitoleinen]

"A vacation. I don't feel like going back to work tomorrow, so why don't we ...go for a cruise instead. Ophelia can come along too. We'll take a couple days off and visit the Carribean. Then..I don't have to go back to the office until next week!" Keitoleinen suggests excitedly. He takes his feet off the table and stands up now.

"Start packing, Linnea. We can say it is for researching new markets or something like that.."

[Sidapa Amparo]

Sidapa waits for a long time, but no one answers the door. He assumes that this means there is no one home at the socialist house. So, he decides to break in. He enters the house by cutting through the screen of the screen door on the porch. It was easy enough.

"Helloooooo, anyone home?" He calls out. There's no one there, but he does see literature and other incriminating things.

"So, wonder where they went. Maybe they thought they could escape me." He thinks to himself.

He starts looking around for clues as to where they could have gone.

[Hilja Kukkanen/Sasha Pisarev]

I think to myself that Kith certainly acts suspicious. I look back to see where he went off to, but he just left the room. I sigh and feel uneasy. But, he did come with Cephrien and Cephrien seems friendly enough. I am sure if Cephrien trusts him, then he can be trusted.

Armin is speaking and I try to listen. This is important stuff, but I am thinking about Kith. I lean over and whisper at Cephrien.

"Do you know much about Kith? Can he be trusted?" I whisper.

[††Venice "Cephrien" Ashgrove††]

Ceph was leaning back in his seat, one leg crossed over the other. He was calmly paying attention to the speech, though he wasn't whole-heartedly interested persay. Kith spoke about listening to the speech from outside. Ceph just shrugged his shoulders. When he hears Hilja's voice in his ear, Ceph raises a brow and turns to face her.

"I don't know him." He states flatly, shrugging his shoulders again before turning to the podium again.

"-My boss does. So I'm sure he's fine."

Ceph blinked once when the speaker on stage looked over in his direction and addressed him. Ah.. jeeze.. now he had to speak amongst all these people..

"There was a birthday party for Annette Rosenthal today. But before the festivities began, there was a discussion on the new Surveillance system. Turns out that the design hadn't really been decided at that point, so alot of them submitted their own ideas. The Moderator himself was the one who came to a final decision."

Ceph never bothered to get up from his seat. In fact, he wiggled around a little to get more comfortable.

"I believe that the idea that won involved blimps."

[Hilja Kukkanen/Sasha Pisarev]

I will just have to trust Cephrien about kith. Maybe he just doesn't like crowds of people. Cephrien explains the blimp design and the information that he knows about the surviellance system.

"What do you think we should do about it?" I ask Armin or anyone who wants to answer the question.

[~Ophelia Vespera~]

"Wha? Ah! I can't do that! I got to go back to my shop!" Ophelia exclaimed, then thought of Linnea. She had to try to think fast of some way to help Linnea get out of this too.

"- And Ms.Linnea was going to come back with me to Rome as well. She, ahh - " her mind reeled searching for a reason. Then it clicked, "She was wanting to do some painting in Rome." she nodded, feeling quite brilliant, "You've seen how lovely it is down there, it's a very inspiring place! She was going to stay with me for a few days and paint."
She shifted her eyes to Linnea and smiled nervously hoping she'd go with the idea, "Of course you can change your mind if you'd like Ms.Linnea.. Although I do suggest coming. Rome isn't quite over flooded with tourists yet and it's really nice this time of year."