Chapter 22: When In Rome

[Niilo Ukkonen]

Feeling a small crunch from an un-removed part of a stem in the Red Leaf, Niilo sat down as the drug began to take effect. He felt light headed, crazy, great, and even a little horny. He loved red leaf.

Passing the bag of the drug on, Niilo said, “Are you sure you don’t want to just stay and a savor the moment?”

[Fitzhugh Dubois/Arah]

“Hello,” Fitzhugh replied. “My name is Fitzhugh Dubois and I would like to check up on how you and your library are doing after the attack quite some time ago. It was I who sent in the backup of the Black Wings for the sake of saving your precious books. Also, I would like to meet you to discuss the matter of funding a privatized library, run by you.”

Fitzhugh, while doing this, shuffled through his papers to find the information and book listings he planned to stock the library with. Many of the books were rare, but affordable. Also, the long-term plans that he had compiled to hopefully put into action soon.

[The Flesh Monger]

"Oh. Almost forgot about the fights." Flesh reply. "Anyway, find someone and clean her up or something!!"

Before he exit the cell, Flesh walk up to Salome and touch her head. Soon enough, he grab some hair strainds of her hair. He simply smile before left the cell. Flesh walk down the long hallways and stop at front of Lucio's cell. He told the guard to open to open the cell door for him.

"I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to torture you, BUT I decided to give you boils as a 'forgivenss' present...." Flesh says to Lucio.

He touch Lucio for a moment before pulling his hand away. The boils began to grow on his shoulders, arms, and chest. Flesh also grab some hair strainds from Lucio before leaving Lucio's cell and head back to his room.

[Max Alexander]

Max quit dancing and walked over to Dinari when the music changed. "Well, Mr. Dinari, have you ever heard of an old band from the Americas called Coldplay? I would probably be a band like that. Just laid back and relaxing music. No hard, crazy, give me a headache type of music."

Max grabbed a bottle of water and began to glug it. He was thirsty after dancing.

[Peter "Levitas" Barak]

"If I had a band... I'm name it 'Popsicle Stand'. But I'd spell it so that the 's' in Stand a dollar sign and the 'c' in popsicle a cent sign. We'd all play guitar electric. But for right now, this is at least something I can dance to. Excuse me."

Peter moved away from the others a little, looking for some open space to move in. As he does he takes his shirt off his shoulder and ties it around his waist so he doesn't lose it. That done, he set to the task of 'dancing'.

He couldn't really dancing, not in the traditional sense. What he'd learned he'd learned as a kid watching and practicing with other degerate youth on the street. They did it to look good and make other people look bad because they couldn't do the same moves. Which was the same thing as high society dancing really, it was just more open and honest about it. And high society dancing didn't normally have alot of hand stands or spinning on your head.

He started in as soon as he had the space, spinning around on his hands, little jumps, flips, tumbling. Of course it was hard to match the beat of a song he didn't know.

[Roland Demeter]

The brush just needed to touch the oil very lightly, to trace the canvise as a whisper. Thin, quick streaks of oily gray staining white material.

Roland set down his paints and brush for a moment to step back and observe his creation. The painting was large and panaramic, a view of the Russian country side in gray and white. It depicted the country after the gray zone had completely swept over it.

A morbid Finnish businessman with a grudge against the Russians had commissioned a series of them. Roland would've done it for fun. This was how the world should look after all.

He set aside the materials to allow the current layer to set for a short time before he put the next color set into the gray lake. Besides, he needed a free moment to check on his other project. He stepped over to a collection of glass cases, some filled with water and others with plants or sand or whatever other little eviroments he'd needed for the creatures.

Inside fish and lizards and bugs wandered about, as their simple minds tended to force them to. They didn't seem to be interested in each other in the least, which forced a rare sigh out of Roland. He'd so hoped this time would work, he'd made so many little changes.

Half of the caged animals where his own creations, formed from his own poison blood and some vaguely organic gray materials. Near perfect copies, accept for the slight lack of coloration. But they still weren't enough. What he needed was copies so perfect that they could mate into the population of the species they mimiced, and set Roland's poisons loose.

Roland sighed again and turned back to his paint. The false animals dissolved away, turning to gray ash. Their caged real counterparts began to twitch and slow almost instantly. Everything would be dead within a few minutes.

"Maybe", Roland said to himself as he picked up his brush, "What I need to do is get some outside consultation..."

[Calithin Crest]

I'm enjoying this new band much more and it puts me in a better mood. I pay closer attention to those playing and move my head a little to the sound.

"This is what's up."

I think about Dinari's question. It's really difficult to come up with a good band name. After a few moments I feel like I have a solid answer:

"Probably 'The Newer World.' I think that's a good band name. We would play really fast, upbeat like... Powerpop with electronic influences. It would be super happy and ridiculous and we would be the first band to play on Saturn. I'm sure."

[Bambi Engel]

Bambi tries to decide what "flying" music would sound like to pass the time. When Dinari makes his general question, her thoughts shift to that. She can't really decide, she'd have to know what genre of music her band would be playing first. Peter moving off to show off his dance moves at last distracts her from thinking further about a band name.

She blinked as he begun 'dancing', it wasn't like any type of dancing she had ever seen. It was still appealing, it looked like someone had combined a sport with dancing. ... Of course, him doing it shirtless might've effected her decision even if she'd never admit it to herself. The music isn't bad, better than the previous band.

[Kasper Schultz]

Kasper turns direction and starts running towards his bike when Em distracts the spider and it seems to start chasing after her. At least he is running towards the road and not the forest now, but he worries about Em. He looses sight of both her and the spider. Finally, he finds his bicycle and climbs on. He waits by the road for Em, but he is worried. What if the spider eats her? He can't just let that happen. On the other hand, he can't go back into the forest after her and the spider. He might get lost or might just make matters worse. There could be other spiders or other ...worse creatures out there.

He waits on his bicyle, but doesn't leave. He is ready for Em and watches the forest for her to emerge...or, he listens for her to hear a scream or a call for help. He waits...but he hears nothing..

[Dinari Dollar]

"I don't know...maybe I would have a big band..sort of thing...with marches and patriotic music. And I would call it...umm....the Dinari Dollar All American Orchestra. And there would be drums..and tubas...and trumpets...and all that kind of stuff. And every time you hear them, you would think of fireworks and flags." Dinari replies to Calithin and Peter, even though Peter is dancing right now. Dinari starts to dance a little as well. He isn't really that great of a dancer, but at least he isn't stiff or boring. The music is sort of fun and mechanical, with different sound effects and sound bites. One song features sound bites from various speeches given by members of the Economic Council.

All of the music has to be proManalist, which is somewhat limiting.

[Heikki Toivonen]

"The socialist left in a hurry. I am not sure if they were around long enough to get exposed to the Cat Flu." Heikki replies to Bonifaz. He frowns and gets up off the sofa. "They are going their own ways...but one is going to Rome. I suppose ...it would be good if ..in doing with we got some of the Manalists in Rome sick." Heikki adds.

He looks upstairs and is thoughtful for a moment. "I hope that Archer convinced Frieda to take the nasal vaccine. But, what can be done now? They are gone now. Everything moved along more quickly than I expected."

[Charon Dejardins/Asphodel]

Charon is naturally suspicious of this caller, who has called him out of the blue to check up on his library and to offer him a library of his own. Charon isn't sure what to say. Maybe Asphodel was captured and this is a Manalist on the other line. His natural sense of paranoia kicked in quickly, and he isn't sure how to respond.

"You must be from the university. Well, my library is fine thank you. All of my books are safe and it is nice of you to check up on me. There is no need to worry about me." Charon replies calmly to the caller. The hopes is perhaps he will give more identifying information.

[Malak Al-Dabaran]

To Cephrien, Akira, and others

Malak wanders around Rome, wandering through the strange carnival, but passing through it quickly. It unnerves him. In fact, all of Rome keeps him on edge. He feels completely intimidated by the tall buildings, many temples, and crowds of red clad followers, priests, and soldiers.

As a socialist, he always like the color red. It was a color to be associated with communism, but, red was also the color of the Manalists, and in this context, it made him feel ill and uneasy.

After passing through the carnival, he came upon a flower shop. It seemed like an oasis or maybe a mirage amongst the other buildings. He wandered inside, in hope that it might be a refuge.

Once inside, he noticed Horacio and Cephrien. "Oh...hello..." He said to them with surprise and caution.

[Momo Kurokawa]

To Max
After Momo checks up on the reconstruction of Japan, she heads to Tokyo to look over some work. It will take months if not years to rebuild things entirely, but she is impressed with the efforts so far and the progress accomplished. She is starting to feel a little more confident, but the attack on Helsinki did shake her. She won't be doing anything too bold for a while now.

After doing some work, she decides to take a teleportation booth to Rome, since she had not yet visited Holy Week. And so, she teleports to near the Highest Temple, and once there, she notices Calithin, Dinari, Max, and Peter.

She walks over to Max, since she likes him the best out of the bunch.

"Hello Max. I talked to some of your workers at M TV and they said the first sattelites will be launched by the end of the month." Momo says to Max.

[Attis Svoboda]

"There is little to savor in this hell hole capital of that false religion, but, the grotesque sights of the city itself...to be appreciated best with the numbing of our everyday senses..." Attis replies to Niilo. He feels tired and relaxed, but as a whole not much different. The drug is mildly sedating, but also can bring visions of things...which is why it is used by the Manalists. It does make Attis feel more clear minded and insightful, at least in his own head.
This religion is an iron curtain for reality. They seek to understand it...to peek beyond the curtain, but instead, they have only turned what was once soft cloth into heavy metal...