Ahhh, Seattle. I've been to quite a few places in North America pre-'Wave, and quite a few places all over the world since then, but Seattle is.. special. I've always enjoyed my time here, and always been conscious that I could never actually _live_ here.
This was made clear once again as I came down in a friend's yard in Bothell, shot the bull for a few minutes, and drove into town with V pretending to be a car, and ran directly into rush hour traffic.
"you sure I can't just.. fly _over_ this crap, boss?" V grumbled, rolling at thirty in heavy traffic.
"You know why not, V. If we didn't piss off the _ground-bound_ police, I'm sure we'd torque off those nice folks running Sea-Tac. Until there's some rulings and test cases hammered out, I don't wanna play fast and loose. We've already been a test case once, and it lost us our first dome."
"Yeah, yeah, but The Jason patched us up just fine from that, better than original, even."
"Sure, V, but I don't want to have to go crying to him, or any 'Fen, every time I get my tail in a twist. Easier not to get twisted in the first place. You want me to drive? You can play WoW or something."
"No, I'm good, it's just.. hey, here's a downtown exit."
We peeled off of the pseudo-laminar flow of commuting traffic, and proceeded into the heart of downtown Seattle, tall, grey, imposing, and forever under construction. Working our way through the tangle of one-way streets, suicidal pedestrians, migrating land-whales of city busses, and the odd bit of other traffic, we soon arrived at the W. 23rd street address, which proved to have a parking garage underneath an understated glass-and-chrome monolith.
The building itself was nothing special, but the sign above the entrance more than made up for it. Gold lettering on a black background proudly surrounded the traditional eye-in-a-pyramid, stating that this was "Illuminati Earth Headquarters". I didn't get it.
V parked in the structure, grumbling about not being able to come with or at least monitor from outside the building, and I settled a few bits of collected electronics comfortably on my person. The Motorola Blade in one pocket actually would place and receive calls, sure, but it was mediated through V instead of the local cellular system. The nondescript Motorola earbud I wore had a bluetooth connection through the phone to V, and a wee fiber camera, allowing her to see and hear what I saw and heard. A couple of other sundry items of a defensive or offensive nature, and I shrugged into my overcoat, dark grey wool doing it's best to dignify my gnarled, lumpy figure. I complemented the effect of the coat with a matching fedora, and closed V's door.
"Keep an eye on me, V, and be ready to come a-runnin if this goes south, please." She flashed an assent with one blip on her headlights, and I moseyed into the front door of the Illuminatus building, keyed up enough to shatter glass with my nerves, and armed for Ninja Bear.
It was awesome, in the Grand-Canyon sense, not the Really-Good-Hot-Dog sense. It was, however, as stereotypical an Important Corporate Lobby as I'd ever seen. The monolithic-slab reception desk was quite spartan, and the gold-flecked obsidian tile of the floor might have come from the quarry just yesterday. The only thing breaking up the shining, austere expanses of Money and Power were several high-resolution images of various landmarks, as taken from orbit.
I wandered for a few minutes, noting the cheerful young professional secretary behind the desk as he kept his eyes on me.
"V, you got good imagery on any of these exhibits?"
"Of course, and Hermes says that they're well within the capability of our little spherical pal. In fact, he could do better, if our estimates of his capability were at all close."
"OK, Ask Hermes if these exhibits could have been taken from a drone like our lit-" I stopped in mid-think as I tried to glare at my right ear, which didn't quite work. I gave up, and approached the front desk.
"Good morning, Sir, welcome to Illuminatus corp, I'm Derek, how may I help you?"
"Hi, Derek, my name's Nick, I run a little mining platform in the Asteroid Belt, and peeled one of your drones off my front door a few days ago, was wondering who I'd talk to about that."
"That would be Mr. Giles, let me see if he's available." The immaculately groomed secretary pressed a couple of buttons on the slablike phone concealed under his monolithic desk, and spoke quietly into a hush mike. He smiled and pressed another button on his phone, then looked back up at me and smiled. "He's just out of a meeting and would be happy to see you, go ahead and take the elevator up to seven, and he'll meet you there."
He pressed another button underneath his desk, and with a subdued 'ding!', a section of the glossy black wall slid open, revealing a conventional, though upscale, elevator. I thanked him, walked over to the elevator, and pressed for the seventh floor. The doors slid shut and the elevator started to rise, and I considered the muted gold eye-in-a-pyramid roundel on the inside of the door balefully as we swung silently to the seventh floor.
On our Next Episode, meet Mr. Giles, and See The Wonderous Assembly!Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
This was made clear once again as I came down in a friend's yard in Bothell, shot the bull for a few minutes, and drove into town with V pretending to be a car, and ran directly into rush hour traffic.
"you sure I can't just.. fly _over_ this crap, boss?" V grumbled, rolling at thirty in heavy traffic.
"You know why not, V. If we didn't piss off the _ground-bound_ police, I'm sure we'd torque off those nice folks running Sea-Tac. Until there's some rulings and test cases hammered out, I don't wanna play fast and loose. We've already been a test case once, and it lost us our first dome."
"Yeah, yeah, but The Jason patched us up just fine from that, better than original, even."
"Sure, V, but I don't want to have to go crying to him, or any 'Fen, every time I get my tail in a twist. Easier not to get twisted in the first place. You want me to drive? You can play WoW or something."
"No, I'm good, it's just.. hey, here's a downtown exit."
We peeled off of the pseudo-laminar flow of commuting traffic, and proceeded into the heart of downtown Seattle, tall, grey, imposing, and forever under construction. Working our way through the tangle of one-way streets, suicidal pedestrians, migrating land-whales of city busses, and the odd bit of other traffic, we soon arrived at the W. 23rd street address, which proved to have a parking garage underneath an understated glass-and-chrome monolith.
The building itself was nothing special, but the sign above the entrance more than made up for it. Gold lettering on a black background proudly surrounded the traditional eye-in-a-pyramid, stating that this was "Illuminati Earth Headquarters". I didn't get it.
V parked in the structure, grumbling about not being able to come with or at least monitor from outside the building, and I settled a few bits of collected electronics comfortably on my person. The Motorola Blade in one pocket actually would place and receive calls, sure, but it was mediated through V instead of the local cellular system. The nondescript Motorola earbud I wore had a bluetooth connection through the phone to V, and a wee fiber camera, allowing her to see and hear what I saw and heard. A couple of other sundry items of a defensive or offensive nature, and I shrugged into my overcoat, dark grey wool doing it's best to dignify my gnarled, lumpy figure. I complemented the effect of the coat with a matching fedora, and closed V's door.
"Keep an eye on me, V, and be ready to come a-runnin if this goes south, please." She flashed an assent with one blip on her headlights, and I moseyed into the front door of the Illuminatus building, keyed up enough to shatter glass with my nerves, and armed for Ninja Bear.
It was awesome, in the Grand-Canyon sense, not the Really-Good-Hot-Dog sense. It was, however, as stereotypical an Important Corporate Lobby as I'd ever seen. The monolithic-slab reception desk was quite spartan, and the gold-flecked obsidian tile of the floor might have come from the quarry just yesterday. The only thing breaking up the shining, austere expanses of Money and Power were several high-resolution images of various landmarks, as taken from orbit.
I wandered for a few minutes, noting the cheerful young professional secretary behind the desk as he kept his eyes on me.
"V, you got good imagery on any of these exhibits?"
"Of course, and Hermes says that they're well within the capability of our little spherical pal. In fact, he could do better, if our estimates of his capability were at all close."
"OK, Ask Hermes if these exhibits could have been taken from a drone like our lit-" I stopped in mid-think as I tried to glare at my right ear, which didn't quite work. I gave up, and approached the front desk.
"Good morning, Sir, welcome to Illuminatus corp, I'm Derek, how may I help you?"
"Hi, Derek, my name's Nick, I run a little mining platform in the Asteroid Belt, and peeled one of your drones off my front door a few days ago, was wondering who I'd talk to about that."
"That would be Mr. Giles, let me see if he's available." The immaculately groomed secretary pressed a couple of buttons on the slablike phone concealed under his monolithic desk, and spoke quietly into a hush mike. He smiled and pressed another button on his phone, then looked back up at me and smiled. "He's just out of a meeting and would be happy to see you, go ahead and take the elevator up to seven, and he'll meet you there."
He pressed another button underneath his desk, and with a subdued 'ding!', a section of the glossy black wall slid open, revealing a conventional, though upscale, elevator. I thanked him, walked over to the elevator, and pressed for the seventh floor. The doors slid shut and the elevator started to rise, and I considered the muted gold eye-in-a-pyramid roundel on the inside of the door balefully as we swung silently to the seventh floor.
On our Next Episode, meet Mr. Giles, and See The Wonderous Assembly!Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979