The Chrysalis Cracks (open RP)

[tess]

Lucy Randall nervously pushed her way through the busy Solvall hallway, taking care not to spill the two very large coffees she balanced in either hand. Pressed into the crook of her arm was a manilla envelope, in her mouth a pen, and on her face a very worried expression.

It had been over 8 months since Lucy was promoted from intern to the thankless job as Tess's personal assistant. And over a year since she was first hand picked by Mila Cameron to head up an aspiring group of interns for AEgir's Investigations department. Her 1 year anniversary came and went without much fanfare. A form email from HR thanking her for her service, and an impersonal card from Tess with a gift certificate stuffed inside.

A lot had changed in just one year, and it continued to change still. Lucy made it to the crowded elevator, and rode it up to the 27th floor. A much less crowded space opened up in front of her, reserved for high level AEgir employees only. A brief stop at a security check point and Lucy was on her way again, hurrying towards Tess's office.

She found her boss hunched at her desk, rubbing her temples and intently focusing on her computer screen.

Lucy paused for a moment, deciding when the best time to speak up would be.

"Come in Lucy"

Her decision made for her, Lucy quickly made her way to Tess's desk, depositing the two large coffee cups and manilla envelope. Gathering herself before going over the day's schedule with Tess.

"Here's the coffee you wanted, the second one extra hot for later, just like you asked. And here's the dossier on the Phoenician agent in Los Angeles. And the report on the Sasquatch poaching operation on Solomon Island. And the finance reports from ESI labs. And a report from Jia in IT regarding last week's incident with the poltergeist. You've got an 11 o'clock conference call with the shareholders. Your 2pm cancelled. Also, Ms Mercado is visiting from Florida, and she'd like a meeting with Mr Loper. And: I took the liberty of reserving you a table at Wok in the Park for lunch."

Tess let out a heavy sigh at the inundation of information coming her way and reached for the coffee without even glancing in Lucy's direction. "Thank you Lucy, that will be all for now."

Lucy didn't budge. "The PIT's nervous boss."

Again, no eye contact from Tess "I'm sure"

Lucy nervously bit her lip. "The share holders too."

"I know."

Lucy tugged uncomfortably at the bottom of her shirt. "AEgir's stock price dropped 2 points this morning."

Tess winced. "I am aware."

Lucy paused for a moment. She'd moved on to absent mindedly fidgeting with her glasses. "It's just so odd. Do we know where Ms Rystaad is?"

Tess put down her coffee, and turned toward Lucy for the first time in the conversation. "She's in Iceland, that's all I know."

Lucy let out a few odd syllables, as if practicing how to speak. "What are you going to tell the shareholders?"

"I'm going to tell them that Shay's in Iceland. And business will continue as usual. The shareholders are just going to have to trust that."

Lucy looked around the office apprehensively. "What are you going to tell The Sponsors?

Tess turned back towards her computer. "Not a damn thing. They probably know more about this situation than I do."

Lucy was not comforted in the least by this. "Did you need anything else from me boss?"

Tess thought for a moment. "I want you to divide my caseload between Carl and Pacelli. I won't have the time now." She paused and looked down at the ripped jeans she was wearing. "And can you pick me up a few suits? I might as well look the part."

Lucy nodded, and made her way to the door.

"Oh and Lucy?"

Lucy froze.

"While you're out, can you take a pint of ice cream to Ammie? She's staying at my house. Rocky Road."

As Lucy exited the room, Tess let out yet another long exasperated sigh, resting her head firmly in her hands now.

Lucy caught this action out of corner of her eye. It was going to be a long week.

[Ammie]

((This thread contains some stories, and can also be used as a gathering place for the bits of information for resolving this last story arc. Thanks to everyone who's participating, hoping to wrap it all up within a week or two!))


Nov.6
Only flashes of memory remain.
Coming home for lunch. The note that only said "Sorry.", paperweighted by a necklace, a bracelet, a phone, and a wedding ring.
Some friends came.
Then she was at Tess'.
Golems there. Big fat cat.
Some friends came.

Nov.7
1am: Ammie woke in the dark of Tess' spare room from a nightmare in which the shadowy man in the tattered black wrappings was chasing her through the never-ending rooms of some maze like house.
Typically, she woke in a cold sweat, looked around, curled up tightly with Shay, which usually banished the nightmares for the rest of the night.
Two screams of pain tore through the house, pillow-muffled, but still loud enough to scare Zelda off of the kitchen counter. Ammie hurried back to the nightmares.

4:30am: Ammie sat on the couch in the main room staring at the TV, curled up as small as a human being can curl, cocooned in a fuzzy blanket. An infomercial had long been preaching the amazing value of the world's most revolutionary vegetable slicer, but if you asked her, she couldn't tell you anything about it. Her mind was blissfully empty.

6am: Ammie's sleep rhythm woke her for work, as Tess and Sera crept around the kitchen trying to quietly eat breakfast, abandoned when they saw she was awake. They said things to her that drifted through her head without sticking. Tess was stressed out, and Ammie hugged her and kissed her cheek with dry lips.
Ammie sent a few texts to people she remembered coming over, and then booted up her laptop to log in the remote Aegir server. She felt the hitch-hikers clawing in her mind, compelling her to open her email and give them control. She smiled when she saw that her email access had been blocked. Good thinking, whoever did that.
She buried herself in the most tedious work. Organizing the spell-grammar on the routine daily sigils and wards requested by other departments.
She sent an intranet message to Rose, and informed the Minions that she would be telecommuting for a bit, and to feed her as much of their daily case file work as they could.
She worked for hours without stopping, clearing the backlog and even starting up a couple of shelved projects.
She ignored almost all contact except for intranet messages.

12noon, lunchtime:
Ammie looked at the clock. The word "lunch" hit her brain like a ten-ton hammer, and she retreated behind the heartlessness of the Man in the Dark Corner. He sang to her of the big picture, and how right her brother had been to cast his emotions aside. He reminded her that she always had a path to follow. He comforted her. He cared for her. Only her.
They slept together, and he kept her mind empty and dream-free.

[tess]

((I consolidated my story and Ammie's into the same thread since they're mostly related to one another, and so we can keep all stuff related to this story line in one place))

[Ammie]

((Cool - I did it separate because I didn't want it to be a hijack of the greater Aegir story going on at the same time. ^_^))

[Carl]

Investigations Department - The Solvall
Friday, November 8th, 2013 - 8:28 AM EST

Miss Claire Willmore typed away at the report in front of her computer screen, stopping only to pick up the receiver of the phone as calls came in. For all of Carl Weaver's good qualities, organization was not one of them. Being his secretary meant, among other things, making sure that weakness of his did not hinder his job. And so she was both the master organizer, giving him case briefs neatly packaged for him to quickly catch up on a situation; as well as a gatekeeper to his access, diverting trivial calls and memos elsewhere, only allowing the important stuff through to him.

It was a good thing he both acknowledged her efforts and thanked her often. Especially when she had to fend off all those angry PIT interns during "The Great Cheetos Debacle" last month.

Willmore finished the last of the report and hit the keyboard shortcut for "Print." The printer/copier/scanner adjacent to her desk whirred to live and spit out a few pages. In a well practiced motion, she rolled her office chair over, collected the papers, rolled back to the desk, stapled them, and neatly slid them into a manila folder. She got up and went to the entry of her boss' office, the door left slightly ajar as it normally was. She opened it and went in.

Here was the office known sometimes as "Melissa's Bane." There was no style to this office, only pure function. Even the furniture clashed, as battleship grey filing cabinets and night black shelving full of cluttered papers and folders stood sentinel on the side walls around the old oak desk that Carl was sitting at, going through a report on his computer. The personal touches in this room were minimal. There was a picture of Carl's family and of Jule Johnson on the desk, a framed "X-Files" movie poster and Carl's college English Degree on the left wall, and four framed portraits of people who inspired Carl hung on the right. The people in those frames were Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower.....and Mila Cameron.

Carl looked up as she came in. His suit coat was draped on the back of his chair and his tie was loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. "Oh hey, Claire. I'm just finishing up another thrilling wiretap conversation of Wall Street bigwigs talking about their golf games."

Willmore smirked, "Just the sort of case you love to read about."

Weaver balked, "I'm amazed I haven't bored myself to death already. I still can't understand how Tess could stand to read this kind of stuff everyday. Oh, and remind me to talk to Armstrong about some of the details he puts in reports like these. I really don't need to know that a Fortune 500 CEO committed five quote unquote, "moments of flatus" during a meeting."

Claire had to keep herself from chuckling. The master writer could be very blunt when he wanted to be. At least he was much better prepared for being "Interim Director of Investigations" this time around. No deepening of the lines on his face or unhealthy weight loss since the change. "Well, here's something completely different," she spoke as she handed over the manila folder, "reports of a possible poltergeist in Calgary, perhaps a ghost of a murdered lumberjack."

He smiled, "Finally, something interesting to read. I'll probably give this one to Marceau unless there's something especially unusual in this report."

Claire nodded and started to turn to leave, but stopped herself. She turned back.

"Pardon my curiosity...what's been happening with our CEO and the Arcane Department head?"

Carl's smile quickly faded. He picked up a pen and began tapping at his desk with it. "I know what everyone else knows. One's gone off to Iceland, the other is staying at our acting CEO's home. What I do know is that there's already some ugly noises coming at me from the Board..."

"Well, you're their friend. I figured you..."

She stopped as he looked up quickly. "Friend.."

Willmore looked at him confused, "I know you've never completely forgiven Shay about the whole Mila thing, but I didn't think..."

"Claire, let me give you a hypothetical situation." He leaned back a bit and sighed deeply before continuing. "Let's say you have these friends who are getting married. Say they want you to have a big part in their wedding. Now say they turn around and try to...." Carl stopped suddenly. "On second thought, nevermind."

Willmore stood in stunned silence for a bit, before finally muttering. "Er.....didn't mean....I'll start getting the notes ready for your 11 AM meeting."

Weaver nodded, returning to his normal demeanor, almost as though a switch had been flipped. "Yeah, definitely want to be prepared for that one. Thanks, Claire."

He started looking over the new case folder. Willmore left the room, turning and looking back at him before gingerly leaving the door slightly ajar as Carl preferred it.

[Ammie]

November 8th:
More work.
Backlogs cleared again by 8:30am, Ammie started opening cases that had been shelved because they were too time-consuming to get around to in the daily run of AA&S, but there was plenty of time now.
She closed three before looking up from her home terminal.

3:30-4pm - Debridement
Received a text from Saki, telling her that she'd made contact with Shay. The information was brief, but cemented reality around her and pushed away any lingering hope that it was all a big misunderstanding. The wound was now clean.
Ammie said some things to Saki that she didn't mean.

4:30 - Ammie resolves to go to Lilith's show in Solomon Island. She tweets apologies to those who rode with her on the flight from England, and activates her Agartha Conduit. The warm, golden light washes over and through her, and she feels better.

11pm - Ammie says she needs air, and leaves the show, wandering down the road through Blue Mountain. She ends up in the Sasquatch glen, where she is retrieved and taken back to her room at Tess & Sera's house.

November 9th:
6:30am - Ammie wanders into the kitchen, drinks a V8, and goes back into her dark room.

November 10th:
8:00am - Ammie wanders into the kitchen, drinks a V8, and goes back into her dark room.

[Ammie]

((Okay, so, good news! All signs point to this job indeed being the last job of the season, and I'll be done with it somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday, and on my way home for the winter! Woo! For those of you who are participating in this RP story (or want to), once I have some serious time to put in game, this is gonna kick off for reals.

When that happens, Ammie is likely to start doing and saying things that are categorized as "very unwise". I want to go ahead and say up-front that this is all IC story stuff, and does not reflect on any players or IRL whatevers. If anything happens that crosses anyone else's story, house lore, or personal canon in a way that that player doesn't like, I ask that you please notify me by tell or PM as soon as it does, and we can roll it back or change it. She's gonna be kind of a chaos elemental when the "event" happens, and I intend to just roll with it and see what she does. So. Disclaimer posted, willing to work with you in anything, otherwise just hold on. XD ))

[sersi]

On Melissa's first day she was late. She hadn't meant to be late - at 10 am she had received the call that the job was hers, and joyously called her friends and family to tell them the good news. She had called her landlord to happily tell her that yes, she WOULD be paying her rent this month and please do not evict her. She had prepared to start calling the other people she owed money to when her phone rang, her new boss cheerfully telling her that the work day had started at 7 am and she was now 4 hours late. One swallowed bug, a spilled cup of coffee, two trains and a cab ride later she was rushing into the domineering Solvall - a structure she had only read about, or occasionally seen as a silhouette in the New York skyline on her more adventurous weekends out. In the distance it had been oddly impressive. In person it was more than a little terrifying.

In the lobby a security guard gave her a badge and a an elevator code to reach her floor without looking up, which she took before riding the elevator up listening to an easy listening version of what she thought might have been Unskinny Bop by Poison, but she wasn't quite sure. At her destination was a girl of her own age, recognizable from more than a few appearances in tabloids who moved around the room and talked with a manic energy, her hands gesturing with almost every word, her eyes rarely resting on any one thing at a time.

Terms like "personal assistant", "intelligence reports", "action areas" were thrown out. Melissa believed she heard the term "zombie" more than once but was having troubles keeping up. Then her new boss told her she had to go out for a bit. To watch the office for her and take any messages. She left with a sense of urgency bordering on panic and didn't come back.

On her second day Melissa exploded. She wished it had been more of the figurative sort of explosion, where a coworker makes a joke that isn't nearly as funny as they believe one too many times, but it was not so. She spent the rest of the day huddled in a corner and trying not to consider that the room was oddly fire proofed.

On the third day Melissa began to hear the voices of her coworkers filtered over the ear piece left to her by Ms. Rystaad, whom Melissa began to assume was never coming back. She was assured someone else had stepped up to be an interim CEO, and she was to meet with another girl to divvy up the workload. She managed to make it to the end of the day without anything around her spontaneously combusting. She had finally convinced herself that the intelligence videos Ms. Rystaad had left on her desk were not some as yet unreleased horror movie.

As she put on her jacket and prepared to leave for the weekend she looked around, suddenly terrified of what her second week would bring.