pife
2014-10-05, 11:54 PM
The last two weeks have been.. educational. While one of Franklin's fellow Alderman drones on about budget allocations at the bi-monthly monthly meeting, you allow yourself to consider the enormity of your situation. Two short weeks ago, you were trapped in a state of virtual non-being, as you had been for millennia. Imprisoned in such a way that you had no ability to interact with your surroundings (not that there were any), you had been able to do nothing, influence nothing, be.. nothing. You had long since stopped hoping for a change in your existence. While you had no real concept of time or it's passage, your interminable suffering had long since become second nature to you. Which is why you were caught entirely by surprise when you were pulled.. no, ripped out of your prison, with the feeling of something tearing. It was a harsh, invasive sensation, followed by what felt like a buffeting wind and the sense of moving at great speed. All around you was still as dark as oblivion, but you had the feeling that you were not alone. Others shared this.. journey.. that you were undertaking, though you were utterly unable to sense or communicate with them. There were occasional flashes of muted white light, as though from distant lightning behind a bank of clouds, but other than this, and the perception that you were 'falling', there was no sensory input.
And then there was! Bright, painfully bright, and grainy, almost foggy, but you had the sensation of seeing, and of feeling and of.. being! You were in some sort of domicile, though the sights and smells were quite foreign to you. There was an acrid aroma in the room that you would later come to know as gunpowder, and there was a man slumped at a desk in front of you. You felt yourself pulled toward this person, not the unwilling tugging of being dragged somewhere you didn't wish to go, but rather a magnetic and unmistakable need to draw nearer. You found out at that point that you didn't exactly have a body, but were rather something of a... presence, a presence with senses! You found this terribly curious, and truly, you nearly succumbed to over-stimulation after thousands of years of virtual nothingness. There were colors and things to see all around you, and a disconcerting amount of noise coming from beyond a closed window, through which you could see that twilight has fallen, and bright lights lit up the night in a golden yellow glow. A glass full of ice and a golden liquid rests on the desk, condensation built up around the outside of the glass, the smell of spirits, for indeed the humans of old had learned the trick of fermentation and imbibed many more or less noxious liquids in order to settle their minds, assaulting your.. well, you don't have a nose, you realize, but you can smell it all the same. A picture of a beautiful woman sits inches from the mans head, a thick pool of blood growing and spreading to envelop the base of the frame. His heart has already stopped, his consciousness clings to him by nothing more than the barest thread. His mind is shutting down, and, you know, his soul is preparing for it's inevitable departure.. wherever that was. You hoped that it was nothing like what you had been experiencing. That, you felt, would be too cruel, even for Him.
The tugging sensation intensified the closer you came. You sensed an opportunity, a.. place to be.. for lack of a better phrase. It was as if there was a void that you fit perfectly into, and as you pondered the implications, your form grazed the outstretched hand that had, until so recently, held a gun. At once, your vision cleared as you opened your eyes for, truly, the first time. Unimaginable pain screamed through your body, and cruelly, at the same time you are bombarded with pictures, sounds, visions, as everything that this human, this.. Franklin, you know automatically, ever knew or saw or did. A cry rips out of your lungs as you instinctively cause the body to begin healing, and try to process both thousands of years of your own life, both prior to and after the Fall, many of which were being suppressed by the strong and lucid, more recent memories of Mr. Dellacorte. In your convulsions, you find that you threw yourself to the floor, and it is from here, fifteen or so minutes later, you find that you truly have control of your senses again. His body was ungainly, at first, until you had truly mastered moving again. Franklin's memories aided you in coming to grips with your mobility, as well as the flood of information that assailed your long underutilized senses.
You spent the next two weeks stumbling through his life, following the itinerary in his head because, at least for now, until you have a better idea of what you are doing here, you decide that your best chance of staying undiscovered. Were there already servants dispatched to drag you back to his eternal tomb? Were you only to be tormented by a temporary escape from the tedium? Or were you truly free? Free once more to act, but this time, you have no higher orders to follow, no imperatives that must be obeyed. If you are truly free, then you now have license to do that which you spent the inexorable Purgatory that you were in thinking about. Franklin has a number of problems. His company is heavily involved with the White Hand gang, who bought his way out of trouble, in exchange for 60% of the company, and much freedom to arrange for clandestine packages to arrive with the ingredients and supplies for his company. Flush with money, with power, Alderman Franklin Dellacorte, respected business owner and industry leader, slowly had to give up his higher morals. Ian Flynn knew all of his weaknesses, and knew how to apply pressure to them. One by one, hehave cast votes that went against common sense, or used the power of his position to persuade, cajole or force compliance from obstacles to the White Hand's agenda. Franklin tried to rebel against Ian's wishes one too many times. His beloved wife Madeline had been killed in a car accident. A car accident that Ian openly admits causing. All because he voted for an independent force to be hired to act against the bootleggers and the streetgangs, though these two things were increasingly one and the same thing, his wife was dead. Flynn makes it poignantly clear that he is only slightly less expendable than his wife, and that he'll stay in line like a good boy, if he knows what's good for him.
And furthermore, Alderman Winston Kettleman was saying to the entire council, This increase in crime is unacceptable! Murder, theft, burglary, assault, and other unseemly crimes goes unabated, and by more first time offenders than ever before! The fat man is huffing and puffing, his weak voice straining, Bodies, several a night sometimes, are being found mutilated almost beyond recognition! The police force assures us that they are stretched thin, and need more resources if they are going to be able to put a dent in this crime wave! Where did these people come from all of a sudden that would cause them to come out of the woodwork like this? He rants on for some time, doing sometimes into graphic detail of the manner of some of these deaths. Large banking institutions were being robbed of huge sums of cash, divorces had quadrupled in the last month alone, and ambulance forces were barely keeping up with all of the injuries caused in one kind of fight or another. Fully three-hundred of the cities taxies are out of service in the last month, because of raging maniacs behind the wheel, ramming into each other, or into buildings while racing. Innocent cab-seekers have even been run over when two taxi drivers each tried to be the first to pick them up!
The vote today is whether to dip into the discretionary fund to hire more police officers and get them heavier weapons. You know what Ian would say, and therefore you know what Franklin would have said.. In the matter of allocating $35,000 to the purpose of hiring new police recruits and purchasing better equipment for existing forces, what say you? All around the room, various Aldermen stand and make their vote known. As it goes around the room, the Aye's and the Nay's battle back and forth, until finally and completely incidentally, you are called upon to break the tie and decide whether to assign extra funds to fight crime and assist the police department. Well, Alderman Dellacorte? The Speaker is unusually brisk with you, and you realize that they have been staring at you for the better part of a minute. What is the vote of your district?
And then there was! Bright, painfully bright, and grainy, almost foggy, but you had the sensation of seeing, and of feeling and of.. being! You were in some sort of domicile, though the sights and smells were quite foreign to you. There was an acrid aroma in the room that you would later come to know as gunpowder, and there was a man slumped at a desk in front of you. You felt yourself pulled toward this person, not the unwilling tugging of being dragged somewhere you didn't wish to go, but rather a magnetic and unmistakable need to draw nearer. You found out at that point that you didn't exactly have a body, but were rather something of a... presence, a presence with senses! You found this terribly curious, and truly, you nearly succumbed to over-stimulation after thousands of years of virtual nothingness. There were colors and things to see all around you, and a disconcerting amount of noise coming from beyond a closed window, through which you could see that twilight has fallen, and bright lights lit up the night in a golden yellow glow. A glass full of ice and a golden liquid rests on the desk, condensation built up around the outside of the glass, the smell of spirits, for indeed the humans of old had learned the trick of fermentation and imbibed many more or less noxious liquids in order to settle their minds, assaulting your.. well, you don't have a nose, you realize, but you can smell it all the same. A picture of a beautiful woman sits inches from the mans head, a thick pool of blood growing and spreading to envelop the base of the frame. His heart has already stopped, his consciousness clings to him by nothing more than the barest thread. His mind is shutting down, and, you know, his soul is preparing for it's inevitable departure.. wherever that was. You hoped that it was nothing like what you had been experiencing. That, you felt, would be too cruel, even for Him.
The tugging sensation intensified the closer you came. You sensed an opportunity, a.. place to be.. for lack of a better phrase. It was as if there was a void that you fit perfectly into, and as you pondered the implications, your form grazed the outstretched hand that had, until so recently, held a gun. At once, your vision cleared as you opened your eyes for, truly, the first time. Unimaginable pain screamed through your body, and cruelly, at the same time you are bombarded with pictures, sounds, visions, as everything that this human, this.. Franklin, you know automatically, ever knew or saw or did. A cry rips out of your lungs as you instinctively cause the body to begin healing, and try to process both thousands of years of your own life, both prior to and after the Fall, many of which were being suppressed by the strong and lucid, more recent memories of Mr. Dellacorte. In your convulsions, you find that you threw yourself to the floor, and it is from here, fifteen or so minutes later, you find that you truly have control of your senses again. His body was ungainly, at first, until you had truly mastered moving again. Franklin's memories aided you in coming to grips with your mobility, as well as the flood of information that assailed your long underutilized senses.
You spent the next two weeks stumbling through his life, following the itinerary in his head because, at least for now, until you have a better idea of what you are doing here, you decide that your best chance of staying undiscovered. Were there already servants dispatched to drag you back to his eternal tomb? Were you only to be tormented by a temporary escape from the tedium? Or were you truly free? Free once more to act, but this time, you have no higher orders to follow, no imperatives that must be obeyed. If you are truly free, then you now have license to do that which you spent the inexorable Purgatory that you were in thinking about. Franklin has a number of problems. His company is heavily involved with the White Hand gang, who bought his way out of trouble, in exchange for 60% of the company, and much freedom to arrange for clandestine packages to arrive with the ingredients and supplies for his company. Flush with money, with power, Alderman Franklin Dellacorte, respected business owner and industry leader, slowly had to give up his higher morals. Ian Flynn knew all of his weaknesses, and knew how to apply pressure to them. One by one, hehave cast votes that went against common sense, or used the power of his position to persuade, cajole or force compliance from obstacles to the White Hand's agenda. Franklin tried to rebel against Ian's wishes one too many times. His beloved wife Madeline had been killed in a car accident. A car accident that Ian openly admits causing. All because he voted for an independent force to be hired to act against the bootleggers and the streetgangs, though these two things were increasingly one and the same thing, his wife was dead. Flynn makes it poignantly clear that he is only slightly less expendable than his wife, and that he'll stay in line like a good boy, if he knows what's good for him.
And furthermore, Alderman Winston Kettleman was saying to the entire council, This increase in crime is unacceptable! Murder, theft, burglary, assault, and other unseemly crimes goes unabated, and by more first time offenders than ever before! The fat man is huffing and puffing, his weak voice straining, Bodies, several a night sometimes, are being found mutilated almost beyond recognition! The police force assures us that they are stretched thin, and need more resources if they are going to be able to put a dent in this crime wave! Where did these people come from all of a sudden that would cause them to come out of the woodwork like this? He rants on for some time, doing sometimes into graphic detail of the manner of some of these deaths. Large banking institutions were being robbed of huge sums of cash, divorces had quadrupled in the last month alone, and ambulance forces were barely keeping up with all of the injuries caused in one kind of fight or another. Fully three-hundred of the cities taxies are out of service in the last month, because of raging maniacs behind the wheel, ramming into each other, or into buildings while racing. Innocent cab-seekers have even been run over when two taxi drivers each tried to be the first to pick them up!
The vote today is whether to dip into the discretionary fund to hire more police officers and get them heavier weapons. You know what Ian would say, and therefore you know what Franklin would have said.. In the matter of allocating $35,000 to the purpose of hiring new police recruits and purchasing better equipment for existing forces, what say you? All around the room, various Aldermen stand and make their vote known. As it goes around the room, the Aye's and the Nay's battle back and forth, until finally and completely incidentally, you are called upon to break the tie and decide whether to assign extra funds to fight crime and assist the police department. Well, Alderman Dellacorte? The Speaker is unusually brisk with you, and you realize that they have been staring at you for the better part of a minute. What is the vote of your district?