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Stop the Presses!; Straight from the horse's mouth? [Rio]
Topic Started: Apr 23 2012, 09:32 PM (653 Views)
UserShadow7989
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What am I even doing? Noriko sighed heavily, a copy of the school news tucked carefully under her arm. In truth, for all her eye rolling at some of the rumors going around, something about the situation had tickled her love for mysteries and puzzles. Seeing the story about the park incident in black and white had been the last straw.

Now I'm outside the office for the school paper, about to barge in unannounced and bother the editor for information that likely isn't any more expansive than what's been printed. She grimaced at herself. Still, the editor may have left a few details out thinking they weren't important or for a lack of space. Maybe they even forgot something that doesn't seem big enough to correct?

The teen hesitated for a moment before raising a balled hand to the door and knocking a few times. Well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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Czernobog
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The door was opened by a heavy-set boy with tired eyes and a disposable (though empty) cigarette holder dangling from the corner of his mouth.

"Can I help you?" he asked, not moving from his position blocking the door. He scratched his forearm, idly, then continued, "if you're here to talk to kaicho, she's not in."

To prove the lie, Rio walked behind him, sipping out of a coffee cup. A tall, almost ostrich-like girl approached her, and handed a document over to her. Rio glanced down at it, as if reading.

"Is this the best you can do?" she asked, turning to the girl, who flinched, apparently from the smell on Rio's breath.

"Well, I mean, it's--" the tall girl said.

"No, no. It's okay. Just do your best. Bring it to me tomorrow," she said, "we can still work it in."

"Anyone needs me, I'll be in my office," she declared.
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"Uh... huh." Noriko gave him a look that said she flat out didn't believe him. "I was hoping to get more information regarding the park incident." She tried to be as polite as she could, but noted she was coming off as a bit rehearsed. Adjusting her tone with a quick clearing of the throat, she tilted her head and held up the relevant article to be seen. "Is the person who wrote this article available?"

There was a tiny voice in the back of her mind telling her to bs her way through, or to find an alternate route in, that was immediately repressed. If she could get the information without it, she would. If not, she'd find some other source.
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Czernobog
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"Kaicho wrote it," the boy said, "you might be able to find her on the roof. She's on the roof a lot."

"Who's been at my still?" Rio called from her office. After a moment, there was the grinding sound of a window being lifted, "you can't do that in here without more ventilation!"

The Ostrich-girl glanced over from her word processor by the back wall. The three other visible staff members, other than the doorman, all glanced at one another.

"But that was her!" the Ostrich girl hissed, confused, "I could smell it!"

"Pipe down," a skinny boy who looked as if he needed to start shaving admonished her, "you know how she gets."

"Can I take a message?" the boy at the door asked.
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Noriko gave the boy an annoyed glance. The voice was suddenly much louder. "...right. You can start by not insulting my intelligence- if she doesn't want to talk, say she doesn't want to talk. I have some sense of sight and hear-" The teen stopped herself, taking a moment to get herself under control. How am I gonna get past this guy? Maybe... no. One last attempt before I resort to something shady.

Noriko quickly put her poker face back and spoke with her most soothing tone. "Sorry about that. Everywhere I go lately, I hear nothing but random theories about aliens and super powered people- it's been working my last nerve, y'know?" She rubbed the back of her head in faux bashfulness. "Can I please talk to her?"
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Czernobog
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The boy closes the door, though kept it open in a gap wide enough to fit his fingers into.

"Can someone ask Kaicho if she'll talk to this girl. She's really persistent."

"Ask her yourself," came the muffled voice of the Ostritch-girl, accompanied by the rapid castanet staccato of the keyboard, "besides, you know the policy. 'When she's out, she's in. When she's in, she's out.'"

"Kaicho--"

"Making toast!" the editor shouted from her office.
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"...I can hear you three." Noriko lifted her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. She gave the doorman an apologetic smile and a mumbled 'sorry' before roughly jamming her foot in the door and leaning forwards. "Excuse me, 'Kaicho'?" she called, "I was wondering if I could ask you about the article you printed about what happened in the park?"
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Czernobog
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It was quiet for a moment, and Rio then shouted: "Come on back!"

The newspaper office was more of a small computer lab than anything else, but it had a smaller editor's office inside. The outer office was bare of decor save for a small home-style buddhist altar, complete with bell and incense, in the corner with a picture of Hunter S. Thompson hanging above it.

The inner office was cluttered to the point where it was almost impossible for multiple people to move around in. There was a still in the corner, which emitted a smell that indicated its product to be quite potent; next to it was a small dorm refrigerator with a bookshelf on top, crammed with various technical manuals and works of nonfiction. On top of the bookshelf was a toaster that seemed to be heating up the girl's toast.

The desk was centered around a laptop, though there was space for drafting and laying out an issue the old-fashioned way. By the computer were several items that seemed to be out-of-place: three pill bottles, a can of compressed air, a cup of pens and pencils with a pair of scissors stuck down in the middle, a coffee cup, and a surgical mask.

Behind the desk were items hanging from the wall: two awards (permanently on the wall,) two family pictures (one of Rio, one the former editor had left in the office in his haste to vacate the premises following the revelation that he had been sleeping with the girls' gym teacher,) and three boxes meant to contain action figures in a toy store. One contained Sigmund Freud, another contained Sherlock Holmes, and a third proclaimed that it contained Harry Houdini, but it was was empty of an actual figure, having only the plastic ties to hold a figure in place.

The Editor -- "Kaicho" -- was standing on the chair reserved for guests, and watching the toaster. She was a short, somewhat skinny girl with short hair gathered underneath a bucket hat and a strange pair of goggles. From the angle, it was clear that she was wearing bike shorts under her school uniform, and possibly that she should lengthen the skirt, which appeared to be the wrong size more out of neglect for her appearance than out of choice.

"What can I do for you?" she asked, without looking up from the toaster.
Edited by Czernobog, Apr 24 2012, 12:09 AM.
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"Sorry about all that." Noriko bowed to the staffer at the door and hurried past, making haste to the room the voice came from (though she did slow at the sight of the alter to a man in a bucket hat).

Upon entering the office, she was given pause by the memorabilia littering the space. She forced herself to ignore the still in the corner- the girl wasn't hurting anyone so long as she wasn't pushing, and technically there was no evidence of her doing something illegal. What did catch her attention, oddly, were the action figures on the wall. She felt a pang of jealousy upon seeing the Sherlock Holmes figure, replaced with a quiet giggle when she spotted the Houdini 'figure'.

'Kaicho''s comment snapped her out of her daze, and she examined the girl analytically before speaking up. "A-ah, sorry. I saw your article on the park incident, and I was hoping to learn more; hearing all the crazy rumors day in and day out is driving me up the wall." Noriko felt uncertain all of a sudden. When she put it like that, she sounded petty.
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Czernobog
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Rio grabbed the toast when it popped from the toaster, dismounted the chair in a controlled fall and retrieved a half-empty jar of nutella from the refrigerator. She moved behind the desk, which was made for someone just enough larger than her for the effect to be slightly comical. She retrieved a letter opener, dipped it in the jar and began to apply the spread to the toast.

"Well, honestly, the park incident's kind of hard to explain. The facts are all confused," Rio said, "I can tell you a bit about the anomalies, but I can't tell you exactly what happened. That much should've been clear from the article."

The spread satisfactorily applied, Rio leaned back, putting her feet up on the desk, crossing them at the ankles.

"Is there something in particular you were wondering about, or you just want a general overview?"
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