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| A long day at the office... [Closed]; -- Hephaestus | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 5 2008, 10:16 PM (130 Views) | |
| . Nicholas Grave | Apr 5 2008, 10:16 PM Post #1 |
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Nicholas Grave did not realize what time it was until he looked up and saw it staring back at him from the massive black and white schoolroom clock that hung over the door to the office. The clock might have ticked loudly but it was difficult to tell here in the depths of the city. Machinery whirred and grinded. Heavy glass creaked and strained. Steal fought bravely against the crushing weight of the ocean. "Oh," he realized, "midnight." He had come into work that morning at six, had three cups of coffee, and skipped lunch. There had been too much to do at the time and he had forgotten about it. His large desk was cluttered with papers and folders, a nearby filing cabinet coughed out scraps and halves of index cards. There was always paperwork in Rapture. Even by moving miles under the ocean halfway in the middle of nowhere there was no escaping paperwork. Wherever there were business activities in lurked and multiplied. Rapture was built on business and so it produced paper. There were reports on elecricity and oxygen consumption. There were reports on the maintenance and upkeep of the Bathyspheres. There were figures from the sale of tickets to the gardens and the charts comparing the sale of one plasmid to another. All of this paper was important. It had to be filed. It had to be sorted. It had to be looked after like a small child that would run across a train track at the first opportunity. This was the job of Nicholas Grave, secretary to Andrew Ryan... real secretary, he reminded himself, not the one who sat at the desk in front of the great founder's officer and smiled that shiny smile and strolled up and down in an evening gown that barely contained her amply chest and high heels. She nibbled on the ends of ballpoint pens and kept her fingernails filed. She was very important but she wasn't a real secretary, not in the strictest sense. Not that Nicholas noticed chests, of course. They weren't paper. Well... Ryan's visible secretary's might have been but /most/ chests weren't and that was none of his business. Grave was a good secretary. Ryan said he was the best and that was why he had brought him here. "You are dedicated, talented, and efficient. You should be properly rewarded for this." The pay was excellent, he had to admit, but there were some aspects of the 'rewards' Mr. Ryan had promised him that Nicholas Grave still wasn't so sure about. He arranged the paper quickly, filling folders and drawers. Mr. Ryan liked the office to look tidy. A tidy office made him happy and keeping Mr. Ryan happy was very important, not quite as important as the paperwork, but almost. As the saying went, if Mr. Ryan wasn't happy... no one was happy. There were a few papers covered in figures and symbols that could only be understood by someone with an advanced knowledge of electrical engineering. Grave placed these neatly into a crisp folder from a box of them he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk, in precise handwriting he labeled the tab: Weekly Core Energy Production Reports. He slid these under his boss's door, latched his briefcase, and left the office, locking the door with its complex key-code behind him. Silently he hoped that he wouldn't run into anyone on his way back to his apartment. One could hope in Rapture, that was encouraged, prayer was the problem. Edited by . Nicholas Grave, Apr 6 2008, 01:34 AM.
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| . Sander Cohen | Apr 6 2008, 12:28 AM Post #2 |
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Unfortunately for Grave, this hope was not to endure even to the end of the hallway. The diminutive, heavily pancake-makeup'd person of Sander Cohen stepped purposefully in front of him just before he passed the last flagpole at the end of the way, his eternally Theatrical visage weirdly out of place down in the bowels of Hephaestus. "Mr. Ryan is not in his office." This was not a question in the slightest, and the asker was clearly and entirely exasperated. Perhaps in this instance, Grave would have been better off with prayer. Edited by . Sander Cohen, Apr 6 2008, 12:29 AM.
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| . Nicholas Grave | Apr 6 2008, 12:40 AM Post #3 |
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"Oh! Um... no... he isn't," Grave muttered. He nearly dropped his briefcase in shock and stumbled over something invisible on the ground. Sander Cohen made him nervous. There was something about that too-red smile and those boneless hand gestures that translated into instant discomfort. Fortunately, he did not come to Hephaestus often, typically remaining comfortably ensconced at Fort Frolic. The name of that place suited Cohen and most of the other people in Rapture. Grave had only been there twice and once because he had gotten lost on the way to his new apartment. Mr. Ryan had given that to him after he proved to be as efficient below the sea as he had been above it. "Occasionally a sudden lack of restraint and ready availability of formerly prohibited forms of entertainment has an adverse affect on lesser men." Ryan had said that looking across his desk and a magazine... the first issue of High Tide, if Grave remembered correctly, Rapture's premier cultural magazine, dripping with fashion and the arts. Grave had been keen to prove that he didn't fall into the lesser men category. He did not subscribe to High Tide. Art in Rapture seemed to always involve Sander Cohen in some way. Sometimes he felt like he was the only citizen who did not own at least one of the man's album and who avoided the radio just in case one of his songs was played. That voice... it gave him nightmares. "Can I... um... help you... Mr. Cohen?" |
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| . Sander Cohen | Apr 6 2008, 12:56 AM Post #4 |
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"Perhaps you can, Nicky," Cohen smiled coyly, flourishing his pocket handkerchief for a moment and patting it against his nose. The volcanic smell apparently did not settle very well in his refined nostrils, as he continued in his rather sonorous, if terrifying voice, "As I am quite aware he is neither in Fort Frolic, nor is he in his apartment, nor is he responding to my inquiries and I have a very important matter or three I need to discuss with him. So, Nicky darling, if you don't mind terribly taking a tiny peek at dear Andrei's schedule...?" He placed a white-gloved hand lightly on the secretary's shoulder. |
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| . Nicholas Grave | Apr 6 2008, 01:09 AM Post #5 |
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The secretary stiffened, suppressed a shiver at the touch, and gritted his teeth as this... creature... calling Mr. Ryan 'Andrei.' (Still, Mr. Ryan did seem to enjoy Cohen's work so who was he to complain?) The glove felt strangely inhuman. He thought about correcting Mr. Cohen and saying that, no, he did not like to be called 'Nicky darling' and Nicholas or Mr. Graves would be much more suitable, thank-you-very-much. However, that was the kind of thing one did not say to the veritable head of Rapture culture, even if one was official behind-the-scenes secretary to the city's founder. Mr. Ryan had not mentioned doing anything out of the ordinary that evening, but that happened occasionally. He was an important man and his schedule was subject to change. Still, Grave took a bit of pride in having it mostly memorized. "Let's see... today is the 5th. Your new play doesn't open until next week. The Rapture Industrial Development Conference is tomorrow night, followed by the ball at..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black book and flipped through its pages for a few seconds while Cohen looked on. "Hrm. Arcadia winter planting and event planning... Have you tried the Tea Garden?" |
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| . Sander Cohen | Apr 6 2008, 01:20 AM Post #6 |
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"That, dumpling, would require effort." Cohen didn't quite leer at him for the moment before he brushed the suggestion aside with another boneless flourish, before tucking the handkerchief back in his pocket. "Never mind. I assumed he would be working tonight, considering that that McClintock woman is moping over shots. Alas..." He trailed off airily, eyes piercing the cavernous ceiling for a long moment, then snapping back to Nicholas's face with as bright a smile as his face paint allowed without cracking, and giving him a pat on the cheek. "Not that I am cross with you, of course, cherub. Just tell him I need to see him. Mille merci beaucoups." |
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| . Nicholas Grave | Apr 6 2008, 01:29 AM Post #7 |
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Effort? Well, he supposed that Cohen might not be much for it outside of an artistic context. He tried to imagine anything artistic in running around the city looking for Mr. Ryan and found it too abstract for his comprehension. "Well... according to the schedule he /is/ working. Arcadia is very important to the city, you know, popular opinion polls consistently..." Cohen would be aware of those, he topped them. 1. Fort Frolic 2. Arcadia For all of Cohen's faults he did seem to manage his tiny kingdom well. Mr. Ryan would not have picked him if he were not capable, Grave reminded himself. He breathed in the smell of sulfur, watched the molten rock flow through its thick glass tubes to heat the water that turned the turbines that made the power that sustained their utopia. "Mr. Ryan is always working." |
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| . Sander Cohen | Apr 6 2008, 01:33 AM Post #8 |
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"That, precious, is entirely true. As am I." His gaze raked Nicholas up and down once, and he favoured him with an elegant snort. "Good evening, Nicky cher." |
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