Welcome to Gaia! ::

Just to let you know, my office is on the 53rd floor. I figured too many people would think a big evil CEO like myself would put his office on the highest floor, and thus try to break into there. There is a false office on the 85th floor though; I think it's a storage room or a large janitor closet... I do hope the burglars like brooms.

Now, I have to warn you, before you even enter my office you have to deal with Claire. Her unofficial office is the foyer outside of mine. She has her own desk and files and everything. But trust me on this; she's more of a hard a** than those secretaries downstairs, not afraid of hard work either. That may be from all the times I've left her to run the company while I went out to, you know, retrieve some goods. This switch of power is completely off the books though, so very off the books. But thank God I hired her, no matter how many times she tries to get me to behave.

After Claire gives you the go ahead you'll discover my office, my wonderful wonderful office. It's got all the conveniences any office should: a big desk, some light and of course bookshelves filled with crap that I would never touch in a million years. I keep all the good books in my personal space. Besides, most of them are phony bookcases anyway. There's also a nice painting of me hanging behind the desk, maybe it's a bit megalomaniacal but it was undeniably too goddamn expensive.

Off to the side is a sitting area, couches built right into the walls, very classy. This is where I hold my more casual meetings, because it really impresses the pants off of foreign investors. I also keep a small sampling of my impressive record collection around the sitting area, since spinning some vinyl just perfects the atmosphere. I also keep another small sampling of a collection I often enjoy much more as well as more frequently. I'll give you a hint; I keep it in a minibar. Let me tell you, this combination works wonders on both foreign investors and the ladies... Even foreign ladies once.

What's a room in the A~E building without an assload of technology though? The pinnacle of this room is the "security board" which should really be called the "entertainment board". You see, it has all these nifty switches on it that activate traps throughout the building. Take the beta cannons for example, flip a switch, and they smash from out of false fish tanks in the walls. Of course one of the false bookcases peels back to become a wall of monitors to watch the fun. You need the password of course, can't have just anyone screwing with my pastime.

Near the back, placed rather inconspicuously behind my desk, is my personal express elevator. It provides me with a fast way to get to any floor, even the hidden ones, as well as being one of the only entrances to my living quarters.

The woman seated at the desk was indeed Claire Fontaine, looking ever so slightly unsettled. She seemed not to mange to avoid the personal assistant archetype, well most of it. Her vision was fine, she cut her hair just above her shoulders preventing a stereotypical up do, and she just seemed to prefer longer skirts. On top of all that, if she had any complexion what so ever it had been long been erased in Joseph's most recent absence. The amount of makeup needed to erase the dark circles under her eyes would only make her look whorish, so she hadn't even bothered. In fact it almost looked as if she would collapse into the mess of papers and coffee cups on her desk at any moment.

But despite functioning on so little sleep and so much caffeine she still rose to meet Elysia as she entered. She tried her hardest to justify this as an excuse to stretch her legs.

"You must be Miss Kavanagh," She said before double-checking the appointment book left open on the desk, "Feel free to call me Claire, the hired help is just a bit too formal for my liking."

She was trying her hardest to put on her work face, but the combination of sleep deprivation and worry about the girl was making it difficult. The weird thing was that she did indeed have an appointment, Joseph usually just brought girls up with him and canceled appointments rather than making them. Unless she was a... No, that wasn't Joseph at all, could it be?

"Mr. Brown should be back soon enough." She was fighting a yawn now, goddamn it, she would not appear to be as flaky as the downstairs staff. Especially not in front of this woman, whatever business she had with Joseph.

"There are quite a few places to sit around this area. I'm also sorry for the little bit of mess around my work station, I've just been going over old appointments, organizing them and all that." Blatant lie, neither her nor Joseph cared about most of the phonies he met with to organize the previous meetings. What she was taking care of was the finances and donations that came along with those people, that did need to be organized. Joseph needed to see beyond just getting their money sometimes.

[ Message temporarily off-line ]

Elysia had entered just in time to see Joseph flop into his chair.

"Take a seat," the CEO said as he swiveled his chair forward, "I apologize if I'm a bit blunt with this, I just came form a... Well, a meeting that went kind of sour. Really sour."

Joseph made a few clicks on his computer, brining up a prompt for a password. He began to type in a seemingly random assortment of keys, enough to make it seem he had a 50-letter password. In truth he had missed most of the keys and only hit a fee. It was mostly stemmed from his paranoia of people stealing his information since, well, you know how he made quite a bit of money making liberal use of other peoples data.

"Now, I'm not sure if Captain Phone Tag told you this," Joseph was looking at the dossier he had made for Elysia, "But this isn't going to be a "go get me coffee" kind of job. Now, I would love you to pieces if you got me coffee sometimes, but that's going above and beyond."

"You would have a day position, but it would be bull mostly. " He pulled up a little information on her prior work experiences on the screen. Hrm, now there was an organization that didn't last very long, provided some nice opportunities for Elysia though. Hell, it seemed she wouldn't be nearly as needed as some of the other magic types he had hired in the past. They preferred deskwork though; he had fieldwork in mind of Elysia.

"We're talking about drawing on some of your past experience here," Joseph turned his head back so he could stare Elysia down, "Only for an employer that has more direction and opportunity for advancement. I could go on, but this is usually the part where people decide they don't want the job after all."

"Grand," Joseph gave a bit of a smile as he entered some new data into her file, "And I'm sure you're aware that once you're in you're in. Especially with the position I'm hiring you for. We can't let all our secrets getting out."

Lies! Joseph wasn't going to let her know the good stuff until she proved her worth. In fact the crap that he was going to entrust to her at first. Of course, there was the potential shitstorm that could come about if she was discovered doing work for him. Especially if it was something involving some of the more delicate technologies, such as the omnipraga.

"So," He began again, "On top having to be careful about what you say and maintaining a fake job, you're going to have to put in some extra training. Of course, we won't know what to train unless you tell me now. So I guess in a conventional interview I would ask 'what can you bring to the company?' But in this case, I'm going to ask how much a** you can kick."

[ Message temporarily off-line ]

"Perfect," Joseph smiled, "Just plain peachy."

The executive opened up a drawer in his desk, revealing to the world - Well, himself - box upon box of A~E cardkeys. Pulling one out, he flipped another switch under his desk with his free hand. With the circuit complete a panel flipped up and was pulled into the desk to reveal, surprise surprise, a slot to insert a cardkey. Without a so much as a word Joseph placed the card in the slot and let the machine pull it in.

"Well, You're hired if you've gathered." He said while typing and clicking away, "There are just a few last minute bits you and Miss Fontaine will take care of."

The card popped back up after the machines had their way with it. Changes: The magnetic strip was activated and the words 'flat room' punched in on it.

"Give this to her, and she'll take it from there." He once again leaned back in his chair, "As for me, I have to make a business call."

Ok, so it was yet another Thirteen related call... Oh and there was no paperwork in Elysia's future. Two lies within five minutes, damn, Joseph was off his game today.

"That was quick," The assistant commented as she took the card, "Now, I wonder what's in store for us."

The flat room, that was honestly a surprise. Usually when Joseph was showing off his toys he would do it himself. Now just why would he send her to the flat room by herself...

Just then the all to too familiar sound of an instant messenger program went off.



That explained quite a bit, she mused as she hit the little "x" cueing the window to close. Hey, at least it was a break from paperwork. Then again, when Joseph was taking care of 'business crap' there was always more paperwork to follow. Usually press releases and public apologies.

"Right this way," Miss Fontaine said after clearing her throat and getting up, "What you have there is an elevator key. Not many of the elevators work without them, considering most are buttonless. You slide the key in and you're given a selection of destinations on the display panel."

She began the short walk to the elevator, "Keeps the visitors away from company areas."

----------------------------

Meanwhile in the office, Joseph had just finished dialing a number.