Welcome to Gaia! ::

"To Axinite," Faustite echoed from his seat in his office. His seat, which was at the head of his ornate, gothic-style desk. Which was in front of the chairs, upon one of which Tama sat. And all that furniture was packed into his office, which said General-King on the outside, was located around the other General-Sovereigns' offices, and above his last office. "You insulting little s**t," he sniped.

"Going to my ******** trainer about your damn plans," he muttered to himself while he dug out his kettle and water. He poured enough in for one cup, holding it close to himself while he grumbled his displeasure. It wouldn't take long, he knew, for his insurmountable irritation to heat that damn thing to a boil — maybe a minute, maybe less. "Nerve of this ******** cat… Should've killed it when I had the chance. Some ******** use Maus are… Better a furry thong for Albite."

By the time he was done, the kettle was whistling, and Faustite was pouring over a tea strainer that sat in his cup. He'd made tea for long enough to have a good instinct for when four minutes had passed, so he picked the cup up and tucked a creamer cup and a sugar packet into his subspace before they could burn in his grasp.

For as affronted as he sounded, he wasn't much invested in the venture itself. Rather, he was interested for what Tama's plans could do for the Negaverse, but he understood his own utter uselessness when it came to matters that pertained to the mundane. He was like this with Jadarite's bank plans, in that he knew nothing about infiltrating a bank in a job acquisition fashion, and was truly only good for the mechanics of enchanting an ATM to drain energy for a transaction fee, when the scope of the operation demanded that he have some finesse with corporate takeovers.

The same was true with Benitoite's plant situation, too — he knew nothing of budgets of blueprints for constructing new buildings, so he couldn't provide any feedback on those parts. In that respect, it was quite sensible of Tama to go to Axinite with such plans. But Faustite wasn't going to admit that.

"Tell him you're a pain in my a**," he responded as he held his arm out for the cat to climb to his shoulder. It was hot up there, but his uniform provided enough padding to bank the heat. "If you're going to surprise Axinite, best you surprise me, too. Don't want him thinking I'm an idiot for bringing your trash to bear on him, having known about it beforehand."

While he could've teleported, knowing it cost him so little to do it now, Faustite elected to make Tama wait by walking to Axinite's. It was a short distance, maybe half a minute if he dallied, but they were at the familiar door in short order and Faustite rapped a couple knuckles against it. "It's Faustite with Tama." He paused then, giving Axinite some courtesy time to indicate if he was able to receive a visitor or not. Once it was clear that he wasn't occupied with sensitive business, Faustite let himself in.

"Brought you a mangy pain in the a**," he explained as he entered. "But sometimes it has useful ideas. Haven't seen this one yet, so we both get to be surprised. Or dismayed," he added as an afterthought.

Reaching up, Faustite took up Tama briefly to put him on one of Axinite's chairs. Deciding he wouldn't be able to just pace around the office while he watched whatever holographic nonsense Tama carried with him, Faustite huffed his displeasure as he took the other chair for himself.

Tama jumped up on Faustite’s shoulder. He was thankful for the extra padding the general-king’s outfit now had. Being that close to him was still like a sauna, but at least now he could decide if he wanted to a golden pauldron perch or if he wanted to shed fur on his uniform — he picked the pauldron perch this time as he wanted them both to look good.

Which was saying something because clearly Faustite was not in the mood for presenting him in a favorable light.

Tama allowed Faustite to place him in a chair, but not without shooting him a glare like many tiny daggers for his comment. He wanted to make a good impression upon Axinite. Faustite’s commentary was not helping.

“Please. Your office is impeccable. And you have sweets!” Tama said, starting off charming even if Faustite was not playing along.

“I have a proposition that I think you would like for improving morale and a sense of normalcy in Negaspace.”


☆

Axinite must have intended to make some stop to visit Faustite in the near future, because while he listened to the two of them speak, he reached under his table to produce a glass container full of them. Neatly wrapped, perfectly fresh. It didn’t have a name on it because he’d already known where it was going.

He pushed the box to the edge of the desk so Faustite could reach it, but his eyes never seemed to leave their faces. He offered a polite smile, maybe a bit worried, when he caught Faustite’s expression, but he was smart enough to know that he didn’t know enough about what was going on.

He made no assumptions.

“Well, then I’m glad you’re here with me so we can find out. Thank you, Tama, that’s very kind of you. I appreciate that. I’m very invested in improvingmorale and securing a sense of normalcy, what do you have in mind?”

Food was enough to get Faustite shifting from simmering in his bitterness to delighted. It was a glass container, too, so he needn't be so terribly careful about touching the box gingerly, lest it catch fire on him. Axinite was a great boss, but in cases like this? He was also a marvelous coworker. It bothered him, however, that he had no practical skills to offer in return.

But Tama was speaking now, and that offered an excellent escape from having to think about his own inadequacies. He could eat some delicious, caramelized lacy cookies while he waited for Tama to get to the point.

And what a point it was — Faustite hadn't expected anything of the sort to come from the Mauvian that loved to give him so much s**t. From the first half of the cat's explanation, Faustite was imagining some kind of hangout space in Destiny City that would offer plainclothes officers time to fraternize and do whatever they did with each other when they weren't draining energy or doing their jobs. It wouldn't be so dissimilar to Jada's bank operation at that, for it did provide for officers when they needed money, or however those financial intricacies went. Places like those were fine, but they were nothing with which Faustite had much to do. They rather fell out of his realm of awareness unless they either met with marvelous success or, well, exploded.

But this one wasn't doubling up as an opportunity to drain energy. And Faustite was about to ask how they could be certain which civilians coming to rest were part of the Negaverse and which were not when Tama took his explanation a step further.

This was to be in Negaspace. Faustite turned his head to stare at the cat.

What the ******** was Tama's angle, here?

Oh, so now I’ve got your attention.

Tama returned the stare right back at Faustite until Axinite began to ask questions.

“I’ll get into the ‘what’ first.” He’d give just what was asked. It was a bit hard for him to read Axinite. He had no experience with the man, only what he had heard from others. He had targeted him for the proposal because he sounded the most amenable. However, that was just a guess on his part. With Faustite, though, he knew what he was dealing with and so part of this plan was meant to, hopefully, work for him, too.

“The third space. I’ll spare you the theory.” He skipped a bunch of slides that looked, at a glance, to be academic theory. Jargon mixed with footnotes and definitions. What he stopped on was a blueprint.

“The purpose of the space would be socialization, relaxation, after work camaraderie — imagine a lounge area. Think plush chairs, corner booths, a central bar and a mezzanine. The area would be a space about the size of a restaurant or bar, enclosed, but using the natural features when possible.” He pointed to the sketch. “Now, I have not presumed a location, but I plan to use as many natural materials as I can. Obsidian, stone, old bricks. Whatever matches surroundings. I want this place to look like it belongs here. A few neon lights on a sign, notwithstanding.”

The larger room was sketched out on the plan. The mezzanine stretched around three of the floor walls with stairs leading up to them. It all over looked a central bar and a long table in the middle of the room. The fourth wall had two large double doors, an entrance, with one neon sign.



☆

As Tama continued with his presentation, Axinite had done his best to take in the brief glimpses he'd had of the first few slides, but he gave the blueprint his full attention. It was easier to imagine what Tama was trying to create with an image of it right in front of him, and the flowery, well thought out words only helped set the scene.

"When you get the chance, I'd like if you could please send me the full presentation. I would be very interested to review all of the work you put into it." Since he'd already put the time and effort into it, it seemed like a shame not to give it his full attention. He trusted that the slides Tama skipped were not as important presently, but Axinite was always thorough.

He took his time to look over the blueprints, even if it wasn't his realm of expertise, and to listen to how Tama was presenting this. He paid attention to what had the most detail, and what seemed to be the most important.

"I like the idea of using natural features and resources. I think it will be far easier to move this forward for approval with you keeping those things in mind. But if you're seriously thinking about a neon sign..." He held the thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose it's possible. As long as you're mindful not to have it shining in any of the residential buildings, or right at the castle. A leisure space seems like a good idea, but I don't want to disrupt anyone who is trying to work. But I'm sure that's easy enough to work around. I can get you a list of habitable buildings and a bit of general information. Approximate square feet, possible features. We've got some files on them, but we probably need to get someone out there to better survey and measure if there's an interest in rebuilding the city somewhat. There are a lot of places that will need work from the foundation up, or that need more than just a bit of touch ups to be functionable. I can get you a map and some statistics and resources for available buildings, though. To give you a bit of a head start on location hunting."

He'd been invested in the presentation but he couldn't help but notice Faustite's thoughtful expression. He wondered what he was thinking about, but if nothing else, he seemed to be enjoying the cookies so Axinite had every reason to be in a good mood all around.

"Financing may be another hurdle to jump over. I say that loosely just because I know Lepidolite is working on a few different projects right now, and after some recent events we've been moving around funds. We've had our fair share of financial demands in the past few weeks. I can't guarantee any sort of budget for you to work with. Do you have any plans to help this get off the ground, or a budget in mind for you to work with?"

It was interesting to hear the way that Axinite worded his statements — specifically the phrase 'move this forward for approval'. It was an important clue for Faustite, for it indicated that either Axinite could not approve such a project on its own or that the approval of the project necessitated multiple inputs. Faustite wished that he had the wisdom to recognize when that was the case, as opposed to a project that Axinite could approve individually. That was one of his many struggles that clung to him for ages.

The project itself taking place outside the Citadel heralded the potential to develop the rest of the space, and Faustite wasn't sure how he felt about that. He liked the quietude. He liked being separated from the overcrowded strangeness of Destiny City. To invite it into the Sunken City was a stark change, but one project may not lead to that.

Faustite crossed his legs, bobbed his foot restlessly. "Think I know someone for that," he indicated, following Axinite's musings about a survey. He was certain he did, and giving that troublesome man something benign like a survey — something he couldn't possibly mess up — would be a delightful reprieve for Faustite. And if they could tack more people onto it, then they'd get the opinions of officers who similarly thought he was slimy.

Faustite told himself to pay attention to the budgeting part, but he found financing to be similarly soul-sucking and dreary as learning general chemistry, and his mind was wondering about three words in from Tama's reply. Blah blah capital blah blah funds blah blah loan. He briefly perked for the mention of the bank operation, but only to see if he needed to say something in rebuttal. It was just an aside, however, and he was back to stewing in his thoughts and eating his cookies.

"Cheaper if you use youma," he replied around a cookie. "They can manage much of the basics. Plus you'd only have to pay me in pizza and alcohol, instead of a crew." Not that it was significantly cheaper, considering how much Faustite had to eat, but for a structure of that size? It still worked to his advantage.

"Wouldn't trust them for electrical, though. Nothing complex. Need boys for that. Can get you my old list."