Introduction - Get It Together (1-1)

Mie · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 4:49 pm

The object of Jam's fancy wasn't to be found in the pages of some magazine, but was more closely related to her insufficiently filled stomach, and immediately centered around her favorite room in this or any house. The presidential kitchen was sleek and modern, as expected, but still not the restaurant-sized all stainless steel affair one might presume. There was a stately marble-topped island occupying the space between the lengths of counter-topped drawers and cabinets, which were punctuated with all the usual suspects: electric can opener, range and hood, ovens, dishwasher, toaster oven, etc.

All of these things were superfluous, though, compared to the glowing (those were some bright florescents up there) treasure box at the far end of the room, beckoning the prying primate forward. Even here, the sound of the gaskets being pulled away from the refrigerator door frame was as distinct a sound as thunder.

"Hey, Spikey!" came the boisterously irreverent call from the kitchen.

"They got microwave taquitos in here! You like taquitos?!"

VJeff · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 5:00 pm

Rekk sort of quirked his eyebrow when Rock said they'd never dealt with 'anything like this before', but didn't say anything immediately. He just sighed and crossed his arms.

"I know. That's why I'm trying to run a tight ship here." He explained. "What happened out there anyway? I could only see so much of it from here."

Rusty · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 5:08 pm

... There was a strange noise around then, not unlike what a stampede would sound like.

At least four different SSD soldiers went hurrying past Teck, through an adjacent doorway, past Rekk and Rock, and into the kitchen.

"Ooryl likes taquitos," came Ooryl's voice from inside. Well, these guys really hadn't eaten in a while... except Ooryl, actually. The guy must have been a bottomless pit.

"WAIT FOR MEEEE," yelled McBride, hobbling past everyone with his leg still all wrapped up in bandages.

nUcLeArEnVoY · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:06 pm

"Actually, lass, that sounds quite nice, thank you!" He responded generously, breaching the tiled grounds into which he was called by the famished monkey. Teck waited for the SSD officers to fill the room before entering himself, and once he did, he made a direct beeline for Jam to partake in her offer. "So how long do you microwave them? M'fraid the only microwave 'xperience I have is with cheeseburgers, dah'ling."

psikeout · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:25 pm

OOC: Sparing the readership an "it all started last night" spiel that recaps things already seen through the story, I now skip to the end of Rock's tale.

"... so, basically, yeah, it looks like ghosts. That's the end result, anyway—Don't know the real scientific cause, but the machines are fully self-repairing. Bullets don't work; explosives don't work well." He shifted around in his chair (which he'd settled comfortably into, using the rim of a nearby potted plant as an ottoman), and thought for a moment on whether or not there was anything else pertinent to mention. "They seem sensitive to light. Like you probably saw, the only reason this building's still standing is because the sun happened to start coming out again, and your men had the idea to use flashbangs."

Mie · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:17 pm

It'd be a stretch to say the sudden influx of SWAT guys clamoring for flautas didn't come as a mild surprise to strawberry-hued simian, but as one with a "the more the merrier" philosophy, Jam was only too happy to accommodate the sudden rush of enthusiasm.

"Okay, okay, 'kay," she announced to the room at large, as she flipped over the warehouse-sized box, and studied the directions.

"Hm. Says... 'heat three to four on high for 1 minute, rotating plate half-turn at thirty second mark.'"

While one hand held up the precious taquitos, the other was counting off, and rapidly running out of fingers.

"I dunno about you guys, but I c'n eat like... ten of these things, so let's say sixty -- whoo, I never made this many -- and... I guess that means ... wait... carry the...no, that's like... let's say, divided by four... times... okay. Yeah. That many'll take fifteen minutes, and then we turn the plate at seven minutes thirty se-- Oh, cool, this is one 'a the ones that turns itself. Somebody find plates or paper towels'r something."

Poor Rekk. One can only imagine how to go about explaining to your boss how taquitos burned his house down.

nUcLeArEnVoY · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:25 pm

"That's a great idea, lass - but let me get out of your way and go ahead and do mine first, shall I? While you guys prepare your's, I'll go ahead and get my piddly little taquito out of the way, hehehehe," he said cautiously, grabbing a single taquito and almost dropping it in his fumbling hands throughout his wayward demand. He knew full and well that a mess was about to be made, but he didn't feel like putting down Jam just when she was starting to get a little vacant.

He rushed in preparing it; quickly unwrapping it, almost dropping the plate, and sliding it into the microwave. Slamming the door shut and knuckling in one minute, he pressed start and stood back.

"Come oooon, come oooon...."

3...
2...
1...

That one single minute seemed like an eternity - he was pacing the whole time and the very second he heard that beep, he rushed over, opened the door, and extracted the plate before retreating to the corner of the room. "Done! Bon appetit!"

Rusty · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:42 pm

The SSD paced around the kitchen impatiently while Teck went about making his own little dish of happiness. If Jam's experience with procuring edibles was worth wincing at, it begged the question what the response should be to the SSD's reaction.

"Are we supposed to wrap a paper towel over them?" asked one (a German Shepherd or something). "My wife does that when she puts stuff in microwaves."

"I've had your wife's cooking; I think she does that to keep what she's making from running away," said McBride.

Ooryl approached the rather... huge plate upon which their literal gold pile sat. "Ooryl could find no paper towels. Did find this." He started wrapping the plate in tin foil.

"Wait!" said one of them, unboxing some frozen mini pizzas and placing them among the pile of taquitos too before the iguana could finish.

"Oh, hey, hang on." And someone else put an unopened tin can of chili in there...

"Why do you need chili?"

"Manly food for a manly man."

Note that if it weren't already apparent, the extent of these guys' culinary knowledge amounted to pouring cereal into a bowl each morning, usually without hurting themselves.

nUcLeArEnVoY · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:58 pm

By the time they had wrapped the tin foil around their future charr--- FOOD... Teck had taken his first bite out of his taquito; not too scalding, but still warranting of a few kusmaal breaths and a waft of his hand in front of his gaping maw.

His ears lowered at the site of that silvery wrapping as it adorned the food. His pulse quickened, his fist clenched around his plate and a deep, deep gulp rushed down his throat. "... good god, these people are going to get me killed..."

"Uggh.. y-you... guys?" He tried to earn their attention with an initial call, and the first time he received no response he could all but raise the volume. "Gentlemen! If I may offer some advice?"

Rusty · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:00 pm

"Yes, yes, elevate microwave legs, Ooryl knows, thank you civilian sir."

Mie · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:04 pm

Believe it or not, Jam actually knew that tin foil in microwaves was bad... The normal kind, anyway. Thankfully, this looked just like the same kind takeout dinner rolls came in and was safe (???) to nuke. Her only ridiculous concern at this point?

"Don't you people know how t'cook? Don't put all that crap on top of the taquitos'r they'll squish before they get all crispy. Here, here. Put the chili in first, and then the taquito bundle on top'a that."

nUcLeArEnVoY · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:05 pm

"Alright! Done!"

If the last time he had a run-in with this Ooryl character (Caz' injury) was any indication on how well he listened, then Teck already knew that he was pretty much talking to a wall. Taking his plate with him, he began to make way for the kitchen exit.

(For a visual perspective on how Teck looked as he got up, try:)

VJeff · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:01 pm

"So light does the trick...that doesn't sound like any kind of robot I've ever heard of...." Rekk crossed his arms as he considered. "Do you think it's just some weird flaw with his design or...real ghosts?" Before Rock could answer, Rekk sighed. "Either way, if it's got a weakness as big as bright light, I doubt he'll try the same thing twice..."

psikeout · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:37 pm

"Actually," began Rock to the contrary, "I think it'll happen again tonight."

He dropped his feet back flat on the floor, and leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees.

"I mean, yeah, these things are 'ghosts.' They came sweepin' in at sunset, and then they came in again when that weird haze covered the town. But I don't think that means they're dead people or anything. Just some phenomenon we don't yet understand. And while these things don't like light, I don't think wavin' around flashlights or flashbangs or whatever will do the job in the long run. I've seen things kind of like this when me an' Jam used to go ruin crawling. They'd go away when you turned a little light on'em, sure, but then they'd always be back."

Rusty · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:21 pm

Ooryl figured he knew what he was doing, but she was a woman, and women were inherently better cooks than men, weren't they? It was one of the ordained laws of the universe, one of those unexplainable phenomena that scholars and professors commit their minds to with no result. So he let her fix what they'd messed up, and then he hauled the plate into the microwave with visible effort on his part.

He examined the numbers on the device for a few seconds, punched in 15:00:00:00 (minutes, seconds, milliseconds, billiseconds), hit Start/Enter/Go/Etc., and stood back and crossed his arms.

"You know," said one of them, "we could have just gone out to eat."

"That would involve paying for things that are not free," said McBride.

"Oh. Yeah."

Introduction - Get It Together (1-1)

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