Karl demurred at the sight of his own reflection. He’d stopped aging a few multiverses ago, but for one reason or another, he still felt old as he looked at the otherworldly handsome individual staring back at him with a blend of doubt and sadness.
Had it really been nearly a decade since he’d bid adieu to the land of the dragons? In his mind, the rainbow years didn’t seem that long ago either, but his internal calendar told him that time had continued to pass, even if it sometimes became a bit too muddled and fluid for its own good. Who’s to say that one person’s star date X wasn’t another person’s star date Y? There was no rule that said time couldn’t also be non-binary.
A knock came on the door.
The executive twisted his head around to see Charlie half-concealed behind the frame of his office door.
“Yes?” Karl asked as he turned back to the mirror and brushed out some of the wrinkles that his movements had caused in his shirt. “Are you here to remind me about tee time?” He glimpsed over at clock on his wall. “No, that’s hours away.”
Charlie shook her head as she struggled with the tablet computer. Her boss couldn’t see the screen, but even if he could, he wouldn’t have been any help. The entire OS of the tablet had been designed by a party of one, and Kevin wasn’t around anymore to handhold people through ‘basic use’. Even if he had, the former personal assistant likely would have just snarked and referred people to one of the many intensive yet droll digital professional development seminars that he’d authored over the years.
After a few more moments of softly mumbling and tapping the screen in increasingly frustrated intervals, Charlie finally managed to pull up the piece of software she had intended to access. “The crews over in Astrology have already started to make breakthroughs on your assorted ‘requests’,” she handed the tablet over to Karl. “They think they’ll be finished by the end of the month with the rest of the list.”
On the screen was an image of a hulking, monolithic man with blonde hair casually sitting in a ‘safe room’. Ever since Jason Voorhees had run amok in the offices so many years ago, it had become company policy to use the little indestructible rooms to house anyone who had a track record of violence.
Karl swiped away the visual feed and skimmed through the attached documents to make sure the details weren’t incorrect.
“They’ve confirmed that he’s the one you were looking for,” Charlie spoke softly without making eye contact with her boss.
“Fantastic,” the executive replied. “There are a few, you know.” He handed the tablet back to its owner.
“That’s what they said in the report, yes.” Charlie pulled up something else on her screen, likely an email or an inter-office memo from Astrology. “They said that they’ve come across ‘at least a half dozen of these’ in their investigations. They stated that several of those were local, as well.”
“Doesn’t shock me,” Karl replied as he walked over to his closet and summoned his golf suit. “I think we probably have close to a half dozen displaced Glendale versions of this guy floating around in the ether around the Crossroads.”
Charlie chuckled. “Are you sure you didn’t read the memos before I got here, Mr. Jak?”
Karl gave a small laugh and a faint smile as he laid out his clothes for the afternoon golf outing with Scrooge. “No, I just … know.” He tapped the side of his head as his eyes scanned the bottom section of the nearby closet for appropriate shoes. “You’d be shocked how many Zulenkas and Glendales are floating around in just this little neighborhood of the space-time.” Karl snapped his finger and glanced back at her. “Have them run a check on the number of Juunanagous, because I’m sure that’ll be just as amusing.”
The young PA, who had barely any idea what her boss was discussing, simply smiled and nodded her head. She assumed this was some type of joke that was only intended for five or ten percent of the staff.
“I think I’ll go visit the department,” Karl spoke suddenly as he stood up and pivoted to face Charlie. “Can you make sure my outfit gets sent down to the valet? I can change at the green.”
“No problem, Mr. Jak.”
A few minutes later, Karl Jak found himself reclining in one of the sitting chairs in the office of the Executive Director of Astrology.
“Yea, he’s been fine,” the brunette replied as she leaned forward in her office chair. While the majority of her employees dressed in white lab coats, their director preferred something that could better be described as a robe by most people. While Karl had once tried to explain that ‘astrology’ for Syntech didn’t mean reading the stars, he stopped bothering once it had been established that the woman was more than capable of this or any other job at the company. She was one in a small number of outside hires, and like most of them, she was overqualified. “You want any precautions when you go into speak with him?”
“Won’t be necessary,” Karl answered as he stood up and stepped over to the little doorway that led to the ‘common room’. In essence, the chamber would allow someone in a containment room to look and feel as if they were speaking to someone. “Thank you, Director Granger.”
“It’s why you pay me the big money, Mr. Jak,” she replied as she telekinetically flipped the console controls.
With a smirk, Karl turned as the room swirled around him. An instant later, he was standing in a small yet formal room. On the opposite side, the oversized saiyan warrior—initially taken aback by the shifting of whatever room he had been programmed into—quickly noted that he had been joined. “Who are you?”
Karl motioned to a collection of chairs near a fireplace. “Take a seat?”
The room was silent for a few moments. In that time, the man in the purple suit and the saiyan didn’t break eye contact. After a few more tense seconds, the displaced saiyan walked over and dropped down into the oversized Barcalounger. “You here to tell me where I’m at and why I woke up in a facsimile of my quarters?”
“When did they pull you from? You’re not some old version, are you? I told them to get as accurate as they could.”
Broli furrowed his brow. “I know you,” he finally muttered. “You’re that shill for the death planet contest.”
“The same contest you competed in and won twice?” Karl quickly responded as he reached to the end table between them and quite literally grabbed a glass of red wine from thin air.
“I’m good at what I do,” the hulking saiyan answered in a tone that was now almost casual. “I don’t remember your name.”
Karl would normally be offended by that. While time had muted many of his more extravagant tastes and traits, he still enjoyed being a celebrity. Who wouldn’t enjoy fame and security? Don’t lie to yourself. In this instance, he had already anticipated a conversation like this one.
“I was just an assistant producer your first go around,” the man answered after a sip of malbec. “And when you returned for the original Conquest, we wanted more of a documentary feel, so my job was behind the screens. I’m Karl Jak,” he reached out a hand. “Welcome to the Crossroads, Broli.”
The saiyan shrugged. “What’s the deal?”
“Deal?”
“Just cut to the chase. I don’t enjoy the frivolities.” He was back to being a bit too defensive. A few lifetimes ago, Karl would have felt some anxiety, but even if the pair were actually face-to-face, he had zero fear when it came to the oversized saiyan specimen.
“You’ve been recruited to participate in Dante’s Abyss XIX.”
“Nineteen?”
“Yes.”
"You just inventing numbers at this point?"
"You've been out of the game a long time."
Broli thought silently for a moment and shrugged his shoulders once again. “Sure.” He gave a momentary grin that betrayed a sliver of the predator within his hulking mass. “When does the killing start?”
Karl laughed as he reached into his jacket and pulled out the paperwork. He set it onto the table before laying a pen on top of it. “Have a read through these if you’d like, and you can sign when you’re ready. After that, we’ll discuss lodgings for you.”
The saiyan signed without breaking eye contract with Karl Jak. It was some more alpha dog stuff, but the man in the purple suit was already anticipating all these early recruits to be overflowing with hormones. After all, they were from a far different time, when everything needed an edge and every fourth person had some type of mental illness that made them angsty and interesting rather than simply someone who needed a therapist and medication. One year, he was fairly certain that over forty percent of the participants in Dante’s Abyss were walking tropes about mental illness. At the time, it made for hilarious television, even if the younger markets nowadays didn’t always appreciate that sort of thing.
Rest in peace, all you fabulous edge lords of yore.
A faint smile creased Karl's face as he let himself drift back from the rose-tinted olden times to the here and now. The paperwork was finished, and so the whole rat race was officially a go. Broli had already turned his attention to staring at the fire, and he didn't seem apt to continue the conversation. For his part, Karl wasn't terribly concerned at continuing the small talk, since he knew it wasn't this individual's forte. At the end of the day, all the executive really cared about was finalizing the deal. After all, the best participants were always the ones who were ready, willing, and able.
Had it really been nearly a decade since he’d bid adieu to the land of the dragons? In his mind, the rainbow years didn’t seem that long ago either, but his internal calendar told him that time had continued to pass, even if it sometimes became a bit too muddled and fluid for its own good. Who’s to say that one person’s star date X wasn’t another person’s star date Y? There was no rule that said time couldn’t also be non-binary.
A knock came on the door.
The executive twisted his head around to see Charlie half-concealed behind the frame of his office door.
“Yes?” Karl asked as he turned back to the mirror and brushed out some of the wrinkles that his movements had caused in his shirt. “Are you here to remind me about tee time?” He glimpsed over at clock on his wall. “No, that’s hours away.”
Charlie shook her head as she struggled with the tablet computer. Her boss couldn’t see the screen, but even if he could, he wouldn’t have been any help. The entire OS of the tablet had been designed by a party of one, and Kevin wasn’t around anymore to handhold people through ‘basic use’. Even if he had, the former personal assistant likely would have just snarked and referred people to one of the many intensive yet droll digital professional development seminars that he’d authored over the years.
After a few more moments of softly mumbling and tapping the screen in increasingly frustrated intervals, Charlie finally managed to pull up the piece of software she had intended to access. “The crews over in Astrology have already started to make breakthroughs on your assorted ‘requests’,” she handed the tablet over to Karl. “They think they’ll be finished by the end of the month with the rest of the list.”
On the screen was an image of a hulking, monolithic man with blonde hair casually sitting in a ‘safe room’. Ever since Jason Voorhees had run amok in the offices so many years ago, it had become company policy to use the little indestructible rooms to house anyone who had a track record of violence.
Karl swiped away the visual feed and skimmed through the attached documents to make sure the details weren’t incorrect.
“They’ve confirmed that he’s the one you were looking for,” Charlie spoke softly without making eye contact with her boss.
“Fantastic,” the executive replied. “There are a few, you know.” He handed the tablet back to its owner.
“That’s what they said in the report, yes.” Charlie pulled up something else on her screen, likely an email or an inter-office memo from Astrology. “They said that they’ve come across ‘at least a half dozen of these’ in their investigations. They stated that several of those were local, as well.”
“Doesn’t shock me,” Karl replied as he walked over to his closet and summoned his golf suit. “I think we probably have close to a half dozen displaced Glendale versions of this guy floating around in the ether around the Crossroads.”
Charlie chuckled. “Are you sure you didn’t read the memos before I got here, Mr. Jak?”
Karl gave a small laugh and a faint smile as he laid out his clothes for the afternoon golf outing with Scrooge. “No, I just … know.” He tapped the side of his head as his eyes scanned the bottom section of the nearby closet for appropriate shoes. “You’d be shocked how many Zulenkas and Glendales are floating around in just this little neighborhood of the space-time.” Karl snapped his finger and glanced back at her. “Have them run a check on the number of Juunanagous, because I’m sure that’ll be just as amusing.”
The young PA, who had barely any idea what her boss was discussing, simply smiled and nodded her head. She assumed this was some type of joke that was only intended for five or ten percent of the staff.
“I think I’ll go visit the department,” Karl spoke suddenly as he stood up and pivoted to face Charlie. “Can you make sure my outfit gets sent down to the valet? I can change at the green.”
“No problem, Mr. Jak.”
***
A few minutes later, Karl Jak found himself reclining in one of the sitting chairs in the office of the Executive Director of Astrology.
“Yea, he’s been fine,” the brunette replied as she leaned forward in her office chair. While the majority of her employees dressed in white lab coats, their director preferred something that could better be described as a robe by most people. While Karl had once tried to explain that ‘astrology’ for Syntech didn’t mean reading the stars, he stopped bothering once it had been established that the woman was more than capable of this or any other job at the company. She was one in a small number of outside hires, and like most of them, she was overqualified. “You want any precautions when you go into speak with him?”
“Won’t be necessary,” Karl answered as he stood up and stepped over to the little doorway that led to the ‘common room’. In essence, the chamber would allow someone in a containment room to look and feel as if they were speaking to someone. “Thank you, Director Granger.”
“It’s why you pay me the big money, Mr. Jak,” she replied as she telekinetically flipped the console controls.
With a smirk, Karl turned as the room swirled around him. An instant later, he was standing in a small yet formal room. On the opposite side, the oversized saiyan warrior—initially taken aback by the shifting of whatever room he had been programmed into—quickly noted that he had been joined. “Who are you?”
Karl motioned to a collection of chairs near a fireplace. “Take a seat?”
The room was silent for a few moments. In that time, the man in the purple suit and the saiyan didn’t break eye contact. After a few more tense seconds, the displaced saiyan walked over and dropped down into the oversized Barcalounger. “You here to tell me where I’m at and why I woke up in a facsimile of my quarters?”
“When did they pull you from? You’re not some old version, are you? I told them to get as accurate as they could.”
Broli furrowed his brow. “I know you,” he finally muttered. “You’re that shill for the death planet contest.”
“The same contest you competed in and won twice?” Karl quickly responded as he reached to the end table between them and quite literally grabbed a glass of red wine from thin air.
“I’m good at what I do,” the hulking saiyan answered in a tone that was now almost casual. “I don’t remember your name.”
Karl would normally be offended by that. While time had muted many of his more extravagant tastes and traits, he still enjoyed being a celebrity. Who wouldn’t enjoy fame and security? Don’t lie to yourself. In this instance, he had already anticipated a conversation like this one.
“I was just an assistant producer your first go around,” the man answered after a sip of malbec. “And when you returned for the original Conquest, we wanted more of a documentary feel, so my job was behind the screens. I’m Karl Jak,” he reached out a hand. “Welcome to the Crossroads, Broli.”
The saiyan shrugged. “What’s the deal?”
“Deal?”
“Just cut to the chase. I don’t enjoy the frivolities.” He was back to being a bit too defensive. A few lifetimes ago, Karl would have felt some anxiety, but even if the pair were actually face-to-face, he had zero fear when it came to the oversized saiyan specimen.
“You’ve been recruited to participate in Dante’s Abyss XIX.”
“Nineteen?”
“Yes.”
"You just inventing numbers at this point?"
"You've been out of the game a long time."
Broli thought silently for a moment and shrugged his shoulders once again. “Sure.” He gave a momentary grin that betrayed a sliver of the predator within his hulking mass. “When does the killing start?”
Karl laughed as he reached into his jacket and pulled out the paperwork. He set it onto the table before laying a pen on top of it. “Have a read through these if you’d like, and you can sign when you’re ready. After that, we’ll discuss lodgings for you.”
The saiyan signed without breaking eye contract with Karl Jak. It was some more alpha dog stuff, but the man in the purple suit was already anticipating all these early recruits to be overflowing with hormones. After all, they were from a far different time, when everything needed an edge and every fourth person had some type of mental illness that made them angsty and interesting rather than simply someone who needed a therapist and medication. One year, he was fairly certain that over forty percent of the participants in Dante’s Abyss were walking tropes about mental illness. At the time, it made for hilarious television, even if the younger markets nowadays didn’t always appreciate that sort of thing.
Rest in peace, all you fabulous edge lords of yore.
A faint smile creased Karl's face as he let himself drift back from the rose-tinted olden times to the here and now. The paperwork was finished, and so the whole rat race was officially a go. Broli had already turned his attention to staring at the fire, and he didn't seem apt to continue the conversation. For his part, Karl wasn't terribly concerned at continuing the small talk, since he knew it wasn't this individual's forte. At the end of the day, all the executive really cared about was finalizing the deal. After all, the best participants were always the ones who were ready, willing, and able.
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