The Man in Red was feeling uncharacteristically nostalgic.
It happened every now and then, of course: some old memory or other from a world and life he'd long left behind came crawling back unbidden to his mind. Names and faces he'd tried so hard to leave buried and forgotten, given he would never be able to see or hear from them again. Certainly, he could have probably resurrected them, after a fashion. Even without being an actual god, the sheer amount of resources and technology available in this place called the Crossroads....he could have done it. He could have perfectly recreated their body, and painstakingly crafted every last detail of their brains and mind to let them think and act just as he remembered from so long, long ago.
Useless.
He'd never be able to restore or recreate their memories, though. Those were held somewhere else, with whatever you wanted to call that little spark that made a person....themselves. The soul, or whathaveyou. The souls of his old compatriots were long, long gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. For all his works and efforts, that was an incontrovertible truth. Even if he did remake them, down to the very last detail, it wouldn't be worth the effort.
Disgusting.
He wouldn't be recreating his old friends. It would just be an empty shell, that looked and talked and acted exactly like them. Something that talked and spoke like them. Something with none of their memories or experiences. They would just be abhorrent doppelgangers, miserable flesh-puppets that could never truly replace—
He brought a shaking hand to his masked face, bowing his head as a wheezing gasp choked out of him,. His opposite hand clutched at the table before him with a trembling, vice-like grip, his gloved fingers slowly grinding and piercing into the surface.
"....sir?" a tentative voice spoke up, quickly drawing the showman out of his own mental languishment and back to the present. "Everything alright?
What was going on, again...?
The Man in Red's gloved hand dragged down his mask with an agonizing slowness, until the eyeholes were uncovered again. A blank, empty void loomed within them — the normal serpent's gleam of gold and yellow completely absent, sending an uneasy chill down the spine of nearly everyone in the room who so much as glanced at him. His unseen gaze swept the room, taking it all in again. Ah yes...some silly meeting or other about the final tallied results of the last event and preparations for the next one.
A chance.
"Quite alright, thank you," he finally murmured, letting his hand slip completely free of his mask and drop to the table before him with a soft, almost pathetic thump as his opposite hand released its death grip on the table. "Forgive the interruption.... Plenty of thoughts to consider, you know." In the blink of an eye, the pale gleam of gold in his eyes was back, and the mouth of his mask curled up into an unnaturally wide grin, its edges reaching quite literally clear from one side to the other and nearly reaching up to the mask's eyes.
"Now, where were we?"
The room, having plunged into near dead silence after the chief showman's anguished outburst, slowly returned to life. A nervous, wary energy swept over the occupants, who resumed their prior activity as the hapless fool tasked with speaking at the moment cleared his throat.
"Y-Yes, well... We've successfully managed to isolate and sterilize the site from the last event, sir," he went on, shuffling a mess of papers before him. "All the bodies were safely recovered and processed, and the leftover materials and items were sequestered without incident."
"Good, good." The Man in Red clasped his hands together, resting them lightly on the edge of the table. "Enough of that, however. I believe I have an idea for our next game."
This made the hapless fool who had been speaking sit up straight, fumbling over his mess of papers to shove them aside and pull out a tablet, the display projecting up into a holographic one complete with keyboard, clearly ready to take down every note. At least half a dozen other pairs of eyes and ears tuned fully into the conversation at the same moment, the whispered background noise dropping to dead silence again.
"Tell me...how many branches of Site Seven are operational, at the moment?"
"Site Seven, sir?" Another participant in the conversation spoke up. Leaning over the table, she brushed some loose hair back over her mask. "Last reports we received from there said they'd received all shipments from the most recent game and gotten them transferred to storage and containment, but—"
"That isn't what I asked, my dear girl," the Man in Red murmured. "How many. Of them. Are operational."
The woman shrank back into her seat, fingers drumming on her legs nervously. "That's...the thing, sir. After those last reports, we lost all contact with Site Seven altogether." She cleared her throat, looking aside at one of her coworkers, who just gave a helpless shrug and shake of her head in response. "And, well....even the status updates and reports have gone completely offline, and the place has been locked down. We have no idea what's going on down there."
"Excellent..." The Man in Red's eyes twinkled. "Even in its locked down state, I trust we can still gain access directly, as per standard procedure?"
"Well...o-of course, sir. Your own clearance could override any security system or lockdown, and some executives could do the same. And there's also the—
The host held up a hand, with a soft 'ssshhh'. "That's enough." His eyes swiveled about to focus on a camera in the corner of the room. "We wouldn't want to give away too much, now, would we?" And with a quiet chortling sound, he snapped his fingers, the room going dark.
"We have to keep some suspense, for the readers at home."
It happened every now and then, of course: some old memory or other from a world and life he'd long left behind came crawling back unbidden to his mind. Names and faces he'd tried so hard to leave buried and forgotten, given he would never be able to see or hear from them again. Certainly, he could have probably resurrected them, after a fashion. Even without being an actual god, the sheer amount of resources and technology available in this place called the Crossroads....he could have done it. He could have perfectly recreated their body, and painstakingly crafted every last detail of their brains and mind to let them think and act just as he remembered from so long, long ago.
Useless.
He'd never be able to restore or recreate their memories, though. Those were held somewhere else, with whatever you wanted to call that little spark that made a person....themselves. The soul, or whathaveyou. The souls of his old compatriots were long, long gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. For all his works and efforts, that was an incontrovertible truth. Even if he did remake them, down to the very last detail, it wouldn't be worth the effort.
Disgusting.
He wouldn't be recreating his old friends. It would just be an empty shell, that looked and talked and acted exactly like them. Something that talked and spoke like them. Something with none of their memories or experiences. They would just be abhorrent doppelgangers, miserable flesh-puppets that could never truly replace—
He brought a shaking hand to his masked face, bowing his head as a wheezing gasp choked out of him,. His opposite hand clutched at the table before him with a trembling, vice-like grip, his gloved fingers slowly grinding and piercing into the surface.
"....sir?" a tentative voice spoke up, quickly drawing the showman out of his own mental languishment and back to the present. "Everything alright?
What was going on, again...?
The Man in Red's gloved hand dragged down his mask with an agonizing slowness, until the eyeholes were uncovered again. A blank, empty void loomed within them — the normal serpent's gleam of gold and yellow completely absent, sending an uneasy chill down the spine of nearly everyone in the room who so much as glanced at him. His unseen gaze swept the room, taking it all in again. Ah yes...some silly meeting or other about the final tallied results of the last event and preparations for the next one.
A chance.
"Quite alright, thank you," he finally murmured, letting his hand slip completely free of his mask and drop to the table before him with a soft, almost pathetic thump as his opposite hand released its death grip on the table. "Forgive the interruption.... Plenty of thoughts to consider, you know." In the blink of an eye, the pale gleam of gold in his eyes was back, and the mouth of his mask curled up into an unnaturally wide grin, its edges reaching quite literally clear from one side to the other and nearly reaching up to the mask's eyes.
"Now, where were we?"
The room, having plunged into near dead silence after the chief showman's anguished outburst, slowly returned to life. A nervous, wary energy swept over the occupants, who resumed their prior activity as the hapless fool tasked with speaking at the moment cleared his throat.
"Y-Yes, well... We've successfully managed to isolate and sterilize the site from the last event, sir," he went on, shuffling a mess of papers before him. "All the bodies were safely recovered and processed, and the leftover materials and items were sequestered without incident."
"Good, good." The Man in Red clasped his hands together, resting them lightly on the edge of the table. "Enough of that, however. I believe I have an idea for our next game."
This made the hapless fool who had been speaking sit up straight, fumbling over his mess of papers to shove them aside and pull out a tablet, the display projecting up into a holographic one complete with keyboard, clearly ready to take down every note. At least half a dozen other pairs of eyes and ears tuned fully into the conversation at the same moment, the whispered background noise dropping to dead silence again.
"Tell me...how many branches of Site Seven are operational, at the moment?"
"Site Seven, sir?" Another participant in the conversation spoke up. Leaning over the table, she brushed some loose hair back over her mask. "Last reports we received from there said they'd received all shipments from the most recent game and gotten them transferred to storage and containment, but—"
"That isn't what I asked, my dear girl," the Man in Red murmured. "How many. Of them. Are operational."
The woman shrank back into her seat, fingers drumming on her legs nervously. "That's...the thing, sir. After those last reports, we lost all contact with Site Seven altogether." She cleared her throat, looking aside at one of her coworkers, who just gave a helpless shrug and shake of her head in response. "And, well....even the status updates and reports have gone completely offline, and the place has been locked down. We have no idea what's going on down there."
"Excellent..." The Man in Red's eyes twinkled. "Even in its locked down state, I trust we can still gain access directly, as per standard procedure?"
"Well...o-of course, sir. Your own clearance could override any security system or lockdown, and some executives could do the same. And there's also the—
The host held up a hand, with a soft 'ssshhh'. "That's enough." His eyes swiveled about to focus on a camera in the corner of the room. "We wouldn't want to give away too much, now, would we?" And with a quiet chortling sound, he snapped his fingers, the room going dark.
"We have to keep some suspense, for the readers at home."