08-05-2013, 10:30 PM
<small>Continued From The Interview With Nikolai Brandon
</small>
Nicholas Trano sat nursing a glass of whiskey on the flight home as he cleaned up the interview transcript and got ready to release it. Brandon was impressive, he'd give him that. He was intelligent, charming... also obviously megalomaniacal but he wouldn't expect most people to pick up on that. Not unless they wanted to. Besides
, he thought, in a world like this he's got good company.
Cults sprouting up like weeds, drug lords conquering South America despite the efforts of the two largest militaries in the worldand, as the icing on the cake,
fascists conquering the world.
Still, what happened at the end there was weird. He felt this--euphoria
... and suddenly the leader of the un-free world was barely able to keep his mouth shut. Of course, that lasted for barely half a minute before some kind of whiplash hit him, and menace filled the room. What caused that?
Some kind of CCD neuro-weapon test backfired? No, that couldn't be it,
wouldn't be worth the risk at something that public.
It was an odd situation all around, that. Weirder still was that it'd happened before. Some of his biggest news breaks had occurred right after that same euphoria took him. "See if I could--feel it..."
What the hell did that mean?
And then by the time he looked up, the man was running away with his tail between his legs, surrounded by underlings.
When he thought of the last times he'd gotten that--feeling, they almost all coincided with something extraordinary happening. Like the time he got his chief to let him off watch so he could go partying in Thailand. Good times.
Of course, he'd spent the next couple days lying in an infirmary in the worst pain he'd ever suffered. Some odd Asian bug, they'd thought then. He'd just been glad it wasn't AIDS. What happens in Thailand stays there.
Come to think of it, the first several times he'd gotten that feeling--the first several times things... happened the way he wanted them to, he'd gotten sick. None had been as bad as that very first occasion, of course. And then, slowly, it just stopped altogether. Not the things, or the feeling. The sickness just disappeared. Maybe he'd worked up a tolerance for it, like if you ride roller coasters a lot? He didn't have all the answers.
Even if he did, what the hell was he supposed to do about it? Tell some doctor that sometimes I feel high as a goddamn kite and good things happen?
He couldn't do anything of the sort, that was for sure. He'd worked too hard and too long to risk his career if something like that got out. Liberty First had been eyeing him for their presidential nomination, too. If eyeing was a fancy way of saying barely-concealed begging. That'd all dry up if he started seeing a shrink, he was sure of it.
Finally, he finished the last few tweaks to the interview, slapped on the list of questions the censors blocked and sent it up for publishing. Sighing, he downed his whiskey and leaned his head back. Sleep first. Figure out crazy magical powers later.
Edited by Nick Trano, Aug 22 2013, 11:57 PM.
</small>
Nicholas Trano sat nursing a glass of whiskey on the flight home as he cleaned up the interview transcript and got ready to release it. Brandon was impressive, he'd give him that. He was intelligent, charming... also obviously megalomaniacal but he wouldn't expect most people to pick up on that. Not unless they wanted to. Besides
, he thought, in a world like this he's got good company.
Cults sprouting up like weeds, drug lords conquering South America despite the efforts of the two largest militaries in the worldand, as the icing on the cake,
fascists conquering the world.
Still, what happened at the end there was weird. He felt this--euphoria
... and suddenly the leader of the un-free world was barely able to keep his mouth shut. Of course, that lasted for barely half a minute before some kind of whiplash hit him, and menace filled the room. What caused that?
Some kind of CCD neuro-weapon test backfired? No, that couldn't be it,
wouldn't be worth the risk at something that public.
It was an odd situation all around, that. Weirder still was that it'd happened before. Some of his biggest news breaks had occurred right after that same euphoria took him. "See if I could--feel it..."
What the hell did that mean?
And then by the time he looked up, the man was running away with his tail between his legs, surrounded by underlings.
When he thought of the last times he'd gotten that--feeling, they almost all coincided with something extraordinary happening. Like the time he got his chief to let him off watch so he could go partying in Thailand. Good times.
Of course, he'd spent the next couple days lying in an infirmary in the worst pain he'd ever suffered. Some odd Asian bug, they'd thought then. He'd just been glad it wasn't AIDS. What happens in Thailand stays there.
Come to think of it, the first several times he'd gotten that feeling--the first several times things... happened the way he wanted them to, he'd gotten sick. None had been as bad as that very first occasion, of course. And then, slowly, it just stopped altogether. Not the things, or the feeling. The sickness just disappeared. Maybe he'd worked up a tolerance for it, like if you ride roller coasters a lot? He didn't have all the answers.
Even if he did, what the hell was he supposed to do about it? Tell some doctor that sometimes I feel high as a goddamn kite and good things happen?
He couldn't do anything of the sort, that was for sure. He'd worked too hard and too long to risk his career if something like that got out. Liberty First had been eyeing him for their presidential nomination, too. If eyeing was a fancy way of saying barely-concealed begging. That'd all dry up if he started seeing a shrink, he was sure of it.
Finally, he finished the last few tweaks to the interview, slapped on the list of questions the censors blocked and sent it up for publishing. Sighing, he downed his whiskey and leaned his head back. Sleep first. Figure out crazy magical powers later.
Edited by Nick Trano, Aug 22 2013, 11:57 PM.