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X-treme Wrestling Federation » Warfare Boards » Warfare RP Board
Guided Tours, Infinite Cheez-Its and The Precipice of the Truth
Author Message
Mark Flynn Offline
24/7 Briefcase Holders get their name in GOLD
The 24/7 Shot!



XWF FanBase:
The IWC

(gets varying reactions in the arenas, but will be worshiped like a god and defended until the end by internet fans; literally has thousands of online dorks logging on to complain anytime they lose a match or don't get pushed right)


#1
11-16-2021, 02:03 PM

The Story So Far...
And now… The story continues!


***

October 18th, 2021
Inside the KFC Yum! Center
Louisville, KY


Flynn claps three times.

He’d clap more to maintain the facade of tolerating this, but on the last applause, NK seemed to take clap number four as a sign to do another 10 minutes of encore dancing. And Flynn had been listening to “I Was Made For Loving You” on a loop for 35 minutes.

“And now… *wheeze*... before the second half of my performance… *COUGH* I’ll allow a brief intermission… *pant pant* so you might have a moment to suspend your… *rasp*... arousal…”

NK collapses face-first onto the steel ramp.

Admittedly, 35 minutes did give Flynn plenty of time to plan an approach.

He turns over to the blue track-suit wearing lady who is still golf-clapping as NK takes his bows, his face covered in sweat, breathing heavily after giving the seductive performance of his life.

Flynn leans over out of his chair.

“So, um, you probably have questions…”

“Nah, I think I’ve got enough context clues to figure out what’s going on here.”

Flynn’s eye twitches.

“You do?”

“You don’t spend this long at a facility like this without having a solid idea of every conceivable contingency. Why would people come? Why would they act this way? I’ve considered every angle and you two haven’t done much work concealing your intentions...”

“No, I suppose not.”

Flynn measures the distance from his chair to the lady’s. Eighteen feet. He could tackle and grapple this woman in about 3.7 seconds. If she stays seated, it should be effortless...

“Yeah, your buddy mentioned getting sent here by Dolly Waters. The new Anarchy Commissioner, right? You must be new hires!”



Flynn de-tenses his legs and tries to relax his face into a smile.

“Yeah, Dolly referred us. For… onboarding.”

“Sure, of course! I understand what Dolly sees in you two, what with your friend’s ability to dance for 35 minutes at a time. And your ability to sit and watch things for a similar length. Y’all seem perfect for this place. Since you’ll mostly be sitting and entertaining each other. Very smart to hire two of you… Cuz… It’s been tough just me here solo...”

The woman sniffs the air, looking around at the completely frozen arena.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been told this place is the backbone of the entire XWF production cycle. But… uh… it can get dull. You can only go into the stands and switch clothes so many times with members of this audience before this job becomes… tedious…”

Flynn’s eyebrows raise. This time, in confusion. What exactly… is this person doing here?

“Sure, uh… Hey. Dolly didn’t mention what this place… uh… actually does.”

The woman’s eyes light up.

She sputters with excitement.

“Wh-wh-wh-whaaaaaaat? So y’all don’t know why you’re here?”

Flynn is quiet and a little defensive.

“Sorta, kinda… No. We were just given an address.”

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

The lady squeals with excitement, her hands shake, giddy all over with anticipation.

“I GET TO GIVE A TOUR! I’VE BEEN PREPARING MY ENTIRE TIME HERE TO TELL SOMEONE ELSE WHAT THIS PLACE IS LIKE!”

“...Yeah, that’d be gr-.”

“AND NOW… *wheeze*...”

Before Flynn can agree to the tour, NK leans into a crawl, huffing and puffing, retching, as his every muscle spasm exhausts him. He’s a man who has spent every joule of energy in his body seductively dancing.

“And, now… The intermission… eeeeeeeeeeeeends…”

Before NK can kill himself twirling on the floor until his heart gives out, Flynn walks over and picks him off the ground by the scruff of his military jacket.

“How about … We… uh… wrap... seduction later?”

NK nods, as his hands rest on his knees, not a dry patch left on his uniform.

“Yes… Mercy would... be reasonable... Surely any more of my performance would dehydrate her just from how much...”

Flynn smacks NK on the back and he collapses again on the ramp.

“Nope. I didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence.”

***

The three walk down the halls of the KFC! Yum Centre… Past the frozen denizens of the arena.

“So, let’s start with an introduction…”

She turns around and walks backwards to look at her ‘tour ducklings’, as she’s insisted on writing onto name tags and sticking to Flynn’s and NK’s chests.

It might be telling that neither were bothered by the term ‘Tour Duckling’, but got awfully competitive over who was to be labelled Tour Duckling Number One.

They ended up agreeing that Flynn was Tour Duckling #1. And NK was Tour Duckling A.

She smiles wide.

“First off, I’m Maria. I’m Chief of Security here, though I think my official title is Hallway Monitor. Just waiting for the paperwork to clear on my promotion to Security Chief.”

...

“And for the paperwork to be filed.”

...

“And for the paperwork to be filled out.”

She shakes her head, dismissing all of the previous statements.

“Anyway, my job duties… Oh my gosh, where do I start? I monitor the halls.”



“...”



“...”

...

Flynn coughs.

“Hmm! Do you have a question?”

“No, I was just filling the silence.”

“Ah.”

...

As they walk by a stack of TV’s, showing various points in the arena, Maria gets a moment of inspiration

“Oh! SOMETIMES! I look at the security cameras! These are our eyes and ears around the facility!”



NK taps one of the monitors with his finger.

“Hmm, are the screens… working?”

“Oh, Of course! All of the screens are state-of-the-art, 40K monitors…”



“They just… um… happen to show… the frozen audience… And crew.”

Flynn sees this as his opportunity to pretend he just realized the fact that the arena has thousands of frozen people.

“Hey! Yeah, now that you mention it. I guess there are a lot of frozen people around here? What’s their deal?”

“Sorry, I can’t answer that yet. First, we have a couple more tour stops!”

***

The Employee Break room.

The fridge opens and Maria peers in.

There is a single sack lunch sitting in the middle of the drawer.

“This is where you can put your lunch if you bring it to work.”

“Oh. Neat.”



“I write my name on mine so you know it’s mine.”


“It says right here, ‘MARIA’.”



“Please don’t steal my lunch.”



“Any questions so far?”

Flynn raises his hand.

“Questions not about the frozen people.”

Flynn drops his hand.



NK raises his hand.

“Yes?”

“What did you bring for lunch today?”

“Oh, unfortunately, I can't bring my lunch. I haven’t left this arena in five months. I have to sleep in this break room.”

Maria points to the corner of the room where she has an adult-sized sleeping bag and a wrap-around neck pillow like people wear on airplanes.

“But, my lunch appears here in this fridge every morning! Just in time for me to wake up and write my name on it.”

NK’s hand drops. Flynn’s hand pops up.

“No questions about how my lunch appears. Trade secret.”

Flynn sighs. His hand drops.

NK’s hands pops back up.

“Yes?”

“But what IS in the lunch bag?”

“Let’s find out!”

NK nods determinedly. Maria takes it out and opens it.

“Okay, so…” She smiles, delighted. “Sliced turkey sandwich with mayo and cheddar. Apple slices. And an Odwalla Fruit Juice.”

“Mmmmmmmmm.”

NK’s mouth salivates.

Maria’s eyes narrow suspiciously. She closes the fridge door without looking away from NK.

***
A single vending machine rests next to the bucket where Drunk Atty has her hair pulled back by a PA as she vomits into it.

Maria walks up and knocks on the glass of the vending machine.

“Okay so! The vending machine. This is important.”

Maria points to the dollar bill slot and coin slot.

“It says it takes bills and coins BUT it eats fives like ones. HOWEVER, sometimes it thinks nickels are quarters. So… little give and take there.”

NK feverishly is making notes on the quirks of the vending machine in his notebook. Flynn is getting a little impatient, his lip quivers, scrunched, suppressing a building rage...

“Now, B7! Every fifth time you use it, you’ll get two bags of Cheez-Its instead of one.”

“My word! With a mere 15 buttons pressed, I could have EIGHTEEN CHEEZ-ITS BAGS!”

NK guffaws delighted!

Maria joins him in laughing, delighted in sharing these trade secrets.

Flynn stares at the frozen vignette of two woman, eternally vomiting.

He raises his hand.

“Hold your questions about Drunk Atty.”

Flynn exasperatedly drops his hand.

NK raises his hand, holding his notebook to his chest so it stays on the page he’s writing.

“Yes?”

“So, this is one of three vending machines in the arena’s halls. All of which have the same B7 defect?”

“Correct! I can see someone read my tour brochure.”

NK smiles and waves the brochure from its pocket in the front cover of his notebook.

Flynn sighs. He read the brochure cover to cover, but it possessed no valuable intel. Most of it is a map of the arena’s bathrooms, a section called ‘Meet Maria’ where Maria interviews herself about her favorite dog breeds… and the back page is a list of rules for a game called ‘One-Person Hide-n-Seek’.

“So, if it is a standard American vending machine, it can hold 20 snack bags per row… Naturally, my question is… For maximum snack consumption, how often is the vending machine refilled?”

Maria points both her index fingers at NK.

“Great question. Um. I’ve never seen it get refilled. I don’t think it’s standard, because no one has ever come to refill it and it’s never once run out of snacks. And I’ve eaten four thousand two hundred and eighty six bags of cheez-its.”

“Ah, so much like a physics equation where you assume friction is absent, I may assume when calculating my snack input that there is a ceaseless supply of Cheez-its.”

Maria claps excitedly.

“Exactly so!”

Flynn’s hand raises again.

“Sorry, are you saying the vending machine has a limitless supply of Cheez-its?”

Maria’s face suddenly becomes very stoic.

“XWF Trade Secret. I can neither confirm nor deny whether the vending machine utilizes non-Euclidean hyperbolic spacetime to contain infinite Cheez-Its.”



Flynn’s eyes narrow, frustrated.

“Okay, but we’re all XWF employees here, right? You can let us in on...”

“YOU'RE VERY NEARLY ONBOARDED! There’s one more stop! The most exciting stop of all!”

***

Very, very slowly. A Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE C5550i Multi-Function Color Copier and Printer whirs and churns.

Maria stares watching it, with the utmost focus.

NK matches that focus.

Flynn is counting ceiling tiles.

The sounds come to a slow halt. The lights die down.



“Is it ov-”

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Here comes the best part…”

Suddenly, on the printer, a smiley face appears.

It winks.

And a second document starts printing.

Maria looks over at the two, like ‘pretty cool, huh’.

NK is thoroughly impressed, nodding as if this was worth the entire tour.

Flynn is going to kill someone.







After another forty seconds, the document finishes printing.

Maria lifts both printed pages off the tray and holds out one in front of each of her Tour Ducklings.

"Now for the most exciting moment of all! The agreement of Contractual obligations!"

Maria clicks two ballpoints and cross them across her chest, offering the pen in her left hand to Flynn on the right and the pen in her right hand to NK on the left.

“This is an employee NDA. If you’re going to work at this facility, you can’t disclose any trade secrets ever in perpetuity about what goes on here.”

“Just sign and date these and then we’ll answer all your questions!”






Flynn looks at the contract. Then, the pen. Back to the contract.

And knows, full-well, from his occasional escapades impersonating an attorney… Signing a contract in a fake name doesn’t make it null-and-void.

So that’s out.

Suddenly, inspiration.

“Oh, we already signed ours.”

Maria’s eyebrow raised.

“You already signed contracts?”

“Yes, we’re not new hires… per se. We’re transfers."

"Transfers, really?!?"

"Yes, We’re also wrestlers with the company so… We’ve been through some of this before...”

“Oh Wow! I can't believe I don't recognize you!"

...

"Well, I guess I actually can... Like I said earlier, they never hooked up internet here, so I haven't actually watched any XWF stuff in five months...”

Maria suddenly gets excited in the face.

"OH! You guys must be up-to-date on the show! How are Corey and Thad doing? Are they still best friends?"

"PFFFFFFFFFF."

NK starts to scoff, but Flynn punches him in the shoulder.

"Pfff... Like that'd ever change right?"

Flynn laughs and Maria laughs and NK is unamused, sucking air as he rubs his shoulder.

"Haha, I know. Ugh, I just love them so much. I wish I had a friendship like theirs..."

Flynn nods, smiling.

“Anyway... What are your names? I’ll look you up in the employee database.”

...

Flynn hesitates. He doesn’t want any possible paper trail leading XWF to know they stopped by…

“...So… We’re...”

“We’re Ricky Goldhart and Kyodai Monsuta.”

Flynn spins and looks at NK… Puzzled. And then, incredibly impressed, nodding satisfied.

Maria, without looking up, types in the names.

“Aha, there you are. Oh! You’re a tag team! That’s so fun! I wish I had a partner…”

Flynn nods, still legitimately impressed at how quickly NK thought on his feet.

“It has its moments.”

“Especially when you have a partner like Kyodai here.”

NK socks Flynn back in the shoulder.

Flynn curls his lip and glares irritatedly.

NK taps his nose, grinning.

Flynn sighs.

“...Arigato, Ricky.”

Maria beams happily.

“Great… So, let’s do your onboarding Q&A!”

Flynn sighs with relief.

“Awesome, finally! So about the frozen people…”

Beside the printer… Maria lets her hand rest on a lever…

Which slowly descends…

And the entire room…

Rotates.

Chains and pulleys click and clink.

The walls slowly descend as the floor twists beneath them… The tiles slip beneath them one by one… Into a staircase.

The office building style popcorn ceiling lifts… And begins to open into an immaculately textured, steel dome.

It quickly becomes apparent that perhaps it is a trick perspective. The walls are not descending. But the room itself is lifting.

Flynn and NK spin mesmerized as an 8 foot by 8 foot work room transforms…

Into a large theatre...

“Find your seats.”

NK and Flynn shuffle into the middle row, while Maria walks to the side of the theater and presses a large red button embedded into the wall.

From the top of the dome, drops a projector…

The lights sputters on…

To Be Continued...
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