A New Theatrical Edition of the original Border of Reality Roleplay
25 August 2017
Paris, Third French Empire
6:26 PM
Place de la Nation
August is one of the best months to visit Paris.
Sure, in this month the rains of northern France are at their most erratic, sure, the August heatwaves seem to come stronger and with more regularity each year, sure, summer is when that infamous odeur d'urine of Paris is at its strongest, and sure, August is when Paris is the most humid, but that doesn't seem to matter to the tourists and Parisians there at the time. Many natives have left for the Cote d'Azur or the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal. Traffic reduces to a trickle, and the energy of exuberant tourists, blissfully unaware of the yearly rhythm of the City of Lights, seems to infect even the gloomy, condescending locals as well. The whole city is a much more cheerful, nicer place.
That is, if you were metahuman. If not, you could enjoy living like a dog on the street, or worse, getting arrested by the police for no other reason than being human, then being sent to work camps in Algeria and the like. As a result, the streets of Paris were largely free of humans.
Actually, they were free of a lot of metahumans, too, as there was currently a nasty (for Paris) thunderstorm overhead, providing quite a lot of rain and thunder.
Still nothing compared to Eastern Europe or the American Midwest, thought one Valentyna Pasternak. She was a Ukrainian national who had moved to France for opportunities in the nuclear energy sector, and had studied at the University of Chicago to get her degree in nuclear physics.This storm was nothing compared to the supercells there.
For a country with such a storied military history, these people truly have no spine, being afraid of nothing more than glorified static shock. There are far too many buildings for it to be a concern here.
Elsewhere in town, an unmarked green semi-trailer truck with British license plates rolled up to the Cours de Vincennes entry of the Place de la Nation. All You Need Is Love's opening trumpets played over the radio as the driver, one Elisa Marshall, stared blankly at the statue in the center of the square. Unbeknownst to most of the surrounding pedestrians, this truck was an ATF transport truck, smuggling nonmetas from all across northern France to their main French headquarters within the city.
The irony of the statue's name, Triumph of the Republic, was not lost on her.
Nor was the sensation of an out-of-control Peugeot taxi crashing into her. She was unhurt, her truck was only lightly damaged, but the little French taxi looked pretty damaged.
"Bloody Christ!"
She rolled down the window just in time for a heavily-smoking, angry French-Algerian man and his Japanese passengers to start yelling at her. So naturally she started yelling back.
"Now listen here, I wasn't the one trying to run a stoplight like Sir Stirling Moss- no, I will not pay your damages, and it is not my bloody- Will you at least let me get a sentence in? You're lucky my cargo's undamaged, you- Oi! Don't you talk about my mum like that!"
This minor scene caught the attention of Valentyna, who hadn't been far away. As a matter of fact, it seemed to be drawing a fair amount of attention. It was a busy intersection, after all.