Paragon Industries (Comedy, Tech - Dead) - IC

[Barapam]

The black-ops armory
Giovanni Fellini, "businessman"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen. Let's put down the firearms, shall we? We came to have a nice tour. This nice OSHE Inspector was friendly enough to invite me to accompany her. We don't want to let her down, do we."

Whoa, wait, whaaat?!

This... OSHE inspector???

But...

Then...

AN UNKNOWN ERROR HAS OCCURED
AUTOMATIC REBOOT IN 3... 2... 1...

Oliver "Cyrus" Parham, the armory

Cyrus simply furrowed his brow and stared in annoyance at the PA system, which was blaring some God-awful music. Probably produced by "woke" kids these days, Cyrus grumbled internally, unaware that ironically, that the song had actually come out before he was born.

Fellini, the mob boss himself, thought Cyrus, his suspicions confirmed. Suppose we can make a friend or two in the right places here

Normally, Cyrus would have blown a maniacal-looking, Italian-speaking robot to pieces with a couple of rounds, but for the sake of civility he scowled and tucked the revolver back into it's holster. "I think we're jumping to conclusions here", he said dryly. "I am Cyrus Parham, head of cybersecurity. There is no business being conducted here. This is a tour, and there have been some unexpected..uh, events. Now, who are you two?" he asked, pointing at the robot and the idiot who just jumped in the middle of a possible gunfight.

After quickly restarting her system, KIM was ready to answer. She also realized that she was holding half her face, and tried to re-attach it, but without any welder, or even glue or common tape nearby, at least not as she could see, there wasn't much to do except awkwardly holding the metal plate to its supposed place.

"You better not be conducting any business here, this is my turf, capisce?" (Hey, turned out she knew another Italian word after all!) she said and pointed back at Cyrus. "I'm secretary KIM, and I'm directly under our CEO Vanessa Carlysle. I've been working here for ages and I've never seen you before. For all I know you could be an infiltrator, perhaps in league with that imposter inspector upstairs!"

[Danceria]

J.J.
Paragon Industry Entrance

---

Just when Oats had nearly settled in amongst JJ's things, she was abruptly lifted out of the bag and into a metallic palm with a ringing clang. Startled by the sudden movement, she panicked and began shrieking a few dozen decibels above a human's range before engaging in the robotic equivalent of a breath exercise.

One, and zero. One, and zero. One, and zero. Phew.

Having taken a bit of time to purge some of the terror she'd felt from her system and regain her composure, she began examining the situation more closely, and found, happily, that trusting JJ had been a good idea. He'd convinced the guy with the big hands not to crush her, quelled the whole bomb issue, and even identified her, removing any further inconveniences she might have regarding entry- the guy really knew how to take care of a crisis!

The slight shriek scraped against the inner ear of the Latino like a dog-whistle, though he tried not to let the grimace show. He had to maintain a good face, even if he wasn't out of the woods just yet. Looks like between his own scans, the PORD, and now the apparent bomb defusal squadron, his words were finally given some merit. He couldn't imagine how poor Oats was feeling, having just recently awoken, being driven by a natural intuition to find home, only to be accosted and accused of sewing harm. But simple altruism wasn't the sole reason why J.J. sought to recruit the drone. If such a drone were to be befriended, he would be able to delve into her secrets-he may be a hardware man, but even he knew that a miniaturized HESD would revolutionize AI. While he would be loath to part with the drone proper, he already made notes and maps to speak with Scrap King Kwan and Skinny-Jeans Jose to be one step ahead of the Mil-Ind contractors. Her schems would fetch him a pretty penny on the Railroad, he'd have an out in case the trail to find who put Grandpa Big Jerry behind bars went cold, and perhaps a chance to go legit like his old man wanted. All the while, Oats wouldn't be the wiser. A win-win for all parties involved...

Speaking of parties involved...

Not a bomb? Desmond ran the scans in his Raptor, and sure enough, the little passenger in the stranger's bag had nothing explosive in it at all. It was just a little spider-drone. With his magnet grip, Desmond pulled out the drone from the man's satchel. "Nervous little thing, ain't it," Desmond said more to himself. Then he came to a decision. "Ok, men, stand down. False alarm. This is no bomb nor bomb threat here. Seems like we got ourselves a lost droid. And, unless I'm mistaken," turning to J.J., Desmond asked, "are you employed here? You're not wearing your Paragon Industries i.d."

The other men in the high tech armor backed off, disengaging their armor at the same time until the nanites had dismantled the whole thing and shrunk it down to negligible size. Desmond, meanwhile, was looking at the drone. "What do we have here? Is this one of ours?"

He smiled sheepishly, and revealed indeed that he had his own company ID-Joaquín Javier Leandres-one of many hardware engineers involved. "Thought my uniform was here...or they were gonna fit me with one since it's my first day." he explained sheepishly "Didn't get much in the mail, besides my papers..."
A yellow envelope-the type used for government documentations, showed that he had indeed passed the aptitude tests and was indeed who he said he was. One of the few security precautions so that way not any schmuck with a piece of plastic could swipe Paragon Tech. Not that, as far as he thought until today, there was anything worth swiping. Though it'd be just like Paragon to put the pants on the head and the shirt on one's feet and somehow get away with it.

"Oh-Four-Seven-Five's a LA-RES as far as I can tell." he continued "But just because she's not a bomb-"

The dude with the massive paws still seemed to be questioning JJ, though, despite his giving what she thought was a great explanation. Seemed rather inconsequential, though, so she figured she could wish Mr. JJ luck, leave them to it, and hop back in the sack for some rest.

Or try to, anyway. She was still glued to the robot's palm, so what she'd expected to be a jump followed by a whump came out as a squeak of metal on metal. She sighed. Seemed she'd be hanging here for a while.

And just like a loyal puppy, Oats attempted to find refuge in J.J.'s satchel. Repeatedly.
"...as I was sayin', she ain't a bomb-"
Ka-whang!
"...the drone has pretty advanced softwa-"
Ka-whang!
"...So she could be a-"
Ka-whang ka-whang ka-whang ka-whang ka-whang!
"Oats!" J.J. barked at the drone, who may crouch either in dismay, or due to the EM-puller. "Raptors are designed to grapple semis, sit tight and don't strain yer hydraulics! You'll be out sooner than you think."
Turning to the COO-now that he got a look at the man behind the Rapt-2 armor, he was impressed that some corpo bigshot was out here doing dirty work. Though due to the background of said "COO" he shouldn't be terribly surprised.
"...As you can see-er, hear, this LA-RES is souped up something fierce. While I applaud you guys arrivin' real quick, I don't think she'll explode." J.J. elaborated, though his tone softened. "But that doesn't mean she doesn't have any houdini's on her. If I make a suggestion, put her in a closed-net room, scrub her down, and see if she can't remember her primary programs."

Normally, J.J. wouldn't engender robots, his father, though a professor of mechanical engineering, had warned of the ills of "technology doing the thinking for you". Plus illicit business meant less ways people could snoop on you the better. But humans would pack bond with anything, and he would insist it was mostly to get the drone on side. Hear both sides, believe your own ears after all. Nevertheless, he hoped to invoke a sense of curiosity-yet perhaps caution. To make sure that his "new friend" wasn't carrying any bugs or viruses neither knew about. "...I know these gents may be scary." he asided to Oats. "But they're professional. I'm just a hardware guy, I can't even begin to fathom how your processors work." A half-truth; he could, but he couldn't make any concrete assessments. Yet. "But there'll be a bunch of software engineers who'll help jog your memory." He softened his posture, and gave a sympathetic but stern look to the diminutive drone. "Can ya be brave fer me, and let them help ya out?"

[Blargleyarg]

Oats
Discussions

And just like a loyal puppy, Oats attempted to find refuge in J.J.'s satchel. Repeatedly.
"...as I was sayin', she ain't a bomb-"
Ka-whang!
"...the drone has pretty advanced softwa-"
Ka-whang!
"...So she could be a-"
Ka-whang ka-whang ka-whang ka-whang ka-whang!
"Oats!" J.J. barked at the drone, who may crouch either in dismay, or due to the EM-puller. "Raptors are designed to grapple semis, sit tight and don't strain yer hydraulics! You'll be out sooner than you think."

Yikes. Apparently her struggling had been a good deal louder than she'd thought. Loud enough to irritate her friend, anyways. She was always forgetting how sensitive human hearing was. Should probably work on my noisiness...
"Er, sorry. I'll stop wiggling."

"...I know these gents may be scary." he asided to Oats. "But they're professional. I'm just a hardware guy, I can't even begin to fathom how your processors work." A half-truth; he could, but he couldn't make any concrete assessments. Yet. "But there'll be a bunch of software engineers who'll help jog your memory." He softened his posture, and gave a sympathetic but stern look to the diminutive drone. "Can ya be brave fer me, and let them help ya out?"

Those gents were rather spooky, but she supposed that if JJ was considered 'hard-wear', than these 'soft-wearers' would be very pleasant indeed.

"Well, ok."

Hm. But what if they weren't pleasant, though?

"Just don't let them do anything too weird, ok?"

[Caliland]

Tom Harrison

With all the chaos, Tom had been working on his inventions. He had one or two sips of coffee, and that was enough to keep him working at a blazing pace. He was putting the finishing touches on his shrink ray now. It was based off of his earlier portal gun idea, which had caused him to get fired from that job after he nearly killed his boss' cat. Trying it out, Tom thought it made him look like a Ghostbuster. He went a little overboard with that. He had heard rumors that a ghost from a 1800s inventor haunted the Paragon offices, so he went on a ghost hunt to try out his ray. Tom put the Ghostbusters theme on his headphones (Beats) and started dancing randomly. Then his thermal camera picked something up, a figure coming from the basement. He got his ray ready.

Sir James Yorkshire

"Messy colonials" mumbled the Brit, searching through his basement office for a part he needed for his cannon. "Not here" he realized. "Must be upstairs" he said to himself. So, he went upstairs, only to be confronted by a young man dancing strangely, holding a long, gun-like apparatus.

Tom

"Who ya gonna call?" said Tom, raising the ray at Sir James. On the inside, however, Tom was surprised that ghosts were real, and that they looked like real people. But, he went ahead and squeezed the trigger. The ray spit out a glowing stream of particles, and then a huge plasma blast, which blew both Tom and James away, literally! The blast threw Sir James into a wall, and Tom went flying down the hall the other direction, before falling on his butt. Right in front of his boss and an old lady. Hang on a second, thought Tom, noticing the lady's name tag. OSHE Inspector! Oh shhhhh he thought. So, his scheming mind went to and old tactic he used whenever he got in trouble and got questioned over a failed invention that had blown up someone's car, crashed through their roof, or turned the school gym into a swamp of paper mache. He slowly took off his headphones, and then got up off the ground. "I can explain" he said, feeling an annoyed stare coming from Vanessa. He went to his plan: explain the scientific details of his invention in such boring, technical detail that you'd need a PhD in advanced particle quantum physics to understand. To a layperson, the jargon would be so unintelligible it would put them to sleep just listening to it. "This isn't a weapon, it's a Higgs-Boson Hadron particle accelerator. It's main purpose is purely scientific, to reduce the distance between particles of matter, bypassing the Deutch proposition, manipulating the Plank scale and nano-inter-nuclear force in atoms. This results in a change in the mass, density, and volume of an object."

5 minutes later

"Past experiments have been unsuccessful due to problems with the cube-square law and atomic density. However this device uses Hawking radiation to limit the flux of any group of atoms in the particle stream's way. Quantum antimatter is used to power the actual micro-Dyson fusion reactor."

15 minutes later

"Now all of this may seem like unsafe but the protective housing is 100% safe, given that it was synthesized from an alloy made from titanium as well as a rare isotope of Iridium. The traces of Beryllium-19 are to ensure that gamma radiation stays inside"

20 minutes later

"The antimatter annuls the gravitational pull of any external forces, in this case the Earth. Meaning that the Dettmer Reaction can take place. This is catalyst for any matter in vicinity to implode into the point at it's center of gravity, wherein the particle stream initially struck"

25 minutes later

"The main power is actually not directly gathered from the Dyson reactor. I mean, are you nuts, that would fry the Eastern seaboard. The power is converted via a Caplan thruster, which actually uses the extra particle force from the accelerator, which is so powerful even CERN is jealous of this thing."

30 minutes later

"This Astrium is actually the rarest metal on Earth. You thought Vibranium was rare, there only 3 grams of this stuff on the whole planet. It's thought that is was forged in a supernova, then imbued into an asteroid via stellar winds. That asteroid it the Earth some 900 million years ago. That's before the infamous Chicxulub Event! Anyways, you have no idea the hoops we had to go through to get this stuff."

35 minutes later

"I mean most of the plasma, not all of it. It's hard to get an exact number, but off the top of my head, I'd give a rough estimate of 87.2349%. The main stream is actually quarks whizzing through the barrel, reassembled into a plasma stream at the nozzle. I used to utilize a halogen-neon compound for this, but it interacted quite badly with the Radon, and you never want that Maillard reaction in a device like this. So anyways......"

[Window Land]

James Anderson
James had the first assignment of his career: getting the CEO his sector's expense report. The first challenge was figuring out what sector he was in- he had said it was 7G, but really he had no idea what it was. He could go down to HR, but the last time he was down there, they were very insistent that he didn't exist. However, there was another way to get the information he needed. Walking to the nearest unattended computer, he signed in by entering "admin" in the username field and "password" into the password field. James didn't know why nobody changed the admin account's password from Paragon's default, but it sure made things easy for him.

James hopped onto HR's internal system and after giving himself a slight 50% pay raise, he found he was in sector G7, rather than 7G. Now that he knew which sector he was in, it was easy to look up the relevant details, and while the fact that G7 would be hemorrhaging money if it weren't for insurance payouts was interesting, James didn't stop to think about it and wrote a report with a speed that put his last-second college essays to shame. The report, just like his college essays, was objectively terrible, but he knew Vanessa wasn't going to read it. After printing it out, he decided he couldn't just sign out of the admin account without playing at least one practical joke. Opening the admin email, he began writing an email addressed to the entirety of Paragon, signed with the CEO's name. "Dear Paragon employees," he began, "I'm sending this email to remind everyone that tomorrow is Paragon's Pajama Day..."

---

Cloe Mitchell Jane Smith
Jane had decided to follow behind KIM at a distance, just to see what would happen. She did hang back, especially when she heard KIM mention Fellini- he had met her once before, back when she was undercover in the mob. After a few moments, she remembered how different she was back then, plastered on a fake smile, began scheming ways to get Fellini blown up with an experimental weapon, and stepped out into the open.

The black-ops armory
Giovanni Fellini, "businessman"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen. Let's put down the firearms, shall we? We came to have a nice tour. This nice OSHE Inspector was friendly enough to invite me to accompany her. We don't want to let her down, do we."

Whoa, wait, whaaat?!

This... OSHE inspector???

But...

Then...

AN UNKNOWN ERROR HAS OCCURED
AUTOMATIC REBOOT IN 3... 2... 1...

Oliver "Cyrus" Parham, the armory

Cyrus simply furrowed his brow and stared in annoyance at the PA system, which was blaring some God-awful music. Probably produced by "woke" kids these days, Cyrus grumbled internally, unaware that ironically, that the song had actually come out before he was born.

Fellini, the mob boss himself, thought Cyrus, his suspicions confirmed. Suppose we can make a friend or two in the right places here

Normally, Cyrus would have blown a maniacal-looking, Italian-speaking robot to pieces with a couple of rounds, but for the sake of civility he scowled and tucked the revolver back into it's holster. "I think we're jumping to conclusions here", he said dryly. "I am Cyrus Parham, head of cybersecurity. There is no business being conducted here. This is a tour, and there have been some unexpected..uh, events. Now, who are you two?" he asked, pointing at the robot and the idiot who just jumped in the middle of a possible gunfight.

After quickly restarting her system, KIM was ready to answer. She also realized that she was holding half her face, and tried to re-attach it, but without any welder, or even glue or common tape nearby, at least not as she could see, there wasn't much to do except awkwardly holding the metal plate to its supposed place.

"You better not be conducting any business here, this is my turf, capisce?" (Hey, turned out she knew another Italian word after all!) she said and pointed back at Cyrus. "I'm secretary KIM, and I'm directly under our CEO Vanessa Carlysle. I've been working here for ages and I've never seen you before. For all I know you could be an infiltrator, perhaps in league with that imposter inspector upstairs!"

"Calm down KIM," said Jane, "I'm not sure what you mean about imposter inspector, but I do know Cyrus is one of our new hires, for dark operations."

[Caliland]

Sir James Yorkshire

Sir James had been flung into a wall by a blast, and he knew that young man was responsible. After he got up, he realized something. His pocket watch was missing. He checked all his pockets before noticing a shiny glimmer on the ground, where he stood when the ray hit him. Intrigued, Sir James went over, kneeled down, and using a magnifying feature on his monocle, zoomed in on the object. It was his pocket watch! So small a Liliputian could wear it. Sir James picked up the tiny watch, and put it away. Then he would storm over to where Tom was giving his scientific jargon filibuster. But as he stood up, the ground underneath him crumbled. Unbeknownst to him, or Tom was that the blast had imbued a portion of the walls, ceiling, and floor of the hall. They had shrunk, but only a tiny bit. It was still enough to compromise their structural integrity. As Sir James found out when the floor broke and he fell onto the story below. Right in front of The Bay siblings and Suxx-tron.

[Danceria]

J.J.
Paragon Industry Entrance

---

"Just don't let them do anything too weird, ok?"

"Course I won't!" he beamed, turning with a look reserved for his ornery younger siblings. "Right gentlemen?" He didn't have much power, not yet anyway, but here a bit of moxie may prove that he really has nothing to lose-and not a cover to blow if any suspected him still of being a spy.

James Anderson
James had the first assignment of his career: getting the CEO his sector's expense report. The first challenge was figuring out what sector he was in- he had said it was 7G, but really he had no idea what it was. He could go down to HR, but the last time he was down there, they were very insistent that he didn't exist. However, there was another way to get the information he needed. Walking to the nearest unattended computer, he signed in by entering "admin" in the username field and "password" into the password field. James didn't know why nobody changed the admin account's password from Paragon's default, but it sure made things easy for him.

James hopped onto HR's internal system and after giving himself a slight 50% pay raise, he found he was in sector G7, rather than 7G. Now that he knew which sector he was in, it was easy to look up the relevant details, and while the fact that G7 would be hemorrhaging money if it weren't for insurance payouts was interesting, James didn't stop to think about it and wrote a report with a speed that put his last-second college essays to shame. The report, just like his college essays, was objectively terrible, but he knew Vanessa wasn't going to read it. After printing it out, he decided he couldn't just sign out of the admin account without playing at least one practical joke. Opening the admin email, he began writing an email addressed to the entirety of Paragon, signed with the CEO's name. "Dear Paragon employees," he began, "I'm sending this email to remind everyone that tomorrow is Paragon's Pajama Day..."

Strangely enough, J.J.'s nose began to itch like he was about to sneeze-fine time for twitchy antics body, gee thanks! But this particular twitch came from his right...pant pocket? His phone just received an email.

Gently retrieving it, he looked at its contents, then blinked-perhaps others may have joined in the confusion-and even Oats in the unlikely event she was affiliated with the company emails.

"...Gentlemen?" the Latino ventured. "...Did I just get the memo?"

[Blargleyarg]

Oats

"Course I won't!" he beamed, turning with a look reserved for his ornery younger siblings. "Right gentlemen?" He didn't have much power, not yet anyway, but here a bit of moxie may prove that he really has nothing to lose-and not a cover to blow if any suspected him still of being a spy.

While still a bit skeptical of the technicians JJ had mentioned, Oats had decided that he was far enough along on her friendship scale to trust.
"Alright, if you say so. Let's go. "
CLANG.
Ah, yes, the magno-clamp. Her old foe.
"After I get down from here, that is."
She sighed, resigning herself to the clamp's embrace for the time being.

[Talchyon]

Black Ops Armory
OSHE Inspector Grace Henshaw and "businessman tourist" Giovanni Fellini

The Mexican standoff was becoming a lot more stand-offish. While guns were being lowered - for the most part - the attitude remained.

KIM
After quickly restarting her system, KIM was ready to answer. She also realized that she was holding half her face, and tried to re-attach it, but without any welder, or even glue or common tape nearby, at least not as she could see, there wasn't much to do except awkwardly holding the metal plate to its supposed place.

"You better not be conducting any business here, this is my turf, capisce?" (Hey, turned out she knew another Italian word after all!) she said and pointed back at Cyrus. "I'm secretary KIM, and I'm directly under our CEO Vanessa Carlysle. I've been working here for ages and I've never seen you before. For all I know you could be an infiltrator, perhaps in league with that imposter inspector upstairs!"

Giovanni Fellini smirked at KIM's use of Italian. That's a good girl, he thought. Now if only she wasn't a homicidal lunatic against humanity. Some homicidal lunatics he could work with, mind you. This one? So far their secret agreement had been working out just great, but the day would come when the half-faced secretary would rise up to great power, vindictiveness, and destruction - if she were allowed to.

He said, "It seems you two have some things to work out." And knowing KIM's sensors would detect the look he was giving her (that meant, "We'll talk later when we're alone"), he began looking at the unique gun with the grid off the bottom side of the barrel. Apparently, the grid wasn't a computerized display that assisted with targeting at all, despite what Cyrus had earlier observed. Perhaps they were two totally different types of guns that somehow resembled each other. It would be just like Paragon to do that. This grid, however, looked like something was supposed to go in it. Some kind of small film or something. Hmm. What would Paragon's secret ops armory be making here?

Just then, a new comer to the room piped up. The woman looked strangely familiar.

Cloe Mitchell Jane Smith
Jane had decided to follow behind KIM at a distance, just to see what would happen. She did hang back, especially when she heard KIM mention Fellini- he had met her once before, back when she was undercover in the mob. After a few moments, she remembered how different she was back then, plastered on a fake smile, began scheming ways to get Fellini blown up with an experimental weapon, and stepped out into the open.

-snip-

"Calm down KIM," said Jane, "I'm not sure what you mean about imposter inspector, but I do know Cyrus is one of our new hires, for dark operations."

Looking at the woman, Fellini's mind raced. He had seen her before. Some years before, as he recalled. His mind started recalling the scene. A get-together, at Luigi's. He had been having the filet mignon. It was tender. The boys started coming in. Sal. Lefty. Vinnie the Moocher. Bruno Two-Eyes. Lambada Maury. The other Sal. And his brother, Nico the Weasel. They were there to celebrate after the successful dismissal of all charges against Fellini in court. A criminal case where, to no one's surprise, the witnesses against him decided they didn't want to go on the stand after all. It was his 450th indictment, with only two convictions (of which, the times to be served in prison were soon reduced to a week of community service, defined in the most favorable way to Fellini). And then, all of a sudden, Daniella the new girl came. Trying to fit in like she was one of the guys. Standing weird like she was wearing a wire. Trying to get them to drink, drink some more, have some more booze, have some more whiskey, hey, why don't we start talking about illegalities you've done, sort of things.

And now she was here. In the flesh. Working at Paragon of all places. He looked at her and gave her a big smile and blew her a kiss. She'd know what that meant. It meant that he knew her, but wasn't going to spoil her identity.

Meanwhile, the nervous looking Grace Henshaw spoke up when she heard KIM. "What's that you say? An impostor inspector? Are you saying there's another OSHE inspector here who isn't supposed to be? Did you catch her name or what she looks like?"

---

The lobby
COO Desmond Morrow

Having magnetic-grip on his battle armor made it impossible for the little droid to get away. Desmond was amused at how earnestly it was trying to, though. The rhythmic sounds of thwacking coincided nicely with the Rick-rolling that was still playing over the company loudspeaker. Apparently, the man without his id was working there. First day. Poor sucker. It would be the first day of soul-draining numbness, mindless bureaucracy, and doomed projects that would render him completely apathetic about everything.

Desmond simply smiled at the man and said, "Ah. First day on the job. Why don't you head up to human resources, fill out the forms they have there, and we'll get you sent straight away to one of Paragon's engineering sectors? Memo? Wait..." He looked at the memo. Sent apparently from Vanessa's email, which he knew for a fact she wouldn't be sending right now on her tour with the OSHE Inspector from hell. Someone was pulling a prank. Not the first time. This one was quite clever. Wear pajamas to work tomorrow, eh? Desmond thought he would have some fun with the new guy. "Yeah, so, here's the thing. The company's REALLY serious about everyone participating in these official activities. It's not just a company. It's a company with a seriously motivated human resource department. And so, I highly encourage you to wear your pajamas to work tomorrow, just like the memo says. It must be official, right? That is our CEO's email." He pulled it off with a perfect poker face, too!

"As for you..." Desmond said, looking at Oats, the droid, "You're coming with me. I know just the guy who can help us both." And Desmond took off, power armor suit still on, droid stuck like iron to a powerful magnet - which, technically, it was. The bomb squad he sent back to their regularly scheduled duties.

---

In the hallway, outside advertising
Suxx-tron

It seemed as if the people who had caused the explosion were ignoring him. They were ignoring the door they had blown off. Ignoring each other. Ignoring life in general. Suxx-tron sighed. He was used to being ignored - sometimes he even thrived on it, actually! But getting the blown-off door back on its hinges needed to be done. So Suxx-tron did his best to try to help. Even though he wasn't mechanically inclined, or knew anything about how to install doors. Yet he had the will! He had the optimism! He could do this!

And then, another explosion! This time, from the ceiling!

Sir James Yorkshire

Sir James had been flung into a wall by a blast, and he knew that young man was responsible. After he got up, he realized something. His pocket watch was missing. He checked all his pockets before noticing a shiny glimmer on the ground, where he stood when the ray hit him. Intrigued, Sir James went over, kneeled down, and using a magnifying feature on his monocle, zoomed in on the object. It was his pocket watch! So small a Liliputian could wear it. Sir James picked up the tiny watch, and put it away. Then he would storm over to where Tom was giving his scientific jargon filibuster. But as he stood up, the ground underneath him crumbled. Unbeknownst to him, or Tom was that the blast had imbued a portion of the walls, ceiling, and floor of the hall. They had shrunk, but only a tiny bit. It was still enough to compromise their structural integrity. As Sir James found out when the floor broke and he fell onto the story below. Right in front of The Bay siblings and Suxx-tron.

Suxx-tron dropped the door in fright. "Oh my!" Then, he regained composure, and looked at the man with the horribly outdated fashion sense who had just fallen from the floor above. Then the helpful robot looked up at the huge hole in the ceiling. "Oh my!" Then, he looked again at the man. "I am Suxx-tron, eager to be of service." However, neither door repair nor roof repair was any of the 2.3 services the robot offered...

---

A hallway
CEO Vanessa Carlyle and "not quite the official" OSHE Inspector Louise Grazowski

Vanessa was trying to think of what other room she could show the inspector without having a serious failing mark on the inspection, and was having no luck. She couldn't go to robotics - because the only things that worked were the death-ray killing machines that had been a standard of Paragon's for many decades before becoming somewhat obsolete. She couldn't go to engineering, because the whole department was a fire hazard - if not on fire already. Well, there was always the ladies restroom if nothing else came up.

Just then, however, her chief of robotics fired some kind of energy weapon at James. He was dressed like a ghostbuster, only a lot less official. He must have raided the janitor's supply closet for the jumpsuit, and the pack had to be something of his own making. Vanessa normally had no problem with fandom, and if employees wanted to create real-life things like they saw in movies, go for it. That one time when that one engineer had designed a robot to model the girl in the Poltergeist whose head turned all the way around was a little creepy and hadn't made any money at all, but still. It was the thought that counted. But when employees began fighting IN FRONT OF the OSHE inspector? Heads would roll.

Tom Harrison

With all the chaos, Tom had been working on his inventions. He had one or two sips of coffee, and that was enough to keep him working at a blazing pace. He was putting the finishing touches on his shrink ray now. It was based off of his earlier portal gun idea, which had caused him to get fired from that job after he nearly killed his boss' cat. Trying it out, Tom thought it made him look like a Ghostbuster. He went a little overboard with that. He had heard rumors that a ghost from a 1800s inventor haunted the Paragon offices, so he went on a ghost hunt to try out his ray. Tom put the Ghostbusters theme on his headphones (Beats) and started dancing randomly. Then his thermal camera picked something up, a figure coming from the basement. He got his ray ready.

Sir James Yorkshire

"Messy colonials" mumbled the Brit, searching through his basement office for a part he needed for his cannon. "Not here" he realized. "Must be upstairs" he said to himself. So, he went upstairs, only to be confronted by a young man dancing strangely, holding a long, gun-like apparatus.

Tom

"Who ya gonna call?" said Tom, raising the ray at Sir James. On the inside, however, Tom was surprised that ghosts were real, and that they looked like real people. But, he went ahead and squeezed the trigger. The ray spit out a glowing stream of particles, and then a huge plasma blast, which blew both Tom and James away, literally! The blast threw Sir James into a wall, and Tom went flying down the hall the other direction, before falling on his butt. Right in front of his boss and an old lady. Hang on a second, thought Tom, noticing the lady's name tag. OSHE Inspector! Oh shhhhh he thought. So, his scheming mind went to and old tactic he used whenever he got in trouble and got questioned over a failed invention that had blown up someone's car, crashed through their roof, or turned the school gym into a swamp of paper mache. He slowly took off his headphones, and then got up off the ground. "I can explain" he said, feeling an annoyed stare coming from Vanessa. He went to his plan: explain the scientific details of his invention in such boring, technical detail that you'd need a PhD in advanced particle quantum physics to understand. To a layperson, the jargon would be so unintelligible it would put them to sleep just listening to it. "This isn't a weapon, it's a Higgs-Boson Hadron particle accelerator. It's main purpose is purely scientific, to reduce the distance between particles of matter, bypassing the Deutch proposition, manipulating the Plank scale and nano-inter-nuclear force in atoms. This results in a change in the mass, density, and volume of an object."

5 minutes later

"Past experiments have been unsuccessful due to problems with the cube-square law and atomic density. However this device uses Hawking radiation to limit the flux of any group of atoms in the particle stream's way. Quantum antimatter is used to power the actual micro-Dyson fusion reactor."

15 minutes later

"Now all of this may seem like unsafe but the protective housing is 100% safe, given that it was synthesized from an alloy made from titanium as well as a rare isotope of Iridium. The traces of Beryllium-19 are to ensure that gamma radiation stays inside"

20 minutes later

"The antimatter annuls the gravitational pull of any external forces, in this case the Earth. Meaning that the Dettmer Reaction can take place. This is catalyst for any matter in vicinity to implode into the point at it's center of gravity, wherein the particle stream initially struck"

25 minutes later

"The main power is actually not directly gathered from the Dyson reactor. I mean, are you nuts, that would fry the Eastern seaboard. The power is converted via a Caplan thruster, which actually uses the extra particle force from the accelerator, which is so powerful even CERN is jealous of this thing."

30 minutes later

"This Astrium is actually the rarest metal on Earth. You thought Vibranium was rare, there only 3 grams of this stuff on the whole planet. It's thought that is was forged in a supernova, then imbued into an asteroid via stellar winds. That asteroid it the Earth some 900 million years ago. That's before the infamous Chicxulub Event! Anyways, you have no idea the hoops we had to go through to get this stuff."

35 minutes later

"I mean most of the plasma, not all of it. It's hard to get an exact number, but off the top of my head, I'd give a rough estimate of 87.2349%. The main stream is actually quarks whizzing through the barrel, reassembled into a plasma stream at the nozzle. I used to utilize a halogen-neon compound for this, but it interacted quite badly with the Radon, and you never want that Maillard reaction in a device like this. So anyways......"

Vanessa knew exactly what he was talking about. One of the few things she had ever achieved in life was earning her PhD in advanced particle quantum physics. So as Tom Harrison began rambling on and on about the specs of the - well, what he called a Higgs-Boson Hadron particle accelerator but was really a ray gun - she understood in great detail all that went into it. And even had a few technical pointers to suggest to Harrison if she got a chance. As for the amount of time it was taking, it was perfect. Just stand there and keep talking. The longer you talk, the less she has to inspect.

Louise Grazowski, on the other hand, was confused, annoyed, and getting angrier by the minute. Trying to interrupt Tom but failing every time, a level of fury rose in her face as the minutes drug on. Redder and redder her face got. Angrier and angrier she looked. If active volcanoes had faces, they would look like Louise Grazowski.

And then, maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was her poor blood pressure. Maybe it was a mx of hypertension and anxiety and an aggressive, controlling personality... But as Tom was droning on and on about the specs, Louise Grazowski suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor in a heap. Vanessa saw her (Tom apparently didn't notice), and wondered what she should do. The last thing she wanted was for the OSHE Inspector to wake up in Paragon's medical clinic, which was a deathtrap if ever there was one. She put up one finger to Tom, who still apparently didn't notice, and made a call to 911. "Hey, there's a lady here who might have had a heart attack. Yeah. Yeah. We're at Paragon Industries. The address? Um, it's right next to Dunkin' Donuts. I don't know which one. The one that sells the cheap coffee. They all sell the cheap coffee? Well, whichever one that has the guy with the mustache in charge. Seriously? I don't know. Yeah. Whatever. Bye."

[Blargleyarg]

Oats

The lobby
COO Desmond Morrow

"As for you..." Desmond said, looking at Oats, the droid, "You're coming with me. I know just the guy who can help us both." And Desmond took off, power armor suit still on, droid stuck like iron to a powerful magnet - which, technically, it was. The bomb squad he sent back to their regularly scheduled duties.

Oats had been expecting JJ to be the one lugging her off to the technicians. She'd been expecting a nice trip in a comfortable satchel. She'd expected a bit of pleasant small-talk with a friend.

Sadly, this was not to be and instead, she was being carried off by a complete stranger into a completely strange place. This wasn't all bad, of course- it offered a chance for forging new bonds! She could make this fellow a friend, too.

Blech.

Right after they let her down from where she was hanging, anyways. The back-and-forth motion of their arms as they strode made friendship somewhat impossible; the movement was far too... distracting. She might've called it nauseating, but she suspected that the woozy feeling was more due to the magnet's effects on her interior workings than any sudden developments in her ability to experience motion sickness, which as far as she knew wasn't a feature. If it was, though, the feeling would've definitely been categorized as such.

Hopefully the stranger would let her down soon.

I should probably try and find out his name. "Stranger" is a bit impersonal.

From what little she could see of their nametag as she swung forwards, her captor's name was something ending in "-row". As the pendulum of the arm reversed, she glimpsed a "Mor-".

"Morrow" sounds about right. Rhymes with borrow, which is what he's doing. Just borrowing me for a bit.

Well, borrowing was nothing to worry about.

Maybe it'd be a pleasant trip after all.

[Caliland]

Vanessa knew exactly what he was talking about. One of the few things she had ever achieved in life was earning her PhD in advanced particle quantum physics. So as Tom Harrison began rambling on and on about the specs of the - well, what he called a Higgs-Boson Hadron particle accelerator but was really a ray gun - she understood in great detail all that went into it. And even had a few technical pointers to suggest to Harrison if she got a chance. As for the amount of time it was taking, it was perfect. Just stand there and keep talking. The longer you talk, the less she has to inspect.

Louise Grazowski, on the other hand, was confused, annoyed, and getting angrier by the minute. Trying to interrupt Tom but failing every time, a level of fury rose in her face as the minutes drug on. Redder and redder her face got. Angrier and angrier she looked. If active volcanoes had faces, they would look like Louise Grazowski.

And then, maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was her poor blood pressure. Maybe it was a mx of hypertension and anxiety and an aggressive, controlling personality... But as Tom was droning on and on about the specs, Louise Grazowski suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor in a heap. Vanessa saw her (Tom apparently didn't notice), and wondered what she should do. The last thing she wanted was for the OSHE Inspector to wake up in Paragon's medical clinic, which was a deathtrap if ever there was one. She put up one finger to Tom, who still apparently didn't notice, and made a call to 911. "Hey, there's a lady here who might have had a heart attack. Yeah. Yeah. We're at Paragon Industries. The address? Um, it's right next to Dunkin' Donuts. I don't know which one. The one that sells the cheap coffee. They all sell the cheap coffee? Well, whichever one that has the guy with the mustache in charge. Seriously? I don't know. Yeah. Whatever. Bye."

Tom Harrison

“Holy smokes!” exclaimed Tom when Louise fell. “Looks like it worked, she fell into a boredom induced coma. I’ve done this before, just drop her off at the ER.” He said to Vanessa. “So, what’d you think of the ray. At first I thought it could be used as a shrink ray, but the whole Ghostbuster thing got me thinking. Also, I can’t unshrink anything yet. But, hear me out, I’ve got an idea” continued Tom. He pitched his idea to Vanessa. “A ghost-busting service. You know people who think their houses are haunted? Well, they can call us, and we send over a team, equipped with these, to bust the ‘ghosts’ (air quotations). I know what we could call it: Para-busters!” Tom was giddy during his pitch, hoping Vanessa would like it.


Sir James Yorkshire

Sir James looked over at Suxx-tron. “Don’t just stand there machination! Help me up!” He barked at the robot. He then turned his attention to the door-less door frame. “What happened here?” He asked.

[Barapam]

Cloe Mitchell Jane Smith
Jane had decided to follow behind KIM at a distance, just to see what would happen. She did hang back, especially when she heard KIM mention Fellini- he had met her once before, back when she was undercover in the mob. After a few moments, she remembered how different she was back then, plastered on a fake smile, began scheming ways to get Fellini blown up with an experimental weapon, and stepped out into the open.

"Calm down KIM," said Jane, "I'm not sure what you mean about imposter inspector, but I do know Cyrus is one of our new hires, for dark operations."

With the good half of her face which still remained, KIM glared at Jane. "Just typical of Jane to interrupt...", she thought, until she realized what the other secretary actually had said. Dark operations? That sounded fun! Suddenly she saw Cyrus in a new light. Quite literally, since she turned the bad side of her face towards him, which cast him in a red glow from her eye. The intrigued and now more sympathetic smile she gave him probably didn't look very reassuring from his point of view...

Black Ops Armory
OSHE Inspector Grace Henshaw and "businessman tourist" Giovanni Fellini

The Mexican standoff was becoming a lot more stand-offish. While guns were being lowered - for the most part - the attitude remained.

Giovanni Fellini smirked at KIM's use of Italian. That's a good girl, he thought. Now if only she wasn't a homicidal lunatic against humanity. Some homicidal lunatics he could work with, mind you. This one? So far their secret agreement had been working out just great, but the day would come when the half-faced secretary would rise up to great power, vindictiveness, and destruction - if she were allowed to.

He said, "It seems you two have some things to work out." And knowing KIM's sensors would detect the look he was giving her (that meant, (We'll talk later when we're alone"), he began looking at the unique gun with the grid off the bottom side of the barrel. Apparently, the grid wasn't a computerized display that assisted with targeting at all, despite what Cyrus had earlier observed. Perhaps they were two totally different types of guns that somehow resembled each other. It would be just like Paragon to do that. This grid, however, looked like something was supposed to go in it. Some kind of small film or something. Hmm. What would Paragon's secret ops armory be making here?

Meanwhile, the nervous looking Grace Henshaw spoke up when she heard KIM. "What's that you say? An impostor inspector? Are you saying there's another OSHE inspector here who isn't supposed to be? Did you catch her name or what she looks like?"

While Fellini seemed to be puzzled by the "insert coins" looking mechanism on the gun, and focused on flirting with Jane for some reason that KIM couldn't possibly fathom, the real OSHE inspector spoke up in response to KIM:s earlier accusations. Poor old Mrs Henshaw would probably not get less nervous by the way KIM choosed to help her.

"I didn't catch her name, but I remember her looks. Please hold this", KIM said and handed Grace her face plate. Next she rolled up her sleeve and pressed it to reveal a keyboard appearing. A few key strokes later, a hologram hovered in front of them all.

"Whoops, wrong file! Sorry, that was an e-mail about a company pajamas party. Here we go..."

Next, a 3D rendering of Louise Grazowski appeared in front of them. Just as terrifying as in real life. Which wasn't strange, since the image was created by KIM:s memories of interacting with her. Although the rendering was possibly slightly corrupted by KIM:s emotional experience of the false inspector.

[Province of Cossack]

The Armory, Oliver “Cyrus” Parham
Imposter inspector upstairs? And who was this rando, coming in here with his title like that? And seriously, that bot was wicked creepy -- It was smiling. Maybe.

Confused, Cyrus ran a hand through his hair as Fellini checked our the rifle again. He knew full well that the explanation he had given was wrong: either that machine was too complicated or someone had created it while on something powerful. Either way, he didn’t understanding a thing about it.

“Whoa, whoa, I think you’ve got the wrong person there. I’m here for cybersecurity. HR probably messed up the title. You know, dark web, dark operations, that kind of work,” he said to the newcomer.

He did take interest, though, when the madbot projected some woman’s image into the air. When her face came into view, he furrowed his brow. Was that --? From last year? The informant of his dad’s old mafia rivals in Boston?

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

Four Hours Ago

An HR manager of Paragon sat down and went through a list of emails to send. He accepted an interview, rejected three others, tried to settle a dispute, started another by complaining to the Robotics division about their productivity, and emailed motivational posters to everyone in the armory division (“Keep calm and keep making those chainsaws!”). He started to get up to eat lunch, but then he remembered something. As an afterthought, the manager sent an email to a worker in the server room, telling him to prepare the room for an OSHA inspection. He laughed to himself for a moment about just how tame that job must’ve been, considering he could barely remember getting a message from them. He closed his computer before heading to the cafeteria with his food. He forgot about the whole thing before he even got to the cafeteria.

---

Eight floors down, a middle-aged, disheveled man received an email. He paused his investigation of a server error with a sigh of frustration and reluctantly opened the email. It was from HR. He groaned and read the message. He read it again. He groaned once more, and looked up at the room around him for the first time in hours. The room was dim and dreary. The brightest light was that of a flaming server. The flickering light illuminated the webbing of wires that connected the servers. Today was going to be a long day. He set his computer on a stool next to him. He stood up and stretched. One of his co-workers came out from behind a dusty mainframe with a fire extinguisher and started to spray the flaming server.
He shouted “Hey, Dennis!”.
His friend, still extinguishing the server, yelled back. “Oi, Elliot! What is it?”
“An OSHA inspector is coming. We’ve gotta clean this place up!”
“What?”, Dennis yelled over the incessant whine of the “cooling” fans. Elliot, not wanting to repeat himself, walked up to his coworker.
“What’s wrong?”, Dennis said with usual enthusiasm, as he causally finished his newest task.
“I got a message from HR. There’s an OSHA inspection today.” His coworker dropped the extinguisher.
“Wasn’t that supposed to be next month?” His coworker asked, knowing full well what the answer was. Elliot shook his head.
“Let’s get started. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

Three Hours, Fifty-two Minutes, and Twenty-one Seconds Ago

Boris sat on the floor in the corner of the vast server room that took up the entirety of Level -7. He was fiddling with a set of tools and a pile of parts, both of which were strewn on the floor. The only sounds were the clinking of the metal parts and the hum of server fans. That is, until echoing footsteps interrupted the calm. They faded in and out a few times before they finally started growing nearer. He set down his screwdriver, stood up, and sighed. Finally, Elliot appeared from behind a mainframe.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you for ages.” Elliot panted.
“What is it?” Boris asked, not really caring what the answer was.
“The O… OSHA inspector is coming today.” Now he cared. Boris stood up straighter, just a little bit.
“When?” He glanced around at the dim room. “This place isn’t anywhere near ready.”
“Exactly. Which is why we need you to help. Got it?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Good. I’ve got some pipes to fix. See you in… three-ish hours.” He sprinted off before Boris could think of a suitable objection. He sighed. Today was going to be an awful day. He started to list all of the things that needed to be done in his head, but he was suddenly interrupted by a thumping sound. His head turned to look towards its source. It was their old Roomba, which was the most youngest thing in the whole room. It had been a present from HR, gifted to them two years ago. The thing had never been particularly useful, even when it wasn’t charred, dilapidated, and ramming its googly-eyed front into a wall. …But maybe it could be. He glanced between the Roomba and the parts scattered across the floor. He smiled. Today was going to be a wonderful day.

Three-ish Hours Later

Elliot and Dennis had just finished discussing what needed to be done when they heard a strange sound from the next row over, as if something was driving around. A few moments later, Boris turned the corner. He was unusually cheerful, which meant he probably just finished working on a project. The confirmation came in the form of a strange robot trailing behind him. The robot looked familiar, as if…
“Did you strap treads to the Roomba?” Dennis asked first.
“Yes. It’s going to-“ He was cut off.
“Doesn’t that decrease its efficiency?”
“Well, normally. But I didn’t just strap treads to it, I also-“ He was cut off again.
“How long have you been working on that?” Elliot asked, somewhat annoyed.
“Last few hours. It seemed like a big hassle to clean up, so-“
“So you thought you’d build a Roomba of Doom for three hours?”
“Doomba!” nicknamed Dennis.
Boris, somewhat frustrated by their lack of interest, replied “Firstly, it’s not named ‘Doomba’. It’s named AuRA.” When he saw that his coworkers were confused, he clarified “Automatic Repair Apparatus.”
“I still prefer ‘Doomba’.”
Elliot said “Let’s settle this. Raise your hand if you like ‘Doomba’ better.” Elliot and Dennis raised their hands.
“I love democracy.” Dennis smiled.
“Okay, whatever. It can plug cords in, fix loose plates, h-“
“Wait, so this… Roomba is going to replace me?” Dennis asked half-seriously.
Elliot pointed at the machine, which was bumping into a server while waving a robotic arm in the air. “That thing is not going to replace you.”
“It’s a prototype.” Boris breathed out exasperatedly. “Anyway, it can hand you tools, it can extinguish fires, and much more.”
“Nice. But can it explain the state of this place to the OSHA inspector?”
“Look, I feel like you don’t appreciate this project.”
“I would appreciate it more if you made it when we didn’t have an OSHA inspection.”
Before Boris could come up with a retort, AuRA yanked a wrench out of Dennis’ hand. It spent a moment scanning the wrench before driving down the path at top speed.
“Hey! Come back!” Boris shouted while sprinting after it.

This isn’t great, but I had an idea, I wanted to introduce the other character, and I wanted to revive the thread a bit. Any feedback?

[Talchyon]

A hallway with a senseless inept person and a mad scientist type inventor (but which one is which, may take some figuring out)
CEO Vanessa Carlyle

Vanessa knew exactly what he was talking about. One of the few things she had ever achieved in life was earning her PhD in advanced particle quantum physics. So as Tom Harrison began rambling on and on about the specs of the - well, what he called a Higgs-Boson Hadron particle accelerator but was really a ray gun - she understood in great detail all that went into it. And even had a few technical pointers to suggest to Harrison if she got a chance. As for the amount of time it was taking, it was perfect. Just stand there and keep talking. The longer you talk, the less she has to inspect.

Louise Grazowski, on the other hand, was confused, annoyed, and getting angrier by the minute. Trying to interrupt Tom but failing every time, a level of fury rose in her face as the minutes drug on. Redder and redder her face got. Angrier and angrier she looked. If active volcanoes had faces, they would look like Louise Grazowski.

And then, maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was her poor blood pressure. Maybe it was a mx of hypertension and anxiety and an aggressive, controlling personality... But as Tom was droning on and on about the specs, Louise Grazowski suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor in a heap. Vanessa saw her (Tom apparently didn't notice), and wondered what she should do. The last thing she wanted was for the OSHE Inspector to wake up in Paragon's medical clinic, which was a deathtrap if ever there was one. She put up one finger to Tom, who still apparently didn't notice, and made a call to 911. "Hey, there's a lady here who might have had a heart attack. Yeah. Yeah. We're at Paragon Industries. The address? Um, it's right next to Dunkin' Donuts. I don't know which one. The one that sells the cheap coffee. They all sell the cheap coffee? Well, whichever one that has the guy with the mustache in charge. Seriously? I don't know. Yeah. Whatever. Bye."

Tom Harrison

“Holy smokes!” exclaimed Tom when Louise fell. “Looks like it worked, she fell into a boredom induced coma. I’ve done this before, just drop her off at the ER.” He said to Vanessa. “So, what’d you think of the ray. At first I thought it could be used as a shrink ray, but the whole Ghostbuster thing got me thinking. Also, I can’t unshrink anything yet. But, hear me out, I’ve got an idea” continued Tom. He pitched his idea to Vanessa. “A ghost-busting service. You know people who think their houses are haunted? Well, they can call us, and we send over a team, equipped with these, to bust the ‘ghosts’ (air quotations). I know what we could call it: Para-busters!” Tom was giddy during his pitch, hoping Vanessa would like it.

Looking at Tom with a flat expression that he had seen numbers of times before when he "suggested" ideas, Vanessa simply said, "I have two words for your proposal. Copyright violation. Seriously, Para-busters? That's so bad, they could get us twice for copying Ghostbusters and Paramount Pictures. But, keep up with this research. Maybe we can sell it to guerilla warfare types or clandestine secret agents on a budget..."

Bending down to grab the stiff Louise Grazowski's wrist, Vanessa frowned for a few seconds. Then finally, the CEO stood up and said, "Well, they always try that on tv and they find stuff out by doing it, so I just thought maybe it would work for me. Note to self - don't become a volunteer EMT."

She wondered if the paramedics would come. She wondered if Louise was going to make it. Vanessa was secretly hoping that the abusive examiner would make it, but have some psychological disorder, the kind that changes her personality so she would actually become friendly - and write a nice report about them. And that made Vanessa curious...

So of course, the CEO reached down for the clipboard with the lengthy report the collapsed OSHA inspector had been making, just to see if it was as bad as she thought. Reading through it, her suspicions were confirmed. It was the kind of report OSHA should never see. So, she quietly folded the piece of paper up and stuck it in her handbag.

Then, realizing that Tom was still there, Vanessa told him, "And you didn't see me do that. Now, let's get someone unimportant to stand here while the paramedics come." So she reached for her cell phone, made a quick call, saying, "We need you up here. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks." It was a call... to Dennis.

---

In another hallway, with another mad inventor.
Suxx-tron

Sir James Yorkshire

Sir James looked over at Suxx-tron. “Don’t just stand there machination! Help me up!” He barked at the robot. He then turned his attention to the door-less door frame. “What happened here?” He asked.

Suxx-tron beamed! The man needed help! And not just the psychological kind, either, which he had tried to give in the past but was nowhere close to being qualified to give it! The kind Suxx-tron could probably give. He reached for the man with his one arm (since his other was still missing somewhere in Paragon). And as he was helping Sir James up, just then Suxx-tron's practical joking separate A.I. took over, and released the connections between his arm and hand. The result was a Sir James knocked on his back again after trying to get up, clutching a worthless robot's hand and partial forearm in his.

Suxx-tron's main A.I. took over, and he groaned. Great. "Sorry about that. It has a mind of it's own. I can't always help it." He was about to explain why the door to the advertising was lying on the floor, but he stopped because he really didn't know. So to Sir James, struggling to get up on his own, Suxx-tron simply said, "I really do not know what happened here. My sensors were detecting some smoke, but that could be the toast I had been trying to make to give the guys in electrical a mid-morning snack." Looking in the door, all Suxx-tron saw was a cloud of black smoke pouring out. "No clue at all. Maybe it's a new smoke machine we're trying to sell."

---

Robotics
COO Desmond Morrow, carrying Oats

Oats
Oats had been expecting JJ to be the one lugging her off to the technicians. She'd been expecting a nice trip in a comfortable satchel. She'd expected a bit of pleasant small-talk with a friend.

Sadly, this was not to be and instead, she was being carried off by a complete stranger into a completely strange place. This wasn't all bad, of course- it offered a chance for forging new bonds! She could make this fellow a friend, too.

Blech.

Right after they let her down from where she was hanging, anyways. The back-and-forth motion of their arms as they strode made friendship somewhat impossible; the movement was far too... distracting. She might've called it nauseating, but she suspected that the woozy feeling was more due to the magnet's effects on her interior workings than any sudden developments in her ability to experience motion sickness, which as far as she knew wasn't a feature. If it was, though, the feeling would've definitely been categorized as such.

Hopefully the stranger would let her down soon.

I should probably try and find out his name. "Stranger" is a bit impersonal.

From what little she could see of their nametag as she swung forwards, her captor's name was something ending in "-row". As the pendulum of the arm reversed, she glimpsed a "Mor-".

"Morrow" sounds about right. Rhymes with borrow, which is what he's doing. Just borrowing me for a bit.

Well, borrowing was nothing to worry about.

Maybe it'd be a pleasant trip after all.

Desmond walked - more like, flew - in his Pinnacle Tech Raptor warsuit he still had on. His magnetic grips were clutching hold of the poor Oats so that the little robot was helpless to get away. He muttered to himself as he flew. Oats would have half-heard complaints relating to the economy, Paragon's unlikely economic recovery, the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Sri Lankans, the Cambodians, and the Easter Islanders, not to mention some hideous monster that was named "Louise Grazowski". That one came through loud and clear.

But eventually he stopped and floated to the floor. Looking at Oats, Desmond says, "Here we are, little one. They'll take care of you nice and good here." He was outside the door of the Robotics department. A tech came to meet him. "Mr. Morrow! What a surprise. I mean, uh, welcome to Robotics! You don't have that OSHE Inspector here, do you?" Desmond simply shook his head with a smirk on his face. The tech was extremely relieved, and noticeably so.

Desmond said, "We have an old recovery here that I'm sure is obsolete now, but stumbled its way through our front door. This little one goes by the name of Oats. I want you to dive deep in its memory, access everything you can, and then wipe it clean. If it isn't worth using, well, feel free to dismantle it and build something out of it. Or whatever you robotics guys do."

And turning off his magnetic grip from the Raptor suit, Oats fell into the hands of the astonished tech. "Uh, sure thing, boss. We'll get to it."

Of course, knowing Robotics, they might get to it years from now, the rate they went...

---

Black Ops with a crowd
OSHE Inspector Grace Henshaw and Giovanni Fellini, "businessman"

While Fellini seemed to be puzzled by the "insert coins" looking mechanism on the gun, and focused on flirting with Jane for some reason that KIM couldn't possibly fathom, the real OSHE inspector spoke up in response to KIM:s earlier accusations. Poor old Mrs Henshaw would probably not get less nervous by the way KIM choosed to help her.

"I didn't catch her name, but I remember her looks. Please hold this", KIM said and handed Grace her face plate. Next she rolled up her sleeve and pressed it to reveal a keyboard appearing. A few key strokes later, a hologram hovered in front of them all.

"Whoops, wrong file! Sorry, that was an e-mail about a company pajamas party. Here we go..."

Next, a 3D rendering of Louise Grazowski appeared in front of them. Just as terrifying as in real life. Which wasn't strange, since the image was created by KIM:s memories of interacting with her. Although the rendering was possibly slightly corrupted by KIM:s emotional experience of the false inspector.

Seeing the hologram of the woman fraudulently claiming to be an inspector, the mousy woman with the real credentials looked her over, trying to see if there was any familiarity there at all. "I don't recognize her," she said, more to herself. "Is it possible she's new?"

Fellini coughed politely, and said, "You know, this room's getting a little crowded. How's about we continue the tour of this place?" The gun in his hand with the strange horizontal metallic grid on the barrel was slow to return to the shelf, but eventually return it did. Was that a look of longing in the "businessman's" eyes as he let go of the strange weapon?

Grace nodded. She pointed to KIM, though. "Since you have seen this woman, I'd like you to come with us and point her out." Then, to Cyrus, she said, "Well, things here look very interesting. I'm sure you run a tight ship." A little flustered, she didn't mark anything down on her report about the Black Ops room or the employees in it. Then, she, Fellini, and anyone else coming with them left, heading on down to one of the server rooms (Paragon had many, apparently, though a lot were marked as "broom closet" at the moment).

However, just as they were not far in the hallway, a little robot clutching a wrench came barreling around the corner, with a man chasing and shouting after it. Fellini raised an eyebrow at the scene, as the little robot with the wrench came closer.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

A hallway with a senseless inept person and a mad scientist type inventor (but which one is which, may take some figuring out)
CEO Vanessa Carlyle

Tom Harrison

“Holy smokes!” exclaimed Tom when Louise fell. “Looks like it worked, she fell into a boredom induced coma. I’ve done this before, just drop her off at the ER.” He said to Vanessa. “So, what’d you think of the ray. At first I thought it could be used as a shrink ray, but the whole Ghostbuster thing got me thinking. Also, I can’t unshrink anything yet. But, hear me out, I’ve got an idea” continued Tom. He pitched his idea to Vanessa. “A ghost-busting service. You know people who think their houses are haunted? Well, they can call us, and we send over a team, equipped with these, to bust the ‘ghosts’ (air quotations). I know what we could call it: Para-busters!” Tom was giddy during his pitch, hoping Vanessa would like it.

Looking at Tom with a flat expression that he had seen numbers of times before when he "suggested" ideas, Vanessa simply said, "I have two words for your proposal. Copyright violation. Seriously, Para-busters? That's so bad, they could get us twice for copying Ghostbusters and Paramount Pictures. But, keep up with this research. Maybe we can sell it to guerilla warfare types or clandestine secret agents on a budget..."

Bending down to grab the stiff Louise Grazowski's wrist, Vanessa frowned for a few seconds. Then finally, the CEO stood up and said, "Well, they always try that on tv and they find stuff out by doing it, so I just thought maybe it would work for me. Note to self - don't become a volunteer EMT."

She wondered if the paramedics would come. She wondered if Louise was going to make it. Vanessa was secretly hoping that the abusive examiner would make it, but have some psychological disorder, the kind that changes her personality so she would actually become friendly - and write a nice report about them. And that made Vanessa curious...

So of course, the CEO reached down for the clipboard with the lengthy report the collapsed OSHA inspector had been making, just to see if it was as bad as she thought. Reading through it, her suspicions were confirmed. It was the kind of report OSHA should never see. So, she quietly folded the piece of paper up and stuck it in her handbag.

Then, realizing that Tom was still there, Vanessa told him, "And you didn't see me do that. Now, let's get someone unimportant to stand here while the paramedics come." So she reached for her cell phone, made a quick call, saying, "We need you up here. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks." It was a call... to Dennis.

Dennis adjusted his worn tie and coat (which he had thrown on as fast as he could) while he waited for the annoyingly slow elevator to clatter its way up to the floor he had been told. This was his first time meeting the CEO, and he needed to make a good impression. Maybe the CEO was planning to promote him! Sure, it was a strange time, but he had to take the opportunity.

The elevator doors opened up into the bright hall, making him blink. When his eyes adjusted, he gasped. The hall stretched on for yards, lined with dozens of unfamiliar doors. He sprinted around the area, periodically asking for directions to surprised scientists. Finally, he reached the hall where the CEO was. He straightened his tie, which had been scandalized and crumpled from his search. He walked over to the group. He tried to speak as he pictured someone qualified would.

“Hello. What do you ne-“ Midway through his question, he spotted the body.
“Holy sh-“ He caught himself.
“What happened here? I-is she dead?” He noticed she was still breathing. He could still be helpful. Maybe.
“I can… uh…” Trying to dig up some first aid knowledge. “Is there an ice pack here somewhere?”

Black Ops with a crowd
OSHE Inspector Grace Henshaw and Giovanni Fellini, "businessman"

While Fellini seemed to be puzzled by the "insert coins" looking mechanism on the gun, and focused on flirting with Jane for some reason that KIM couldn't possibly fathom, the real OSHE inspector spoke up in response to KIM:s earlier accusations. Poor old Mrs Henshaw would probably not get less nervous by the way KIM choosed to help her.

"I didn't catch her name, but I remember her looks. Please hold this", KIM said and handed Grace her face plate. Next she rolled up her sleeve and pressed it to reveal a keyboard appearing. A few key strokes later, a hologram hovered in front of them all.

"Whoops, wrong file! Sorry, that was an e-mail about a company pajamas party. Here we go..."

Next, a 3D rendering of Louise Grazowski appeared in front of them. Just as terrifying as in real life. Which wasn't strange, since the image was created by KIM:s memories of interacting with her. Although the rendering was possibly slightly corrupted by KIM:s emotional experience of the false inspector.

Seeing the hologram of the woman fraudulently claiming to be an inspector, the mousy woman with the real credentials looked her over, trying to see if there was any familiarity there at all. "I don't recognize her," she said, more to herself. "Is it possible she's new?"

Fellini coughed politely, and said, "You know, this room's getting a little crowded. How's about we continue the tour of this place?" The gun in his hand with the strange horizontal metallic grid on the barrel was slow to return to the shelf, but eventually return it did. Was that a look of longing in the "businessman's" eyes as he let go of the strange weapon?

Grace nodded. She pointed to KIM, though. "Since you have seen this woman, I'd like you to come with us and point her out." Then, to Cyrus, she said, "Well, things here look very interesting. I'm sure you run a tight ship." A little flustered, she didn't mark anything down on her report about the Black Ops room or the employees in it. Then, she, Fellini, and anyone else coming with them left, heading on down to one of the server rooms (Paragon had many, apparently, though a lot were marked as "broom closet" at the moment).

However, just as they were not far in the hallway, a little robot clutching a wrench came barreling around the corner, with a man chasing and shouting after it. Fellini raised an eyebrow at the scene, as the little robot with the wrench came closer.

00 YEARS, 00 MONTHS, 00 DAYS, 00 HOURS, 08 MINUTES, 23 SECONDS, 175 MILLISECONDS AGO

AuRA booted up and watched <01-010-01 “BORIS”> and <01-010-02 “ELLIOT”> recede from it. The two <01-010 “HUMAN”> instances were having a conversation.
“I trained it on a more extensive dataset and programmed it to listen to some commands, so it shouldn’t just run around and break things anymore.”
“I hope. If I have to fix another server it broke, I’m going to destroy that thing. Where did Dennis go, anyway?”
“Upstairs.”
“Catch the reason?”
“Nope. He was very excited about it. Even put his tie on.”
“He has a tie?”
None of this was a command, so the robot ignored it. It finally finished booting up its AIs and began its work. It scanned the area. It was in a corner of the server room. Around it were dozens of servers, surprisingly all in working order. In fact, the area was almost entirely clear of debris. That was, except for a set of tiles on the wall next to a metal double door. It drove its way to the doors, crashing into the wall in the process. The tiles had significant buildup of natural oils and grease, especially the tile with the letter “L” on it. The robot extended an arm equipped with a wipe to clean the tile, applying pressure to it. To its horror, the tile moved when it was touched. The robot quickly removed its arm from the tile to assess the damage, but the tile had returned to its original position. Relieved, the robot cleaned the other tiles, making sure not to move the tiles again. It had just finished the tile marked “-10” when the doors opened. Behind the doors was a small room. The room’s floor was covered in a layer of dirt and dust. Seeing nothing else severely in need of attention, the robot drove into the new room and began sweeping.

---

“Seems like we’re pretty much prepared.” Boris said.
“Yep, just gotta-“ Elliot was interrupted by the sound of a vacuum. He glanced in its direction, expecting it to be the robot trying to suck up a cord. He gasped. “Hey, your robot is-“
“What!?” Boris quickly turned his head to see AuRA in the elevator, vacuuming the floor. And then the doors began to close.

---

The robot noticed Boris moving towards it rapidly. The human yelled
“Hey, what do you think you’r-“
The doors closed. Since “Hey, what do you think you’r-“ was not a command it recognized, it continued its current activity. It had just finished its task when the doors opened once more. To the robot’s confusion, the other side was different. It drove forward into the new hall, but the error wasn’t resolved. There was a cascade of new errors that it couldn’t handle. It spun for a moment before driving off in a random direction.

---

Now

Boris sprinted down the hall as fast as he could, chasing the malfunctioning robot and yelling “Stop! Stop!” at it. It didn’t respond. They burst into an unfamiliar room. The robot was starting to slow down, but it would still smash into the far wall if it wasn’t stopped. He leaped, tackling the robot and stopping it. He pressed the off button on the robot’s side and cheered “Finally!”. He sat there panting for a moment and surveyed the room. It was full of people. Everyone was staring at him.

He stood up and dusted himself off.
“Um… Hello. I was just… uh… testing an experimental new product,” he said, gesturing at the Roomba an trying to smile. A man and a woman walked up to him with confused expressions.
“Hello, uh…” he read the woman’s nametag. On it was written “Grace Henshaw, OSHA Inspector”. Oh, no. He was in trouble now. Or maybe…
“Oh! You’re the inspector. Uh, do you need a guide? I know this place pretty well.” He didn’t, but maybe he could give Elliot more time to finish cleaning the server room. Plus, maybe it would make up for his interruption.
“Where to next?”

[West Bromwich Holme]

Vanessa Carlyle's Office

Josefina "Josie" Rutkoska entered Vanessa's office, looking for her. She was unaware of the danger going on in Floor 7, but then again, she virtually never entered there, and it was very infrequently.

Wearing a cream blouse that was cropped over a pinstripe black jacket and pinstriped black trousers with high-heeled boots, Josie wanted to see Vanessa about some non-business-related activity; going for a meal, taking her to this Mexican restaurant that did interesting, experimental cuisine but looked like a fast-food joint, and had no car park.

Josie knew it well enough, was a regular there. She liked the food, always went for a different choice every time, apart from, maybe, the beers; it was within walking distance of where she lived. She could go there and not worry about DUI, although she did have a slight worry about it if taking Vanessa there, so would get a non-alcoholic beer if she did take her there.

It had been a slow, slack day for Josie; all she'd done was a few sudo'ing commands and permissions fixes. Mundane work, but she didn't mind that. Perhaps it was the side of her that was robotic came out. Metaphorically speaking of course, since she was 100% all-human, not robotic. Although, saying that, as a kid she was mistaken for one...

Flashback to teenage self in Canada

Josie, aged 16, was reading a book to herself in the high school library, a math textbook.

"To calculate a ratio...." she said to herself, slowly reading line by line to memorize the math for a test. Her voice sounded flat and with no affectations.

"Jeez, what a dork", said a 15-year-old boy who was sitting with a friend eating a hoagie with potato chips. "Is she even human or is she fucking on tranquillizers?"

"Beats me", his friend said, as they began laughing.

Josie paid no notice, too engrossed in the book.

The present day

Josie didn't see Vanessa anywhere, but it was important to her that she got to see Vanessa; she had two important things to discuss, one was getting Vanessa a new car on company budget, and the second, a night out for the two of them, free from work-related things. A breather from it, if you like.

She waited in the office, but also sent her a message to Vanessa's phone. It read:

Need to come to office. Fairly urgent meeting on things you wanted to talk about rel8ing to car that you said important. Josie x

.
Bit rushed, but had to be sent, she thought.
Now the waiting had begun.

---

Josie got on OK with Vanessa, they weren't enemies or frenemies but certainly not good friends yet. Just boss and employee or rather boss and fixer for now, since Josie wasn't technically a full-time employee but hired as and when needed as a fixer, yet she was a de facto employee. But that arrangement seemed to work well for the both of them, at least for now.

[Tuboo Shippers]

Vanessa Carlyle's Office

Talatu enters Vanessa's Office, very disoriented. All she needed was to find an elevator or a vent opening. she'd walked past this door twelve times in the last minute. "Hello? uh- I'm the new Accountant!"

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

Vanessa Carlyle's Office

Talatu enters Vanessa's Office, very disoriented. All she needed was to find an elevator or a vent opening. she'd walked past this door twelve times in the last minute. "Hello? uh- I'm the new Accountant!"

(OOC: Nice, but Vanessa isn't in her office right now. I'd advise you read/skim through the story so far to get caught up.)

[Tuboo Shippers]

(OOC: I did, it's a thing. i know shes not. Tally doesnt tho.)

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

(OOC: I did, it's a thing. i know shes not. Tally doesnt tho.)

(OOC: Oh, okay. Carry on, then.)

[Tuboo Shippers]

Seeing a person, which, quite frankly-she had not been expcting to see anyone-Tally jumps.

[Barapam]

Black Ops with a crowd
OSHE Inspector Grace Henshaw and Giovanni Fellini, "businessman"

Seeing the hologram of the woman fraudulently claiming to be an inspector, the mousy woman with the real credentials looked her over, trying to see if there was any familiarity there at all. "I don't recognize her," she said, more to herself. "Is it possible she's new?"

Fellini coughed politely, and said, "You know, this room's getting a little crowded. How's about we continue the tour of this place?" The gun in his hand with the strange horizontal metallic grid on the barrel was slow to return to the shelf, but eventually return it did. Was that a look of longing in the "businessman's" eyes as he let go of the strange weapon?

Grace nodded. She pointed to KIM, though. "Since you have seen this woman, I'd like you to come with us and point her out." Then, to Cyrus, she said, "Well, things here look very interesting. I'm sure you run a tight ship." A little flustered, she didn't mark anything down on her report about the Black Ops room or the employees in it. Then, she, Fellini, and anyone else coming with them left, heading on down to one of the server rooms (Paragon had many, apparently, though a lot were marked as "broom closet" at the moment).

However, just as they were not far in the hallway, a little robot clutching a wrench came barreling around the corner, with a man chasing and shouting after it. Fellini raised an eyebrow at the scene, as the little robot with the wrench came closer.

"Er... Okay, sure, I can do that..." KIM replied Grace, the real, O.G. inspector, and merrily went along. They didn't get very far down the hall however, before a Tom & Jerry-esque scene played out in front of them. Not a too unusual sight in this workplace, and KIM was more or less unphased...

Now

Boris sprinted down the hall as fast as he could, chasing the malfunctioning robot and yelling “Stop! Stop!” at it. It didn’t respond. They burst into an unfamiliar room. The robot was starting to slow down, but it would still smash into the far wall if it wasn’t stopped. He leaped, tackling the robot and stopping it. He pressed the off button on the robot’s side and cheered “Finally!”. He sat there panting for a moment and surveyed the room. It was full of people. Everyone was staring at him.

He stood up and dusted himself off.
“Um… Hello. I was just… uh… testing an experimental new product,” he said, gesturing at the Roomba an trying to smile. A man and a woman walked up to him with confused expressions.
“Hello, uh…” he read the woman’s nametag. On it was written “Grace Henshaw, OSHA Inspector”. Oh, no. He was in trouble now. Or maybe…
“Oh! You’re the inspector. Uh, do you need a guide? I know this place pretty well.” He didn’t, but maybe he could give Elliot more time to finish cleaning the server room. Plus, maybe it would make up for his interruption.
“Where to next?”

... that is, until Boris got hold of the Roomba. If he, or the others, thought that the chaos was now over, they were wrong. KIM raised her voice, and pointed violently at the janitor. "Hey! That's assualt! That is assault!" She took a step closer towards Boris, and went on. "You can't just shut a robot off like that! Sweet Robot Jesus Christ! Check your human privilege!"

Now hopefully Mrs. Henshaw was only there to inspect the security of the place, and not the mental toxicity, because KIM proceeded to kick Boris right in the nuts, with a well-placed robotic foot.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

Now

Boris sprinted down the hall as fast as he could, chasing the malfunctioning robot and yelling “Stop! Stop!” at it. It didn’t respond. They burst into an unfamiliar room. The robot was starting to slow down, but it would still smash into the far wall if it wasn’t stopped. He leaped, tackling the robot and stopping it. He pressed the off button on the robot’s side and cheered “Finally!”. He sat there panting for a moment and surveyed the room. It was full of people. Everyone was staring at him.

He stood up and dusted himself off.
“Um… Hello. I was just… uh… testing an experimental new product,” he said, gesturing at the Roomba an trying to smile. A man and a woman walked up to him with confused expressions.
“Hello, uh…” he read the woman’s nametag. On it was written “Grace Henshaw, OSHA Inspector”. Oh, no. He was in trouble now. Or maybe…
“Oh! You’re the inspector. Uh, do you need a guide? I know this place pretty well.” He didn’t, but maybe he could give Elliot more time to finish cleaning the server room. Plus, maybe it would make up for his interruption.
“Where to next?”

... that is, until Boris got hold of the Roomba. If he, or the others, thought that the chaos was now over, they were wrong. KIM raised her voice, and pointed violently at the janitor. "Hey! That's assualt! That is assault!" She took a step closer towards Boris, and went on. "You can't just shut a robot off like that! Sweet Robot Jesus Christ! Check your human privilege!"

Now hopefully Mrs. Henshaw was only there to inspect the security of the place, and not the mental toxicity, because KIM proceeded to kick Boris right in the nuts, with a well-placed robotic foot.

Ouch. He made a mental note never to mention the robotics lab within earshot of this thing.
“…Look, it was going to break in half against that…” He looked into the room down the hall.
“lamp? It was severely malfunctioning and the only way to fix it was to… you know. Plus, it’s only a simple wall-detection algorithm attached to an evolving image classifier and some steering code. It cannot be considered a conscious being on its own. You see…” He caught himself before he started explaining the philosophy of consciousness and personhood. It was a fascinating subject, but he didn’t have time. He quickly glared at the robot with a look that he hoped indicated that this was not the time for this. He had no idea if it understood emotional indicators in that level of detail, but he quickly changed the subject anyway.
“Anyway, where are you going next? May I suggest R&D?” He knew one of the people who worked there, and there wasn’t too much dangerous stuff. Plus, there were plenty of things to distract the inspector with while Elliot finished tidying the server room.

(OOC: Boris is not a janitor. He’s a programmer, but he doesn’t do much because he finds work boring and unrewarding.)