Post by Silas Isaac Naberius on Mar 30, 2022 18:54:19 GMT -5
WHITECHAPEL, LONDON, ENGLAND.
The last vestiges of March’s springtime promises are already washed away by the rain, the sun and warmth already out of the memory of any Brit. The grey clouds high above the capital showed no sign of parting today as the camera stood at the foot of a dark-bricked building; its sign reading SINTECH. The camera tilted upward to reveal the structure stretching high above the rest on the street, growing ever darker as it reached for the heavens. We cut back to street level where Larry Kachow, umbrella in hand, was ready for what may lie ahead.
‘Thank you for joining me here today, ladies and gentlemen, in a particularly grey, wet, and cold London, England where myself and our crew at Project Honour have been invited to meet one of Proving Ground’s latest signees: Silas Isaac Naberius. We were told only to come to this building and report to the front desk so, without further ado, let’s begin.’
He pushed open the door and entered the lobby, immediately being struck by the dark marble of the floor, the blood red paint of the walls, and a large mural depicting the aforementioned Silas Isaac Naberius, defiantly punching the air, standing above leagues of grey-cladded people amidst a background of fire and flames. Larry takes a moment to let the scene sink in before slowly approaching the desk where a pretty, dark-haired young woman was sitting. Without a moment’s hesitation she smiled and turned to the crew, almost robotically.
‘Welcome to SINTECH, the world’s leading conglomerate in technology, housing, and misery, how may I help you?’
‘Hi I’m Larry Kachow and we’re here fr-’ Larry’s eyes widened, ‘... did you just say misery?’
‘I’m sorry, I meant media entertainment. How may I hurt you?’
‘Well we’re here from Project Honour, we were asked to come here by a Mr-’ He stopped again. ‘Did you just say-’
‘Mr Naberius? Yes, he is expecting you but not for another hour just yet.’
‘Well I was informed we were expected for 11am and it’s currently fifteen minutes to.’
She points to the clock on the wall, reading 9:45am. ‘According to our clocks it isn’t.’
‘Well… didn’t you folks just have daylight savings? It’s currently 10:45am.’ Larry was already growing frustrated but his professional nature levelled out his voice.
‘Oh, that silly thing,’ the receptionist laughed, ‘I’m afraid Mr Naberius doesn’t believe in such things. He operates on what we refer to as “SINiversal Time Differential”.’
‘... “S.T.D?”’
Her face lit up. ‘You’re familiar with it?’ She quickly frowned. ‘And yet you still turned up early.’
‘No it’s just-’
‘Mr Naberius has a great disdain for people who are early. He considers them untrustworthy…’ she sighed, almost as if disappointed in the crew, ‘I’d suggest you leave and come back in an hour - he’d be much happier with you then.’
‘At this point, we agreed to leave the building and would return at noon. We arrived on the dot, as suggested.’
The camera re-enters the door of SINTECH to the sight of Silas Isaac Naberius tapping his foot furiously and looking at his watch. Larry stepped forward with an extended hand.
‘Hello Silas, I’m Larry Kachow and I’m here representing Project Honour today.’
‘About time,’ Silas looked up from the shimmering watch and tucked it under his sleeve, ‘I have been waiting an hour for you to turn up.’
‘I- we- were told we were early so your receptionist told us to leave.’ Larry stammered.
‘Is this true?’ Silas turned to reveal where there was a much older, greyer woman at the receptionist’s desk. She shook her head. ‘Thank you, Janice.’ He looked back at Larry. ‘I am sickened that somebody would lie about poor Janice like that. She’s two days from retirement, for goodness sake!’
Janice leaned forward. ‘I’m actually only 52.’
‘My condolences,’ Silas tapped her hand and walked away as the crew followed him into an elevator. ‘Now that you’ve arrived so horrifically late I can only give you a brief tour of my wonderful empire so you’ll only get a glimpse of what we do here.’ He said, pressing the button.
As the doors closed, Larry turned to Silas. ‘So about that: we were told that you operate on something called “SINiversal Time Differential” - whatever that means - so it meant-’
‘“S.T.D?!”’ Silas shouted, his right hand clenching into a fist, ‘YOU DARE TO MOCK ME AND MY NAME IN MY OWN HOME?!’
Larry’s knees buckled. ‘A-abso-lu-lutely not, Mr Nabe-be-rius. I-it’s only what we were told at the desk.’
Silas growled and folded his arms. ‘I’m disappointed you’re still treating Janice like that when she’s only two weeks from retirement.’
Larry paused, ‘I thought she was only 52.’
‘Poor woman,’ Silas shook his head as the elevator stopped with a ding. The doors slid open to reveal a wide, white room of workers in grey uniform hard at work at the computers on their featureless desks. Silas smiled wide as he stepped in, his arms opening to gesture to the size of the space. ‘Behold; the place where the magic happens!’ He swivelled and looked at Larry. ‘This is the Department for Ending Orphanages. We have a highly dedicated team here working tirelessly to combat the rising issue of parentless children and aim to thoroughly eradicate this issue by 2025.’
Larry nodded and smiled, ‘So this team is finding homes for orphans?’
Silas tilted his head. ‘... Finding homes?’
‘You… said you were ending the need for orphanages.’
‘I never said anything about the need for them.’ Silas shook his head and walked through the room. ‘No, everytime I try to expand my wonderful business there’s always yet another orphanage right in its place. I want to build a place for fracking - there’s an orphanage. I want to build a call centre that specialises in selling premium insurances for home appliances - there’s an orphanage. I want to build a place for homeless children so they can work off their debt to society - there’s a bloody orphanage. I’m forever tripping over them!’
He stopped, hit the button for another elevator, and turned around. ‘You know everytime I try to remove them they appeal to one of those pesky “Members of Parliament”. I’ve bought a few dozen of those Convertatives or whatever they call themselves and yet, still, I have to deal with people demanding rights for these orphans. There really is no justice in the world.’
The elevator doors opened and they stepped in. Silas looked into the camera, ‘This is where the magic happens,’ he said and winked. After a short ride the doors re-opened to a large cafeteria where a number of workers were sitting on benches, each one with a tray holding a lump of grey gruel that they were slowly spooning bites from. Silas smiled and took a couple of steps out into the large room.
‘Welcome to the cafeterium! Here we supply our hardworking, loyal employees with a highly nutritious lunchereen each and every day.’
‘Well funny you’ve taken us to the cafeteria because your opponent for your debut, Serrano Poblano, is an award winning chef. How would he match up against your own staff here?’
‘He sounds very tough, I can’t wait to see what he can do in the ring..’ Silas nodded. ‘As for a cooking battle, I don’t think he can match up with my cooks here..’ He laughed and gestured wide. Under his arms the struggle of the rail-thin workers slowly carrying their trays to their seats could be seen.
‘As you can see, these workers are currently lethargic because they’ve given so much for SINTECH this morning that they are just chomping at the bit to get started for the rest of the day’s work.’ Behind Silas, a worker collapsed suddenly. He looked back as a pair of heavily armoured men dragged the person away. Silas smiled at the camera.
‘Mr Naberius… is this food safe for human consumption?’
Silas put on his widest smile. ‘I can assure you that the meals we provide our workers have passed the most rigorous of food quality standards in many countries.’
‘And what is that number?’
Silas paused, turned, and pushed the elevator button.
‘Mr Naberius, we would like an answer.’
He mumbled something just out of hearing.
‘What was tha-’
‘Zero! I said Zero.’ Silas snapped.
‘Why would you say that was a number?’
‘ZERO IS A NUMBER!’
The elevator doors opened and Silas stepped inside, his eyes locked on the crew as they quietly shuffled in with him and he pressed a button. Through the rest of the ride he stared directly into Larry’s eyes while the interviewer did his best to avoid his gaze.
*DING*
Silas stepped out of the lift with a smile. ‘This is where the magic happens!’ He spun around into a room of young people speaking loudly and obnoxiously into microphones. ‘This is the place where our various hosts speak over songs played on the radio - we can’t have those little devils recording music on their cassettes.’
‘“IT’S NOT UNUSUAL” BY TOM JONES - IT’S NOT UNUSUAL FOR ME TO PHONE YOUR MOTHER AND-’
‘AND THAT’S IMAGINE DRAGONS WITH “RADIOACTIVE” - NOW LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HOW RADIOACTIVE MY D-’
‘THAT WAS A REAL “PARTY ROCK ANTHEM” BY LMFAO AND LET ME TELL YOU THERE WAS THIS ONE TIME WHEN THIS SONG GOT ME R-’
‘This might be the most diabolical of all the things you’ve shown us.’ Larry said, hastily stepping back into the elevator.
‘Oh, thank you, but I couldn’t possibly claim all the credit for it.’ Silas said, hitting the button once more. The doors closed. ‘Now where we’re about to head is where the magic really happens.’
Larry looked at the camera. ‘I’m pretty sure you’ve said that before every floor we’ve been to.’
The elevator dinged and the opening doors revealed a stage featuring a man in a cape and top hat. He flipped the top hat off his head and pulled a white rabbit out of it by the ears.
‘This is a terrible magic act. I saw it last week!’ Silas shouted, slamming a button in the elevator. ‘You better learn something new next week or you’ll be fired!’ The doors closed as Silas turned to the camera. ‘Don’t worry; he won’t lose his job, he’ll just be set on fire.’
Larry stammered but struggled to find the words.
The doors finally opened to a lavish office, adorned top to bottom in dark mahogany, lush crushed dark red velvet, and dark marble, with large bookcases stretching from floor to ceiling and a large, stone fireplace before an enormous desk and large carved chair. Silas stepped forward and plopped himself into the chair - the chiselled demon snarling from the top of it staring straight at the crew as they entered the room.
Larry slowly stepped forward with the microphone. ‘We… uh, thank you for the tour today, Mr Naberius, but… you’ve yet to talk about your opponent Serrano Poblano in your debut match. Could we get some thoughts as you head into this match?’
Silas nodded and leaned forward. ‘From what I understand, Poblano is a well seasoned pro in this company. He’s been around the block a number of times, faced some great talent, holds wins over the likes of John Blade and Pat the Postman, and he’s earned his spot as one of the absolute finest in Project Honour so I cannot wait to test myself against his well-honed skills and- I-’ A finger nudges Silas in the arm. ‘What is it?!’ The hand drops a sheet of paper. He picks it up and reads it. After a few seconds his expression changes from happiness to pure scorn. He balls the sheet up and throws it over his shoulder into the fire where it immediately burns.
‘Is this a joke to you?’ He looks around the room. ‘I invited you here, into my home, on the pretence this was for a big occasion - a huge welcoming for me into Project Honour - and yet I have been treated without said honour by being presented with this joke?’
‘We had no clue of it, Mr Naberius, I can assure you. We’re only here because of your invitation.’
‘A convenient excuse. I’ll have you know that I’m a busy man - I have no time for these shenanigans or games. If these are the ones Project Honour wish to play then, well, this’ll be a very one-sided game.’
‘I-...’ Larry had a question burgeoning in his throat that needed answering. He was determined, for better or worse, for it to be asked: ‘Just why is a man with so many businesses, so many employees, winds up finding himself inside of a wrestling ring?’
Silas’ scowl softened. He toyed with his gloved hands for a moment. ‘I suppose you could say I enjoy the friendly competition. I relish facing a person who has spent their entire life preparing for these kinds of matches, ready for a technical contest between the ropes and the bells…’ He smiled softly.
‘Well that’s surprisingly admirab-’
Silas’ expression stiffened. ‘And then I poke him in the eye. I stomp on his foot. I end his family line with a kick to the testicles.’
Larry’s eyes widened. ‘... Oh.’
‘I love beating those fools and showing them that they will always be worthless, vile vermin.’ He grinned.
Larry was stunned silent for a moment before breaking the silence. ‘You… do realise you’ll always be facing women?’
Silas shrugged. ‘They’ll receive four-fifths of the same treatment.’
‘That’s disgusti-’
‘Apart from being kicked in the testicles. The kick they receive will just sound more like an empty cup being clapped.’
Larry’s jaw dropped.
‘Because they’re hollow, Lanny.’
‘Yes, I understood.’
‘See, Lemmy, the difference between a man and a woman is-’
The video abruptly cut to Larry standing outside of SINTECH.
‘At this point we were forced to cut the feed. Silas Isaac Naberius is… a fascinating individual - and I use that term loosely. I… don’t know what his arrival will mean for Project Honour but… I’m concerned for anybody not prepared for him.’ Larry sighed and looked at his feet before taking a deep, sharp breath and staring back into the camera. ‘This has been Larry Kachow, reporting from Whitechapel, London, England for Project Honour.’
The video drops into darkness.
