Post #4346 of main thread.

Please send your orders to GeneralHankerchief ONLY. Do not send them to khaan.

"Everyday it's a-gettin' closer
Goin' faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey-hey
Everyday it's a-gettin' faster
Everyone said, go ahead and her
A-hey, a-hey-hey
Everyday seems a little longer
Every way love's a little stronger
Come what may"
...Everyday
...Buddy Holly

8:59PM, Tuesday, 14 November 1951
The Executive Meeting Room (Small Ballroom)
Fatlington Convention Center
Fatlington, New Jersey



It started to rain that day, in Fatlington.

The dark gray skies opened up and unleashed a torrential downpour which never seemed to stop or waver in the slightest. It was a hard rain; hard enough to wash the blood from the streets, hard enough to flush the slime from the gutters, hard enough to erase all traces of the crimes that had been committed. It was the day that the sky wept bitter tears, and drowned the whole world. The storm continued well into the afternoon and soon, the sewers and drains underneath the city began to overflow, washing into the streets. In some districts the flooding became so intense that bodies began floating down the streets, as if they were trapped in the river Styx.

The convention center was a designated emergency shelter area, and the Committee members were relatively safe from the thundering and lightning outside, and the rising flood waters. They turned their attention to the grim deed of the day, the summary execution of one of their own, for whatever reason had been cooked up this time. Were they seeking justice anymore, or simply satisfying their bloodlust? When the votes had been tallied, they looked around to see if they could find the latest victim, but they were nowhere to be seen. Nor was the Director... perhaps something had happened to them? A man in a pinstripe suit walked to the middle of the crowd and set up a small folding table, then set a radio down on top of it, switching it on and tuning the device. "Welcome back to the Anachronism Hour. This is the General Manager of Radio City Fatlington, co-hosting the show with the one and only, Saucy Slice. We're broadcasting from the very top of the Radio City building at 2400 Plaza del Universo, overlooking our fair city. We are joined this evening by one of our radio listeners. Is this the winner of our name that tune contest?"

"Even better mister manager, this is the winner of the Committee vote to execute by most violent means available contest. This lucky contestant will be served only the finest, grade-A death, all expenses paid for by contributions from our local businesses. I'd especially like to thank the Law Offices of Dave and Shack. Got legal troubles? Hire only the best criminal defense attorneys in New Jersey, and soon enough you'll live to see your own arresting officer behind bars! If you've got a problem with the law, make the law their problem."

"Well said, Saucy. Now, what's on the itinerary for our lucky winner? Death by a thousand papercuts? Immolation? Or maybe we take a belt sander to their scalp and see how they look after we take just a little bit too much off the top?"

"I'm way ahead of you, Santino. The condemned will be required to take over my old job working at the Mizza Mut! I've taken the liberty of strapping a bomb made out of fireworks to his chest, which will detonate in precisely 30 minutes time if I don't disarm it. I'm sitting here in the most secure studio in the highest floor in the tallest building in the city, and the Mizza Mut is clear across town. If the condemned can deliver me a pizza in under 30 minutes, and the pizza is hot and fresh and isn't all slid around, then I will let them go free. I must warn you, however... no one's ever delivered a pizza on time in this town, in this kind of weather, this far out. But here are the keys to my old delivery vehicle, a blue Jaguar XK 120... with racing stripes that make it go faster! I want 12 slices of pepperoni pizza on my desk in half an hour, or getting no tip will be the last of your worries. Ready? Set? Go!"

With that, shlin28 grabbed the keys to the Jaguar and made a mad dash for the elevator. When he reached the ground floor, he bolted out the door and made his way to the street, where he saw that the Jaguar was pulled up conveniently to the front of the building, but unfortunately someone had left the top down and the entire interior was soaked. Shlin28 tried to see if there was a retractable hood for this particular model car, but there wasn't one. Shlin28 could do nothing but hop inside the vehicle, turn the ignition, and speed off into the night.

The rain poured into the vehicle, and at these speeds, the rain was stinging and violent as it blew into his face, severely limiting his visibility. But he knew these roads, and he remembered the way back home... and the Mizza Mut was only a few blocks away from there. The roads had been almost completely free of traffic lately, but not this time. As soon as shlin28 was out on the road, a trio of black cars appeared out nearby alleys, and several men in trench coats began firing Tommy guns in the direction of the Jaguar. Worse, at every intersection, there were vehicles crossing at breakneck speeds... and smoldering, burning car wreckage filled the streets. Even after he lost the gunmen on his tail, when shlin28 was forced to stop at a railroad crossing to allow a long train to pass by, several beggars approached the vehicle and tried to get spare change. When he refused, they produced baseball bats, lead pipes, crowbars, and began swinging them at shlin28. He hit the gas and escaped just in the nick of time.

When he arrived at the Mizza Mut and entered the store, he just barely avoided a long, spinning metal blade that was aimed for his head. He ducked and rolled, getting up just in time to see that the man behind the counter cutting the pizzas was wearing a trench coat and fedora. Shlin28 grabbed the boxed pizza and carefully placed it in the bag, narrowly avoiding getting his wrist chopped in half by the mad gangster. He nimbly avoided further blades, grabbed several items from behind the counter and stuffed them in his pockets, and escaped out the side door- getting back in the Jaguar and heading back across town to the radio city building. He tried to look at his watch to see how much time he had left, but the rain made it impossible to read it. This time, he took the highway, trying to save time by avoiding local traffic. This only made matters worse as several speeding tractor trailers crowded the highway, blocking the path forward, and trapping shlin28's Jaguar between them. These truck drivers weren't just a nuisance, as shlin28 looked and saw that they too were wearing trench coats and fedoras, and began trying to crush the Jaguar between their massive, speeding vehicles.

Shlin28 hit the brakes just in time to watch two massive trailers slam together in front of him, inches from the hood of his Jaguar. Behind him, he noticed two more truck drivers coming up fast, attempting to pin the Jaguar from the front and the back. Shlin28 swerved to the far left lane, allowing the trucks to collide with the tractor trailers in front of them. He then hit the gas pedal and slipped by the colliding trucks, only to see two swerving tankers up ahead, one of them actually jackknifing in an attempt to plow into the Jaguar. The gasoline tanker shuddered and tipped over, forming an impassable barrier across 5 lanes of traffic, and spilling thousands of gallons of fuel all over the rain-soaked highway. The other tanker truck plowed directly into the side of the first one, causing a massive explosion. Shlin28 swerved his vehicle all the way to the far right lane of traffic, gunning the engine once more to pass the obstruction. He heard the sound of several large vehicles colliding behind him, and swerved to catch the exit ramp at nearly 90 miles per hour.

Within a few more minutes, shlin28 was back at the Plaza del Universo, and he grabbed the box of pizza and covered it with his body as he rushed inside the building. He saw the elevators open and several more gangsters step out, holding automatic weapons. Shlin28 saw the door to the stairwell and ducked inside, and ran up the stairs faster than he ever had in his life, dodging bullets while trying to keep the pizza level so as not to slide the cheese all around. When he made it to the top floor, he was nearly decapitated by a thin, razor-sharp wire that had been hung at neck level across the hallway near the staircase, but he was able to spot and avoid it just in the nick of time. He burst into the studio, panting, and set the pizza carefully on the desk next to the DJ. He looked up at the clock, and saw that he had actually arrived 10 minutes early.

"Did you remember to bring plates, napkins, cheese, and peppers?" asked the radio DJ. Shlin28 pulled the various items out of his pockets, and placed them carefully on the counter. "How come there's no extra cheese on this pizza?" demanded the Director. Shlin28 looked at the ticket, and handed it to Santino. "You didn't order it with extra cheese, sir." "Hmmm.... he's right. That's what the ticket says. Guess we don't get it for free this time." They handed the delivery driver a twenty dollar bill, and received their change back. "You're free to go" said DJ Saucy Slice. Shlin28 breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and walked away the studio. "Hey pal...." shouted Santino. Shlin28 turned and looked back. "Keep the change, my friend." The Director pulled out an entire stack of silver half-dollars, and lobbed them in shlin28's direction. The coins scattered as they hit the ground next to the delivery driver, the sound of coin change reverberating throughout the studio, broadcasted live on the air to every corner of Fatlington. The floor began to shake as shlin28 bent down to pick up the coins, and half a minute later, shlin28 looked up and saw that the elevator doors were opening. What he saw terrified him.

Hoboes.

Hoboes everywhere. Pushing shopping carts. Wearing 12 different jackets at once. Holding out their palms, holding out their upturned hats, holding bindle sticks, chanting their lifeless, inhuman chant: "change..... change.... change...." They saw the shiny coins in shlin28's hand, and their beady little eyes lit up. They bared their fangs and began scampering toward the beleaguered delivery driver, some of them holding knives or guns, others attempting to look pitiful and sympathetic. There was only one way out... the roof access door. Shlin28 scrambled up the stairs, reaching the roof, and burst out into the pouring rain. There was nowhere to go, as there was no fire escape this far up. The hoboes were hot on shlin28's heels, and soon they flooded the roof, looking for a handout. Shlin was way ahead of them though, and he began climbing up the radio tower itself, 500 feet in the air above the ground floor. The wind and the rain was particularly dangerous up this high, as it made the metal frame of the radio transmitter slick, and the gusty wind threatened to blow shlin28 off of the roof entirely. Higher and higher he climbed, trying desperately to avoid the violent mob of hoboes, panhandlers, vagrants, beggars, tramps, and thieves. But the mob surrounded the radio tower and also began to climb... there was no turning back.

"Back! Back you savages! Can't a man earn an honest wage?" shouted shlin through the thunder, wind, and rain.

It was then that lightning struck the radio tower, sending a massive electric shock through shlin28, blowing him off of the radio transmitter and sending him plummeting 40 stories through the air. About halfway to the ground, the timer on the bomb still strapped to his chest reached thirty minutes exactly, and the device detonated, triggering a massive explosion of brilliantly colored fireworks, lighting up the Fatlington sky. The bright flash and glorious kaboom was seen and heard for miles, and tiny little bits of shlin28 rained from the heavens in still-glowing embers, only to be slowly extinguished as they reached the ground. The rainwater washed away what little remained.







DJ Saucy Slice: "And that concludes our broadcast day. I leave you with this song to remember our fallen friends by. Just remember Fatlington, it's nothing personal, it's just business as usual.... in a city that sold its soul to the devil so very long ago. Good night."


OOC

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Lynch vote tally:

shlin28: 14 (hero, chaotix, xehh, ironside, believer, jarema, neri, renata, daveshack, bsmith, sisterc, secura, niklas, gamezrule)

scottishranger: 6 (seon, auto, krill, backwards, beskar, diana)

Secura: 1 (TLD)

Abstained:1 (lazy)