Bangin' On the Ceiling [OPEN, status updates thread]

[Ira Reier]

Oh my dear, Heaven is a big band now

Gotta get to sleep somehow

Bangin' on the ceiling, bangin' on the ceiling

Keep it down!

- Foo Fighters, "The Sky Is a Neighborhood"

September 1, 2017

Things were going quite well for Ira Reier.

Reier Technologies was now the leading energy provider in the United States of America. About thirty percent of American homes were now running on energy provided by Reier's factories. Thirty percent might not have sounded like much, but in the energy world, it was significant. Reier had wrested those customers from behemoths like PG&E. Also, Reier's energy was not yet available everywhere. Aside from the original facility in Utah, which powered much of the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest, there was one in upstate New York, which powered the Northeast, and one in Texas to serve that state. That left the Southeast and most of the Midwest still open.

It had been nearly two years since the press conference in which he had announced the new initiatives. There had been some pushback, of course, but not enough to stop the company's growth. Americans liked the idea of cheap renewable energy, and no one really asked questions.

That was the best part. So far, he'd gotten away with everything.

And he didn't see that changing.

[Dakari Johessman]

September 1, 2017
Washington, DC

They were the holdouts.

Amid the expansion of Reier’s cheap renewable energy, the company had had trouble entering the markets in the South and parts of the Midwest. That was because the energy grid there was owned by Acacia Heights Communications, and they had refused to let Reier use the grid. No amount of money or politicking could sway them.

They were, after all, part of the President’s unofficial Cabinet.

With Lucius Kilvayne still in power and likely to stay that way for a while unless he willed it otherwise, Dakari was in a very comfortable position. Her family still controlled the Caribbean, and she herself remained in close contact with many of the most powerful people in the USA—including, of course, her fiancé. It wasn’t a terrible place to be.

But things could have been better. She hated stagnation. And that odd sense of impending trouble had not yet left her. So she watched, and she waited. Watched over her family and her close friends, and waited for that other shoe to drop.

[Jack Murdock]

Sept 1, 2017:

Grand Plaza Hotel, Manhattan, New York.

Jack took a stiff drink from his glass of bourbon and gazed at the reports on the laptop screen, reading one internet item on one webpage and then checking emails on the security status of the various RT power plants now running on clean energy. Eventually he stood from his desk and idly looked out the window to admire the cityscape. As he did so, his mind began to wander.

Jack would never had believed the current situation he is in if he wasn't present at the historical time to see it with his own eyes. Reier Technologies' fortunes is practically riding high ever since the successful demonstration of Ira's renewable energy project a couple of years ago in Utah.

Not everyone is pleased with all this success of course. That included the false president, Lucius Kilvanye and his inbred family cesspool as well as his lapdogs in Congress and in Jamaica. Jack did not doubt for a minute they would merely take this lying down.

Still they haven't tried anything directly toward harming Ira Reier or sabotage his projects as of yet which was perhaps fortunate as Jack will go straight after Lucius himself even inside the Oval Office of the White House itself and personally break his neck.

Jack's own fortune, such as it were, had risen as a result of his loyalty to Reier as he was assigned from mere security detail at the Great Basin research facility to being among his personal bodyguards. He now was living in a condo in a fashionable part of Salt Lake City though he was hardly ever there because of his bodyguard duties to RT.

Jack often wondered about the Rahals after the press conference two years ago. It took him some time and a lot of favors to find out the identity of the woman he once saw in New York and again in Utah: Khalidah. Apparently she has ties to the Jung Facility, some kind of sanitarium as far as Jack was concerned. Another interesting fact was that she is perhaps either the mother or aunt of Helena Rahal who in turn is connected to one of Ira's competitors, IntelliTouch Biometrics although that particular company hasn't suffered any losses from the renewable energy race against RT and Ark. There was yet another Rahal, Felicia but he knew next to nothing about her.

The bottom line all three women were Evos like him but he saw no reason to tell Mister Reier any of this. Although Jack disdained most evolved humans as sociopathic nutcases with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, a stubborn code of honor forbid him from revealing the powers and identities of any Evo. He himself doesn't often show off his power in public and even then he felt it shouldn't be used lightly.

So whatever secrets the Rahals may have are safe with him.

Ark Industries was the unknown factor Jack did not like at all. While it was no secret they are in the pocket of the Kilvanyes, he couldn't help but feel there was more to it than that though he can't quite put his finger on it. Maybe he can arrange a visit there in the near future...

The sound of a cuckoo clock from the laptop's notification app alerted Jack to the online staff meeting. He sighed and finished his glass before going back to work.

"Gentlemen, I'm glad we're all here on time for once. First order of business: The placement of the digital security cameras in the following areas..."

[Ryan D'Alteau]

I'm not here to save you. I'm not your confessor.
My sins alone could wake the dead.
______________________________Gary Numan - "When The World Comes Apart"

Ryan D'Alteau.

Ry. An. D'Al. Teau.

Even now, no matter how many times he mouthed the syllables of his name to himself in the mirror, he couldn't help but think how foreign the subtle muscular movements felt. Changing one's name as a result of marriage may have been an age-old tradition, but it was almost unheard of for the husband to go through with it, let alone both them and their bride. A combination of reticence for one of them to adopt an alliterative name and a love for bucking tradition had led them to the course of action they'd taken. While physical size and age might have suggested otherwise, the two of them saw themselves firmly as equals, neither one placed above the other in any matter of consequence.

Just four days prior, he and Adele had celebrated their first - hopefully of many - wedding anniversary. In a stark contrast to the eight years which had led them to marriage, the last twelve months had been largely uneventful and almost completely devoid of the maddening chaos which had beset their existence ever since they'd met. As much as they were loathe to admit it, the two of them had been living an actual normal life for once. Even if only a small part of them had done so, they'd wanted such a thing for a while now. But, now that the desire had been granted, Ryan had found himself feeling...

...well, bored. A part of him missed the struggle against what the two of them viewed as an adversary to their way of life. Kiros Monroe, Sam Keaton, Grace Harper, the younger Marcus Grant... name after name stood out in his mind; obstacles which had - whether by fate or random chance - been positioned squarely in his path. With Adele's help, he had found a way beyond them, just as she had found a way beyond her own obstacles with his assistance. No-one had come to knock down the roof over their heads. They hadn't yet met their end at the hands of a slighted enemy and, thanks to both of them having a paying job that wasn't illegal, money largely wasn't an issue either.

Today, however, Ryan had himself a day off. And, with Adele out of the house for the next hour or so, the condo had fallen silent. In the midst of any lengthy silence, especially now, Ryan often found himself dwelling on the enormity of his life; the path which had led him to where he was. He was now twenty-eight years of age. When he and Adele had first moved down to the beachfront property they'd dubbed Babylon, he hadn't even left his teens. He'd well and truly become a man, while Adele was approaching the threshold of being considered middle-aged though, of course, he wouldn't have even dreamt of saying that to her face.

As far as he was concerned, Reier Technologies was little more than a name on the news and the letterhead on their electricity bills for almost the past two years. With Adele taking care of the finances pertaining to the house as she'd always done, Ryan had mostly ignored the presence of the man and his company since his public press conference two years ago. It was nothing against the man himself - he'd never met him and didn't really plan to - but the figureheads on TV seemed especially vapid to him; only out to serve their own interests and not really caring about whoever was watching. Even the President was subject to Ryan's mild apathy. The only reason Ryan didn't flat-out disapprove of Lucius Kilvayne was because they'd worked together in the past. That collaboration was - albeit indirectly and with another successor in between - the whole reason Lucius had attained his current office in the first place. Lucius owed him; owed Adele... and owed nine other people who'd paved the way for him.

Not that he'd ever admit it. After all, why would the current President candidly admit to helping plan the assassination of a predecessor? It was probably because of Lucius that none of the former GEIST members - the ones who were still alive - had been called in to face justice for their part in sending President Bartlett to a slightly earlier grave. Ryan often found himself dwelling on these kinds of things whenever he was alone. In the past, these lengthy periods of contemplation brought about feelings of mild paranoia. However, as he'd grown older and progressed from being under Adele's wing to being by her side, he had grown to understand the world he'd entered into; the one brought about by his ability.

Even thought he didn't require or even have much of a need for his ability in his day-to-day life, he had made it a point to keep his astral abilities "in shape" on the off-chance that he would end up needing them. Testing the limits of his projected form was the easy part. It didn't need a guinea pig from the general public for his mind to latch onto. He just closed his eyes, allowed himself to drift out of his physical body and start running. With the aid of what he dubbed astral beacons - fragments of astral energy which were harmlessly left in emotionally-significant people and locations - he could even jump his projection far beyond what would otherwise be possible.

Although they themselves weren't able to see him when he chose to do it, Ryan had been using his abilities to check in on his parents, who were still living in the same house in Manhattan; the one to which they'd emigrated after his senior year high-school exchange trip. Cross-country flights from Texas to New York were a little on the steep side for someone so reticent to spend large amounts of money in one go and driving there - as he'd discovered during his attempt to rescue Adele from the Company several years ago - took him almost a day and a half. This was, for him at least, the most convenient way to do it when face-to-face meetings weren't possible and phonecalls weren't necessary. They had their lives, just as he now had his.

A married man he might have been, but he was still their youngest son. He might have been over two thousand miles away, but he was still the nearest of their living relatives. A lot of things had changed in the past eight years. Ryan had the sneaking suspicion that even more would change in the eight years to follow.