pugbutter

E:\cyberpunk\the_deadliest_question.exe

Just an hour, yes, but it was not a worthless glimpse at an anomaly; it was not too brief to form a pattern. Surely Skovgard had dug back through the records already. He'd seen the week and month-long crescendo her cortisol had built up, until her charts were a jagged cacophony jutting out at heaven like a fist fashioned into an obscene gesture. Surely that is why he glanced then and again at his screen, and even had the bravado, the sheer gall, to click about with his hand, that same vile hand which feigned at feebleness when the situation demanded that he seem gentle, kind, compassionate, and just a little senile.

"It's not a problem yet. I doubt your fertility levels are down. I doubt you'll have ulcers or a stroke by Christmastime! But the most dangerous problems are the ones which sneak up on us, Ona, inch by inch," he said. He kept clicking, no doubt between past charts and the current one, the one still scratching along, scribbling a memoir for the crimson line's ascent toward oblivion in the clouds. Then he clicked some more, between her hormonal charts and her work records, the times she clocked in (that day when she was three minutes late—vivisected like a butterfly, and pinned to cork for all to see!), her conversations with the cute guy from Purchasing, of course whose name and birthday and favorite brand of aftershave they already knew. God damn it, what was he looking at? Why, like a dentist, did he want to spend all day with those hooks and needles in his sinister hands, probing at every little wrinkle in the gums of her brain? He knew he should not be welcome there, not for minutes on end! Out! Out!

"I hope you'll take my advice and get away from work awhile. Working even harder, and visiting the medical ward for a vial of happy-pills—well, I think that would be ludicrous. Quite absurd." Why was it any of his business? "As far as I can see, the only vacation days you've taken this year were back in April, when you caught some kind of fever. You should have plenty left. Wouldn't this be much better? When I was a bodybuilder, they taught us that the rest days are when our muscles repair themselves. When they grow bigger, you know. If you'll pardon the analogy."

モバイルフレーム MOBILE FRAME - To the Stars!

replying tomorrow. tonight's a coursework night.

Post Your Pikcha

Pugs. That is all.

@Mag Lev

E:\cyberpunk\the_deadliest_question.exe

"If you'd said your cephalochips are malfunctioning, I'd have taken your word for it. You've been only honest with us in the past," Skovgard said assuringly. By instinct he scratched at the squarish scars chiseled into his neckline. Four or five decades later the lines were still crisp like a new tattoo, and sometimes they still itched like one to have been reminded of. His slender hand then had moved to press down at the paper upon the desk, and slide it slowly back to his side of the desk, the authoritative side. He wanted to look at it again. But his was a gentle touch, and if she resisted, hoarding the chart to herself, then his finger slipped impotently off of it.

But besides that, he wore his dejection in his face. He didn't like throwing pills at his agents, wrapping their issues in bleached hospital sheets and drowning them in designer chemicals. That didn't tackle the sources of their problems; it was a bandage on a bullethole, granting only an illusion of remedy. No, she needed something more old-fashioned to soothe her frayed brains, digging right into the roots. The solution lied within her, somewhere, behind the makeup and the cutting-edge fashions in which she clothed herself.

"Ona,—if you'll let me call you that—I watched the readings in real-time while I had Mr. Elliott on the phone. You entered a fight-or-flight response when you received the news." He pointed at the spike in the orange line, thin and lean like a stiletto. "Of course being nervous was natural then. You probably thought you were in trouble. I hoped that once your body purged all the excess NA, things would go relatively back to normal, but as of fifteen minutes ago, your body is still spending progesterone to create cortisol. One is low and the other is much too high, you see. Stress—yes, you're very stressed. And I hope we can come to a solution for that problem together. Any ideas?"

He looked up at the clock; not very long after nine, and the chart only went to nine sharp. But he could assume rather reasonably that nothing had changed in that scarce interim. She realized that during this diatribe, his stiff fingers had steepled themselves, forming a sharp arch like a little belfry upon his desk.

E:\cyberpunk\the_deadliest_question.exe

But Skovgard raised his tender hand, and shook the willowy mosses dangling from his chin. "I swear, IT is trained to create as many problems as they solve. They must think they'll lose their jobs once there's nothing left to fix," he said. He was right not to worry, anyway, as soon enough the machine had begun to vomit forth the contents of its wiry stomach. "Ah. Good." The paper was snatched away before Ona could inspect it in any but a precursory way, but catching a mere glance of it, she saw that it depicted a colored line graph.

Skovgard scratched his pencil's point into the top corners. He checked that the computer had properly barred the readings on the Y axis. Indeed. (The company knew what trouble it led to, especially concerning black market drugs, doses and overdoses, when employees knew exactly where their levels were at.) Finally, he had set it down in front of Ona.

"Ms. Ví, take a look at this chart, and tell me if it says what I think it does."

IC image

E:\cyberpunk\the_deadliest_question.exe

@DarknessDawning I'd love to make an excuse, but honestly I'm just a low-willpower, low-inspiration scrub of a "writer." If one or two posts a week isn't enough, I sincerely apologize.

Cyaиide Suиs

@Xandrya He says it's fine.

Cyaиide Suиs

@Xandrya He's at work right now. I have his phone # so I'll send him a text for ya.

Got A Weapon or Armor Question?

Dark Ages through Renaissance guy standing by

Scare Me With Your Experiences

Me and a bunch of others decided that, he must have. Motherfucking. Narcissist disorder or something. He fitted it to a tee. It was unnerving.

@ScreenAcne

That's why we decided it was probably psychopathy. He fit eight or nine of the ten traits once we started doing research on it. (I don't think he ever really "spoke poetically" (#8).)

I've got some stories about another one like this, also on LOTRO, but I'll save her for another day.