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dbhilluminate · 5 years ago

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DBHI: Equilibrium, ch. 13 - “Periapsis” (pt. 1)

Characters: Noah / “Erwin Yvonne”, Gabriel / “Vincent Sharp”, Special Agent Gavin Reed, Director Thomas Falken Word Count: 2,842

Noah crashes an undercover FBI operation to say hello to a friend he hasn't seen or spoken to in a couple of months, but the mood is spoiled when the Zionist Inquisition shows up to deliver an ultimatum to Vincent Sharp, and issue a threat to anyone who would dare support the installation of an android suburb in Washington, DC.

***For a glossary of world-building terms relating to this series and chapter, click here.

(Chapter Art by ozaya, Co-authored by @grayorca15)

• Chapter Index • Characters • Glossary •

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December 23rd, 2041 - 9:45 PM

From the outside, the looming auditorium locally known as The Mellon was unchanged. Whatever techno-aesthetics the Capitol had adopted in the last two decades, Washington, DC’s architecture was still mostly the same neoclassical Roman-inspired drivel the Founding Fathers probably thought the height of grandeur that any respectable city could model itself after. This particular building was very much a product of its time- a perfect encapsulation of the stiff right angles, thick brooding columns, and bleak texture-less walls, suggested nothing of what might actually be happening beyond the foyer. The red-green cutout projections of trees and reindeer and ornaments dancing across the Columbia pediment sculpted across its tented promenade and the delicate string instruments currently honoring an orchestral cover of one of a hundred classic Christmas songs was a hint though.

Noah stepped out of the Jaguar to be accosted by a shower of holographic white and blue snowflakes, mixed with the real-life equivalent wafting about that cold winter’s night. They swarmed like his very own plague of too-friendly gnats. Whatever property-wide projection program the event had been accentuated with, the programmer had evidently spent too much time re-watching Frozen as a child. He pulled his sunglasses down just far enough to peer over the lenses as a few flakes fluttered in, close enough for him to see their individual fractals, and gave an irritated huff through his nose. “Still bitter over the demise of Disney, I see.” A few seconds later, the shy valet swept around the roadster’s red taillights and apologized profusely for a near-nonexistent delay in offering to take the car to be parked. Noah felt nothing but amusement at their blathering, patted him on the shoulder and held the door open. “Quit fussing. It’s early yet, and you’ve a lot more rides to tuck in before the night’s over. Treat this one like the queen she is and there’ll be an extra fifty in it for you… Fredrick.”

The kitschy light-show and dear hapless Fred weren’t as bothersome as the front ranks of guards posted at the velvet rope-fenced entrance. The nearest man put up a hand and stopped him in his tracks at the top of the stairs. “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a charity function for contributors only. Have you made a donation?” It seemed only pre-approved guests were being permitted inside- a slight oversight on his part, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from his goal. He had a conversation to close out.

Noah popped his brows and donned a charming smile as he presented the falsified credentials, nestled in a flip-fold ID bearing the name Erwin L. Yvonne, complete with the most abhorrent manipulation of his likeness ever produced. “Not to worry, gents. I’m intimately acquainted with the curator, Mr. Sharp, and I’m here to deliver my contribution in the flesh.” Everything about the little white lie he’d spun on a whim was unnatural to him, but convincing to the two confused humans -poor, overworked and underpaid minions as they probably were- relaying questions into their headsets. After a few moments of conferring with whoever was heading security (most likely the Special Agents in charge of the sting this event was a front for), they motioned him through for a pat-down just beyond the rope. Noah didn’t bother feeling offended at them for only doing as they were instructed, but he did have a little fun making them as uncomfortable as possible as they searched his person for weapons. If his disguise, an old favorite thrown together on such short notice, held up to that much, then the rest would be a cakewalk- not that he had ever harbored a desire to actually go skipping through a fully-stocked dessert table. As fun as it sounded, he had enough messes splashed all over his real name without adding another to the list.

To his relief, the reach of the holographic snowflakes stopped at the door and vanished as he crossed the threshold of the foyer. The marble floor of the lobby had been buffed and waxed to a soft shine, and was still holding up to the foot traffic four hours after the meet’s commencement. Noah only paid enough mind to the guests still loitering about in groups no larger than six people to disinterestedly scan their faces at a glance and assign his background processes the menial task of matching names and dossiers to them. At the moment, he was far too focused on finding the one disguised face among them who was of any real importance to care about much else.

Mr. Vincent Sharp. Or should he say, Gabriel Reed.

The main hall was a wide, cavernous space, with rows of columns standing off to either side. Gold leaf sconced wall lamps provided an accentuating glow compared to the three giant chandeliers of brass and aluminum that bathed the room in ambient light. The dazzling light-show playing outdoors was only outdone by the splendor of one thirty-foot tall balsam fir erected in the center of the floor, adorned with no less than one hundred feet of multicolored string lights, dozens of strands of tinsel, swaths of garland, and a few hundred bauble ornaments. The topper, a white tinsel angel with glittery wings, faced the entrance with its hands pressed together and head bowed as if to thank all who arrived. A few outlying rings of cocktail tables surrounded the roped-off centerpiece. Those guests who weren’t conversing had taken seats to sip champagne or nibble on appetizers while they caught up on their gossip. Each cloth-covered table possessed its own small topper of a larger holographic projection of snowflakes hanging stationary in midair, which constantly shifted from one pattern to the next, spinning like a globe on a stand whenever a curious hand reached out to ‘tap’ them.

A small stage nestled in an alcove against the back of the ballroom hosted a classical band (ruled by one full-size concert piano) who looked as superfluous as the snowflakes that had greeted him outside. They wound through the last chorus of Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire as he descended the staircase, before starting back up with Jingle Bell Rock. Between the cello and violins, Noah’s hypersensitive ear detected at least three strings in need of tightening before he shunted that note aside to take a backseat with the rest of his anxieties. He hadn’t spent two hours biting his knuckles over ever approaching the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium just to show up and critique its acoustic entertainment.

It wasn’t until a few curious eyes had turned his way, nodded and bid him good evening, that Noah realized how entirely inappropriate it was to be wearing sunglasses indoors, much less an event so high-class. The rest of his ensemble was tame enough- a dark navy blue suit bearing pointed lapels and a Zion sigil pin, complimented by a black dress shirt and loafers. The mild dose of glitter effect (same as could be found on the snow outside) projected into his black hair, accented with blue highlights, wasn’t as much of an affront as the pair of Ray Bans. Before anyone could make much of a fuss about it, he pulled them off and stashed the specs in his jacket’s breast pocket; in this kind of crowd, acting appropriate was of the utmost priority. Except when it wasn’t. Off to the left was a fully stocked pop-up bar- heads of the handful of people standing near it were turned away, giving off all manner of unapproachable vibes, including the only familiar silhouette in the room. Noah fought back a smirk when he spotted one particular set of ears before the facial recognition software even kicked in. As much as he would have loved to surprise him with his presence, he knew better than to sneak up on the owner of said ears. The last time he’d done so, Noah had wound up laid out over the fragments of his former coffee table, and he wasn’t eager to experience the cocktail hour equivalent of that encounter.

A half-hearted sweep of the room offered a few other suggestions of anything amiss, and that conclusion was about as dull as dishwater. Noah wasn’t really feeling making a scene with another guest (this event was far too classy for such delinquency), nor was he feeling at all confident enough to steal the mic off its stand and serenade the entire room. But that Christmas tree… it was giving off far too many signals to only be rigged with illumination accents. On his optical spectrum, a cloud of static encircled the poor displaced flora from top to bottom, a few of which were emitting from little lens-capped nodes disguised as burnt-out bulbs along the string. He drifted over casually and leaned in as if to admire his reflection in one of the gold metallic baubles, then carefully reached past the rope to twist and unplug one of the planted camera bulbs like plucking a petal off a flower. The fir gave only a whisper-quiet tink at this attack. The light strand continued to blink and cycle away, regardless of the missing piece. Noah held it up to eye level with a triumphant, yet mischievous grin. He knew exactly who was on the other side of the monitor observing the footage.

And having the most important discussion of the holiday season. On the other end of the feed, tucked away in the off-limits green rooms of the hall, Special Agent Reed was too busy engaging in one of his favorite pastimes of discussing classic action flicks with the unbaptized to notice that one of their cameras was moving. “I’m tellin’ you, man, Die Hard is THE Christmas movie, and if you don’t agree you’re just wrong .” “No way,” a second agent argued, “Bruce Willis himself denied that shit more than twenty years ago…” Reed let out a laugh that bordered on mocking, shook his head, and gestured to the man with one scolding finger lifted off his coffee cup. “John McClane would disagree-“ “Hey! Dumbasses! Stay focused!” Director Thomas Falken -who had insisted on overseeing the sting himself, in the event that something went horribly wrong - barked at the yapping men with a threatening leer that snapped Gavin’s head around and back into focus. On the feed of one of the bulb-cameras, an unrecognizable man rolled the glass node between his fingertips like a gem, and smirked as he held it up to the light. Reed’s brow furrowed in distress as he mumbled “What the fuck…?”, then swiped the walkie off the counter to relay the information. “Gabe.” “What is it, Reed?”

All done up in the swankest cocktail suit anyone would ever see him in, ‘Vincent Sharp’ turned, then leaned with his back against the bar and nursed a drink as he scanned the room through half-framed, squared-off, horn-rimmed glasses. One idle hand reached to throw back the hem of the tweed charcoal gray blazer, exposed the light brown waistcoat hugging his waist and hips, and slipped into the pocket of a pair of perfectly tailored, black slim-legged slacks. “We may have trouble, one of our spycams has been compromised.” Gabe tipped back his head and emptied the glass in his hand to smother the outward reaction of surprise, then set it down on the counter and gestured to the bartender for another. Rather than reach for any of the bottles displayed on the back counter, she went for a decanter on the shelf below the bar and refilled the glass with a burgundy brown liquid- thirium, distilled and dyed to mimic the appearance of Scotch. "Just one?” he asked in a curious tone as he searched the crowd around the tree. From his vantage point, he couldn’t clearly see anyone acting suspiciously. “Yeah, it’s the weirdest thing… little shit’s just holdin’ it up and grinnin’ like he knows we’re here…” And that he did. The harsh whisper to emanate over the commandeered camera’s mic said as much:

Good evening, Special Agent Reed. Fancy seeing you here.

From the other side of the room, Gabriel’s head turned a tic at the sound of crashing equipment and a few muttered ‘shit Shit, SHIT’s coming from the other end of the frequency he was currently tuned to. Like a bull in a china shop.

“How does he know you’re here… !?” Falken -known in his social circles as Tomahawk, for good reason- boomed from across the room as he rose from the couch and stormed over to the monitors. He shoved Reed’s chair aside, and scrutinized the face of the man making a mockery of their carefully planted monitoring equipment. Gavin’s heels scraped against the hardwood as he backpedaled and held his hands up in surrender. “I- I- I don’t… I don’t know, I didn’t tell anyone, I swear-” “Then who is THAT?” Falken punctuated with a slam of his palm against the monitor that made everyone in the room jump. “That’s… that’s, uh-...” He could explain that, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. No matter how he looked at it, he was to blame for his presence that evening. His negligence had compromised months of careful planning.

“...Gavin?” His target rose from a table toward the front of the ballroom and directed his attention toward the bar, leering with the clear intent of starting a conversation. What impeccably bad timing for this to go down. “Reed! Talk to me!”

Gabriel’s intrusion provided him with the convenient excuse he needed to disengage for a moment. One visibly-shaking hand swiped the walkie off the desk and Gavin turned to break away from the glower of Falken’s death-glare long enough to respond to his partner in the field. The other hand ran through his hair with a nervous twitch in his fingers and he glanced over his shoulder as he cleared his throat and swallowed, then mumbled, “It’s-... it’s Noah,” under his breath just loud enough for him to hear.

Gabe’s thought processes came to a screeching halt as his personal life collided with his alias for just a moment. To hear that Noah was in Washington, DC, much less at the Zion Founders Fundraiser, was the last thing he’d expected to hear that evening. As Reed continued to drop curses in the background, Gabe turned to face the bar and flashed a polite, but forced smile at the bartender as she eyed him with nervous sweeps. He didn’t reach for the glass right away as it was set in front of him on a small black napkin. “Please, tell me I didn’t just hear what I think I did…” he muttered internally as a dozen different possibilities for how the night would turn out flashed thumb-nailed pre-constructions across his HUD. But Reed’s uncomfortable sputtering confirmed what he was hoping was just a joke.

“No, you heard me right.” One hand swiped over his face in a downward motion and scratched in frustration at the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave in almost a week and desperately avoided Falken’s infuriated ‘what the fuck’ gestures in the background. “The bastard’s actually here, arrived in DC last night with Hannah and President-Elect Kamski. H-he stopped by the house lookin’ for you, but I told him you were undercover an’couldn’t make an appointment. I told him t’keep his nose outta our shit, but he-” Reed paused and squinted over Falken’s shoulder as Noah slipped the tiny camera into his pocket with a ‘Can you hear me alright in there?’ “Oh, son of a….” “What the hell is he doing…?”

The camera-bulb didn’t act as a walkie. And to their credit, all the personnel Noah could plainly see -now that his recognition software had sorted fact from fiction- didn’t stir, much less blow their cover. He knew without being told what this sting was about, and who it was the FBI were really here to keep tabs on. Perhaps him showing up was akin to being a ‘fly in the ointment’, but as yet he hadn’t done anything other than offend their Christmas tree. He gave the indifferent lens one more wordless glance as he rolled the bulb between his fingers. For a brief moment he considered winking at it, but decided at the last moment to pocket the device instead. Perhaps it’d come in handy elsewhere- for someone who hadn’t been properly equipped for this operation, it was the best he could do on such short notice. Failing that, he could always speak very loudly and deliberately at Gabriel’s collar mic, if he’d let him get close enough. The owner of the ear he recognized from before still hadn’t turned around. Outwardly he didn’t look very distressed. Only the new hunch in his shoulders, invisible to the human eye as it was, said it all. Far be it from him to keep ‘Vincent’ in suspense.

#rk900 #rk1800 #dbhilluminate #noriel #dbhiequilibrium #noah #gabriel

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footballleague0 · 7 years ago

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Why NFL’s first London game 10 years ago was a messy success

It’s no surprise the NFL has found a home in London, a city with a decade of regular-season games in its past and a full-time franchise potentially in its future.

It’s also no surprise that the league found its way there in the first place, after a foundation had been laid by the developmental NFL Europe and years of preseason games starting with the Global Cup in 1983 and continuing with the American Bowl series.

What is a surprise is that the league ever decided to return to England after a bleak regular-season debut there 10 years ago.

Eli Manning passed for just 59 yards during the Giants’ 2007 win over the Dolphins in the first NFL regular-season game played in London. “It was a rainy, nasty day, and the field was not equipped for 300-pound men,” Manning said. AP Photo/Tom Hevezi

As the NFL prepares to kick off its 2017 International Series with the first of four games in London — Sunday’s matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium — the powers that be must be checking the precipitation percentages closely.

On Oct. 28, 2007, one of the sloppiest, soggiest and sorriest games in NFL history took place at Wembley between the New York Giants, who would go on to shock the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII at season’s end, and the winless Miami Dolphins.

That 2007 “mud-fest,” as Giants quarterback Eli Manning dubbed it, will never be remembered as one of the game’s classics. The 13-10 New York victory included just 483 yards of combined total offense, with a mere 168 combined passing yards.

Looking back on that day, two things stick out for Manning: the strange — that his rushing touchdown, one of just five in his career, was the first TD in a regular-season NFL game outside of North America; and the stranger — the streaker who sprinted onto the field before the start of the third quarter.

Infamous British streaker Mark Roberts, who previously had exposed himself to NFL audiences at Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, made an uninvited appearance at the 2007 Giants-Dolphins game in London. Al Bello/Getty Images

Manning finished 8-for-22 for 59 yards, with Jeremy Shockey (three catches for 26 yards) and Plaxico Burress (two for 14) as his top targets. His Miami counterpart, Cleo Lemon, whose NFL career included only eight starts, was marginally better, completing 17 of 30 passes for 149 yards and a score.

“It was a rainy, nasty day, and the field was not equipped for 300-pound men,” Manning said. “We dug it up. It was a mud-fest. It was a good day to run the football, which we did well, but low scoring.”

Making their first trip to London, the Ravens have just two items on their agenda this weekend: beat the Jaguars and fly home.

Behind Brandon Jacobs’ 131 yards, the Giants ran for 189 yards and built a 13-0 halftime lead, only to see the Dolphins, in the midst of a dismal 1-15 season, make it close late with a Lemon-to-Ted Ginn Jr. touchdown at the two-minute mark.

To the fans in London, however, football was football (or, at least, American football was American football), and after years of having their appetites for the sport whetted, this was the real thing.

“That’s the great thing about football,” said Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice president of international operations. “Every phase of this contributes to the next. We wouldn’t have gone on to play regular-season games had we not played the NFL Europe. This is just how things evolve — sports are built over tens of decades, and it takes time.”

That evolution is personified by Ravens rookie offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor, who was born in London and moved to the United States less than a year after the game.

Ravens offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor explains where his love for football started while growing up in London

Jamison Hensley, ESPN Staff Writer

0:44

“It meant a lot to me,” said Eluemunor, a fifth-round draft pick out of Texas A&M. “Without that game, I wouldn’t be standing here in the Ravens locker room. That really was my first taste of American football.

“While I was playing high school and college football, I’d always think about it, like where would I be if I hadn’t switched the channel to that game?”

Until then, one of the persistent gripes among American football fans in Europe had been the desire to see their favorite NFL stars in the flesh. The last exhibition game in London had been in 1993. And while NFL Europe — which debuted in 1991 as the World League of American Football, with an original franchise in London, and folded in 2007 — produced future NFL luminaries such as Kurt Warner, Dante Hall and Jake Delhomme, the Q rating wasn’t exactly there.

Though the Giants and Dolphins didn’t treat the Wembley crowd to the sport at its finest, the fans appreciated what they saw. Waller said all 84,000-plus seats sold out in less than 90 minutes. To hype the event, the NFL paraded a 26-foot-tall robotic version of star Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor around London.

A giant, animatronic replica of Dolphins star Jason Taylor made its presence known in Trafalgar Square to promote the game. Cathal McNaughton/PA Images via Getty Images

“Never underestimate how grateful fans are to get real games,” said Waller, who was born in South Africa to British parents. “Just the fact a team was willing to give up a home game to go to the UK to play, that meant a lot to fans. These are smart fans. They’re smart fans of American football, soccer, rugby. They know there are good games and less good games, but you don’t stop loving a sport or a team because a game doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

“Would you rather have a bad game or no game at all? Ninety-nine percent would say a bad game.”

While the quality of play was forgettable, the atmosphere was anything but. Giants long snapper Zak DeOssie, along with Manning one of two players still active with the Giants, recalls seeing a “smorgasbord of jerseys representing all 32 teams, it seemed.”

“It was incredible,” DeOssie said. “At the time, I was just doing punt snaps, but I’ve never seen a crowd so excited for field goals and kickoffs. Lawrence Tynes (the Giants’ place-kicker and born in Scotland) felt like a superstar. I think the crowd was more excited for kickoffs than touchdowns.”

Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga treated the first NFL regular-season game played outside of North America as a landmark event. Then-Dolphins defensive coordinator Dom Capers, now with the Green Bay Packers, said Huizenga flew out all the wives and families of the coaches and rented out the Tower of London for a team party.

“Wayne went overboard and treated it almost like a Super Bowl,” Capers said.

Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora (72), a native of London, pursues Dolphins running back Jesse Chatman on the messy Wembley Stadium field. Joel Auerbach/Getty Images

For Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora, it was an unrivaled experience. The London native was ecstatic to be playing in his home country, which he’d departed when he was only 6, first to Nigeria and then to the United States.

“I left London in ’87, and I hadn’t been back, and when I found out I was playing a game where I was born, it was crazy to me,” he said. “To play a regular-season game overseas, and to play in London, it was an amazing feeling. A lot of my family came in from Nigeria.”

Umenyiora remembers it being “a unique bonding experience” for the Giants.

“Once we got to London, it was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had on a team before,” he said. “You have training camp where you’re together all the time, but for us to be together like that in another country, experiencing different cultures, going around, always together. In the NFL, once training camp is over, you’re there from 8 to 4 and everyone goes their separate ways.”

Manning had his family and friends with him in London, as well, and recalled the team’s victory celebration.

“After the game we stayed in the city, and we had the whole team gathered at one spot, with guys on the mic announcing other guys coming in,” Manning said.

Aside from the poor field conditions, the game went off without a hitch. Since then, the NFL has been expanding its international footprint. In 2013, the league added a second London game to the schedule, and in 2014 a third. A new high will be set with this season’s four games. There is also a regular-season game scheduled in Mexico City for the second consecutive year.

Waller said a significant number of fans will be returning for their 11th season of watching the NFL in London.

“One of the coolest things, and not just that game, but all of them, is fans come from thousands of miles away,” Waller said. “We had German fans there, Dutch fans, a bunch of fans from Finland and Norway. One of the things that is remarkable about sports is you love to gather with other people who love what you love.”

ESPN.com reporters Jamison Hensley and Rob Demovsky contributed to this report.

The post Why NFL’s first London game 10 years ago was a messy success appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

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giantsfootball0 · 7 years ago