[Academy RP] The Obedient Worker Turns the Machinery

[GrecianJorge]

Eight years before the present day, in one of the many figurative and literal dark corners the bustling city of Porto Greco contains within its walls, there is a lone man walking with strangely determined but at the same hesitant eyes. God knows what he's doing, but his eyes that almost seem to be staring into the void already express that he's nervous and hesitant, but at the same time determined. Why is he determined, but at the same hesitant? Well, this young man is none other than Amadeo Pascale, the same man who six years from this episode would, through his political agility, wit and charming discourse, rise through the ranks in the Porto Grecan political machine and become the Regional Councilor for arguably the nation's most important and most metropolitan region.

For now, though, Amadeo is just an unremarkable university student. This naturally means he's stressed, very stressed, also considering this is final semester before he graduates and is thrown into the real wurld and left to fend with his own devices against the implacable Porto Grecan meat grinder that, by the very nature of the system which was baked into the society and vice versa, exalted the useful ones and discarded the less useful ones. He's always been an exemplary student, but that has not stopped anyone from feeling stressed; even the most stellar and high-achieving of students require an activity to keep their stress, at least, at a manageable level. Every person is of course different, some would rather engage in rather noble hobbies such as knitting or cooking, some in more physically active ones like sports and weightlifting, but men like Amadeo... let's just say that the destination he's walking towards with that determined but nervous gaze is not precisely a church. 

The instant he walks into the building, flanked by neon signs amidst the backdrop of the harsh Porto Grecan night, the doubts consume his mind. You see, Amadeo is a young man with very little time, and he swore to his girlfriend that the instant he had even a speck of time free from typical university activities they would spend it together, as a couple. However, Amadeo's girlfriend was definitely not in this place, and truth be told... a certain part of his brain tried to console him that it would be okay, that his girlfriend didn't love him anymore, that his relationship was at a dead point. With the rest of his brain revolting against this repulsive and far-fetched justification not being enough to overturn the decision he made, he walked deeper into the maw of the monster that would mentally consume him in eight years. This monster, however, had a human form.

Eight years later...

This meeting is quick, but decisive. With Amadeo being one of the Regional Councilors of his country and, by nature, a member of the Supreme Reunion, he's at this point gotten used to the relentless political machinery on which this country runs. As he's part of the Supreme Reunion, he's directly analogous to nine workers, who at the same time are the leaders of the factory they're in, having to move all the machinery by themselves. This situation naturally creates opportunities for workers to search alliances so they can make their own job easier, and in this meeting a man would... 'forcefully' create an alliance with the still young man named Amadeo Pascale.

While he's sitting in a chair twiddling his fingers over an etruscan-looking table, adamant steps, the steps of someone wearing high quality shoes, soon filll the air in the room and instantly replace the previously boring atmosphere with one that threatened to consume him and crush his bones between its jaws, let alone the rest of his body. Soon enough, in between the now 12,000 PSI stressful atmosphere, walks another man holding a single folder between his hands. He walks to the opposite side of the table and sits in the opposite chair to Amadeo. It is only now he meets Amadeo's proposal for a handshake, which was previously only met by the air in the room.

"Amadeo! My man! How are you doing?" 

The young man chuckled. "Are you trying to convince me on the most recent law that's been talked about by being friendly?"

Letting out a hearty laugh, the older man who sat opposite to Amadeo had high hopes for this meeting. "Amadeo, no, I'll not try to convince you. I will convince you."

Amadeo also laughed at this statement, a very funny image of the man was being formed in his mind. "Dude, what are you? A salesman? Or were you one annoying Aroman missionaries? Wait... I might be onto something. You're descended from Tagmantines, aren't you?"

"Indeed I am, but I would consider myself agnostic nowadays. If God existed then we wouldn't have to deal with maintaining the leeches over at Riva Moneta, now would we?"

The laughs that filled the room after that comment, representative of the population's thoughts at the now poor region of Riva Moneta diffuminated the jaws that were closing in on Amadeo and temporarily created the illusion that they didn't even exist.

"You're right, you're right. Now, I want you to be upfront about this. The UMP faces a minority in the Reunion. So you want to try to sway my vote?"

"No, you're wrong. I will sway your vote, as I said."

The jaws began manifesting themselves over the historic-looking room again.

"How?"

"Well, to be honest, I don't care about your personal opinions or your ideals. I just want you to vote in my favor in anything I and the UMP want to do. That's fine with you, isn't it?"

"Of course not, Caesar. the truth is, what the UMP is proposing is frankly ridiculous. You're trying to turn Porto Greco into a new Serene Corporation, without realizing it's been over a hundred years since it was dissolved, and for a reason. We need to operate as an actual country, instead of a country-sized company-"

"Well, Amadeo, the truth is, I don't care about any of that. If giving myself and my family and the people I care about money while keeping people peaceful makes Porto Greco into a corporatocracy or whatever the f*ck you want to call it, I will do it. And you will help me."

"I won't! What are you even saying? You don't know how to discu-"

The sound of what seemed to be paper or something similar interrupted Amadeo's spiel. And when he looked down, that single yellow folder stood before him on the Etruscan-looking table.

"What is this?"

"Please open it."

Amadeo obediently opened the folder. And what he saw, and the sentation that emerged from his eye's identification of the object, was like the giant maws had closed in on him, like it had instantly completely triturated his bones and teared his meat apart like what those machines do to make sausages. He had been digested by the human monster in this instant. His eyes began shaking incontrollably, with his similarly shaking hands planting themselves on his own chest because he felt it would erupt out of it and launch itself towards the window and jump off by itself. His shaky eyes looked at Amadeo's placid smile.

"So, I think you know what this entails."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"How... did you get... this?"

Caesar outwardly laughed. "I have ways of getting things." He stood up and gave him a pat in the back after looking at the photo of a younger Amadeo's face sepulted in... one of the workers of that building he went to many years ago, a memory he had forgot not by pure chance, but because his brain repressed it under 500 tons of titanium. But a hand had smashed through all those layers and put the memory in him again, like he was in a first class seat of a theater screening a movie about his life.

"Don't disappoint me." Caesar Cartolano got up and left without a handshake, leaving Amadeo all for himself. But if he was to maintain his livelyhood, his wife he married with a year ago, the family he had just started after his daughter was born only three months ago, and his political career he knew he had to be the obedient worker turning the machinery.