Match of the Millennium

Description: Stray meets Poison in his base of operations, with a proposition. Skull Cross needs muscle, but it also needs flair. And Poison Kiss just happens to know both.

[STRAY]
Deep ponderings tonight, in the belly of Metro City during this strangely calm spring. Stray had taken pause at the shifting of the seasons, knowing that his benefactor to the East represented oil interests. Were they fighting for this, this strange environmental shift? He had been promised a new Soviet Union, a place where science and art and intellect were rewarded by the state, and all fought to support the greatest minds on their hardened backs. A place where the soldier was also a literati, and a computer wizard was a dangerous spy. Reagan had lured them into Afghanistan, and then frightened them with a Western movie that caused them to spend their entire grand experiment into poverty. It seemed silly, looking back on it, that an artifice designed by a man like Stalin, made of steel, could be destroyed by an actor like Reagan, made of film. And now, it seemed as if the seasons themselves were morphing into something that made him feel like a dinosaur amidst the end of his epoch.

Stray sat in his command center, in an old automotive factory in the Industrial District, before a bank of computers. Previously the foreman's office, he had rigged it with a great deal of Chinese computer hardware, all of it custom-coded in Ukrainian dialect Russian-Cyrillic. He had networked all of his positions together, piggybacking on local cable and phone networks. Sometimes, even satellite television dishes. It was a triumph for him, this circuitous network of lies. But, still, sometimes, the personal touch was required, when the FBI was chasing Skull Cross and his deals with Mad Gear relied on the support of the charismatic criminals of the city. The Russians and their immigrant affiliates? They were merely thugs, at the end of the day.

Stray quietly smokes a contraband Marlboro Red, from Ukraine, waiting for Poison Kiss to arrive. Her access to professional wrestling interested him.

[POISON]
And just as she is thought about, in walks POison. Heels click on the ground as she walks in with her riding crop. "So what do we have here?" She says as she walks towards Stray. Yes, she was provocatively dressed. Jean short shorts, long boots, very short shirt, and she was undeniably female, just from her curves. Any rumors there were about her being male at one time is dispelled, because there is no man that could have legs like that, even the most effeninate man couldn't have legs like hers.

She walks over towards Stray and looks him over, cocking her hip and placing the tip of the riding crop on the ground. "mmm?"

[STRAY]
Stray slowly lifts his hand to his mouth as Poison walks in, smoking left handed, placing his full hand over his mouth as he tilts his chin upwards. His eyes hidden by his rectangular shades, he takes a slow drag. He turns and taps off ash in a tray, inverting the cigarette above the glass circle with his deft typist's fingers. "You have a man without time, but with money." Looking back to her, he smiles impishly. "And time is money." Smoke wafts out of his mouth in the office, as he leans back in his office chair, a greasy brown leather upholstered affair without arms, the type that Stray could easily afford to replace but preferring not to.

"I hear you used to be the manager of, what's he called..." His right hand pivots in a circle, turned slightly upwards in a neutral fashion. "Hugo Andore?" He nods faintly, leaning forward and putting his cigarette out in the tray. "How many more such men do you know, Poison Kiss?"

[POISON]
"Just Poison, lovely. And I know of a couple, but Hugo is the best of them all." Poison smirks a bit, but she does take a seat in a chair. "I'm going to assume there's, at least, a point to this. Let's see. Money, connections....more?" She says as she crosses her legs.....and sorta stretching out.

[STRAY]
"You have something more important to be doing?" Stray frowns faintly. "I did not know that your dance card was so full these days. Very well." He props his elbows up on his desk, leaning forward and interlacing his fingers in a cathedral arch. "I need better muscle. Not just my standard network. Skull Cross has the best specialist soldatos in Metro City, but we lack what makes Mad Gear special. I want charisma. I need soldiers that have a certain sense of theater." He purses his lips in a displeased downward expression. "Not posture. I mean breaking a leg, and making the message count in the mind, not just the bone." He tips his chin down. "Do you understand?"

[POISON]
Poison says, "And so, you want Hugo. but Hugo is not a mere soldier. You want things broken, he's the one to do it. And I don't just mean objects, though people can be considered objects by Hugo." She then smiles to Stray. "And I'm a manager of wrestlers, hun. My dance card is always full. Once I get back to the MCWF, I could probably get more, rather easily.""

[STRAY]
Stray lowers his hands to present a shield, fingers on the desk. "Consider it for a time. I do not know what Belger's fee is, but Skull Cross also pays generously. Consider a five thousand dollar finder's fee for each individual you recruit." He unlaces his fingers, raising his fore in the air. "And remember, I want charisma. Not just a legbreaker." He turns to a compartment beneath the desk, pulling out a small band of twenty dollar bills, adding up to five hundred dollars. He slides it across the desk to Poison. "For your time today."

[POISON]
Poison smiles and puts the 500 dollars between her breasts. "Thank you. And....Hugo has charisma. Well....you'll understand if you ever meet him. I think there's two others in his 'stable' as well. But those are the juniors." She then smiles and stands. "Hugo will enjoy himself. It's not just charisma, but he's intimidating as well.....you'll like him."

Poison says, "whee..."

[STRAY]
Stray turns about, to face the dingy, package-tape covered window that filters light into the office, beyond the desk lamps and computer screens. "I like people based on their tactical worth, Poison. If you are correct, we will be best of friends." A black cat slowly rubs along Poison's leg on its way around the desk and into Stray's lap, the Russian mobster stroking it quietly, around its ears. "Thank you for this meeting. I can see it has been productive for both of us."

Log created on 23:30:12 05/16/2017 by Stray, and last modified on 00:54:34 05/17/2017.