It was more than he ever expected out of life.  “This job is really pretty badass,” he had explained to his only friend over a giant slice of pizza at a stand-up table.  He was careful to wipe the corners of his mouth after every bite and vigilant about where the grease landed on the paper plate.  This shirt cost $30 dollars and a grease stain would absolutely ruin the pink florets embedded into their bright white background.  He left the shirt stylishly un-tucked over his pressed Bermuda shorts.

“So you just… drive people around in a limo?”  The friend was absurdly tall and with little to no fat around his almost as little muscled frame; he looked sickly.  He typically wore thick holiday sweaters and corduroy pleated pants, as he was today, though his sleeves had been bunched up around his elbows in the warm weather.

“Not a limo; a limousine!”  Tonny corrected, emphasizing the last syllable causing his barely perceptible lisp to be more pronounced.

Tonny was a diminutive young man with impeccable hygiene, well-coiffed of wispy and much attended brown hair, and only slightly more mass than his friend James, whom Tonny called “Lankerjim.”  They were an unlikely pair between the size disparity and taste in clothing, but both had made an attempt to get through the New Vegas adult educational system and both preferred the company of men.  These commonalities combined with not necessarily finding a mutual attraction and having no other prospects at friendship was enough to create a fairly secure bond.

“You don’t drive the same person around every time?  How does that work?” James asked as he looked for a strategic new location to take a bite of his slice.

Tonny wiped his mouth for the 30th time, which was starting to turn red at the corners, and shrugged.  “I dunno, there’s like… a pool of us.  The coordinator calls our name or pages us and we go get a car and hang out in the front of wherever we’re picking them up.  There’s only a couple guys that drive the same people around but I’ve never seen them; they don’t hang out with us in the ‘Driver Den’.”  He was very proud of coming up with that name for the area near the garage that held the town-cars and limos that housed the drivers during their working, non-driving hours.  It was essentially a recreation area with couches, tv’s and other time-killing accoutrements designed to keep the drivers nearby and readily available when on call.

James dropped a bony hand to his hip and said “Well that’s just sillyyyyy,” the last syllable being drug out and his voice rising to flourish the very whiny pitch to the comment.  His tone continued in the higher register; “Why wouldn’t they just assign you to one of those business men?”

Tonny stopped chewing and stared up at his friend with a dead pan look.  “Ahr ‘oo even jisseneen?” he said, incredulous, over his half-chewed mouthful.  As if forgetting about the pizza bite in his mouth he soldiered on with his retort.  “There’s mo reavon to be ashimed becah den we’d juf be shitteen in a cah all zay!”  The hard syllable at the word "car" let loose some crumbs in James’ direction.

The tall man tried to look away numerous times through the response but couldn’t help but watch the train wreck in his friends mouth.  He muttered “Oh god” and appeared to be suddenly nauseated.  When the crumb projectiles flew at him he flinched and drew his hands up to shield himself from the barrage.  Tonny rolled his eyes and finished chewing with his brows furrowed and looking disconsolate.  He made an obvious showing of looking at his watch and threw away the rest of his meal.  This was clearly a statement as James watched the whole scene in horror.

“I need to get to work,” Tonny said as he wiped his side of the table down with the napkin he’d just wiped his mouth with again.

“Sure, ok” James replied, clearly dejected.

Without looking at him, Tonny briskly walked over to James and wrapped an arm around his midsection and still folded arms in a quick half-hug gesture and scurried away.  He hated leaving a situation feeling like he’d hurt somebody’s feelings, and his friend was easily hurt.  So the hug was to say “we’re fine” without giving up his right to be angry.  The irony about fuming on his friend’s sensitivity in this situation was lost on him.

He walked home in a hurry along the fractured pavement and past the garbage with the massive skyscrapers of the main city in the distance, dressed himself in his work-assigned suit and after a third check in the mirror was off to wait at the bus stop.  He’d be at work a half hour early but they didn’t mind if you wanted to work extra.  It was one of the reasons he loved the job so much: all the extra income had paid for his new condo (new compared to the studio apartment in one of the worst parts of town he had resided in) in a slightly better part of town, his fabulous shirt that he was able to retain free of grease stains, and to be able to pay for his friend’s lunch.  Luckily in his current circumstances, Lankerjim was not in any place to turn it down.  Once at work he scanned his datac over the receiver to clock in and made his way to an empty spot on a couch.  He tried, as usual, to smile at some of the other drivers to see if a conversation might be struck up, but as usual he was ignored.

An intercom crackled.  “Tony.  You’re up- come get your instructions.”

Agitated, he scampered over to the interface and pressed the intercom button.  “Uh, Mr. Dunsen it’s pronounced ‘Tahn’-“

“I don’t care.” Dunsen interrupted.  This was exactly the kind of thing that kept the other drivers from being inclined to acknowledge his existence.  “Scan for your instructions and don’t bother me with the minutiae, Tony.” 

Pouting, Tonny fished his datac back out of his pocket and waved it over the scanner to the right of the interface screen.  Once he heard the beep he turned and skulked off to the garage.  In no mood to attempt a conversation with the garage attendant who never responded anyway, he dragged his feet right past the attendant’s box and out amongst the cars.  He waved his datac once more over a small scanner at the entrance and a light came on over one of the limos about 60 feet away.  This brightened his mood- he loved driving the limos!  His pace quickened again as he made his way through the army of black vehicles to the one that was lit up by its overhead indicator.  It was a finely crafted automobile, sleek and shined to a reflective surface despite the darkness of the paint job.  Scanning the door he unlocked it and climbed in, excited to see who he was driving.  His passengers rarely spoke to him but he didn’t mind, it was like being amongst celebrity to him.  Men and women he would never otherwise have any contact with were regularly 6 to 10 feet away from him and quite possibly accessible (at least in his delusional opinion).  He fired up the engine while setting his device in the cradle, bringing up a map of the block he was on with a red dot indicating his destination.  He barely looked because he had noticed that his passenger was in the building above him and he merely needed to make his way to the front entrance.  As he pulled out of the garage with a smile on his face he finally took a good look at the navimap, and realized in horror that the dot was at the rear entrance.  Late pickups were one of the many ways to be fired and he’d never had one, never even come close.  He stomped the gas and blew through the barely opening gates of the garage, careening dangerously close to one of the alley walls as he brought the engine loudly to its capacity before slamming on the brakes to turn another corner.  The structure was not a simple square and aside from that it’s dimensions were massive, so getting from the front to the back was not as simple as two turns and a block’s worth of circumventing.

Sweating, Tonny made the final turn to the rear entrance gate and slowed the limo back to reasonable speeds as a child who’s late for class walks into the room after sprinting down the hall.  He was unaware that his arrival was early until he again noticed the navimap and the time, indicating that he wasn’t expected for another 5 minutes.  He stopped the vehicle immediately with just the nose and front doors beyond the last corner and dropped back against his seat with a heavy exhale.  His head rolled to the right to look out the passenger-side window in the direction his passenger would be exiting the building, not yet expecting to see anybody.  He instead saw three unsettling prospects.

One- there was no security around.  No guard nor sentry occupied the normally fortified back lot area.
Two- there were 3 men already standing outside in what appeared at first glance to be a heated discussion.
Three- one of those men, Tonny was sure, was the owner of the corporation.  He had only heard of the man and his lavish red suits and considerable size, so the formidable man in his view wearing expensive crimson tailored attire was a strong possibility.  From here Tonny could barely make out a well groomed full beard and quality styled hair almost matching the color of his suit.  He was a large man, his shoulders spanning two or 3 times the width of Tonny himself and well over 6 feet tall.  The shirt under his dress coat and high gloss shoes were black, the only items on him that weren’t red.  And he appeared quite angry.  Not that he moved much, but Tonny fancied himself an empath and could easily read body language, and even from this distance he felt too close to the man’s displeased state.

The man next to him was even taller though not nearly as wide.  He almost reminded Tonny of Lankerjim; only good looking and not as thin, and MUCH better dressed.  Also in finely crafted attire the man next to the boss wore a long white dress coat over a contemporary black and grey suit with a half collar.  His hair was stark white, long, and tied in a neat ponytail that poured out of a beautiful hat that matched the darker colors of his suit.  In one hand was a cane that had no hook on the handle, but instead appeared to be more of a smooth and straight walking stick.  His eyes were covered in darkened spectacles.

The third man was the object of the other two men’s attention.  He was not a small man, but not nearly as large as the two he faced.  He wore a nice suit as well, but as Tonny could figure nothing as expensive as the first two gentlemen.  Really only getting a profile look at the man, Tonny’s assessment of him was abruptly halted by the man yelling… which sounded from here like pleading.  With movements faster than anything Tonny had seen in his entire life, the tall thin man put a second hand on his cane and whipped that same arm across the front of the 3rd man.  Only the glint of steel in the sunlight made Tonny realize that the cane had produced a blade, and the man on the receiving end of it was falling to his knees, dying.

Tonny began to hyperventilate and flailed with the controls of his car.  As he found the control that put the limo in reverse he took one more look in the direction of the nightmare and was aghast that the two still standing men were looking right at him.  He didn’t know what to think as they seemed calm, unfettered by his unwelcomed presence.  They each turned their faces to look at each other, and suddenly the thin man with the cane leapt.  His distance and speed upward were such that Tonny could no longer see him, his vision blocked by the roof of the car.  He’d seen enough.  He turned his attention back to the controls and noticed something in his peripheral vision outside his driver’s window.

The flash of white when he turned to look caused him to shriek, the sound of an eight year old girl spotting a large spider filled the car as he noticed the thin man right outside his door.  The button to lower the window depressed itself and the glass slid down mechanically.  He waited until Tonny ceased his scream while he stooped to put his face at eye level with the young man.

He appeared to bore into the soul of the driver before saying in a sweet voice, “Hello Tonny;” who was even more disconcerted that this man whom he had never previously laid eyes on pronounced his name correctly.

“He-hello,” Tonny squeaked.  This job was so badass…

“There’s nothing to fear, Tonny.  You’re very good at your job.”
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:07, Sat 09 June 2012.