Sutra-Dhara Anima/Official Designation of Stage Crew
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Or: How the Stage Crew acquired formal designation in Infinity Inc
Author's note: This short tale is excerpted from a more Kummer-centric story, "Mistaken Identity", chapter 5. They take place in early summer of 2012. --Jarissa 11:47, 3 November 2013 (EST)
Grigaere woke up sharply. He sensed a very close presence, not one of his cohort, near his bed. Odd that his colleague's pet had not awoken from her own nap to object.
Sutra-Dhara's face hovered inches from his, featuring an expression of concentrated outrage. "Good, you are awake. You must come at once!"
Past her and to the side, Grigaere could see two dark-haired bodies propped halfway upright, watching in silence. No help looked to be coming from that half of the room.
"Perhaps you could back away so I may rise," he suggested gently.
"Yes," Sutra-Dhara said impatiently, tossing his hat at him as she straightened. His boots immediately followed. "My poppet is in Medical and they are too slow," she explained.
"Medical may not permit me entrance," Grigaere pointed out.
Sutra interrupted with a dismissive tone: "Nonsense. MY poppet has crooked PARTS and cannot tell the STORY and I am taking care of the poppet by fetching you!" Rather than watch Grigaere assemble his garb, she turned to the opposite side of the cell. Paying no attention to the Killing Dance's lack of clothing or mask, she began, "You teach the class. You know these things. Where does a Delta go to report a Trainer for correction? Not to another Trainer, I think."
The dancer blinked. "I have no idea. Trainers do not seem to get called out for their abuse ... seeing as it is called 'torture' for a reason."
Sutra looked even more irate. "Oh, but this one did not do it in the Training wing, he decided to go be a director! Out in the world! With MY POPPET!"
Fehral shrank back against Killing Dance very slightly, daunted by the occasionally delusional illusion-crafter's volume.
Killing Dance answered coolly as always. "So he took control of company assets without permission?"
"Ohhhh yes," Sutra hissed. "Certainly not my permission!"
"For non-training purposes?" the black-eyed man pressed.
"For getting into a fight purposes!"
Killing Dance nodded. "Then you get Mr. Bruin's attention. He takes company assets seriously ... was the asset damaged?"
Sutra pointed back at Grigaere, who had both of his boots on and was reaching for his tunic. "Very much so, yes! Were you not hearing? The poppet is bent and does not sparkle!"
"I heard. Mr. Bruin frowns upon misuse of assets, and unnecessary damage of said assets."
Sutra-Dhara thought about that for a moment, then nodded sharply in return. She reached upward to grasp the Fiddler's collar and dragged him out of the cell at a rapid pace.
==
Kummer gasped sharply, eyes wide, then relaxed. Immediately, he fought back a whimper, then squeezed his eyes shut against the bright overhead lights of medical. He tried to reach up and cover them with his paws, but a strong set of leather straps kept him motionless. A tide of panic fought against a current of euphoria. Both were mixed with a foggy confusion that momentarily obscured his thoughts. It was all that remained from a dose of painkillers. He tried to talk, instead he croaked. The Alpha closed his mouth and swallowed to get his voice working again despite his unusually dry throat.
Fortunately, the pain he dimly remembered was gone now. Kummer took a deep breath to steady himself. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was in medical, or almost in medical. More accurately, he was in the ‘prep room’. His own memory of his wounds nagged at his cloudy mind. However, his wounds were gone. To one side of his bed stood Grigaere. Beyond the Fiddler - almost as if she was trying to loom, yet not - stood Sutra-Dhara.
Near the doorway, Kummer saw Tundro trying to walk in. He was being blocked by five large orderlies. Tundro was determined and pushed gently forward. The orderlies were resolute and pushed firmly back. Unfortunately, the orderlies were outnumbered. Tundro continued to slowly enter the room to where he could at least hear. He was extra careful to hurt none of them, just gently set each big man to one side.
The young wolf’s eyes flicked between the two Deltas a moment. He smiled, almost embarrassed, to his Delta: Sutra-Dhara.
“Griga’re? Sutra? Kummer sorry cause trouble,” he apologized in a small voice. He looked at Sutra. “I do better next time. Dodge wrong side when vampire attack. No happen twice, an’ embarrass my Delta.” He hesitated a moment, then glanced at the pair curiously. “I win though. Win count?”
"The relevant criterion is the comparative condition of the other fellow," Grigaere assured him. Something definitely had to be off for the normally laid-back Delta to be speaking so formally. "As for 'trouble', you are not its cause so much as its motivation, from what I gather. You had a concussion, so we need a cognitive test: count to twenty via the gesture code on alternating hands, young man, while you tell me what day of the week it is."
Kummer thought about that a moment. Slowly at first, he worked his way through the gestures ... one, two, three ... and so on until he reached twenty. “Uh … Tuesday? Day blur t’gether,” the Alpha replied, sparing a glance at the impatient Sutra. He felt he should say something reassuring, but just wasn’t sure what that would be. He was also concerned that she might reach out and do something obscene to Grigaere at any moment.
"You are doing fine." Grigaere turned to Sutra-Dhara. "He is under medication. An Employee is going to do a detailed examination. I expect that Kummer will be kept quiet for a few hours, that he will undergo the usual observed exercises to test his functions, and that he will need extra nutrition over the course of the next two meals. Do not get the young man excitable until tomorrow. No climbing around in stage rigging, for example. If he exhibits signs of pain, get him back in here for analysis. Did you want anything else of me?"
"No, fine, get out," the pale-skinned Delta said dismissively. "I will let you have a spotlight for your next orchestra."
With a brief tip of his hat to the white-furred wolf, Grigaere got.
"Tundro will keep good watch over you while you rest, Kummer," Sutra-Dhara assured him. "You poppets can have a nice meal after you wake up, I will bring you a picnic lunch. Yes? Good. Now, listen: once upon a time, there was a kingdom so small that the king could see all his borders from the tower in his castle...."
Kummer nodded at the idea of a picnic lunch. He wasn’t sure if it was the thought of eating with people he didn’t mind the company of he liked, or the imaginary image of medical personnel watching Sutra-Dhara “brown bag” a lunch for Tundro and Kummer and maybe even herself. He wondered if she would even find a checkered tablecloth? He wondered why wouldn’t she? He then wondered, what it really would be before she turned it into a checkered tablecloth. His mind quickly returned to Sutra’s story before she got too far into it. He actually had not heard this one before.
The young wolf’s eyes began to close, when he remembered the video he saw. He struggled against the heaviness he felt. Eventually, Kummer lost and the triple threat of sleep, exhaustion and drugs won.
“Trap … recovery team … fifth column … use me bait. Isall bad,” Kummer mumbled before he drifted fully to sleep. A moment later, with Sutra nearing the crux of the story, she was rewarded with slow deep breaths from the sleeping Alpha.
As Tundro settled down in her freshly-vacated chair, Sutra stopped long enough to curl one arm around the black-and-white-furred Samoan. "Good man," she said softly. "I must go find the Bruin, and I do not know how long it will take, but I will bring back a good meal to get Kummer strong again."
"No trouble, sistah," he reassured her. Sutra-Dhara glared around once at the resigned orderlies. She nodded firmly, then traipsed out in search of a likely-looking Security type.
It was not long before she found one. "Are you the Bruin?"
The security guard in question stared at her for a second. "Uhmm, no, I'm Darryl Abdul. Director Bruin is taller, and wears power armor when he's not in his office. Why do you ask?"
She'd half-expected the first couple of answers to be "no" anyway; traditionally it took three or four tries before one got anywhere on a quest. It was nice that this first one even thought to provide clues. "I am on a mission," she gave her obvious answer, and continued toward the Security office.
Inside the little office, a man sat working his way through a stack of computer reports. He glanced up, half-annoyed, when Sutra-Dhara re-opened the door behind her and closed it with a louder thunk. "What now-- Oh, you. Something for Fractured Fairy Tales Hour?"
Now that she thought about it, this was one of the ones who sometimes came to her weekly story sessions, especially if he had ended his duty shift earlier in the day. "Are you the Bruin?" she asked Watanabe anyway. Quest rules were not to be lightly set aside.
"Ahhh, no? Maybe it's something I can handle for you, though."
Sighing, Sutra-Dhara shook her head at the man. She glanced around for a minute, then headed back to the hall. She would try the protective gauntlet near the exit next.
Much to her pleasure, she found a woman there in power armor, with a helmet temporarily removed in order to closely examine a piece of paper. Sutra-Dhara waited very politely to be noticed before she spoke -- recently she had done much studying of the tales of the Baba Yaga, and it was wisest to check for steel teeth before treating any strange woman with less than impeccable manners.
When the armored woman turned and stared at her, Sutra-Dhara had her best etiquette in place. She bowed properly, not like the performers did, and said, "I regret the imposition on your time. Perhaps you are the Bruin? I very much have a tale which must be told to the Bruin."
The tawny-haired Watch Officer studied Sutra a moment with ice-blue eyes before she answered. “I’m quite sorry, Delta 97d, I am not Director Bruin. I am Watch Officer Eva Jagerskiold. However, I can escort you to him. What is the nature of the emergency?”
"Dangerous misuse of Corporate Poppetry," Sutra-Dhara did her best not to seethe too much, but it certainly formed the shape of her lips and throat as she declaimed. "Without permission!"
Fortunately, the Jagerskiold did not have steel teeth.
Officer Jagerskiold smiled faintly; she was mildly surprised, and a touch amused, at the restrained passion of the explanation. The Watch Officer thought about that a moment, then placed the paper in a belt pouch and slipped her helmet on. Once the neural interlocks formed, she called up Director Bruin’s schedule.
“That is a serious issue that Director Bruin takes very seriously. According to his schedule, he should be almost complete with today’s exercise session with the Trainers.” Eva looked down at the smaller woman and nodded. “Follow me, Delta 97d, I will escort you to him.”
Leading the way, the Watch Officer walked slightly ahead of the Delta at a brisk pace. The pair moved through the base steadily, until they arrived in the hallway leading between medical and several of the exercise rooms. At the moment they arrived, the door to the nearest exercise room opened and Jerimiah Bruin - dressed in a soot-stained and torn armored suit - stepped out. The Director had just slipped his helmet into a gym bag he carried. A towel hung loose around his neck. He ran a hand through his short cut hair.
He stepped out the door, then looked up at the imposing figure of one of his Watch Officers escorting a small woman in a red bodysuit that looked to be leather, and was certainly decorated in a few chains. Jeremiah thought for a moment, then it came to him: Delta 97d, Sutra-Dhara Anima. The door behind Jerimiah hissed while it worked again. The heavy footfalls of two of his bots, WheelJack and Dirge, stepped into the hallway as well, following their creator.
Jerimiah wiped his face with the towel. He nodded curiously at the Watch Officer then fixed his eyes on Sutra-Dhara.
“Officer Jagerskiold,” the inventor said in greeting.
“Director,” she replied. “Delta 97d requests a moment of your time. There is an emergency.”
Dirge cycled his plasma coils, a habit he had before any full scale assault. WheelJack elbowed his positronic sibling and shook his head. Dirge looked disappointed.
“Thank you Eva,” Jerimiah replied with a short nod. His eyes remained fixed on Sutra-Dhara. He knew this Delta, up until lately, had been less than animated or even ‘social’. This was nothing short of an amazing, and interesting surprise. It also suggested this was indeed very serious.
“Sutra-Dhara Anima is it?” he asked. “What’s the problem?”
She bowed more deeply than she had to the maybe-sorceress; this one was a true Director, the third responder said, not one of the B-listers. "I must tell a story that is missing some of its pieces, sir," she began cautiously. "I cannot get the pieces until the thing must be set in motion. I think waiting for the whole might be too long a wait, and the spell will end. Do you know of the dwarf who is too tall?"
Bruin frowned a moment. In part that was his usual reaction to a lot of things, but also to interpret the Delta’s question. “The dwarf who is …” then a flash of inspiration struck him. Only one trainer could be considered ‘almost as wide as he is tall’ without exaggerating much. Kurtz. The Director nodded briefly and dabbed the sweat from his brow. “Kurtz? Yes, I know him.”
Sutra-Dhara Anima exerted herself for a moment. Shadows raced out of her in an expanding aura, filling most of the hall, leaving one wall completely blank and white instead of its actual textured grey.
The woman herself moved her hands in specific patterns, and various hinged silhouettes appeared to cavort around that blank white space in response to her narration.
"It is sometimes said that people are what they are, they strive to be more, and the way to true enlightenment is to understand when the growth into a new level of being is not a striving. Many paths lead only to more effort, more futilely, becoming the wrong kind of self. The soul might not recognize the wrong path until it is a wrong thing entirely, and wish remorsefully to have remained what they were born to be."
Silhouettes of nothing but shadow and outline were not easily made into caricatures, but this one carried the essence of Kurtz's usual stance -- too muscular to let his arms hang down straight at his sides, always looming somehow -- and simultaneously hinted at a self-satisfied sneer, a confidence that verged on overconfidence, and a spiky trace of chaos around his back edges. "Trainer Kurtz is such. He could have been a true professional, a tried reproducer of his teacher's skills. He strives for more, but he strives wrong. He will not see. He is too busy striving."
The next bit came with no narration: a shadow-play demonstration of the vaguely misformed Kurtz looming over a thinly proper British officer in curly wig and gigantic hat, the two of them conversing animatedly; they dwindled as they spun together into a remote corner of the screen, bringing into the foreground a grey room, a darker grey stool, a light-furred wolf seated on the stool in the center of the grey room, his exaggeratedly tall triangular ears pointed straight up with curved lines of sound coming to them while lines of unspoken alarm radiated from his body. Finally a third figure, a very intellectual Japanese man who might also be a swamp monster, appeared in the grey room to wave a Jedi-style soothing hand at the wolf. Stepping out of the room, which dwindled far enough to take up only a third of the screen, the Japanese man walked until the first two figures grew to his size again ... then turned into a true swamp monster, dripping ferns and trailing spiky vines, and drove the oversized dwarf and the British officer away via precise applications of Force lightning to the nether regions.
Taking a few quick, tired breaths, Sutra-Dhara Anima wiped the screen clean again.
"I think that was the beginning. The true beginning. Now we come to the second layer of the pyramid. My poppets work hard. They work leases with me. They work leases with others. They work leases alone. The stage crew is always hard-working, often noted only when their efforts do not keep up with the ever-shifting link between audience and performers and director. Set any fight before Tundro, he has the heart, he will fight it for you. He will climb and haul and hold the spotlight on position. He breaks down sets with joy and speed and great will. Set any search for props or wardrobe or the latest script revision before Kummer, he has the heart, he will find it for you. He herds and harries errant performers who miss the director's cue. He will set up scenes and copy out diagrams and back up the fight choreographer."
She set on the screen her images of her two described Alphas: one a white-furred wolf, previously shown in the grey room but now bright-eyed and ready to creep through any crowded scenario; one a starkly-patterned hulk of a man, a happy champion boxer of a wolf. Between and behind them, pleased and proud, a feminine figure stood with her legs together and her arms spread wide in a Y shape -- Sutra-Dhara, perhaps, but taller, body more proportional to the skull than her true form.
In any case, the black-furred wolf and the woman faded partway out of the picture before Kurtz's shadow puppet abruptly covered them.
"The poppet Kummer was working. Was done. Time to return to Sales. Trainer Kurtz took him! I heard only part of what he said to Medical staff but he says with no shame that he took the poppet and had him fight! Fight soldiers, fight the candy men, fight the fifth vampire. And look at how my poppet was returned to here!" Kurtz was still fine, but the puppet of the wolf twisted and rolled until it broke in places where hinges were not meant to be, pieces torn heavily in some places, and no longer white but a dull dirty brown. "He could not even talk properly, to tell the tale, so I cannot show it to you how he came to be so. If the Trainer Kurtz took him, he should have told me so. He should have told the Corporation so. He should NOT," she bellowed that word, "have taken this poppet for that sort of work! It is all wrong tasks for Poppet Kummer. Obviously! Because look at how bent he comes back, and no sparkle, and Medical is proceeding so slowly that I have to fetch the Fiddler out of his chambers to make it right and leave Poppet Tundro to watch over his brother's sleep and now we need a basket lunch of hot wings and sausages and those little cheese squares and some grapes, yes, so the poppets can have a picnic at the bed and Kummer will recover from his body's suffering and be able to sparkle again, and Trainer Kurtz should himself have redesign for his errors!"
Fury temporarily spent, Sutra-Dhara took a few tired breaths as she let the hall lighting creep gradually back to normal.
Well, except that WheelJack was peach-colored, vaguely bearlike, and sported a hint of a crossed pair of daisies or sunflowers on his stomach; while Dirge was definitely tinged with some shade of pink, right down the closed heart-shaped padlock in the vicinity of his theoretical abdomen.
Jerimiah blinked while the display came to an end. Officer Jagerskiold remained silent. Instead she shifted position. The inventor recognized the body language. Eva was impressed and for good reason.
So that is Fractured Fairy Tales, Jerimiah thought to himself. I think I’m going to have to make her next story time. That’s ... interesting.
Behind the inventor, WheelJack looked down in dismay at his new peach decor. He gestured to the flowers and looked to his brother. Dirge was no help. If a battle bot could have a disgruntled look, Dirge indeed had that look. It looked remarkably like the same expression he had when he shot a tank. Or two tanks for that matter. Dirge had a simple view. However, it rarely involved heart-shaped padlocks on his torso.
The bot raised his right arm, and wondered if he could scour it off. WheelJack waved a hand silently, then chirped a string of beeps to explain a possible psychic manifestation. Dirge chimed back a sudden overwhelming need for an oil bath.
Officer Jagerskiold looked away from where the show had appeared. She blinked at astonishment at the Director’s bots, most notably their new ‘look’. She honestly did not know what to say. She opted for staring, with a recording to show the Director later. Sometimes words just never would do.
Blissfully unaware, Bruin considered what he just saw. “When a,” the Director hesitated a moment to search for the word she used, “poppet is needed for work that doesn’t involve the full unit, I expect a report to be filed. Even if it’s myself. I take it from what you showed me, he never told you he was taking Kummer along on this ‘mission’? Do you know if he told anyone? Or filed a mission report?”
"Salesman Mongrain asked me why Kummer did not return with results from his lease within half an hour after the client paid the completion payment," Sutra answered shortly. "Sir. They," for some nebulous hand-waving value of 'they', "do not say we are a unit but that is clearly nonsense. They are my poppets. My stage crew. I paid attention enough in the dancer's seminars and anyway I am the Stage-Mistress and I see to the perfect function of my stage crew!" Another wave of shadow rolled off her aura in the moment of fury, having the barest sensation of physical force to it -- almost certainly an undirected and unintended effect of her righteous rage.
Come to think of it, Jerimiah's hands were a bit bear-paw-like at the moment. So were the faint outlines of his tousled hair suggestive of a kodiak bear's ears, if only just.
The inventor resisted the urge to jump slightly at the illusion. He glanced down at his hand, then over to Officer Jagerskiold. She shrugged slightly.
Apparently, I’ve been Sutra’d, Jerimiah mused. Whomever missed marking those three as a unit is seriously asleep at the wheel. Explains her anger.
With another look at the bear-paw that was his hand, Jerimiah turned to glance at WheelJack and Dirge. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to, for some reason it seemed a good idea. He blinked in surprise. WheelJack shrugged. Dirge looked sullen, even for Dirge.
“This place gets stranger every day,” the Director muttered. A distant part of his mind wanted to melt. Jerimiah was quite fond of his mind, he did his best work with it. He quickly looked away before he lost any gray matter. He looked back at Sutra-Dhara.
“I can tell from your passion alone that you do,” Jerimiah replied calmly. He hoped the ears on his head were not wiggling. That would be embarrassing. The Director pushed on, ignoring the thought. “If I have a chance, I’ll make a mention to someone about the oversight of your poppets and yourself not being considered a unit. No promises though. Given what you’ve said, it sounds like I need to look into what Kurtz has been up to. Sutra, I’ll need to know more about what Kurtz had Kummer do. When you can get him to tell you that story, I’d like to know. In the meantime, I’ll have a talk with Kurtz.” Jerimiah frowned. “From what you’ve told me, he’s taking assets without authorization. Which he is supposed to know better. Thank you, Sutra for bringing this to my attention. Kurtz has become my personal afternoon project.”
Talk. The word filled Sutra-Dhara with impotent distaste, though the followup promise of an afternoon project restored a bit of hope. She really had some excellent ideas centered on Kurtz strung up in his own favorite cat's cradle of chains, flailing madly with the need to scratch away the crawling sensations all over his person and unable to gain the slightest bit of leverage.
She bent her knees in a deep upright bow yet again, sensing her dismissal, and said only, "The gaps in the story will be filled as they can. In the meantime, I must seek permission to go fetch that picnic for the poppets' strength. It is not pizza and beer this time, I don't see why Alpha food should be so without inspiration."
The Director shrugged. He had already heard about the ‘Pizza Wolf’ and his antics with delivery. Jerimiah felt discretion was the better part of valor on this topic - even if he did think it was hilarious. “They tend to be a bit picky about the food selections. No idea why they can’t be more imaginative.” Jerimiah looked over at the Watch Officer. “Officer Jagerskiold? Locate Kurtz. I want him in front of me within the hour. Shoot him if you have to with taser rounds - not that he’d feel it. If he gives you any lip, tranq him until he’s drooling like a drunk Rhino and let me know. I’ll come to you if that turns into the case. I’m a bit tired of people flaunting the ‘take any Alpha out for a spin’ attitude. I think Kurtz will make a fantastic example of ‘God-damnit, take five minutes and do the paperwork’.”
“Yes, Director,” the Watch Officer replied. She tried to hide the smirk that crept into her tone. Really, she did. The woman turned on her heel, then walked off down the hallway.
For her part, Sutra quietly made off down the hall in the opposite direction, aimed toward the front lobby. As she turned a corner out of sight, the superimposed colors and images on WheelJack, Dirge, and Bruin himself faded away.
Almost completely.
