OOM: Concert, part 2

[electro_kinetic]

The stage itself is backed by a huge screen, big enough to nearly be an IMAX presentation, and the orchestra is in front, chairs empty. They're fashionably close to the starting time, because Noriko hates being late, and she didn't want to be too early: tucking her free hand in her coat pocket she walks with Hannibal, trying to keep her heels from clicking too loudly on the floor.

The seats printed on both tickets are quite good, being the center of the closest balcony, where the sound will blend and amplify without too much distortion, and a clear view to both the screen and the plalyers, but before they see any of that, there's the lobby to get through.

"Wow," Nori says, looking up at the starburst lights. "This place is pretty huge."

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

"Can you clear a gap in the rubble over there?" Hannibal says. "When I am done, I'm going to hide the body there and encourage the rats to make a start on him. Then there will be no talk of mutilation, just of animal bites."

[electro_kinetic]

Her nerves are jangling like a cacophony of bells in her head, but Noriko moves steadily towards the broken bits of asphalt and concrete and brick forming a pile at the end of the alley, tidy enough for what it is, but still a pile of rocks.

She can't really believe she's doing this, but she is.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal is rather quick and deft about carving up his kill, as if he had done this many times before.

[electro_kinetic]

Nori doesn't flinch, seeing him cut up a person. She's seen them cut up in very many ways, what with knowing Laura and Logan, but this is somehow different.

"What now?" she asks, as if someone only just learning how to speak, halting and unsure.

[cook_the_rude]

"We put him under the garbage, and then we get ourselves to the kitchen of the Four Seasons," Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

"I don't know if I can eat after this," she says quietly, swallowing though it's less to keep herself from throwing up and more a nervous motion; she feels like she can't really keep the knot in her throat down.

The body is easy to move; Noriko has done that before, cleaning up dead people. It doesn't feel any different to her, and she expected it would. "I wonder why he hated us."

[cook_the_rude]

"Why do people hate mutants?" Hannibal asks. "Gays? Muslims?"

Pause.

"Whatever their personal story, there is no justification for giving oneself carte blanche on hating an entire subset of humanity. I don't hate all Russians, either, or all communists."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko fixes him with a slant look. "But you do hate all rude people. Evidently enough to kill them."

She isn't sure how to feel about that, especially given her personality and that she knows she's been rude to Hannibal directly, but she also knows that she'll be able to defend herself against him should he try something. Or so she hopes. Noriko goes to push her fingers through her hair, and aborts the gesture at the last minute, wrapping her arms around her waist instead.

"I want to get out of this alley."

[cook_the_rude]

"So do I," Hannibal says. "Let's move this, and then get going."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko looks at the corpse, blinks, and tries not to sigh; she does help him move it, though, because she doesn't want to be arrested for murder.

"You owe me for helping you move bodies," she says.

[cook_the_rude]

"Dinner at the Four Seasons?" Hannibal says, kicking garbage over the corpse.

Things are already rustling underneath.

[electro_kinetic]

"I'm not eating that," Noriko says flatly. "I am not, absolutely full-stop, eating that man."

She will fight him if it comes to that.

[cook_the_rude]

"You can of course take the vegetarian option," Hannibal says. "Or maybe some fish?"

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko sighs, rubbing a hand over her face. "Fish, fine, whatever. I just don't want...people."

She feels faintly sick talking about it as if it's actually going to happen. Everything up to this point had been directly theoretical, and now it isn't.

[cook_the_rude]

"No people," Hannibal says. "Not even one single person."