Spirited Away

Jon has a drinking problem. He doesn't want to admit it; however, I have to admit he has good taste in the spirits he chooses to imbibe. I'm especially fond of that stuff he brought back after his mission to the multiverse: Irish Whiskey, I believe he called it. Although, it actually comes from Ireland...which is on Earth...from the same time period in which he lives. Why did he have to go to the multiverse to get that? Hmmmmmm....

But Jon's idea of a kidnapping sounded more like a weekend of shop-lifting at Wal-Mart -- a lot of fun but the merchandise you get isn't going to be worth much. But, hey, he's El Jefe this week and what he says goes...for now.

He also is clearly oblivious to the fact that in my universe we do not have any type of "teleporter" thingy other than a shuttle. I had to go find Jean-Luc, who was way out in BFE this week, and beg to have Geordy install a small one on my ship before I even began my part of this week's challenge.

Once done, I took my ship and landed on the roof of the Primatech Paper company -- they had a rather nice landing pad all layed out. The helicopter that was there did prove to be an obstacle, but a few well-placed shots from the laser canon resolved that issue. I only had to navigate around a few remaning pieces to to safely land.

Walking down the ramp, I was met by a rather distraught official and an armed security guard with his gun aimed at my chest.

"You completely obliterated Mr. Bennett's personal transport!" the official said.

I looked at the remaining pieces still on the deck.

"Oh, that hunk of junk?" I said, then motioned back at my own ship. "I brought him a replacement that is much better. I didn't think he'd mind a small demonstration of what it's capable."

The official seemed to calm down and the guard put his weapon back in it's holster.

"Is he in?" I asked, hold up a set of car keys that I lifted from Koma earlier that day, "I'd like to give him the keys."

The official backed off a bit then a look of recognition came over his face. "Hey, I know you," he began. "Your one of the contestants in that Apprentice gig that the boss is holding."

I nodded and smiled. "Yes, that's right."

The guy looked up at my ship and then back at me. "She's really nice. I hope this big a bribe gets you what you want in the contest -- but I'm not sure if it will guarantee that you will win."

I smiled once again. "You're right," I answered, then turned on my heels and walked over to the stairs and into the building.

No one in the building seemed to think I was out of place. An odd person or two asked me if I needed help, and they were nice enough to point in the right direction to Bennett's office.

I quietly slipped into his office and saw him reclining in his chair, looking reflectively out the windows. He turned to see me standing by the door.

"How did you get in here?" Bennett asked.

"I let myself in," I answered.

"What do you want?" Bennett asked.

"I'm here for you," I said, moving forward.

He smiled. "Business or pleasure?" he asked.

"Oh," I began, "This is both." I straddled his legs and sat down on his knees. He stiffened noticeably when I did so.

"Nepharia," he began, "this type of approach will not win you any points in my boardroom."

I reached up and put my hands on his shoulders then slid them down the full length of his arms to his wrists. Taking them in my hands I brought them up and to my chest: Bennett became even more uncomfortable, but he did not withdraw from my grasp.

"I'm not looking for what you think," I answered. Before he knew it, I had cuffed his hands together.

"Whah??" he said. I immediately stood up and removed a roll of duct tape from my belt.

"If you think I was actually going to try and give sexual favors for your help in this week's assignment, you are sorely mistaken," I said. "Now, if I can use sex as a distraction when working another plan, I will use it every time because it works: you men are so predictable."


That was when I placed a strip of duct tape across his mouth and around him and the chair, making his seated position rather permanent for the time being.

Then, I removed my outer cloak, revealing a garment that accentuated my best assets. Laying my cloak across his lap, I moved around the back of his chair and began wheeling him out of his office and down the hall toward the roof.

Whenever we met the occasional person, and they asked the obvious question, "What are you doing?"

I would coyly reply, "Why, I'm kidnapping Mr. Bennett, of course."

The strange thing is, everyone seemed to think that it was perfectly ok and I didn't have to use Force mind tricks on any one to make them believe it was an innocent S&M-style kidnapping. Which leads me to actually wonder, what does Bennett do in his spare time when I'm not kidnapping him. And does his wife know?

Getting him up the stairs and into the ship was easy enough (hey, I'm a Sith, remember?). The short trip back to the warehouse and an easy teleport and I was off for Miller Time. Actually, I had lifted a 5th of that Irish Whiskey Jon brought back and I killed a better part of it when I got back to my room.

No early wake up calls for me folk.

Task Two

We lost my brother, Lyle, last week. I am not too sad. At least it wasn't me. I decided then that if I were to survive the boardroom, I would become the new PM. The only downside is that I can not talk. I created really rad memos for my team.

I pranced into our meeting room. I see Professor X shooting me daggers. Nepharia was waiting patiently. Jon was MIA again. The only person that could hear my thoughts was Mr. Clean. I thought I better make an outline of my proposal for this week's task:

Everyone grabs a copy of my agenda.

"Mr. Muggles, You know that three of the four things you named are not schools, and where is Jon??" Nepharia said. Right after, she said that, here came Jon.

"What I miss?" He asked

Mr. Clean looked at him. "Well, Bennett's son got fired. Your butt is safe...for now."

Jon glanced at my agenda and said, "Hmm...how about Springfield Heights Institute of Technology?"

Nepharia shook her head. "As much as the short hand version of it would be fun. We need something menacing."

Professor X looked up. "What about my school? Easy in, and I could manipulate some of the students. We have students that kill in one breath."

"Well, that might work" Nepharia agreed.

"I second that. It is better than the Big Brother house. Granted it would give us some TV ex poser," Jon stated.

"Looks like the Professor's school wins," Nepharia announced.

Creative?

I have been called many things, but creative was never one of them.

A logo? I thought? A logo. Hmmmm.

"So what does everyone think it should be?" I asked, trying to generate some ideas.

"It should be a dog!" Mr. Muggles yipped, bouncing as he did so.

"Uh, no, I don't think so," I said.

"I should be something mysterious," Xavier said. "Dogs are hardly mysterious."

"Ok," I said, pondering my options. "Mysterious and not a dog...that doesn't leave me many options."

I paced about the room a bit but no ideas for our logo struck me and decided some air was in order. Leaving the war room and out of the building, the air was actually refreshing, and not something unlike Coruscant. The tall buildings reminded me of my home planet as well as how much I missed it.

Looking up at the tall buildings surrounding me, I wondered Does New York have it's own Palpatine? I was distracted by a sudden squeal of tires and crashing of metal on metal. I turned in time to see a string of cars coming up the curb and straight toward me.

Reacting instantly, I put my hand out, using the force to stay the onslaught of twisted metal and rubber. Still distracted, I did not notice the two men come up on either side of me before they slapped force-inhibiting hand cuffs on my wrists.

They hustled me off and into a white, cliche-like, unmarked van.

It also seemed a bit cliche-like, but I asked the typical question: "What do you want with me?" I asked.

"The Company is very interested in your kind," one man said.

"The Company?" I asked, half smiling. I held up my force-inhibitor cuffs. "These are hardly standard issue," I said. "And not likely something you would know to use on anyone but me."

One of the gentlemen smiled. The other responded, "Someone told us about your special skills and gave us those to help bring you in." Everyone was quiet the rest of the ride until the vehicle stopped. The driver got out and opened the back doors to let us out. The two men sitting with me, stepped out and then motioned for me to follow.

That was when the gunfire exploded. Not having my force powers to rely upon, I dove for the floor of the van until the noise died down.

"Come on!" yelled someone at the back of the van. Looking up I saw a young man with an ouzi: It was Lyle.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, scrambling up from the deck and crawling from the back of the van. Lyle was searching the bodies of my escorts and retrieved a key for my cuffs.

Unlocking my cuffs, they fell away from my wrists. "Bennett, er, my dad said to keep an eye on you because there had been some noise about causing problems with the competition -- and the Company had never seen the likes of some of the participants."

"Nice," I said. "So now what"

"Well," he began, stepping away from me and to some of the other bodies, he started rifling through their clothes, "we have to get out of here, but the key is very special."

"Special in what way?" I asked. "If you tell me what you're looking for, I can help you rummage through some of the bodies."

"It's a unique shape," he said, "you'll know it when you find it."

We searched for a few minutes before I found it: a perfectly shaped black cube that fit nicely into my palm. I tossed it to him and we ran together to the door leading out of the parking garage. He inserted it into the lock and snapped it in. As a reward, the garage door slowly opened. We grinned at one another and we slipped out into the city.

The key gave me the perfect idea for our logo: