thecapitol | we wine, we dine, and everything is fine [open!]

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we wine, we dine, and everything is fine [open!]

Who| Everyone still in the Capitol. If the Hunger Games is a significant part of your life, or if you wield any influence at all in the Capitol, you've received an invitation. Unless you're Victory Hannibal.
What| Week 1 viewing party! It's horror-movie/monster themed, so break out your best sexy witch/vampire/mummy costumes! Also, feel free to use it for sponsor schmoozing.
Where| A ballroom, and some adjacent rooms.
When| Just before the Arena begins, and into the night.
Warnings/Notes| Watch this space for warnings. Also, feel free to make closed threads amongst yourselves, but Stephen will likely at some point come up to greet you personally. If you think your Capitol character would be familiar with the Reagan family, make an OOC note, and I'll give you a quick rundown on their sordid past.

There is a fog machine.

The fog hovers around the guests' knees and ankles, doing nothing to impede visibility or movement, but it creates a ~mysterious~ atmosphere. The ballroom is modest, by Capitol standards, able to comfortably hold about a hundred people. There's plenty of space. The room is dimly lit from concealed sources that nonetheless throw the guests' shadows into frightening shapes on the wall. There are tables laden with food along one wall, and plenty of comfortable seating, for projected onto the far wall is a live feed from the Games.

Through the doors are smaller, more intimate rooms, with cushy couches and a smaller screen apiece for watching the Games a little more privately. One pair of double-doors leads out onto a balcony with a beautiful view of the city.

Everyone who received the invitation was informed of the theme, of course: no pressure, but if you want your outfit to match (and he's sure you do), make sure it's a little bit -- spooky.

Stephen himself, tastefully attired in a shimmery black suit, cape, and vampire teeth, is moving about the guests, giving friendly greetings to those he knows, making polite conversation with those he does not, ensuring that everybody (or at least, everybody possible) is having a good time. So what if his smile looks a little fixed, every once in a while? It's a party. What could possibly be wrong?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I recognize the term," he drawled, eyes returning to Mindy, inhuman pupils shifting - re-sizing - in the shifting light. "We had them in mine as well, before the end."

Then, he imagined, Darwin had gotten the best of them at last.

The philosophical world-view of its dinner mattered little to a hungry infected.

What was seriously up with this guy's eyes? Mindy didn't usually let small things bother her, but this was just making her unnerved. What was he?

"The end? What happened in yours? I keep hearing about zombie apocalypses from other people."

"It does seem to be popular, doesn't it?"

Though whether that was because mankind truly had a knack for finding ways to reorganize the food-chain, across time and space, or simply because the Capitol preferred the skillset such worlds inhabitants typically had and was skewing the data, Wesker couldn't say.

"Though we simply called ours the 'Infected.'"

Much more straight-forward, much more clinical.

'Zombie,' in Wesker's opinion, was far to fanciful a word for such a base creature.

"If by popular you mean eerily fucked up, sure," Mindy said. "Then again, they're bringing zombies here, or one anyway, and apparently MADE people zombies in the games. I can only imagine what other fucked up thing they're going to do next."

Suddenly, something did seem to click. They were dressed like Halloween, and there was the arena. The Arena always seemed to run on fear, so...

"Wait a minute," she said softly. "This whole thing. The Arena. It reminds me of something I saw awhile back, something right out of Evil Dead. It can't be a coincidence we're dressed like this, can it?"

"A coincidence, being dressed like monsters in a society built on fear and power." Wesker's mouth curled, a sharp sneer, white-teeth flashing. His head tipped, slanting a look down at Mindy.

"What do you think?"

"That's a acute observation." Wished she thought of it, actually. Said a lot about this place, considering.

"I think its a clue to the Arena. Not that they haven't gone monster before, but that's a few. This place, look at it. So much fog, slight stirring...something big is going to happen, and I think we're just the mirror for it. Some kind of fucked up irony or something."

"It wouldn't surprise me," Wesker drawled. "The Capitol has a history of imitating the events of the arena."

He shifted slightly, a slow flex of muscle, and tucked his hands neatly behind his back, slipping into an easy parade rest.

At east, but attentive.

"One might think they felt left out."

"I don't think they ever really feel left out," Mindy said. "Everything we do is for their amusement. If anything what they like to do is move us around like pieces, give us backdrops. Keep things exciting for all the people watching."

This evening was more than a testament of that, after all.

"It's not just about the show they're watching," Wesker told her, with the cool confidence of someone who knew what he was talking about.

Someone with some experience in the area.

"It's equal parts the show they're putting on - for each other, for themselves."

For mysterious wizards behind the curtain.

"Well yeah, you have to make it loo good too," Mindy said. "When you have a bunch of people you can manipulate at a whim, you strive to look the best doing it. Of course, the people you're doing it too don't get to have much of a say there."

As per expected.

"Which is why its more of a pain in the ass for us."

"It's a reminder," Wesker said, his serpentine eyes like hot coals, burning in his pale face. "This is the norm. This is control."

He gestured, a small elegant movement of his hand toward the party around them.

"Nothing has changed. There is nothing to fear."

Mindy got the message. Loud and clear. Amusement was what they were good for, and after that? You just towed the line.

"Oh, I don't know. You start to believe in the norm too much, it'll set up for a nasty shock when things are upended. In my line of work, you always learn to roll with the punches, stay paranoid."

"Expect nothing," he smiled at her, a slow, curl of amusement.

It wasn't, perhaps, as catchy as the more familiar expression, but it was far more practical in Wesker's opinion.

Far more useful.

Mindy gave him a nod, but the wheels in her head were turning, always in her head. This guy was hard to read, and as a result, she wondered what his angle was, and had to make sure she was careful about what she said. While she despised the lobster thing for his defection, it bothered her to know someone would so easily sell themselves out to be a part of the system the Capitol created. It made her understand exactly how easily someone could heighten their status if they just played the game.

"Or you could always just make something happen, I guess. From the look of some of these guests though, I think something already is."

"You noticed as well, hm?"

It was hard to tell, from just a distant look, but Wesker's initial suspicions were all Flu-virus in nature. The fever flushed complexions, the complaints of fatigue both hallmark signs.

(Though experience told him all to well that symptoms could be deceiving.)

"I'd recommend keeping physical contact to a minimum; and washing your hands thoroughly, and often, regardless."

"I'd be stupid not to. Jessica over there is looking like she might keel over at any minute, and Azula looks less bitchy than usual, which s obviously a sign that she's sick. And I don't think they're the only ones either."

Which made her wonder what was going to happen next.

"I planned on keeping myself away. Still, strange coincidence."

His head tipped slightly, a small, almost imperceptible reaction.

He hadn't known Azula was among the afflicted.

Wasn't that unfortunate?

"Perhaps the Capitol is about to experience for themselves one of those 'zombie apocalypses' they seem to enjoy so much," he said, a cool, humorless joke.

Making Azula afflicted actually was making her feel better by the minute. Funny how that worked.

"I wouldn't be surprised. Give people something to talk about, and then they could sell shirts saying 'I survived the zombie apocalypse in the capitol.' Seems like the kind of shit they'd do."

A few T-virus infected would liven things up a bit, Wesker had to agree.

A few 121s, to show them what B.O.W. really stood for.

"At least until the screaming stops," he mused. The slitted eyes flicked back to her. "It's all fun and games, until they come for you."

"Scary stuff," she said, and it was dawning on her why Harley didn't care for this guy so much. He had a wicked streak that even she couldn't explain away. It made things very hard to reconcile.

"Of course, it probably wouldn't go quite that way. They want US to bear the brunt, not their precious Capitol citizens, right?"

"They could try," he replied, a cool, unconcerned drawl.

Being infected already, he had little to fear.

"But the thing about disease is that it doesn't recognize class boundaries. It treats us all the same, regardless of gender, creed, or color."

"Sure they could try. They can do a lot of things. One of those things is reminding us who's in charge. While I think Penny is doing a good enough job, this would work on a bigger scale. We ARE getting newer people every day, after all."

Wesker stared at her a long moment, trying to decide if she was deliberately inferring the Capitol might be behind the illness.

It was possible of course. T had been Umbrella's creation, after all, and they too had intended on selling it -- once the cure was ready.

"They would have been incredibly desperate."

They would have to be loosing control.

They would have to be scared.

"Maybe," Mindy said. "Or maybe they just want us to be. Hell, even if it was a mistake, they have people to spin it the right way, don't they? Mention a rebellion that might have happened, and certain measures to take. Hell, these are the guys that pulled us out of our realities. What makes this so different?"

"It's different because disease has nothing to fear, and as such the Capitol would hold no power over it," Wesker told her simply. "It does not sleep, not does not hunger, it does not stop; and a sneeze in the wrong direction and it's gone from being a weapon, to a mistake."

And no, he did not believe the Capitol smart enough, capable enough to control any of the great diseases that had wiped out so many worlds.

Not on their own.

They were, as they had already discussed, flash, rather than substance.

A blunt hammer, rather than a precise scalpel.

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