Post by Ezekiel Macauley on Jan 17, 2010 2:34:17 GMT -5
After a week of planning, all had been prepared. Zeke eyed the rec room with the steely eye of a practiced veteran, recalling the rec rooms at ECDPC and Hecker and trying his best to visualize their layouts. Those rec rooms, now—they were Holy Grails of Interior Design for Workaholics, designed to cater to the entertainment needs of pale laboratory researchers who kept well-used sleeping bags in their locker rooms. The compound’s version was designed for a smaller space, so it was missing some of the more extravagant diversions: the two-room shooting simulation, the miniature racetrack, and the other ridiculous toys that new pharmaceutical researchers heard about during orientation. Still, this rec room was hardly bare-bones. Zeke catalogued the various items one by one and the setup he had arranged for the imminent soiree: the dart board against the wall, with its small table carrying darts of different colors; the large games table, easily switched from billiards to miniature snooker to air hockey, even to foosball with some required assembly; the smaller electronic board games tables against the wall, capable of displaying setups suitable for everything from chess to Go, Life to Risk; and the glass tanks filled with colorful wildlife he had tried his best to remember, but the only name he managed to retain was the Pandoran monk lizard, signifying a tiny reptile splotched purple and green that sat in its pool of water while remaining still for seemingly days at a time. Chairs and tables were clustered in groups, with decks of cards and magazine e-readers lining the tables. The holomovie/game entertainment center dominated the center of the rec room, but he was still a bit fuzzy on how to work the controls and had left the holoscreen dark, with the remotes neatly aligned on a side table.
Last but not least, the glory of the rec room, the sight that set his heart at ease and his spirit soaring: the veneered mock-mahogany bar (likely high-density plastic, textured to resemble the feel of wood—it had been so long since anyone had felt wood, Zeke wasn’t sure who exactly this charade was for) that greeted every visitor upon first entrance. Dim lights created pools of light on the bar and hour-glass shaped canals of shadow, as if this would better evoke the fantasy of a real dive bar from back home despite the brightly lit whitewashed rec room surrounding it. Rows of bottles sat painstakingly organized behind the bar, most of them bearing the distinctive font of Diazaris, the most popular alcohol substitute in the terran international market. It was formulated primarily from the delightful benzodiazepine family of psychoactive drugs, of which Zeke had been quite fond back in his wild days, and supposedly simulated the positive effects of alcohol (euphoria, relaxation, increased sociability and likelihood of divulging personal information) without the negative effects (memory loss, nausea, waking up naked next to a stranger who doesn’t speak your language). It even came in various simulated flavors of real alcohol, from rum to wine to scotch, and other flavors that didn’t exist in any distillery: vanilla ice cream, pumpkin pie. In a discreet matching mock-wood medicine rack nearby, one could find yellow plastic bottles of… whatever brand name Hecker had decided to give to generic flumazenil, Zeke forgot. It would eliminate all effects of synthetic alcohol within five minutes, leaving the hapless drinker without so much as a pleasant buzz.
The way Zeke figured, hangovers were part of the allure of drinking in the first place. Naturally the Powers That Be wanted the Pandora crew to maintain optimal health for as long as possible, without liver damage or the effects of stumbling into a poisonous atmosphere while pissed-off-your-ass drunk, but one had to live a little. And this is why smaller bottles of genuine old-fashioned alcohol lined the far edge of the bottle rack, tucked beneath the mixers. Proof that security guards and even scientists could live it up after all.
Zeke smoothed the front of his royal blue button-down shirt and adjusted the height of his silk powder blue bowtie, checking that the knot was secure. He had gone through so much trouble to learn how to tie the damned thing, it might as well look perfect. The rec room was pretty good, and he looked perfect. Hopefully, Malandra would be in a good mood, which meant the rest of the compound would be permitted to have a good time. He fumbled with the ambient music controls for a moment until at last, something he figured must be popular and inoffensive came streaming through the hidden speakers.
A knock came at the door. Zeke strode over and flung it open with great flair. “Welcome, welcome!” he said with a broad smile to the group standing there, handing a high-density plastic cup, smoothed to resemble glass, to each person as he or she entered the rec room. The first thing they’d see as they entered, behind the fully assembled bar, was a row of paper taped to the wall that spelled out WELCOM HOME. “Come on in and take whatever you like. I don’t want to see a-one of you sober come one hour from now.”
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OOC: Takes place a week after our crew's initial landing on Pandora, when everyone has had a chance to settle in. Come one, come all!
Doubly OOC: because I'm a lunatic & a closet geek-- this post is based on www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6874884/Alcohol-substitute-that-avoids-drunkenness-and-hangovers-in-development.html. A real alcohol substitute is in the works. I love science!
Last but not least, the glory of the rec room, the sight that set his heart at ease and his spirit soaring: the veneered mock-mahogany bar (likely high-density plastic, textured to resemble the feel of wood—it had been so long since anyone had felt wood, Zeke wasn’t sure who exactly this charade was for) that greeted every visitor upon first entrance. Dim lights created pools of light on the bar and hour-glass shaped canals of shadow, as if this would better evoke the fantasy of a real dive bar from back home despite the brightly lit whitewashed rec room surrounding it. Rows of bottles sat painstakingly organized behind the bar, most of them bearing the distinctive font of Diazaris, the most popular alcohol substitute in the terran international market. It was formulated primarily from the delightful benzodiazepine family of psychoactive drugs, of which Zeke had been quite fond back in his wild days, and supposedly simulated the positive effects of alcohol (euphoria, relaxation, increased sociability and likelihood of divulging personal information) without the negative effects (memory loss, nausea, waking up naked next to a stranger who doesn’t speak your language). It even came in various simulated flavors of real alcohol, from rum to wine to scotch, and other flavors that didn’t exist in any distillery: vanilla ice cream, pumpkin pie. In a discreet matching mock-wood medicine rack nearby, one could find yellow plastic bottles of… whatever brand name Hecker had decided to give to generic flumazenil, Zeke forgot. It would eliminate all effects of synthetic alcohol within five minutes, leaving the hapless drinker without so much as a pleasant buzz.
The way Zeke figured, hangovers were part of the allure of drinking in the first place. Naturally the Powers That Be wanted the Pandora crew to maintain optimal health for as long as possible, without liver damage or the effects of stumbling into a poisonous atmosphere while pissed-off-your-ass drunk, but one had to live a little. And this is why smaller bottles of genuine old-fashioned alcohol lined the far edge of the bottle rack, tucked beneath the mixers. Proof that security guards and even scientists could live it up after all.
Zeke smoothed the front of his royal blue button-down shirt and adjusted the height of his silk powder blue bowtie, checking that the knot was secure. He had gone through so much trouble to learn how to tie the damned thing, it might as well look perfect. The rec room was pretty good, and he looked perfect. Hopefully, Malandra would be in a good mood, which meant the rest of the compound would be permitted to have a good time. He fumbled with the ambient music controls for a moment until at last, something he figured must be popular and inoffensive came streaming through the hidden speakers.
A knock came at the door. Zeke strode over and flung it open with great flair. “Welcome, welcome!” he said with a broad smile to the group standing there, handing a high-density plastic cup, smoothed to resemble glass, to each person as he or she entered the rec room. The first thing they’d see as they entered, behind the fully assembled bar, was a row of paper taped to the wall that spelled out WELCOM HOME. “Come on in and take whatever you like. I don’t want to see a-one of you sober come one hour from now.”
=======
OOC: Takes place a week after our crew's initial landing on Pandora, when everyone has had a chance to settle in. Come one, come all!
Doubly OOC: because I'm a lunatic & a closet geek-- this post is based on www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6874884/Alcohol-substitute-that-avoids-drunkenness-and-hangovers-in-development.html. A real alcohol substitute is in the works. I love science!
