La Ciudad Sumergida de Cuba
“We’ve got a new leak opening in corridor five of the Southernmost structure.”
“Do we have any available engineers?”
“There’s an ex-Imagineer that arrived yesterday…”
“It’ll have to do. Get me status updates every ten minutes, the Doctor-Professor isn’t going to be happy if lose another bunker area.”
Bisaro Anima, British Colombia, Canada
“What are these?”
“Ultraviolet lights, boys. For hydroponics.”
“Kitchen area then?”
“No, we’re going to need them closer to the Gate. Take ‘em all the way to the bottom, boys.”
Chicago Tunnels, Chicago, USA
“I found another room in the central tunnel.”
“How long to excavate it?”
“That’s the best part, once I knocked the bricks out, it opened a completely empty twelve-by-twelve room. We’ll have to tear out the built in shelves, but we should be ready to set up bunks in there before the day’s out.”
“Did you let Cervantes know?”
“Thought I’d tell you first, but I’ll call him once I’m on the surface again.”
“Best head up there now, then.”
Monty sits sideways in his chair on the dais of his recording studio. He sips from a goblet as he admires the silver handle of his cane.
Montague: This is your big insurrection? After a handful of matches against JC that most UGWC fans didn’t even watch, this was your plan to destabilize the company and tear it from its moorings? I have to say, I’m a little let down.
Draining the goblet, he sighs and pushes himself to his feet. The studio is mostly dark, save for a single hanging bulb over the chair. Monty walks to the control podium and throws a toggle there, illuminating the multitude of broken mannequins arranged in chairs around all sides of the stage.
Montague: I know you think no one is hearing you when you lament ‘how things are done’ around here. If anyone understands how quickly this company can stagnate, it’s the Mothman. UGWC atrophies without the occasional Tragedia, am I right? But, for all your might and ruthlessness, which I don’t for a moment deny, you thrust your fists against the post and still insist you see the ghosts. It’s time to try something different if you want results.
Cervantes crouches, and with an unsettling synchrony, a quarter of the mannequin heads incline ever so slightly, their vacant faces seeming to lean in with an unblinking gaze. The sound of glass clinking can be heard before he stands again, carrying a cask of some dark liquid.
Montague: So far, other than screaming all your many and varied grievances into the void, your reign of destruction has consisted of such terror as… trying to slow down Larry Tact?
Monty chuckles as he refills his glass.
Montague: Don’t get me wrong, I get endlessly griefing a single target. Watching the cracks form, racing across their face like the veins of some corruption, until they fall apart spectacularly. If that was in your vision statement, perhaps I would understand your methods.
He switches the lights back off, but now that you’ve seen them, the eyes of the mannequins glint in the light of one remaining bulb. They continue to brighten as they follow Monty back to his seat.
Montague: That said, this is the slowest scorched-earth campaign I’ve ever seen. For how long will you continue to harass the individual who has recently experienced almost a half-dozen failed attempts at the World Championship before it becomes the turning point that leads to the company's collapse? Forgive me if I feel like you’ve missed a few steps in there somewhere, but if Sherman’s march to the sea moved at your pace, he’d still be trying to take Atlanta today.
Monty punctuates this with a sweeping gesture that sloshes some of the liquid over the rim of the goblet.
Montague: What you need is some orchestration. Sure, you’ve spewed invective in whatever direction Deimos schedules you to from one week to another, but you’re barely making waves, my friend. Maybe your problem–with your mission, with UGWC, with everything you see here–is that you’re shackled by tradition. It’s not the way you’d have booked it, scheduled it, stipulated it… . Valid enough, but we’re supposed to be men of action, Mr. Steel. If it’s not the way you’d do it, then do it your way.
He finally sits, throwing both legs over one arm of the chair as he reclines gracefully in a position that would have been torture to someone less flexible.
Montague: So I’m here to provide a… distraction… from the rut you don’t realize you’ve dug. We’ve got a nice, no frills singles match on Saturday night at the Wrestlestock festival. Is that what either of us really wants? Would you have done it differently?
Montague takes a sip, savoring the drink before continuing.
Montague: Please show me. Please show them.
ddddd“