Catherine Faber silently sat behind her Guttenberg Moveable Type-Writer while Wallace Woodford summoned a storm in his office behind her. The door would rattle and occasionally bulge, almost blowing off its hinges and flying into the general typing pool that makes up the Sunderville Alarm. Office items could be heard bouncing around inside. Woodford had a habit of spontaneously generating tornados in localized areas when angered. Flash prints captured by Patrick Williams for the impending lead story of the time traveling ape were not up to the newspaper’s usual quality.
Unable to resist the force of the elements behind it, the door to Woodford’s office swings open and Williams flies out of the room, Wallace standing between the doorway pointing an accusatory finger towards the reporting cub. “Entirely tedious Williams! These pictures don’t pop! All you got is a chimp with a smile and a hand out. It doesn’t even talk! Why couldn’t you have it dressed up in a suit or something! Outfit it in imperial military dress. Make it look like this Ape is form out future, and out future is murderous soldiers who subsist on a diet of plantains!”
Faber decided now was a time to get up and walk out before debris finds itself in her hair and all over her attire. In the common lobby area of the first floor of the 4 story building, she sits in a reclining couch. She had hoped for a chance to make a mark in the career of news reporting like other women have begun to assert themselves in other literary fields. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters from Norway was a major inspiration for her, but it seems editors like Woodford prefer stories in the style of her daughter Mary Shelley. Outrageous accounts of scientists, their dabbling in god-like fancy, and the physical consequences of these dalliances. News prints now-a-days just follow the idea that where there’s magic, it’s fantastic.
Mundane life had become some menial that all news must deal with the metaphysical. Events of an unexplained nature have been appearing with increasing frequency as the world has turned towards finding the true limits of Aristotilian science and leading into a resurgence of some of the more ancient forms of worship, with their Gods more willing to interact with the world. People felt comfortable knowing beings of such immense power would take such interest with the normal world and exhibit such human frailties. The useage and occurrence of practicioners of occult sciences has grown so much in the recent years that more people than ever feel as if they could become Gods in their own right if the ones they follow show such human frailties. Popular theory suggests that the Gods were people who transcended their forms into divinity, and the feeling around the world is that, eventually, the rest of the world would undergo an apotheosis.
Results have been mixed. While instances of apotheosis have not gone up, practicioners of magic or technomancy have certainly gone up. Everyday thousands of new fantastical events occur. Thus, the newsprint industry became an increasing source of up to the day retellings of the day’s most fantastical accounts. Literacy has gone up amongst even the most poor of masses. Urban areas have flourished as more educated citizens are needed for increasingly more sophisticated jobs. Women have begun taking to the workplace. They can even wear trousers when performing duties not centered on their home. However, they still remain figuratively chained in their caves. Woodford offered her an imperfect version of her ideal job of reporting on the most amazing events of the day. Instead she would report to every other reporter in the typing pool the events of Wallace’s ever changing moods.
Certain that Wallace has had plenty time to calm down from thrashing about his favored photographer, Catherine ascends the steps into the Alarm’s headquarters. At her desk, though, was a curious sight A plain package sat there. Looking around to notice eif anyone is watching her for their amusement and determining that no one is, she grabs the package and decides to deliver it to Mr. Woodford.
She gives his warped door a few courtesy knocks before letting herself into his offices. There she finds him dejectedly putting his office back together from the events of the tempest he summoned earlier. She hesitantly asks, “Sir, This package, came for you, I think?’
Wallace Woodford looks up at his secretary. His eyes wide with excitement. “A mystery package?! I never asked for anything sent here. Cathy! Its providence!” Woodford takes the box out of her hands and tears into it. Inside is a small shining item and a letter. After looking it over, Wallace’s eyes twitch and he eyes his personal assistant over. “You want a chance to do this Cathy?” She asks, “What is it?” and Woodford replies, “The Sigmund Horde is coming into town in a few days, and in its lead up it seems the managers for it want to have a lady interview its discoverer. You’re supposed to wear the jewelry inside.”
Okay…I need to find a better way to show that a dues ex machina has come in to Catherine’s life. There's a lot of this I need to clean up.
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