New Habits Die Harder

Ace looked at the card on the table, it definitely wasn't a robotic hand that wrote that, it was clearly prewritten, by a human, the subtle illegibility of the handwriting told it all, a robot would never write anything if it had the slightest chance of not being readable. He picked it up and flipped it over in his hand, he wanted to keep an eye on that robot, there was something off about him to Ace, but he didn't want him to know he was being watched. Suddenly, Ace had an idea. He thew open his closet and dug round the bottom of it, looking for the mask, eventually, he found it. The mask was simple in design, it was purely black with two white lines crossing in the middle, it was, however, enough to conceal his identity, for long enough to assess the situation, and enough to give him another identity, if he decided to do so. Ace fished a pair of black gloves from the closet and secured the mask around his face. He looked at himself in the mirror as he pulled on a large black trench coat. He glanced at a fedora that was sitting halfway across the room, then back to the mirror, "Hm, not today" He said as he threw himself out the window.

Ace arrived at the building to find himself, somewhat surprised, 'The robot has a building?' Ace thought to himself. 'Maybe this is more legitimate than i thought." Ace may have been inside the mask, but The X approached the building, a mask of confidence that Ace could never have seemed to irradiate around him. X walked up to a figure at the door, "Excuse me, this couldn't happen to be yours by any chance?" He uncrumpled the card and presented it in his palm towards the black clad man.

The mountainous figure watched as a masked man approached him and handed him a card. A business card for that matter. HIS business card. Lifting the card into the air, he closed his hand tight, then opened it. What fell out looked not unlike glass dust, and it scattered on the wind, catching the sun's rays as it went. "That was indeed mine." His head tilted so that he could look straight at the masked figure. The large 'X' on the mask wasn't very distinctive, and probably matched several different peoples' descriptions, but there was no mistaking. That voice sounded similar and the presentation of the card verified it. "Welcome... Sir. We have a lot to discuss inside." Pulling open the door, he motioned for the man to enter.

Ace watched as the card dissipated in the air, he was pretty damn sure that the robot was inside that pile of blackened clothing, he'd never seen any human turn business cards into dust before, though perhaps that was a thing now, Ace had been out of the game for a while.

'Discussion?' Ace thought to himself, 'I wonder what this discussion will be about.' The figure opened the door infront of him, gesturing for Ace to step through, and so he did. He was surprised at first, then remembered his earlier assumption, 'This robot isn't working alone, that's for sure.' The building was no different from an actual, run of the mill, office building. Infact, if Ace didn't know better, he would say that this was actually a normal office building. The secretary didn't even glance twice at his outlandish outfit, which was actually not as dissimilar from the robots as he thought it would be. "Where to now, Mr, um, who are you?" Ace tried not to let on that he had known about any of this. Which actually wasn't that far from the truth.

CORE nodded slightly, set his hat on a table, and removed a glove from his massive hand, and moved to shake Ace's. "In time my good man. Welcome to Abraxis Corp's cubicle city. We don't spend much time here, and they," he gestured to the dozens of office workers through a door, "are all better for it. Come with me please, we have a better place to speak." Opening a door, he strode down a hallway, around a corner, and opened a small door. Ducking through it, he pressed on a panel on the wall. Without a single noise, the wall opposite him opened into a spotless white elevator.

Ace followed the dark clothed thing into the office building, he was sure he'd seen the same building before somewhere, Ace shook his head at the thought. 'All office buildings look the same,probably just a coincidence.' The man told him what he was here for, Abraxis Corp. Ace recognized the name, he knew they had taken residence in an office building in Los Angeles, he assumed that this was it. He had thought of Abraxis to be odd when he first came across them, they seemed to have no reason to be there, no reason that a sleep deprived genius could find, however sleep deprived was a big player in that sentence. The man mentioned the cubicle monkeys didn't really know what was going on Ace thought the mask was a good idea still, though now he was getting a few odd looks here and there, no more however, than he would get with his mask off. Ace stepped into the white elevator and proceeded to be a living contrast.

He entered the elevator, pressed another panel, and the door slid closed. As they began to descend, he spoke. "I will prepare you as much as I can for meeting Lafiana," He turned to face Ace, "She is young, that is the first thing you must know. Do not act surprised around her if you can, as she expects the most of all of us, we must always appear on par with her knowledge, but do not lie to her if she asks you of what you know. She will ask you a set of questions, and you will answer them. She will in turn provide you with information and answer your questions when she is done." He moved forward through the hallway that was then before them. "She is a coworker of mine, and will be speaking with you momentarily." Turning one last time around a corner, he arrived at a tall door, he spoke one last time to him alone. "Good luck, and welcome to a world unseen."

Lafiana watched the two approach on an opaque security screen that activates via motion detection. Ever so slowly she got up and walked close to the single white table in the centre of her office. Above it were three-dimensional projections of various kemmarii that she recreated using the DNA samples provided by CORE. Next to them were the slightly shorter but bulkier humans. She projected male and females of each race and was running diagnostics of their success rate for birthing mixed children. The results were both astounding and terrifying.

Pressing a button on one of her floating opaque screens, her office door opened. Outside of it, CORE and the masked ace were waiting for her. She pressed another button and two turrets came out of the walls both within her office and outside of it. Each aimed for the masked figure with deadly split second reaction times. "I must ask that you remove that mask while in my presence. We have invited you here with good faith and you show us mistrust. It is rude. Now please remove the mask or you will be send for mind wipe and then release from this facility." Her words were calm, but her eyes were piercing through the man's soul as she stared at him. It was not a request at all, she had commanded it.

Ace was lead down a hall of seemingly normal office cubicles, whatever this was, it was weird, Ace definitely wasn't here for a desk job, yet it sure looked like one. If he wasn't being led around by a robot from another planet and wearing a mask upon his face then he would be sure that he was taking an interview at generic multimillion corp number 8. The door opened and he stepped into the office, where Ace's first thought was 'He was right, she is young' that thought was quickly followed by 'Oh god, turrets' in response to the turrets protruding out of the wall, like some sort of heavily armored peeping tom. Ace quickly moved over the fact that the guns were pouring all over his every move and started to analyze this lady. For starters, lady probably wasn't the best term, she was a couple years older than Ace at the most, Ace was almost in awe at her success so far, especially seeing as the stuff in her office didn't exactly look like babies' first science machine.

Ace twisted his face at the girl calling his mask rude, although she couldn't see it because he was wearing a mask. She requested he remove it, like it was something he just thought of throwing on as he left the house this morning. However, she was right and if he was going to get any answer out of this woman he would have to oblige to her demand, however compromising. Ace pulled off the mask, "Rather interesting of you to call my mask rude, when you're the one with the guns on me" Ace smiled, never one to be threatened by simple guns that could blow him into a million pieces, pushing the mask into his back pocket. "Just a precaution, I'm sure you'll understand." Ace pushed his hair down on his head, removing the ghastly mask hair. "My name is Ace, whether or not it was nice to meet you will depend on how attached my limbs are at the end of this encounter" Ace extended his hand to shake