Silenia:

http://www.menewsha.com/forum/commun...-dystopia.html

Larry Walker anxiously stood in front of the big, wooden doors of the Menewshan Patent Office. His brown hair stood on end, and he was dressed in his pajamas. He had run out of his studio bright and early- too bright and too early for most people's tastes- and he had forgotten to brush his teeth or comb his hair. His arms were laden with coffee-stained blueprints and a creaking contraption that, at periodic intervals, spit smoke and small gears onto the otherwise pristine stone floor at his feet. He occasionally peeked his spiky-haired head out onto the street, his brown eyes squinting at the drowsy city, hoping to see someone walking over to let him in.

James Greenwood woke up with a smile on his face. Today would be his first real day working at the Menewshan Patent Office. While he had started his new job yesterday, the office had been closed so that his boss could show Jimmy the basics without being interrupted constantly.

He rapidly went about his morning routine, combing his short blond hair and brushing his teeth even as he slipped out of his pajamas and into his clothes. As soon as he was done, he started jogging towards the Menewshan Patent Office. A street or two away from the office, he realized he'd be arriving at least an hour early and his boss hadn't gotten around to giving him a key to the building yet.

"Oh well," he murmured, "the weather is nice and it's not like I would have had anything to do at home either."

Larry stuck his head out into the street one more time. Eureka! A big smile split his face. Someone was running towards him! They had to be excited to see his new invention. He ran out into the street, waving wildly with one arm and cradling his machine in the other. He dashed toward his one-man audience, leaving a trail of nuts and bolts and papers behind him.

Once he was a few feet away, he lifted his machine over his head, dropping all his remaining papers. The machine puffed more smoke into the stiff morning air and spat some more mechanical odds and ends into his hair. Still running, he started to shout.

"Its a sandwich maker!" he shouted. "Its not quite working yet, the bacon comes out too- AAARUGH!"

The inventor tripped over one of his lost papers. Both he and his machine went flying. They landed right in front of James Greenwood. Larry rubbed his sore bottom, then began to gather the machine parts and loose papers that had landed around him.

"As I was saying- Huh?"

The machine began to bounce and shake on the pavement. It wheezed and rattled. The delicious scent of toasting bread and cooking bacon wafted through the air. Suddenly, a panel opened on the side and threw out... A plate! A perfectly toasted piece of bread! A generous layer of tomato and lettuce! And finally, several beautiful strips of perfectly cooked bacon, topped with another piece of bread.

Larry stared at his machine in shock. His stomach growled- He just remembered that he had left his studio without breakfast. He lifted the sandwich from its plate and took a giant bite... The bacon! The bacon was perfect! Not only that, the sandwich was perfect!

Then, remembering his audience, Larry looked up sheepishly at James. He held up his half-eaten sandwich, offering it to him.

"I... I guess dropping it unstuck the bacon cooking platform. Do you want some?"

James was a more than a bit confused. One moment he'd been jogging towards his job, the next a loudly-yelling man went flying in his direction--the strange object said man had been holding nearly colliding with his head!

Before James had the chance to clear his thoughts, the man continued his enthusiastic rambling--only to be interrupted moments later by strange sounds, smells and movements coming from the dropped machine, followed by a plate with a sandwich on it not much later.

Staring at the wondrous machine, James noticed belatedly that the guy had started talking again.

"-ant some?"

He moved his eyes away from the Sandwichmaker and glanced at the man, who now looked up at him with a questioning expression while waving half a sandwich in his face.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" James asked, "And what is that wonderful machine called?"

---

Susan Darcy knew she wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants today. She was sweaty, had oil stains on her hands, face and clothes and bags the size of a small purse beneath her eyes. Not that she cared for such things anyway.

Machines and inventions, now those were the real beauties...and the project she had just finished even more so than most.
Ease of use and cleaning--equipped with an easily removed filter to catch all crumbs--amazingly efficient, cheap in use. Nice, smooth curves and shining metal.

Yes, if there were beauty pageants for machines, Susan felt that her CrispyBacon Sandwich Maker would be the Machine Universe.

Larry beamed like a proud parent. Wonderful machine! The man liked his sandwich maker! With one hand still raised, he began to rummage through the scattered papers around them until he found a coffee-stained cover sheet. The cover sheet had a messy drawing of the machine on the ground and bold text proclaiming "Perfect BLTs!" He held it up next to his half-eaten but certainly perfect BLT.

"Its my Sandwich Maker!" he proclaimed. "It- It wasn't working this morning, I was walking over to show the office my prototype, but- But I dropped it-"

As he launched into his explanation, a middle-aged woman with silver hair and green eyes walked down the street. As she got closer, she readjusted her glasses and studied the scene with a deadpan expression. She had had a feeling that she would find Larry in the middle of the commotion.

"... the sensors sense the bacon- Oh! Ms. Stone!"

Larry quickly gathered what he could of his scattered paperwork in one hand. Still holding the half-eaten sandwich in the other hand, he lept to his feet and rushed over to Callie Stone, the head of the Menewshan Patent Office.

"... Mr. Walker. And Jimmy, too."

"I- I finished my Sandwich Maker! I know I said on the phone it needed some tweaks, but I dropped it- Heh heh, isn't that great? Uh, I have the paperwork right here, so-"

Larry held out the hand holding his BLT.

"... No thank you, Mr. Walker, I had my breakfast this morning."

"Oh!"

Larry quickly switched hands, offering her the stack of crumpled papers instead.

Ms. Stone sighed inwardly. She motioned for her intern to take the papers. Then she walked away, heading for the office.

Larry glanced at Ms. Stone, then James, then shrugged. He handed both his papers and the half-eaten sandwich to James. Then he ran after Ms. Stone, shouting his pitch one more time, zig-zagging across the street to retrieve his remaining paperwork.

((Dystopia:))

James frowned as he saw the expression on Ms. Stone's face. Why, the man might be a bit excitable, but clearly he was a genius inventor.
After all, he thought, taking another bite from the sandwich while taking holding the papers with his other hand, that sandwich is one of the best things I've ever tasted!

Deciding to be polite after the somewhat rude behaviour of his boss, he waited just outside the door of the office until the man could finish retrieving the scattered papers.

"Great sandwich," he smiled at the man who had just walked back up to him, this time with the dropped papers back in his arms, "but I think Ms. Stone isn't in the best of moods today, so I think we'd best hurry after her."
He turned to the door, ready to walk into the office, when he heard a loud and slightly angry shout behind him. Immediately, he turned his head and saw a woman striding angrily towards them, a huge box in her arms, her face at thunder and her dark blond hair escaping the hair-bun's grasp.

"What. Are. YOU. Doing. Here?!"

---

A few streets away from the office, Susan finished carefully packing her CBSM and all related paperwork so it wouldn't get damaged as she hauled it towards the Menewshan Patent Office.

After all, to be careless with such a work of beauty would be like... like trusting the post office with a genuine Rembrandt! Just not something any sane man or woman would do.

She picked up the huge box with a slight grunt, then walked out the front door towards the MPO.

I hope Ms. Stone is in a good mood today, she thought to herself, then shook her head. Ms. Stone almost never was, but who could blame her for constantly having to deal with that fool of a Walker. At least she knew how to invent something and fill out the paperwork in a legible way. That fool, on the other hand...but at least she heard through the grapevine that his machine (not that she knew what kind of machine he was working on, as her contact hadn't exactly been listening to the man's rants) was having some issues, so today she shouldn't run into...

Oh bloody hell, she thought as she saw Walker stand in front of the office next to a man she didn't know, both of them holding onto large stacks of dirty and crumpled papers.

"What. Are. YOU. Doing. Here?!"

Larry stopped in front of James, panting. He gave the intern a big, enthusastic smile. Ms. Stone was rarely happy to see him, but it never discouraged him. Larry loved talking about his machines.

"Thanks! I'm so glad I got it working- I almost gave up when the darn lettuce processor started making this weird noise, but-"

"What. Are. YOU. Doing. Here?!"

Larry almost dropped his invention and his papers again in his surprise. He turned to see Susan approaching him with a large box.

"Susan!"

Larry handed off his remaining paperwork to James. Then, holding his machine with both hands, he held it out to his rival.

"Its my Sandwich Maker!" he replied, proudly. "I dropped it!"

The Sandwich Maker gave a self-satisfied puff of smoke, then coughed out another handful of nuts and bolts.

James grabbed the remaining paperwork tightly, something made more difficult by the fact that he was already holding a fair stack of the stuff in one hand and the remains of that delicious sandwich in the other. Still, he managed.

"Dropped it, and you're proud of it?" Susan sneered. She would never under that fool, but knowing his luck, it would probably have made the Sandwich Maker work b-

Wait a moment. Sandwich Maker?!

"You bloody well stole that idea off me, Larry!" Susan screeched, "Tell up, who told you I was working on the CrispyBacon Sandwich Maker?!"

"I dropped it!" Larry repeated, beaming. "It unstuck the bacon cooking platform! I had been working on that for weeks! I couldn't quite get it unstuck without compromising the crispiness of the bacon, but you know how that goes, eh? You fix one thing and-"

Larry was about to launch into another one of his overly-enthusiastic monologues, but he was interrupted by Susan's angry shout. He stopped mid-sentence and looked at her curiously.

"D... did you drop yours, too?" he asked, looking rather confused. "Did you patent the dropping method? I didn't know! And I assure you, I performed a completely accidental dropping! Ask Mister, ahh..." What had Ms. Stone called him? "Mister Jimmy?"

He glanced at the intern for correction.

"Mr. Jimmy here! He witnessed the whole thing!"

"Mr. Jimmy", Susan noticed as she glanced over at him, seemed to be trying his best to hide himself in the shadows, apparently wishing to have no part in this discussion. She sympathized with him somewhat, but hiding wasn't exactly going to work when Mr. Fool was calling attention to his presence.
"I'm sure he has," Susan finally stated as she looked back towards said fool, "and no, it's not the dropping I'm angry over, you bloody fool. My inventions actually work as they should without dropping them, throwing coffee over them, setting them on fire, short-circuiting them or gods know what else you've done through the years that made your machines work. What I'm angry over, as you bloody well know, is that you again stole my idea for a machine. Do you really want me to believe you of all people could come up with something as genius as a Sandwich Maker on your own? Bah."

James raised an eyebrow at that rant. Clearly, there was bad blood between the two inventors. Even though he really didn't want to interrupt them or otherwise get himself involved in this mess, he knew that Ms. Stone was almost certainly getting impatient upstairs in her office. He scraped his throat.

"Sir, madam... Ms. Stone is waiting for Mr. ..." he trailed off, "sorry, I never caught your name."
"Walker," Susan supplied, purposefully dropping the honorific.
"Thank you," James inclined his head towards the woman, "as I said, Ms. Stone is waiting for Mr. Walker upstairs, so we really should be going."
He glanced desperately at Mr. Walker, begging him to come along. Susan's next words dashed his hope, though.
"I'm afraid that sadly I will have to accompany you and Walker, as I have an appointment with Ms. Stone myself."

Larry looked from James to Susan with a confused, nervous smile on his face. He wanted to discuss the benefits of the occasional coffee spill on the inventive process- Why, just last month, a coffee spill had saved his Flower-Avoiding Bush-Trimmer from the scrap heap. Last he heard, it had found a proper home with Nalin in Petal Paradise. But something about the look on James' face told him that this was a conversation for another time.

"Ah yes... Ms. Stone. I'm sure she's eager to see my machine, and I wouldn't want to keep her waiting," Larry agreed, a little too cheerfully.

Larry stumbled behind James, staying as close to the intern as possible. He was clueless to animosity, but he wasn't that clueless. He could feel Susan glaring daggers into his back. Luckily, his machine seemed to be similiar intimidated. It refrained from making any rude noises or expelling any strange mechanical nick-nacks, satisfying itself with the occasional puff of smoke.

Once they were in front of Ms. Stone's door, Larry stopped and nervously looked behind him. After meeting Susan's gaze, he turned right back around. He carefully balanced his Sandwich Maker in one hand and started knocking with the other.

"Ms. Stone? Its me, Larry Walker? I, uh, filed..." Larry glanced at the pile of papers in James' hands. "... all my paperwork with Mr. Jimmy. I'm here to present my invention and confirm that it works. And uh..."

He glanced behind his shoulder again, unsure what to say about Susan.

James walked over to Ms. Stone's desk and placed the large stack of papers on it. "The paperwork, Ms. Stone," he said carefully, getting a strong sense of annoyance and exasperation from his boss, "for Mr. Walker's invention, the..ah...Sandwich Maker."

Before he could say much more, Susan walked through the doorway into the office as though she belonged there.

"..and Susan Darcy," Susan finished Larry's sentence. "I have an appointment scheduled in," she glanced at her watch, "two minutes, I believe, to demonstrate my CrispyBacon Sandwich Maker, register the patent on it and hand over the set of signed copies of the filled-in forms of the associated paperwork that you need for administrative purposes."

((Sorry for the short post, but I couldn't say much more without god-modding one of your characters. XD))

Ms. Stone looked around her office. She didn't seem pleased with anyone or anything she saw. Finally, her gaze settled on Larry. She stared at him for a long moment, then she began to pick through his papers with two fingers. She frowned in distaste. The papers were covered in all manner of coffee and sandwich crumbs, not to mention dirt from their time on the ground. However, they were correctly filled.

"Mr. Walker, when you asked to bring in your machine, you told us that it was not yet functional."

"I dropped it!" he explained. "It unstuck-"

Ms. Stone gave him a withering look. He instantly fell silent. There was a long moment of silence where no one dared to speak. The only sound in the room was the rustle of paper as Ms. Stone flipped through Larry's documents and the occasional odd mechanical noise from the Sandwich Maker.

Finally, Ms. Stone sighed and spoke.

"Ms. Darcy. In a conventional situation, you would be given the chance the present your invention before Mr. Walker. However..."

She turned to stare sternly at James.

"... Ms. Darcy, Mr. Walker. This is our newest intern, Jimmy. He may be an intern, but he is also an official Menewshan Patent Office worker. If he has requested Mr. Walker's documents and invention, then this morning's presentation is, by the book, an official presentation of a new invention."