3rd gear | video

[paishodown]

Christmas is in a few days, and the atmosphere in the city as people get ready is... amazing. We don't have a holiday quite like this in the United Republic.

[Asami is bundled up at a café in Goldenrod with a mug of tea.]

Of course, that also means that I don't really know much about all of this. They have a festival for the Winter Solstice in the Southern Water Tribe, and that would normally be happening this weekend. Are there people who observe that, here?

Comments

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake's not quite buying these country names.] Yeah? How about the Asbestos Republic, or the Oxygen Empire? What'd they think?

[That gets his attention, though. He looks her over.] You're pretty young to be a CEO.

[paishodown]

[Asami makes a face at Blake's name suggestions. What's his problem?

It doesn't help that he is probably the two-hundredth person to comment on her age in regards to her job.]

That's what you and pretty much every other person I talk to say, yes.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Would you like the full list, Asami? It's weighty and comes bound in hardcover.

He thinks he knows why somebody this young would be in charge.]

What is it, they put you in charge on paper as some kind of tax dodge?

[paishodown]

[Only if the cover has gold leafing.]

It defaulted to me now that my dad's gone.

[She is DEFINITELY not telling this guy where her dad went, though.]

I've been running it for a little over a year.

[lieutenantantichrist]

Ah. [He gets it. Dad dies, kid gets the company. Good old nepotism, alive and well.]

What kind of company is it, anyway?

[paishodown]

[Yeah, we'll go with 'dies.']

Industrial. Construction, automotive, and electronics.

[lieutenantantichrist]

Huh. So, useful stuff.

[He sounds approving and surprised. He'd figured she'd have a company that does make-up, or one of those "consulting" firms that actually does jack shit.]

So this city of yours is like Detroit before it got shitty-

[He's getting used to blank looks when he names real places, so he corrects himself.]

I mean, a big industrial place.

[paishodown]

[Well, something pleases the guy.]

I don't know what Detroit is, either, but I'll take that as a good thing.

[May...be.]

Republic City is the most industrialized city in our world, though.

[So she agrees, in some way that she doesn't really get.]

[lieutenantantichrist]

Well, just knowing what a car is puts you pretty damn far ahead of a lot of people around here, whether or not you can change your own oil.

[Naturally, he assumes she can't.]

[paishodown]

Considering that I built my car, I'm going to say I'm all set on changing the oil.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake snorts aloud like a bull in a field that has also just been told something unlikely.] Sure you did.

[paishodown]

...Why would I have a reason to lie about that?