#kronosevent1

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Despite the announcement leaving a familiar chill in her bones, Emerald keeps the façade lifted with feigned optimism. She'd spent enough time on herself to mingle with the crowd, to control the very thing they've placed in a commercial vial, but she could feel the anger bubbling in the middle of her throat.

there’s little trouble to get into on the rooftop, but then he hadn’t expected to find much up of anything up here. he’s mildly surprised to find it decorated with tiny twinkling lights that seem to never phase out of relevance no matter the decade. there are seating arrangements, too, as if it’s common to host an event atop a museum but then maybe it is. a lot of change can happen in seven years. he hoists himself up to sit on the parapet - feet dangling over the edge - and gazes out over the capital city. when he was younger, he dreamed of blacking out an entire city like this. just to see if he could. he’s old enough to know it’s a death wish, but that childlike curiosity remains. he supposes he should be grateful the nsa couldn’t extinguish that over the last seven years. he cranes his head back as the door to the rooftop opens, blue eyes giving the intruder a once over before he, good naturedly, offers his vape pen. not without taking a hit first, but still offered nonetheless. “first hit’s free.“

“you’re not subtle, you know.” if his sudden ‘materialization’ behind baz startles the super, cecil doesn’t care. he’d made his approach like this on purpose. baz, his perennial problem child, had a nasty habit of trying to avoid him when he’d done something wrong. and although cecil feels relatively in assuming the other hasn’t gotten into any trouble thus far tonight, there’s always the possibility something else happened earlier and elsewhere and cecil’s yet to hear about it. he doesn’t know which is more headache-inducing: his continued presence here at the gala or the potential of a baz produced crisis. “it’s easier for both of us if you tell me when you’ve done something i need to know about. i don’t feel the need to corner you. you don’t have to see me. we’re all the merrier, sebastian.”

saskia loves a good party - especially one where the food and drinks are on her boss’s dime - as much as the next person, but even she needs to step away for a moment. blame it on buchanan’s announcement and the sudden need of every single kronos employee to come seek her out and congratulate her as if she’d created the whole damn serum herself. she’s but a small part of the machine and she doesn’t like taking credit for other people’s work.

she doesn’t really want any credit for this either.

the sight of the ‘miracle twins’ leaves her nauseated and with the whole museum being available, saskia takes advantage - meandering from exhibit to exhibit until there’s fewer and fewer people and no chatter about super serums or wonder twins. “i think they’re going to put on another performance here in a few minutes,” she says. she sits on a bench in front of a large painting but facing away from it in a swirl of braids and green fabric. “you sure you wanna miss out on that?”

gala is a fancy way of saying “this is far too exclusive for anyone outside the top one percent to even think about getting an invitation” and robert buchanan seems to have taken that quite seriously from the looks of those in attendance; the expressions in the sea of people ranging from awestruck to outright horrified.

zayid rubs the bridge of his nose in an attempt to lessen his growing headache as well as to help conceal his own shock—his fingers ghosting over his face are hiding his initial look of confusion before he manages to replace it with a sort of subdued curiosity so as to not give anything away to whoever’s eyes might happen to catch his expression. experience tells him it’s better to be safe than sorry.

he cocks his head to the side to give his companion a quick once-over, a wry smile managing to wrestle itself onto his face amidst all the other emotions yanking at his conscience. “so… i suppose this might be a good time to ask if you want a drink?”

JANUARY 7, 2040.

the dawn of a new decade is ushered in by fireworks, popped champagne bottles, and the promise of something great. or so says robert buchanan at his annual gala. every year since kronos’ inception, he has unveiled a new project, from mind-blowing virtual reality in 2028 to the robots in 2033 that changed the landscape of A.I. as we knew it. 

so what will 2040 bring?

only what some simply dream of.

a super serum. the announcement sends a ripple through robert’s guests seated for dinner, and as he launches into a speech about new beginnings and a way to the future, a pair of twins standing behind him are handed vials of pale blue liquid. it’s bottom’s up and waiting with bated breath until one of them lifts her hand, levitating a fountain of champagne glasses off a table. her brother makes bolts of electricity sing through the air, creating a lightshow to rival fireworks set off at midnight.

robert smiles and extends his hands. “thanks to the tireless work of our brilliant minds at kronos, anyone can be super.”

#𝐊𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝟏 - 𝟐𝟎𝟒𝟎 𝐁𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐍’𝐒 𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐀; otto dietrich in unknown, photo credit: novus museum