Catch 22 And A Half

Catch 22 And A Half
Date of Scene:	20 July 2013
Location:	The Ame-no-Torifune
Synopsis:	Haneisuru is dead and it is a very sad thing.
Cast of Characters:	Minette Odam, Haneisuru

---

Minette Odam has posed:
Paperwork inside the Murasame Zaibatsu procedes at the speed in which paperwork normally flows. Not even Ramuha lightning technology has found a way to speed that up. However, with Haneisuru's recent resurfacing, there is a pressing need to change his status from 'dead' to 'alive' within the Zaibatsu's internal network, or else he won't receive his health bennies, and that's just terrible.

The Zaibatsu's airship, the Ame-no-Torifune, is a thing of harsh metal and stormy skies... and that last in a most literal way. It is literally followed by a lightning storm created by three Black Mages on duty in the ship's bows to power the vessel. Said ship is currently darkening the skies above the otherwise beautiful port city of Luca.

Space is at a premium on the ship, as it's housing the entirety of the Zaibatsu's staff. Most people don't have private rooms, or private offices. But Minette Odam, however, Minette Odam is not most people. She has both a private room /and/ an office, as befitting her station as the VP of Accounting.

And temp VP of Sales.
And Accounts Payable.
And Personel.
And HR.
And six other departments. The topic of extra compensation for her extreme efforts has not been brought up.

It is to this overworked and underpaid employee's office / quarters (they are the same room) that Haneisuru has been directed. People along the way have wished him luck. Her door stands closed, but a little sign advertises 'Open for business <DO> disturb, appointments <NOT> needed'.

Haneisuru has posed:
If /anybody/ on the payroll needs health benefits, it's Kurikaeshi Haneisuru. Let's be honest here. At any rate, he's all cleaned up from the, uh, re-entrance to society, sleeves properly billowing and belt-skirt flapping appropriately as he strides through the halls.
"Ah, come on. Come on! Apparently I spent five months inside a Malboro in a void of a shattered world. How bad could Minette possibly be to deal with?" He assuages somebody, before pushing the door open.

After smacking into the door briefly, he stops, turns the doorknob, and /then/ pushes the door open.

Minette Odam has posed:
Minette's room/office is a mess. The first thing that hits Haneisuru is the unpleasant odor of unwashed laundry and food that hasn't been disposed of properly. The center of the room is dominated by a sturdy desk and strung up in a corner is a hammock in lieu of a bed. It bespeaks of Minette's Levitani heritage, she's never really comfortable in a real bed. Scattered about the room are bookshelves, piled thick with thick accounts ledgers, action figures, and half-eaten plates of food that haven't been taken to the commisary for cleaning like they ought to have been. There are one or two science projects about.

Minette's desk is covered with a variety of crap. There's a computer sitting on the corner with a fine layer of dust gathering on top; the keyboard isn't gunked up like you'd expect, but it too has a layer of dust so that explains why. Papers, ledgers, and napkins with scribblings all over them cover much of the rest of the free space, held down here and there by a Dragoon Man(tm) action figure or a lone plate of cookies. It's all organised, at least as far as Minette is concerned.

And as for Minette herself, she's laying in her hammock, in her chocobo print pajamas, watching a spherecast of the local blitzball game. She's holding a pot of instant macaroni and cheese in one hand and a spoon in the other. Her hair is all askew.

She doesn't seem to notice Han's enterance.

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru bops his head to the side. Huh. He kinda expected that the big numbers girl would be all OCD about cleaning or whatever. He's down with this. He quietly looks around, surmising the situation. He brushes the computer with a finger, noting the dust with a slightly quirked brow, before walking over to the hammock.
Somehow, he too has a pot of instant macaroni and cheese in one hand and a spoon in the other. "Hey."

Minette Odam has posed:
"I don't get it, why's everything underwateKYAAAAH!"

Taken by surprise, Minette recoils away from Haneisuru. The hammock rocks, tips, Minette goes butt over teacups, and the end result is that Minette is on the floor and there's instant mac all over the wall. The horror, the horror.

"...owwiee..." Minette exclaims, rubbing at her backside (which she landed on), "Don't you know you're not supposed to sneak up on people, 'specially when they're on their lunchbreak?"

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru watches the hammock one way, then the other, watches the girl launch into the air, and the macaroni fly over into the wall. It's kinda passive. "...That was a pretty cool trick." With that, he lets the pot and spoon poof off into oblivion, waggling one finger as he puts a hand on his hip.

"Don't you think it'd be a little bit creepy if I knew when your lunchbreak was?"

Minette Odam has posed:
"That was a /mean/ trick!" Minette whines, her voice high pitched and naisily. She pulls herself off of the floor, because she's come to expect that pretty much no one's going to help her up off of it. "/No/ it wouldn't." A pause. "Okay /yes/ it would." A pause. "But still better then being snuck up on by a ninj'ing ninja!"

Haneisuru has posed:
"Keeps the blood flowing," Haneisuru chides, reaching his hand out to help Minette just a moment too late. Derp or jerk? Good question. "Yeah, you're right. It'd be /awful/ if I was a ninja. No worries, though." He taps his chest a couple times. "I promise you I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a ninja. At least not right now. So! Now that we've woken you up a bit, what say we get down to..uh..." He puts a finger on his chin, thoughtfully looking at the ceiling.

"You know? I'm not /entirely/ sure what I'm actually here for, you called me over."

Minette Odam has posed:
Minette's neck cranes forwards as she eyes Han dangerously; her thick glasses reflecting the light. Damningly, she pronounces, "Just the sort of thing a ninja /would/ say." A bit of macaroni falls out of her hair, as if to punctuate this declarative statement.

And then Minette abruptly withdraws. "I did?" Her lips purse down in a frown, one cactaur-slippered foot tapping in thought. "Oh! I did! You're... Haaa...aaaaan." Han something. Something.

Haneisuru has posed:
Han cranes his neck back, letting his eyes glint a little. "Just the sorta thing a ninja would say, huh?" He pulls a bit of macaroni out of his hair and chomps on it. "Well. Maybe I /can/ be a ninja. Ha /hah/."

He leans back a little, corner of his mouth twitching as Minette forgets his name. He taps his foot thoughtfully. "Haneisuru. No worries, I'm no good at names either."

Minette Odam has posed:
Minette blinks several times behind her glasses. OR DOES SHE, it's hard to tell with how thick they are. "Right... so... so you needed to come down here because..." Minette wanders over to her desk and starts going through her files. The fact it takes her less then a minute to find the right one is almost miraculous. "Have a seat." She says, absently, as she flips through a file.

The only chair in the room is the one Minette is sitting in. Other options include the desk, and Minette's hammock. And also the floor, of course, but you don't know where that thing's been.

"Okay, so... seems here that the first problem is that you're listed as 'desceased'. Do you have any way of proving that you're alive?"

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru listens intently to Minette, giving her a moment to walk over before she makes her proclamation that he needs to prove that he's alive.
He offers her a sly wink with both eyes, a few times, before slipping over to the desk. "I'll stand. Sitting's bad for you, don't you know?" He grins, idly flipping through some of Minette's files.

"Anyway, prove that I'm alive, huh? Well, obviously, if I was dead, I'd have to have submitted a certificate of death, and I haven't done that, so I have to be alive."

Minette Odam has posed:
"Certificate of death... certificate of dea--ah, here it is!" Minette pulls a piece of paper out of her folder. "Filed by the research department after your untimely demise." The winks go right over Minette's head. A lot of things do. "They made a note here that it was very tradgic."

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru leans over, pulling the piece of paper from Minette. "Huh. Well." He considers that. "Well, that settles it. Guess I'm dead." He rolls the paper up.
"So, I guess you'll just have to get my life insurance paid out to my next of kin--now, since I'm the only one in my family remaining, that means you'll just have to pay it to me. Now, that said, I'll need employment, so I'll just apply here--and obviously you guys will just have to account for my prior experience.."

Minette Odam has posed:
"I can't pay out your life insurance to you, you're dead." Minette explains. "Now, if you were alive, that would be a different story, but you're dead, so I can't."

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru waggles a finger. "You can pay it to my /estate/, and I'll just withdraw it from there."

Minette Odam has posed:
"Except there's no one in your estate, in which case it goes into the Zaibatsu widows fund." Minette continues to explain. "Do you have a widow?" A pause, "No, what am I saying, if you did then you'd have a next of kin to pay to."

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru pauses. "But I do have one." He passes back the Certificate of Death, which now includes Not-Haneisuru Not-Kurikaeshi as his listed next of kin. "Says right there on the file, and the file can't be wrong, right?"

Minette Odam has posed:
"Oh my Gods, why am I talking to you on the radio, you're /right there/." Minette announces, abruptly. She picks up the file. "Not-Haneisuru Not-Kurikaeshi'." She pronounces.

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru considers this. "You're talking to me on the radio," He says, "Because we're trying to keep things public and aboveboard, right?" He waves his radio, before putting it back in his pocket. "Absolutely. And obviously, since I'm dead, I can obviously be trusted with the cheque to deliver to the next of kin, because I can't possibly cash it for myself, because I'm dead."

Minette Odam has posed:
"Well, okay, but we have a policy about using undead as couriers. For that you'll need to get our head necromancer, Helena Celba, to sign off on it. And also fill out forms in triplicate that you're an acceptable use corpse... and did you remember to fill out the forms for that before you died?" Minette asks.

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru considers. "Ah, but I'm /dead/, not undead. So that policy doesn't apply to me, right? If I was /undead/, then my status on the form would be 'undead', not 'deceased', and the form is never wrong." He nods.

Minette Odam has posed:
"Look, if you're /just dead/, then we're legally and morally obligated to give you or whatever is left of you a proper burial." Minette explains. "I don't make these rules, I just follow them. It's for the good of everyone. Imagine if we weren't obligated to bury dead people, then where would we be? With corpses just laying all over the place all caddywumpus and, like, stuff. Yeah." She shakes a finger in Han's direction admonishingly. "You should be glad we live in such a civilized society. Now then, what kind of burial would you like? We offer Ramuha modern, Levitani traditional, Ifriti traditional, and for a small surcharge we can upgrade to Titanic classic or Odynar warrior." A pause, then Minette leans forwards to confide, "That much stone gets costly, you see?"

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru considers this. "Huh. So if I'm gonna go for the small surcharge, where does the money come from?" He waggles his finger at Minette knowingly, looking a little smug. "I mean, obviously I can't pay you myself, because you can't take the accounts payable from me." With that, he thinks a moment, before leaning in.
"So that means I can order /every single bonus/ to that funeral. Every single perk, and you can't make me pay for it. Unless..."

Minette Odam has posed:
"Well if you can't pay for it, then you can't afford it." Minette explains. "And if you can't afford it, then we can't grant that to you. I'm terribly sorry about that."

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru puts a hand to his chest. "You would deny a dead man his last wish? You are a /monster/."

Minette Odam has posed:
"No." Minette says, her chest puffing up with pride. "I'm a /beaurocrat/."

Awkward silence.

"So will you be having the Ramuha, Levitani, or Ifriti ceremony?"

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru taps his head a few times. "Well, funeral planning takes -time-, Minette. You can't expect a guy traumatized by death itself to do this stuff on the fly. Besides, I'll need to take the forms to a notary!"

Minette Odam has posed:
"Oh come on, stop being a big baby. Look, you only have three options. One of them's boring, one of the other two is awesome, and the third we just set you on fire and scatter the ashes." Minette explains. "This really isn't a hard choice."

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru meanwhile, totally lunges forward and grabs Minette's hand, holding it upwards to demonstrate.

Minette Odam has posed:
Minette, staring at the cieling, breathlessly whispers, "...reach for the top, Minette..."

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru nods approvingly. "Yes! You can do this! I have nothing but the utmost faith in you, Minette."

Minette Odam has posed:
"YOSH!" Minette declares, pulling her arms inwards, fists balled, and with a look of pure determination on her face. "THERE IS NOTHING I CAN NOT ACHIEVE!" And with that, Minette leaps up and dashes out the door in her race to get started. Nevermind that she's still in her pajamas.

And that she just left the office from which she'd actually do this thing.

Haneisuru has posed:
Haneisuru rolls his shoulders a bit, cracks his neck, and starts going through the files, casually rewriting himself where need be as being 'alive'. Minette's gone, right? What's the harm? And after all.

The files are /never wrong/.

Minette Odam has posed:
Minette will be searching for the source of the 'disruption' for at least two months. It will be the source of sleepless nights and endless frustration because /now/ things won't balance.