To be fair when anyone who could be disloyal is being sent to the killing fields it is easy to quickly move up the ranks.
And since this is a shadow goverment… That leaves the incompetent to stupid to be disloyal as they follow any order… And the ones smart enough to do their jobs (thus being a potential traitor and needs to be purged from the ranks for their newer hopefully more naive replacement)
Very easy to advance right up until the ones at top notice you.
Anasigma extirpates their in-some-strange-way-unsatisfactory employees, but I don’t know if there’s much of that going on back with the shadow government at the Maragda Building, even if it has been franchised out to Anasigma.
(I’m still hoping for some sort of contact with the VR walnut farm staffed by the extirpated, before the end. Mostly I still want to know if Phoebe the Anasigma agent they met in the Big Easy was the Canadian model who was into unicorns.)
I agree, Robert. It would be nice if The Extirpated could be rescued by The Daughters of the Air and Phoebe met Baron Mistycorn in all his chivalrous gallantry!
Maybe the rest of them have temporary passes? Just for this ceremony? Or maybe the access pass lets him take the elevator, and the rest of them have to take the stairs. I mean it looks like a rooftop gazebo to me, so naturally I just assumed it was. I don’t expect anything at A-Sig to make sense. In the words of Ford Prefect, they’re “a load of useless bloody looneys.”
(Elevator doors open. Tip looks out.)
(Shaenon and Jeff, sitting at their desks, stare back.)
(Tip slowly and very deliberately pushes the down button)
Start spreading the news
I’m winning today.
I’ve made a real good start of it,
Rooftop, rooftop!
These custom-made shoes
Have climbed all the way.
Right to the big org-chart of it,
Rooftop, rooftop!
I want to hand off this committee
That’s full of sheep.
To Skin-Horse dog if she will—
We’re in too deep.
This spittle-wound schmooze
Displeasures my day.
I’m here to give Sweetheart of it,
From the rooftop.
Since I can make it there,
I’ll make it where I care.
I’m almost through,
Rooftop, rooftop!
—from “New York, New York,” written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, sung by…well, I don’t much like it as sung by Minelli or Sinatra…how about this version by Big Daddy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeuqU7mJDKE
Helen would be happy or lining up a copyright infringement suit. Science made unmeltable ice cube jellies. Only a matter of time for them to make it never warming and in ice cream form.
It is so beautiful. The sequence is perfectly mundane: I can populate it in my mind with people from my department. And it’s also so perfectly outlandish, the kind of unreal pomp you can see in old movies and in very aware ironic modern ones.
Oh well. Had Nick just dropped him off on the roof to begin with, Tip wouldn’t have a pet dinosaur.
Who’s officiating in the first panel, I wonder?
Oh. I. Bryant. Of course.
the, erm, face of faceless bureaucracy.
“They call me mad! Mad! Me! They laughed, those fools at the Institute-“
I’m picturing little people singing grumpily about the Lollipop Guild… hey, wasn’t that in a Fedex commercial?
It was a brilliant commercial, and it was a shame that anti-huffing advocates freaked out and pushed FedEx to stop using it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KebOUURlvw I agree completely!
Wow, I’ve never seen that. Trippy!
I will be very disappointed if the Maragda Building roof pass does not turn out to be an essential MacGuffin to this story-arc.
It’s Tip’s way out and Tigerlily’s way in, with Nick providing taxi service. Assuming his peripheral isn’t eaten.
Wait till they find out he’s not Dr. Sanders—least, when those who don’t already know find out.
he’s in VR, ain’t he
I wonder if the real Nick Sanders will end up as head of the Shadow Government after all this.
Probably. I mean, all the paperwork is in place, and isn’t that what’s really important?
He’s tall and blond. They won’t be able to tell the difference.
Not even Shadow Governmenters deserve that!
*Chris* Sanders.
That actually would be really funny if Chris ended up in charge because of paperwork. “Irradiation for all!”
I love Wendy’s wistfulness in the last panel. She’s got it bad!
To be fair when anyone who could be disloyal is being sent to the killing fields it is easy to quickly move up the ranks.
And since this is a shadow goverment… That leaves the incompetent to stupid to be disloyal as they follow any order… And the ones smart enough to do their jobs (thus being a potential traitor and needs to be purged from the ranks for their newer hopefully more naive replacement)
Very easy to advance right up until the ones at top notice you.
“To be unfair,” but true.
Anasigma extirpates their in-some-strange-way-unsatisfactory employees, but I don’t know if there’s much of that going on back with the shadow government at the Maragda Building, even if it has been franchised out to Anasigma.
(I’m still hoping for some sort of contact with the VR walnut farm staffed by the extirpated, before the end. Mostly I still want to know if Phoebe the Anasigma agent they met in the Big Easy was the Canadian model who was into unicorns.)
I agree, Robert. It would be nice if The Extirpated could be rescued by The Daughters of the Air and Phoebe met Baron Mistycorn in all his chivalrous gallantry!
Or out in what passes for the real world, where Dr. Lee and Tigerlily Jones can clone them with the Clone-O-Mat and Baron M. can be his usual self.
Ohh – I like that idea, Robert! Especially since nothing would prevent Tigerlily cloning a lovely unicorn body for Phoebe!
Interesting that the “ultimate symbol of power and prestige” is “a Maragda Building roof access pass.”, not the…
I was thinking “Chris” had long since passed Emerald Level clearance. Now I’m not so sure.
Yes, I was noticing how many other people are up there – including Wendy. Seems that rooftop access isn’t all that special.
They’re not on the roof. How could they be on the roof when they clearly don’t have rooftop access passes?
Maybe the rest of them have temporary passes? Just for this ceremony? Or maybe the access pass lets him take the elevator, and the rest of them have to take the stairs. I mean it looks like a rooftop gazebo to me, so naturally I just assumed it was. I don’t expect anything at A-Sig to make sense. In the words of Ford Prefect, they’re “a load of useless bloody looneys.”
Looks like a gazebo to me. Probably in the Maragda Building’s courtyard?
Could this be the Maragda Building’s courtyard?
Checkmate, humans!
“On the roof’s the only place I know…where you just have to wish to make it so…”
I am thinking this has nothing to do with roof access and that Tip now has access to go see what’s behind the curtain.
Good thinking, Dewy! Maybe when you insert the access card in the elevator it takes you… somewhere else?
(Elevator doors open. Tip looks out.)
(Shaenon and Jeff, sitting at their desks, stare back.)
(Tip slowly and very deliberately pushes the down button)
Start spreading the news
I’m winning today.
I’ve made a real good start of it,
Rooftop, rooftop!
These custom-made shoes
Have climbed all the way.
Right to the big org-chart of it,
Rooftop, rooftop!
I want to hand off this committee
That’s full of sheep.
To Skin-Horse dog if she will—
We’re in too deep.
This spittle-wound schmooze
Displeasures my day.
I’m here to give Sweetheart of it,
From the rooftop.
Since I can make it there,
I’ll make it where I care.
I’m almost through,
Rooftop, rooftop!
—from “New York, New York,” written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, sung by…well, I don’t much like it as sung by Minelli or Sinatra…how about this version by Big Daddy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeuqU7mJDKE
Helen would be happy or lining up a copyright infringement suit. Science made unmeltable ice cube jellies. Only a matter of time for them to make it never warming and in ice cream form.
He’s ascending the highest tier. His pass to ascent is clear. It’s a pretty big creep full to forget little people, but the roof access pass is here.
It is so beautiful. The sequence is perfectly mundane: I can populate it in my mind with people from my department. And it’s also so perfectly outlandish, the kind of unreal pomp you can see in old movies and in very aware ironic modern ones.
And it’s of course very Skin Horse. 10/10