1Written 2013 - October - 17.
Some of the text is taken from Episode 19B.
This is how StrexCorp starts.
The teenaged girls are sprawled out on the sofa. There are two girls, and one only one sofa. It is not a very large sofa, and the girls do not fit entirely on it. Their limbs and moisture ooze out at the edges.
One of the girls has blonde hair and blue eyes. Her name is Cherie. One of the girls has blue hair and blonde eyes. Her name is Amie. Cherie's skin feels like ice, and her perspiration seems more like a symptom of melting than anything else. Amie's skin does not feel like ice. She is sweating like most people would be.
The day is warm. The day is always warm in Desert Bluffs.
"I honestly never want to leave here again," Cherie says. Her voice is rich and syrupy, with a gentle buzz that rings in her nose and her listener's ears.
"This sofa?" Amie asks in her basso profundo voice.
"This town," Cherie answers with a quick roll of her pupils up into the space behind her eyelids. Ugh, she thinks, that looks gross. I'll have to do some spring cleaning.
"Obviously," Amie says with a laugh. "Leaving Desert Bluffs once was more than enough for me."
Their suitcases are still packed and standing by the house's locked door. The girls will unpack when they are done with being on the sofa. It has been several days so far, but who's keeping track?
"Wouldn't it be nice," Cherie says after a while, "if, right, we could make it so people didn't need to leave?"
"Huh?" Amie asks.
"Well, you know. We went to see the world, and the world, well..."
"Was lacking?"
"That, and it totally sucked. Shouldn't we, like, let people know about that?"
"What, an educational campaign?"
"More than that, more than that. You know how some people go out to, like, seek their fortune and stuff? Get jobs, or look for long lost destinies, or whatever? We should totally, like, make them jobs here, and give them their long lost destinies here too. Take away their need for that big bad wolf of an Outside that's just waiting to gobble them all up." There's a strange, chilly kind of light in Cherie's eyes as she speaks. There is always a strange, chilly kind of light in Cherie's eyes.
"And it wouldn't be curtailing their free will, because we wouldn't be forcing them to stay, we'd just be removing the other options." Amie nods. "Very sensible. Great idea there, ma chérie."
"Oh, just think of all the stress we'll be saving people!" Cherie says. "We'll be empowering them to live their lives to the very fullest."
"Look around you," Amie intones gravely. "Strex. Look inside you: Strex. Go to sleep: Strex. Believe in a smiling God. StrexCorp: it is... Everything."
"Gosh, that's so perfect!" Cherie trills. "That's such a great idea, using our last name! So we'll make it happen?"
"We'll make it happen," Amie agrees with a smile.
Notes: Ma chérie is French for my darling and mon amie is French for my friend.
Cherie and Amie are not sisters, they are married. Strex is their randomly assigned five-letter Familial Identification Code.