12-07-2009, 05:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-07-2009, 06:01 AM by GrooveMan.exe.)
If you feel so badly inclined, I don't mind. Although if you do, PM them to me instead of posting it here.
Chapter 6: A Water Cooler Moment
So it turns out that lightning does indeed strike twice. I really wish it didn’t, because filling out the paperwork for licenses ‘To Bring Life to Abominations of Nature and Science’ was lengthy and tedious enough to do just once a week. Those mad scientists are always trouble, in my opinion; always devising ways to break the rules – the rules that I have to spend an 80 hour week typing, filing, faxing, amending, copying, upgrading, shuffling, transferring, testing, and then finally burning so they don’t get into the wrong hands.
Take this current case for an example. Some bright spark (no pun intended, I assure you) thought it would be a good idea to rig his laboratory in the University Quarter with some kind of weather altering thingamagig. Now not only are we getting complaints from residents in a 7 block radius of the lab who are almost drowning in a near-constant torrent of rain, he’s using the lightning strikes to power a whole load of his ‘personal projects’; things far, far more pressing and downright dangerous than your average Science Fair volcano.
The worst part? Now a whole bunch of other scientists – not to mention kite fliers, gardeners, and barbecue enthusiasts – have been completely inspired by the idea, and these weather machines have been cropping up all over the city. Sure, I can see the attraction – sunny weather whenever you want is something most people wouldn’t want to pass up – but rules are rules; and that kind of technology in public circulation is all kind of illegal.
When I first complained about it to the higher ups they just laughed at me; and then proceeded to instruct me to contact their families – they’d be staying at home for their holiday this year. Doing personal calls and doing online shopping research for gaudy swimwear is definitely not part of my job description, but who can argue with one of the largest and best companies in the world?
The G-SIDE members who have to do fieldwork complain about having a hard time, but it’s us secretaries that have the short end of the stick; in my frankly honest opinion. At least with missions you get to visit the city – interact with people in a way that doesn’t involve sitting at a help desk. But no; for me and the several hundred like me, it’s nothing but office jobs and clerical work, day in, day out. Occasionally we’re assigned temporary positions – doing mission briefings when the department manager is away; doing interviews of new G-SIDE applicants; defending our research from terrorist hacking attempts with nothing but an out of date Terminal, a handful of data disks, and a large cup of extra strong coffee. But that’s all they are; proverbial sidequests in the epic fantasy adventure of paperwork, telephones, and saying “How can I help you, sir?”
Going back to the weather machine issue, once my superiors rejected the notion of investigation – they said it would be too mundane for most G-SIDE operatives to be interested in – I decided to take a little initiative, and took a trip to one of our research and development departments. Giving them a heads up to this new bit of nature-disregarding machinery (they don’t leave the labs much, the poor dears), I asked them to do a little experiment to see what would happen if two of these machines happened to get too close to each other.
Needless to say, two machines both set to produce a light rain ended up creating a wild and fierce hurricane; and with two machines set to conflicting weather types, space-time itself protested, and the entire isolated testing chamber collapsed in on itself, vanishing without a trace. The bathroom on the floor above promptly dropped onto the kitchen area on the floor below.
With this new information I went back to protesting something to be done; but by this point most of my superiors had already left for home on unplanned home holidays. The only one left was Martin.
Martin Guycott, never has there been a name (or a person) I have loathed more. While I still do believe that G-SIDE hires staff on the basis that their merits and skills will benefit both the society and the general public; I still can’t fathom what possible good traits that scum of a man might have. Yes, we’re overworked by our superiors; and yes, they may have a bad habit of goofing off during times where we need to work our hardest – but otherwise they’re still likeable people. Martin does not fall into that category.
He’s efficient, but only when it goes towards his own personal agendas. He’s polite, but only when it’ll get him something he wants. If you’re not his peer or his superior, you don’t factor into his ‘game plan’, making you totally superfluous in his eyes. To make matters worse, he dated my sister. It’s always worse when they make it personal.
Shirley Shirlsdon was an awesome sister, I couldn’t ask for better. She had all of the promise and the scope to go for something really big in G-SIDE; the motivational skills to be a manager, or the vicious tae kwon do skills to work as a bodyguard, or an agent. And yet, she chose to be a secretary; completely disregarding the role she was initially set by the company – because she always followed her passions to the fullest.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason I’m a secretary now, and not just a janitor in retro glasses and a pencil skirt is probably all down to her. You can’t help but feel a little dishonest for getting a job position through who you know, and not exactly what you’re capable of; but I got to work alongside my sis for the best part of a year, making it all worthwhile... until Martin showed up in the picture.
While I wasn’t sure what it was that made Shirley fall for him (and I still don’t), she had well and truly got bitten by the love bug. Within weeks they were inseparable, and I couldn’t get a moment alone with her at work; and with time that progressed to outside work too. We live in different Quarters of the city, but I couldn’t even ask her to lunch without the reply:
“Oh, would you mind if I brought Martin along?”
And I always said I didn’t mind, like false humility would make everything better.
But things changed. I’m not sure if Martin just got bored, or had some kind of twisted plan where he used sis as a stepladder to something else; but after about six months of nauseating intimacy, he suddenly seemed to go cold; treating Shirley with a distant hand, never calling, never around. She told me that if they happened to run into each other at work, he never smiled, and walked away without saying a word. I could finally hang out with my sister again, but it didn’t feel enjoyable anymore.
Next thing I know, she’s telling me she’s skipping town – to head to some war-torn country to put her supreme diplomacy, combat, and tea-making skills to what she called “True, honest use for the community”. The goodbyes were heartfelt, but brief. The only entity more sad than myself to see her go was G-SIDE itself, supplying her with all kinds of resources for her journey and mission; with a promised automatic acceptance to her old position if she ever wanted to return.
As for me, I obviously kept my position, but everyone knew – least of all myself – how I wasn’t up to scratch compared to sis. I even look similar too her; it’s as if she left an inferior clone behind in her absence.
Martin didn’t help any. He took every opportunity to remind me that Shirley’s no longer around; coming to a point where I had suddenly found all data to me having been moved from the computer systems, and Shirley’s account was now in my name. I spent two weeks with my Name Tag Console proclaiming to everyone that I was Shirley. I’ve managed to get it fixed since, but I’m not even sure if anyone even remembers that my name’s actually Samantha.
But I’ll have them recognise me for who I am. If Shirley taught me one thing from me working with her; it’s that I can’t give up my goals in the face of a little adversity; and that’s all that Martin will ever be. I am my own person – Samantha Shirlsdon – and I’ll prove it by being the best goddamn secretary that I can be. And from there, who knows? Maybe I can get a draft into some actual fieldwork. Someone has to do something about issues like those damn weather machines; and if anyone’s going to step up to the plate, and prevent San Sarai from being torn apart by tornadoes, or just plain vanishing from existence as we know it, then It’s going to be me.
Chapter 6: A Water Cooler Moment
So it turns out that lightning does indeed strike twice. I really wish it didn’t, because filling out the paperwork for licenses ‘To Bring Life to Abominations of Nature and Science’ was lengthy and tedious enough to do just once a week. Those mad scientists are always trouble, in my opinion; always devising ways to break the rules – the rules that I have to spend an 80 hour week typing, filing, faxing, amending, copying, upgrading, shuffling, transferring, testing, and then finally burning so they don’t get into the wrong hands.
Take this current case for an example. Some bright spark (no pun intended, I assure you) thought it would be a good idea to rig his laboratory in the University Quarter with some kind of weather altering thingamagig. Now not only are we getting complaints from residents in a 7 block radius of the lab who are almost drowning in a near-constant torrent of rain, he’s using the lightning strikes to power a whole load of his ‘personal projects’; things far, far more pressing and downright dangerous than your average Science Fair volcano.
The worst part? Now a whole bunch of other scientists – not to mention kite fliers, gardeners, and barbecue enthusiasts – have been completely inspired by the idea, and these weather machines have been cropping up all over the city. Sure, I can see the attraction – sunny weather whenever you want is something most people wouldn’t want to pass up – but rules are rules; and that kind of technology in public circulation is all kind of illegal.
When I first complained about it to the higher ups they just laughed at me; and then proceeded to instruct me to contact their families – they’d be staying at home for their holiday this year. Doing personal calls and doing online shopping research for gaudy swimwear is definitely not part of my job description, but who can argue with one of the largest and best companies in the world?
The G-SIDE members who have to do fieldwork complain about having a hard time, but it’s us secretaries that have the short end of the stick; in my frankly honest opinion. At least with missions you get to visit the city – interact with people in a way that doesn’t involve sitting at a help desk. But no; for me and the several hundred like me, it’s nothing but office jobs and clerical work, day in, day out. Occasionally we’re assigned temporary positions – doing mission briefings when the department manager is away; doing interviews of new G-SIDE applicants; defending our research from terrorist hacking attempts with nothing but an out of date Terminal, a handful of data disks, and a large cup of extra strong coffee. But that’s all they are; proverbial sidequests in the epic fantasy adventure of paperwork, telephones, and saying “How can I help you, sir?”
Going back to the weather machine issue, once my superiors rejected the notion of investigation – they said it would be too mundane for most G-SIDE operatives to be interested in – I decided to take a little initiative, and took a trip to one of our research and development departments. Giving them a heads up to this new bit of nature-disregarding machinery (they don’t leave the labs much, the poor dears), I asked them to do a little experiment to see what would happen if two of these machines happened to get too close to each other.
Needless to say, two machines both set to produce a light rain ended up creating a wild and fierce hurricane; and with two machines set to conflicting weather types, space-time itself protested, and the entire isolated testing chamber collapsed in on itself, vanishing without a trace. The bathroom on the floor above promptly dropped onto the kitchen area on the floor below.
With this new information I went back to protesting something to be done; but by this point most of my superiors had already left for home on unplanned home holidays. The only one left was Martin.
Martin Guycott, never has there been a name (or a person) I have loathed more. While I still do believe that G-SIDE hires staff on the basis that their merits and skills will benefit both the society and the general public; I still can’t fathom what possible good traits that scum of a man might have. Yes, we’re overworked by our superiors; and yes, they may have a bad habit of goofing off during times where we need to work our hardest – but otherwise they’re still likeable people. Martin does not fall into that category.
He’s efficient, but only when it goes towards his own personal agendas. He’s polite, but only when it’ll get him something he wants. If you’re not his peer or his superior, you don’t factor into his ‘game plan’, making you totally superfluous in his eyes. To make matters worse, he dated my sister. It’s always worse when they make it personal.
Shirley Shirlsdon was an awesome sister, I couldn’t ask for better. She had all of the promise and the scope to go for something really big in G-SIDE; the motivational skills to be a manager, or the vicious tae kwon do skills to work as a bodyguard, or an agent. And yet, she chose to be a secretary; completely disregarding the role she was initially set by the company – because she always followed her passions to the fullest.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason I’m a secretary now, and not just a janitor in retro glasses and a pencil skirt is probably all down to her. You can’t help but feel a little dishonest for getting a job position through who you know, and not exactly what you’re capable of; but I got to work alongside my sis for the best part of a year, making it all worthwhile... until Martin showed up in the picture.
While I wasn’t sure what it was that made Shirley fall for him (and I still don’t), she had well and truly got bitten by the love bug. Within weeks they were inseparable, and I couldn’t get a moment alone with her at work; and with time that progressed to outside work too. We live in different Quarters of the city, but I couldn’t even ask her to lunch without the reply:
“Oh, would you mind if I brought Martin along?”
And I always said I didn’t mind, like false humility would make everything better.
But things changed. I’m not sure if Martin just got bored, or had some kind of twisted plan where he used sis as a stepladder to something else; but after about six months of nauseating intimacy, he suddenly seemed to go cold; treating Shirley with a distant hand, never calling, never around. She told me that if they happened to run into each other at work, he never smiled, and walked away without saying a word. I could finally hang out with my sister again, but it didn’t feel enjoyable anymore.
Next thing I know, she’s telling me she’s skipping town – to head to some war-torn country to put her supreme diplomacy, combat, and tea-making skills to what she called “True, honest use for the community”. The goodbyes were heartfelt, but brief. The only entity more sad than myself to see her go was G-SIDE itself, supplying her with all kinds of resources for her journey and mission; with a promised automatic acceptance to her old position if she ever wanted to return.
As for me, I obviously kept my position, but everyone knew – least of all myself – how I wasn’t up to scratch compared to sis. I even look similar too her; it’s as if she left an inferior clone behind in her absence.
Martin didn’t help any. He took every opportunity to remind me that Shirley’s no longer around; coming to a point where I had suddenly found all data to me having been moved from the computer systems, and Shirley’s account was now in my name. I spent two weeks with my Name Tag Console proclaiming to everyone that I was Shirley. I’ve managed to get it fixed since, but I’m not even sure if anyone even remembers that my name’s actually Samantha.
But I’ll have them recognise me for who I am. If Shirley taught me one thing from me working with her; it’s that I can’t give up my goals in the face of a little adversity; and that’s all that Martin will ever be. I am my own person – Samantha Shirlsdon – and I’ll prove it by being the best goddamn secretary that I can be. And from there, who knows? Maybe I can get a draft into some actual fieldwork. Someone has to do something about issues like those damn weather machines; and if anyone’s going to step up to the plate, and prevent San Sarai from being torn apart by tornadoes, or just plain vanishing from existence as we know it, then It’s going to be me.
![[Image: 10y3mgj.png]](http://i44.tinypic.com/10y3mgj.png)
![[Image: groove-1.gif]](http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o156/A1exi_911/groove-1.gif)
