The World's Calling

A woman of dark black skin and brown hair sat in her assigned station, some rented out cabin that was used in place of proper office space. Built of wood with the carpentry of a cabin, it had been furnished to resemble an outpost. The legality of this was debatable but as the last owner was currently in cement shoes from a work incident, no one was going to care. Next to her was some watered-down excuse for a lemonade and a turn crank battery fan. It was warm, it felt like a doctor’s office, and she was sure that the last owner did something unspeakable to their gaudy polka-dot guest seat based on the tears on it. This was not her space, and it was not her niche.

“Frida asks you to lunch, nothing major, just a friendly dinner to catch up. Then she has you playing interviewer. Best use of my time.”

Lucia Ensign had not been at this for the longest time, which probably explains why she was the one that Frida picked for this. For the past 3 hours, she had spent her time interviewing a bunch of malnourished, overzealous freaks who all came here to repeat the same conclusion, no matter how much they tried to hide it behind flowery words and “noble” motivations.

No matter the person, it was always their eyes and voice that always gave them away. It was the haughty undertone of the common braggart, the relish in which they read off their list of accomplishments and feats. The look in their eyes as they seemed to already consider you lesser. Fuck you and fuck your hype. Honestly, after a certain amount of time sifting through candidate after candidate, she was less mad at Frida for the trick she pulled and more at the fact that she sent Lucia to Waning Rock. Some nowheresville pit in the middle of a canyon, the entire place still smelled like saltwater, and you could see the fossils still stuck in the side of the rock wall a few hundred miles out. Out of all the places within the Spheres and she was placed at the outer rim of society.

“Send the next one in.”

In return for the effort, Frida had worked her authority to send her some assistance. From the outside of her interview room, she heard some form of mechanical beeping. They had sent her some secretarial mechs to help her with candidates and such. Yet with them being outfitted with some sort of one-to-one radio and electronic encryption language, it was mostly beeps and boops that she heard as the gossipy bitches spent their day relaxing. She was also sure one of them stole the good pen, now she’s stuck with this fountain tip bullshit. They didn't even need to use paper, she knew they use paper. Dicks.

Shoa

There is something to be said about what a lack of faith can do to you. The places that it'll lead you and the people you'll meet when you've hit the bottom of the barrel. Stepping into the room, it was… well it was filthy. Dust everywhere, cheap seating, cramped spacing. It was downright claustrophobic. Not to mention whoever this woman had helping her was shirking their responsibilities. Secretarial type 2 Mechanoids with pens, what a thought! He had seen them sort through thousands of name searches in 2 seconds. No matter, the filthy room, and inefficient workspace were temporary. Now was time for the promised interview. As he sat down in the gaudy chair, the woman went straight to business.

“Name and or Designation?”

“Search, Handle, Operate, Analyze,” answered Shoa, with a nervous undertone to his responses.

“Preferred Acronym or Shorthand?

“S.H.O.A would be fine, please.”

A small amount of writing followed with the pen in her hand. Each stroke felt like a chiseled indictment on Shoa's character.

The woman looked up from her paper, her face unchanging. “What’s your purpose for being here and why do you want this job?”

“Personally, I feel it would be such a great honor to work under the Notary. I’ve heard they’re a fellow Mechanoid so with that in mind, our skill sets would be just that more conducive to getting results not to mention -”

Lucia swiftly cut him off. “And what would those results be?”

In one second, the word “rude” crossed the mind of the android. In the next split second, it took for Shoa to process the idea, he’d realized that he actually didn’t know what serving under the Notary meant. He’d heard stories and had seen people who had secondary access to people associated with the Notary but never had the chance to interact with them. “Wouldn’t that just be to record what information there is? Sit in a room, sort what there is sort and leave it for the next generation.”

The face of the woman turned into a different kind of grim, less from the standard seriousness on her face, one that seemed reserved for disappointment in unknowing brats. “Sure. Look, why do you even want this? Judging by your… background, shouldn’t you be doing 50 functions a second at your grand metro?”

“That's…. that’s not an option. Not anymore. “ A low buzzing filled the room, the source of which damning the fact he wasn’t more silent. The android put his hands in his lap while his head hung low. “This job is supposed to give me a purpose. Give me something to work towards and do, and I can’t just back down from this. It's this or a fate worse than death. I’m not getting repurposed. I refuse it.”

A stray eyebrow raised itself in response to this. “Huh. Wasn’t that just a natural process? Just something like reorganization in ranks, right?”

The evergreen lines on the side of Shoa’s head spiked for a second, then returned to a solid plain. He could hear the minute clicks from the other room. He could remember the voice of those from the Metro. His virtual face of his stayed neutral as he spoke. “I’m not made for reorganization. With the way, I was made… I was a specialized existence anyway. Certain models just aren’t adaptable. Repurposement is made for more general-purpose models, not for me. I was a custom order." The humor in his tone was as organic as his chrome.

“Sure. Heh, I don’t even know what you guys even do with yourselves. Frankly, I don’t care. As long as you’re willing to do the job.”

“Thank you?”

“Don’t worry about it. So, do you have any prior governmental allegiances that may interfere with your work?”

“Not at this current moment, no.”

“Got it.” The woman in front of him ticked off some parts on her paper and scribbled some other parts on the back of the pad of paper. From a drawer behind her, she took out a small square device stored in a box of plastic. It was the size of a post-it note with green lines styling a red background.

“Apparently this is called an Internal Data Sorter, or at least that’s what the guy who handed it to me said it was. Supposed to be given to Mechs who do Notary stuff,” said Lucia as she half-heartedly examined it.

The ease with which she fooled around with the object gave a bad prediction form in Shoa’s mind. “But… isn’t there a sorting process? Other candidates to look through and a callback date? Also, how did you get that? I thought that only high-ranking Mechanoids were ever supposed to give those out?”

A shrug was given in response to the urgency in Shoa's voice. "According to what I was told, Mechs are given priority, easier to push through apparently. As for the device, just call it Union benefits. At least that’s what the head said.”

A cautious neon smile slowly grew on the face of the android. “Well, that’s fortunate for me then!”

A small smile answered him. “Sure is.”

Rhys

The carriage ride here was with multiple other beings, next to rabbit and canine Animalia. Judging by the lack of sitting space, she definitely wasn’t the only one with the idea of applying for this gig. From what she could pick up on the 2-hour ride here, Notary business didn’t come often and didn’t come cheap. It was usually reserved for non-humanoid applicants so the fact they were even considering them meant something must’ve gone wrong upstairs.

The room itself was definitely businesslike. The rumor was that the mechs scanned your face for some supermassive database or cloning program. Yet judging by the tone of the building, the robots at the front desk barely wanted to be here, and judging by her expression and barely attached name tag, Lucia even less so. She didn’t want to be here, and they weren’t paying her enough to fake the emotion. That was fine though, she just wanted to ace this interview, and get it done. Now to lay the conversation line. She just had to start with a smile. “Hello, Ms. Ensign. How are you?”

“Fine. Name and/or Designation?” Lucia wasn't biting, that was fine. All she had to do was lay it on.

“Rhys Madris. Freelance adventurer and merchant.” She knew how marketing worked. Short and to the point, repeatable to higher-ups. Gotta make it memorable.

There was no change in her voice or her expression. “Preferred Nickname?”

“Well, just Rhys is fine.” Fake the southern accent and endear yourself.

“What’s your purpose for being here and why do you want this job?”

“Well, if I had to lock down a specific purpose, it would be because I’ve always had an interest in this world since humans were brought here. The ruins, the old ones, magic, it’s all just so fascinating to me, and the idea-”

“Name one figure.”

“What?”

The tone had changed, the smile on Lucia's face had come from nowhere and the amusement in her tone was mocking, knowing. She had been caught.

“Of your interest, you’ve had to have come across a few books, a few 'fellow researchers' Hell, even just a figure about your magic thing. The fact you’re even signing up for this job means that you’re gonna get a lot of study material. So just name a source. Name one.”

…. Fuck.

A smug look slowly expanded itself on Lucia’s face, with the energy of a person who had solved a riddle after 3 minutes of waiting for their food to come. “Yeah, I don’t wanna be here to kid, but I showed up. At least don’t lie to my face, save that for your coworkers, people who you need to lie to. Why are you here, why do you want to be here?”

With the jig of cordial relations being firmly up, the nice facade faded and was replaced with business and recent frustrations.

“Christ. Fine. I ended up in debt with some people after an “investment opportunity” fell through.” The mention of the failure still left a horrid taste in Rhys's mouth. One that lacked currency and tasted like annoyance. Pop Rocks was what she settled on what failure tasted like. Lucia however seemed much more intrigued by this story.

“What kind of opportunity,” she asked with open ears.

A sigh on the other side of the desk. “You ever seen those 3 headed bone Mirepods? Like the ones those wannabe heroes go out to slaughter cause they want to reclaim land but mostly cause they want to look cool.”

Only one thing could match up in Lucia's mind.

“Fight Pit?”

A nod from Rhys.

“Fight Pit.”

Rhys ran her hands through her hair, already tense about the retelling of this grand financial disaster. “So, the fight pit did its job, bunch of people wanted to fight, bunch wanted to bet, bunch wanted to watch people get turned to munch. Munch is made, money is made proportional to the munch.”

“As is tradition.”

“Right. So, it's going great. Copper Pipes and valuables flowing in, even some credits too.”

A curious hand was raised from the elbow, not leaving the desk.

“Wait, you had Mechs paying to see it? They don’t seem like the type.”

“Yeah, I think they were gonna bootleg it, I don’t know. Point was that Credits buy improvements and so we improved. Got the pit set up, steel cage, sunk middle, and everything. Things go good for a few months. That is until one of our gladiators decided they wanted to coward out near the end.”

“Ahh.”

“They knew what they signed up for but apparently, they decided to ruin it for everyone. Panicked and started swinging like hell. The first few swings hit the harness for the collar, another hits the gate lock when they get their arm sliced off. Shit hits the fan. Chimera escapes and rampages through town. Local militia had to call in some hotshot sniper to put it down easy. Some ass named Riko or something, I dunno. “ Nearing this part of the story, Rhys goes for the full glass of lemonade, and a quick exchange of looks said that nothing would be lost by Lucia if she drank it.

"So, I turned to my other business partners after the incident, only to realize that the mattress of money was half empty and they were three towns over. Now I’m left to explain and clean up the mess.”

“You mean you couldn’t escape town fast enough to dodge the beat cops.”

“Eh, 60/40 on skipping town. I explain that technically it isn’t illegal to run a fighting association. They tell me it technically isn’t illegal to run my dwellings dry even though I don’t live on their land. “

“Which leads us to…”

“Me being flat broke and coming here.”

A whistle came and an entertained smirk was the only response Lucia could muster for a few seconds. "Fair enough. Very interesting story, but this isn’t the job you run away to. I could set you up with some infrastructure. The world always needs builders.”

Rhys shook her head. “Nah, I appreciate the offer, but you know how it goes in the human spheres. A throw up between any project going bankrupt cause of idiots on top or saps at the bottom. Besides, I rode a 3-hour carriage over here. A crowded one. Either I’m getting this job or selling your secretaries back there for scrap.” The exaggeration of travel time was a bit much but she was going to run this home.

While Lucia felt the joking intent in her voice, the eyes of the woman in front of her told her that she would run this entire place dry if she had half a mind to. “Well, if anything, I have to respect the drive. Though I have to ask, where am I in your range of idiots and saps? Since you have a fondness for putting people in boxes.”

Rhys looked over the woman in front of her. Tired but determined. She wasn’t gonna die anytime soon, whatever vibe came out of her eyes could best be described as “I’ve outlived my coworkers and I’m sure as hell gonna outlive you.” “Does enough to get by and is comfortable where she is.”

“Didn’t peg you for a jokester, come on now.”

A small head roll on Rhy's part.

“Fine. I just know you aren’t gonna die soon, and I don’t plan on dying either. Doesn’t matter what job you give me, or what the point of all this Notary stuff is. I plan on surviving and if this position can grant me that, then you can count me in to defend it."

Lucia could only shake her head at her confidence.

“Heh. Alright.” After digging around in her desk, she emerged with some kind of paper in her hand.

“You’re not in yet, but you’re certainly not out. Meet back here in a few days, with that invite thing. If you can get through what’s to come, I’m sure you’ll be able to make it into the Union.”

A smirk with more cockiness than a shotgun manifested on Rhys’ face. "What’s the catch then?”

“Gotta meet with the only guy to hold more sway than the heads.

The smirk was suddenly uncocked.

“...You’re kidding.”

A simple statement was given in response.

“Act nice to Vig huh?”