The World's Calling

It is a well-known fact that the best projects are based on an offhand idea. The errant spark of creativity that comes to lead an artist on the path of creation. The perfect words to express emotions closest to something indescribable within the act of poetry, simply made up of a half-baked response. Ideas written off as nothing come back in the strangest of ways and in certain cases, can come back as the savior to a seemingly unsolvable dilemma. While most may disregard the ideological bottom of the barrel, more often than not, there is still something of note to be found. Whether or not the idea is good is a different matter. When all other ideas have been exhausted and the great thinkers are out of commission, there is nothing better than a bad idea. It is one such bad idea that brings us to the focus of this Paragraph. It is this bottom of the barrel, out of left field thinking that leads to the creator of the most influential bad idea of recent history. Rory Chase.

As a human member of the Runner's Union, the species brought to the table something the organization sorely lacked. The unnatural override of self-preservation that is found in all Human Beings. Such a startling lack of awareness for safety allowed humankind to pave the way for beings on the planet known as Mash-Al. Truly, Rory was one of the many specks to find themselves on the planet like the Mechs before him, the Mirepods before that, and the animal-kin at the origin. It was that fact that allowed him to maintain a position of influence within the organization. Though a non-significant amount of this luck could be attributed to repeated "disappearances' ' of higher-ranking officials who didn't play along with local customs within the smaller towns. There were also those who had gotten a subtle warning from management about their activities under the table, most of which came to a head with a pink slip and ended with a dirt nap. For whatever the reason, the right dominos had fallen to land Rory a bottom tier seat as one of the Human Representatives of the Runner's Union. A dirty blond boy whose ancestors came from the remnants of what was Wyoming was now sitting in an office space with some of the most powerful semi-political figures on Mash-Al. To put it lightly, he was out of his league.

In an office meeting room that had a singular plant on the singular long table, there sat a creature with an aged shell of gray and scars of conflicts long since finished and long since forgotten. With weary eyes and a tired mind, she sat there befuddled in front of a nameplate labeled Ivy.

On her left was a humanoid figure of metal. Its head was best described as a black orb attached to a neck stump, with two halves of the orb shifting hues as it sat there in silence. The body was much more humanoid with the whole kit. A strong torso, arms with silver streaks running through a gray base and legs to match. The chair it sat on was brought from its home city and instead used the office provided chair to hold its secondary and third units, each about double the size of a hockey puck in a pile with a nameplate labeled Reimos.

On the right of the Tortoise was a globular being of a light green. Its make-up was gelatinous, and any sign of humanoid features was found in its see-through body, with something resembling the brain surrounded by bone matter that didn't seem to naturally fit together. The chair it laid upon was covered in plastic wrap but with the way the goo shluped its way across the lining, it was better to say that it wasn't keeping it clean as much as it was trying to keep it from infecting it. What was not covered in goop revealed the nameplate of Mince.

Finally, there was Rory's boss. A thirty-something woman who wore a suit that was stitched with the desperation of a tailor doing their best with squares of fabric that were starting to lose their ability to match the overall blue. Her hair was black, short and most recently messy, as any hairstyle would lose its muster after a full hour of deliberations with nothing to show for it. Her head in her hands, a glass of water next to her as well as a nameplate reading Frida Reed.

The whole point of this stressful affair of a meeting was to hire a group of people to do the job of "Record Keeper." People to take note of important and unimportant goings on in the world and report back to the Runner's Union with their findings. A deep sigh came from Frida as a long sip from her "water" glass followed. No one within the Union was going to take that job and it was getting to be a pain in the ass. For years, Frida had power hungry goons gunning for her job, her career, her standing. Yet she offers them a job on a silver platter and now they decide to puss out? Hypocrites. Another swig from her glass. By the looks of the old Tortoise, they were starting to realize that the water wasn't water. It was time for her to call it off.

"Look, we're not getting anywhere here," Reed said, her voice frustrated. "None of us are gonna do it, no one in the Union's gonna do it and our respective patrons are sure as hell not gonna start volunteering names."

The metallic android emitted a dull bass from its sphere. As the sound lowered, a voice efficient and heavy began to speak. "This meeting wouldn't have been necessary if we had canceled the prior Expedition. 10 years of prep and investment just to barely get to the border of what we are generously assuming is near the North Pole. 30 Mechanoid units lost, almost a hundred organic units dead, valuable vehicles and supplies gone in the snow. For some fundraiser that your associates..." The android put extra stress on the grouping and on the Tortoise. "-seem set on going back on. Now we're facing a deficit and employment shortage because your community leaders aren't going to start throwing qualified names!"

The Goop formed something resembling a melting head in name only and began to voice its own opinion. "Are we certain they are gone? Truly, a few of my kind can survive a bit of cold. Could be that they're just stuck in the snow metabolically. Though if we go off to melt them, there is a chance a few of the corpses would get devoured, what with them starving and all. Though that might already be the case." It seemed to find humor in the idea as it laughed in the same way a crow mimics the sound.

A hefty sigh came from the Ancient Tortoise, her voice grounded down by age and years of stress. "There will be no rescue mission for them. We cannot afford to retrieve them, even if we knew exactly where they were. With the amount of time, it took to even get to that point, we wouldn't be able to justify it to them." She pushed her face into her three-pronged hands. "If there are no other suggestions, we will need to draw this meeting to a close."

Then, from the back of a beanbag chair that the others put there as a vague attempt at entertainment, came the farmer's boy dialect from a mess of hair. "How bout we put up some fliers?"

.

.

.

Within the room there was a consideration as they desperately tried to either refute him, offer a better plan or just remember who the hell he was but all attempts failed.

The Tortoise, in a moment of resignation, simply asked.

"Any opposition?"