SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

[goneawaymod]

SHEET CAKE MEETUP

“Who the fuck is Linda?”

The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.

A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.

However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.

“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”

(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)

Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).

There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).

“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”

*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

"Pleasure to meetcha," she says automatically. "And I'm not sure Linda even works here. Somethin' about that cake feels like they mighta got it half off from the supermarket when Linda never showed."

The more she examines the situation, the more it feels like a set-up. The sheer level of disinterest is - provocative, that's the word. There's too much malice here to just be coincidence and low standards.

She can feel the nanochain like a rock in her belly as she thinks that.

[becauseimacoward]

"They must have gotten the donuts the week before that, then. Have you seen them already? They're completely stale"

And although he didn't hear what the corporate minions said while the hires were being ushered in, he sure found that card! Which he shows.

"Everything in this place is recycled. They don't give a crap about anything in here."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Hmm - the lady said the last baby shower here was for a Kelly. 'Fraid we got two sources for the pastry." She examines the card without taking it. "Hope Kelly had a good time, I guess."

She finally sets her untouched plate of cake aside. "However, that does mean we can put the doughnuts at six months to a year, given the little one is suppose to be teething right now. Kind of impressive that they held on to it so long."

[becauseimacoward]

"If it wasn't because getting us in the first place must be a hassle I'd say this is their way of reducing the number of hires around -- those that get food poisoning get fired"

But no, it's very obvious it just is they had these lying around for months and decided they should use them instead of throwing them out. Terrible job, Jorgmund.

[wheyoftheadept]

"I think it's meant more to be a clear statement of their values and priorities. Free slave labor doesn't merit nice pastries."

There is, for a moment, cold fury there, like the flash of scales in the waters deep below. Then she's joking again.

"Hey, maybe they're just trying to get us to use our free health care."

[becauseimacoward]

"Let's not. Their medical skills will leave a lot to be desired"

Dojima dares to smirk at that, but he'd hate to find out how half-assed the Jorgmund can make medical care without making them feel worse.

[wheyoftheadept]

"God - yeah. Maybe not." Saturday fiddles with the rim of her paper cup, unwilling to drink the horrible apple water. "So, where are you from? I'm from Seattle."

[becauseimacoward]

"Yasoinaba, Japan. That's as far from Seattle as it can get"

Well, not in terms of distance, but certainly in terms of how living in such places is like. A rural town versus a large city...it just can't compare.

[wheyoftheadept]

He saw her ears and didn't call her an animal, so he must not be from her Japan. Saturday nods, accepting this. Now would be a germane time to note that Saturday does clearly appear to be of East Asian/South Pacific extraction; in her world, Japan responded to the rise of magic by going full nationalism - again - and expelling every "nonhuman." It's not something Saturday remembers, but the older people in her community do.

"Eh," she says, instead of all that. "You can get further. Like right now. We're about equidistant from Yasoinaba and Seattle, by my reckon."

[becauseimacoward]

The day Dojima treats someone so rudely like the Japan in her world did is the day he's incredibly disappointed of himself, that's for certain.

"A whole world away. This is as far as one can be from home"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Could be worse," she says gloomily. "Could be two world away from home. I'd already fallen into another dimension," she explains, not asking for sympathy, just needing to express her weariness. "By my count, this is the fourth world I've fallen into, consecutively. Getting a bit tiresome."

[becauseimacoward]

"Is it the first time someone or something forcibly brings you to another world? Or were all those four times intentional?"

Here he is, talking about 'other worlds' as if it was not a big deal. He's trying so hard to get used to it, and trying not to make it sound like it's extraordinary seems to be his chosen method to achieve that.

It's not working that well yet.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Only one was intentional - you see, first my crew and I got in some trouble and, well, cause of some weird shit I don't understand, we ended up on the astral plane instead of dying in an explosion, in a place called Avalon. Then this creature called the Dweller at the Threshold found us and got made at us for breaking the rules by going around its tollbooth, and it threw us into a - really bad place."

Saturday glosses over that quickly, clearing her throat.

"We escaped from there into another world, a piece of our home world's past that got carved out and trapped in a stable bubble of space-time, and the idea was that from there it's just one more trip to get home, but - now this."

The explanation is very practiced, very casual. She's had to give it quite a few people since arrival.

[becauseimacoward]

That definitely sounded like she has said it many times by now. Most flew right over his head, admittedly, but at least he doesn't stare at her like she just grew a head.

"...the gist of it is that if there's anyone here who knows all about moving between worlds it's you."

Which may come real useful in the future, he thinks.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Not really. I mostly just went along for the ride - it's my friend Maggie who's the real expert." She runs a hand through her hair. "I mean, if you want tips on adjusting fast, I'm your girl. But this place is... weird even by my standards. SO many people from so many different metaplanes..." she shakes her head. "Anyway, how'd you end up on board?"