#and makes me fee better about being such a goddamn mess this past week

[starbuck]

you know, i was trying to figure out why my brain is going so haywire all of a sudden and i realized it’s prooooooobably because it’s about a year since All That went down which like. Yes, perhaps that WAS a tiny bit traumatizing, come to think of it!!

[barid-bel-medar]

More of a real life ramble than anything else but...

This year has been weird. At the start of the year it did not look like it would be a good one. I’m not going to touch on shit like the Capital Riots, but more in light of the fact I had a goddamn seizure through my medication. That was theorized to be a result of me just being so stressed out over things like the pandemic, and the fact that at that point I’d been out of work since June 2020. Pandemic paranoia to some extent started to drop once both me and my grandma got vaccinated (I qualified pretty early due to the epilepsy; I actually got a weird look when I arrived for my appointment due to how young I am and then mentioned the epilepsy and got an understanding nod). The only good thing was with the Pandemic Unemployment Act for once I qualified for unemployment insurance (since my previous jobs had been contractor positions I didn’t which is BS), since it had been changed so that contractors/temps could qualify. None of my job applications seemed to be working, I was barely getting interviews, and it was just frustrating.

Then one day in March I get an email from an employment agency I’d sent my resume to in the past but never heard from. It was an email to ask me about if I would be interested in a two month temp contract to work at a small bank helping process PPP loans. I said yes, curious and frankly bored if nothing else. To be honest I wasn’t even entirely sure it was legitimate, since that does happen at times. That discussion went well, and I was then set up to do an actual interview with the bank the next morning.

I was given a verbal offer by the bank within five minutes of my interview. Two thirds of my interview was the HR person going over what my specific duties would be. I had the official offer letter in my email the following morning, did all sorts of paperwork, and by Friday of that week I was working at the bank (remotely). Did my one day training, and then started to process loans. 

So initially I was on one team, that dealt directly with applicants, and being supervised by someone from the credit division. It seems however, that I was not supposed to be on that team. To some extent it had been a matter of me getting some degree of experience (I assume), but I’d actually been supposed to be on the team run by the head of risk management that dealt with brokers rather than direct clients. My previous supervisor tried to convince HR not to move me in terms of teams (she was very satisfied with my work), even offering up another team member. HR said ‘no’ and the following week (my third week at the bank), I was now on the brokerage team.

Now for that first week my boss actually wasn’t there (he’d been on vacation), and I was under the supervision of the CFO. Lovely man, did enjoy working with him and I get along well with him. Made a few errors, but I picked up quickly what I was doing wrong and fixed it. Actually lead to the semi-irritating aspect of realizing some of the temps/interns who’d been there months still hadn’t picked up some of that shit...But next week my actual boss came back.

First thing Monday morning was a meeting with him. He’d gotten progress reports on me from both the prior supervisors and HR and had been pleased. I’d demonstrated that I could pick things up quickly and fix errors. I was also willing to reach out if I felt I was missing something or needed help. So I chat with him and make the off handed reference to how I was looking for full time, permanent employment. Didn’t really think much of saying it, more was as a forewarning that if I found something I’d take it and likely be leaving very quickly. He got a very interested look at his face, but at that moment didn’t say anything else. It made me wonder, and there had been a part of me already wondering that if I did good enough job with the loans if they’d keep me on long term. I figured though if that did happen, I wouldn’t be asked anything until basically the end of my two month contract. 

So here’s what I didn’t realize. My boss had recently convince the bank president to let him hire on an assistant/team member. Previously the bank president didn’t really believe him on just how overworked he was, but PPP (where everyone at the bank basically had to do it on top of their regular duties) made the president realize just how bad it was. So boss now has approval, but hadn’t yet been allowed to post the job.

And that’s apparently where I came in.

Again, I’d been getting praise, demonstrated interest in what my boss’s regular job was, and also had a skill set that could easily be transitioned to doing risk management (my background is in libraries/archives/information governance). I also proved over the course of that week I could easily handle the PPP workload and that again, I picked up new skills easily. I got along well with my boss, and did things also like give him heads up when I thought something was going weird.

So Friday of that week comes, and my boss, maybe a half an hour before my work day was over asks me the question I was not expecting. “What would your expected salary be for a full time position?” Again, I’m figuring even if heard something, I’d be hearing it closer to the end of my contract. Not barely a month into it. I spent the weekend figuring out the salary range I should ask for, asking my sister’s partner what he thought I should ask (he works risk management at a much larger bank but still had an idea on what I should ask for). Monday comes, I give the range, and from there my boss spends like the next two weeks practically chasing down the president to set things up.

Did have to do an ‘interview’ for the job with the CFO and my boss, but honestly the interview with my boss was mostly us chatting about random shit, and the meeting with CFO was more just verifying certain things (also he was nice and took the generous look at my previous work history as ‘they may just like doing short term jobs’ [I in fact very much do not]). A few days later I got my verbal job offer, and a few days after that my official letter. Part of why it took a bit was due to the temp contract and there were some things there apparently. But I now had a full time, perm job that gave me a salary I was very happy with and basically all the benefits I wanted (the only one I didn’t get is tuition reimbursement and I know HR is trying to convince the President and bank owner they should do it too; also I admittedly already have a Masters degree, but depending on how much I like this job [which I am] I may try to do either a Masters of Legal Studies or an MBA).

Part of also why was apparently due to PPP. They didn’t exactly want to transition me over to the permanent job until it was closer to over, which they expected to happen by late month. Then, as some of my may know, PPP ran out of funds faster than expected. My boss and I had chatted about it, but both of us were still expecting at least a week longer than what ended up happening. Which then lead to a different issue at that point; HR wasn’t quite ready for me to do all my paperwork stuff, but since they’d done my offer and the like what ended up happening was I was kept on the temp contract, but started my new duties. Also there was apparently a certain ‘we get hit by a fee’ thing there, if they took a temp ‘too soon’.

In a very technically sense there was still PPP stuff going on. They were starting to set up things like the forgiveness program, and dealing with applicants complaining over rejections or that they had applied and gotten nothing since the funds had run out (and there wasn’t much we could do there). However my boss didn’t want me doing that. He wanted me to focus on figuring out how to do my new job, which meant reading up on a bunch of stuff. Which was nice since I didn’t have to deal with applicant complaints, of which there were a lot.

So I started to transition over to doing risk stuff, learning, training and like experimenting with writing policies and procedural stuff (though looking back at that I still don’t really get why he was having me do that but whatever). He started me doing the real reason he’d hired me in June, doing IT due diligence reviews. The reviews on average take me at least a day and a half (there’s generally a lot of information and I have to read all of it and write up a report). First time I did one he assured me ‘don’t worry if you mess up, this is your first time’. Did it, spent a day or so paranoid, and then we had a meeting to discuss it. Apparently I did it perfectly which delighted him since it meant I could start doing it seriously.

And it’s just been nice. I’m working something I find interesting. I have a boss who  has the view of ‘work to live, not live to work’ which he views as an incredibly unhealthy mindset. Meaning if something comes up like say, visiting my parents and I’ve been able to do half days so I can get to their house, including this past Friday (thought that was also partially a result of how messed up public transit due to Ida but that’s a different matter); he actually said I could head out Thursday but since public transit was such a mess it wasn’t viable (my train line was down). Back during PPP the one broker kept annoying him by emailing/calling him at fuck o’clock and not respecting that it was after work hours. My boss also trusts me to attend things like meetings that are with senior management, and I suspect he’s starting to groom me to take over his position (especially based on a comment from last week).

It’s just very weird to realize this year started so shitty, showed no signs it would really get better and yet now all this. And it’s just really nice.

[qaftsiel]

The Night Watch, part 2

Continued from here. As it has been for the last who knows how many rotations, the Takaoka-REST’s soft blue lighting is the first thing that Dean sees when his wakeup routines reach his sensory cortices.

He has a few moments of lead time before he’s expected to be out of the pod and attending to his rounds; this time, he spends them appreciating the fact that he’s dreamed at all.

Ever since the infusion after the crash had finished its job, dreams have been increasingly rare. Whether it’s a factor of age or structure, Dean isn’t sure, but when there’s no way to reverse anything, he doesn’t much care about the whys or wherefores. Instead, he hoards his dreams like gems-- lately, it feels like the only trustworthy proof that he’s still himself. Still human, somewhere in there.

<Reminder: shift change in 00:15,> Gabe pings.

<Acknowledged,> Dean replies, and flails around behind himself until he can grab his power line and tug it free of its jack.

Gabe’s small, vaguely humanoid body is already linked up to its dock; framed by the huge, arched solar arrays held in abeyance for its orbital activity once they arrive, it looks almost angelic.

Dean knows a hell of a lot better than to fall for the angel trap when Gabe’s out of transit. It’d become pretty clear right away that Gabe had booted up with ‘little shit’ set to max plus one, and its pranks had been infamous throughout the Orla Docks long before Dean had ever arrived. That didn’t stop Benny and Dean from referring to Gabe with any and all manner of affectionately insulting, feather-related epithets, of course. The irony had been pretty delicious, especially when rookies had started their first shifts.

Like every other mech, though, Gabe activates a personality shunt at the time of launch, and then it really does resemble the mythical, winged beings of pre-Diaspora religious lore-- it’s quiet, emotionless, and driven solely by its Watch directives.

Even more reason to give it shit, naturally. <Any trouble, birdbrain?>

In lieu of a response, Gabe uploads its records of its activity for the last six months to the communal chat for Dean’s backup analysis.

Right at the top of the list is a passenger and cargo inventory. <Gabe? Isn’t Benny supposed to run the inventories?>

<B3N-N1 encountered an irregularity in mass driver A3 and required substantial shift time to safely and successfully resolve the problem. Cargo inventory was passed to this unit due to the delay and will remain in place for transit duration,> Gabe replies. <The inventory will be signed and verified when the confirming unit has completed a second, independent cargo inventory.>

Dean closes his eyes. He hates inventory. <Is there anything I need to check in particular?>

The communal chat flips to a map of the RK-NGL. A single passenger berth is flagged; the tag next to the flag indicates that the berth, reserved by one Professor James Novak, doesn’t appear to contain a passenger.

Dean frowns. <Was he missing on the other inventories?>

Gabe flashes its records of previous inventories-- all of them show James Novak’s berth as empty.

It had to happen eventually-- there are empty berths and passenger weirdnesses on every transit, and this one had seemed a little too peachy to be true. Of course it’s a goddamn academic, too; Dean’s seen more absentee academics on transits than nearly any other demographic. He doesn’t doubt that the poor bastard is probably sitting somewhere on Orla B and staring down at a missed-transit fee. Starlines don’t appreciate empty berths. <I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Just another missed transit.>

<The inventory will be signed and verified when the confirming unit has completed a second, independent cargo inventory,> says Gabe.

Dean turns himself using a wall-mounted handle and pushes off for the goway hatch. <Acknowledged,> he grumbles, and may or may not slam the hatch behind himself. “It’s fucking ridiculous, Sammy,” he growls out almost half a shift later, shortly after reconnecting to the ship’s intranet and submitting his completed inventory. “I mean, what’s the point? It’s a transit. Either you make it where you’re going or you become one with the interstellar medium, and you know who doesn’t give a shit about money or dividends or any a’ that shit? Fucking dust clouds on transit lanes. That’s who.” Sammy’s berth blinks serenely.

“No, I won’t calm down. Two months and twenty-four days of my shift’ve been wasted because of two hundred and fifty first-class asshats, and I’ve still got everything else on my list that needs doing,” Dean grumps. He pats Sammy’s berth gently, then twists so he’s perched against the gangway that runs between the rows of creches. “I mean… I’ll get over it, dude, but seriously. You gotta admit it’s pretty dumb.”

As ever, Sammy’s berth blinks.

Reassured by the steady, reliable marker of his brother’s long sleep, Dean pushes off from the gangway. “Yeah, yeah. Catch you on the next shift, bitch.”

***

All of the displays are tuned to the same, seemingly unchanging image-- an unremarkable reddish star, centered in a field of hundreds of other stars. The only indicator that anything is in fact changing is an HUD showing three sets of numbers, two of which have been falling slowly but steadily over the past two weeks.

He staggers out of the warmup lounge, still shaking the dregs of berth-sleep from uncooperative limbs, and almost runs headlong into someone just standing there in the corridor. “Dude. What the hell?”

Dean’s first impression is of wide blue eyes. His second is of a gravelly voice rasping out, “Where is this place?”

The man-- scruffy dark hair, tan coat, messed up tie-- looks about as dazed as Dean feels, and a whole lot more lost. Given where he’s standing and that fresh-out-the-berth stare, Dean can only surmise that the poor bastard’s an S-RAE and takes pity. “That’s a long story, but if you wanna grab a drink, I can try to explain.”

The explanation might not stick-- Stasis-Related Adverse Events are nasty shit, especially if the loss of memory or cognitive function is too severe-- but at the very least, he can give the guy some human companionship.

Soon they’re at a table overlooking the starboard observation deck. The guy wraps his hands around a steaming mug of coffee and stares at the swirls of cream like they’re some kind of science experiment. “And this necessitated a departure?” he rumbles, glancing up from his drink to give Dean a questioning look. “Surely this conflict could not encompass so large a system.”

Dean shrugs. “The politics back then had been fucked up for the better part of two centuries by the time war was declared officially-- my brother Sammy always said it started way back in the early 21st century, and I trust him to know. Anyway, by the time the Tharsis Atrocity happened, there were partisan settlements from both sides around Neptune, the farthest planet from Sol.”

A soft klaxon sounds over the ship’s intercom; Dean braces himself and S-RAE Guy as the ship judders through another deceleration adjustment. The moment passes without incident, and soon conversations throughout the deck’s numerous restaurants and shops resume.

“You seem to know a great deal about the matter,” S-RAE Guy rumbles. “Answer me this: if the whole system was caught up in this war for hundreds of years, then how was this craft constructed and crewed? Was this ‘First Starliner’ a partisan vehicle?”

Dean chuckles and shakes his head. “It’s all sixth-form history at this point. That and my brother’s a huge nerd; I’ve taken him to more museums and seminars than you can believe.” He sips at his own drink. “But nah, no one on the First Starliner was partisan. Thing with arguments is there’s always someone stuck in the middle, and The First Starliner was a ‘stuck in the middle’ thing-- it was a nomad project. Settlements belonged to partisans back then, so if you wanted to stay neutral, you went nomadic and lived your whole life on ships and in hidden enclaves. The Sol System is pretty huge, so there was a lot of room for those kindsa groups to roam and hide-- I think there were something like two hundred different communities involved on the Starliner alone, and they weren’t even a tenth of all the groups actually out there. They all knew how to keep moving and keep quiet and make the most of the shit they had, though, and this was what came of it.”

S-RAE Guy turns his gaze to the observation deck displays and seems to think on that for a while. “Does the war continue?”

“Lasted about three hundred and fifty years; ended a little over fourteen hundred years ago.”

That earns Dean a slow, blue-eyed blink. “That is a great deal of time for humans, and yet you speak as if the event is very recent.”

Dean gives a crooked little smile and stares down at his coffee. “For humans, it is a lotta time, but for me? It’s… kinda complicated. See, the First Starliner wasn’t the first ship to get to Proxima, even though it left almost a hundred and forty years before the War’s end. About ten years after the War ended, physicists and engineers with Chevrolet and Ako Si Kalayaan-- that’s AkoSi for short-- made the big breakthrough that enabled high-γ transit. Three starliners with the new Chevy-AkoSi drivers left the Sol System and made it to Proxima in about eighty years-- forty-five years ahead of the First Starliner.

“So the war was over for the people on Proxima, but for everyone on the First Starliner, it was still raw. They’d all seen shit that only a handful on Proxima’d ever had to witness and they’d lived with being hunted because they’d been the only openly neutral people left, so their arrival fundamentally changed the way the War was viewed. A lot of us grew up with First parents, First neighbors, First teachers, and memorials in every city-- some folks called Proxima a history world, and they weren’t wrong.” He laughs, a little sadly. “My Dad was a First. The berths in his block of the ship wouldn’t thaw, and it wasn’t til like two hundred and sixty years after Arrival that they finally got them warmed up. It… wasn’t easy for him, but I think Mom, Sammy, and I made it better in a lot of ways.”

Dean can almost hear S-RAE Guy crunching the numbers. “But if that was…”

“Yeah,” he interjects, not ungently. “Yeah. It’s, uh. Been a long time.”

They sit in awkward, somber silence for a long time.

The ship shudders through another deceleration.

“So here I am spilling my guts, and I haven’t even introduced myself,” Dean says, feeling a little bad for making things so weird for some poor sap with a scrambled head. “I’m Dean Winchester. You?”

S-RAE Guy’s full lips tip up into a smile. “Castiel.”

“Cas,” Dean says, because what the fuck kind of name is ‘Castiel’ even? “Good to met you, buddy.”

Cas’s tilted smile turns into a genuine, fond sort of thing.

“Hello, Dean.”

Continued here.