Metal Whispers
Title: Awkward Introductions
Word Count: 1470
Crossposted: HERE at runaway-tales
Keelin Morrows was not a social gathering type of person. The fact she was a loner aside, she also particularly disliked the majority of her coworkers and made every effort to avoid spending time with them outside of office hours. She'd managed very well thus far, after gracefully bowing out of the Christmas and New Year's socials, weaseling out of the Easter potluck, and escaping the Liberation Day fireworks and barbeque by the skin of her teeth. So when the email came through from Betty "Social Activity Coordinator" Clark about the Family Day picnic, Keelin had filed it away in the Nuisance folder and forgotten about it. At least, until Avery from Munitions had stuck his head through her door and mentioned that he was looking forward to seeing her there.
Horrified that she may have responded positively to Betty's obnoxious and brightly-colored email without realizing it, Keelin had scrolled through the host of messages in the Nuisance folder until she found it. A quick read later and she was ready to hurl her tablet through the window. The Wednesday picnic was company sponsored. Employee attendance was required. And after entertaining some violent and self-destructive thoughts, including driving her car into a tree or stealing some bio-warfare samples from the lab, she had sighed heavily and resigned herself to her fate.
Family Day, the third Wednesday of May, dawned cloudless and beautiful despite her repeated prayers for rain - as she drove across town to Luthor Park, she realized it might have something to do with the fact the last time she prayed, it was for her sister's fiance to be struck by lightning so Keelin wouldn't have to attend their wedding. She'd promised a hefty portion of her paycheque to a local orphanage if said fiance was killed in the process, and four years later was still bitter that the Powers That Be hadn't at least entertained the offer. Still, she thought rain was a far more socially responsible wish than the first one she'd considered, which was Betty's Famous Chicken Salad Mini-Sandwiches giving the entire company salmonella.
After spending the better part of forty minutes driving through the various parking lots at a snail's pace, she finally secured what had to be the furthest possible parking stall from the picnic area and grumbled under her breath about pointless holidays as she slammed her door and stalked down the bark mulch pathway. The long walk gave her plenty of time to weigh the benefits of becoming a vegetarian for the afternoon just in case the Almighty was considering her wishful thinking about Betty's sandwiches.
She hadn't seen all of her coworkers in the same place since the fire drill last month (her way of skipping out of what would have been a dreadful conference call), and certainly hadn't seen many of them with their families. The sight of the huge field full of picnic tables, blankets, screaming children, frisbees, badminton and volleyball nets, and a literal army of grills made her stomach lurch. She was already wishing she'd thrown herself over the stairs or slipped in the shower.
"Keelin!" Betty's nasal-shriek managed to drown out the sound of the nearly five hundred people on the field. Several of them turned to look in Keelin's direction, obviously shocked to see her, as all two hundred eighty pounds of Betty's bulk came waddling over so that she could clamp her meaty hands around Keelin's wrists. "Come, dear, let me introduce you to everyone!"
For the next thirty minutes she was dragged from one group of people to another. Not only had the entire office shown up, but everyone from the labs and the mech facilities were in attendance as well, which made for a very, very long list of names. Keelin smiled and nodded where appropriate, offered gender-neutral compliments to babies when she had to, and desperately scanned the crowd for a means to escape every time Betty took a breath. When she could find nobody in the crowd she could even pretend to be civil with - not with a straight face, at least - she resorted to mentioning how hungry she was and beelined for the shade of the tables. Stooping to snatch a bottle of water out of a cooler, she nestled into the most secluded spot she could find and tried to make herself invisible.
"Not into the mandatory fun thing, I take it?"
She cast a sidelong, dismissive glance at the man beside her - well-dressed and attractive, obviously not anybody she worked with - then rolled her eyes and took another swig from her water.
"What's not to like?" she muttered dryly, and gestured to the crowd with her bottle. "You can divide our entire company into either the nags and gossips in admin, or the virgins and losers in tech."
"Ouch," he commented, and chuckled. "Generalize much?"
"Clearly you don't work at corporate," she mentioned.
"Clearly," he replied, nodding. His smile was casual and lopsided, an odd mix of "aw shucks" and easy confidence, and for a brief moment she was certain she knew him from somewhere. "So which one are you?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she took another swig from her bottle.
"You don't seem the nagging, gossiping type. Not really the loser type, either."
"I could be a virgin," she suggested, smirking.
"I've learned it's best not to make assumptions on that sort of thing." His smile was infectious. She was starting to feel grateful she hadn't swallowed a fistful of razorblades with breakfast.
"Research and development," she told him. "One very important step away from loser." She chugged the last of her water and executed a perfect one-handed toss into the nearby recycling bin. "What about you?"
"Me?" He raised his eyebrows at her, genuinely confused, and she couldn't help but sigh - quite audibly - at the realization that yes, the pretty ones were still stupid. "Oh. I work at the shop."
"Lucky bastard," she whined, crossing her arms over her chest. "I've been trying to get out of corporate for two years, but r-and-d at the shop is a fucking boy's club." She kicked at a tuft of parched grass. "At this point I'm willing to get a gearhead cert and put up with those primadonna pilots just to get my foot in the door."
"We could always use more gearheads," he said thoughtfully, that cheeky smirk hooking his lips again. "Mind you, I'm not sure -"
"Excuse me, Mister?" The tiny voice belonged to an equally tiny boy, no more than five years old, who crept around the edge of the table with eyes the size of saucers. His arms were wrapped around an articulated plastic toy the size of his torso, and he eased his deathgrip on the thing so that he could hold it out almost reverently to Keelin's companion. "Could you sign my Tris, please?"
Keelin knew the toy well - she owned the same one, though she preferred for the sake of her professional pride to refer to it as a collector's item rather than a toy. At eighteen inches tall, the black, violet, and silver robot was part of a limited edition run modeled after the defense program's Unit Teine. It, and the two others in the series, had sold off the shelves over the Christmas season. Keelin had won hers in an office charity auction, dropping the equivalent of her entire paycheque to steal it away from Duncan in IT. She could still remember Duncan's tortured expression when she ripped the box apart ("But... it's a limited edition!") and set the plastic behemoth on her desk. His jaw had only dropped further when she grabbed a thumb tack and pinned the certificate of authenticity (The United Medalli Federation Department of Defense certifies that this is an approved and true likeness of Unit Teine, "Tristyn") to the wall behind it.
She felt her own sort of horror as her companion crouched down and accepted the proffered toy and black marker - not so much because he was scribbling his name across the silver breastplate of the robot's armor, but because the mere fact the youngster had requested his autograph meant that even though Keelin hadn't recognized him, she damn well should have. Her cheeks burned as the boy scampered off, yelling to his father and waving the robot enthusiastically over his head, and her stomach clenched as the man beside her straightened and smiled that prankster's smile, peering at her over the rim of his sunglasses. A tiny part of her noticed, as she flushed crimson, that his ash-colored eyes were even paler in person than they were on the cover of the magazine beside her bed.
"Dax MacArthur," he said casually, offering his hand. "Primadonna pilot."
Word Count: 1470
Crossposted: HERE at runaway-tales
Keelin Morrows was not a social gathering type of person. The fact she was a loner aside, she also particularly disliked the majority of her coworkers and made every effort to avoid spending time with them outside of office hours. She'd managed very well thus far, after gracefully bowing out of the Christmas and New Year's socials, weaseling out of the Easter potluck, and escaping the Liberation Day fireworks and barbeque by the skin of her teeth. So when the email came through from Betty "Social Activity Coordinator" Clark about the Family Day picnic, Keelin had filed it away in the Nuisance folder and forgotten about it. At least, until Avery from Munitions had stuck his head through her door and mentioned that he was looking forward to seeing her there.
Horrified that she may have responded positively to Betty's obnoxious and brightly-colored email without realizing it, Keelin had scrolled through the host of messages in the Nuisance folder until she found it. A quick read later and she was ready to hurl her tablet through the window. The Wednesday picnic was company sponsored. Employee attendance was required. And after entertaining some violent and self-destructive thoughts, including driving her car into a tree or stealing some bio-warfare samples from the lab, she had sighed heavily and resigned herself to her fate.
Family Day, the third Wednesday of May, dawned cloudless and beautiful despite her repeated prayers for rain - as she drove across town to Luthor Park, she realized it might have something to do with the fact the last time she prayed, it was for her sister's fiance to be struck by lightning so Keelin wouldn't have to attend their wedding. She'd promised a hefty portion of her paycheque to a local orphanage if said fiance was killed in the process, and four years later was still bitter that the Powers That Be hadn't at least entertained the offer. Still, she thought rain was a far more socially responsible wish than the first one she'd considered, which was Betty's Famous Chicken Salad Mini-Sandwiches giving the entire company salmonella.
After spending the better part of forty minutes driving through the various parking lots at a snail's pace, she finally secured what had to be the furthest possible parking stall from the picnic area and grumbled under her breath about pointless holidays as she slammed her door and stalked down the bark mulch pathway. The long walk gave her plenty of time to weigh the benefits of becoming a vegetarian for the afternoon just in case the Almighty was considering her wishful thinking about Betty's sandwiches.
She hadn't seen all of her coworkers in the same place since the fire drill last month (her way of skipping out of what would have been a dreadful conference call), and certainly hadn't seen many of them with their families. The sight of the huge field full of picnic tables, blankets, screaming children, frisbees, badminton and volleyball nets, and a literal army of grills made her stomach lurch. She was already wishing she'd thrown herself over the stairs or slipped in the shower.
"Keelin!" Betty's nasal-shriek managed to drown out the sound of the nearly five hundred people on the field. Several of them turned to look in Keelin's direction, obviously shocked to see her, as all two hundred eighty pounds of Betty's bulk came waddling over so that she could clamp her meaty hands around Keelin's wrists. "Come, dear, let me introduce you to everyone!"
For the next thirty minutes she was dragged from one group of people to another. Not only had the entire office shown up, but everyone from the labs and the mech facilities were in attendance as well, which made for a very, very long list of names. Keelin smiled and nodded where appropriate, offered gender-neutral compliments to babies when she had to, and desperately scanned the crowd for a means to escape every time Betty took a breath. When she could find nobody in the crowd she could even pretend to be civil with - not with a straight face, at least - she resorted to mentioning how hungry she was and beelined for the shade of the tables. Stooping to snatch a bottle of water out of a cooler, she nestled into the most secluded spot she could find and tried to make herself invisible.
"Not into the mandatory fun thing, I take it?"
She cast a sidelong, dismissive glance at the man beside her - well-dressed and attractive, obviously not anybody she worked with - then rolled her eyes and took another swig from her water.
"What's not to like?" she muttered dryly, and gestured to the crowd with her bottle. "You can divide our entire company into either the nags and gossips in admin, or the virgins and losers in tech."
"Ouch," he commented, and chuckled. "Generalize much?"
"Clearly you don't work at corporate," she mentioned.
"Clearly," he replied, nodding. His smile was casual and lopsided, an odd mix of "aw shucks" and easy confidence, and for a brief moment she was certain she knew him from somewhere. "So which one are you?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she took another swig from her bottle.
"You don't seem the nagging, gossiping type. Not really the loser type, either."
"I could be a virgin," she suggested, smirking.
"I've learned it's best not to make assumptions on that sort of thing." His smile was infectious. She was starting to feel grateful she hadn't swallowed a fistful of razorblades with breakfast.
"Research and development," she told him. "One very important step away from loser." She chugged the last of her water and executed a perfect one-handed toss into the nearby recycling bin. "What about you?"
"Me?" He raised his eyebrows at her, genuinely confused, and she couldn't help but sigh - quite audibly - at the realization that yes, the pretty ones were still stupid. "Oh. I work at the shop."
"Lucky bastard," she whined, crossing her arms over her chest. "I've been trying to get out of corporate for two years, but r-and-d at the shop is a fucking boy's club." She kicked at a tuft of parched grass. "At this point I'm willing to get a gearhead cert and put up with those primadonna pilots just to get my foot in the door."
"We could always use more gearheads," he said thoughtfully, that cheeky smirk hooking his lips again. "Mind you, I'm not sure -"
"Excuse me, Mister?" The tiny voice belonged to an equally tiny boy, no more than five years old, who crept around the edge of the table with eyes the size of saucers. His arms were wrapped around an articulated plastic toy the size of his torso, and he eased his deathgrip on the thing so that he could hold it out almost reverently to Keelin's companion. "Could you sign my Tris, please?"
Keelin knew the toy well - she owned the same one, though she preferred for the sake of her professional pride to refer to it as a collector's item rather than a toy. At eighteen inches tall, the black, violet, and silver robot was part of a limited edition run modeled after the defense program's Unit Teine. It, and the two others in the series, had sold off the shelves over the Christmas season. Keelin had won hers in an office charity auction, dropping the equivalent of her entire paycheque to steal it away from Duncan in IT. She could still remember Duncan's tortured expression when she ripped the box apart ("But... it's a limited edition!") and set the plastic behemoth on her desk. His jaw had only dropped further when she grabbed a thumb tack and pinned the certificate of authenticity (The United Medalli Federation Department of Defense certifies that this is an approved and true likeness of Unit Teine, "Tristyn") to the wall behind it.
She felt her own sort of horror as her companion crouched down and accepted the proffered toy and black marker - not so much because he was scribbling his name across the silver breastplate of the robot's armor, but because the mere fact the youngster had requested his autograph meant that even though Keelin hadn't recognized him, she damn well should have. Her cheeks burned as the boy scampered off, yelling to his father and waving the robot enthusiastically over his head, and her stomach clenched as the man beside her straightened and smiled that prankster's smile, peering at her over the rim of his sunglasses. A tiny part of her noticed, as she flushed crimson, that his ash-colored eyes were even paler in person than they were on the cover of the magazine beside her bed.
"Dax MacArthur," he said casually, offering his hand. "Primadonna pilot."