From Bad to Worse

a/n: Gino the NPC is applying for a job. You almost have to pity the screening committee. Still, what were they thinking? Who asks a refugee from a destroyed planet what their worst day was? Please enjoy personal head canon in story format.

Gino swears, but I tried to avoid the f-bomb, you're welcome. Pain, violence and the destruction of our planet, so, yes, darkness.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft. Except for Gino Talmack, an imaginary NPC that will eventually get a job in an imaginary Skell Refueling Station.

Name: Talmack, Gino.

Year of birth: 2025.
Place of Birth: Worchester, MA.
Position requested: Technical Support 04, skell research division, focus: frame and mobility.
Education: see attached.
Experience: see attached.
References: Albert Ávila (former manager, Whale campus). Lila Brown (former manager, ECP02 White Whale). Hope Alanzi (counselor).

Essay:

I cannot believe Sakuraba Industries has me writing this piece of deathless literature. Pretending to need personal essays for interview applications makes me cringe. Everyone knows everyone else in this fishbowl of a city. Even if you don't, you're not 6 degrees of separation, you're more like 4. I can get to about anyone just based who I've punched in the face. Actually, for me, not so hard, since I once took a swing at the Chief. Make that Commander, man's moving up. After that, it's a hop, no skip required, to 90% of the city.

No, I'm not going to write about that, even though the topic is: "Please recall a time when you helped change a bad day into a good one." That sure was a bad day, that punch, and not one I've repeated. Not gonna warn you not to try it yourself, but if you do, please give me fair warning, because I want to be there. With popcorn. I can tell you this, if you try it, it will be one memorable day, but possibly not for yourself. Not every part of yourself. I think my teeth remember it better than I do.

If the idea of an essay is bad, this topic is even more stupid. I don't think I ever had a bad day that didn't get worse. Not since … I'm going to say it, and you can tell me I'm being crude, July 16, 2056, after that day, no day that went wrong has ever gotten better. Maybe the next round of us can hope for that, but for us old hands? Worse stays worse, and the best you can hope for is to survive until the next day and hope for the chance to rebuild.

I can't even write about the worst day. Which would have to be that day in July. I know what it means, now, but the day itself? It was just one long, hot screaming confusion. The playa was pushing 30 degrees, and we still were two hours short of sunrise. I knew my shoes would melt if I stopped running, and no one had stopped running since the sirens started three days before. The metal on the skin of the Whale was still cold to the touch, though, and I was already cursing how it was gonna get so hot my hands would blister and give off that weird plastic smell, like the inside of a new car left in the sun. New mim smell, get it? That's a smell you don't forget. I will never by those new-car-smell air fresheners again.

I ain't gonna write about that day. It's the worst. But maybe I'm wrong. I was wrong, three days before. So maybe there'll be a worse day. God help us when that hits.

So I'll write about that day, the one I thought was going to be the worst. It would have been July 13, or really July 12th, because it was nighttime. God, we were busting our humps to get the last coating on the ship in time, somehow that was just not working right. We were a good 6 months short, I don't need to tell you, and things were going crazy. Here's the thing. I can't tell it all, because maybe I'm wrong, and it's not smart to bad mouth the ECP.

I'm not. Wrong. I'm not wrong. Screw the ECP.

My team was on insulation duty, right? And one by one, they go down with some injury. Sore hand, problems hearing. One woman suddenly went all stiff and dropped right off of the ship itself. It had been going on for a week before I figured it out. Not too surprising, what with the heat and the stress. People were going down all the time. Little rehydration, a check of the synch, and you're back in business. But to have it happen, one after another, like they're taking turns, it started to creep us out. Us is me and Paolo. Was me and Paolo. He was a good kid, smart like I am but not as rude. Both of us were wasted on the grunt work, but it needed to be done, and it needed to be done right. Your ship's skin starts to burn? The whole ship burns. Paolo was steady and smart. You could hire him, but I wouldn't bother now. He isn't the same.

See, we watched them come back from getting fixed and they were different. Slower. They did okay, but it was like they had to keep looking around to make sure of things. Most of all, it was like they'd never met us before. Called Paolo "Paul". Asked me how I was doing, like I have anything good to say. Dumb stuff like that. Paolo and me, we started taking bets who would be last. We decided it would be us. Both of us. We wouldn't go down, not for anything. At least, that's what we told each other. But Paolo's headaches came out of nowhere and one morning, he started screaming and hitting himself in the forehead with the adhesive applicator. It's not all that heavy, but he was a sticky mess by the time they got it out of his hands. He had stopped screaming, but I knew he was lost, with his eyes all full of epoxy.

I waited for him to come back. First thing, I ran up to him, saying, hey how you doing, you glad to be back, that kind of nonsense, and then I said it. "Paulie." He hated that, even worse than "Paul". He just gave a scared grin and nodded, saying my name like he was reading it off my nametag. "Sure thing, Gino. Glad to see you." I knew. It would have to be me that was last.

My turn came that same day. Leg pains, like fire and nails down to your bones. An ache and a twanging throb, or sometimes like someone lay into you with a baseball bat. Worse. I'm speaking from experience, and it was worse. Is worse. Because I didn't go down. I hooked myself into a harness and pulled myself up the side of the ship, dangling the whole shift. We were only supposed to stay up for 90 minutes at a time, but I didn't bother with breaks. I couldn't trust my legs, so I didn't give them a chance to fail me. In the next three days, I watched the last three teammates go in and out of the demon hole they now call the Mimeosome Maintenance Center, and none of them came out unchanged. I almost gave in. What was the point? Paolo was gone, everyone was gone, we were so far behind that we would never manage. But then I remember the bet, and I did not go down, out of pure anger. Because screw whoever wanted me out. They could choke and die. Every day, every hour, was one agonizing step closer to making them dead and me alive.

I swear the Whale got up in the air based on too many of us deciding that we'd rather do something pointless than give in and take it easy. Turns out, we made it, not sure how, but here we are. On a planet with not one but five moons, five of them, and each one's gravity field is driving my legs into a whole new planet worth of pain. Day and night, they're pulling at me, like I'm some Gino-shaped wish bone. Better make it a good one, that wish, because it's costing me plenty.

That's the day I'm talking about, but it was the night. I only had to last three days, but I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was the worst thing ever. Paolo had lost, and I could barely see straight, the pain was so bad, and I had been dangling on the wire for 12 straight hours, right through the worst of the heat. It was dark, finally, and I had hopes that it would cool off, just in time for me to go off my shift and try to decide if I was going to make it through a second day of pain. Then the floodlights went up along the fencing.

Not many visitors to the facility. That far into the desert, and no roads to speak of, people didn't come by. We'd had one or two protests that Spring, swept up and I don't know where they stashed the people, but it wasn't much. We joked about the dudes, and they made it easy to do that. One protester, I saw a picture, I swear he was wearing a tin-foil hat and had a sign like you see outside the Alien Jerky shacks.

But that night, there was a different crowd. Two yellow school busses, I don't know how they'd gotten over that rough desert ground, lotta tortoises died for their sins, and then all these people spilled out. Not regular protestors. These were all guys, all white and youngish, and wearing a mix of camo gear to look like they were official. Official what, not sure about that. They were yelling, and it was pretty clear that it wasn't protest signs they were carrying in their hands.

Not really my problem, okay, but I'm watching from where I'm dangling like a mim piñata. Mim eyes work better than regular, let's be honest about that, so it was pretty easy to watch, even from up high and far away and in the dark. Took my mind off the pain, the scene was that different. I see about 5 of our security squads show up, and three skells, not construction ones, and I know they're armed because I knew skells back in the day. Still know them, can't drive them, but I know them still.

I'm thinking, maybe they'll pose a bit and then get rounded up. I'm thinking, they look angry enough, one of them might take a shot. Stupid. Nothing short of a head shot is gonna do the trick, and what do our guys care? Your real head is safe and sound in the Whale. The Mim Center will have you back on your feet in no time. The protestors, or whatever those dudes were, not so lucky. It's not gonna be pretty, but it will be short and persuasive.

But I didn't see what was coming. Sure, there was some gestures and waving, but then one of the busses started to move. Straight for the fencing, and picking up speed so fast, it must have been the newest electric model, and it wasn't swerving for its own people. I caught a glint of metal on its front. It had a sort of wedge on its nose, like a snow plow or something. It went straight on through, right through most of the bodies, the real bodies, and then through the triple fencing, and on towards the Whale. It clipped one of the security vehicles, launched that whole crew, and mowed down another group on ground. Still heading for the Whale.

Stupid prick. What a waste. The skells caught it and blew it up before it even got halfway to the outermost storage sheds. But then

They had to

The pilots had to sweep up the few

See, there were some protestors that started in, through the gap. A few remained, and they were running like ants out of an ant hill when you turn a hose on it. They were spreading onto the Whale campus. I don't know what the skell pilots were thinking, but I'd be thinking, you want some, I got some, take it now. All of them went down and none of them got up.

That was the end of my shift, on a day I thought was as bad as you could get. All I did to make it any better was do my job and not go down. I'm still doing that. I'm not giving up. So you can take this essay and shove it wherever you like. I'm not gonna judge. It might make your day better.

["Absolutely appalling. This man, he has no business applying like this."

"Ms. Brown, I believe you recommended him. Can you explain this?"

"Not really. That's who he is. Still, you'd be stupid not to take him."

"No. Absolutely not. He seems unstable. Dangerous."

"I'll take him then. Glad to. He was good stuff on the Whale. Shoot him my number. I might as well have one more staff at the station, because me and Ricky Bobby can't do it all ourselves."

"Appalling. I will have nightmares."

"Huh. Nightmares? Lucky. Sometimes I remember that last week too."]

a/n: Month and year are canon, date I made up myself. Note: in my slightly AU XCX, the ECP projects were kept secret for as long as possible. Alas, I read the official pre-game stories too late, and it was fixed in my head. I do not know what became of the early, hippy dippy, conspiracy nutjob protestors. But I do know what happened to the armed ones. I have an equally uncomfortable story featuring Doug, and I may write it sometime.

I swear I will return to Wolf and Duna, but this is what is creeping out of my head these days. So "Treasue of O'rrh Sim" will continue in September.