Author: Chippewa Livingston
Archive: Please ask
Disclaimer: I claim no affiliation or ownership of characters or material related to Dark Angel.
An Unauthorized Genetics Experiment: Working For a Living (Donor)
I woke up before sunrise, just like I'd ordered myself, late last night.
For a few moments, everything felt perfect. The loudest noise was her breathing, and the sagging mattress just served to roll her sleeping warmth against my chest. A stray bit of her hair was trying to find its way up my nose, but that was good too.
It didn't last long. The first impossible task for the day: getting my arm out from under her head without waking her up.
****
I got to the construction site just as it became obvious that the sun was going to spend the entire day behind clouds. The breeze was shifting randomly around from one minute to the next. My guess was for cooler, and rain.
The lights were on in the trailer that served as the office for the project. It perched on the high edge of the site near the road, and overlooked an expanse of mud dotted with surveyor stakes. I couldn't tell yet if this was supposed to be an office park, or an apartment building, or what. I'd have to look at the sign on my way home this afternoon.
"C'mon in!" A woman's voice reached my ears as I opened the door into the trailer. A big smile, coffee colored skin, and an oval face framed by tiny braids. Her movement sent the beads swinging. She slid out from behind the desk, and I tried to identify the contents of all the cargo pockets in her khaki pants. (. . . "You will assume everyone is armed, your task is to find out how!" someone shouted at a class full of six year olds. . .) The pants seemed to contain keys, a cell phone, and a folding knife clipped to her pocket. The shirt pockets had pens.
"You must be Jackson Lee Messinger," she said as she held out a hand. "I've been wondering if your parents were from the North or the South."
"I go by Jack, actually." Oh, she's talking about the American civil war, I realized. "One of each. They were both history buffs, though."
"Call me Tish. My parents had some weird ideas about names, too." She opened the top drawer of a file cabinet, and dug around inside. "Just a couple more things to take care of. Red will be by at ten o'clock for you."
"I thought I'd signed everything yesterday." It had been a huge stack of paper. I wondered how much more paperwork would fill the next three hours.
"You did." She set a stack of old-fashioned videotapes next to a TV set, and pushed the button on the player underneath it. Static danced across the screen as the player sucked in the first of the tapes. "Safety videos. There are four of them."
For the next forty-five minutes I watched a presentation about the importance of wearing a hard hat and steel-toed shoes in areas with a posted sign "Hard Hat Area." The tape finished, I hit the 'rewind' button, and I looked at the next tape in the stack. The label was smudged, but it seemed to say something about safety glasses.
I looked over at Tish. She was sorting through drifts of pastel colored paper, and making notes on a yellow pad.
"Excuse me," I said, and held up the videotape. "Is there just a written list of procedures to follow? It would be quicker then watching all of this."
Tish dropped her pencil, blinked twice, and rubbed her temples, leaving a smudge of graphite. "Jack, what planet are you from?"
"Huh?"
"Here on Earth, not everyone reads real good. So, if I put a piece of paper in front of them, they will tell me they understand. If I want them to actually do things right, I make them watch the tape."
"Oh."
"So, just sit down and watch the rest, okay?"
"Yes ma'am!"
****
A couple of hours later, Red finally arrived. He was six inches shorter than I am, but made up for it in width and mass. I'm sure he was once a red-head, but the the fringe of hair around his bald scalp was gray.
***
I watched Red double-check the power connections from the welder to the generator set. The diesel engine that powered it made enough noise that I couldn't hear him cursing his knees as he stood up, slowly.
"Well, aren't you a cutie?" sneered the central figure in a group of three workers.
"Leave off the kid, Terry!" Red circled around to put himself between me and them.
"It's fine, Red." I knew that showing weakness would just be more trouble later. "The guy can call me 'cutie' if he wants." I glanced at Terry's left hand, noted the wedding ring. "After all, his wife does."
I counted to two during the stunned silence before Terry's friends started laughing. "Kid got you fair and square!" said one, punching his shoulder.
We watched the three of them go back to the beginnings of the excavation.
"Watch out for him," said Red, frowning. "His idea of a good time is beating someone else bloody."
"I've got cousins like that," I say. I'm pretty confident I can take on any two in a fair fight. "More than that if I'm willing to play dirty," I tell myself.
Archive: Please ask
Disclaimer: I claim no affiliation or ownership of characters or material related to Dark Angel.
An Unauthorized Genetics Experiment: Working For a Living (Donor)
I woke up before sunrise, just like I'd ordered myself, late last night.
For a few moments, everything felt perfect. The loudest noise was her breathing, and the sagging mattress just served to roll her sleeping warmth against my chest. A stray bit of her hair was trying to find its way up my nose, but that was good too.
It didn't last long. The first impossible task for the day: getting my arm out from under her head without waking her up.
****
I got to the construction site just as it became obvious that the sun was going to spend the entire day behind clouds. The breeze was shifting randomly around from one minute to the next. My guess was for cooler, and rain.
The lights were on in the trailer that served as the office for the project. It perched on the high edge of the site near the road, and overlooked an expanse of mud dotted with surveyor stakes. I couldn't tell yet if this was supposed to be an office park, or an apartment building, or what. I'd have to look at the sign on my way home this afternoon.
"C'mon in!" A woman's voice reached my ears as I opened the door into the trailer. A big smile, coffee colored skin, and an oval face framed by tiny braids. Her movement sent the beads swinging. She slid out from behind the desk, and I tried to identify the contents of all the cargo pockets in her khaki pants. (. . . "You will assume everyone is armed, your task is to find out how!" someone shouted at a class full of six year olds. . .) The pants seemed to contain keys, a cell phone, and a folding knife clipped to her pocket. The shirt pockets had pens.
"You must be Jackson Lee Messinger," she said as she held out a hand. "I've been wondering if your parents were from the North or the South."
"I go by Jack, actually." Oh, she's talking about the American civil war, I realized. "One of each. They were both history buffs, though."
"Call me Tish. My parents had some weird ideas about names, too." She opened the top drawer of a file cabinet, and dug around inside. "Just a couple more things to take care of. Red will be by at ten o'clock for you."
"I thought I'd signed everything yesterday." It had been a huge stack of paper. I wondered how much more paperwork would fill the next three hours.
"You did." She set a stack of old-fashioned videotapes next to a TV set, and pushed the button on the player underneath it. Static danced across the screen as the player sucked in the first of the tapes. "Safety videos. There are four of them."
For the next forty-five minutes I watched a presentation about the importance of wearing a hard hat and steel-toed shoes in areas with a posted sign "Hard Hat Area." The tape finished, I hit the 'rewind' button, and I looked at the next tape in the stack. The label was smudged, but it seemed to say something about safety glasses.
I looked over at Tish. She was sorting through drifts of pastel colored paper, and making notes on a yellow pad.
"Excuse me," I said, and held up the videotape. "Is there just a written list of procedures to follow? It would be quicker then watching all of this."
Tish dropped her pencil, blinked twice, and rubbed her temples, leaving a smudge of graphite. "Jack, what planet are you from?"
"Huh?"
"Here on Earth, not everyone reads real good. So, if I put a piece of paper in front of them, they will tell me they understand. If I want them to actually do things right, I make them watch the tape."
"Oh."
"So, just sit down and watch the rest, okay?"
"Yes ma'am!"
****
A couple of hours later, Red finally arrived. He was six inches shorter than I am, but made up for it in width and mass. I'm sure he was once a red-head, but the the fringe of hair around his bald scalp was gray.
***
I watched Red double-check the power connections from the welder to the generator set. The diesel engine that powered it made enough noise that I couldn't hear him cursing his knees as he stood up, slowly.
"Well, aren't you a cutie?" sneered the central figure in a group of three workers.
"Leave off the kid, Terry!" Red circled around to put himself between me and them.
"It's fine, Red." I knew that showing weakness would just be more trouble later. "The guy can call me 'cutie' if he wants." I glanced at Terry's left hand, noted the wedding ring. "After all, his wife does."
I counted to two during the stunned silence before Terry's friends started laughing. "Kid got you fair and square!" said one, punching his shoulder.
We watched the three of them go back to the beginnings of the excavation.
"Watch out for him," said Red, frowning. "His idea of a good time is beating someone else bloody."
"I've got cousins like that," I say. I'm pretty confident I can take on any two in a fair fight. "More than that if I'm willing to play dirty," I tell myself.