T ransformers Animated: Morning After By Fang Wolfsbane
"That's the last one," Tyla sighed, shutting the dumpster cover, wiping the remaining grease on her jeans, visibly flinching when she remembered that she was currently wearing her last clean pair. Luckily throwing out the trash had been the last thing on her list of duties for the day.
Pulling the apron free from its knot behind her back, Tyla headed back inside the restaurant, placing her uniform back into her locker, awaiting for her to return for another hellish eight hour shift. She knew better than to complain about the total hours she worked, after all, the pay was fairly decent, especially in a mostly automaton-controlled environment. They didn't need her as much as she needed their wealth to survive in her small, rundown apartment.
Shutting her locker door with a faint click, Tyla turned only to nearly fall on her backside in surprise when one of the automated cashiers stood in front of her. It took her a lot longer than she felt comfortable to admit for her heart to settle back down in her chest. Luckily it seemed like nobody else was around to see what had just occurred. The freshly spilled orange juice on her white tank top, however, felt differently about the case.
Biting back a silent curse, Tyla glared up at the robot's indignant stare. If it wasn't for the fact that the cost would come out of her pay check, she would have kicked the machine right against its wheel. The one on the left that seemed a little deflated.
"What do you want?" Tyla questioned, trying to bite back the annoyance in her voice. Luckily for her, the robot couldn't detect changes in a human's voice to the point that it was able to detect one's emotional state. It definitely saved time when dealing with swarming customers, but that didn't make it any easier when those same customers decided to take it out on the human staff by ensuring that they were all too aware of the elongated list of complaints, and if any of them dared to talk back, the manager was called in, leaving them with the mess to clean up that the robot, to put simply, couldn't give a damn about.
"Delivery," the automaton simply said, shoving a brown paper bag against her chest. Tyla blinked, sliding a foot out to keep herself from slipping back on the now messy, sticky, wet floor.
"What? No. My shift just ended-"
"Delivery," the automaton insisted, this time pushing the package harder against her chest, dropping it like a potato just as it yanked its servo back. Tyla nearly had to juggle what remained of her juice bottle and the delivery order, only to glare at the robot's back as it went back to the register to continue its duty.
Feeling like she was going to scream was an understatement. Looking to the package, Tyla's hand curled around the seal, wishing to rip it apart. They had a delivery bot, but that was still probably out on the street, searching for its current delivery address.
She could drop the order on the counter and hope someone else would take care of it, but the robot had an annoying habit of keeping track of what it ordered of who, and if this order didn't get to its destination, then she'd pay for it one way or another. The best she could do was bite down on her lip and just get the order where it needed to go and then head home for the day.
S he didn't own a car, much less a bike, and didn't have money to pay for a cab, so she did the next best thing and began running to the pier, hoping that whoever the receiver was that they'd be generous enough to leave a cab tip for her trip back.
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