Disclaimer: I don't own The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
A/N: I'm sorry that there isn't anything about Columbia in this chapter.
By the way... in The Day the Earth Stood Still, Michael Rennie plays an alien who uses the false name 'Mr. Carpenter' at one point. That's where I got the name 'Michael Carpenter'.
Months and months went by.
Magenta soon understood the native language very well. Of course, she still had trouble with pronunciation. But that wasn't really important. There were other problems that needed more attention.
For one thing, they were running out of supplies.
"We need jobs," Hal Morbius said, at breakfast one morning.
"Do we all need jobs?" Wesley asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Everyone but Magenta," Hal replied.
"Why don't I need a job?" the girl asked.
"From what I can tell, children are supposed to go to school until a certain age. It will look suspicious if you have a job. Anyway, it might be illegal for a child your age to work."
"Our technology is clearly superior to theirs. Can't we just sell some scraps of the ship for money?" Wesley asked, hoping to avoid working.
Riff, who'd been trying to keep from saying anything, finally cracked. "Of course not! That breaks rules we all swore by before leaving home. And it's wrong. They won't understand how any of the computers work. Anyway, some of it's still contaminated with radioactive material. These people don't have any way of curing-"
"Please, son," Hal muttered.
Though Riff stopped talking at that point, he still glowered at Wesley.
"What sort of jobs can you get? Will you work in shops or something?" Magenta asked.
"I'm pretty sure we'll work in shops. That's all we're qualified for, I think. Though we still don't know much about the economy here…" Hal replied thoughtfully.
Suddenly, a slightly crazed look appeared on Wesley's face. "Do they have a theatre? That's not real work and I was in a few school plays when I attended D. Gray's Academy for Aristocratic Young Men."
"Well…" Hal said hesitantly. "They haven't actually got that sort of theatre- in this town, at least. There's this thing that's like a HoloStory but less interactive. Instead of acting as part of a prerecorded story, you sit in an audience and watch. Also, it's on a flat screen. You could get a job as one of the people selling the tickets or the food."
To Wesley, that didn't sound like much work. And it sounded fun.
And so, after breakfast, they all went into the town. Hal wanted his daughter to stay behind, but she didn't like the idea of being alone in the old castle. It was a bit creepy. Especially since they'd only cleaned up one wing of it. The rest was all dusty and cobwebbed.
Previously, Magenta hadn't been to the actual town. She'd gone back to the bench where she'd met the girl once or twice. Yet she'd never actually seen anyone (save for the first time).
Meeting more Terrans would be exciting, decided Magenta.
They walked to the town. This took quite a while. By the time they actually got there, Wesley's complaining had put everyone in a rather bad mood. Riff almost punched Wesley at one point, in fact.
Technically it wasn't a town. More like a collection of shops and offices with a few miles of suburban neighborhoods next to it. Rows and rows of identical, pastel-colored houses…
Thankfully, the area with the shops lay between the castle and the rows of houses. That meant they didn't have to walk through the streets of eerily similar buildings with those disturbingly perfect lawns out front. If they'd had to walk near that, Magenta would've been too afraid to ever go near the place again.
Though it was nearly 1960, the people of the town still had the mindset of your average early 1950s Americans. Racism was still in vogue, and nobody had even heard of the concept of homosexuality. Anyone 'too foreign' was suspected of being a commie.
All in all, it wasn't as pleasant a place as the locals seem to think.
And so… Magenta, Hal, Riff, and Wesley walked down the main street of town. None of them knew what evils lurked beneath the façade of respectability.
Soon enough they realized that you don't just get a job by saying you want a job, even on this primitive planet they called Terra.
Luckily, a hardware store they walked past had a sign out front saying they needed people to 'help around the shop' for '2.44 dollars per hour'. Since none of them were that familiar with Terran money, they weren't sure how much that was.
"Do you think you could apply for a job there?" Magenta asked, pointing to the sign.
Her father nodded. "I suppose so. Why don't I go in and ask about the job? You kids can wait out here."
"Actually, can I go in? I think they're more likely to give a kid a job," Riffraff said thoughtfully.
"Fine," his father replied after a moment.
So, Riff entered the shop.
At the counter sat a man in his 60s. He smoked a cigarette and read a newspaper.
"Hello, my name is Michael Carpenter. I saw a sign outside saying you need help in the shop here," Riff said.
The man looked up. "Well… we need someone to mind the shop. Somebody to stand here and be in charge of the cash register and everything. What's your name again?"
"Michael Carpenter."
"Age?"
Riff thought about this for a moment. Should he lie or not? His father had said that Terrans age at about the same rate as people of his planet. What harm could saying his actual age do? Yet people were considered adults at 18. And, being quite tall, he could probably pass for even older than that.
"I'm 18," Riffraff said finally.
The man stared at him for a moment. "I can tell your lying about that. Well, it doesn't really matter. As long as you don't cause any trouble for anyone, you're fine. Not one of them juvenile delinquent boys that you see in the papers, eh?"
"No, sir." That seemed like the right response. Riff wasn't actually sure what a 'juvenile delinquent boy' was.
"Well, that's good. As long as you don't go causing trouble, you can work here. Starting tomorrow, I think."
"What's your name, sir?"
"Mr. Benson," the man replied with a kindly smile.
"What time should I be here tomorrow?"
"Shop opens at 9:30. If you're here at 9:15, you should be fine."
And so, Riff had a job. A moment later he went outside to share the news with the others.
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