A/N: Hey guys! This chapter came out super early but once I finished it I couldn't help but put it out. It's a bit shorter than the others but I wouldn't call it a filler chapter either. Enjoy!
Chapter 4
-Well It Smells-
So after Frank gave me the location of the factory I find it's not that far from the shelter, maybe a half hour of walking. Once I get to the shelter I can't help but notice it's mainly batarians only these ones don't seem to mind I'm there, they have their own problems. The cot they gave me to sleep on felt like it was made of old construction paper that used to be wet and they were out of food.
I also got yelled at for lifting things around, turns out it's not as hard as I thought it'd be. It was like when I was a kid and pretended to be a Jedi, I just stuck out my hand and then thought I wanna move that and there you go. It was weird though, I got tired like I was actually lifting things. It messed with my head for a while. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though, I actually got to life some pretty big things without getting tired. After a while though, it got kind of difficult.
Now I'm on my way to the factory. The streets are packed once again, I have yet to see a street that doesn't have people on it. I look of to my left as my Omni-tool beeps letting me know I have reached my destination. Wow, this place is pretty big, I wonder how many people work here. I walk in the door and am greeted by a cute asari receptionist. No, like, really cute. She's a smooth shade of royal blue with big bright blue eyes, her face is a bit shorter with angled features with an warm smile.
Like I said, she's really cute.
I walk up and place my hands on the desk drawing her attention. She looks back to her terminal for half a second and then looks up at me with a cheery smile.
"Welcome to Haynes Shipping, how may I help you?"
"Hey, my name's James Matticks, I'm here to see Frank." I tell her as I toss my hands in my pockets and look around the small foyer. I look back at her and for a moment she seems… uneasy, then she puts back on that glowing smile and checks her terminal.
"Yes, Mr. Haynes is expecting you." She says. "He is just in a call right now, he should be with you in a couple minutes."
"Thanks." I say as I step back from the desk. I look at the ceiling awkwardly as me and the asari sit in silence, I can't stand it. I walk back to the desk and lean on it and get the asari's attention again. "So, how it going?"
She looks at me for a moment before answering. "I'm ok, how are you?"
"I'm fantastic, so what's your name?" I ask.
"Aila Nadeous."
"Hey Aila, it's nice to meet you. So, what do you do around here?"
"I manage this warehouse." She tells me. "Anything from wages to orders, I run everything."
"Jesus Christ." I say in awe. "That's a lot of shit for one person to do, I'm impressed."
"Thanks!" She smiles up at me. "So why are you here to see Mr. Haynes?" she asks as she begins to multitask on her terminal.
"I'm here for a job."
She stops typing and stares blankly at the screen. Her eyes flicker down for a moment and then look to me. "Why?"
That's a weird question. "I need the money and training." I admit.
"How badly do you need the money?" she asks, she seems very concerned.
"Honestly pretty bad, I need this job no matter what it throws at me. I don't have any other options." I admit. She looks like she is about to say something and then stops herself when she looks at me, she takes another pause and then smiles at me again.
"What do you need training with?" she asks.
"Biotics." I nod. "I'm going to be the first human forklift." I smirk. She smiles at that and shakes her head. Suddenly I hear a door open to my left and I turn to see Frank smiling as he walks towards me.
"James!" he exclaims as he extends his hand. "How's your morning been?"
"I can't complain Frank." I smile as I grip his hand in mine. "Nice place you have here, care to take me on a tour?"
"You've got it." He laughs as he leads me to a door. "First stop is my office, nothing serious, just signing some paperwork. After that there's nothing much to see, just the factory floor and the employees."
"Alright let's get the paperwork out of the way." I say as the door swings open, revealing a beautiful office. Clean white carpets with slate grey walls with a burnt orange feature wall that's behind a huge modern desk. It's pretty simplistic but it looks nice. Frank quickly sits down at his desk and motions me to sit in the chair. After I do my Omni-tool beeps and I activate it to see I have been forwarded a document. Holy shit this "document" is my contract and it is over 200 fucking pages!
"Jesus Frank, this is a lot of stuff." I exclaim as I start scrolling through the pages as fast as I can to get to the end. It's worse than the goddamn iTunes thing.
"It's normally less than half of that but due to the biotics it's almost all safety and other bullshit." He says as he opens his drawer and pulls out two scotch glasses and a bottle of…
"Is that Johnnie Walker?" I ask in awe. Shit I didn't think that'd be around anymore, that's some of the best liquor you can get!
"Blue Label." He whispers through a smile as he pour us two fingers each, neat of course, we're not pansy's.
"Nectar of the gods." I say as we clink glasses. I take a sip and a warm burn slides down my throat, hints of nuts, fruits, and leather earth tone peak in my mouth. God that the stuff. I place my glass down and finally hit the bottom of the document and promptly sign it and send it to Frank.
We talk about some of the companies that ship to the warehouse for about half an hour before we finish our scotch and then head back into the foyer. I wave at Aila as we walk through another door that leads to a huge factory floor. It looks incredibly similar to the warehouse in Garrus's loyalty mission, just a giant see of platforms and crates with a ceiling crane moving larger crates. It's also about four times as big, how did I not notice how big the building was from the outside? I mean, I knew it was big but this is crazy!
"So how many people work here?"
"I have four people working for me who are overqualified, staggeringly so." He admits as he leads me down a pathway sectioned of by cautionary lines on the floor.
"If they're over qualified why do they work here?" I say as I watch the cranes drop of huge 20'x20' pallets of crates. "They owe you favors?" I chuckle.
"More then you realize." He shrugs. "They are some of the most hardworking and specialized people I could find. And here's one of them!"
I look to my right to see a short, well-dressed man with a jet black short beard and styled faux hawk. The guy walks with a confident swagger but at the same time it's friendly and enthusiastic. He's like a young Frank Sinatra with a modern style.
"Hey Frankie!" he shouts as he walks up with his arms open, he quickly gives Frank a hand shake and turns his infectious attitude towards me. "Hey how are you? My name is Greg Broadway, charmed."
"Hey Greg" I say as I shake his hand. "James Matticks, and I'm doing pretty good man. You?"
"I'm doing great James." He says as he pats my shoulder. "We can talk later, I've gotta make Frankie here a richer man!" he says as he turn back to Frank. "I've got Armali Council on the ropes boss, I'll see you in a few hours!" he gives Frank a gentle punch on the shoulder before he walks out, I hear him start to talk to Aila before the door closes.
"He's quite the guy." I say as I turn back to Frank. "What does he do here?"
"He is in charge of sales." Frank says as he looks out on the sea of inventory. "Without him half of this product wouldn't be here right now. He goes out and makes companies move their goods through us instead of the competition. He is damn good at his job."
As we walk I see one of those hover cranes on the ground with somebody hunched under it looking through a nest of wires. Suddenly the crane makes a loud blaring alarm as it sparks to life and lifts away to join the others in moving crates around. The person is left standing there watching the lift take off, salarian actually.
I've never seen a salarian with his coloring before, he's a slate gray with dark purple markings under his chin and on his cheekbones. He looks pretty shy, kinda hunched over and nervous.
"This is our engineer, he keeps every single machine in this building in operation, from light fixtures to skytrucks!" Frank says as we walk over to the salarian.
"Hey man, my name's James Matticks." I extend my hand. The salarian blinks and looks at my hand for a moment until he hesitantly shakes it. Jesus it feels weird shaking a salarian's hand, those lanky ass fingers of his.
"Saylem Jodin." He says quietly and then just walks off without saying another word. Frank and I watch as he reaches over and grabs a slow, low flying hover crane and is whisked away to the other end of the warehouse.
"Quite guy." I mention as we keep moving.
"Yeah but the kids a genius, I've only found one thing he can't fix."
"Forklift?" I smirk at him.
"Yup, he tried though. After about three hour of work he finally said it couldn't be done and honestly, I believed him. Hell you could give him a broken bottle and he could put the thing back together with string."
"I'd like to see that." I muse as we walk towards a small shed. Frank opens the door and I see a layout of the entire factory. It doesn't take long to see this is a huge interface use to control all of the cranes, like a big RTS game. I notice a turian is leaning back in a chair stand up, he meets me at eye level probably a bit taller. He has dark brown skin, plates, whatever, with bright cyan markings on his mandibles and his two middle fringe spikes are completely painted too. He looks pretty badass!
"And last but not least, this is Pakiev Kratest. He is our floor manager, you'll be working with him directly."
"Hello, it's nice to meet you." He says in an ice cold flanged voice. "I have the pleasure of coordinating all of the cranes."
"Sounds like a tough gig." I say as I hold out my hand. "James Matticks." He reaches out and grips my hand with his talons, not as bad as Saylems but still weird.
"If you will excuse me, I have to make sure Saylem doesn't get killed on the hover cranes." He says as he sits back in his chair and flicks a control, I hear the radio crackle and Saylem say "Stop it." making Pakiev lightly chuckles as the door closes.
We walk away and move up a small ramp that leads to what looks like a docking bay, it actually reminds me of my job back home.
…
The job I'll never work again. I won't see anything from my old life ever again, my family, my friends, everything. No more pub night with the guys, no family gatherings, no more hunting trips. No Brody…
"This is the first area you will be working, this is incoming processing." Frank speaks up, snapping me out of my depressed train of thought.
"What uhh, what do I need to do?" I ask trying to shake it off.
"All you have to do is move these pallets of product out of processing and onto this platform here." He point to a huge 20'x20' pallet and then points to one of those big platforms that lifts up and down.
"That's it?" I ask as I eye the huge pallet.
"Yeah, once it's in this area here, the hover cranes will separate the goods and group orders together. All you have to do is move the pallet sixty feet, think you can do that?"
"Yeah." I say, not really sure if I mean it or not. "Just put the fridge full of the drinks and food over here and I should be fine."
"Ok and I'll put one at outgoing processing." He says as he points to the other end of the warehouse.
"I'm sorry, what?" I ask.
"After every hour, you move down to outgoing and send order pallets back out. You start with outgoing and then after an hour switch to incoming, and so on for nine hours." He says like it's no big deal.
"Huh." I say. "How many pallets do I move an hour?"
"It takes 60 seconds for a new pallet to get down here so in theory the quicker you move out the first one the bigger mini break you get!" he says as he pats my shoulder.
"Oh yeah, great." I mutter. "When do I start?"
Frank looks at his Omni-tool and then glances around the warehouse. "Well todays Friday so it is slow today, most of our major clients don't ship to us today, just a lot of our family businesses. Anyway report to Pakiev and he will direct you what to do and open up a com link for you."
"Ok see you later Frank." I wave to him as he leaves. I stand around awkwardly waiting for something to happen when one of the hover cranes parks itself next to me and Saylem is hanging off of it.
"Get on." He says quietly as he shifts so I can grab on to the bar.
"You're a mad man Saylem." I joke as I grab on to the hover crane and it lurches away. Like I thought, Saylem didn't react to my joke and kept quiet the whole ride. The ride actually wasn't bad at all, I loved it actually but I love rollercoasters too so that might be a factor. Once we get closer to the other end of the warehouse I can see Pakiev standing by the outgoing bay doors, leaning on a wall staring at his Omni-tool.
The hover crane slows down enough for me to hop of, I look back to see Saylem stayed on the now flying away h-crane. I strut towards Pakiev and his Omni-tool fades and he looks up at me.
"Matticks." Pakiev says as I walk up. "You ready? I loaded up the heavier ones first so it gets easier as you go."
"Ok cool." I say as I look at the bay door. "Call me Maverick by the way, or Mav, whichever."
"You humans and your nicknames." Pakiev sighs as he shakes his head. "That's something I'll never understand."
"Why not?" I ask. "It's just fun I guess, it's a sign of comradery." I try to explain.
"And here I thought it was just Broadway, he said the same thing." He explains as a noise comes from the loading bay.
"Why what does Broadway say?" I ask curiously.
"He calls me Pac-man." Pakiev sighs. "Or just Pac."
"Pac eh?" I say rub my chin. "I like that."
"Of course you do." Pac says as his mandibles click. "Have fun." He says as he walks away. I turn to see a pallet that is FULL of crates, all stacked about twelve feet high.
"Yeah, tons of fun." I say as I walk up to the pallet. Ok, let's do this. I rub my hands together and my biotics start to swirl around my hands, I still haven't gotten used to the biotics just showing up when I need them. There are no hand signals or secret phrases, they just know. It's creepy. I let out a sigh and I fell my hands start to tingle and the pallet starts to glow with wisps of blue.
Shit its heavy. I manage to lift it slightly off the ground but I can already feel my muscles straining. I start to grunt as I slowly move the pallet towards the dock, inching its way off of the platform. Fuck this, this is too slow. I let out a huge grunt as every muscle strains in my body as I quickly push the pallet into the dock, the pallet hitting the ground for the last couple feet and filling my ears with a scraping noise.
The second it's completely in the bay I fall to my knees and then turn over onto my back, I'm breathing heavily as I rip pf my hat and jacket. Fuck it the shirt comes off to, anything to cool down. In retrospect I probably should have taken of my hat and jacket in the first place but hey, hindsight is 20/20.
"That want so bad." I hear Pac say from overtop pf me. I peel open my eyes as see Pac staring down at me with what I assume is a turian smirk, Saylem is there too.
"I told you he wasn't dead." Saylem mutters to Pac as he walks away.
"It was a joke Saylem." Pac explains as Saylem grabs on to another h-crane. Pac leans over and extends his talon. I reach out and clamp on his hand and he pulls me off the ground. "Do humans normally undress when they are tired?" he asks as he looks at the pile of clothes on the ground.
"Sometimes." I pant as I look at the next pallet rising up to be put in the dock. Luckily it's less than half the size of the first one and if Pac wasn't lying about the order he put them in, I might actually be fine.
"Are you, wet?" he says as he wipes his claw on his shirt.
"It's called sweat." I tell him as I move my clothes out of the way and next to the door. "When humans get tired and overheat sweat comes out of our skin. Keeps us cool." I line up the next crate and am relieved that it is lighter than the last as I lift it from the ground.
"Well it smells." He says as he walks away. "Hurry up, the next ones already on its way." He shouts at he grabs on to an h-crane.
After some struggling I lift the next pallet into the dock and plant my hands on my knees and start taking in deep breaths. I hear the next platform rising up and the door to the foyer open. I see Aila walking up to me with an armful of assorted bottles. I look at the pallet and guess I have about fifteen seconds before the next one comes up so I jog over to Aila and quickly scoop up the bottles.
"Thanks!" I say as I start to open a random bottle.
"Don't you want to know what they are?" she asks as she watches me toss the rest of the bottles onto my pile of clothes.
"Doesn't matter." I say as I quickly guzzle down whatever is in this bottle. It tastes like some sort of fruit, it's tart yet sweet at the same time and it's fizzy like pop.
"Any reason you're not wearing a shirt?" she asks as I cap the bottle and toss it with the rest.
"Thought you'd be getting bored at your desk so I decided to put on a show." I joke as is look at the next pallet with a loathing glare.
"You're not my type!" she giggles as she walks away.
"Yeah I've been getting that a lot lately." I mutter as I start to move the next pallet.
After an hour of moving pallets they started to get a lot easier and by the end I was able to keep up. Barely though, I managed to drink half of the drinks Aila gave me.
" -Hey-" a voice cracks through my Omni-tool, scaring the shit out of me. I feel my barrier kick in the second I hear the voice but it goes away when I realize its Pac.
"What?" I bark into my Omni-tool.
"-Lets go, get down to incoming.-" he orders, then my Omni-tool fades and then an h-crane appears from thin air. I quickly walk over and scoop up my drinks with my clothes and hop on the h-crane and take off to incoming. I enjoy the cool breeze on the ride for roughly thirty seconds before I land by incoming. I quickly toss my stuff to the side and watch the docking platform lower down to reveal a pallet that rivals the first one.
Great.
Everything was going better than I thought, until I started to get really tired. By the end it took me about three minutes to move the heavier pallets and just over a minute to do the smaller ones. By the last pallet I am as tired as I was after fighting Mack! So I'm lying there on the ground, you know, dying and stuff.
I hear Broadway come in and out of the warehouse, from the sounds of it he got that company to run through us. He comes up to me and asks how I'm feeling and then brings me some water which was nice of him. I hear someone walk out of the warehouse, I'm assuming it was Saylem because they didn't say anything. Pac come up and tells me to stop sweating on the floor and then leaves.
I'm lying on the floor and I can sense someone standing over me. I force my eyes open again and see Frank looking down at me with a datapad in his hand.
"Hey." I murmur as I take in a few more breaths.
"James, just the person I was looking for." He says as he glances at the datapad in his hand. "Pakiev says you did better than expected and I'll be honest, you did a lot better than I thought."
"Thanks for having faith in me Frank." I mutter through a smile. "I started to slow at the end, I'll make it up to you."
"Yes." He tells me. "You cost me 63,506 credits today Matticks."
Oh shit. "Frank, I'm sorry. I promise I will be faster tomorrow and hey, soon I'll be saving you money eh?"
"Yes." He says as he circles me. "Until that day comes, any money you cost me will be docked from your pay."
"What?" I say, my eyes now opening wide. I can't even begin to pay that off! "We never talk about this!"
"No, hell you didn't even read about it did you?" he smirks at me. "Also your pay today was 200 credits, well, my pay that is."
"200? You said 75 an hour! I've been here all fucking day!" I try to yell but it's barely as loud as my regular speaking voice. Frank bends down and gets right up to my face.
"It's not my fault your as stupid as every other has-been in this warehouse." He sneers at me. "You should really read over your contract, it's got you locked in tight Matticks. I own you now, so you better pray you start making me money, or I'll have to get rid of you."
"You fucking… I saved you!" I strain to yell as I try to grab Frank. He simply backs up and starts to walk out of the warehouse.
"See you tomorrow Matticks." He jeers over his shoulder as he leaves the warehouse.
That fucking asshole! I can't believe this, he will ruin everything! How can he do this to me? I saved his sorry ass and this is how he thanks me? Fuck that, I will kill Haynes if I have to. He is not keeping me here when Shepard is running around, going about it the cannon way of things when there is vital stuff I can change for the better!
…
Did I just choose to fuck with cannon? I guess I did… but only for the better. I can't stop things like the Normandy's destruction or the Lazarus project. But I can change little things that might make a difference in the endgame…
"Are you ok?" I hear Aila say, snapping me from my planning.
"No." I deadpan. I start to stir and manage to get to my feet. "I'm not, did you know? Did you know that he would do this."
"In a way." She admits. "I would have stopped you but you said you needed this job. How bad was it?"
"My original debt was 500,000 creds, I now owe Haynes 63,000 and probably more tomorrow." I say as I press on my temples with my fingers.
"I know how you feel." She says as she places her hand on my shoulder. "Everyone here was tricked or forced to work for him."
"How could he do this?" I ask as I look at her. "You all seem like smart people, how could he do this to you?"
"Blackmail, threats, anything he could use against us he did." She says as I see a flicker of sadness on her face. "Haynes is a ruthless opportunist, he also knows we have no other options. There's not much we can do except bear with it."
"I… I don't know what to do." I whisper as bury my face in my hand. I feel Aila wrap her arms around me and I return her hug.
"Do you need a place to stay?" she asks as she strokes my back.
"You don't have to if you don't want to, I can just stay at the shelter."
"Its fine, you can stay with me, I have room for you." She says as she pulls out of the hug and smiles at me. "You'll be ok, if we all learned to make the best it, you can too."
"No." I corrected. "I won't make the best of it."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to end Haynes reign of terror."
[No matter what it takes.]
A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! Leave a review and I shall respond!
masterdude94: Happy you found the story man, even happier that you like it. I'm trying to be a bit more vigilant with my grammar but every now and then things slip through. Anyway thanks for reading and I'm glad you liked it.
Michae1ange1o: Yes I often get attacked by stray dogs who try to eat my eyes. ;) And you have a keen eye sir, I'll enjoy testing how good it really is…
Wolfshark: Thanks man, glad you liked it!
XRaiderV1: Oh man, it's great… thanks man!
CrimsonKnight117: Haha that's great! I love that quote! And the batarian coming back? Interesting idea, and I'll try! Thanks for reading!
Spiritstrike: Yeah I love that movie, they were classics in my household next to Milo and Otis and Hercules! And now I feel bad now that I'm responding to your review, all the stuff you're happy about being solved, well uhh… you know. And thanks for reading!
Universal-Public-Cockblocker: A pussy for the rest of the story? Where's the fun in that? Just be patient you fucking savage! ;)