"What?" The man almost shouted, taking a step towards Alex. The customer's wife and two sons didn't flinch when he yelled, staring at Alex with baggy, unwavering eyes.

"I'm sorry, Sir." He replied, keeping his voice even as he repeated the line he'd become all too familiar with over the weekend. "But the milkshake machine is broken right now."

"Oh, I heard you!" The large man replied, his unsteady tone setting alarms off in Alex's head. Still, he stood his ground at the register, experience with dozens of situations like this one allowing him to stand his ground. "I just know that that answer is unacceptable! We've been on the road for six hours now, and out of the hundreds of restaurants on the side of I-5, we decided to give you a chance."

The man leaned forwards, offering Alex a brief glimpse of the two other groups behind him. Judging by their expressions, they were just as unhappy with the customer's antics.

"And what do we get for that?" He asked, before suddenly slamming a meaty hand into the desk. The resulting BANG triggered Alex's hind-brain, forcing him to jump a little despite himself. "A FUCKING SLUM THAT CAN'T KEEP ITS SHIT TOGETHER!"

"I told you we should have gone to Dairy Queen, honey…" The wife sniped, her face as emotionless as a chunk of asphalt.

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Alex lied, "Can I still get you anything?"

Instead of ordering and getting out of the way like he should, the large customer continued. "How long has the milkshake machine been out?"

"Earlier this morning, sir." Alex lied again. It had been out since last Friday, but this man certainly hadn't earned any of his respect. At this point he was just saying whatever he needed to to give the next group in line a chance to order.

"Oh, 'this morning.'" He intoned in a mocking facsimile of Alex's own voice. "In that case, wouldn't a real establishment provide something to make up for the fact they can't deliver products they advertised?"

Ah, he wanted free stuff. It all made sense, now.

"I'm sorry, sir." Alex repeated. He wasn't certain how much longer this man was going to waste everyone's time, and he wanted to at least get something done in the last couple minutes of his shift. "If you want, I could get you my manager-"

"Don't bother." The large man almost spat. "You'll be seeing my review soon. Let's go kids."

And with that, he turned, faking as much dignity as he could while he finally stormed out of the building. Technically a loss on Alex's end, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Alex turned away from the register, grabbing and finally assembling the several meals the kitchen had pumped out while he'd been dealing with the problem. With the additional workers who'd arrived to help deal with the lunch rush still around, Sarah had been relegated to merely browning everything on the grill, a fellow student from the community college handling the assembly to help move things along. Normally, his coworker was pretty chatty with everyone, but as far as Alex could tell she had hardly said a word to the new hire.

Odd. Maybe he'd just been too busy to notice anything like that/

"Hey." A voice from behind Alex spoke up, and spared a glance in his direction. He recognized one of the high school kids who worked here, but didn't remember his name until he read 'Hunter' on his nametag.

"You here to take over?" Alex asked, before nodding to a customer who'd just entered.

"I guess so…" He started, looking at the register uneasily.

"Great!" Alex cut him off. Walking over to where he'd clocked in and starting a break. "I'm getting lunch."

He'd seen the high schooler manning the register before, he'd be fine.

A few minutes later, Alex was sitting out in the dining area, eating a lump of cardboard advertised as a chicken fajita pita and scrolling through his phone. Once, the meal might have tasted like something to him, but after so many months of roaming up and down the restaurant's menu once a day, it felt like nothing but bland, reduced, and pre-packaged nourishment. At least it let him focus on discord.

Apparently, Vergil had just gotten a bunch of old, partially-painted space marines at a yard sale, and had made the mistake of asking Dustin what chapter they were from. While he'd been at work and his friend was supposed to be in a physics class, he'd filled the channel with tales of these 'Lamenters,' good-naturedly explaining how they summed up Vergil's luck perfectly. Alex was just happy his friend had something to play that wasn't Tau, now. Now they just had to get Dustin to start branching out from the Guard…

He'd just started idly scanning the part where his friend had started explaining the Badab War to everyone, when the sound of a scooting chair pulled Alex back into reality.

What the hell? Was someone sitting with him? He was friendly with his coworkers, sure, but he couldn't call any of them real friends. He looked up, only to see Sarah, of all people, sliding into the chair across from him!

His mind went completely blank, the young man's jaw agape as his new coworker gave him a friendly nod. He watched, dumbfounded, as the woman picked up her burger and took a speculative bite, as if she hadn't just done anything weird.

Why was that, by the way? The lunch rush had died down, so there were plenty of open tables to eat at. He watched Sarah from the corner of his eye, his eyes lingering as a drop of sauce squeezed out of the burger and fell, resting on her chest.

…No, he didn't want to get the wrong idea. A part of him definitely was, but Alex could also tell that the new hire had plenty of issues, and this definitely reinforced that. The fact she wanted to sit with him, of all people, showed that something was wrong. Was it possible she was just desperate for human contact, or was this some kind of test?

He awkwardly took another bite of his Pita, the silence making it impossible to focus on his phone. Now that they were sitting together, he needed to say something, but what? Starting a conversation is a trivially easy task, but no matter how hard he tried, the words refused to form in his mind. 'How's the weather?'

Desperate for ideas, his thoughts drifted towards the familiar weight in his hand.

He gulped. If this was a test, he was probably about to fail it, but he had to say something…

Trinitite was running a few hours behind her scheduled resupply time, and she could feel it. The Abyssal hadn't stocked up like she would before a voyage, so her quartermaster's complaints had become louder and more persistent as she'd worked. Still, she'd been far too busy to get something to eat, with customers constantly flowing in throughout lunchtime.

Thus, when looked up from the grill and saw Alex ordering something as a customer, she'd practically begged Stephanie, the human assembling the burgers that she'd been grilling, to let her go for lunch. She hadn't talked much, and Trinitite got the impression that the human resented her, somehow, but she still agreed to take up Trinitite's duties while she resupplied.

After another fleetmate walked Trinitite through the procedure for taking a lunch break, she was free, ready to turn around and give her fleet some of the last of her hard-earned dollars. This 'paycheck' thing she'd heard about better work as promised, otherwise she'd be in dire straits indeed. Thankfully, by factoring in her employee discount, she was fairly sure this was the cheapest human food she'd had, ignoring the items she'd taken from the raid on Fred Meyers, of course. She should be able to stretch her reserves until that promised paycheck was supposed to arrive.

A few customers had gotten away with ordering more than one burger, so ordering was simply a matter of how many she could get without looking too suspicious. In the end, she erred on the side of caution and only ordered two burgers, one jumbo jack and a double bacon. She'd log how many supplies she got from each meal, eventually going through the entire menu and figuring out which one was the most efficient.

The plastic tray felt disconcertingly light in her hands, but she forced herself to ignore her hunger. This was only to tide her over until her 'shift' ended, after all. The abyssal wanted to find a nice corner to eat in, with her stern to a wall, a simple escape route, and no need to interact with humans, but going off and eating alone would have been seen as odd in the abyssal fleets, and nobody really did it in McCally Construction Group either, so as she scanned the restaurant interior, she could only see one option on where to eat.

Alex was sitting alone as well, but he was also the only fleetmate on lunch break until now. With fewer customers, the tables on either side of him were also empty, making him look vulnerable without any escorts or support, but maybe that impression was lingering from how he'd seemed so confused while training her.

…No, that wasn't the right word. Distracted, maybe.

Thankfully, he seemed busy with something on his 'phone.' She still wasn't sure why they were called that, with how little they seemed to share with her sound-powered phone system, but she was starting to recognize the utility. Too bad she didn't have the money to procure one of her own. The Abyssal quietly pulled a chair out, giving Alex a polite nod when he looked up from his phone. Thankfully, he didn't seem like he wanted to socialize either, as he soon returned his attention to the device. Perhaps there was some other issue outside of this fleet he was worried about, and he was busy with his phone to work towards solving.

Fine by her. The quiet would let her focus on the two hamburgers she would be inspecting.

Opening the first box, she grabbed the food inside, raising it up to look it over. She'd been handling plenty of these over the past several hours, so she definitely wasn't going to be discovering anything new, but she wanted to see it in a different context.

The hamburger reminded her more of her own attempts than the amazing meal she'd enjoyed from the food truck, which wasn't a great sign. A very light squeeze saw even fewer juices leaking out then her own attempts, as well. Was that good?

She took a bite.

This hamburger didn't have the bacon the food truck's did, and it was smaller, but otherwise it was pretty comparable. There were the familiar juices leaking out of the hamburger patty, but the meat was noticeably drier, like some of her experiments where she'd left the patty on the grill for a bit too long. Similarly, the Tomato was much drier as well, both it's tangy juices and the grease from the burger dwarfed by the flavor provided from the sauce.

Not that she didn't enjoy it. The earthy taste of hamburgers was still there, and it wasn't so dry that she found herself reaching for her soda, thankfully. The Wo-class would say it was good… but not great. Like someone had taken that first hamburger she'd had, and ground down the flavor a bit with an angle grinder. It was… duller, then what she'd been expecting, but it would do.

"Hey… Sarah?"

The abyssal jumped, almost crushing the hamburger in her grip. She'd forgotten Alex was there!

"Yeah?" She asked. Talking with humans in unguided conversations was always dangerous, but the Wo-class felt like actively avoiding them would seem even more suspicious!

"Do you, uh," He started, hesitating, "play any games?"

Oh deep, this question again. Unlike Sern's, though, Alex's question was a bit more open. She hadn't been interested enough to really investigate what video games were, but if he meant something else…

"What do you mean?" She asked, guarded.

"Well… you know." He started, looking away and scratching his neck. "Video games, role-playing games, wargames…"

A wave of relief swept over Trinitite. She knew what one of those was!

"Yeah, I've done wargames." She admitted, nodding.

"Really?" Alex recoiled, the surprise clear on his face. Had he not been expecting a proper answer? "Which ones?"

"Uh…"

Revealing that had been a mistake! Trinitite thought he'd been talking about something like fleet problems, but on reflection, humans couldn't really do those. Were there different types of wargames, fleet problems like those she'd done at Bikini only being one of them? Probably, but if that was the case, she wouldn't want to admit she'd only done wargames humans couldn't do, could she?

"It was…" She started, scrambling to figure out how she could fit wargames into her fake backstory. "...pretty complicated, and Mother never really told me what it was called."

"Oh." The human face fell a little, but he perked up again and asked. "You play any now?"

"No." She was eating right now, but he probably didn't mean the question like that.

"Okay, well." He started, looking back at his phone. "A couple friends and I play a wargame every Friday night, over at the local game store." He vaguely tilted his head, indicating somewhere further into Centralia. "You can drop by, see if you like it."

Trinitite had no idea what a human wargame would be like, or what potential risks there were in attending, but it might be worth a try. She'd already shown some interest, after all, and it backing out now would look odd, wouldn't it? Besides, if she only had to watch…

"Okay," Trinitite replied, "where is this game store?"

She was curious, after all.

Man, I just keep creating unnecessary research work for myself. I don't play 40k, but now I'm going to have to read through the rules real quick. Hopefully, referencing pop culture aspects I feel fit the character instead of those I know makes them feel like they fit into the story a bit more.

Sometimes pop culture references do add depth into the world, but sometimes they can be jarring. Using them like I am in this fic creates a slight danger of pulling someone out of the fiction because it can feel like the Author is just recommending something they like, instead of something that furthers the plot or character development. Hopefully I've managed to avoid that, and you've enjoyed, because I'm going to keep doing it for the rest of this fic...

Just point out any errors in execution I make.