I must address an issue most pressing: are these monsters capable of being utilized for the greater good? --61.3 Seconds Post-Integration.
Adam's smile was bright. Clearly, they were happy he said 'yes' to the tour. Clark was just happy he could stretch his legs, again.
Clark was brought to an unassuming closet space not far from the hidden interview room. "What could possibly be here?" he mentally muttered.
He watched Adam with all the rigor of a hawk. Adam brought their identification card to a hook near the side. The hook beeped, then slid back a portion of the wall, revealing a passage. Together, they walked through the passage, the door closing automatically behind them, as seemed to him the fashion in the tower.
Adam brought him down the short corridor to a stout room filled with busy people. From the outside, all was silence. Was they entered the room, a wall of sound hit them. Phones rang, copiers rumbled, and clerks shuffled paperwork to and fro like busy beavers repairing their home. He hadn't expected to see so many people working so busily in this strange, secluded office. "Let's go to my private cubicle."
Nodding, Adam's private cubicle was how it sounded -- a cubicle like any other, tethered on each side by makeshift walls, except, his had a small sliding door and extendable ceiling he could pull over the open points for added privacy. It did not keep all the sound of the outside office from leaking in, but it did block an impressive amount of the discord.
"Now, I can give you the full spiel -- complete with slideshow!"
The slideshow was a series of images with brief titles.
An image of a piggybank: Title: 'What Compensation and Benefits does Qoon offer Associates?'
An image of a clock: Title: 'What're your Working Hours as a Qoon Associate?'
And so on, one image and one title per every relevant point of Qoon work.
Clark was impressed with the presentation. He had no clue how one made such a presentation, so to him, Adam's pitch seemed original and engaging. 'The colors, the sounds, the way it all melded with familiar objects but to tell the story of the store -- wonderful!' he cried.
"What do you think? You must have a million questions. Or maybe the only question you have is 'where do I sign?' In which case, then..." Adam said, his voice a pitch higher than usual as he slid across the table a contract.
"I think I will hold off on signing a contract, thank you," he told Adam, pushing the paper slightly back toward the man. "That said, I do have questions. The first and foremost among my questions is simply this: might I sleep on it?"
"Seep? Of course! It is an important decision. One I and the store would not expect you to make after only one presentation. As for your specialist departments, do you have another department or two in mind?"
Clark knew from his Computer Based Learnings, or CBLs, that an Associate could have up to three departments listed as their specialty. If he signed on with this 'Qoon' agency, it would take up one of his three departments. He already knew he wanted the anti-monster league to take up a second department. Which meant he still had one specialist department to indicate; with the sheer number of places he could work within Augustford, he needed to consider carefully where he would dedicate his time.
"The anti-monster league, but I am unsure on the third," he replied. "In any case, I think a few days, no, a week, will be enough time for me to consider. Give me until the end of the month and I will have an answer for you."
"The end of the month you have! Well! Since our meet is at its end, let me escort you back to the sales floor."
Adam led him to an elevator tube near the restrooms of the hidden cubicle space. They squeezed into the tube, which was smaller than the tubes he was used to using, so he had to get creative in how he allocated his body. Pressed against Adam, the tube jettisoned itself down its passage. Twist and turns, it zoomed through sections of the store; although most of the store could not be seen as their tube hurried itself through the tunnel, some store walls had transparent coding from their side, which rendered the space beyond visible.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Beautiful, ain't it?" Adam asked.
"Yes. Incredible." Was all he said, awe-struck by the sights afforded to him by whizzing through the air in the tube-pod, seeing massive expanses of the store, entire floors, even, pressed together as layers in a sandwich. He couldn't believe how high up they were or how quickly they were moving.
"By the way," Adam started. "Join Qoon and you will see a lot more of this," 'of this' they meant the grand sight unfolding before them, of seeing the Tower as only birds typically did.
"I will add it to the list of benefits, then." A benefit Adam forgot to mention was how he earned experience points simply by talking to a member of Qoon. Though Clark wouldn't learn of that benefit for some time, he saw the result immediately when he leveled up from eighteen to nineteen.
Only a small part of the tube's travel involved gazing out toward the store through the invisible walls. Most of the journey was a normal elevator ride. When they reached their destination, the sales floor he was taken from at the start of the day, Adam indicated the time clock, smiled, and bid him farewell -- until their next meeting, that is.
Not wanting to waste time or his metrics, Clark clocked out and shot off a message to his work detail explaining, super shortly, what happened. Not able to wait around for their responses, Clark had to get himself over to the basement classroom for his Betterment class on reading and writing.
When his class, and day, ended, he collapsed onto his bed. "I want to go to sleep..." he moaned. He couldn't, of course. He still had homework to do.
And SIMP to chat with about the day's events.
"SIMP: take away thoughts on this Qoon matter?" he asked.
"I think you handled the situation well. Until the end of the month is a reasonable timeframe. That will give you plenty of time to think of how you want to handle this secret department moving forward. Today, though, laddie, you and I both learned something -- that Augustford has their hands in more places than we might have thought. I have been the Dungeon's Spiritual Consciousness for a while, now, and even I didn't know that Augustford had secret departments. That says something, methinks, about how paranoid they have become as a company." SIMP spoke with authority in their tone. Calmly, but with certainty.
"Paranoia? What do you mean?"
"I've told you already of the store's coup -- where they edged out their partners in maintaining the tower, myself, and the Ruling Council. Before their coup, Augustford handled mostly peacekeeping actions as part of their service to the Gods. They did as ask and feared no one was talking slack about them. The notion of the old Augustford setting up 'secret departments' to spy on their own workers. It is, or would've been, outrageous to think about!" SIMP's edge was emotional. Clearly, this point in time meant a lot for them. "Clark. I am sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. We should make haste to prepare our response to this, though I think you and I share the same opinion on how to proceed. You seemed intent during the meeting; I took this to mean you plan on joining Qoon?"
"Joining?" he was surprised. "No. I was going to string them along and then reject their offer. Why would I want to work for spies? Why would you want me to work for spies?!"
SIMP snorted. "Our waves aren't the same after all! Good to know my champion hasn't yet acclimated to my digital body!" SIMP paused. When they spoke next, their tone was calm. "I say you should join. Why? Because it is the easiest way for us to understand just what Augustford is doing."
"This is going to mean a whole bunch of extra work..." he despaired.
"Work you will end up doing regardless. Work which might nudge out the lower-tiered work which Associates of your rank typically handle. Take it from me, kid, someone who has been around for a long time. Variety is the spice of life when it comes to retail. When you get bored, you get complacent. Get complacent, and you grow dissatisfied. Grow dissatisfied and find out firsthand how long you last at a place you hate. Something tells you this is all beside the point anyway. They want you as a trophy. They want to influence you."
"What are you trying to say? That I am not actually going to be a fulll-time Qoon guy?"
"Bingo! They will teach you only as much as they need to teach you, so you aren't a total profit drain. They want you to observe the threat to their power firsthand. To eventually bend you to their will. As a counter, I like your idea of 'stringing them along.' If possible, you should try and eke another week or as long as you can before it becomes comical."
Clark moaned. He took the pillow out from under him and placed it over his head so he could scream. One good scream later, and he felt better.
"Noted. But I shouldn't string them along too much, not if our goal is to infiltrate their secrets..." His eyes were heavy. He needed some sleep. Soon!
"A fair point. I will entrust you with all the 'stringing' details, then. You appear to have a good handle, there."
"Thanks... okay. I'm going to sleep, now. If I don't get my Zzzs, I am going to lose it."
"Very well. Goodnight, Clark."
"Goodnight, SI--" Suddenly, a thought came to him. "SIMP: how am I and Theo and Hera going to get back to the dwarf pod? Hasn't the crevice closed up by now?"
How Did Your Workplace Handle Training?
