Fam Away From Home

Maintenance Friends

In Personnel, Astra was showed around by the really excited girl. Were all Kandokans this weird or were all humans now? They were pretty weird to begin with. Corey walked quickly along the halls, but the immortal had no trouble keeping up. "Personnel is the least staffed section in the facility. Despite about 9,500 mandatory  staffing for below, we don't need 500 employees to monitor them. The GroupLoops and the system do it really well."

The brunette slowed. "Wait, wait, how many organic employees overall?" she asked. 

"About 9,563." 

Chocolate eyes bugged. "There's only 63 people in this department?"

Corey nodded. "And a lot of them are working from home these days. Frankie took bloody coffee maker. And so I was really surprised we had a new admit. We don't really have a cubical free, or anything really since we haven't had a new employee on this floor in forever. So the only available spot is Mr. Slade's assistant." 

Astra's face fell. She felt like she was back in the 1950s. Just be the secretary. Rolling her eyes, she followed the woman to the office, but thought deeply on the way. There was a quota and they weren't meeting it, but somehow getting away with it. As they turned the corner, Astra was deeply intimidated by the nothing. Nothing on the walls. One filing cabinet in the corner. A desk in the center. How was she supposed to look like she was doing something here? 

The man at the desk looked up from his computer. "What is this?" he demanded, quite rudely. 

"Your new roomy roommate." 

Brown eyes fell to the annoying girl. "Bye." The girl left no problem and Astra sighed, facing her apparent boss. "I needed a job. The First Lady got us on here, check my file, and this is where they put me. What is the job description for Mr...." she leaned in, examining the name, "Jarva Slade?" 

The man clenched his jaw. "You make rounds, like I do. You organize our notes in neat handwriting so I don't have to. And you stay out of my way." 

Astra gritted her teeth and resisted another eye roll. 

*

The home zone wasn't much of a home. It was an outdoors-like (did moons grow grass?) main area and they all hung out except the maintenance men. Graham was still uniformed up and leaning on a whole mop and bucket. But so was Astra. She had her clipboard for her assigned headcount and the extra sheets for odd reports. She had literally no training, but the paper was pretty straight forward. 

"So, just to be clear. You found Dan's scanner crushed?" the Doctor asked after the alarming news from their friendly neighborhood policegal. 

"I heard him yell and now there's no sign of him anywhere. We have to find him," Yaz insisted, obviously connected with him now. 

"These were Delivery Bots like the Kerblam Man?" the Doctor was still questioning. Yaz nodded. "Not the TeamMates?" Yaz shook her head. The Doctor took her and Ryan's hand and the couple took each other's because why not. "You two stay with me." She looked at the brunette. "I need you to find out the history of the company." Astra nodded, already think on how. The blonde stepped up to the man mopping up a spill on cement. "And I need you to try and get some plans of the complex." 

Graham stopped to listen to her, but as usual, he doubted the plan. "How am I going to do that?"

The Doctor stood a little stiffer. "You're perfectly placed. No one questions a cleaner. You've got unrestricted access."

"Yeah, and chronic skin irritation," the man retorted. 

The brunette stuck her head between them. "I just want to point out, she switched your jobs so you got what the system thought would be the best placement for the alien among us with two hearts and how many brains do you love to brag about?" Astra asked, directing the question at the woman who was flustered at the reminder that he'd got a job meant for someone in better shape.