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The Modern Workplace and You: Friday, Period 1

Some of you would be delighted to know that Babou was back in class this week. Others would probably be terrified. Choose your seats accordingly!

“So, let’s talk about Personal Safety,” Pam said. Okay, she hadn’t ever recovered her notes, from when Babou had shredded them; she was just gonna wing it. “This is important not just in the workplace, but in everyday life. Like, in case you do a lot of mescaline and think you’re a coyote, and chew up the furniture. Or, while you're high on mescaline, your dumbass roommate manages to freeze the whole house. Or even, say, if your boss makes you teach Gun Safety and you accidentally shoot a coworker. There are all kinds of bad things lurking around the corners, and it’s good to know how to prepare yourself for the worst.”

If you were wondering what Personal Safety had to do with the Modern Workplace, then clearly you weren’t working for an international spy agency or anything. And besides, Pam had been pretty high when she wrote the syllabus.

“Our house is beautiful and now you won't get all overheated and sweaty anymore!” Cheryl argued. “And yeah, okay, there's tons of bad shit you could run into. Like maybe if your coworker repeatedly threatens to pistol-whip you.” Mmmmm, Lana, someday you'd deliver. Someday. “Or like, let's say someone...for some reason...wants to kidnap you and, like, maybe they grab your coworker or something. That could happen.”

Maybe they'd grab your coworker because you were calling her by your own name. Just a thought.

“Anyway. That's the thing we're gonna focus on today: what to do if you get kidnapped. Which Pam knows way more about, because she got kidnapped once!” Good job, Cheryl. Make it sound like fun.

Pam looked less thrilled than Cheryl did, about this. “It sucked,” she announced. “They couldn’t punch for shit, and then my boss only offered a measly five grand to get me back. Then they were gonna cut my eyes out to get past the retinal scans, but I convinced ’em to just take me hostage and drag me along instead. I made ’em think I was on their side, which is one way to deal with bullshit kidnappers when your so-called friend gets you kidnapped instead of her.”

Oh, look, a death-glare in Cheryl’s direction!

“It was a case of mistaken identity,” Cheryl said, waving a hand. “So anyway, pair up. One of you is a kidnapper. One of you is the kidnappee. And it is your job, little captives, to figure out how you're gonna get the hell out of this by negotiating with your captors.” She grinned at them. “Sexual favors are allowed.”

“Theoretical sexual favors,” Pam hurried to add. “Ones you use conversationally as a negotiating tactic. Not real ones. Do not actually engage in sexual favors here in class, are we understood? That’s the kinda thing that teachers go to jail over.”

“Only if you get caught,” Cheryl stage-whispered, winking exaggeratedly.

(Live ocelot, round two!)

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"No, I suppose not," Elsa agreed, frowning a little as she remembered the boy who was making his luggage float behind himself, using science rather than magic. "This place on its own is unbelievable enough. Any island that can make me a master at crochet for a couple of days..."

She shook her head. At least she'd gotten some nice gloves (that she would never wear) out of the arrangement.

"I'm in the process of learning that the words 'that's impossible' really don't apply around here."

Edited 2014-01-24 23:47 (UTC)

"Not so much," Raven agreed. "But on the other hand, some of the bad stuff I always worried about back home apparently doesn't happen here at all."

"No?" Elsa looked at Raven curiously, biting her lip. "I've seen some people just... open up about things I wouldn't dream of talking about, where I'm from. It's jarring, a little."

Heck, she'd met somebody who had very similar powers to herself. What did she even do in the face of that?

"It really can be," Raven agreed. "Some of the stuff people around here do just as a matter of course would get them labeled a demon or evil or something back home. And I'm not from that long ago."

"I've noticed that, too," Elsa said, a little more softly. "That there are perfectly pleasant people here who are afraid of being taken for monsters, while other people will take the same thing and call it a gift, and encourage people to nurture... that."

That nondescript thing, there.

"It's a little confusing."

"You do start to get used to it, eventually," Raven said. "Well, sort of. And only slowly." She took a deep breath, unsure about whether she should admit to having a power, herself. She was trying to start being more open about it all, but Elsa had just said that she found it pretty overwhelming. "It's a whole paradigm shift, as my brother would say. So it just takes time."

Elsa would probably take the news with a grain of salt, and add it to the list of reasons why she was being ridiculous about hiding her own powers around here. It was still a bit of a work in progress.

"Well... time is something I have a fair bit of," Elsa replied. "I am going to be here for at least a couple of years. Maybe it will just start to seem like second nature before long."

She offered Raven a faint smile. "Just like your brother says, it's a shift. It's not a bad shift, I don't think. It's just... new."

"Totally new," Raven agreed. "I've been here since this summer, and it still throws me a little bit. Then the trick is . . . learning when to share your own secrets. Hiding is a hard habit to break."

"Especially," Elsa replied, "when you've been told that you have to conceal those secrets for most of your life."

She was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that they were relating to one another, here.

Just a smidge. "And you've always had to be careful, because it'd be so easy to accidentally let it out."

"And if it gets away from you and anybody sees?" She worried at her lip with her teeth for a moment. "It doesn't matter just how much a part of you it is. It's a secret for a reason."

Raven gave Elsa a small smile. "Exactly. But it's okay to slip up, here. That took way more getting used to than any of the tiny phone computers or the distinct lack of moon colonies."

"... And the moon colonies are another future thing? I did meet a boy who said something about people on Mars."

This place.

"But even that's treated like it's no big deal around here. People are just... used to it."

"In my time, everyone thinks that by this time, everyone will have flying cars and the moon will be just like Florida or something." Wait, did Elsa's time have a Florida? "I was really disappointed to find out it wasn't true."

Elsa's time probably didn't have a Florida. It might have had something similar to Florida with a weird name? But she was learning to take odd place names with a grain of salt, in any case.

"It looks like we'll have to wait at least a little bit longer, if the boy I met before getting on the... the shuttle... is telling the truth. Which he might very well be. But, honestly, I'll settle for electricity."

"Electricity is pretty nice," Raven agreed. "And have you seen the microwaves? I haven't tried one yet, but you can make soup in just, like, two minutes."

"I have!" And now Elsa was getting excited over kitchen appliances. Because electricity. "I haven't used one yet, either, but somebody did teach me how to use the stove. How it heats up with no fire at all is fascinating."

Elsa spent a lot of time boiling water, these days.

"We've had electric stoves and toasters and things for a little while when I'm from," Raven admitted. "But the microwave is just crazy. And ice and water right from the refrigerator door."

"Where I'm from, ice has to be harvested from lakes in the wintertime, and then kept stored through the summer," Elsa replied. "It's not something you can just toss carelessly into a drink like people do here."

Of course she never had that worry. And not even because of the powers. As a princess, that was one thing that she'd been spoiled with, growing up.

"That's crazy," Raven said. Because, you know, refrigerators and freezers had just been around forever in her world, right? "You'd have to drink all your soda warm."

Because so had soda.

"I only had soda for the first time on Wednesday," Elsa shared. "The bubbles take a little bit of getting used to."

Nobody was actually going to get kidnapped today, were they? Kidnapper and kidnappee had worked up a friendly rapport, and so, regardless of which was which, both girls were pretty much safe, here.

Socialization was a great skill for avoiding the dangers of kidnapping. They'd totally completed the assignment.

"Oh gosh," Raven said. "I can't imagine never having had soda before." She hadn't even been that young when she'd first tried it, but it was enough of a staple in her life, now, that she didn't remember that right away. "I like the bubbles. They make it taste clean to me."

"I wasn't expecting the bubbles or how sweet it was," Elsa admitted with a little smile. "I think I know what you mean when you say it tastes clean, though. It's... fresher, somehow, because of them. Even when they tickle your nose."

"Exactly. It's like it wakes up your whole mouth."

Raven maybe had something of a soda habit.

It was entirely possible that Elsa was going to develop one. It would go nicely with her chocolate habit.

"Well, there's certainly no falling asleep while you're drinking it," she agreed. "Not like tea."

The Modern Workplace and You: Friday, Period 1

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