Shaggy swore under his breath again and looked back at the approaching group of K-Tech guards. They were all wearing black plastic-looking armor that Shaggy assumed was standard for their corporation. The lead soldier, a squat, tough-looking purple alien, was sizing up Shaggy and his friends as he and four other guards approached. They had been at the edge of the street, but the K-Tech guards jogged over. Shaggy felt it best to stay put, otherwise they would risk another running battle through Austin. Which was fun, but not what they needed right now.
As they got closer, the leader raised an armor clad fist and his fellow guards stopped and covered their leader with mean-looking energy rifles. At least, that’s Shaggy assumed they were. The normal circular barrel of standard gun was replaced with a long rectangular shaped opening. Shaggy was sure he saw blue arcs of energy crisscross the opening.
“I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
Shaggy racked his brain for a reasonable lie, but Vlad and Slink beat him to it.
“We’re looking for work.”
“We heard there was a construction company out here.”
The alien guard quirked an eyebrow but said nothing as he glanced at the five of them. Dave gave a cheery wave as he was assessed, while Shaggy and Ren nodded in agreement at their friend’s explanation. Shaggy looked for a name tag or any other identifying marks on the man’s armor, but he couldn’t find anything. If he hadn’t run into this same type of armor in the junkyard in Under-Town, he would’ve never known these guys were K-Tech.
Shuffling under the man’s scrutinizing gaze, Shaggy and his friends waited for the guard to finish. Once he had studied each of them a few times, he sighed heavily.
“Well, you’re in the right place. That building back there is Spiegal Brother’s Construction.”
Vlad nodded understandingly. “Ohhhh. Kind of a lot of guards for a construction site. Isn’t it?”
The K-Tech guard snorted. “No kidding. But the city wants all the construction companies protected as they focus on rebuilding. So each site was given three full squads from the various security firms and corporations in Austin.”
He waved for them to follow as he turned back to his cadre of soldiers and waved a hand.
“You boys are right on time. As I understand it, the Spiegal Brothers are a little short-staffed right now. Something about their people being scared off by giant robots.”
Shaggy shared a glance with Ren as they walked slowly behind the talkative guard. Vlad looked to be listening intently as Dave and Slink nodded amicably at the other guards, who took up positions around their little group. Ren gave Shaggy a quick shrug and continued walking. Shaggy kept one ear on the purple alien’s ramblings, but mostly he spent the time quickly cataloging the guard’s scent trails. He didn’t know if it would be helpful, but he figured knowing where the guys with the big energy guns were was probably a good thing.
They passed through a large brick archway and into the construction site proper. Well, Shaggy didn’t think it was an actual construction site. More of an office building surrounded by a few warehouses. People rushed around carrying boxes while forklifts and giant aliens carried the heavier loads to nearby trucks. Shaggy saw one of Blobby’s race of aliens rapidly sorting through packages with their lime-green tentacles. He wasn’t sure what packages went through a construction company, but he filed it away.
Their guide, Skor’atch, lead them to the office building at the center of the site and waved a plastic card at the reader next to the front door. The door buzzed loudly and the purple alien led them inside. A cool blast of A/C hit them all and Shaggy even saw some guards sigh in relief at the cool breeze. But they quickly rallied themselves back to their stoic looks as they were hustled toward the front desk.
A young blond man was seated at the desk, tapping away at a Holo-Terminal. The man barely spared them a glance as their rather large group crowded up to his chest-high counter. Shaggy grimaced as they waited to be acknowledged. He always hated when receptionists did this. He could clearly see them. At least say hi. But the blond punk just kept tapping away until he finished what he was doing and sent the lot of them a saccharine smile that Shaggy didn’t believe for a minute.
“Hello. My name is Luke. How may I help you today?”
Skor’atch snorted as he waved at Shaggy and his friends. “We got some volunteers for you.”
“Uh, we were actually hoping for paid positions, actually.” Vlad quickly interjected.
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Shaggy nodded dumbly before he remembered they weren’t actually here for jobs. Luke scanned them all briefly before he nodded and started digging for something under his counter. Shaggy hoped the Skor’atch and his guards would leave, but the stubborn bastards seemed content to relax in the cool office air. Dave was wandering off toward a water fountain, while Slink and Ren watched Luke dig through his desk. Shaggy spun slowly and took in the entire reception area.
Other than Luke’s large wall-to-wall desk in the center of the room, the room was pretty sparse. Chairs dotted the wall opposite the large desk, clearly there for people to wait in. Along the western wall were two brown swinging doors leading further into the office building. On the eastern side were two doors with large blue signs that read bathroom. Shaggy returned his gaze to Luke as the blond-headed man came up from behind the desk with a pile of paperwork and a weird grey box.
Luke set the box on his counter and flared a few sheets of paper in front of them. Dave ran back over just in time to shoot Luke a quick “Thanks, dude.”
Luke raised an eyebrow at Dave’s tone as he explained. “These are standard contracts for freelance workers operating under the Spiegal Brothers. In them you will find that you are not, nor can you identify yourself as a member of the Spiegal Brothers corporation. Also, there is a waiver which absolves the Spiegal Brothers of all responsibility if you are hurt during the course of your duties. If you perform the duties assigned to you adequately, the Spiegal Brothers may upgrade your contract to part-time employment. However, that will only be done after a full month of recorded work and if there are any infractions of demerits, you will be let go. Questions?”
Shaggy had a very hard time keeping the disgusted look off his face as he stared down at the freelance contract. It was a shit deal, for certain, and he wasn’t entirely sure they should all go through with it. But Vlad had almost immediately picked up a pen and was filling out the forms. Shaggy sighed as he watched the others follow the vampire’s lead. He picked up a pen Luke had set on the desk and began filling out the various questions on the sheet.
They were mostly standard questions. Name, species, birthday, address. Shaggy made up most of it as he quickly filled out the paperwork. Once he got to the section on special skills and abilities, though, he stopped. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go around shouting that he was a werewolf. So after a quick think, he just put down he was a mildly enhanced mutant. After skimming the contract a few times, Shaggy finally placed it back on the counter and glanced at his friends.
The guards had all filed out of the reception area at some point, and Vlad and Ren were in a couple of seats, murmuring. Dave was still at the counter along with Slink. Both looked like they were taking a test they hadn’t studied for as they slowly filled out their paperwork. After a few more slow minutes, they finished and Luke took their papers.
“Thank you. You’ll be happy to know that the company is currently offering freelancers an extra two hundred credits a day because of the current crisis within the city. However, that is only after the completion of the day’s work and only after a certified Spiegal Brothers employee checks off on your work.”
As he spoke, Luke was feeding their papers into the strange grey box he had placed on the desk. After a short whirring noise, the box spat out five white ID cards. Luke placed them on the counter and Shaggy and the others grabbed them. They were simple IDs with no pictures, just their names and the areas they would be working. Shaggy glanced back at the grey box, but Luke was already putting it back under his counter.
Shaggy spun his ID for the others to see. “I got the warehouse.”
“Same.” Said Ren.
“Offices.” Slink mumbled.
“Yo, dudes, I got deliveries. Like, what deliveries does a construction company do?”
Shaggy ignored Dave as Ren explained he was probably moving boxes with a forklift or driving a truck. Vlad was next to the counter, gripping it tightly as he stared at his ID. Shaggy raised an eyebrow and walked around to see where the vampire would be going. Once he saw, he smiled and nodded his head.
“Office supply clerk. Not bad.”
Vlad shot him a withering look, but said nothing as Luke coughed.
“Ahem, excuse me, but if you are done? Well, for the warehouse workers, you can go right back outside along with our deliveryman. As for the supply clerk and the office gopher, you are going to need to go through those double doors and follow the signs to the third floor offices. Have a nice day.”
Shaggy grunted at the obvious dismissal and headed for the door. He shot Vlad an evil grin before he made it outside. But the sudden sun in his face dampened his mood sharply. Shaggy and the others pocketed their IDs and started walking toward the nearest warehouse. Shaggy could see the large group of K-Tech guards still crowded around the front gate.
“Why the hell are they just loitering like that? Shouldn’t they be patrolling or something?” Shaggy muttered, jerking his head at the group.
Ren snorted. “Pfft. That would be the case if they wanted to be here or do their jobs. Just look at them. They are obviously bored. Hell, they flagged us down all the way across the street just to have something to do.”
Shaggy shrugged as he turned toward the large grey metal warehouse beside the brick office building. “Well, that should make working around them easy enough.”
“So, like, what’s the plan, anyway?” Dave asked.
Shaggy stopped as he tried to think of a course of action. Normally, he would just burst in and start breaking stuff. But they had been far more subtle about this entire operation than he was used to. Luckily, Ren helped him out.
“We do our jobs and gather information. We need to know where to hit these people. The high-tech guards at the front gate are going to be a challenge anyway, but we might find some way to sabotage this complete business from within. So be on the lookout and memorize what you can.”
Shaggy grumbled as they entered a sweltering hot metal warehouse. “Would be easier if we could just set the damn place on fire.”
Ren snorted. “Sure. If you can do that without alerting the K-Tech guards, go ahead and try. I’m going to figure out how we can mess these guys up and maybe profit from it.”
Shaggy was about to ask how Ren was going to turn this into a profit, but he was interrupted by the guttural yell of some alien.
“HEY! You, the new meat? Get your asses on the line and start moving those materials into the trucks. We have sites that need those materials ASAP. Also, whichever one of you geniuses is our truck driver, come with me and we’ll get you a truck. If any of you damage anything, it is coming out of your paychecks. Understand me!?”
The surly and furry alien woman glared at all of them, before she spun on a heel and started walking away. Dave quickly moved to follow as Ren and Shaggy glanced around at the pallets of brick and wood that filled the warehouse. New pallets were being brought in as human and alien workers shifted the pallets. Some used forklifts while others just lifted whole pallets up and found the corresponding truck to place them in.
Shaggy grumbled under his breath again as he moved toward a pallet and read the tag on its cellophane wrapped surface. A truck number was clearly printed on the side and he grumbled again as he debated lifting the thing or finding a forklift or pallet-jack. Ren had stopped near a pallet of wood slats and simply lifted them into the air before he gave Shaggy a jaunty salute and wandered off.
Shaggy swore under his breath this time as he gave his pallet a few practice lifts. He grunted under the thing’s weight, but he figured he could lift the thing toward the nearest truck and chuck it in. But that would exhaust him fast. Instead, he found a pallet-jack and dragged the pallet near its truck and just lifted the thing in. A few of the other workers watched him for a few seconds, but eventually they went back to their own work. He kept his ears open as he wound the pallet-jack through the various pallets, sighing all the while.
It was going to be a long workday.