Meats trudged past the wire fences and gatehouses that lined the streets of the BVIP, each step heavier than the last. His house wasn't quite far enough from the warehouse to pay for bus fare, and not quite close enough to be a short walk. He could already feel sweat squelching in his boots before he even entered the parking lot.

As he made his way past the rows of vehicles between himself and the warehouse entrance he noticed a crowd forming on the far end of the docks. He drew closer, taking note of the ambulance they were huddled around. Siobhan was towering over a small group, shading them from the setting sun.

"What's going on? Someone get hurt?" Meats asked, quickly moving himself into Siobhans shadow.

"Indeed. Killed, actually." She responded gloomily. Meats noticed that she wasn't looking at the ambulance or the warehouse. She was staring at the Tilio dome, visible on the horizon from it's location at the center of Boris-Valka.

"Who was it? Anyone we know?" Meats asked. He wasn't that curious, the turnover rate here made it hard to get attached to most of the other employees.

"Lafayette, trainer for maintenance. Case fell off the sixth level, thirty pounder. He wasn't wearing his helmet." Siobhan informed him. Meats heart sank a bit.

"Not Benny. He trained me when I was on dayside, you know. He's got... had, grandkids. That's fucking depressing." Meats commented, shaking his head. He was going to miss the man. He didn't know him that well, but he could still remember his voice.

"Staint wants to see you. Something about a trainee." Siobhan said after a few minutes of somber silence.

"Damn, guess I'm the new trainer by default. I've never been the training sort. Too much talking. You'd think they could hire more than one trainer what with being the biggest meat production company on the planet. Guess I'll see you inside then." Meats commented, leaving Siobhan with a small pat on her extremely large shoulder.

"Indeed." Siobhan agreed, an air of detached sadness in her customary response. Meats paused before he stepped away. He'd never known Siobhan to be particularly cheery, but he'd certainly never seen her this melancholy.

"You, uh, going to be okay Siobhan? You can head home for tonight if you want. You've got plenty of off hours, and I can cover things." Arnold said, leaning over to look her in the face. A sad smile cracked across Siobhans face.

"Thank you for the gesture, but I will be okay. He was the oldest human here. Nearly seventy years old. Being nearly six hundred myself I can't help but feel like we had a bit in common. I hope you grow old enough to understand yourself one day." She replied, sighing as she adjusted her headdress.

"Well, when that day comes you'll probably still be around. I guess we can talk about it then. I'm going to get in there before Staint puts me down as late." Arnold reassured her. If Siobhan was on the tail end of her 6th century she'd probably live long enough to see Benny's grand children die. He decided not to mention this.

As Meats walked away towards the office doors his thoughts turned towards the trainee. He was terrible at this sort of thing. It mostly had to do with talking to them, but he wasn't entirely fond of having to find them things to do either. Oh, he could send them to replace struts and grease bearings all day but you really needed to run the gambit with them to make sure you weren't wasting your time.

A few hours in the hyper freezer was enough to make anyone doubt their dedication to a paycheck. But the hyper freezer had just been inspected two weeks ago and that was a once every three month sort of thing. There was only a single pallet inside and it had been here longer than Meats had. What was there to logically have them do in there?

Allowing his mind to subconsciously flick through the various tasks he might find for the newbie to watch him do, Meats clocked in and headed up towards Staints office. As he reached the frosted glass door labeled "Rittula Staint Warehouse Manager", he heard the faint sounds of voices coming through. This alone wouldn't have caught his attention, but from what he could tell there were three people.

'Of course, it couldn't be just one.' Meats thought, shifting the parameters of the search going on in his head. It was still coming up blank.

"Struts and bearings it is then." Meats muttered as he pushed open the office door.

"Ah, Kady, Tom, I'd like you to meet Arnold Meats. He's the night shift maintenance lead. He'll be the one in charge of you for the length of your training." Staint explained, getting up from her desk. Sitting in the two seats in front of it were a human and a Tar-Khal.

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The two of them stood up. Meats eyed them both from top to bottom. The man was young, early twenties perhaps. A bit on the thin side for this sort of work, but a few months trudging around in fifty pounds of enviro suit would change that. It had certainly done it to him.

The Tar-khal was a more difficult puzzle to put together. He knew a bit about their physiology, well enough to know that Kady was female. It was the head crest. Females were more streamlined while male Tar-Khal sort of stuck upwards. Siobhan said it was old physiology from before mating rituals had become more fluid.

Other than that he didn't have much point of reference. She had bright eyes. Certainly brighter than Toms. Man looked like he was about to leap across the room at him. Actually they were the eyes of someone who already had. He'd seen eyes like that before.

"Nice to meet the both of you. Call me Meats." Meats said, extending a hand in between them. He was right to assume Kady would be the first to shake it.

"Kady Keltakas, lovely to make your acquaintance. I hope w- I can learn much from you." Kady commented, shaking Meats hand vigorously. It was a firm but knowingly loose grip.

'She knows how to physically interact with humans. There's the first hurdle, hopefully she can finish the race.' Meats thought, letting go of Kadys claw. There was a moment of awkward silence before she nudged Tom with her elbow.

"Tom, Tom Mattheson." Tom said as he shook Meats hand limply. Meats let the handshake end early, slipping his hand back into his pocket.

"Pleased to meet the both of you. Mattheson, huh? I knew a Mattheson back when I lived in East Lotta. Wouldn't happen to know a Dante Mattheson would you?"Meats asked, offering up a wistful smile.

"Dante's my uncle, yeah, he said you might be working here." Tom answered, nodding his head and shifting his feet around a bit. Meats waited awkwardly for him to continue but was only met with silence.

"Oh, uh, good then. Hope he's doing well. Rittula, you wont mind if I send them down to the maintenance office for a moment would you?" Meats asked, ending the introductions as promptly as he could.

"That's fine. I need to talk to you about a few things actually." Staint said, looking up from a few papers she had been inspecting.

Tom and Kady gathered up their suits and paperwork folders and exited the office. Meats stared at Rittula. She was still pouring over the stacks of paper littering her desk.

"So?" Meats asked impatiently. He wasn't particularly in the mood for an argument. He had too many subroutines running in his mind as it was. Rittula looked up from her papers.

"There's been an incident." She said, the stress of the last few hours showing on her face.

"I'm aware. Shame ol' Benny had to go that way." Meats commented, crossing his arms. He watched for any sign of emotion on her face.

"While that is a significant loss, I was actually referring to a different incident." Staint corrected, turning towards the screen at the far end of the office.

'A significant loss huh? Figures you'd see it that way.' Meats thought as he watched her fiddle with her tablet. He couldn't stand the way she dealt with things. Just push them under the rug and move to the next emotionless issue as fast as she could.

"A cherry picker has gone missing, truck 42B to be exact." Staint said as a large map appeared on the screen. Meats squinted a bit. The tracker dots were all labeled with their respective unit IDs. All but one were lined up along their chargers.

"Room 42, aisle 326, bay 9 huh? Who even took it that far out? We don't even have product in those racks. Haven't for at a least a few years." Meats asked, dropping his standoffish demeanor. He might actually be able to help.

"Benny, actually. But, he wasn't hit by the case back there. They found him in room 3, aisle 7. Nearly eight miles from the truck." Staint stated, drawing a little red circle near the front of the warehouse. Meats looked at the positioning, searching for any sort of correlation.

"He walked back? Hell of a trip for a guy his age. If the tracker is still running then the lift couldn't have been out of juice, right?" Meats asked, trying not to look as confused as he was.

"Yes, but he didn't walk. It only took him an hour and a half from his last login until the activation of his emergency beacon in room 3 where we found him." Staint said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"8 miles? In an hour and a half? The old man must have been practically sprinting to make up that sort of ground! He wasn't some sort of runner in his spare time was he?" Meats said, his mouth agape.

Benny wasn't exactly in terrible shape, you couldn't be in this job, but those were certainly a younger mans numbers. Meats himself couldn't have ran that unless he was doing so for his life. Plus if you factored in the temperature of the air, and the weight of a suit, you'd be ready to pass out after the first twenty minutes.

"Not that we know of. We've asked around and he never said anything about it if he was. Meats, I need you to go investigate the lift while I deal with the fires to put out up here. I'd go myself but I'm buried under a mountain of paperwork here." Staint said, frustration leaking into her voice.

Meats sighed. He really wished she hadn't said that. Two new trainees, a dead mentor, and now this. His day was quickly becoming the worst he'd had in months.

"Fine, I'll take care of it. But if you find me dead miles away from my lift you'd best not send Siobhan back there. She'd be the only one left who knows the older systems like I do, and she's a sweet heart." Meats snapped, making his way towards the door.

"Meats! Be careful! And if you end up dead, I'll go back there myself. That's a promise." Staint shouted as he left the office. Meats shut the door quickly.

'That'd be an even worse idea. Then I wouldn't have anyone to haunt.' Meats thought, making his way down the stairs and towards the maintenance bay.