“Welcome to orientation. Pay attention, or your screaming soul will gain no sympathy from me after Daniel rips it from your twitching, hairless ape of a corpse. That warning issued. Please hold any questions to the end of the spiel HR wants me to go on.”
The oversized sprite standing at the front of the room said.
The room was empty of other people besides Jeremy. The oddness of several hundred various types of desks in the cavernous room only emphasized how alone he was with the sprite. Jeremy rubbed his temples briefly at jumping at this chance, wondering if the migraine he could feel coming on was worth it.
The sprite in a three-piece double-breasted suit was only about a head shorter than Jeremy’s frame and oddly showed slight wrinkles near his eyes. After Jeremy’s two-year stint as Jack of most trades at the retirement home, he was used to odd portions of most of his tenant’s appearances. The fey touched usually didn’t show signs of aging, though the six dragonfly wings were impressive. They made an unexpected compliment to the dark blue suit with their iridescent shimmering.
“My name is not to be sullied by your human tongue, so you may address me as Mr. Brown. I am your immediate supervisor here at scheduling. I am responsible for seeing to it you get some on-the-job training your first few days and laughing at your demise in an appropriately grisly manner, should it occur as expected.
“The rules for this storage facility are similar to what you were used to working directly under Mr. Habit. Accept no chosen positions and keep out of destiny’s embrace. PTO is two weeks, available at the end of every quarter. If you do not take the time, it does not roll over, and your next quarter starts immediately. Your new 401k wrath plan matches your contributions up to sixty-nine percent, tripling the total amount accrued and putting it into escrow.
“The escrowed amount shall be divined. Yes, divined, our deific accountant branch handles the appropriate amounts, and no, you don’t get a say. One portion will be given to your beneficiary, the other to the contracted party seeking vengeance against your death. Alternatively, you may start drawing against its balance at the age of fifty-nine-point-five years.
“I know this is boring, but HR will have my wings if I don’t finish the preamble. Please bear with me. We’re almost done.”
Mr. Brown briefly consulted some three-by-five cards he withdrew from his pocket. Frowning, he continued,
“Medical benefits are covered one hundred percent for you and your dependents, not including resurrection. Despite the name Undead Healer Services, UHS will not foot the bill for it, so don’t ask.
“Stock options are not a thing for mortals. Your hourly rate is currently set to the minimum established by the Pixies Union at one ounce of pure gold per day, and your union dues are one-quarter of an ounce of pure gold per day.
“They took pity on mortals and fought for your rights to fair wages after the sentient tomato sauce incident, so don’t piss them off with a late due payment. If you understand your benefits as I’ve explained them to you, please state, ‘But what about-. ‘”
Jeremy waited a moment for the sprite to finish, then replied,
“I was informed that I could allot a percentage of my new daily income to a relative or loved one. Who do I speak to about that?”
The sprite rolled his eyes at the purple-striped drop ceiling of the room and said with exasperation,
“Damn it, that usually works…Financial sustenance for your ‘loved ones’ can be discussed with our bursar’s office. I will take you there after lunch. Please acknowledge your acceptance of these terms.”
Jeremy showed no outward frustration or facial tics at the fey dismissing his concerns. He was familiar with the word traps his previous tenant liked, so he didn’t preface his following statement with the tricky statement,
“How long are lunch breaks? How many breaks of what length do I get per day? What is the downtime between shifts, how long are the shifts, who is most likely to kill me?”
The sprite’s laughter rang out in an ominous echo throughout the room,
“Oh, you should do well here, Jeremy. Don’t try that with anyone else but me. Lunch is one hour taken after the highest point of stress during the day, four breaks of thirty minutes each to be determined by your training companion at the time, our shifts are eight hours off with seventeen on, you shouldn’t go mad before the next fiscal year from just the schedule. You are most likely to be killed by your hubris. Thrice I ask, and done. Do you accept?”
Jeremy held his chin as he weighed whether it was worth antagonizing his direct supervisor by breaking a fey’s compulsive need to be done with a question after the third repetition.
He decided not and said,
“But what about-“
“Good! No more inane questions! Let’s get you to your first station with Oog and Ik. They heard a new victim…apologies. I meant a new employee was starting today, and they are eager to help you get adjusted into proper scheduling procedures. They are a pair of great, stand-up, reliable guys. Please put your Personal Destiny Protective Equipment on, and we’ll get going.
Mr. Brown walked to a door along one wall and retrieved a set of the mentioned PDPE from a table near it. Jeremy stood from his overly tiny desk. The other seating available had been far too large or eccentric for him to sit in. Then he walked to the table as well.
He donned the silver-lined cowboy hat with a silver star centered on it, belted on the holstered squirt gun filled with holy water, slipped the unicorn fleece-lined booties over his shoes, and lastly, strapped the glowing belt of not-so-infinite brightness across his chest.
Jeremy was used to making preparations against fantasy shenanigans on the fly, so he was pleased to have them given to him instead of having to make due. Mr. Brown observed his actions to ensure the minimum safety standards were observed before waving him to follow.
Jeremy followed Mr. Brown out of the doorway and stayed inside the yellow and black hazard-taped pathway as they started to trundle through the facility. The hallways they traversed were stark, white, and bare of decoration. The only color Jeremy could see was the hazard tape outlining a path down the almost ethereal white hallway.
Mr. Brown started up another monologue as Jeremy’s training truly began,
“Here in scheduling, we are responsible for getting all the things of power, swords of destiny, and objects of immutable providence where they need to be when they need to be there. Security is always over-eager to find and correct holes, so never go anywhere without your badge. They will obliterate you and ask questions in their reports at the end of the quarter.
“After you finish basic training, you will be given a permanent personal pad of providence to ensure you know what needs to be delivered, when, and where. Don’t get hung up on it being labeled as providence. That’s just the name marketing came up with. Bunch of zealots, those guys.
“For now, your training companions will be responsible for showing you the basics of safe packaging and scheduling of said delivery. You will not be cleared for shelf-to-destination hand delivery until you complete your stealth and precision drop-off training at the end of your second quarter here.
“We don’t want another ring getting lost for five centuries. The last incident report for that occurring was murder on at least two races and spawned a saga we still can’t get away from.
“Every object within our purview has sentience of one degree or another, and they are very particular about being handled by anyone other than their destined chosen one, even if they may not know who that is. So, if all else isn’t working, courtesy sometimes will avert the apocalypse.”
Mr. Brown slowed his walk to a stop. He reached out to a random spot on the wall and tapped out a rhythm on the wall. A shape grew from the floor against the wall into the outline of a door.
Mr. Brown turned to Jeremy with a more stern expression,
“You’re the first mortal we’ve had since the Excalibur incident. To prevent me from having to do all of this again any time soon, please listen to Oog and Ik. They’ve been here almost as long as I have, and their reviews always come up ‘Unexpectedly competent.’”
Mr. Brown opened the door, ushering Jeremy inside. The room he entered was filled with cubicles of various creatures of differing appearance. The ten-foot ceiling and cubicle walls limited how far Jeremy could observe, but it was enormous. He could tell that much.
Jeremy turned to address Mr. Brown with a question, to find no one behind him and a blank wall. He chuckled nervously at the shenanigans of his new phase of employment starting to show. He turned around to look for who he was supposed to start training with.
He stumbled into another hairy wall as he turned away from the now blank wall behind him. Staggering back, he looked up to observe that the wall he had run into was a two-legged monstrosity that brushed the ceiling with its abnormally large, security-badged hat. Its PDPE hat was comically large to fit the enormous furry noggin.
Jeremy couldn’t help himself,
“Ludo?”
“Nope, sorry, man. He’s down in the bursar’s office, and he pronounces it Yuudoh for tax purposes. Morning bro! I’m Oog. I’m one of your trainers this morning. Didn’t mean to startle you there.”
Jeremy was disturbed by the sheer size of the creature addressing him. The large claws at the end of either arm and the tusks sprouting from their jaw didn’t help. It didn’t attack him or seem aggressive, even with the over-toothed smile, so he was extra polite in his response.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Oog. I’m Jeremy. Thank you for finding me so quickly. I am looking forward to working with you and Mr. Ik.”
Oog’s laugh boomed, rattling the nearest cubicle. A goblin head popped over the wall of one of the cubicles, glaring at the giant hairy creature. It squawked in alarm at finding the source of the disturbance, disappearing back into the safety of its cubicle.
“No need for the mister, bro. We’re a little more informal here, what with the terrible fate risk and all, we try to keep things light. Follow me. Ik is waiting for us to get started.”
Jeremy followed Oog through the maze of cubicles for a time until they reached a set that was scaled to the size of his new supervisor. Walking into the cavernous cubicle space, Jeremy saw another of the giant hairy creatures sitting at a desk with an oversized headset to fit their massive cranium.
In addition to the standard, if oversized, phone, there were the usual detritus one could expect in a standard office cubicle. A series of cutesy family pictures of the pair on a vacation in someplace tropical pinboarded against one wall. Jeremy thought the miniature palm trees were a nice touch of kitsch until he realized the trees were normal-sized.
How big do these guys get? Is that bigger one their….Mom? Dad? Anthropomorphic Family bulldozer? Why is it yellow?
A pair of gigantic coffee mugs with the logos, Don’t Let Stupid Be Your Fate, and Dumb Destiny Awaits sat on the edge of either desk. Near each mug was an oversized ancient book bound in strange textured leather. A third similar book was placed on a concrete stand in one corner, surrounded by a shimmering barrier of light.
The set of computers, ergonomic chairs, desks, and demon cat calendars seemed somewhat normal, if overlarge. A smaller human-sized station had been set in the middle of the cubicle, facing the back wall. Jeremy anticipated that this would make it easier for the pair of…gentlemen to look over his shoulder and see what he was doing.
A pneumatic message tube came from the floor near one corner of the desk. A square-shaped design of runes and mystical-looking circles covered fully one-half of his desktop. Jeremy supposed it was about half the size of the books. Jeremy made an assumption,
Company policy book, maybe?
The other sizeable hairy creature was talking into his headset but did wave at Jeremy and Oog as they entered the cubicle,
“Mr. Palpatoon, we have already revised the plans three times this month. They meet your specifications in the ability to destroy a planet, yes? With that kind of power, you must have a weakness incorporated into it according to the McGuffin treaty of eight-thirty-six. Mr. Habit himself has explained this twice. I cannot help you change that.
“I would advise you to obtain tighter security, keep the plans to the dumb star secured, and there shouldn’t be a problem. Try an off-site location for a contingency protection system, maybe. Its opening is only about the size of a dump rat anyway, so you’ll be fine. Thank you for calling. Have a nice day.”
The twin creature to the one who lumbered at Jeremy’s side tapped the side of the headset, finishing the call. The creature sighed in a put-upon tone, turning to Oog and Jeremy, who patiently waited for them to finish their phone call. It smiled with terrifying teeth.
“That guy is a control freak. This the new kid, Oog?”
“Yeah. Ik? Jeremy. Jeremy, this is my brother, Ik.”
Jeremy nodded his head,
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ik.”
Ik snorted,
“Just Ik, kid. Relax, Oog, and I don’t eat Humans often. You guys taste terrible, and my cholesterol is too damn high anyway. Let’s set you up so we can work on some of this backlog.”
Ik followed Jeremy’s gaze to the family photo pinned to one of the walls.
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“What are you staring at? Oh, that’s Grammy and us in the Bahamas a few centuries ago. Please focus, Jeremy, this is important.”
Oog and Ik took a surreal situation and made it almost boring. They took turns walking him through the login process of the computer and setting up his credentials in the system after showing him how to adjust the chair for his best ergonomic comfort.
Afterward, a series of boring introductory welcome to the company videos played for him on his computer while Oog and Ik shuffled papers on their desks. They tried with no subtly to hide their smiles at his eye rolling during boilerplate videos that said little of import.
Jeremy tried to pay attention, but they were too similar to some of his previous jobs, corporate schlock designed to keep the company from getting sued. At least they were mildly interesting, thanks to the obscenely attractive succubus reading the script on screen, if poorly.
Things changed abruptly as Jeremy’s shoulders started drooping at the pressure of the pretty demon spewing company legal bull puckey at him. When Mr. Habit abruptly came into the frame on his computer screen out of the demon’s line of sight. A newspaper under one arm, he calmly observed the demon as Jeremy struggled to keep his eyes open through another few sentences.
As something dark and hot stirred inside Jeremy’s chest against the mounting pressure, Mr. Habit took the newspaper under his arm and slowly started rolling it into a club. His brows drew together as he glanced towards Jeremy.
Isn’t this prerecorded? Why is it so hot in here?
With a primal yell of discouraging results at a race track, Jeremy’s boss started batting at the succubus with the rolled-up newspaper and screaming at the now hissing demon who attempted to shield herself against the blows as they sparked off her head and shoulders,
“I told you before, Jezabelle! If you tried that soul-sucking bullshit during a training montage, again, I’d have your horns! Do you want to cause an awakening for someone WHO IS IN THE SCHEDULING OFFICES? Get your tempting ass to requisitions! Be thankful I’m not having you exported to the Vatican!”
The now sobbing demoness collapsed to her knees, but Jeremy couldn’t understand what she was saying through her fangs. Mr. Habit was unimpressed,
“NO! Git!”
Mr. Habit advanced on the demon, swatting her with merciless blows of the newspaper upon her pert nose and then backside as she tried to scramble off frame away from him.
Mr. Habit stood breathing heavily on screen for a few moments before straightening his usually immaculate suit and turning to address Jeremy,
“Jeremy? You okay, son?”
A cold bucket of water dumped over Jeremy’s emotions and his head as Oog emptied his coffee mug of ice water over Jeremy’s head. Jeremy shrieked at the freezing water now soaking him. He answered Mr Habit through gritted teeth,
“F-fine, sir. What was that about?”
Oog and Ik leaned over his shoulder to address the screen, their enormous shaggy heads sounding in deafening stereo next to his ears.
“Sorry, Mr. Habit. We spotted what Jez was trying. We moved too slowly to shut it down before she put up the isolation field. This was on us.”
Mr. Habit’s baleful glare almost reached out of the screen at the gigantic pair.
“Shut up, all three of you. We do NOT blame the victim here, especially when we know they are innocent of wrongdoing. We can see intent, smell guilt, and taste lies. Oog, Ik, back to your filing. I’ll brief Jeremy from here out. When I am finished, kindly keep him from getting snapped up by dumbasses who don’t understand the consequences of initiating an awakening in the middle of where we schedule them.”
Oog and Ik snapped to noisy attention as they bumped into the cubicle’s walls, flourished a wind-shearing salute, and then shuffled back to their desks. Ik glanced at Jeremy and gave a not-so-subtle thumbs up to Jeremy with a thumb the size of a watermelon. Jeremy smiled weakly and nodded at the reassurance without knowing why. Mr. Habit snapped his fingers at Jeremy.
“Jeremy, pay attention. Rules I won’t explain because of rules you won’t understand dictate I can explain your role exactly once in this format. No questions on your end are allowed. I’ve hinted at scheduling being important in the past.
“Here’s why. Scheduling is where the most critical moments and items of destiny are scheduled. A ranking system is in place to show where they are needed to prevent total systemic collapse for that reality.
“You will not understand why they need to happen, when or where they need to happen. As you get better at the job, you may be able to mitigate some of the more extreme negative effects for our clients. Do not meddle beyond your ken, my ken, or Barbie’s ken. He’s one of our top agents, so try not to get in his way.”
“We are going to start you off slowly with the artifact assessment. The items you will be dealing with need evaluating on their readiness to help destiny be fulfilled. Some of them are already in circulation in their reality, and you are to evaluate whether they meet the guidelines. They do not decide when or if they are ready to fulfill their purpose. Your department does. Follow the grading rubric. Your emotions do not dictate a green light.”
“Oog, Ik, brief him on how to read the rubric and get him started, we are almost behind by an epoch, and Chronos has been up my ass about synergistic stability all damn decade.”
The screen of Jeremy’s computer went dark at this. He took a deep breath as he swiveled his chair to face the enormous fur ball beasts and said,
“Not the worst first day I’ve had so far. Let’s get started.”
The furry twins smiled with terrifying reassurance at being addressed without Jeremy showing any rancor at what had happened. They moved together to gather the rubric from the corner. Ik made a series of hand gestures that Ook responded to with different gestures. The barrier of light surrounding the book faded.
It was heavy. It took both of his supervisors to move it to his desk. Placing it precisely in the center of the runes covering half of Jeremy’s new desk, they took a moment to catch their breath afterward. Both of Jeremy’s trainers strained to lift either edge of the cover and started their explanation after it was in place and open.
Oog said in an out-of-breathe voice,
“They get…heavier…every…year. At the end…of your shift…there is an app in the computer that can open and close it for you, but for initial setup, it has to be done by hand.”
It turned out to be mentally heavy as well. The rubric was complicated but had been tweaked and adjusted over who knew how much time to cover almost every contingency of fate.
The following two hours were spent going over not only the basic procedure but how to find the procedure. The table of contents was massive, with the appendix being so extensive it was almost useless without a sub-appendix, glossary, and sub-glossary to cross-reference conflicting information.
Jeremy held his hands out to Oog and Ik desperately after the fourth hour of conflicting mental loopholes the rubric was creating in his mind,
“Guys! I need a break. We have to be close to lunch, right?”
Oog and Ik stopped excitedly chatting about what was very clearly a passion they had for the font in this particular section of the appendix. Ik seemed subdued as he replied,
“I’d advise you against wishing for lunch so soon, but yeah, we can take a break. Come on, I’ll show you where the break room is.”
Oog seemed as sad as Jeremy could picture such a sizeable furry boulder to be. Shrugging it off, he stood, stretching, and followed Ik to the break room. It was an average-looking break room, except for pneumatic tubes placed randomly around the room near the vending machines.
A cup of coffee shared with a coworker did much to resettle his mind and calm his aching skull. Jeremy was sharing an anecdote about trying to keep Furfang from playing fetch with his spleen in his second year at the retirement community when a screaming cloud of winged brownies that were miniature versions of Mr. Brown, including tiny replicas of the suit he had been wearing, exploded out of all of the pneumatic tubes in the room.
Jeremy’s dismay wasn’t from the action or sudden movement. It was simultaneous agonized screams of despair and gnashing teeth of so many winged brownies at once. The agony was palpable in the room.
Ik ushered Jeremy out of the room abruptly at the sight. As they walked back toward the cubicle, Jeremy asked,
“What was that?”
“Lunch.”
Jeremy started to ponder why he had been so eager to move to scheduling. Then he remembered. Entering back into the cubicle with Ik, he nodded to Oog and returned to his instruction. His coworkers seemed to appreciate his work ethic.
The next few hours blurred as Oog and Ik alternated, grinding away at his difficulty navigating the rubric. They were helpful and considerate in their instruction. It was the volume of information he was attempting to internalize that was hard on him.
Rote memorization was his weakness here. Jeremy had always had trouble with it, hence his extensive use of note cards at the retirement home when dealing with Glinda.
Finally, his trainers deemed him ready to attempt an artifact scheduling assessment with a less complicated item and backed away from Jeremy. They gave him some encouragement and seated themselves behind their desks to observe.
Jeremy flipped back to the sub-introductory section of the rubric and tried to read the summoning formula aloud without embarrassment,
“Mechanica gecko, no, shiny butts, ho! I invoke the right of judgment. Bring forth the next applicant!”
An ostentatious flash of light blinded him before his vision cleared to reveal the first item of destiny. Its incredible power would be his to judge worthy or deem unripened. His first relic of unavoidable fate was…a cat novelty coffee mug with the words, Have the World’s Greatest Puur-fect Day!
Well, that was disappointing.
Jeremy sat staring at the mug contemplating if Oog and Ik were fucking with him. His brain had informed him that this was not likely a useful item of destiny on the precipice of changing a world’s fate. A glance at the pair of his supervisors showed stoic furry faces or perhaps suppressed glee at a prank going well. They were hard to read.
Then, the cartoon cat face to one side of the caption smiled.
“Hello, Thanks for this oppuuurtunity! I am so excited to be interviewed. I know my chosen one can be the next savior…So…how should we get started? Should I go into my origin story? How I can help the savior? Are you my chosen one?”
Jeremy wasn’t startled that the mug could talk. He had been dealing with auspicious, mystical, and even nonsensical shenanigans of his previous wards for two years. A talking coffee mug was not even in his top ten. He had a job to do.
“Let’s start with your name and purpose, please.”
Following the rubric’s recommendation, he very carefully did not confirm or deny his status as the item’s chosen one. The mug started purring.
“Oh, that’s easy. My name is Alphonso Plastico. I thought my paperwork asked that, too, but what can you do? Office Mondays, am I right?”
The coffee mug laughed at its joke.
“Thank you, Mr. Plastico. And your purpose?”
Its expression grew a little huffy, but the cartoon cat did answer the question as its tail started lashing,
“I can help my chosen one turn back time to the beginning of a day, specifically Mondays, to help have the purrfect start to the week. With that, they can always get a leg up on the competition. We could change the world together! I also keep anything as warm or cold as it’s supposed to be for anyone named Jon.”
Jeremy blinked at the last.
“Isn’t that an overly specific ability? What if your chosen one is Sally or Jim?”
“Well, I’m working on it. The child who made me in China is still learning their craft. We can’t all be forged by a legendary scholarly craftsman of arcane creative arts.”
Jeremy conceded the point, moving on to the time travel bit. He suspected this item wasn’t as altruistic as it wanted him to believe.
“Why Mondays? Are there any side effects to the rewinding of time?”
The cartoon cat shuffled awkwardly. The mug began to take on a slight ominous glow.
“Well…I love Mondays…and not anything particularly…bad. I don’t rewind time, more… destroy the universe and recreate it at the point of clocking in.”
The cartoon cat stared at Jeremy, who stared back.
“Yeah, no.”
Jeremy slapped a symbol to one side of the rubric, a mystically stylized sad face. The mug screamed in agonizing pain as it broke into pieces and started to sublimate into motes of energy that drifted away from the surface of his desk briefly before being sucked into a different symbol shaped like a mystical trashcan.
Oog spoke.
“Good call, we get a lot of those. The items’ intent can mitigate many of the negative side effects they cause morally, but that was a bad one. Keep going.”
“Do they always have so much power? Destroying a universe seems…like a lot.”
“Nah, those are rare, and the destruction is always limited to their reality. The subtle ones are far more dangerous. The smarter the item is, the more vicious it can be if its intent isn’t altruistic. What it views as altruistic can also be problematic if it doesn’t match the purpose of destiny, but that’s what the rubric helps with in tough cases.”
Jeremy called up the next items over about an hour.
A lantern named Garmen didn’t allow its bearer to get lost unless they needed to be to make it humorously tragic. Pointless suffering in this item’s reality didn’t serve destiny’s purpose, so the rubric had Jermey give it the sad-face treatment.
A fishing rod named Rodney. Jeremy didn’t like that one’s smugness. Rodney always snagged its line on something valuable or dangerous but always to the detriment of whoever used it. The rubric pointed out this wasn’t useful to anyone in that reality.
Still, it did have him press a third rune that conveyed a delay in judgment as the rubric had him explain to Rodney he was being put back in the queue until a reality it could be helpful to was found. He took grim satisfaction in Rodney’s cries of rage at being made to wait.
A bucket of fish heads named Bart warned away all but the most vicious predators to “Help the chosen become stronger.”
The problem with that one wasn’t its smell, but the predators it attracted couldn’t be trusted to go after the chosen one alone. Bystanders were fair game to its power and often priority targets over the chosen one. The sad face of destruction was its reward.
Jeremy was starting to get discouraged by the parade of just slightly off-key items of destiny when a small wooden marionette of a person on a stand appeared. Its posture indicated it was not confident.
“Hello.”
Its voice was a little girl’s soprano, scared and timid. Jeremy decided to be more sympathetic as scared children should be encouraged, not scolded.
“Hello. My name is Jeremy. I’m here to help. What is your name and purpose, please?”
“My name is Sara. I think I’m supposed to help someone get…reassurance? Are you scared? Am I supposed to help you?”
“Can you explain how you help that person?”
The drawing marionette stood a little taller. No expression was visible on the little doll’s blank face. It did convey a little more comfort in the conversation. Oog and Ik both leaned forward to hear the conversation better.
“I hold bad people in a position of my chosen one’s desire. I think I don’t work for very long, or from very far away, but I know I always work. Am I supposed to be helping you?
“Who created you, Sara?”
“…He was a…Marquise? I think. Some kind of nobility. I don’t understand how the aristocracy is supposed to work. I know we helped bad people to learn how to be happy. That’s what he told me anyway. The people he helped didn’t seem to enjoy the experience most of the time.”
Jeremy sat back, a little discouraged at the answer. He was swiftly paging back and forth through the rubric. He had an idea of where the questioning should go next but wanted confirmation. Sara waited patiently, not moving or speaking. Finding the section he had wanted, he continued.
“What makes someone a bad person, Sara?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. Donatien said anyone who disagreed with him was bad and needed to be punished, so…anyone that disagrees with my chosen? I think?”
“Is there anything you have to be careful of? So you can keep helping your person?”
“Donatien said I can’t…let anyone cry on me. That’s sad because if you are crying, sometimes a hug can help you, I think.”
That confirmed it. This was not a cliché happy ending item. The rubric told Jeremy this item was created for the antagonist of a reality. It was an object to be overcome by the destined hero.
Just dangerous enough to cause suffering but with a subtle weakness that could be accidentally discovered at a pivotal moment. Jeremy was unhappy that the first item fitting the criteria he had been given was an ‘evil’ one. It wasn’t Sara’s fault, but it still fit the rubric’s criteria.
He reached out with a heavy hand and pressed the symbol near Sara, shaped like a smiley face.
The little marionette was surrounded by a circle of light and floated towards the ceiling. Its panic was evident as it flailed at the air.
“What’s happening? Can’t I help you?”
“Not me, Sara. Someone soon, though. Good luck.”
The scared little girl wail doll let loose at this ripped at Jeremy’s heart as the marionette was consumed in a flash of light, whisked off to its role in someone’s horrible, overly dramatic fate.
Jeremy pushed away from his desk, rolling in his chair. He stood as Ik addressed him. Oog looked sad, even through the fur.
“Those are of the worst we have to deal with sometimes. Items of destiny don’t always understand their purpose or what is happening. They have just enough self-awareness to help the destiny along.
“That’s lunch, Jeremy. Be thankful it wasn’t worse. You have a bursars meeting with Yuudoh after lunch. Mr. Brown will collect you. Get some grub from the break room. All the vending machine selections are free. Don’t be late.”
Jeremy nodded at this and trudged from the cubicle. He was exhausted.