As Mikah is wrapping up his follow-up text for Mark, he suddenly looks up with an apologetic expression.
“Oh, you’re absolutely right, Marsha, I’m so sorry guys. I probably should have left a long time ago, getting scatterbrained like this is one of my early warning signs of an incoming bout of power fatigue.” Upon sheepishly admitting this, Mikah goes to reach for the button for the 13th floor, but he is interrupted by 11 suddenly speaking up in front of the doorway to the elevator once more.
“Excuse me. It is highly recommended that all of you consider wearing protective face coverings as well. After the… Incident on the 15th floor, a few service bots that were active on floors 14 and 13 similarly activated the climate controls, with the same results. An auxiliary unit is on its way to t
While the elevator is in transit, Mikah sighs softly and reaches up with one hand, gently kneading his forehead for a few seconds.“Hey, you okay, man? If you need us to give you a few minutes alone or something, it’s cool.” As Lucas notices these movements on Mikah’s part, he speaks up without even pausing to give it any thought, eliciting a small smile from Mikah.“It’s fine, I’m fine. It’s nothing to worry about.” While saying this, Mikah can’t help feeling self-conscious about his actions upon having attention brought to them, so he lowers his hand and turns his line of sight to the steadily climbing floor counter above the door.&ldqu
Upon nearly reaching the end of the corridor, Mikah stops in front of the very last of the doors set into the right-side wall. Perforce of their current positioning, Lucas can’t see the nameplate mounted on the door that Mikah is in the process of opening, but he can see the one on the lone door at the end of the corridor. The visible nameplate is a large golden rectangle affixed to the solitary door at eye level, with a very ornate scrollwork engraving that spells out ‘Mind Flare’.Once Mikah has opened his targeted door, he freezes after taking half of a step into the room. After making a confused “Huh?” he hesitates for a few moments
Once Mikah has ensured that the desk drawer is securely shut, he wheels his chair back a short distance, getting ready to stand up. However, rather than getting up, he stays in place, visibly lost in thought for a few moments before finally speaking up.“You know… Isn’t it rather, hmm, fortunate, I suppose? That the bots decided to test out the climate system in advance, with enough time to report the results to us accordingly? That we were caught just in time to put in a request for the masks and everything, mere moments before heading up there ourselves? Sure, coincidences happen all the time, but if you don’t mind my asking, do you have any plans that involve Alley Cat anytime soon?” Once Mikah puts his thoughts in
After Miss Masher’s latest round of grumblings, Jonathan looks down at himself, then over at Lucas.“Um, w-what about just doing the, um, f-fitted version of what we’re w-wearing now..? Is there a, uh, tag with a style number we can check..?” While Jonathan is making this proposal, he unbuttons his suit jacket and goes to look at the lower part of the inner side seam starting with his left, but has no success.“Ah, all the enhanced suits are tagless, even when they’re the standard-sized ready-to-wear versions. The different patterns on the inner lining are what show which material enhancements it has, otherwise, the bots all just have the different cuts memorized to know which product it is that they’re selling. No need to worry ab
After making a few assumptions based on Miss Masher’s hesitant tone, but not having the normal additional info from hearing her thoughts directly, for once, Mikah seems particularly amused while guesstimating her train of thought.“Ha! No, no, not at all. Short of it being an insultingly poor design, we are intentionally fairly lax on those kinds of requirements for in-house designs. This is in order to encourage them to be a bit more creative, instead of always sticking to what they’re confident will meet with general approval. I don’t think we have any sort of clothing competition going on right now, so they shouldn’t be too busy.” With Mikah’s clarification, Miss Masher makes another relieved sigh. After a slight pause, Mikah continues speaking whilst wearing a thoughtful expression.
After a bit more time spent calming back down, Lucas is looking down at his currently shut-off phone in his hands. His thoughtful expression makes it all too apparent that he’s attempting to reach a decision about something, but his thoughts are deep enough that Mikah can’t hear them.“Twenty dollars say Marsha will call you again if you go to try calling Alley Cat right now.” Mikah has a huge grin while making this bet, and Lucas angrily shoves his phone into one of his suit jacket’s inner pockets.“Absolutely not! I’ll wait until later! If their luck really is such a big deal then something will happen to let me know when to call!” The huff Lucas makes after declaring his newfound intent can be rather effortlessly translate
For the remainder of their admittedly short trip to the 8th floor, Lucas incessantly provides 427 with a seminar on how totally awesome Vikings, and therefore also their beards, are. Thanks to it being a mental lecture, he doesn’t even have to pause to breathe.Poor 427 can’t even get a word in edgewise. The entire time 427 is wishing he didn’t say anything, it was better when Lucas was just being wistful about winsome whiskers.Lucas’s mental monologue is finally interrupted when, after they’ve already exited the elevator to step out onto the 8th floor; Jonathan seems to suddenly teleport from being a few steps in front of him, to then suddenly being a foot to the left of his initial position instead, now facing a slightly different direction
By the time Lucas has finished fussing with his collar enough to make it stay popped upright for easier tie access, the recently arrived elevator’s doors have finished sliding open. The first to walk out of the elevator is Mark, followed by Miss Calculated, and then 23. Whereas both Mark and Miss Calculated are empty-handed, 23 is carrying an armload of boomerangs, two cloth masks, and, unsurprisingly, Mark’s phone.Upon noticing them, Lucas raises up his left arm to wave enthusiastically at them. While doing so, he shouts out “Hey guys, over here!” to bring their attention to the little lounge area off to the side that he and Jonathan are occupying. He’s fast enough that he cuts off the leaving service bot before it could even begin to react to their presence.Latest Chapter