Nine-to-Five 025 (Patreon)

Career Opportunities X

~~~

Petersburg was just as Tim remembered it. Same low-rise buildings. Same narrow roads. Same pot-hole-filled pavement. None of that was surprising. It wasn’t like Tim had been gone for years or even months. It had only been a couple of weeks or so. That wasn’t enough time for things to change.

And yet, walking through the streets on his way home felt incredibly nostalgic.

Part of Tim wondered what that meant, but it wasn’t important. Not really. He hadn’t walked back here for nostalgia, and yes, Tim did, in fact, walk all the way from Roger Point to Petersburg just to see if he could. Surprise, surprise. He could. It barely made him sweat, which was pretty impressive considering they were in the middle of the summer, with all its horrible summer hotness.

However, even more important than the modifications to his body was the fact that no one from Regum had tried to stop him at any point, though perhaps that wasn’t too surprising. Unlike Amanda, Tim lived in the building. It was fair to say he was neck-deep in Regum’s fishing net, chilling out with all the fishies, and that was probably mixing metaphors, but Tim was okay with that. He understood himself, and that was good or something.

Anyway, Regum hadn’t tried to stop him. Not with force, and not with evil talky stuff. The latter was the thing Tim had been most worried about. Talky stuff was always a bit out of his depth. Then again, they probably realized they didn’t need to try to convince him of anything. It wasn’t like he was going to run away. Not while his mom was getting treated.

Like he said, neck-deep with the fishies.

“You!”

Tim blinked. Almost without thinking, he had made it back to his apartment building. There was a big man standing in front of the door. Not fat big. Muscles big. Though middle-aged and not particularly attractive, he was the type of guy who made other men feel self-conscious just by standing near them. Tim should know. He’d compared his noodly arms to his more than times than he could count.

A couple of days ago, the sight of the large man advancing towards him, looking more like a meat bulldozer than a man, would have scared him. However, much had changed in those days. Instead of trying to hide away or stuttering some sort of greeting, Tim just smiled and waved.

“Hi, Mr. White!”

Despite how angry Mr. White looked, the peppy smile never left Tim’s face. Most things weren’t all that scary compared to someone trying to shoot him.

“Where have you been?” Mr. White yelled in his face, proving that cheerfulness wasn’t always contagious. “Do you have any idea how worried I have been all this time?”

Tim blinked.

“But I called! I left a note!”

“A note?” One of Mr. White’s large eyebrows twitched. “You mean this?”

Mr. White took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and shoved it in his face. It was the note Tim had left taped to the door just in case someone visited.

Hey,

We moved, but it’s cool. We’ll be back.

Hopefully.

See you next Fall!

“Yeah, see.” Tim nodded and gestured at the note. “It’s all right there.”

A low, rumbling sound came from Mr. White’s throat. It impressed the hell out of Tim. He hadn’t been aware people could make noises like that.

Probably had to do with all those neck muscles.

“What? It covers all the basic stuff!”

“The basic stuff? The basic stuff? You mean stuff like a single damn way to reach you!”

“...Okay. Yeah. I see how that could be a problem, but it made all the sense at the time…” Tim shuffled nervously in place. “Want to go get some soda?”

~~~

Tim and Mr. White could have gone into the apartment, but there wasn’t any food there. Tim had thrown out all the perishables when he was packing his stuff to move into Regum Tower. The few soda bottles in the fridge had probably gone flat already, and no one liked non-carbonated soda. It was yucky.

That made Carl’s the obvious place to go.

“That was pretty dumb of you, kid,”

Tim was starting to regret that.

“You can’t just disappear on people like that,” the stout Columbian man said. He had already sold them two ice-cold Goldies, the flavor of heroism, and had sort of been filled in on the situation. "If you hadn’t explained it to me when you came to pick your stuff, I’d have been pretty worried too."

“It’s not like I didn’t explain it at all,” Tim whined. He looked at the glowering Mr. White. “I left you a voice-mail. Two voice-mails actually, because I accidentally cut the first one short.”

“I was working when you sent those messages. I thought your mother had relapsed or something when she didn’t come to work that day.” A flash of guilt crossed Mr. Whiter’s face. He sighed. “You have no idea how much of a scare those messages gave me. Then I tried to call you, but you wouldn’t answer.”

“I mean, I wasn’t home, so I couldn’t answer,” Tim pointed out. “It’s not like I have a phone of my own. Didn’t even have your phone number ‘cause that’s written down on mom’s address book, and I didn’t take that with me.”

Nor had he taken any other books for the matter.

Except The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Being Earnest was important.

“Be serious! Men from Regum showed up at the office the next day, you know? They came to deliver your mother’s paperwork to validate her medical leave. If it weren’t for them, I’d have called the police! Do you understand what a mess that would have been?”

That sobered Tim up. A little.

He had no idea Regum had gone ahead and done that. In hindsight, it made sense. It saved them a lot of trouble as well. The last thing Regum wanted was the police looking into them, though something told Tim they’d probably be able to deal with it easily enough. Just as he was starting to get he hadn’t really talked to the real 911 when he’d made a phone call that night.

Still, there was a reason why he’d done what he had. He’d been vague about things because he wasn’t sure if there were more bad guys out there who knew where he lived. He’d been understandably panicky.

Still, looking at Mr. White’s face made it clear he wasn’t the only one who’d been panicky.

“Okay. Okay. I get it.” Tim pressed his lips into a thin line and rubbed his neck. “I messed up. I should have tried to reach you in person.”

Wait, that was missing something.

“I’m sorry.”

“Damn right, you’re sorry!” Mr. White said. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“He was pretty worried,” Mr. Espinoza said. “He’s come here three times in the past week hoping to run into any of you. Honestly, it was starting to worry me too.”

“Sorry,” Tim said again. “Oh, but mom is fine! Regum has a fancy hospital where they’re treating her. I think we’re like charity cases or something, but I’m not complaining if it gets my mom good treatment.”

“Smart,” Mr. Espinoza said.

“What are the visiting hours?” Mr. White asked.

“Nonexistent?” Tim said. “Kinda? The hospital is inside Regum Tower, and they really don’t like letting people in. I can ask if you want to, though? Maybe they’ll make an exception?”

Mr. White sighed. “That… yeah, that’d be good. How about you, though? How are you holding up?”

“Me? I’m fine, I think. As fine as possible. Maybe.”

Tim sighed.

“I’m feeling kind of shitty.”

The soft pop of a bottle cap being removed made Tim turn to his right. Mr. Espinoza had taken out three beers from the freezer.

“Here.”

Tim looked at the offered drink for three seconds. Mr. White didn’t offer any objections during that time.

“You know what? Yeah, sure. Why not?”

~~~

Amanda was tired by the time she reached her home. Not physically. That was almost impossible nowadays. Even though she had fought criminals mere hours ago, one of which turned out to be an Exceed, Amanda didn’t feel any more tired than all the times she had gone running.

Emotionally, however, she was drained.

She slowly wandered over to the kitchen. Right now, the only thing she wanted was to have some sweets and spend the rest of the day on her bed, preferably with the company of a good movie.

“Amanda?”

She froze.

Slowly, very slowly, Amanda turned towards the voice. It made no sense. She knew it made no sense. No matter what the odd sense of knowing was telling her, it made no sense for her to be here at this hour. She was supposed to be at work!

Her mother caught her in a hug.

“I was so worried!”

The next few minutes were a blur to Amanda. There was hugging and blubbering, the latter mostly from her. All Amanda really knew for sure was that she and her mother were in the living room drinking cold lemonade by the end of it.

“I was so worried when I saw the news,” her mother told her. “I knew you were going to take the train today, but I had no idea which one. I have been trying to call you all day.”

“I must have turned off my phone,” Amanda said. She always did while she was at Regum, and with everything that happened, turning it back on hadn’t even occurred to her.

“You read my message?” She asked a moment later, still somewhat stunned to have her mother home.

“Of course, I did!” Her mother replied, offended. However, that expression didn’t last long.

Last night, Amanda had sent her mom an email letting her know she’d be taking the train for work. She’d done it on a whim. It was a formality and little else. It wasn’t like her mother would have time to read it.

At least, that was what she’d thought.

“Anyway,” her mother said, brushing some hair out of her face. “I am glad you weren’t one of those people on the train.”

As she spoke, she glanced towards the TV. It had been muted, but it still showed the local news. Clips of the frozen train kept being played again and again. Amanda had stopped to stare when her mother had shown this to her. Then she’d done the only thing she could.

Lie.

She’d told her mother she hadn’t left the city today. That there was a last-minute change of plans. It wasn’t the first lie she told her mother. Not by a long shot. It wasn’t even the worst lie she’d ever told her mother.

“Are you sure you just want lemonade? We have ice cream, you know? I could bring you some.”

And yet, Amanda felt incredibly guilty over having her mother fussing over her like this.

Which was, when she thought about it, all sorts of wrong. Parents were supposed to fuss over their children. That was normal, even if it didn’t feel like it right now.

Then again, she wasn’t normal anymore, was she?

Her mother may be fretting over her, but that was all she could do for her. Parents may be supposed to protect their children, but there wasn’t anything either of her parents could do to protect her from Exceeds. Had her mother been on the train with her, it wouldn’t have made a difference, and telling her about it would have just needlessly worried her.

In fact, the problem was that there wasn’t anything her parents could do about one Exceed in particular.

However, there was one thing Amanda could do to keep her family safe.

“I think I’ll take that ice cream.”

~~~

“Kate wants to come back?”

The day didn’t seem to want to end. Sophie had called her as soon as Amanda turned on her cell phone. Much like Amanda suspected was the case with the rest of the city, Sophie wanted to talk about the train incident. Unlike everyone else, Sophie’s focus was a bit more eccentric.

“You know how she is about Exceeds.” Though Amanda couldn’t see her, she could imagine how Sophie waved her hand dismissively. “The poor dear is kicking herself for missing something like this. The irony! She wanted to go to Germany to see more Exceeds, and then one appears right in our backyard!”

“It’s not like she’d have actually been able to see it, though,” Amanda pointed out. “Whether she sees it on the news here or there, there’s really not much of a difference. Is there?”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Amanda. The principle! Or so she claims. Personally, I can’t understand her fascination with Exceeds.”

“You have pictures of Valiant in your room. Several of them.”

“And if he ever happens to have a signing event in Port Stanley, I’ll be first in line. That doesn’t mean I want to dive right in the middle of an Exceed brawl. Oh, but enough about that! Have you considered my offer to-”

“I’m not signing up for a marathon, Sophie.”

“Oh, come on. It’s a small one. You’re already running on your own. Really, what do you have to lose?”

Amanda stayed silent for a moment.

“You know what? Fine. I’ll go to your stupid marathon.”

“That’s the spirit!”

~~~

The next morning, Amanda and Tim met at the front of Regum Tower.

“Hey there!” Tim waved at her. “Good to see you here.”

“Yeah… you too,” Amanda said a little awkwardly.

The two stood in place for a couple of seconds. Though Roger Point was a busy place early in the morning, it didn’t feel like it. For them, all the other people bustling about might as well not exist.

“So… ready to work?”

“Let’s go.”

~~~

AN: 

And so, Career Opportunities comes to an end. Haven't actually settled on a name for the next arc. Probably something with Workforce.