Nine-to-Five 026 (Patreon)

Workforce Development I

~~~

Ms. Martel had been waiting for them just outside the elevator. She had Gerald, the head of security, at her side and told them they were to follow him for the day. Tim supposed that confirmed Gerald was also in on the whole secret conspiracy thing, which didn’t really come as much of a surprise. He’d have to be really bad at his job to not know what went on in the building.

Gerald led them back to the elevator, and they had gone down and down and down. As it turned out, Regum Tower went way underground. A cool piece of trivia under most circumstances but now…

“Is this… safe? Like, at all?”

Now, Tim was feeling slightly apprehensive.

“Safe? Bah! Of course, it’s safe!” said the scientist guy Gerald had introduced them to. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well…” Tim looked at his surroundings. “I’m kind of in a giant glass tube.”

He was. The lab-coat-wearing scientist had wasted no time and quickly ushered Tim and Amanda inside big glass cylinders. They reminded Tim of the machine Ms. Steiner had made him go into during his interview. However, this one was considerably more elaborate and bulkier, with more beeping, lights, and exposed machinery.

Fairly futuristic, really. Like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Tim wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“A safe glass tube,” the scientist corrected him, not bothering to lift his gaze up. His eyes were stuck to the many screens around him. Tim guessed they were displaying the readings they got from these machines. “Anyway, you have already been in one of these. During your interview. There’s no reason to be alarmed.”

Ah, so they were the same thing.

“The other one didn’t look like something out of a sci-fi horror movie,” grumbled Amanda. She was standing in the glass tube next to Tim’s. Her arms were crossed, and her face was stuck in a fierce glower that threatened to melt a hole through the glass. “We also didn’t know we were going to be turned into science experiments.”

“Important science experiments!” The scientist said, raising his finger to underscore his point.

“That doesn’t make it better!” Amana said, waving a fist at him.

“Doesn’t it?” The scientist looked genuinely put off by that, drawing a little snort from Gerald.

“Never change, doctor,” he said with a slight shake of his head. Amanda immediately looked away when he aimed a charming smile at them. “Don’t worry, you two. Despite how this looks, the good doctor just wants to see how you’re doing. It is all perfectly safe.”

“Can’t he just, you know,” Tim gestured at his surroundings, “not use all of this to do so.”

“Absolutely not!” the doctor said. “You two may not have grasped this yet, but the changes your bodies are undergoing thanks to the SP Treatment are immense.”

Amanda and Tim blinked. “The SP treatment?”

The scientist sighed. “The process by which we used nanites to alter your bodies and give you power. That is what we call the SP Treatment.”

“Yeah, I’m still not sure how you did that. Getting the nanomachines inside us, I mean,” Tim said.

“Supplements have been added to all the food you eat at the cafeteria since you started working here,” the doctor replied immediately. “The chefs think they’re giving you dietary supplements, which is not strictly far from the truth.”

“Sounds pretty far from the truth to me.”

“Regardless!” The doctor continued. “These machines will help us chart your process, detect any anomalies that might present themselves, and provide detailed information about the state of your bodies which I will use to make sure you’re in the best of health. I suppose you can consider me your personal doctor.”

Amanda snorted. “Do you even have a medical degree?”

“One or two are gathering dust around here somewhere. I also have a couple of doctorates. But really, who cares about such things?”

~~~

After a couple of hours inside the weird machines, the doctor had given them a clean bill of health. Sorta. He said it was going to take him some time to sift through all the data, but there weren’t any obvious anomalies, so they were free to do as they wanted in the meantime. That had been Gerald’s cue to take them to another one of Regum’s underground levels.

This one was… considerably more fast-paced.

Wall-mounted guns shot dozens of paintballs at Tim, but that was fine. He had changed out of his good clothes, so there was no need to worry about getting paint on them, not that he was in much danger of that. Tim easily zig-zagged across the corridor and vaulted over one of the obstacles, moving so quickly the guns had a hard time aiming at him.

Gerald hadn’t been kidding when he said he could get Tim into a way better place to exercise than Regum’s gym. The underground obstacle had a little bit of everything. It was used to train Regum’s security personnel, but Tim and Amanda were the ones using it today.

Though if you thought about it, Tim and Amanda kind of were security personal now.

With that little bit of insight, Tim quite literally dived into the next segment of the course.

The water segment.

This was his third time running the course, and it still tripped him up. Not because it included a pool with robot piranhas. Those weren’t anywhere nearly as bloodthirsty as they sounded. They weren’t bloodthirsty at all, actually. Sure, being bitten was a bit uncomfortable, but it wasn’t like the tiny robots could actually hurt him.

Swimming was the problem. It wasn’t something Tim had much experience with. His reflexes and general ease of movement were far beyond what they had ever been before he got powers, but that didn’t help much when all he knew was how to doggy paddle.

Plus, it was hard to move around in wet clothes.

Fun, though.

“Aaand, that’s time,” Gerald said as Tim finally crossed the finish line. The older man looked at his stopwatch, impressed. “You keep getting faster. Most people would have started to slow after the first run.”

“Really?” Tim said, drying himself with a towel and picking a water bottle from a dispenser. “I don’t really feel tired. It’s actually kind of fun.”

And by kind of, Tim meant it was a lot of fun. It felt like being in a movie. He had actually hummed the Mission Impossible theme a couple of times.

“At this rate, you’ll catch up to Amanda’s time in no time.”

Tim grinned. “You hear that, Ammes? I’m catching up to you!”

Which, Tim felt, was just a little unfair since he was pretty sure he was the one with the most bad guy fighting experience out of the two, but Amanda knew how to swim, and that made a sizable difference here. Her times were consistently better than his.

“Yes,” Amanda said with a voice like the grave. “I heard. Why do we have to do this again?”

Unlike him, Amanda did not seem to be enjoying herself. Not one bit.

“Two reasons,” Gerald said while turning so he was facing her. Amanda ducked under his gaze immediately. “First, you heard the doctor. We need to get a handle on how far you have progressed with your abilities. Second, and far more important, you need to understand how powerful you have become.”

Tim flexes his arm.

“But we already know we’re badasses.”

“Cute, but no. Think of the past couple of weeks. Have you felt more energetic ever since you started working here? I’m not asking about your mood. I am asking if you have felt so much energy inside you that you felt compelled to move around until you burned it off. Maybe gone out running at night?”

“How did you know..” Amanda started speaking but then frowned and looked away. She crossed her arms. “No, you’ve probably been spying on us all this time.

“Amanda, you know we’ve been spying on you. You asked us to spy on you,” Gerald said. Tim blinked.

“Wait, what?”

“More on that later,” Gerald told him.

“What? No! No more on that later! It’s private!”

“Right now, you’re both physically superior to even Olympic athletes,” Gerald continued. “Much like Exceeds, you’re firmly superhuman. You can hold your breath for multiple minutes, run for miles without tiring, and probably lift a small car over your heads. You think you understand what that means, but you don’t. Your bodies contain far more energy than the average person. That’s why, subconsciously, you have both been looking for ways to burn off all that energy.

“I guess that explains some things,” Amanda muttered under her breath. Tim wasn’t sure whether Gerald caught it or not.

“Also, we don’t want you accidentally using your super strength in public.”

Tim blinked. “That can happen?”

Gerald nodded.

“Absolutely. It happens to Exceeds, doesn’t it?” Gerald asked, making Amanda grimace. Once again, she muttered something under her breath. “What was that?”

“I said it’s the number one cause of Exceed discovery.”

Gerald grinned like he had known that from the beginning. He probably had. “And we don’t want that happening to you, do we? The more you use your powers, the more you get used to them. As you do, you’ll learn how to hold back in your daily life and live like regular people who happen to like spending a couple of hours a week at the gym.”

“But we’re not going to be regular people, are we?” Amanda asked. She kept a challenging look on her face for all of two seconds after Gerald made eye contact with her. “I mean, you gave us these powers for a reason. I don’t think us running laps around your obstacle course was what Regum had in mind when they did so.”

“Who knows?” When Amanda glared at him, Gerald smiled. “Look, let’s assume Regum has big plans in store for you. That still doesn’t mean we’re just going to throw you to the wolves. In case you two haven’t noticed yet, Regum has put a lot of resources on you. Trust me, you two have made the doctor happier than he’s been since… ever.”

Tim hummed. “He did seem excited.”

“I know, right? We have no intention of putting you at risk. All we’re here for is making sure you and I know what you’re capable of so that when you’re in real danger, you will know how to deal with it.” He looked at his watch. “And right now, the best way to do that is with more laps.”

The alarm rang off, informing them that the obstacle course had been cleared and was ready to go.

“Ready?”

~~~

Tim and Amanda collapsed against nice, comfy chairs. After hours of running and swimming, the two teens were exhausted.

"So there is an upper limit, huh?" Gerald said, rubbing his chin. They had moved out of the obstacle course to a meeting room on the same floor. "Color me relieved. It might not be mature, but seeing two teenagers handle that obstacle course so easily was making me a tad jealous."

"And whose fault is that we can handle it so easily?" Amanda fired back.

"Point," he said. "Regardless, I think it's time we move on to the next part of your day."

"Cool gadgets?" asked Tim. "I've always wanted a jetpack."

“Trust building,” Gerald said.

“Trust building?” echoed Tim with noticeable confusion.

“Trust building?” echoed Amanda with considerably more scorn and sarcasm.

“Trust building,” Gerald affirmed. “Not between you and I, of course. We’ll let that part happen naturally.”

Amanda snorted.

“However, between you two, well, there are some parts you haven’t told each other yet, haven’t you?”

Abruptly the two sat straight, their bodies alert and tense. Gerald just smiled.

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Amanda said, finger raised in warning, “but-”

“Private things are private,” Tim said, suddenly not smiling or looking tired in the slightest.

Amanda nodded emphatically. “Exactly!”

But Gerald did not care.

Over the next five minutes, Gerald exposed their personal circumstance without a single care for their privacy. He told Tim about Amanda's parents and the Exceed blackmailing them, and he told Amanda about Tim's ill-fated stint as a vigilante and the state of his mother. Tim and Amanda's efforts to stop him were swiftly cut down as more information spilled from Gerald's mouth, inevitably turning their attention to each other instead.

"So your mother…?" Amanda found herself unable to finish the sentence. Now she understood just why it was that Tim had so easily accepted Regum's offer. For him, there hadn't been any choice to make, and knowing that was enough to make her angry on his behalf.

"Yeah," Tim said. "Sooo, Exceed threatening your parents, huh?"

"Yes," Amanda said.

"That's rough, Ammes."

Amanda's gaze became downcast but only for a moment. Soon, she was standing up and glaring at Gerald.

"What's the point of this? Is this a joke to you?"

“No jokes,” Gerald said, his gaze uncharacteristically serious. “Not for this. Like I said, it is all about trust. You don’t trust us. Not yet. That’s perfectly understandable. I wouldn’t trust a devilishly handsome rogue such as myself either.”

“Did you just call yourself devilishly handsome?” Tim asked.

“I did. Do you disagree?”

Tim clicked his tongue and looked away. “... no.”

“Thought so. But that’s not the issue. I could put you both in the same room for a couple of hours each day and expect you to bond, but that doesn’t work. Otherwise, there’d be no bullying at schools. You’d assume. You’d misinterpret. You’d stereotype. All those lovely things us humans love to do.”

He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘What can you do?’

"We can't have you falling into those traps. If you're going to rely on each other, you need to know where you stand."

"What you just said makes sense, but I'm still pretty angry at you," Tim said.

"Ditto."

"Eh, that's fine," Gerad said dismissively. “I would be disappointed if you weren’t, honestly.”

"You know I'm pretty sure we can beat you up, right?" Tim asked.

"You can, but you won't. You're good kids."

"You make that sound like a bad thing."

"Well, I am not getting kicked in the nuts, am I?" Gerald pointed out.

It was hard to argue with that one.

~~~