A Matter of Black and White - chapter 2 (Patreon)

The central hub of the original colony complex was designed to be given over entirely to communal recreation and social interaction, outfitted with all the best games and literature and art and playground equipment the Radial Emperium could provide, free for any worker to enjoy. Of course, everyone hated it, and the central complex was virtually abandoned at all times, passed over in favor of a series of privately operated establishments scattered across the colony. In theory, private enterprise was forbidden outside of the specially designated vestibules surrounding the docking platforms, but in theory a LOT of things were forbidden on Scintillantem Contingent. Compared to the other illicit activities occurring behind closed doors across the colony, a few privately owned and operated recreational spots were the least of anyone’s worries. Indeed, the proprietors of these getaways tended to be among the few residents on the colony to actually put their foot down and forbid any shady business, if only to avoid attracting undue attention to the shady business of their own. That, and most of these establishments existed within colonists’ private residences, which added an even more practical desire to keep guests from dragging any personal messes along with them. And generally speaking, even the most degenerate of the locals were willing to stay on their best behavior when the penalty of acting up was being banned from the private establishments and having no options for relaxation other than the public facilities.

After all, the recreation center was cursed with the biggest windows anywhere in the central colony.

Oh, to be sure, the recreational options on hand were truly dreadful. The state-sponsored “moral boosting” literature was enough to put anyone off reading forever, and all the games were of a deliberately “team building” variety, which is to say not fun in the slightest. But the worst offender was those gargantuan windows. In their great benevolence, the best minds of the Duteronimous Radial Emperium assumed that the workers would want nothing more when relaxing than the most unobstructed view of Scintillantem Contingent’s multi-colored sun showers at all times, and designed the recreation facilities so that the light was inescapable. Thus, the locals were so desperate to avoid the free facilities that they paid through the nose to visit those most “undesirable” crew quarters with no view of the outside whatsoever. The proprietors didn’t even need to invest in any form of entertainment or refreshments, just a chair pointed at a blank wall and a curtain or some other temporary barrier for privacy. Provided one was willing to sacrifice any semblance of personal space, one could easily make a better living renting out the back corners of one’s quarters than on whatever legitimate job had actually brought one to Scintillantem Contingent in the first place.

For as much as the barren, lifeless recreation center stood as a testament to the Emperium’s misunderstanding of the wants or needs of its citizens, it nevertheless was a tremendous boon for the colony’s management staff. In an attempt to enforce a certain amount of communal familiarity and equality amid the locals, the pod in which all of management’s offices were housed was only accessible via the recreation center. In theory, this would foster an impression of the higher-ups being less removed from their charges than was normally seen in such facilities, and hopefully result in more personal interactions all around. Of course, these were the hopes of a leadership that utterly failed to anticipate just how drastically the locals would tire of being blinded by the kaleidoscopic flashing of Scintillantem Contingent’s sun, so it should hardly come as a surprise that the attempt at forced togetherness and brotherhood was also a dismal failure. In the early days of the colony’s operation, management rarely visited their offices at all, instead finding every excuse possible to either be “on assignment” or simply working from their quarters. One early under-clerk managed to avoid going to his office by calling in sick for three months straight, and ironically only broke that streak by ACTUALLY falling ill from an infected pillowcase and had to be transferred off-world for treatment. And then the aversion to the colors began to set in. The longer residents had been on Scintillantem Contingent, and the more they grew to despise the unceasing light show, the less any of them could be found in the recreation center. And the less the management had to worry about actually bumping into the locals on their way to work, the more they bothered to actually show up. Indeed, by this point, the “recreation center” had been all but converted into a massive waiting room for the offices, complete with a receptionist’s desk by the main entrance to ensure any aspiring visitors could be kept as far away as humanly possible.

The thin, sickly, bald woman manning the desk never actually looked up at Porcaro or The Nitpicker as they checked in for their meeting with the management. However, as she stared at her work screen for thirty seconds straight while “checking to see if he was in,” the reflection on her narrow spectacles gave away that she wasn’t actually doing anything. Thus, when told to have a seat, because someone would “be with them shortly,” there was little reason to hope that the wait would be brief.

“I apologize, Mr Kendall.” Porcaro groused, sitting down on a colorful, flower-encrusted plastic chair that was at least half a size too small for him “I’m used to them making ME wait out here for quite a while, but I was under the impression that they were more eager to meet with YOU.”

“Oh, Nitpicking’s not the line of work for anybody who needs warm welcomes.” The Nitpicker replied, starting to sit in another small chair adorned with bears next to Porcaro, before thinking better of it and wandering over to a ring of spring-mounted playground rides. “Just how important does this guy need to feel?”

“I presume to mean to imply that your employer is only making you wait in order to establish dominance?” Porcaro responded.

“Well, that’s just the thing.” The Nitpicker said, seemingly more occupied with awkwardly perching himself across a row of plastic, saddle-wearing fish “Does this guy just need to look more important to ME, or does he need to worry about looking impressive to his coworkers, too?”

“That all depends on which member of the management staff is actually expecting you.” Porcaro replied “Your hiring may have been officially approved by the management board as a group, but the management board never actually does anything as a group. You were brought here by a single individual using the stamp of management as a means of preserving anonymity.”

“Ah, but you need to know EVERYTHING that goes on in facility, right?” The Nitpicker reminded Porcaro, while struggling to wedge that large book he’d been carrying into the space between his back and one of the fish, so as to recline across them more evenly.

“Technically, I won’t know for sure until we’re summoned to a specific office.” Porcaro answered, allowing a slight but sufficient trace of satisfaction into his voice “However, it was Mr. DeNormad who experienced a sudden spike in off-world calls immediately before I was informed of your hiring, and it was the bank account no one is supposed to know is his that issued a payment comparable to a standard Nitpicker’s Guild fee right afterwards.”

“And where exactly does this Mr. DeNormad fit on the totem pole around here?” The Nitpicker continued “Is he a nobody, a somebody, or a nobody trying to look like a somebody?”

“Mr. DeNormad is one of the more recent additions to the management staff, only arrived here within the past year on assignment from one of the parent corporations.” Porcaro explained “Comparatively speaking, he’s one of the least politically influential figures on Scintillantem Contingent.”

“…which means he’s got the biggest need to prove to others how important he is.” The Nitpicker interrupted, taking another bite from his apple in the process “Or, at the very least, he has a reason to take it out on somebody who can’t do anything about it. Either way, we’d better make ourselves comfortable, ‘cos it looks like we’ll be here for-”

“You may now proceed into the office complex, Gentlemen.” the receptionist announced over an intercom designed to be heard over a much nosier crowd than the recreation center had seen in years. The noise wasn’t half as starling to The Nitpicker than the unexpected reveal, however, startling him enough to fall right off of the playground equipment in an awkward heap.

“Well, would you look at that. This must be an even bigger deal than the assignment let on.” He stammered quickly, leaping up from the floor and collecting himself “I mean, for him to feel pressured into acting immediately instead of keeping up appearances and asserting dominance and all that. Very interesting indeed. Most intriguing.”

Porcaro declined to respond, simply making note of how quickly The Nitpicker attempted to spin the potential embarrassment into a revelation on his part. Nothing he said was untrue, and the very fact that the receptionist stuck to her routine of dragging things out should have been enough for anyone to assume they’d be made to wait. Still, the speed and forcefulness with which he took over any conversation told Porcaro that The Nitpicker was well acquainted with the art of asserting dominance himself.

The central entrance pod at the far end of the recreation center opened into a winding honeycomb of ramps and doorways. A blinking strong of lights, looking quite drab and sterile in comparison to the natural lightshow outside, led the pair through the small web of walkways towards their destination. The doors to the offices bore no individual signage of their own, a feature the designers had originally deemed needlessly ostentatious and wasteful. It was ironic, then, that Mr. DeNormad had so thoroughly filled every inch of the room behind that plain door with every ostentatious, indulgent luxury imaginable. The smooth grey walls were all but buried behind a solid layer of expensive-looking modern art, and much of the floor space was clogged with finely-cushioned furniture and pots of exotic plants. Most notably, the large windows were almost completely filled with a series of custom-fitted shelves, allowing only the faintest hints of pulsating color to peak through around the edges. As the room had clearly been designed with the expectation that the windows would provide most of the light for the room, the presence of the shelves left DeNormad’s office quite dim and shadowy, despite all of the garish decorations. It may have been for the best, however, as a closer inspection of those shelves would reveal, once ones’ eyes adjusted to the darkness, that they were filled with material of an embarrassingly explicit nature and dubious legality. But then, one need only take one glance at Mr. DeNormad to figure he was a man prone to indulging his vices.

He was a corpulent man, sweaty, and with skin discolored from any number of nutritional deficiencies. His hair was a burnt mess, ruined from a string of elaborate stylings and dye jobs one after another. Today, it was mostly slicked back down past his neck, though a thin halo of stray hairs sprouted out at all sides. With his desk a cluttered pile of bottles and cans and Xal-Gox fangs, one would be forgiven for not even noticing that DeNormad only had one hand resting in front of him. While his left appendage was as fleshy and ill-colored as the rest of him, the right was a rather aged-looking prosthesis of spindly fingers and exposed gears. In contrast to the overwhelmingly expensive decorations of the office, this artificial hand was shockingly low budget. From the moment of DeNormad’s arrival on Scintillantem Contingent, Porcaro had made note of this as a sign of the new managers’ priorities in life, and subsequent observations had very much confirmed that first impression.

“As requested, I’ve brought your guest directly.” Porcaro announced, standing at attention by the side of the door as the Nitpicker followed him in “Allow me to present-”

“So you’re the one the Nitpickers sent?” DeNormad asked, in a voice that seemed perpetually on the verge of coughing something up, directly to the Nitpicker, seemingly ignoring Porcaro entirely.

“In the sense that I am, in fact, a Nitpicker myself, then yes.” he answered, hesitating slight at the sight of the dense sprawl of furniture choking the room. He briefly glanced over at Porcaro, clearly hoping his guide would give him some clue what the least awkward route through would be. Upon realizing that Porcaro was not leaving his newfound post by the door, however, the Nitpicker sighed and bumbled his way through the forest of end tables and footrests, noisily knocking several into each other as he went. DeNormad seemed visibly annoyed, though less over the racket and more a rapidly brewing impatience.

“Sorry about all that.” The Nitpicker grunted, clumsily hopping over an ottoman to finally reach his host before extending a hand over the mess on the desk “I’m Ichabod-“

“Look, all I need to know is that you’re here to do the job.” DeNormad interrupted, waving the Nipticker’s hand away with his own spindly claw “Just… I dunno, have a seat over there.”

“I seem to have a wealth of choices.” The Nitpicker replied, looking across the dozen or so resplendent chairs in array before the desk, at least two of which had fallen over each other during his approach “Though nowhere near your own wealth, I see. Do you have any preference where-”

“You can sit on the floor for all I care!” DeNormad shouted “Just sit down and let me tell you what’s going on!”

“The assignment from the Guild was rather thorough on that point.” The Nitpicker sighed, briefly glancing back at Porcaro, who continued to stand at attention by the door, before flopping into an especially fluffy looking couch. “This facility is chronically falling short of its luminecium photocite brighton collection quotas and you want a second opinion on what’s going wrong.”

“You see that flashy strobe light out there?” De Normad shouted, pointing behind him to the shelves, though which the sun could not, in fact be seen at all “That thing is the single most powerful fountain of LPB waves for twelve sectors, and THIS place has the largest and most finely tuned field of LPB collectors for TWENTY sectors! This whole facility is specifically designed to be the absolute leader in the entire industry!”

“Yes, it is indeed an impressively big doohickey for squeezing energy out of shiny colors.” the Nitpicker agreed, with slightly less technological specificity this time.

“THEN WHY HAS THE SCINTILLANTEM CONTINGENT FACILITY FALLEN SHORT OF EVERY SINGLE PRODUCTION GOAL OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS?” DeNormad bellowed, slamming his fake hand onto the desk and knocking several cans tumbling to the floor in the process.

“This sounds like a problem for your engineering crew, not the Nitpickers’ Guild.” He answered, deadpan “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

“I’ve asked everyone and tried everything! Every inch of the machinery is doing as good a job as it could ever be expected to do! The whole system is working fine!” DeNormad seethed, clearly not enjoying the Nitpicker’s dismissive attitude “The problem’s not with the equipment, it’s with the people using it!”

“And not the fact that LPB energy hasn’t been in demand for decades?” the Nitpicker responded while taking another bite from his apple, and act Porcaro was coming to recognize as something of a power move “I mean, people only started using the stuff in the first place during the scramble to ban the use of Rosilian lighting crystals, and that was only because it was compatible with the preexisting equipment, not because anybody specifically LIKED it. As more practical alternatives become increasingly standardized, it only stands to reason that that profitability of LPB reclamation would be on a steady decline.”

“I’m not talking about how profitable the market is, IDIOT!” DeNormad snarled, his once bombastic energy turning nervy and twitchy “Selling the stuff is somebody else’s problem! MY problem is collecting the stuff in the first place! And it isn’t happening! So I wanna know why!”

“Yes, but one of the key tenants of proper Nitpicking is stepping back and taking a more holistic view of the situation. Are there any more foundational issues to be addressed that might render the specific issue at hand inconsequential?” the Nitpicker calmly explained “Whatever the issue with the LPB collection might be -technological, organizational, theological, whatever- surely taking the effort to stay on top of a dying industry wouldn’t be worth it in the long run. I mean, from what I’ve seen, it looks like this dead hunk of rock is FAR more valuable as a tourist location than it’ll ever be as an industrial operation.”

“I don’t CARE about that!” DeNormad shrieked, clutching his unattractive hair “I’ve got quotas to meet! That’s all that matters!”

“I mean, the luxury suites on the ship I traveled in on were about ten times as expensive as my own accommodations, and they were completely sold out!” the Nitpicker continued, utterly ignoring his employer’s objections “Anybody can see there’s more money in charging people to sit and look at all the pretty colors than trying to bottle them up and sell them as batteries!”

“I CAN’T KEEP COMING UP SHORT!” DeNormad shouted, almost bordering on a shriek, before quickly regaining his composure enough to hide the brief flash of desperation. The Nitpicker shifted in his chair slightly, in what most observers might have taken as surprise at the sudden burst of nervous energy. To Porcaro, however, with his well-practiced knowledge of human body language, it looked more like an animal on the hunt, spotting its prey and preparing to pounce.

“The Duteronimous Radial Emperium has numerous state-licensed corporations throughout all levels of the power industry, and those corporations all have state-mandated quarterly projections that they must meet or exceed in order to maintain those licenses.” DeNormad continued, seeming to recite a textbook explanation from memory, and gradually calming himself down in the process “Whatever external factors might be affecting the broader industry, or whatever unrelated industries might be sprouting up elsewhere, is irrelevant to the matter at hand. This facility has luminecium photocite brighton shipment quotas to meet, and it has been consistently unable to do so. Any engineering or technological fault has been ruled out, which only leaves one explanation.”

“Voodoo?” The Nitpicker interjected. DeNormad couldn’t even muster a response, instead simply staring across the desk in frozen befuddlement “Okay, so not voodoo. What else were you thinking?”

“…a conspiracy.” DeNormad sighed in a strange combination of exhaustion and revived manic energy.

“Oh… great…” The Nitpicker responded, with an exaggerated show of deflation “I’d really rather deal with voodoo.”

“An unknown number of people throughout Scintillantem Contingent are engaged in a coordinated effort to siphon off the yield of this facility, pirating the very natural resources of the Emperium itself!” DeNormad elaborated, his original bluster mostly having returned “I want the nature of this conspiracy exposed, its leaders revealed, and its drain on our output brought t an end once and for all!”

“You do understand that the Galactic Nitpickers’ Guild isn’t some kind of private police force, right?” the Nitpicker sighed “I can’t just go around solving crimes and arresting people.”

“Of course not! You don’t have to! We have police for that, it just turns out they suck at their jobs! That why the Emperium sent THAT plastic stick in the mud to whip them into shape!” DeNormad snapped while pointing at Porcaro, his rehearsed eloquence giving way to his more natural curtness “But it turns out that HE sucks at HIS job too! And since the Emperium won’t send me anybody actually GOOD at their jobs, I’ve had to take matters into my own hands! I want you to follow that constipate-oid around, pick out all the stuff he’s doing wrong, and get him to actually SOLVE something around here! Then he can tell the cops, so they can do THEIR job, and we can finally start meeting some freakin’ quotas around here!”

“Hey, Porcaro!” the Nitpicker asked over his shoulder “How many other people have had this guy’s job before him?”

“Four, not counting a pair on interim postings.” Porcaro responded matter-of-factly.

“Are you even listening to me?” DeNormad began, flabbergasted “What does that have to do with-“

“Did any of those people have an office tackier than this one?” the Nitpicker continued, kicking one of the couch cushions to the floor as he did so.

“I am not qualified to pass judgment on the aesthetic value of any room’s décor.” Porcaro deferred.

“Why would any of that even matter?” DeNormad shouted, with ever-mounting frustration.

“Well, how about what OTHER people think?” the Nitpicker pressed “You stay on top of what goes on around here, right? Do other folk say that any of this guy’s predecessors had a room even uglier than this?”

“Only one, Sir.” Porcaro answered without hesitation.

“Alright, if you idiots don’t have anything better to do than chit chat, then you can get out of here.” DeNormad snarled, the aggravation rising to petulance.

“Okay, okay, fine. Just one more question before I go.” The Nitpicker said, taking the final bite out of his apple as he rose from the couch “Are you only in debt to ONE criminal organization, or is it spread out across several?”

DeNormad took several seconds to manage any response, and even then it was more of a scratchy whine of shock and outrage than any sort of articulate reply.

“I mean, it’s a pretty sweet set up, on paper: weasel your way into a top level job in an industry that normal people really don’t care about anymore, but still has big cushy government contracts anyway.” The Nitpicker elaborated, tossing the apple core into the pile of cans on the desk “You skim whatever you need off the top to pay whoever you need, and nobody even notices. I mean, the Radial Emperium may be a bunch of stuffy old fogies, but even THEY wouldn’t be all that bothered by a few discrepancies in a dying industry like this. Otherwise, they’d have sent more than one Constaboids over here ages ago. But no, your conspiracy or whatever voodoo is going on had to go and take its own bite out of the profits, and suddenly you taking your own cut out of things pushes it all just over that line to where the Emperium WOULD start noticing. I’m just curious if you’re worried about one hitman being sent after you or several.”

“GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!” DeNormad shriek, leaping to his feet wish such force that nearly all the detritus on the desk tumbled to the floor at once. Right on cue, to the point that DeNormad had barely even had time to start speaking, the Nitpicker bolted for the door, leaping over several chairs with only minimal success. “PORCARO, DON’T YOU LET THAT FOUR-EYED IDIOT BACK IN HERE UNTIL YOU’VE GOT SOME ANSWERS!”

“Have a good day, sir.” Porcaro responded, promptly following the Nitpicker out the door and shutting it before most of DeNormad’s string of expletives could make it into the hall.

“Well, I feel better!” the Nitpicker laughed, stretching his arms above his head as though he’d just finished some heavy lifting.

“Just out of curiosity,” Porcaro inquired “how much of that was relevant to the job at hand, and how much was a show of dominance over being made to wait earlier?”

“Hey now, do you really think I’d be THAT selfish while on the job?” the Nitpicker smirked, slapping Porcaro’s shoulder with a hard, plastic thunk “It was also revenge for him obviously being a jerk to certain people.”

“Do you make a habit of generating animosity with your employers?” Porcaro asked.

“It’s not like I have to, it usually winds up that way regardless.” the Nitpicker sighed, with mock wistfulness “Besides, YOU’RE the one I’m gonna be working with while I’m here, so I might as well focus on earning some points with you, right?”

“I assure you, my full and complete cooperation with you over the course of your assignment was never going to be affected by any personal feeling one way or another.” Porcaro explained.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” the Nitpicker said “Still, it must have felt pretty nice to see somebody take a jab at that fat oaf, huh?”

“It would be entirely unprofessional for me to derive any personal pleasure from any act of blatant insubordination towards one of my superiors.” Porcaro responded.

“Oh, I’m sure.” the Nitpicker agreed in sarcastic deadpan “Absolutely inappropriate.”

“…and just for the record,” Porcaro continued after a moment “I believe the full count to be six criminal organizations, give or take some hazy distinctions between certain crews.”

“Wow, he really gets around, doesn’t he?” the Nitpicker responded “I mean, he clearly doesn’t, or he wouldn’t be so chunky, but you know what I mean, right?”

“Entirely” Porcaro concurred as he opened the door back into the recreation area, bathed as always by the pulsating kaleidoscope of colors pouring in from outside.