Chapter Three: Contract

I sigh in satisfaction as I put down my fork, the Pesto Alfredo pasta dish I had just consumed one of the best things I’ve eaten… ever. Wiping my mouth with the cloth napkin, I look up and freeze when I see Beatrice staring at me, a content look on her face.

She looks down at the plate, then back up at me. “You don’t eat out at restaurants like this much, do you?”

I shake my head. “I only eat fast food or I make it myself. I don’t have the resources to justify places like this.”

Beatrice nods, then reaches down and pulls her bag up into her lap. She brushes a lock of hair behind her ear as she pulls out a stack of papers. “How about we change that?”

I push my plate aside, taking the papers as she hands them over to me. I take a moment to look over them, my eyes widening further with each line that I read.

“In short, we need a rookie to serve as the replacement for one of our retiring Guard Engines. It’s a long term contract designed to groom you into a reliable, high-tier Engine that will mostly be used as an escort guard for our locomotives.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Mostly?”

She nods as she pulls out a second copy of the contract, flipping through to a page and pointing it out to me. “It would be your main responsibility, but you would also likely occasionally be required to fight in other positions. For example, as a mercenary for the local government of wherever you are at the time to protect corporate interests, as a temporary placement at stationary sites like our train depots, or even as the centerpiece of a combined arms unit in a corporate conflict. It’s a wide ranging job, but one I’m sure would be fulfilling while also serving the purpose of getting you strong.”

She laces her fingers together over the paper. “Which I believe is your main interest in any contract, if my research is correct.”

I glance up from the paper again, and freeze when I see the look in Beatrice’s eyes. The nervous edge she had was completely gone, replaced with the vicious gleam of a predator. I can’t help but shiver. I may have underestimated this woman dramatically.

I go back to scanning the contract for any oddities. “Exactly how much do you know about me?”

Beatrice hums, then responds, “You were born April 7th of 83’, parentage uncertain, since they left the hospital you were born in before you could be handed off to them and they gave pseudonyms instead of actual names. You were adopted by one of the nurses after that, but she died when you were five and you vanished for a period of three years.”

I have to hold back a flinch when she mentions that. Not the best time of my life for sure.

“Abruptly you turn up again as a ward of Rafflesia Crematory’s director, spending two years under their care, until that day everything changed for you.”

Fuck. “My ignition…”

Beatrice nods. “The funeral of Saint Evan.”

Internally, I wince. “Yes.”

“It was supposedly a beautiful thing that brought many to tears, watching the Saint burn away atop a bed of flowers.”

“I folded all of those, you know.”

She blinks. “Wait, really? That’s actually impressive.”

I wiggle my fingers playfully. “I have good dexterity.”

She snorts, shaking her head. “You’ll get along great with the crew of the train we’re hiring for..."

There’s a pause for a moment, before she speaks up again.

“Out of curiosity,” she mutters, “What organ?”

Wow, okay, a bit invasive lady. I glare at her, completely unimpressed at the obviously intentional Faux Pas. "Is this required for the contract?”

She waves her hands placatingly. “N-No, I was just curious! Let’s move on.”

With a grunt of reluctant affirmation, I resume flipping through the papers. My hackles have risen a bit, but I hold back, keeping my slight rage to myself. Knowing what organ our ignition occurred in, the exact place the dimensional rift is, where our power comes from? That's basically intimate knowledge, the kind of thing you only tell someone as a sign of pure trust. The fact that she's either completely inexperienced with Engines in general or trying to blatantly manipulate me irks me more than I care to admit.

We sit in an awkward silence for a few moments, before she resumes her recounting of my damn life story. “After your ignition at the funeral, the Director handed you off to Trinity River because of your… power thing?”

“Got it in one,” I grumble, “Still mad at them for that.”

“Something I do need to know for this,” Beatrice explains, “Is the true nature of your power.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” I don’t even look up from the paper. “I’m scary.”

She snorts. “Yeah well, I got that the moment I first saw you. I meant more about the fine details of how it works.”

“I’ll tell you once I sign.”

She shakes her head. “Not how it works. We won’t sign it ourselves if we don’t know how we will be able to best utilize you.”

I groan, then reluctantly explain, “I naturally produce an unsettling aura that makes people uncomfortable near me, which escalates into fear if they look directly at me or I boost, typically activating a person’s fight or flight response in the process.”

Beatrice looks at me with narrowed eyes, but blinks when I just shrug in response. “Wait, that’s it?”

I nod. “It’s that simple.”

Her confusion is plain on her face. “How the hell did you make the instructor freeze then? I felt that in the bleachers, and I almost pissed myself.”

“PEM.”

She scoffs. “Bullshit. The Power Enhancement Module in that ancient machine couldn’t have done that.”

“It was,” I explain, “Since I didn’t turn it on until that moment. My power treats the mech as me, so it works with the mech with the PEM off naturally. As a result I can use the function as a sort of disruptive burst, since it multiplies the strength dramatically.”

Her eyes widen as my words sink in. “That’s… incredible. Without the constant drain of energy the PEM causes, your fuel efficiency must be insane.”

“Yeah, but the burst only really works once on a person, at the moment I can only do it once per session, and after that it’s back to just fear. If they can work through it, I basically don’t have any special power at all.”

I freeze. Why the hell am I even saying this?! I narrow my eyes at Beatrice, and she smirks again.

“Lesson one of scouting: Get a newbie Engine talking about themselves, and they usually don’t stop.”

With a groan, I lean back in my chair. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”

“I have more experience than you’d think by looking at me, don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“Geh.” I put the contract down, then point to a paragraph. “What’s this about?”

She glances down, then sighs. “Oh, you spotted that. Basically, it’s an NDA built into the contract that prevents you from giving corporate secrets to anyone until ten years after you don’t work with us anymore.”

Rolling my eyes, I nod. “I’m fine with that, I don’t get why there is a restriction on streaming?”

She sighs. “It’s a long story, but to make it short, we were forced to put that in after one too many of our Engines leaked something they shouldn’t have on a stream. I hope that’s not a deal breaker for you.”

I shake my head. “Nah, was just curious. I’m pretty sure I’m going to sign, I just need a bit of info.”

She grins. “Fantastic. What do you need?”

I raise a hand and extend a finger with each point. “What would my first assignment be, where would I be going, what would my responsibilities be, what benefits would I get?”

Beatrice responds to each question in a rapidfire manner:

“You’d be assigned as a guard to a train leaving tomorrow morning, heading through the wastes up to a secret location in Colorado. You’d be put in charge of one of the mechs, front, center or rear, and required to coordinate with the other Engines to ensure that our clients goods reach their destination. Finally, you’d be given a more than fair salary as well as all of the resources we can spare to boost your abilities.”

I lean my head back, running my hands down my face as I think. This entire thing seems almost too good to be true for me.

This woman has obviously been manipulating me since the moment I met her. She seemed meek at first but immediately shifted to a more professional and serious persona as soon as we got here. The fact that she seems completely unfazed by my aura is also a little troubling, but that might just be her having a strong will or something.

The thing I’m having trouble figuring out is if she has malicious intent behind all of this. If they knew what I wanted to do with this job, I highly doubt they’d want to hire me, unless the company wants to keep an eye on me or something. That seems overly risky when they could probably just sic some of their loyalists on me though, so I doubt that’s the case.

In the end, it’s probably just her trying to get a better deal out of me, and I can’t see that as a bad thing. Hell, it’s probably a good thing to reduce the oversight I might have in the long run.

Beatrice flicks her wrist, summoning a pen from who knows where to offer to me. I stare at it for just a moment before I reach out and take it, scribbling my name onto the contract. She grins, then immediately takes the contact from me and signs her own name, before holding her own hand out to me.

“To a good partnership, Grim.”

I shake her hand, then stand up. “I assume you have my number, can you send me the info on what I need to do tomorrow?”

She winks and gives me a thumbs up, and I roll my eyes as I begin to walk away.

“Wait, Grim.”

I look over my shoulder with a pause. Beatrice has a serious look on her face as she stands up. “Be careful out there okay? It’s a competitive world out there, and you might get eyes on you that you didn’t want for signing this. Be cautious around other corps.”

For a moment I stare at her, before I nod. She huffs with a smile before waving me off. My phone buzzes as I step out of the restaurant, and I sigh before reaching into my pocket and getting out my earbud. I wince as Maribelle’s voice blasts my ears the second I put it in.

{“Minea! Did you sign the contract!?”}

Scratching the side of my head, I step around a rather nervous looking person as I start down the road. “I did, I leave tomorrow.”

{“Hell yeah! Was it good terms?”}

“Yuuup. Almost suspiciously so.”

{“You underestimate your worth Minea.”}

Shaking my head, I notice a shuttle bus pulling around the corner and I speed myself up towards the crowd in the distance in order to not miss it. I step up onto the bus right before the door closes, moving to stand near the front and doing my best to not acknowledge the bus driver looking over their shoulder nervously at me. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I check my messages, shoot a few off myself, then open up text chat with Maribelle in a secure app.

[“I’m heading to an old favorite spot to hang out for the day, sorry, don’t want to be loud with everyone around me being so nervous.”]

She sends a thumbs up at me for that, and I chuckle as I glance out the window at the traffic moving around outside. The bus lurches as it makes a turn, and Sundance Square comes into view. I frown as I notice that a small group of protestors is surrounded by police, and I wince as I see the telltale smoke of tear gas begin to rise up. I wish we had the freedom of assembly that the first United States had once given its people, it’d make things so much easier. Still, it makes me have more than a bit of respect for the brave fools that try it still. I’m too much of a coward to join them.

We pass by Bass Performance Hall as we move onto the highway, and I look down at my phone again to see a rather interesting science article that I pull up describing a still in development model of PEM that might allow for drastically increased power variation when in use.

I tilt my head as I try to imagine possible splices of my own fear aura, but it sort of trails off and my mind goes off on a bit of a tangent thinking about what my new mech might look like. It’s while I’m daydreaming about war paint that the bus hisses to a stop and Maribelle chirps in my ears to get my attention. I step out of the bus onto South Beach Street, then after watching my ride leave, walk over and enter Sycamore Park. I haven’t been here since the last time I met Sorcha ten years ago, and it still hasn’t changed.

The main path snakes out across the landscape, the turf it crosses that stark green color that is so rare to find in DFW. I glance through the chain link fence at the old baseball field that probably still sees daily use, then continue walking along the path until I reach our spot. There’s a small area of stone elevated a foot or two above the sidewalk that they installed an awning over for whatever reason, eventually putting a bench here as well. I take a seat and just breathe in the park’s atmosphere, glancing over and smiling as a woman walks by in the distance with her Boston Terrier curiously sniffing everything it can. Then they both spot me, freeze, then immediately run away as fast as they can.

{“Rude of her, you’d think with a dog she’d have a bit more of a spine.”}

Opening my mouth to make a quip back, before I say anything something clicks and I pause. Narrowing my eyes, I look around. “How the fuck did you see that? There’s no cameras around here.”

{“Oops, I was caught.”}

A small drone, which was apparently hovering above the awning, floats down and plops down on the seat beside me. A small hologram lights up atop it, and I roll my eyes as Maribelle’s little orb form flutters around the area around me.

{“I’ve been following you since the restaurant~.”}

I chuckle as I shake my head. “Figures you’d be doing that. Did you hitch a ride on the bus?”

{“Nope, I went over the buildings as I watched from afar. We really aren’t all too far from where you got on after all.”}

“When did you get a drone in this area anyways? I thought you weren’t able to buy any here?”

“I brought it with me from California.”

Lightly gasping I jerk my head to the side, and I can’t help but grin as I see Sorcha standing there with a hand on her hip. She steps up to me, then sinks onto the far side of the bench.

“So, how have you been, Minea?”

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