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Portalocity Office, Fandom Branch, Saturday

Jim had shown up for his first shift at the Portalocity Office this morning, blissfully ignorant of any strange goings-on around the island today. Really, he was more worried about the quizzes that he had to take before he could be considered an actual employee of Portalocity.

Look, Jim was out in the middle of space when Portalocity was really sucking. This was new and exciting, even for him.

Question 58.

A customer fresh through the portal approaches you with a wild look in his eye, ranting about alien brain slugs and maple and ginger instant oatmeal. Occasionally he changes languages and continues his rant in alien tongues that you are completely unfamiliar with. What do you do?

A. While he's speaking, use Portalocity's travel guides to select the most expensive route possible and suggest an exciting tour of several systems, eras, and pits of primordial soup, all of which showcase oatmeal in some capacity.
B. Tell him about Portalocity's new Interstellar Traveller Program, explaining at length the Babel Fish* promotion for only $49.99 (American, Earth Standard) upon registration.
C. Call security.
D. Assuming you are an extraterrestrial with at least basic higher brain function** slug him. Explain the humorous context to this gesture if necessary.***
E. Refer him to Portalocity's hiring office. Cultural diversity and multilingualism are two traits that we value in our employees.
F. Smile and nod until his next portal arrives.
G. Quietly redirect his route through a Swiss Taco Bell and charge him for an extra passenger (the brain slug) while he isn't looking.

* Installation of Babel Fish not included, not available in some systems, Portalocity not liable for any damage caused to non-humanoid brain-stems by alien leeches provided through this promotion.
** All Portalocity employees are required to pass a basic IQ test prior to signing any contracts. Minimum IQ required for employment at Portalocity is π.
*** Many of Portalocity's customers are incapable of comprehending humor and have been known to become irrationally upset if you, for example, take a large chunk out of their jugular with your teeth after they complain that they haven't had a bite all day.

Jim had chuckled his way through most of the questions on these quizzes, but after a while he was starting to have his doubts.

"Wait... they're serious?"

[Open!]

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Who has gone from picking the answer that seems most sane to trying to figure out just what the company expects of him.

And then blatantly not using that answer anyhow. This was going to be one of those jobs, wasn't it?

Where there are, fortunately, no madmen ranting about brain slugs.

For the time being.

I had Pocky for breakfast, because that was one of the few things in my cupboard and I was sick of instant miso soup, instant rice, and instant ramen. I wish I had instant oatmeal.

Soon.

Soon.

*head tilt* Animorphs reference?

Absolutely!

*biiiig grin*

Thought you might like that. ;D

Somehow, yes. :) Most. Bizarre. Plot anything. Ever. BTW.

Instant oatmeal.

(I totally did not have problems eating instant oatmeal for years after that, btw)

I still can't eat instant oatmeal without laughing. It's awesome. :D

Seriously, who looks at a bowl of oatmeal and says "Hey, this would make an awesome weapon!" Actually, when put like that...

Zinzi had thought of herself as a seasoned travel, someone who had seen and done it all.

She'd never gone anywhere by portal before, though, and so it was a somewhat suspicious looking young woman who made her way up to Jim, carrying a battered suitcase and a dingy, checked plastic tote bag that occasionally shifted itself with a grumbling noise. She inclined her head at him, looking around. "Howzit," she greeted. "This place isn't going to be made of purple goo if I step outside, is it?"

Jim blinked up from yet another quiz, looking more and more like he was in desperate need of a distraction, and offered the lady an only slightly pained smile. Which was apparently more customer service than he was being paid to provide already, so he was on a roll, right?

"Not unless we're having really weird weather again," he offered, right along with a shrug. "You, uh, got a few of the really weird layovers, I'm going to guess?"

He looked so desperately like he wanted to say 'sorry for that,' or something along those lines. And he was holding back only because he didn't want to get fired his first day on the job.

"That what you call it?" Zinzi set her bags down. The tote grumbled again. "This best be Fandom, then. 'Cause I'm not going through any more of those mal portals."

The tote bag nudged her ankle.

"You got any leaves?"

"This is Fandom," Jim replied, and then leaned over to peer down at the bag, curiously. "And it's January. I mean... there probably aren't many leaves left on the trees outside, unless you luck out and find some kind of leafy evergreen thing."

He hesitated for a moment more before curiosity won out.

"What do you have in there? Is it hungry?"

Well, he didn't look terrified, yet. And if Zinzi was going to be sticking around for a bit -- and her wallet said she most certainly was -- then it was probably best to just get the whole "you're a zoo!" thing over with right off the bat.

She leaned down and gently pulled Sloth out of the bag, letting him wrap his long arms around her shoulder and neck. "Just fussy, really. I gotta register somewhere around here?"

"Register? Nah. I don't even think most of the students around here ever bothered with registration." He broke into a bit of a grin at the creature. It wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before, but it was cute. And weird.

Which meant it was right up his alley.

"If you need somewhere to stay, there's the hotel, and there might be some rooms to rent in the apartments around here, but that's probably not quite the same as whatever you're asking, huh?"

"Meant more with the police," Zinzi noted. He still wasn't freaking out. Or staring the way the zoo-groupie kids sometimes did. "Let 'em know about Sloth here, and my shavi. I'm not looking for any trouble."

"Nobody who shows up here is ever looking for trouble," Jim promised, shrugging. "Unless they are, I mean. But when that happens, people tend to figure it out fast enough."

Yeah, Jim. That made all sorts of sense.

"Is he dangerous? I've seen a girl around here who has a really big... wolf, I think they're called? It follows her around. And another girl has a few dragons. And nobody ever told me I had to register my morph, so I'm pretty sure the troopers aren't going to be too worried about that guy."

There was a moment's pause, and then a kind of curious headtilt at Sloth.

"I mean, unless he is dangerous. But he seems more interested in just kind of chilling out, there."

He had no idea what a shavi was. So he was going to kind of assume that maybe there was another pet hiding somewhere, or it was a weapon or something.

Huh. It sounded like folks around here were just really laid back about the whole zoo thing. The way this kid listed them off, it sounded like a really small community, anyway. Maybe the cops just figured they'd have a handle on it without official registration.

"That's Sloth," she agreed. Sloth squeaked and slowly extended one arm out towards Jim in greeting. "As long as you're not a creep, he'll probably like you just fine." She looked around for Jim's Morph, whatever that was, then took a closer look at the threads coming off of him. She didn't spot anything really unusual, especially not if he was a fellow zoo.

"Alright, I'll bite. What's a Morph?"

Jim gave Sloth a pretty big grin, and then reached out a hand to gently shake his... large, pointy claws. Because it was totally normal to shake hands with an animal, why not?

"Morph is... Morph," Jim explained, because that cleared everything up, right there. "He's around here somewhere, but he's usually pretty good and blending in when he wants to."

With the hand that wasn't reaching for Sloth, he was poking at the pencils and erasers and pieces of paperwork that were sitting on the desk. After two pens, a mechanical pencil, and some liability forms that he didn't have the first clue how to use, he prodded at a container of paper clips. Which promptly grew a pair of eyes, blinked sleepily up at Jim, and then turned into a blob of pink goo and floated up to sit on his shoulder, peering at the newcomers curiously and chittering at them both.

Sloth squawked and hid behind Zinzi's shoulder. Zinzi sympathized.

"That . . . is not something you see everyday."

"He's not, really," Jim allowed, with a bit of sympathy of his own. "I get that a lot, since I came back here with him. But he's harmless, really. And friendly. Say hi, Morph."

Morph promptly turned into a replica of Jim in miniature, waving a hand and chirping out an emphatic little "Hi, Morph," at the pair.

Because that was just how he rolled.

Zinzi looked at Morph. She looked at Jim. She looked over her shoulder back at the lounge, then looked at Sloth. Sloth gazed lazily back.

"Just to be clear," she said. "No one's slipped me anything, right?"

She was pretty sure she'd notice. That wasn't a feeling she was ever going to forget. But she had to check.

"If you're asking if you actually just saw a bunch of paper clips turn into a pink ball of jello that just turned into me, you're not losing your mind," Jim offered. "I... really can't vouch for any of the places that you might have been, but here, things really are just about that weird."

A pause. Morph gave him a sideways glance before melting down once again into his default pink shapeless shape.

"On average, anyhow."

"Right." Zinzi nodded slowly, clearly still weirded out if not actually skeptical. She'd gone from Purple Goo Land to a world of sentient pink goo.

Alrighty, then.

"You said there was a hotel? Got anything around here that's a little . . . lower scale?"

"Um, not really," Jim replied, looking a bit apologetic. "It's a small town, you know? But there are a couple of bars and things like that, if you want to meet people who live here in town. They might have a room you can stay in until you get on your feet, if that's any help at all."

Zinzi wasn't huge on the kindness of strangers. Of course, she also wasn't totally unfamiliar with the idea of just finding the nearest warm place to crash. "I guess I'll scout around. Thanks . . . Morph-guy."

"Jim," he corrected with a little smile and a shrug. "But Morph-guy works too, I guess. Welcome to Fandom, uh... Sloth-lady?"

See, this naming convention worked both ways!

It was better than some things she'd been called. "Zinzi. Guess maybe I'll see you around."

"If nothing else, I'll be here Saturdays. Not that I think anyone is crazy enough to come hang around this place if they can help it," Jim noted. And then, with a look that was more apologetic than actually sincere, he added, "thank you for choosing to travel Portalocity."

With some of the things that had been on the training material he'd seen, it was a wonder they weren't awarding Zinzi here with a medal of some sort for arriving in one piece.

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Portalocity Office, Fandom Branch, Saturday

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