Voidhearts Chapter 6: Logistics
Alicia offers her services to the Scavengers. A job interview ensues.
Alicia didn’t have a plan exactly, but she was pretty sure she knew what to do and that she didn’t need a plan. Not really. Some times getting bogged down in thinking about how you were going to preform an action was the worst thing that you could do. Other times, taking a moment to stop and think was paramount. Alicia wasn’t great at telling one from the other, but maybe it wasn’t that unusual to have sharper hindsight than foresight. Either way, she doubted her plan would change much.
That said, as she knocked on the heavy doors to the large box-shaped building that housed the Scavengers, Alicia couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she should have thought this whole thing over an extra time. It was, however, too late, as the vast doors cracked open with a suitably ominous creak.
The individual that opened the large doors was, and Alicia had no other way of describing her, huge. She wasn’t tall for one of the Rhinofolk as far as Alicia knew, but it was hard to look at someone that was nine feet tall and not, in some way, file them away as “incredibly large (tall.)” The rhinofolk woman wasn’t as wide as she was tall, exactly, but she was of powerful build all the same. Her wide shoulders fit in the door, just about, but Alicia could tell she’d have to slouch slightly, thus making her heavy breasts and paunch all the more prominent, becoming, in a very literal sense, very in Alicia’s face. The rhinofolk woman squinted down at her. Rhinofolk, Alicia had heard it mentioned in passing, were all fairly hyperopic, as their eyes were adapted to spotting potential danger in the far distance of their arid homerealm. There weren’t many things left there that could be a credible threat to one of the rhinofolk, especially an adult trained in the art of war, but biology had not yet caught up to the status quo. Alternatively, Alicia figured, their society did not feel entirely too bothered by it and so didn’t get around to developing corrective lenses.
“Can I help you?” The rhinowoman spoke, her smooth alto voice harshened somewhat by a rough vocal fry that felt somewhat like a conscious decision.
“Hello,” Alicia said, not quite managing to decide whether eye contact would be something she should or should not seek out. She settled on letting her eyes settle on the rhinowoman’s horn, a keratinous spike engraved with elaborate patterns and decorated with golden bands. “My name is Alicia Thorn. I want to join the scavengers.”
“Huh,” The rhinofolk woman didn’t quite chuckle. “I thought I recognized ya. So what’s bringing the Mountain Wind down to us mere mortals?”
“I’m mortal too, last time I checked,” Alicia wasn’t sure she wanted the scavengers to know why she was seeking them out at this point, and so she went with the most basic of misinformation, merely not mentioning any potentially conflicting interest. “And I want to help. Scavenging is important work and I thought you guys would appreciate the extra manpower.”
“That’s all? No weird council business?” The rhinowoman’s gaze intensified, Alicia wasn’t sure if that was to impart extra scrutiny, or if that scowl came part and parcel with focusing her eyes on Alicia entirely. Either way, she decided that this wasn’t weird council business. It was Weird Exalted Heroes Business, which was different in vibe if not in kind.
“I try to stay out of their business actually,” Alicia very pointedly did not lie. She was usually unsuccessful at this disinterest business, but she did try, ongoing and continously.
“Well it’s not up to me,” The rhinowoman said in a tone that did at least suggest that if it were up to her Alicia would have to suffer a rather extensive period of hazing before she was granted any kind of participatory role in the organization, “come with me.” She stepped back, the better angle allowing Alicia to also see the tightly shorn head of hair that crowned her new massive acquaintance.
“I get the feeling you won’t listen to me when I say this,” The rhinowoman said as she lead Alicia deeper into the building, past barrels and crates and every imaginable container stacked to the roof. “But you should reconsider. Scavenging is a shit job, and you don’t even need to have a job around here. Sure, that asshole mole guy can make it worth your while, but fuck him… well, he’s gone now so that’s a load off my mind at least.”
“I take it you weren’t Nih-Ka’s biggest fan then?”
The rhinowoman snorted. “That guy was a loser and a bitch, so I’m not mad he’s dead, I’ll tell you that much. Still, it was maybe for the best that there was someone out there being a pain in the tail to the Council.”
“How do you figure?” Alicia asked.
“I mean I didn’t pledge no fealty to that crew, and I didn’t vote for them neither. They just kind of run the show and we let them.”
“It’s a bit unfortunate but at least they seem mostly to have good intentions I think,” Alicia said. She wasn’t sure why she was defending the Council at this point, but the words she said were true, at least to her.
“Good intentions, sure, I’ll give you that one… Hey lads. Straighten that spine Willow, you’re getting bendy again.” The Rhinowoman interrupted herself to shout what were either instructions or encouragement to a small group doing what seemed like calesthenics in a mostly empty storeroom. “Their intentions are good, probably,” she continued as if nothing had happen, “but good intentions and a silver tusk will get you a bowl of soup, y’know?”
“I get it,” Alicia said, although she wasn’t sure if she understood the idiom entirely. She assumed it worked similarly to the anglophone one it resembled, but you could never really be sure about these things. “So who do you figure should rule Thereafter?”
“Not sure anybody needs to rule Thereafter if I’m honest,” The rhinowoman said with a shrug of her massive shoulders. “We need administrators more than rulers if you ask me. I haven’t looked too deep into it, but I’m pretty sure like a third of what we bring in here gets lost to waste. Food rots, liquids leak, hell, I’m willing to bet we have some kind of semimagical vermin are hiding out in the stores.”
“Are you on about your invisible rats again Ade?” The voice of a young man spoke up from an adjacent room, the rhinowoman stopped, Alicia asssumed this meant her name was Ade.
“I never said ‘Invisible Rats’ and you know that Isam. I just said we don’t know what kind of weird beasts we could’ve concievably have dragged to town.” Ade turned towards the voice, a movement that took some shifting of weight and momentum that clearly wasn’t Ade’s favorite thing to do.
“I know, I know, you know I’m just pulling your tail girl. Who do you have with you today?”
Ade snorted as she stepped through the door, again having to slouch to clear the doorframe. “New recruit,” she said. “I think you’ve heard of this one before.”
Alicia was not one to turn down a cue like that, and stepped into the room with Ade.
The room struck Alicia as an improvised office of sorts. Shelves and sundry containers filled with scrolls and the odd notebook and pieces of loose paper lined the walls, with what seemed a semipermanent layer of papers, folders, scrolls and forms on the floor, and in the middle of the room a lone desk, not separate from the mess as much as it was integrated in it. A young olive-skinned man sat at the desk. Alicia assumed him to be in his twenties, but there was a seriousness to his expression that made her assume that he had seen his share of horrors. A smile cracked through his concentration, and Alicia got the distinct impression that while he was serious, this young man also appreciated a joke, maybe moreso than most folks. “Ah, miss Alicia Thorn. The Mountain Wind, your presence honors me.”
Alicia wasn’t quite sure how to respond to such a welcome, and so she bowed at the hip. It seemed like a good enough acknowledgement of the compliment, and she had never gotten into curtseying anyway.
“I am Isam al Rasimi. There are those that call me the leader of this little outfit,” the young man explained.
“That’s because you call all the shots and do all the paperwork,” Ade said.
“Adeyemi is one such person, as you may have surmised,” Isam sounded amused, and although his face remained mostly neutral, there was a slight foxlike gleam in his eyes that told Alicia this was a reoccuring argument that may or may not entirely be a joke. “Me, I don’t know. All I know is that there’s always records to be kept, and if I were not to keep the ledgers up to date, then who?”
“It’s important work,” Alicia agreed. “Anyway, Adeyemi told me…”
“Ade is fine,” Ade’s voice made it clear that not only was Ade fine to use as a nickname, it was mandatory.
“Ade gave me the impression you were the one I needed to talk with about joining the Scavengers.”
Isam chuckled, it was a light, beautiful sort of laugh. “I suppose I am where the buck stops on those kind of decisions,” he put aside his quill and steepled his fingers. “So… why would you like to be a Scavenger when you could just as easily not be one.”
“I’m tired of just sitting around while the Council decides what to do with us,” Alicia said. “The Exalted Heroes, that is.”
“Mhm,” Isam said. “And so you went straight for the most dangerous job in Thereafter. Very brave, or very foolish…”
“I like to think I’m both brave and foolish, if I’m honest,” Alicia replied. “Also I’m not sure you’re aware, but the scavengers probably are the most organized gig in the city right now. You do important work and you seem to have your heads screwed on the right way, so I figured why not? It beats manning the cantinas anyway.”
“Aha,” Isam picked up the quill again to make a note. “I take it you’re not a people person, then?” A beat of silence passed before Isam spoke up again. “Oh, but I’m being terribly rude. Would you mind getting a chair for Ms. Thorn, Ade?”
Ade acknowledged the request with a snort and went to get a chair.
After Ade had returned with a chair, a struggle with finding a place to put it down that didn’t fatally crease some important document or other ensued, culminating in Isam scooping up armfulls of half-written and half-discarded reports to clear floorspace for the simple wooden chair. After having successfully delivered the chair, Ade excused herself, leaving Alice and Isam to the semi-awkward interview they had already started.
“So,” Isam yet again picked up his quill. “Where were we?”
“You asked if I was a people person or not,” Alicia said, “which to my ears sound like you’re asking if I’m a bitch or not. Pardon the candor.”
Isam laughed. “Well, you are direct, I will say that much.”
“I’m pretty direct in real life,” Alicia only realized Isam probably had no framework to understand the online/in real life dichotomy. “As in… person to person. I value frankness, honesty, if you will.”
“A trait you share with Adeyemi among others. We’re a pretty direct bunch. It’s not for everyone, but I believe it’s a response to the conditions we operate under.”
“What, since the Void is so dangerous, you mean?”
“Essentially yes. Clear communication is important both to our physical safety and our mental health when we’re out in the Black,” Isam said. “There’s not really any good systems to look out for us, so we look after ourselves. It makes us seem somewhat isolationist, perhaps, but it’s how we’re choosing to handle it.”
“Ok, so the Void is dangerous, physically?”
“Physically no doubt, there’s debris and all matters of physics at play, and even with the Voidpearls providing air, exposure is always a risk.” As he spoke, Isam detached a glowing blue pearl from his tunic and held it out to illustrate his point. “But the physical danger isn’t all, unfortunately.”
“How so?”
“Well, there’s always The Noids, as we call them. The Void is quiet. No air for sound to travel through. Very little light. The lack of air currents and the like. Thinking minds aren’t made for such a severe dearth of stimulus, so if you’re out there a lot your brain is liable to start coming up with imaginary stimuli.” Isam spoke with a clarity that made Alicia think he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with this particular ailment. “It manifests in a variety of ways. Whispering meteors, eyes in the dark, the smell of madness, that sort of thing. It’s the reason we have mandatory downtime between missions.”
“Sounds pretty serious,” Alicia said. While she didn’t want to push her luck, this was as clear as a shot as she was likely to ever get to inquire about the disappearing scavengers. “Have you had any major cases lately?”
The stiffening of Isam’s spine was subtle and quick, but Alicia caught it. “Not really,” he said, a likely lie, by omission if nothing else. “We’ve mostly got a handle on it these days. I’m just bringing it up because of the directness. Much simpler to call a colleague out if it seems they’re seeing or hearing things that aren’t there.”
“I see, that makes sense to me.” Alicia chose to accept the argument as presented. She’d have to talk to the other scavengers about it anyway. “Do you go out to scavenge much yourself?”
“Ah, unfortunately no,” Isam said with a sigh. “I’ve spent so much time keeping our ledger up to date lately, it’s all I can do in a day.”
“It is important work,” Alicia agreed. She wasn’t quite sure how this interview was going, the exact mechanics of a hiring interview were somewhat mysterious to her and always had been. This, she decided, was the time to go on the offensive a little bit. “So what’ll it be? Am I going to be a Scavenger or do I have to come up with some other way to keep myself busy.”
“Oh, uhm, yes…” Isam said, flouncing ever so slightly in the face of Alicia taking the initiative in the conversation in such a manner. “I was about to say. We do not have strict prerequisites as long as people are in good shape and more or less coherent in the brain, and you seem to fulfill those criteria. So, provided I haven’t scared you off, you are more than welcome to join us.” Isam put down the quill and reached a hand across the desk. Alicia grabbed it and shook it firmly. Arguably, it was a touch north of “firm” as far as handshakes go, but Alicia felt like he slight challenge of the squeeze was the kind of thing a scavenger could respond well to. Isam, for his part, kept a neutral face for the duration of the handshake, but Alicia could tell it did cost him a little bit. She made mental note not to bully people too much while being her Cool But Rude persona, but she also recognized that it was cathartic to not hold back all the time.
“It’ll be a pleasure to work with ya,” She said.
“The pleasure is ours,” Isam’s voice didn’t quite sound authoritative of it after the pain of the handshake, but he was willing to keep up the charade at least. “Now let’s get you introduced to the gang.”
Author’s Note: Introducing side characters is one of these things that feel like a coin toss to me. Some times these characters just spring onto the page with gusto, and end up being a much bigger deal than I planned simply by being easy and fun to include in the story. Other times, it takes a bit more work. Today’s chapter had one of each. Isam took some doing to mold into shape, but I’m pretty sure some fragment of Adeyemi has been living in my brain for a couple of years at this point. What can I say, there just aren’t enough butch anthromorphic rhinos out there.
Catch you next time when we meet some more supporting character friends
VSD