The whole situation felt like being sent to the principle’s office, Roxy thought. There was a waiting room of sorts – a table, plants in the corners – but nothing to occupy oneself with. No Magazines. No treats – which seemed against policy for Betty Crocker Corp. There was always some sort of sampler. There was even an outline of where they trey would go.
Not that Roxy had worked here too incredibly long. But, with a squeaky new electrical engineering degree, Crocker Corp was one of the few places that listed jobs that were actually a good fit. The factories had to keep producing. Though, at this point, she was playing second fiddle to those with had been with the company longer.
She looked at her badge. She’d been given a new one at the door. It looked… prepared. It had one of those Radio Frequency Antennas in it. If it wasn’t her only one, she’d already be trying to tear it apart and see it’s contents.
“Miss Lalaonde, I presume?”
Roxy looked up form her seat – and kept looking up. This woman was huge. For some reason there wasn’t room for any more thought in Roxy’s mind. This woman was huge, “Yes, ma’am?”
“Betty Crocker.” An hand was exteneded, which she automatically took. It also was huge. Roxy’s firmest handshake – strong enough to draw comments from the men – was handled as if it were an egg’s shell, “I understand you’ve been mostly shadowing engineers the past few months?”
“That been most… all of my assignments so far, yes.” As Betty did not sit down, Roxy stood up – and the other woman seemed to grow no smaller in comparison. How did she even find clothes? She was bigger than … men. Roxy was drawing blanks. Weird, she didn’t feel particularly nervous.
“Just to be clear – I’ve heard nothing but good things about your performance. I’m just wondering – why electrical instead of mechanical engineering?”
“Oh. Uh… Electrical is enough of a boys’ club for me. I changed programs when it became clear who I was studying by was exactly who I would be working by.”
Betty nodded. The light wasn’t quite right. Roxy wanted to step back, but the sofa was right there.
“Would you be interested in a… shall we call it, a solo studies project? I believe I need an engineer who hasn’t developed to… tight a focus, shall we say.”
“A side project?”
“No, no, you’d be relocating to H.Q. – here. Though there would be some travel, I suspect -” Roxy was being ushered into an office, unoccupied, “Betty Crocker has made multiple attempts to get into the advanced materials field. We should not be dependent on external innovation. And while this is one of these moonshot deals… ” Roxy found herself at the desk, half paying attention to the computer enrollment procedure already pulled up on her computer screen. The was grateful to find the software well written enough that she could tab through the fields, no need to mouse around. Betty, having no chair, had perch on the open space of the desk, doing normal things as she talked, so as not to distract Roxy from her work. “But failure is an option, really, as long as we actually try. You give it a few months of effort, then we decide if its better return you to factory planning and maintenance, or to keep you here, ” Betty, about to sneeze with the dust in the room, managed to catch it on her thigh. It was powerful enough a number of joints cracked at once – she had to take a moment before continuing, “I’ll make sure the janitor actually spends time in here. Ugh. As I was saying, keep you here to continue on whatever line of study you see as appropriate. “
The computer beeped with confirmation that enrollment was complete. “Does that mean I start tomorrow?” Roxy tuned back to Betty – It was a proportional nose, and sneeze she figured. Also, her hosiery was holding up surprisingly well.
“Of course, take the day, we’ll get you some bookshelves to handle the older research… not as soon as we get the cleaner in, but you can get set up tomorrow.”
~
A week in, Roxy had figured out the cafeteria and washrooms – but was still awash in the concepts put before her. Organic fabrics? No, that was oversimplifying. All fabrics had organic components, even nylon had it’s carbon. Self healing fabrics? Self *maintaining* fabrics? But chemists had been over the problem, it was the cross-disciplinary eye that needed to review things. Apparently.
~
A month in, tracking down research papers was horribly dull – but, as of now, it was obvious she didn’t have the resources to conduct experiments herself, she just had to propose further lines of inquiry.
Roxy took a hold of her head and twisted it, her neck giving a loud series of pops again. The desk job… was not something that naturally agreed with her. She almost wished the bookshelves filling with papers and bound volumes was on another floor of the building, so more of her day would be going back and forth retrieving things – but on her feet, on her hands, something other than on her butt.
~
Three months in, she’d given up the chair, she’d given up the desk. There was a fume hood, and a collection of chemicals – she had been able to reproduce some experiments, actually make progress on some of the compounds that had shown promise, in extremely small batches.
And, theoretically, needing space for the fume hood was reason enough to get rid of the desk. But there was no obvious replacement for the desk – a mat, yes, taking up most of the floor space, but no obvious place to sit and type. And, in the unlikely case one of her coworkers needed to talk to her – hand off a new sample, pass on some mail – it always took a minute for the woman with a flushed red face to unlock the door.
~
Betty – She tried to stay in character, think of herself as Betty Crocker; She certainly didn’t think of herself as Her Imperious Condescension – that was only a title, and one from a previous lifetime. Sometimes her mind slipped back, to the days with “Sassacre” – another name few here would know, to the days of touring, to the days as a circus freak. These were all Betty’s days. She tried not to slip back further.
Still, there were plenty of boring days as a CEO that was categorically unable to schmooze it other CEOs. She had people for that. More specifically, humans. The psyonic suggestions she made and corporate negotiation were by and large incompatible – the troll was limited to engaging via phone and letter. In person – their brains would be to busy thinking ‘this is a fairly normal woman’ to actually negotiate in good faith.
On these days, rather than sit on her hands, she prefer to sit on her head – as much as she could, the troll’s horns were very slow to grow back out, but still quite readily felt. She had, of course, adjusted – her moves form her circus days, when her horns had been hewn off completely, were different than from now.
The boring days were great times to further tune her psyonics. One hapless employee would *not* find the CEO at their desk, folding themselves in haves and thirds as they continued to type away and answer calls, with the barest margin of lack of realization allowing them to have a productive hour at their job.
~
Six months in, and one approval later, Miss Lalonde had seemed to given up on office outfit standards. Her supposed coworkers argued if what she was wearing was a lab coat or a bathrobe. A few doubted she ever actually went home – alleging she just turned off the light to her office, made a final tip to the bathroom, then going back to her office to sleep in the dark.
One encounter in the cafeteria – an alleged team building exercise – had everyone tying team colored bands around their waists. Roxy – showing no sign she wanted to be at her desk, tried several time to latch the belt around her waist, just to have it slip to her ankles a moment later. One of the older secretaries, after offering to help, reduced Roxy’s waist to a fist’s width with a single tug. With a ginger twist, it was secured, but the entire floor got to see Roxy’s hourglass – the lady afterward insisting that she was sure it was just coat and skin underneath – nothing like a hidden corset.
~
Eight months in, sightings of Roxy were only reduced to going between her office and Betty’s. Speculation was that it was some sort of tryst – Betty was known to be a widower, Roxy had given no indication she was married, so it couldn’t be called a proper office affair. The only people to ever see Roxy leave her office were stragglers after everyone else had packed up and gone home.
~
Was Roxy in awe of her boss? No. Awe was not the right word. Awe implied some level of separation, of cognition, that had been slowly worn away as Roxy put together the disparate parts of the research put before her in the way suggested psyonic by the user in front of her.
After a long moment of standing, waiting, by the door as Betty waited for the human-programmed computer to shut down – and then shut it down – Betty waved Roxy to her side of the desk hat almost accommodated the troll.
The troll had an unimpassoned means of inspection. Hair – easily plucked, not noticeably easier than last check. Facial features – receding, though mouth would take more convincing to close like other orifices. Teeth – no sign of regrowth. Laxity of ligaments vs muscles….
Roxy was by no means a large adult human, but it still took to sets of three fingers to fold her around them, Betty trying to see if she could get a solid crease to stay on the humans’ mass.
Somthing shattered, audibly. Betty sighed. even the process had been figured out, humans were bound to be an inferior and – feeling around Roxy sinew – this one was not going to walk again.
She was hoping there’d be more progress before it was time. But – Betty took one of her custom mugs. Appropriately oversized for her own hand, thus too large for any other, and took the human’s body, feeding it in, starting to kneed, like any time she had made a batch of dough. More cracks and pops came from the mixture, but it slowly quieted down, thankfully gaining an even consistency.
One of the things Betty missed from many lives ago was the resourcefulness of trolls. The few times she had tried to describe it – others said the word was “cannibalism”. But that hardly covered it. Humans that actually supported themselves had similar thoughts – you use every bit. Of the animal, of the troll. This was no disrespect, but continuing to support society.
But the way humans did it – their leather had to be babied to last. It was a dead thing. A living thing would renew itself, could adapt to change, could be infinitely more useful. So those that could afford the process got living clothing, rather than scraps of the dead.
Roxys muddled form was put on the empty desktop, pushed to a flat sheet. It would not be enough for a full outfit for the troll – but, a shirt. Yes. There was enough material here for a shirt. Betty stretched it to the right proportions, started working in sleeves, cutting through hole that quickly scabbed over. Eventually, she removed her own jacket and blouse, swinging the new one over her shoulders, tucking in – it would need buttons, further coaxing into better lines… the texture was not what she rememebered – but it was warm. Roxy hugged her back. Finally. It was not perfect, but she had one piece of civilized clothing.
~
There was no real announcement that Roxy Lalonde ever quit. Just the request to bring a smaller desk to the office nobody was occupying, and a notice of a position opening up. Biochemist, this time.
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