Sime~Gen Roleplaying: District Controller's Office Scenario
Episode #209: Sticky and Stinky (5/11/00)
Clerfia has been under Arat's discipline more frequently since moving in with her aunt in Capitol, and it has had at least some effect.
Clerfia remembers to signal before bursting into Arat's office, for instance.
Clerfia dances impatiently while waiting for permission to enter.
Arat: Enter!
Clerfia flings open the door and rushes in.
Clerfia: Papa Arat!
Clerfia: Look what I brought you!
Arat is almost afraid to find out.
Clerfia holds out a jar filled with something greenish-brown, with wax on top.
Clerfia: It's apple and mint jelly! I made it all by myself, except for the parts my aunt helped with, of course.
Clerfia sets the jar on Arat's desk with considerable ~~ pride ~~
Clerfia has alas failed to transport the offering with sufficient care, and jelly--or rather, syrup--is oozing around the wax seal.
Arat picks up the jar, rather carefully.
Arat: I shall be certain to use it right away.
Clerfia beams.
Arat thinks that it will not last long, not being properly sealed.
Clerfia: It didn't get as hard as the jelly in the stores.
Arat hopes that Clerfia's aunt gave her a few pointers on safe food preparation for future attempts.
Clerfia: Why does the store jelly get so much harder, Papa Arat?
Arat: They add chemicals to make it harder. You don't want any extra chemicals.
Clerfia: Oh. I guess not.
Clerfia hasn't developed the full range of Farris allergies yet, but she's been well briefed.
Clerfia: There's no chemicals in my jelly.
Clerfia: Just an awful lot of sugar.
Clerfia licks her lips in anticipation.
Arat catches the lip-licking, and wonders if Clerfia had been hoping to help him try out her creation, immediately.
Arat thinks that would make a graceful avoidance of it rather difficult on his part.
Arat tends to pass along food gifts to his Donors.
Arat: [except when he hates the Donor, in which case he passes the gifts on to Jeniard]
Clerfia checks Arat to see if he has been properly buttered up, and decides to work a bit harder at the preliminary softening-up.
Clerfia: Do you want me to make you some tea, Papa Arat?
Clerfia: Aunt says I make good tea.
Clerfia very ~~ earnestly ~~ wants to be helpful.
Arat has no idea why she wants to make him tea, and decides it must be childish exuberance.
Arat has never understood childish exuberance.
Arat: Yes, thank you.
Clerfia skips over to the tea table, her boots clacking merrily on the floor.
Clerfia carefully gets the water heating, then sets out two cups and starts looking through the tea selections.
Clerfia: Do you want Tecton #3 or Lilac Passion or....
Clerfia squints at the smudged label on the third tea box.
Clerfia opens it and sniffs, then grimaces.
Clerfia: Well, I don't think you want this one.
Arat: The Tecton #3 will be fine.
Clerfia reseals the box of stems and pieces so it won't offend their nostrils, and places it back on the shelf.
Clerfia: All right.
Clerfia measures the tea into the cups, biting her lip in concentration.
Clerfia courteously uses a towel to grip the boiling teakettle, so as not to burn herself, and pours the water into the cups.
Clerfia proudly brings one of the cups over to Arat and presents it to him.
Clerfia: Here you are, Papa Arat!
Clerfia grins ~~ cheerfully ~~
Arat: Thank you.
Arat resigns himself to having a cup of tea.
Arat accepts the cup and has a small sip to be polite.
Clerfia returns to collect her own cup, and sits down in Beni's empty chair.
Clerfia's legs do not quite reach the floor.
Arat has, at this point, completely given up on getting any work done.
Clerfia: Papa Arat, I miss my sister Snake. Do you miss her, too?
Clerfia: She hasn't sent me a letter since she left.
Arat: Have you written her one?
Arat is glad to skirt the issue of whether he actually misses Snake, or is just glad to have found some use for her while getting her temporarily out of his hair.
Clerfia extracts a rather dog-eared and bedraggled, much-folded piece of paper.
Clerfia: I wrote her a letter, but my aunt didn't know how to send it.
Clerfia: And the man at the post office said that what I wrote wasn't enough.
Arat: I see.
Arat opens a desk drawer and withdraws a fresh envelope.
Arat: Why don't you copy the address from this package onto this clean envelope.
Clerfia points to the spot where she addressed the letter to "Sister Snake"
Arat indicates the return address on a package from "the front".
Arat: Be sure to use her entire name: Hajene Snake Farris.
Arat leaves off part of her name: ambrov Zeor.
Clerfia borrows a pen from Arat's inkwell, and starts to inscribe "Hajene Snake Farris"
Clerfia starts to copy the next line, and pauses.
Clerfia: "Snake River Dam Construction Site, Norwest Territory".
Clerfia finishes, managing not to dribble ink where it shouldn't be.
Clerfia: There.
Clerfia stuffs her precious letter inside the envelope and seals it.
Clerfia's attention is then drawn to the package off which she was copying.
Clerfia: Is that from Sister Snake?
Arat: No, but it's from some people she will be working with.
Arat: Channels and Donors who were already posted there.
Clerfia: Oh. Does that mean you haven't gotten any letters from Sister Snake, either?
Arat: I have gotten some, but they are for business.
Arat: Not the sort of letter you mean.
Clerfia: Oh.
Clerfia frowns.
Clerfia: I wonder if Sister Snake is lonely.
Arat: No, I think she is very happy.
Arat thinks, as happy as a pig in mud, in fact.
Clerfia: Really?
Arat is glad he sent the advance team with a clear attack plan, and wrote up an outline of the duties to be performed by the follow-up team (including himself) well in advance of the actual date of departure, because he hasn't been able to think about it at all recently.
Clerfia: Does she like to travel, then? Sort of like my Mom?
Arat in fact is having a bit of difficulty in that area: every time he tries to picture himself actually boarding a train and departing for the construction site described in the updates he's been getting, his mind goes blank and he gets a chill up his spine.
Arat: Yes, something like that.
Clerfia: I think it would be interesting to see a whole dam being built, don't you?
Arat is not prone to regular nightmares, but the other night he had one where he dreamed somebody was trying to push him in the narrow door of a train, and he was holding onto the door frame with both hands and trying to hold himself back.
Arat: It will certainly be an amazing technical achievement.
Clerfia: And very educational.
Clerfia looks up through her long back eyelashes to see if Arat is taking the bait.
Arat looks rather disturbed and thoughtful.
Arat appears to have missed the hint completely.
Clerfia tries another tack.
Clerfia: You know, Papa Arat, I can cook other things than jelly.
Clerfia: And I make up my own bed every day.
Clerfia: And didn't I make the tea just right for you?
Arat blinks at the apparent shift to a former subject.
Arat: Yes, that was very helpful.
Arat had not particularly enjoyed watching himself playing the part of a racehorse refusing the starting gate, and having men trying to get him in by sheer force.
Clerfia: I don't think a construction site would have a good cafeteria. At least, the paper says that there are complaints about food among the workers.
Arat is certain he never has prophetic dreams, but that one was just too realistic for comfort.
Arat: Probably not.
Clerfia's limited experience doesn't allow her to distinguish substandard cooking from semi-starvation.
Clerfia: If I was with you, I could make you good tea whenever you wanted.
Clerfia: And apple and mint jelly, too.
Arat's train of thought (so to speak) promptly derails.
Arat: What!!
Clerfia: I want to go with you, Papa Arat.
Clerfia: I miss my Sister Snake.
Clerfia: And she said that I should be near a Farris channel until I change over, just in case.
Clerfia: And with you and Sister Snake, there would be two.
Clerfia knows that Arat is immune to her usual tantrums and wheedling, and is therefore trying mightily to muster her idea of a logical argument.
Clerfia finds wheedling much easier, alas.
Arat: Clerfia, [firmly] the construction site will be a very dangerous, unclean and violent place.
Arat has actually been reading the reports, so he has a pretty good picture of what has been going on.
Arat: It is no place for a child.
Clerfia finds the thought more exciting than deterring.
Clerfia: There aren't any children there at all?
Arat can't technically say there aren't any, since the unofficial campgrounds outside the gates of the worker village are infested with ragamuffins of the illegitimate, semi-abandoned and thievish varieties.
Arat: None that you would be permitted to associate with. [temporizes]
Clerfia perks up at the temporizing.
Clerfia: I'd much rather be with you and Sister Snake.
Arat: The answer is no.
Clerfia looks devastated--an expression which she has long since perfected.
Clerfia: But I could help you and sister Snake a lot.
Clerfia: I can carry water and bandages and things, and make tea, and bring your Donors lunch so they don't have to leave you.
Arat thinks that aside from the nervewracking security issues, there would be the political issues. There haven't been three Audnes living in the same building in nearly 20 years, and many would like to keep it that way.
Arat begins to look genuinely upset as he thinks about that.
Clerfia: I would keep up with my schoolwork, I promise.
Arat would prefer not to turn the furious glare that wilts people's hearts on his own daughter, so he turns it on an innocent paper weight instead.
Arat's paperweight does not wilt appreciably.
Clerfia: I'm even ahead in math. I know my whole times tables. Do you want to hear them?
Arat: No. [quickly]
Arat: I believe you.
Clerfia: There's a lot of math involved in construction projects, you know.
Arat massages his eyes with the fingers and tentacles of one hand.
Arat has been having fights with Jeniard every night, about the Dam project and their going there.
Clerfia: And I even have new boots.
Clerfia straightens out her legs to show off the footwear.
Clerfia: My aunt says that everyone wears boots at a construction site.
Clerfia is enough Arat's daughter to have done a bit of preliminary research.
Clerfia's research did not, alas, give her a good feel for conditions at the Dam site, as the newspaper accounts lack some critical details, and she wouldn't have the perspective to understand them anyway.
Arat: You told your aunt of this?
Arat hopes the aunt at least made an attempt to talk Clerfia out of it, and wasn't the one who actually bought the boots for her.
Clerfia: Well, not all of it.
Clerfia: I told her I wanted to know all about where you and Sister Snake would be living.
Clerfia failed to mention the possibility of herself joining them there.
Arat: I think it will be best if you learn through letters.
Clerfia's lower lip starts to quiver.
Clerfia: Will you write to me every week, Papa Arat?
Arat: If you wish.
Clerfia: And Sister Snake, too?
Arat: That will be up to her.
Arat really wishes she would stop calling Wise Snake "sister Snake", it gives him a wholly uncharacteristic urge to slap her.
Arat: She will be very busy, but if you write to her often, that will help to remind her.
Arat: And even if she cannot write to you, she will enjoy reading your letters.
Clerfia reflects forlornly that at least she has real boots, like her sister.
Clerfia: It's going to be very lonely here, when you go, too.
Clerfia: ~~ abandoned ~~
Arat's expression becomes rather strained as yet another guilt trip is piled on top of the 3,000 or 4,000 that everybody else has given him.
Clerfia: There won't be any related Farrises around.
Clerfia has never made much headway with the unrelated ones, for some strange reason.
Arat: Is that so important to you?
Arat is genuinely curious, since she never expressed such a thing before.
Clerfia: It feels safer, when there's someone around who could... well, you know.
Clerfia never did get up the nerve to tell Arat about her changeover fears, although she did take some of the other steps Snake recommended.
Arat: Could what?
Clerfia can't imagine her father ever having been afraid of anything.
Clerfia: Could help me if....
Clerfia squirms in her chair, ~~ half scared, half embarrassed ~~
Clerfia has, however, gone too far to back down now.
Clerfia: Papa, what if my changeover comes early, while you and my sister are at the Dam?
Arat is startled by the radical departure from her usual, childish mode.
Arat is used to nearly everything Clerfia says being so irrelevant and/or misguided as to be nearly impossible to listen to.
Arat hadn't been aware that Clerfia ever considered anything of real importance, perhaps a bit uncharitable of him, but there it is.
Clerfia: What if there isn't a Donor here who can help a Farris channel?
Clerfia: My changeover class teacher said that channel changeovers can go very quickly.
Clerfia: What if there isn't time to get a Donor for me, and I....
Clerfia is really ~~ frightened ~~ now.
Arat can tell the difference between regular fear, and a person scaring themselves.
Arat: Now, then, control yourself. [sternly]
Arat: This is a serious issue, but letting yourself become wild with fear is never acceptable under any circumstances.
Arat is pretty sure he never has prophetic dreams.
Clerfia makes an effort at self-control.
Arat: Have you had any indications that your transfer may come early?
Arat certainly hopes that he hasn't started to, and not only because of the dream about trying to avoid getting on a train.
Arat had another one recently, about lines of people knocking on the door of some sort of rude log building, and Jeniard explaining to them that Arat couldn't help them because he is curled up in bed with a pillow over his head and had been for the last 2 weeks.
Arat is sure that people don't ordinarily have dreams like that.
Arat would rather die than tell anybody about the dreams, so he hasn't had the opportunity to find out.
Clerfia: I don't know. When I'm awake, I just worry about it, sometimes.
Clerfia: Although not nearly as much, since I've been here in Capitol.
Clerfia: But the dreams still come, every few days.
Clerfia: The ones where I'm running and running, but I can't find you or my sister.
Clerfia: Papa Arat, what does it feel like, when you know changeover is coming soon?
Arat considers the question gravely.
Arat: I think it is different for everybody. Most people cannot know when they will change over, of course.
Arat: For me, it was a sense that... [considerable editing has been done to this description] that my time was closing in on me.
Arat: It was strongest in the last two weeks before it happened.
Arat: But I first began to feel it some years before.
Arat had been told, at the time, that he was imagining things. It is possible that he was.
Clerfia: You did? Did you worry about it a lot?
Clerfia is always eager to find similarities between herself and her father; it helps her to feel more as if she belongs.
Arat: Yes, it is natural to worry about it to some extent.
Arat: However, you are actually better off living here in Capitol, because there are many high ranking channels posted here.
Clerfia considers that a moment.
Arat: Even though you might not know the other Farris Donors personally, they will be more than willing to help you when you change over. Even if I can't be there for you personally.
Clerfia: Would Controller Neptude get a Farris Donor for me? Snake says he doesn't like doing that for you, or for her.
Arat: Well, it's different with a changeover.
Arat: Snake and I are adult, and we are finished developing as channels.
Arat: We don't have to have the best Donors every month.
Clerfia doesn't find this hugely reassuring.
Clerfia: What if he tries to find me a Donor, and all of the channels he asks don't want to give their Donor up?
Clerfia isn't totally clear on the authority wielded by the Tecton Controllers.
Clerfia: Last week, I dreamed that I went into changeover, and Sosu Pylor was there, and he....
Clerfia gulps, remembering the injunction against hysteria.
Arat frowns.
Arat supposes that people have been telling Clerfia rumors about what Pylor did to Arat, which would surely be enough to cause the type of nightmare she describes.
Arat would like to have a word with whoever spread those rumors.
Arat: Come here.
Arat holds out a hand.
Clerfia hops down off the Donor's chair and sidles closer, reaching out to clutch the offered hand.
Arat had investigative, rather than comforting, motives in offering the hand.
Arat takes her other hand and pulls her closer, taking her into a position to deep zlin.
Arat studies her for any physical signs of impending, future or paranoid-fantasized changeover.
Clerfia is slightly taken aback as the comfort-opportunity disappears, but doesn't resist.
Clerfia is growing like a weed, hence the new footwear, but has not yet started to develop adult physique, internally or externally.
Clerfia also shows some signs of stress and sleep deprivation.
Arat releases Clerfia after a few moments.
Arat looks at her thoughtfully.
Arat: You show no signs of changeover.
Arat: I do not believe there is anything to fear, at this date.
Clerfia looks very relieved, and a bit embarrassed.
Clerfia: My aunt says I'm just 'sterical, and I should have some sense and stop dreaming.
Clerfia didn't appreciate having her fears dismissed so lightly.
Arat: Do not put too much weight on rumors you may hear. And remember, Neptude would have nothing to do with the selection of your Donor when your time does come. You do remember your lessons on the structure of the Tecton?
Arat hopes they are teaching that in children's school still.
Arat doesn't have time to write any more irate letters this week.
Clerfia nods.
Clerfia: Controllers assign for their Centers, and the District Controllers work under the Regional Controller, and....
Clerfia tries to remember the rest of it.
Clerfia: And the World Controller's on top of it.
Arat thinks that ten years old is certainly old enough to have the system down cold - considering many children have to start using the system suddenly at age 11.
Arat: You may want to study the system a bit further, to reassure yourself as to its efficacy and proper management.
Arat: It's all right to be a little bit afraid, but always remember to control yourself. That is what hysterical means: running away with your emotions instead of controlling them.
Clerfia: Papa Arat, who will be checking me for signs of changeover when you are gone?
Arat: You will be examined regularly by a channel at one of the City Sime Centers.
Arat: It's all arranged.
Clerfia looks ~~ relieved ~~
Clerfia: Is it the City Center near my aunt's?
Arat: It isn't far.
Clerfia gives the arrangements due consideration, then nods.
Clerfia: I suppose that's all right. But Papa Arat....
Clerfia's lower lip starts to quiver again.
Clerfia: Papa Arat, I'm going to miss you just like I miss my sister.
Clerfia flings herself towards Arat, trying to clutch him in a bear hug.
Arat jerks back slightly out of reflex, then lets her do it.
Arat usually isn't leapt at by people unless they have ill intentions, so he's hardwired like a cockroach.
Clerfia sniffles into Arat's uniform for a few moments.
Arat pats her back, made a bit uncomfortable by the display - especially as Clerfia hadn't showed as much interest in him before.
Arat chalks it up to more childish exuberance, or some variant thereof.
Clerfia's feelings for Arat may have been more heavily influenced than they should be by her fantasies of living with him and Snake.
Clerfia pulls back, tries to force a smile, then runs for the door.
Arat sighs.
Ormof signals at Arat's office door, clearly ~~ agitated ~~
Ormof is not generally zlinned in such a state, at least outside of Arat's office.
Arat: Enter!
Ormof usually only gets agitated when threatened with such unfair practices as having to actually do some work, or being held responsible when it doesn't get done.
Arat has so little time in his office, and gets so many interruptions, that he is seriously considering moving his office yet again, to a location even more obscure than the unmarked room on the 5th floor.
Ormof comes in hurriedly.
Ormof: Controller Farris, I assure you, it is not my fault.
Arat blinks once, staring at Ormof deadpan.
Ormof: My department has our chemicals properly stored, and none have been removed.
Arat, of course, has not yet heard about anything about which innocence might be protested.
Arat: Explain. [tersely]
Ormof: It must have been the upstairs lab that was responsible for the smell in the dorm wing.
Arat's expression grows increasingly irritated as this sounds like something worthy of the maintenance department's attention, not the 53rd District Controller's attention.
Ormof catches Arat's expression and gulps.
Ormof tries again, starting at the beginning.
Ormof: One wing of dorm rooms has been experiencing what appears to be chemical fume odors, off and on for the past week.
Ormof: One day it smelled like yeast, another like vinegar, and there are occasionally whiffs of sulfur, too.
Arat listens with all the patience he can muster. It is Ormof's bad luck that he came in not 5 minutes after Clerfia had left, and not 1 minute after Arat managed to figure out where he'd been in his paperwork.
Ormof: Hajene Droft thought it was the fume hood in the lab, at first.
Ormof: But Maintenance said it was working properly, and so was the air circulation.
Ormof: So now, he's saying that the smell comes from my department; that we're not storing our chemicals properly.
Ormof: But we are!
Ormof is less concerned about the smells than that he will be accused of not having obeyed Arat's orders to get his chemicals in order.
Arat: Hajene Ormof.
Arat: Surely you could find someone more appropriate to present this problem to?
Arat thinks that he is far too important to have ever been bothered; besides that, on a purely practical level, he is completely unqualified to solve it.
Ormof: Maintenance is still looking for the source of the smell.
Arat: Good.
Ormof: I just wanted you to know--it isn't my department causing the chemical problem, no matter what Maintenance says.
Ormof is afraid that if the problem proves too elusive, Maintenance will take the easy way out and blame his department.
Ormof is well aware that his honest statement that he know nothing of any chemical mismanagement wouldn't go far, since he didn't know about the lack of inventory and other problems, either.
Arat gives Ormof a look that is somewhere between "you are such an asshole" and "oh, please".
Arat: I'll keep that in mind. [dryly]
Arat: Now, if you please?
Arat picks up his pen meaningfully.
Ormof has undergone enough unwilling rehabilitation at Arat's tentacles to take that question as an order.
Ormof: I'm sorry to have bothered you.
Ormof slinks towards the door.
Arat thinks that train is starting to look better and better.