Work Text:
Fireworks crack and splatter the air. Acrid nicotine slices through the sweet breadfruit smell of the blood ocean. The salarywoman watches as wild legs sunbathe close to the plaza’s edge, their toes wiggling happily.
Bad for long-sleeves. Too muggy, but it can’t be helped. She’ll need to wait until her job is complete before she can justify a break to change clothes.
Horse Door is a mess, nothing at all like she had expected. The placeholder beast is keeping the gate stabilized, though who knows how long it’ll maintain structural integrity from the way its breath keeps whistling. No matter its lifespan, she needs to locate a suitable entity for the inauguration soon.
“I am Dratula!”
“Shut it!”
The humidity and persistent smog is bad enough without the chatter of two entities who can’t stand each other’s company. It almost makes the salarywoman happy to get incoming faxes. Nothing like the bliss of unconscious oblivion followed by electric rebirth and warm printer paper tumbling down her shoulders. Catching them is just second nature.
Nothing related to Horse Door or its new Genie ever comes in, just memos and etiquette guidelines and random blood samples from no-name hopefuls who don’t even bother to include a cover letter. She throws those to the legs and watches them squeal in spoiled delight.
“ENA!” the amphibious entity is shouting on his phone again, loud enough for everyone in the plaza to hear. “Please tell me you are done with that bathroom bullcrap.” His words differ from the ones she prefers, but are decipherable all the same.
She winces. For a few moments of calming work haze, she had completely forgotten about ENA.
Had she known up-front that ENA would be here, she wouldn’t have turned down her other job offer. Nothing personal, but she never enjoyed working with ENA. ENA always dug up trouble, no matter the type, and it doesn’t help that this specific ENA has a dogged stubbornness that makes the salarywoman feel jittery in a strange, cosmic way.
Ignoring her hadn’t worked earlier. If anything, the salarywoman is certain that her pathetic attempt at a cold shoulder only made ENA even more curious.
“I shouldn’t have given her my fax number.” She sighs. “Shit impulse control. I know better.” Unlike the frog man, the salarywoman keeps her voice to a private murmur, as if saying a lie out loud will automatically morph it into a truth.
ENA is capricious, unpredictable, erratic, and yet despite that and so much more she remains the only entity who has bothered to acknowledge the salarywoman’s existence.
“I am a vampire!”
“You’re a dullard. Can it.”
Though that could be a blessing in disguise. Everyone else is even more unpredictable, not to mention irksome.
One of the unused plaza models twitches, but the salarywoman doesn’t pay it much mind. A black curtain covers her eyes, and a jolt rushes down her rubber spine. Incoming fax. Seven pages.
When she comes back to and snags the papers (more memos…) she hears the frog man.
“Quit being so unprofessional, people will get the wrong idea!” He chides, and the salarywoman’s brow lifts when she sees ENA sitting where the model had been, her smile blankly geometric.
Oddly, the salarywoman doesn’t feel sinking dread. Only anticipation. Maybe elevated perspiration, though the heat is the more likely culprit there. It helps that the cloying smoke stench has evaporated.
She doesn’t leave her designated post, but she watches as ENA hoists herself up in a whirlwind of limbs and grins.
“I sing the body electric!” she crows, turning to the frog man. “How’s your podiatry coming?”
“Good, good. The entry point is showing up better, see?” The frog man points to the horizon.
He’s right. The island still has a syrup of haze smothering it, but the salarywoman can at least make out the size of it.
“I am Drat—”
“All we need to do now,” says the frog man, “is find a way to get there. Rent a boat. Maybe the receptionist can spit up some more information?”
The salarywoman can’t help but eavesdrop. Bad form, but it’s tough when you’re only a yardstick away from entities who have zero volume control. All it takes is a glance for her to notice that ENA has flipped. Before a smile, now a peevish scowl.
“What, that rude windbag again?” Another switch. “Nothing a little interrogative interviewing can’t solve.”
What an exhausting existence she has. At least she’s dressed for the heat in that silly outfit ENA always wears.
She forces herself to stop staring. Nothing is worse than being an interloper. That’s a surefire way to stumble off of the bossman’s ladder.
One of the wild legs squeals as it leaps up in a graceful arc and twists around before hitting the ocean’s surface with a splash so vast that a splatter hits the cuff of the salarywoman’s slacks.
Great.
“What a shame! Hit by an occupational hazard?”
The salarywoman flinches as ENA sidles toward her. Weird. It feels like a fax is crunching through her cerebellum, a sparky sensation that forebodes a broken wi-fi connection.
If ENA is bothered by her silence, she doesn’t show it. Her foxlike smile shifts to the right. Every part of her is constantly in motion. “Chocolate for your thoughts, my fellow thirty under thirty?”
“I don’t have any.” The salarywoman hates herself for immediately defaulting to company SOP. She can feel more dried sweat cake on her cheeks. “Um, that is…”
ENA’s smile about-faces to the left. “Trying to disassociate till clock-out hits?” This is her caustic voice, but there isn’t anything accusatory about it now. Needle-sharp, but not enough to hurt. “You always seem, like, super not-here. Not like you’re zoned out. Just, uh?” She pauses, and she hums as her head does a full rotation, her mitten-like hand rubbing at her chin. “Lost?”
“Do I?” The salarywoman says it without thought, and cringes. The fungus latched onto her face pulses. “I’ve only spoken with you once under duress as a formality. You don’t know me outside of work.” She feels a twinge of regret at being, as her bossman would put it, difficult.
But if this puts ENA off, she doesn’t show it. White remains dominate, and her triangular eyes squint as she peers up at her. “Mhm. What’s your name?”
“I’ll get one when I’m promoted.” The salarywoman shrugs, nonplussed. “You’re ENA.”
Back to red. “I am!” ENA chirps. She fiddles with her suspenders, a fist in a jacket cuff and an eagle’s talon working in perfectly synchronized tandem. “Seems like your Door is still out of commission.”
So, back to business, then. Shared territory. Comfortable and familiar tedium.
“No, sorry.” The salarywoman looks down at her soiled pant leg. “Maybe if I was permitted to leave my post, I’d have better luck. I’m getting resumes, but nothing good enough to pass muster and take the role on. All the blood samples have too low iron, or too high A1C, or too middle-of-the-road everything else.” She crosses her arms and straightens her tie. Was it too crooked? Too loose?
ENA clicks her tongue and lets her torso dip to the side. Only her head follows along. “That’s a real shame! Seems like you’re not being allowed to rise to your full potential. Is that right?”
“Oh! Um.” She must have tugged on her tie too harshly. Why does her collar feel like a zip tie? “Well, I was passed from other jobs and hired for this one. My skill sets were evaluated with just as much rigor as the other candidates. I work just as hard. That’s all that matters, I think.” Thinking anything else is unthinkable.
“True, true, true!” ENA bobs back to a somewhat proper posture. “There really is nothing like working by the sweat of your brow! To earn your place among God’s chosen.”
The salarywoman wouldn’t put it that way, but the sentiment is there all the same. She doesn’t smile, but she feels her shoulders relax and drop to something less boxy. “The inauguration isn’t scheduled until the next fiscal year, so it’s likely I’ll be stationed here for a while.” She doesn’t know why she wants to tell ENA this. ENA never stays in one place.
Contrary to her expectations, ENA seems delighted. Her laugh is a hearty and happy thing. “Well, I’m on the hunt for a ship.” She breaks off in a snorting giggle, a hook-like finger wiping away an imaginary tear. “But! Maybe I can sail on back here sometime? If you’re here often?”
“Sure.” Again, with the speaking without thinking! She really can’t help herself. “Sounds good. I’ll pencil it in my calendar.”
“You do that.” ENA winks. There isn’t anything smooth about it. Her eyelid seems to only close in rickety starts and stops, but she manages. Her smile crosses back to white as soon as she’s back to staring form. “Your job description get any changes since last time? Specifically, for handshakes?” Red again. “Only if it pleases you, of course! Limited time offer, and after this, the question gets locked into the ENA vault forever!”
The salarywoman starts, and for a moment, she thinks a fax is transmitting her way. There isn’t, only the steady tick-tock of what keeps her alive. The fungus thrums a calming rhythm, but she can’t help but let her impulses speak for her. “Sure, I can be allocated one handshake. Fifty percent of any business-related expenses get reimbursed.”
“You sure?” ENA drawls out the ‘sure’ teasingly and, with a flourish only capable of ENA, holds out a silver hand. “Do me the honors?”
To be put in a position of control makes the salarywoman even more flustered. “Um, alright.” Refusing to hesitate, she reaches for ENA’s hand and takes it. The sensation is strange. For as metallic as her hand looks, the salarywoman shivers as warm, elongated nails curl around her palm and squeeze.
There is a shift to white. ENA’s smile, for the barest hint of a second, turns less pointed. “Hope you get that promotion soon, Coral Glasses... see you soon?”
Their hands break apart, and before the salarywoman can even spare a word, ENA is loping her way to the plaza stairs with pinwheeling arms and a skip in her step.
“I…” The salarywoman can feel stares drilling into her back, but there is too much going on in her mind to justify feeling self-conscious.
Thankfully, another fax makes her stiffen, and the world turns black.