voice ||

[rrrrangerrick]

Look. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. But I'm only sayin' it once, and I'm gonna say it real slow, so all of you better clean the crap outta your ears and listen up.

I get that there ain't no money. Actual money. But what I'm sayin' is, if you ain't got nothin' to trade, why the hell would you go around wasting somebody's time.

Like, it's like common friggin' decency to bring with you what you got to trade. No, 'oh, whoops guess I left it at home', no, 'oh, it's in the pocket of my other crappy shapeless pants'-- gettin' it to me in a day ain't an option, I don't care if it's your laundry day, if you're waitin' for some big payoff, I don't care if you got twelve kids--that's your own damn fault--I don't care if you're fresh outta the tube. If you wanna buy something from someone? If you bring in your crappy little console, and you want it fixed up real quick so you can get your ass back to work, and you hustle me along and talk real big and then when it comes time to pay up, and you give me some sad sack story? [SLOWLY AND LOUDLY:] I don't work for free. Nobody here better be workin' for free, and if they are, congratulations, you found yourself a sucker. Charity is for suckers.

Okay? Are we clear? 'Cause the next idiot that comes to me askin' for a handout is gonna get it, and I don't mean free frickin' labor. [SIGH.] Jeez. It's like nobody got a brain. Workin' with a buncha stupid fleshy kids. Hardly even seems worth it...

[grumbling trails off into nothing.]

Comments

[boffing]

Naw, mate. I'm being straight with you. It stings a bit, too. Nobody's asked me to do it while I was wearing hose or anything helpful like that.

But I get paid up front, so, [you know obv we're in the same boat.]

[rrrrangerrick]

[are we in the same boat though]

Are you-- No! How the hell do you get paid for that when I can't even get a guy to give me a slice of bread for repairing his friggin console!

[boffing]

[yes i just happen to be doing all the rowing. the eoonomy thanks me, somehow]

You know I've talked to Nero about it a bit, [William admits.] It's a bit odd since everyone's always fucking here, anyway, but I guess the balloon thing is still a bit of a niche.

Did you end up repairing his console?

[rrrrangerrick]

[is the rowing thing a sex thing too because]

Are you-- [LOUDLY] Hell frickin no I didn't repair his console! And if he tries comin' back and gettin' me to do it again, I'm gonna grind it up into little pieces and make him eat it! Especially now that I know the kinda shit they really pay for around here!

These people got issues.

[dogbane]

[In the meantime William sounds unironically sympathetic.] Yeah, [he agrees.] It's bollocks. Sorry to say, but you might have to find your own Nero, mate. The computery equivalent.

[rrrrangerrick]

Yeah...

[Vague and distant agreement, because he's preoccupied with 1) how unfair this is and 2) how endlessly weird people are but

wait]

What the hell's a Nero?

[boffing]

[It's not a bad question.

Or even a hard question, but William takes a moment trying to find the perfect word.]

Patron, [he says suddenly.] A patron. Proper employer, you know? Or at least some geezer gives you regular work.

[These definitions are dreadfully approximate, but any could work.]

[rrrrangerrick]

Gotta say, that was a long pause for what seems to me to be a standard up-front regular ol' arrangement of employment, but. Okay. Sure.

Thing is, I ain't never really worked for no one except me. And I ain't about to change that now.

[boffing]

It's not that regular, [William says, but his brain fumbles with the words, after another lapsing pause that sounds transparently clueless :D;; ok nm.]

How's it different from working from these horrible thieves? I mean, [he remembers.] Apart from that you ain't.

[rrrrangerrick]

[uhh okay]

Seein' as I don't care enough to follow that first part-- [the part about 'not that regular, that is] Workin' for myself means I don't gotta take their crap jobs. I can tell 'em exactly where to shove their little consoles and it ain't some place they want 'em to go.

[boffing]

You can make rules. In the. contract.

You can be contracted. [This time, William gets the cadence right and everything.] People give you more space when you say that shit. Or better jobs. If there's a market.

[rrrrangerrick]

[Wait....]

What, like-- an actual contract? Like written out and signed and everything-- that kinda contract? Is that what you're tryin' to get me to do?

[boffing]

Yeh.

[A beat.]

I suppose you could just fucking talk about it, but there are loads of people ain't as clever as you, [this is proceeding off the perhaps flattering but certainly not inaccurate opinion that it takes a certain aptitude to have marketable tech skills,] so when you say 'I don't want to do stupid shit' they might be too stupid you know what you mean.

[rrrrangerrick]

[That one actually gets through to him, as he's considering the idea of a contract. Good suggestion, difficult-to-shitty execution, and also it leaves a paper trail, which is generally less than a plus. Talking to people? Even less than 'less than a plus'

But dumbing things down for the dumb? Absolutely.]

Defining the stupid shit. I get that, yeah. Don't seem like the kinda thing I should have to waste my time on, but it sure beats wasting my time on being asked to do the stupid shit.

Maybe like a sign. Or maybe they can just frickin' learn, but hey, that's too much to ask for the general populace.

[boffing]

Right on, mate, [says William, who actually typically suffers from the opposite problem. Dumb people perspective can be rather difficult for others to grasp sometimes.]

If you're going to do a sign, it probably ought to be yellow, [he adds, helpfully.] Warning, and all that.

[rrrrangerrick]

Yeah.

[In full agreement. Except--a beat, and then--]

Wait, I thought orange was the warning color.

[boffing]

[A beat.]

I thought orange was the jail color, [William says.] I don't know, I just remember most worlds all the traffic stuff and 'if you touch this electrical thing it'll fry your eyes into goop in your face holes' type signs was all fucking yellow. But I ain't been to that many worlds.

You could be right. [William lacks conviction sometimes.]

[rrrrangerrick]

No way. I been to lotsa worlds. Yellow's the jail color, orange is the warning color. Even the traffic stuff, and the electric fry your eyes stuff. Those're all yellow, except when they do black so you get real scared and stay away. It's like, a head-game thing.

But warning color? It's definitely orange.

[so sayeth the embodiment of conviction]