Good Morning, Epsilon

[thebakerwedeserved]

As usual, my day began with shooing my "fanclub" off my front porch. I don't even know why they keeping coming around; it's not like I haven't made my feelings about them perfectly clear.

"Get the hell off my porch!" I shout, poking my head out the window of my recharging room. One of them starts shouting something up at me, but I don't have time to listen. Somebody has to open the cake shop up for business, and today, that somebody is me. Which is why I cut the lecture short by dumping a bucket of water over my "admirer's" head.

"Stow it!" I shout down at him. "I'm sick of you guys coming around and telling me I'm wasting my potential! It's my potential to waste, not yours! Now get out of here before I call the damn cops!"

Comments

[specialguestvillains]

Good morning! Outside temperature is 17.7 degrees Celsius, predicted to rise to a maximum of 20.2 degrees Celsius. Current humidity is 20 percent. There are no reported traffic accidents. Road alterations are occurring at the 200x4000 sector due to routine construction. A festive event will occur at Pi Community Center at 2pm. What a great day to be you!

Granted, it was always a great day to be you. The announcer chirped that particular message at the end of every morning's wake-up announcement. Sunlight filtered through the open window and streaked cheerfully across Epsilon's recharge room as the admirer took to his heels. He'd tried.

Epsilon's schedule floated across the screen, reading off what he should have been doing on a normal day and giving him alerts relevant to his career. It wouldn't acknowledge he was doing anything out of the ordinary until he went down to the town central office and officially registered himself as out of the ordinary.

There were no cake shops in this town. There never had been. Some of the younger ones were barely familiar with the concept of cake in the first place.

[thebakerwedeserved]

I groaned, turning off the announcements. Right, I still needed to go down to the central office and update my status. Funny how I kept forgetting that.

Only I wasn't actually forgetting at all, I was just putting it off. I hated talking to officials...they were even worse than the fan club, always disapproving. Still! I had an actual excuse not to do it today...or at least I thought I did, until I reached the shop and found the owner already there.

[specialguestvillains]

Penta was the sixth of eight children (there had been a factory error with #3/4, but their parents loved them all very much( and it had left him with a low tolerance for nonsense. When Episilon came up the street he was standing outside with his arms folded, a deeper scowl than usual across his large face.

Inside the shop the lone other employee was working frantically, stirring three large bowls at once before rushing out to serve an incoming couple.

[thebakerwedeserved]

Epsilon felt a strange lurch as he walked quickly down the street, as though his perspective had changed in some indefinable, but aesthetically important way. His personal diagnostics couldn't find anything wrong though, so he quickly shrugged it off, hurrying towards his destination. He didn't think he was in any danger of being late, but when had that ever stopped Penta from being irritable?

[specialguestvillains]

Tardiness was the least of his problems. Penta was yelling at soon as Episilon came into visual range, to the point that he was only audibly comprehensible after he'd gotten two paragraphs into his rant.

"I have to spend an hour waiting on the phone to tell them that you actually work for me, only to find out that according to the Hall of Records you don't work for me. So now I'm out both a fine for bad filing and the time I could have spent working at my actual business, and I am going to be damn lucky if they don't come and audit me!"

[thebakerwedeserved]

Awwww, scrap. He'd thought he'd have a couple more days before they'd go after Penta, but apparently not. Epsilon thought quickly -- quicker than average, actually; one of the few useful skills his build-line had given him -- coming up with and rejected a few possible courses of action. Fighting about whose fault this was would have been emotionally satisfying, but ultimately pointless. It was obviously his fault, and he didn't want to provoke Penta into firing him. Appeasing him was the smart option.

"I'm sorry!" he said, once he got closer. "Look, I'm really sorry about this, I thought I had more time. You know how much I hate talking to the record keepers." He hated talking to them so much. "I can switch shifts with Seachange and go first thing tomorrow, how does that sound?"

[specialguestvillains]

"You go first thing now." Penta pointed away from the shop, scowling an even deeper scowl that his face could barely contain. The job assignment algorithm would have given him an employment prediction in professional glaring if such a thing were economically viable. "Get this taken care of and don't come back into my shop until you stop being more of a burden than a benefit."

[thebakerwedeserved]

"I'm not a --" Epsilon's mouth shut with a click as his brain caught up with his irritation. As long as h was earning Penta fines instead of profit, he basically was a burden. He gave his employer a look that, if his co-workers had been there to see it, would have left them completely speechless. He wasn't exactly a bot known for his humility.

"I'll go right now," he agreed.