Work Text:
Count to three. Count to ten. I have to tell her. How can I tell her?
This is ridiculous.
Four.
Tristan paced back and forth in front of the Hospitality office door. Five.
He was sweating. He looked in through the rounded window, trying not to be noticed.
Melanie was in her lunch break. Damn. Damn.
Back and forth again. He didn’t want to interrupt her for such a stupid reason. She rarely got a break. And she was sort of intimidating, too, seventy per cent of the time.
He looked in again. She was leaning back in her chair. Looking so relaxed. Looking like someone on a break. Someone that won’t appreciate being interrupted.
He turned back. Stared out the window. Seeing the white snow pass by.
“Can I help you??”
Oh, shit.
He turned around. She was staring at him, mouth slightly open. Affirmative, she looked annoyed.
“Melanie, I’m really sorry - for interrupting your lunch break - but there’s an emergency - on First -…” He couldn’t bring himself to form a coherent sentence.
As soon as she heard the word emergency, she was immediately alert, raising both her eyebrows and straightening her back. Very professionally. Very seriously.
And he looked like a scared kid.
“Tristan, what is it?”
“It’s, uh —- it’s not an emergency, actually, it’s —- there’s an issue with a…”
Blank stare.
“… a cockroach.”
…
“A… what?” She was, in fact, slightly worried. What did he mean by “issue?” Any disturbance to the ecosystem of the train was relevant.
“There’s a cockroach in Miriam and Edward Sovenagh’s car which no one can kill - and now no one can find - and they are demanding to speak to you.”
Ok, he said it. The ridiculous was out. He felt relieved of all responsibility for this now.
Melanie blinked, twice, and took a deep breath. She would not shoot the messenger. But she had to try hard not to look like she would.
“Can’t this issue be dealt with without me?”
He took a deep breath himself.
“Unfortunately, it can’t. Ruth is already there, trying to kill the cockroach, and calm the waters at the same time, but Mr. Sovenagh will not concede.”
Ruth. If someone had ever the slightest idea about Ruth, based on the image she projected, it would possibly be wrong. Melanie had come to know her, quite well, and this woman was someone to take on any kind of challenge. She would be chasing cockroaches in her high heels, and she would be fed up with the drama of anyone not up for the task and not collaborating.
That’s what impressed Melanie. They must have really gotten on her nerves if she felt the need to call the Head of Hospitality to deal with it. The whole situation was kind of hilarious to imagine and now Melanie was suppressing a grin as much as she was annoyed.
“Thank you, Tristan. I will be heading there in a bit, but I need to go make a quick change to my schedule first, to accommodate this.” Melanie dismissed him with a nod and closed the door behind her, staring into the empty room with a confused expression.
She eyed the mic for a split second.
Attention, all passengers. A cockroach has found herself, unluckily enough, all the way up train in First Class, and now faces imminent danger of death. Please, if you find the cockroach, send her in for questioning.
Mr. Wilford will be handing out free massage vouchers to any First Class passenger brave enough to take on this great difficulty and with the self sacrifice he so appreciates from all of you, on this train.
She shook her head. This was not even funny enough to not be outrageously ridiculous.
*
She burst into the Engine.
“You won‘t believe this.” She said, starting the expresso machine.
“What?” Ben asked, already half smirking. He could sense something hilarious was about to come out of her mouth.
“I was called to First Class to handle complaints about a cockroach. Ruth is possibly trying to kill her with one of her shoes, or… I don’t know, her task checklist board, as we speak.”
Javi had his headphones on, so he didn’t hear this. Ben chuckled. “That’s an unlucky bug.”
Her thoughts, exactly. This happened often.
The expresso machine made its loud noise and Javi was called back from his engineering trance.
“I‘ll just have to move our routine hydrogen pump maintenance to the end of my shift today, instead of during the gap I had at four. Is that okay?” Melanie asked, drinking the coffee. Ben and Javi exchanged a glance and nodded yes. “I’ll deal with all Hospitality duties first, it’s better that way.” A pause. “Shit, I really needed that break.”
Ben was raising his eyebrows. “Wait, you’re really going?”
“I’ll tell them may it be the last time I’m called in for something like this.”
Ben nodded in agreement. “Yeah, this shouldn’t be the type of stuff you have to deal with. It’s absurd.”
“What is absurd?” Javi asked, he was still confused. Melanie was already out of the room.
“Mel’s about to pull a “fuck around and find out” on First Class.” Ben said laughing, and then proceeded to explain. Javi couldn’t contain the giggling either.
*
Oh, the situation was really dire, when she got there. Ruth’s cheeks were reddish, and they never were. Tristan looked desperate. She was unlucky enough to arrive just in the moment when the bug was in sight again, stopped at the meeting point between the wall and the floor.
Mr. and Ms. Sovenagh were really something.
“Kill it! Kill it!” Mr. Sovenagh was screaming. He was clearly the most terrified one. Tristan grabbed a pillow.
“What are you doing??”
“I don’t know!”
“Melanie, finally! My husband and I really must speak to you, well this is unacceptable!” She shrieked.
“Good afternoon, Miriam. How can I help?” She asked, with a polite smile, but projecting an air of dominance.
“Oh my god, it’s moving again!” Ms. Sovenagh screamed, interrupting the introduction.
“Oh dear Jesus Christ, move away!” Ruth ordered, moving towards the insect with a rolled in magazine in her hand.
And then, the unthinkable happened. The cockroach jumped. It landed on the sofa.
Miriam Sovenagh was screaming out of her lungs and her husband climbed into a chair. Security burst into the room, panicking that something important was happening.
“Miriam, Edward, can we all take a deep breath? Ruth, if you can just grab a box and trap it in.”
This horrified the Sovenaghs.
“Trap it in???”
“Areyououtofyourmind”, Edward mumbled into his breath, looking at Melanie murderously. Ruth was looking around the room.
“You can’t be serious, Melanie! Just kill it!”
Tristan took a swing at it, and the bug was fast to run and hide under a cabinet.
Everyone exchanged glances. The couple desperately wanted Melanie to speak. She was looking at the whole thing with the most unfazed looks.
Ruth’s eyes were jumping from her to them, and she was about to speak, but Melanie raised a hand towards her. It was Mr. Sovenagh that spoke instead.
“Melanie, this is a high class car. We’ve never seen an insect in almost a year! Never, since departure! My wife is terrified of them! This is disgusting and it shouldn’t happen!”
“How does this EVEN happen??” The wife lost it. Melanie’s deadpan face was the culprit. “Aren’t all cockroaches dead?? Didn’t they all freeze to death?? Why do we have them on the train???”
Melanie was, in fact, suppressing a laugh. She allowed her to continue.
“Didn’t we eliminate all of them??”
I would single-handedly eliminate every last one of you myself if I could, she thought.
“Cockroaches are an essential part of our nutrient cycle ecosystem in the agriculture section of the train, therefore, they are essential.” Melanie said. She didn’t even let them interrupt her. “I can take your complaints uptrain… but, even though it is in Mr. Wilford’s best interest that you find the journey to be a pleasant and comfortable experience, he would prefer it if none of us forget that the success of this train depends on balance. And that balance, Ms. Sovenagh, is delicate.”
Ruth’s eyes had almost popped out of her eyebrows during this monologue, but she was looking at Melanie with admiration and respect.
In fact, Melanie had thought that if she stopped speaking this seriously she would burst out laughing. And she was enjoying this way too much now.
There was silence for a moment.
Miriam’s voice was much less confident when she broke it.
“Surely, Melanie, Mr. Wilford can understand how unpleasant this is…”
“I would prefer not to take the situation to him.”
This fucking bitch, Edward thought, and possibly even whispered it to himself, because Melanie glanced at him.
Ah, she was going to have some fun.
“That cockroach is way more essential to everyone’s survival than she’s given credit for. Wilford Industries’ perfectly designed engine needs her more than you may think.”
It was not her chaotic mic communication ideas. But it was close enough.
“Do you know what an extinction event could mean?”
They were looking at her with the most disgusted face. And she was fighting them with deathly boredom.
Science. She raised her eyebrows to establish her point further.
Ruth was now so confused that she was about to interrupt and be nice and polite and accommodating, when the cockroach appeared again.
“Oh, God. This is a nightmare.” Miriam mumbled, tears forming in her eyes.
A nightmare, Melanie thought. And the laugh subsided for a bit. This was their definition of a nightmare. Not the fact they were all trapped in a steel tube running on a finite supply of parts to guarantee their very own survival. Not the fact that Humanity had messed up so bad it created its own doomsday. Not the people they had to leave behind to freeze to death while they get their exclusive share of the world’s fineries. Not the people they left behind.
The people they left behind.
She fucking hated First Class.
And Ruth wouldn’t bear another minute of this stare contest.
In a swift motion, almost perfectly executed, she hit the cockroach with the magazine, and then stepped on it.
Sighs of relief erupted across the room, except for Melanie, who was staring at it. Then she diverted her eyes slowly to the Sovenaghs.
“Thank you, Ruth. That was some swift thinking.” Melanie smiled. “Ms. and Mr. Sovenagh, I’m pleased to see the problem is solved. Would you like me to take your complaints to Mr. Wilford?”
“NO!” They replied in unison. Then he immediately explained. “Thank you for coming. I think it’s all solved now! Thank you, Ruth.” And then, an avalanche of apologies for having overreacted.
When both women were walking down the corridor, Ruth’s hair slightly disheveled, she finally started laughing.
“Melanie! Oh dear. What was all that about the roaches and our sacred engine??”
Melanie chuckled.
“Overdid it?”
“Oh no, it was brilliant.”
And each went their way, laughing. Melanie couldn’t wait for the evening to come, when she’d be able to just run her hydrogen pump tests, in peace.
Science would never bore her. Insanely rich people always did.