Work Text:
“As you can see here, the predicted cost margins for next quarter…7% increase total interest… supplies cost as estimated by the accounting department…” A man in a grey suit droned on and on.
Yu’s mind kept wandering from the presentation in front of her, it wasn’t the presenters fault, Micheal or whatever his name was.To be honest she hadn’t really been paying attention when he'd introduced himself, it was just so boring and she didn’t understand half of what he was saying anyways.
She fiddled with the hem of her skirt, this suit was stifling, and it felt too hot especially in the crowded conference room in the middle of summer. The room itself seemed to be a monument to the mundanity of wealth, being both obscenely expensive, and extremely dull, with no decorations on the walls, and the table, chairs, and carpet being various shades of grey. It almost looked like one of those sensory deprivation rooms, especially with the way the fluorescent lights made her skin crawl.
“Yu?” Erena glanced over at her daughter,
Yu snapped out of her trance, and looked back “Yes?”
“What do you think? Should we switch manufacturers?”
Bloot! Yu glanced back at the charts, trying to decipher the intersecting lines, “Well…I think…we need to prioritize quality and consistency…” she searched her mother’s face hoping for some hint she’d said the right thing.
Erena gave a skeptical look before turning her gaze back to the rest of the table,“Very well, the switchover would be rather time consuming and could delay production,”.
Yu let out an internal sigh of relief. She hadn’t fucked it up too bad. It had been her mother’s idea to start taking her to work, “Would you like to start shadowing me at work? You need to be prepared to take over the Exa-Nova when I retire” By which she had actually meant “You are going to come to work with me whether you like it or not.” And that was that. The next day they bought Yu a business wardrobe, and the day after that she’d been dragged to her first of what seemed to be an infinite amount of meetings.
After 3 more eternities, the meeting was finally over, Erena was the last to leave the conference room and Yu followed.
“You have to focus” Erena hissed once they were alone, “This will be your company one day and you have to learn to manage it properly,”
Yu rolled her eyes “I know, I know,”
“You need to take this more seriously, you’re--” Erena was interrupted by the chime of her holo-com,
“You’re needed in laboratory C, the project manager needs to speak to you”
“I’ll be down right away” Erena looked back to Yu, “We’ll finish this conversation later”
Great, another lecture to look forward to, Yu sighed and followed her mother to the elevator.
Kay re-read the spreadsheets for the third time, and then again, and again, until his eyes went fuzzy. He put his head in his hands and groaned. The numbers didn’t lie, the samples had been contaminated, and he’d have to do the last week of work all over again.
He didn’t have time for this! He was already busy enough trying to keep up with this research internship, studying for his organic chem finals, and getting high enough grades to keep his scholarship.
I did choose this. He fiddled with the medal around his neck, remembering how hard he had worked to get here in the first place. How he’d spent most of his teenage years in a closet since that was the only place he’d been able to find any quiet to study in the crowded foster home. How he’d spent the last three years of university running himself ragged to qualify for this internship. It will be worth it. He stood up and grabbed his notebook and another cup of Exa-Nova’s trademark horrible office coffee.
“She’s a reasonable person, she’ll understand that one of the techs made a simple mistake, it will be fine,” Kay mumbled to himself as he walked down the hall towards his supervisor’s office. He hesitated when he got to the door, “Totally, it will be totally fine,”
He tried to put on a diplomatic expression and opened the door. He was surprised to see Dr. Castillo on the other side, not sitting behind the desk with her usual death stare at anyone who dared interrupt her, but instead looking concerned as she talked under her breath to someone on holo-chat.
“Yes, yes, I understand she’s busy but this is an emergency….of course…Great…I’ll see you in ten minutes…”
“Dr. Castillo?”
“What do you want ?” she snapped,
“There’s been an error with the data, we’ll have to test the chlorophyll samples again,”
“Fine, fine,” she massaged the bridge of her nose, “Just have it fixed by next week. Now get out, I have a meeting to get to,”
“Of course” Kay quickly bowed his head before practically bolting out of the office. That went better than I thought it would. At least she didn’t yell at me this time. But he still didn’t want to push it. Probably best to get those new samples finished today. He grabbed his things and headed back to the lab.
Laboratory C was located in the lowest levels of the building, something about protecting sensitive testing equipment from sunlight. Yu examined the change in scenery, she’d never been lower than the lobby with it’s clean glass walls and marble floors, in sharp contrast to the lab’s plain concrete and constant hum and beep of machinery. They crossed through two sets of metal doors both of which required badge authorization. Inside were rows of counters covered in various machines, tools and beakers.
“Dr. Castillo,” Erena greeted a middle aged woman in a white lab coat,
Dr. Castillo smiled back and shook her hand “Thank you for coming down on such short notice, it’s rather urgent,”
“Very well,” Erena turned to her daughter, “ Yu, you can wait upstairs, I’ll meet you when I’m done.”
“Yes mother,” Yu sighed as Erena and the Doctor disappeared into one of the offices. Yu glanced around the lab, and it’s endless tables and beakers, trying to remember where the exit was.
“GOD DAMNIT!” A male voice cursed behind her.
Yu turned around to see a young man in lab scrubs, death glaring at the large machine in front of him.
“Is something wrong?” Yu glanced over his shoulder,
He jumped a little in surprise “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realize anyone else was down here” He looked her up and down, clearly confused to see her non-lab outfit, “Do you need anything?”
But Yu wasn’t listening, instead already looking at the broken machine in front of her, a large centrifuge whose screen displayed a bright red error message. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh uh that? I don’t know, it’s broken, Maintenance won’t get here until monday” He groaned.
“I can fix it” Yu said simply
“What?”
She had already popped the lid off the centrifuge and was digging around the wiring “I can fix it right now, should only take 15 minutes or so”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, I’ll just need a screwdriver, a couple bolts,” She pushed her long white hair behind her ears, “ and a hair tie would be helpful”
He grabbed a toolbox from the corner “You really don’t have to do this”
“Believe me, you’re doing me a favor, it’s either this or another excruciating meeting” she pulled her hair into a messy bun before taking the screwdriver from him and removing one of the front panels “Just what I thought, the coolant sensor has come loose and it’s pressing on the alert system, making the machine think it’s overheating even when its not.”
Kay chuckled “You seriously know how to fix this stuff? You don’t look like you’re from maintenance”
“I’m not,” Yu grabbed a few bolts from the toolbox and replaced the loose ones, “ But most centrifuges function pretty similar to the grav-stabilizers on most ships and I’ve worked on plenty of those,”
“So you’re a ship mechanic?”
“Well not professionally, I just like to fix things up in my spare time,” She smiled, “speaking of which,” She took a few steps back to admire her work, “ I’m done”
He glanced back up at the centrifuge, the screen was back to it’s normal blue, devoid of any error message, “Wow, that was fast. If you're’ not a professional mechanic you should consider becoming one”
Yu ruled her eyes
“No, Seriously, you’re good at this…I’m sorry what was your name?”
“Yu”
“I’m Kay” “I really can’t thank you enough, you are a lifesaver. Is there anything I can do to repay you?”
“It’s nothing, really. It was a very simple repair, the only hard part was doing it in a skirt and heels” she laughed,
“No seriously, I owe you one. I don’t even want to think about the lecture I would have gotten if the project had been delayed a week”
“If you insist,” She smiled “ I suppose I could go for a coffee”
“Perfect” Kay smiled, “I’m just about to go on lunch break”