Chapter Text
No matter how long Sinclair spends wandering about in these sepia-toned streets, he can never truly get used to the colour difference. Years of his outfits, each flavoured with their own patterns and displays of greens, whites, and all else, all purged away, and drenched in nothing until it resembles nothing more than a sheet of paper stained by coffee — save for his tie, still desperately clinging to its original tone of pink from when it was first gifted to him, even despite the surrounding environment. And speaking of paper, the very same can be said for his reading; the bland grey of a printed newspaper was something he used to take for granted, and now that it’s gone, it feels strange not to have it.
Clack, clack, clack, the sound of his oxfords tapping against the concrete floor beneath him sounds out with every step he takes from the bounds of the office he’s stationed at, the manilla — well, perhaps, no-longer-manilla — folder in his hands the sole object of his complete and utter focus, leaving him unaware of the gathering crowd of fellow Staff outside.
A break-in at a timepiece factory’s warehouse owned by one #&@(* Charlie, a high-ranking member of the clerical staff in the facility; a theft orchestrated by a small subsidiary gang known commonly as the ‘Batter-Uppers’ for their preference towards blunt implements; an ignorance of the wealth of timepieces, and a not-so-elaborate plan to steal away the contents of a Time Vault for either themselves, or the collective of the Yurodiviye, after their recent establishment in District 20. An elaborate bout of hijinks in trying to properly extract the contents of the Vault, only to end up trapped with it, either awaiting reinforcements from another gang, or planning a proper escape after a shaky driver left them stranded...
With his head down in the paper he’s holding, it’s only so long before he inevitably bumps into another Staff, stumbling back a few steps as he does. “A-Ah,” he’s quick to pipe up, “apologies for bumping into you, miss!” As he reorients himself, his gaze finally drifts up from his report, now noticing the crowd of people that have gathered at the street, all standing around something he can’t quite see — especially, with the majority of people gathered in front of him. “I was reading a report from headquarters, and I didn’t notice—”
“Shh-shh, shutup-shutup-shutup,” the woman he disturbed quickly bites back, barely casting a glance back in his direction, as though concerned she might miss out on whatever view she’s managed to secure — each of her words, in of themselves a whisper. “I can’t hear ‘em talking with you jibber-jabbering behind me!” He does try to speak up again, but the most he earns in response is an open palm held out in front of his face, his words lodging themselves in his throat before he can get them out. “You a li’l blind, or something? It’s a Class 3 Staff, out the front!”
At that, Sinclair’s curiosity is certainly piqued — from what time he’s been employed in T Corp., Class 3 has been little more than a myth to his ears, and even the stories of Class 3 menial workers have been practically deified, considering their exploits. And soon enough, he’s following in the other Staff's footsteps, offering up one last shy apology before he’s trying to catch a glimpse as well, squeezing through whatever gaps in the people he can, and listening in on whatever hearsay he can catch.
“A Class 3 VDCU Staff? What’s she doin’ here? ‘Specially, for a minor base like ours…”
“Maybe it’s that robbery, yeah? Heard that some dumbasses tried stealing from a Time Vault, ‘n’ got stuck with it in the warehouse they stole it from — ‘n’ now they need someone to flush them out.”
“Psshh, no bloody way! If even I’m not dumb enough t’ get stuck in one of ‘em places, how the hell could a crook get stuck?”
“Ohh, you’d be pretty pleasantly surprised, buddy…”
With one last effort, Sinclair just manages to push through the slurry of brown-and-beige suits, jolting forward a step or two off the curb at the sudden lack of resistance, and looking around in search of wherever this Staff might be. Looking right and down the road, there’s nothing — just the blank expanse of road, with a few passersby going up-and-down the street — and looking right and up the road…
“Imbeciles, the lot of you!” The VDCU Staff yells out, the tall hat atop her head differentiating her from the crowd of similarly-outfitted Staff and workers — that, and the expensive car she’s standing next to. “Using your precious time to gawk about like you’ve been living in a cave your whole lives…” With every few moments that pass, her off-hand drifts inside of her jacket, retrieving a chained pocket watch, and staring at the ticking of passing seconds before hiding it away again. “I’m requesting a driver, yet all you seem to be able to do is stare. Is there anybody here competent enough to actually answer me?”
…Admittedly, Sinclair has never been too impulsive of a person. All his life, he’s kept things thought-through and deliberated on, and he’s never just blindly rushed into something he might not have been prepared for. Maybe it’s because of the sight of a superior officer in front of him — or, maybe, that fine meal the Class 2 Staff treated him to yesterday — but for some strange reason, today of all days…
“I can drive!” Sinclair pipes up from the crowd, and in that instant, when half of the faces in the crowd — including the VDCU Staff herself — turn to look at him and stare him down, he suddenly feels a lot more anxious than he was a few seconds ago. Gulping down a breath of air he didn’t know he needed, he tries his very best to continue. “Y-You said you needed a driver, and I know how to drive — not very well, b-but still…”
For what feels like an eternity, the officer stares him down. Her watchful eye starts at his face, drifts down the badge pinned to his breast, and moves back up to once more see through him, like she was trying to stare into his soul — and maybe she was, considering all the stories he’s heard. …And finally, with a nod that silently tells him he’s “good enough,” she takes a step backwards, opening one of the car doors and taking an idle seat as she waits for him to approach.
Carefully walking onto the road and moving up to the vehicle, Sinclair brings a gloved hand to the driver’s side door, watching for a moment as his opening the door is met with the closing of the back door, the VDCU Staff settling properly into her place as he nervously enters the driver’s seat. With one hand on the door to steady himself as he sits down, he tosses the folder held under his arm to the passenger’s side, not noticing as it disappears in a flash, and just-as-quickly appears in the Staff’s hands, its contents open for her to see.
With shaky hands skimming over the thin leather wheel in front of him — carefully tightening and loosening his grip every few seconds — he listens to the mutterings of the woman behind him. “Same investigation,” she quietly deliberates, “a lucky choice, it seems.” And, only after a snap of her fingers forces him to turn his head properly in her direction does he notice the fact his report is no longer next to him on the passenger’s side. “Commence mission report,” she starts, her voice quicker than he expected, as though someone had recorded her voice, and played it back just a smidge faster than its normal speed — similar vowels and consonants blending together to form longer words. “You’ve thirty seconds — don’t go over-explaining.”
“Thir…ty…” Sinclair stutters, taking a moment to even try and understand what he’d just heard, running those mixed-together words back a few times in his head, just to guarantee that, indeed, he’d heard what he’d heard. “As in, seconds? Th-Thirty seconds?” With one hand still hanging on the wheel, he stares at the report — his report — in the VCDU Staff’s hands for a short second, before continuing. “From what I’ve read up on about things, I’d need a minute or two—”
“Unless you’re wildly incompetent,” the Staff interrupts, a biting tone — like a teacher chiding one of their students for getting a simple question wrong — to her voice, “it should be trivial to condense down such a summary.” Once more, her attention drifts to the watch stuffed away in her coat, checking the seconds as they disappear by the moment for what must be the nth time. “I don’t have the time to listen to you fumble about — if you can’t do it, you might as well admit to it, instead of dragging this on.”
In another flash of his anxious mind, he thinks through every little detail he’s going to have to talk about, all the flavour text he’ll have to condense down to footnotes, and how frustrating it’ll be to try and shorten down things that have to be long, and, and, and… And in his stress, his worrisome mind decides it’d just be better to bite the figurative bullet, and he starts blabbing, his mouth practically forced into autopilot.
“Well about three days ago, a small gang — ‘Batter-Uppers,’ subsidiary partners of the Yurodiviye — attempted to break-in to a Time Vault owned and operated by one $&%)@ Charlie, a high-ranking staff member of a timepiece factory; from what I recall in the report there wasn’t too much planning to it — they saw the opportunity to make some quick Time, and they took the chance as soon as they could…”
For a second or two that feels like a millenia to Sinclair, the Staff doesn’t answer him directly, merely combing over the report again, matching his account to what’s written in black ink — letting out the occasional sigh of approval. But soon enough, she glances up, offering a short nod before questioning him. “And their current status? Fled, haven’t fled? Vault empty, full?”
“The accounts and details we’ve gotten so far from passerby is that they’re still there — apparently, Mr. Charlie was testing out a new security system, and they were wrong-place-wrong-time; considering how difficult it would be to lug around an expensive Time-Extraction Device, and that some of our previous reports state the majority of the Batter-Uppers’ members to default on most of their Time payments, I’d say they’re still there, especially without proper transport to get the Vault they stole out. That’s, err… that’s all, Miss.”
“...Fine enough,” the Staff responds, moving to ruffle through one of her pockets, “accurately summarising the report of the crime in… 31-and-a-half seconds, and counting.” And, retrieving a jingling, brass-coloured key, she suddenly tosses it in Sinclair’s direction — leaving him barely able to catch it in time as she continues soon after, placing the folder down on the seat next to her, rather than returning it to the front. “Key slots on the right side. Get driving.”
With a steady death-grip on the wheel, Sinclair places every last inch of his focus into driving; silently praying that the VDCU Staff doesn’t catch on to how much of a beginner driver he is, each little moment of time is spent reciting the route to the warehouse in his head, watching left, right, forward, back, up and down and wherever there might even possibly be another driver. Thinking back on the report he’d just gone and nervously given, he allows himself the quietest little sight of relief — but it’s at that very moment that, once more, she takes him off-guard.
“...How long do you think I’ve owned this car, Class 1?” The Staff suddenly starts up, leaving him speechless — and, completely unable to offer up any answer to her before she keeps on. “Since I joined the ranks of the Class 2 Staff — the first vehicle I’d ever purchased, and a fine one at that.” As she speaks, she leans back in her seat, staring upwards at the sky above. “I’d an inkling that, as long as I kept putting in serious-and-honest hours, there would eventually come a time where I’d no longer be able to ride in cars with rooves.” Still with no response from the driver in the front seat, she points a finger in his direction. “You understand what I’m saying, yes?”
With all his attention still on the road, Sinclair’s only manages to catch half of what the Staff is saying, and in that same vein, he responds as though he’d only heard half, just slightly turning his head so that his voice isn’t wholly muffled by the sounds around him — even if he still speaks in an anxious, self-doubting mumble. “What you’re saying… that — and, sorry if I misunderstand, Miss — it’s tough to ride in a car when you’ve got such a tall hat like yours, and that… similarly, I should be thinking about my future…?”
“If this were a classroom test, I’d give you a score of 85-out-of-100 for that — close, but not exact.” Soon enough, she’s leaning forward again, her eyes locked onto the Class 1 Staff driving, and occasionally watching his reflection in the rear-view mirror. “What I’m trying to say, more accurately, is that if you want to use your time properly in an establishment like T Corp., you have to know what you’re going to use it for, and how you’re going to use it. I’ll give you an example,” she begins, glancing over his reflection again, and settling on his chest, “that pink tie you’re wearing, you’ve a good sense of colour-fashion.”
“M-Miss, it’s a—” Sinclair tries to speak up, but he’s shot down before he can — and far before he can specify that the tie wasn’t of his own choice, and that it was actually a gift to celebrate his employment, especially in another District from his home-Wing.
“Of course, you’ve also got to consider where you’re living. In a District filtered in sepia, that pink doesn’t match your outfit in the slightest.” If she was close enough, she almost-certainly would’ve reached over and tugged on it a few times, just to truly emphasise the contrast. “Choosing to colour in small portions of your outfit like you have, all it does is give the impression that you only put in half the effort when it comes to your duties — like a nouveau-riche, who’s just earned a pretty paycheck and doesn’t know how to properly spend it.”
“...Does it?” Sinclair is quick to question when he’s got the chance, feeling even more embarrassed than he already was, now that he’s been nitpicked. “I, uhm… didn’t know that little things like that could define my entire… aura, I suppose…” Internally, he promises himself that the next time he has to make an outfit, he should swap out his tie — or, at the very least, hide it a bit more so it’s harder to point out.
“Remember this, next time you’re dressing. When you’re going out for work,” the VDCU Staff leans just a bit farther forward, bringing a hand up to pat his suit-covered shoulder, “you dress in bland like this, and when you’re going out to an event that requires you dress properly, “she leans backwards, once more staring at his tie through the reflection of the rear-view mirror, “you colour something like your shirt in as well.”
“Understood, Miss,” Sinclair responds, carefully and partially letting go of the wheel so that he can bring a hand to feel his tie for a moment. “If I’m working, I dress bland, and if I’m at a formality, I dress fancy with colour.” One more time, he fumbles with his tie, tugging on it once or twice before his hand meets the other once more at the wheel, his focus back on the road — and the fact that, in about 5 seconds, he’ll have slowed the car to a halt in front of her destination.
With one more approving nod of her head, she looks past the driver and to the road ahead of them, noticing the familiar landmark quite quickly — at which point, she sits herself up proper, collecting her cane from its spot on the floor of the car. “I don’t waste my time on fools without worth — so you’d do well to take the time and advice I gave you and make yourself sufficiently worthwhile, the next time we meet.”
A second or two longer, and the car slows to a halt, leaving him to settle back in his seat — drawing his hands back from the wheel, and moving his foot away from the brake. “I’ll do my very best, Miss,” Sinclair starts, finally turning his head back to properly and politely face the Class 3 VDCU Staff in the back seat — only to be met with the sight of not a soul, a slight wisp of sudden wind nearly causing his report to fly from its position on the seat.
…As well as a brown-toned metal pocket watch, still ticking away from where she was sitting.