Chapter Text
Today had genuinely been such a horrible day that he was nearly inclined to punch MeTag in the face when they walked up to him.
The little robot stumbled back, frantically waving their hands in apology. They started pointing behind them.
"Unless you found wherever 4 is hiding, I'm not interested." Cobs swept past. MeTag seemed insistent, though. They kept trailing at his feet until he finally let them lead him down a few flights of stairs.
“This is just 4’s old generation room.” He grit his teeth and turned back again. MeTag tugged on the hem of his suit. They tapped two fingers just below the keycard scanner, being too short to actually reach it.
Just mildly curious at this point, he took out his keycard and swiped the door open. Cramped shoulder-to-shoulder inside was a group of maybe thirty people murmuring amongst themselves. Every single head turned and silence abruptly fell.
“Uh, hello? Can we leave?” A short pink bow elbowed her way to the front. Her speaking up had incited more complaining and pleading, and now every single one of them was yelling at him.
He blinked away the initial bewilderment and yelled “SHUT UP! How did you all get in here?” He turned to MeTag for an answer, but they had taken a step behind him.
“I dunno, but it sucks in here! Let us out, please! See, see, I said ‘please’.” A lightbulb standing close to the bow proudly drew themself up. “Honestly, room service here is terrible.”
“I-” Cobs pinched the bridge of his glasses irritably. “Who are you? Are- are you from a rival company? What, you think that you can just waltz in here?”
“No, mister. My name is Lightbulb.”
“Lightbulb?” He looked up and squinted at them. “Your name is Lightbulb? And you’re… a lightbulb?”
“The logic tracks, I think!”
He hesitated and turned back to the MeTag, who was still hovering in the doorway. “You. Go get every single one of 4’s old drawings that you can find. Anything he didn’t take with him.”
They nodded and sprinted off. He turned back to the group. “As for you all, eh… just stay here for a while. You’ll be tended to shortly.”
After the stranger left, Knife sprinted forward and tried punching the door again.
“Think you might wanna try opening it first?” Marshmallow called.
“Shut it,” he snapped back. But he tried and discovered it had locked itself shut again. There was nothing they could do.
“Come on, let’s think. We can put our minds to this and find a solution using what’s available!” Test Tube waved, trying to get anyone to look at her, but people were already grouping into pairs and shuffling away. The only person listening was this bomb whom she didn’t know (granted, she wasn’t familiar with anybody here).
“Y-y-you seem smart.” He worked his way through the crowd until he was close enough to smile at her. “Do you have a plan o-of some sort?”
“Mm, well, let me look around. I can figure something out for us,” she promised, squeezing her way through to get to the little furniture in the room. Unfortunately, there was quite literally nothing she could use. The last person who had been in here had just left behind a chair and a tipped jar of cookies. Not really helpful.
Bomb was watching her very expectantly. Her head started rushing and pounding, liquid in her vial boiling a bit from the anxiety. She tried not to look back at him and instead stared blankly at the cookie crumbs.
“So?” he finally asked.
“Uh…”
The door suddenly slid back open. The man from before was in the doorway, adjusting his lanyard with some strange object under his other arm. He flipped the object over and set it on the ground. It was a robot. A cute, short little robot who seemed to be scanning all their faces.
“Okay, you all. This is ‘Adam’. I’ve instructed him to get to know you better. It’d be much appreciated if you could follow him out.”
“So we get to leave?” Pickle clarified. Taco, under his arm, yelled “DOOR!”
“...Yes.”
“Yo, hi!” The little robot, A.D.A.M., suddenly sprung to life. “I can’t wait to meet you guys! Waitwait, let me guess your names. Uh, you! You’re Knife!”
“He knows your name!” Apple gasped. Knife just rolled his eyes.
“Good, looks like we’re all acquainted.” Cobs stepped aside and gestured out the door. After several moments of people getting shoved aside, they all managed to form a line and file out.
“Yeah, yeah! This is gonna be GREAT!” A.D.A.M. cheered and rolled to the front of the line by Cobs’ side. “Mr. Cobs, I totally got this.”
“Sure. Look at me real quick, bud. These are your explicit instructions, so please listen.”
A.D.A.M. went quiet and craned his stubby head up to see his face.
“I am still figuring out this whole ordeal, but I believe these people are important. You have to keep them busy. Conduct some… job interviews, perhaps. Just keep them in one spot, don’t go off the rails, and figure out as much as you can.”
A.D.A.M. nodded energetically. “Gotcha!”
“Say that again?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Nice!” Cobs put out a hand, signaling for everyone to stop, and swiped his keycard through a different door.
👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭
The room was stale and white, not unlike the closet they had just been in. Rows of tables and chairs were set up in the center of the room, making it look almost like a classroom. Everyone moved to sit, and A.D.A.M rolled to the front.
“Hello! My name is A.D.A.M, and I’m here to make your transition to Meeple as easy as possible!” The smiling robot scrunched up his face and started to print out papers.
“Is he making us take a test?” Paintbrush muttered under their breath. They turned to the object next to them, and a lightbulb was using sparks to carve out a heart on the desk.
This was going to be a long day.
A.D.A.M started handing the papers out, and Paintbrush started reading the questions.
Do I like helping others? What do I see myself doing in five years? What kind of questions are these?
Paintbrush glanced over again, and Lightbulb had found a pencil and was chewing on it.
They sighed and started answering the questions.
👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭
After an hour of considering what color they most related to and how they would climb the corporate ladder, A.D.A.M gathered up everyone’s tests (quizzes??? worksheets??) and escorted them all outside to wait for the results.
After about five minutes, A.D.A.M. opened the door.
“Hello! I will now distribute your tasks by alphabetical order! Apple, please come in here with me!”
Apple and A.D.A.M stepped into the room and shut the door. After a few minutes, they came out of the room and A.D.A.M called for Balloon. Paintbrush moved closer to the door, eager to hear about what was going on and what their ‘tasks’ were. As they moved, they overheard Apple talking.
“I got something called… factory work?? Whatever that means.”
“Seriously Apple, are you illiterate?”
“What does that mean?”
Wow. Apple was not the brightest bulb in the shed.
One agony of waiting later, Paintbrush was called into the room.
“Hello Paintbrush! I have reviewed your personality test, and have conjured the perfect job for you based on the results!”
Paintbrush wondered if manager was an option for a job. They had to stay in that room with like 20 people for a while, and not one of them would listen when they tried to get everyone to work together. Now they would have to listen. Heh.
“Customer Service!” A.D.A.M. proudly slid their test over the desk. It had a bunch of green markings on it, mainly just smiley faces and stars.
Paintbrush stared incredulously at him. “Excuse me?”
“And your lovely partner will be… let’s see here, uh…” He shuffled messily through the stack of tests next to him. “The Lightbulb guy! Yeah! I’m sure you’ll have an excellent dynamic!”
On cue, Lightbulb hopped out of the shadows behind him and waved energetically.
“You- you can’t be serious,” they laughed.
Lightbulb swept over to their side and put an arm around their shoulder. “Oh, we’re so super serious, Painty! Can I call ya Painty?”
“No.” They shoved her away.
“Well,” A.D.A.M. announced loudly. “I’ll get you to your station soon! Get out of here, go get to know each other while you wait.”
Resigned, Paintbrush trailed out the door, Lightbulb following close behind.
By the time all the interviews were done, everyone had grouped with their new coworkers and were awkwardly exchanging names. An unhappy bunch had clustered by the wall, all grumbling over being assigned “factory work”.
“I, for one, do not mind this placement,” Yin spoke up. “I believe we have the ability to make the best of it!”
“SHUT UP! LOSER!” Yang repeated until Yin fell silent.
Test Tube had ended up in Research and Development, which she was very pleased about. She was less pleased about having an “assistant” but was semi-glad that it was Bomb. At least she wouldn’t have to introduce herself to anyone.
The little robot finally reemerged, carrying a stack of papers much too large for him, and started rolling throughout the building. A few papers were lost every couple steps. Tissues was initially the one picking them up, but it turned out his stop was the first.
A.D.A.M. pointed at the dreary entrance to what was presumably the factory section of the building- there was no sign that said so. Tissues huffed angrily and shoved the papers into Test Tube’s hands before dragging his feet through the doorway. The rest of the factory workers followed.
“So, uh, you guys can probably figure out what to do for now!” A.D.A.M. called. “I gotta get everyone else to their spots, so… yeah! You got this!”
“Tha- ACHOO!- Thanks.”
Either not registering or just ignoring the sharpness in his tone, A.D.A.M. continued forward. The pair obviously most elated about their new jobs was Salt and Pepper. They were already planning out what they wanted their desks to look like as they skipped past the “Social Media Department” sign. A close second was Bow, who was absolutely enchanted by the noise a pen made when you clicked it. She settled in fast at the reception desk.
Finally, Paintbrush and Lightbulb were shown to customer services. A.D.A.M. gave them a briefing as long as the rest of them had been- “YOU GOT THIS! BYE!”- and slammed the door.
👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭👔🏢🏭
An awkward silence followed as the two of them looked around the room.
Two desks were placed side by side, with headsets and computers ready for new ‘tasks.’
The lightbulb (who had introduced himself again as Lightbulb, because of course he did,) grinned to himself.
“You know, Painty…omga can I call you painty??”
“No!”
Lightbulb continued, unfazed.
“I think this is gonna be great!”
He was wrong.
“Look at us! The dream team!”
They had met each other five minutes ago.
“The future’s looking bright!”
This was going to be terrible.
As Paintbrush sank into their shame spiral, Lightbulb walked over to the desks and picked up the nametags that sat on each chair.
“OMGA! This is cool!”
Paintbrush looked up a Lightbulb, who was now wearing a badge that simply read
“Lightbulb, Customer Service Manager.”
This was going to be the longest day ever.