A few hours pass before everyone finally arrives in the office. It was never focused on before, but after Ignas pointed it out, it really is rather silly that convicted criminals have such freedom in their daily routines. Tymon has worked in the bureau since its founding after the third D’Sev War, and it’s always been competent enough that his bosses never felt the need to focus on improvements. It’s like a clunky, old, moldy, leaky boat that can nevertheless reliably traverse the seas, so it never needed to be fixed. But now that the waves are rough and there are all these supply issues on the new worlds, the issues are starting to show.
The hours pass, and Tymon notes the bureaucrats coming and going as they please, heading to the gym or the cafeteria, and always groaning whenever they return to their desks. It’s fallen into such a normal, background noise that he can’t believe he never noticed it before.
Five hours into their shift, just before the standard midday break for most jobs, Tymon whistles sharply. “Everyone! Meet me in the front.”
Cyryl jumps from his cubicle and hurries to the front. Everyone else pushes away from their desks too, but they’re much slower.
Tymon is standing by the telenel, currently playing a beautiful, slow song that incorporates a lot of gentle strings. Cyryl’s the only one with life in his eyes, everyone else carries expressions like dead fish.
Tymon claps his hands, “alright everyone, I have an important announcement.”
One new convict to the left, Daria, gets a tired smile, “you’re finally marrying that poor girl?”
“No-“
“Come on, Tymon!” Another man yells. “How long are you gonna make her wait?”
“It’s…” Tymon grips the bridge of his nose. “Not the right time.”
“You mean it’s not the right ‘Tymon’?” Klem says with a doofy, tired smile. Everyone ignores his pun.
“Well, when is the right time?” Another woman crosses her arms. “You’ve been dating for six years.”
Cyryl’s ears perk, and he speaks with urgency, “uh, actually, don’t marry her!” Some of the women glare at him. “I don’t think my hearts can take it if you get married before I even get a girlfriend.” That brings a laugh from some of the guys, but the women are actually offended, since they’re really trying to push Tymon into marrying her. Female solidarity; looking out for their sister Cassandra.
“Listen!” Tymon shouts. “If I get married, that means I have to go on a honeymoon. That means all of you have to pick up my work while I’m gone.” The room is silent. Female solidarity only goes so far, and the women say nothing. “Exactly. That being said, it might not be an issue for long.” Tymon crosses his arms. “My boss came around this morning, some of you saw him, others came in too late. He says I’ve been too lenient. From now on, all of you will be coming in exactly when the shift starts, you’ll be permitted a single two-hour break in the middle of the day, and we’ll all be taking an equal number of resources. No more of Cyryl and I doing half the work in here. Plus, you’ll all actually learn how to do math. I’m not going behind you anymore to correct your work. got it?”
The room is silent, everyone quietly looks down their noses at the short man trying to lay down the law.
Urban, the tallest one by far, is the first to break the silence by snorting. Then Klem puts his hand to his mouth to suppress his laugh. When Daria finally breaks out into giggles, it opens the floodgates and everyone laughs in his face.
Tymon clenches his jaw, and his ears perk. The natural peldak reaction to such disrespect would be to start swinging, maybe grabbing a chair, or maybe throwing one of them out the window to establish dominance. Tymon obviously can’t do that.
“Hey!” Cyryl shouts, jumping over to his friend and standing at his side. “What’s wrong with you all? Let’s not forget, we’re all criminals here, except Tymon. You’re here to do a job, a service to the Protectorate.”
One of the men has to speak through his laughter, “Cyryl, come on. Just look at him, he’s shorter than my son, and he’s only 40.”
“Yeah? Well,” Cyryl slaps Tymon’s back, “he’s got me backing him up. So, disrespect his authority, and you’ll have to deal with me.”
Daria glances to the crowd, then to Cyryl, “so what would you do if we all revolted at once?”
Cyryl raises his chin, “I’d kick all your asses at the same time, what about it?”
The bureaucrats snicker, which makes Cyryl’s ears turn a little red. They can’t outright laugh, since they know Cyryl would start a fight over it.
Urban raises his hand, a rare smile on his usually miserable face. “Cyryl, come on. I like you, but you couldn’t even beat me in a one-on-one.”
“I could still beat you unconscious even if there were five of you!” Cyryl shouts, whipping his arm up to point at Urban’s face.
Another bureaucrat shrugs, “we have a ring downstairs. We could check this right now.”
“Yeah-!” Cyryl yells.
“No,” Tymon says, stepping in front of a fuming Cyryl. “Bad start to this, should have figured it wouldn’t work out so easily. Go back to your work.” The others shrug and go about their day, and Tymon turns to Cyryl. “What are you doing?”
Cyryl glares at Urban’s back for a moment longer. “Establishing dominance. They started laughing, I had to show them I’m not afraid to fight.”
“You blushing like a girl doesn’t help with that.” Tymon walks past Cyryl to the stairwell door, “whatever. We can talk about this at lunch, come on.”
Cyryl rolls his eyes, but follows along.
The typical work shift is 12 hours, with a two-hour break in the middle. For most of his life, Tymon never cared about this break. Ever since getting a girlfriend, he always takes time off to eat lunch with her, since her job follows a normal, rigid schedule. Cassandra will be joining them shortly. Until then, they go to the food line of the cafeteria on the third floor. There aren’t as many options as normal due to the ongoing economic problems related to the war, but each man orders a large meat patty, freshly cooked and enclosed in a toasted biscuit, with various cooked vegetable stuffed inside the pocket.
The portion of vegetables, and the size of the patty, is slightly less than usual. But it’s all cooked to perfection nevertheless. The meat is juicy, the bread is freshly baked, the vegetables expertly seasoned. Peldaks pride themselves on quality, and the chefs have no doubt been mastering their craft for centuries.
“You know,” Tymon says as they stand away from the counter, waiting for their meals to cook, “the bureaucracy and the science of logistics really got their start with meat. Back when Pelda was founded, every citizen had rotating guard duty in the city’s defense force. For an incentive, each guard was promised at least one meal with meat during their shift, which was a lot of meat that had to be carved and cooked every day. So, the origins of the bureaucracy was to ensure there was enough to go around, since failing to meet this promised allotment would have seen large revolts. That bureaucracy then had to expand provide meat for our soldiers when we started going on campaign years later.”
Cyryl looks to the ceiling in thought, then looks back down to his friend, “I’m pretty sure you told me that before. I know I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“…Did I tell you that the bureaucracy was expanded after the Bread Riots to include a base level of civilian goods? Later on, the bureaucracy even provided an allotment of land for newly weds to build a home for themselves. There’s the military bureaucracy, which provided for the Army of Light, and then there was the civilian bureaucracy, which was designed to prevent rioting and civil wars.”
“If they wanted to keep peldaks from rioting, they should have banned sports and alcohol.”
Tymon gets a chuckle from that. “But anyway, what the hell are we doing? Can you actually fight Urban and the rest?”
Cyryl looks away, “I can.”
Tymon narrows his brow, looking up at him. “Okay, so you can’t. That really limits our options here.”
Cyryl’s ears perk, “I could.”
Tymon crosses his arms, then brings one hand up to his face. “How do we… instill discipline in people who could beat us up?”
“I could grab my gun from home and just shoot them if they get out of line.”
“We’re not allowed to kill or maim them.”
“I could shoot them in the legs. They’re just working desk jobs anyway. They could come to the office during the few weeks it would take to heal a shattered femur.”
“I think that counts as maiming.”
“Ah,” Cyryl snaps his finger, “not according to the constitution! Maiming is defined as injuries you can’t recover from, like getting your hand cut off, or piercing your ears with too large a ring. A gunshot wound doesn’t count.”
“When did you become an expert on the constitution?”
“I was talking to that new girl, Daria, and she was sentenced to 170 years for maiming. She worked in the occupation force, and was in some big scandal where she cut off the weird head-tails of like a dozen prisoners. Turns out that that was very illegal, since they don’t grow back, and it’s considered an essential part of their biology, or something. The aliens got really mad, there was a lot of protests about it, and she had to be punished. But, the point is, if I shoot a peldak in the chest, it’s legally not considered maiming, since they’ll heal.”
Tymon looks to the floor for a second, but then shakes his head, “we’re not shooting them! Unlike you, I’m staying in this job forever. I need a permanent solution. Or, at least, something I can replicate to instill discipline long after you’re gone to some far-off battlefield, and new convicts come in to replace what I have now.”
Cyryl sighs, then extends a finger for every point. “We need to teach those idiots how to do math, instill a work ethic, no killing, no maiming, and it’s something you have to be able to do once my sentence is done….” He shakes his head. “That’s a lot.”
“Maybe it really would be better for someone else to take over.”
“Bah! Forget that! At least let us try a few ideas. Worst comes to worse, we could just send you in the ring against Urban. Maybe Hananiah will pull a miracle and give you the win.”
Tymon straightens his back and walks to the food counter, “God doesn’t accept tests of His divinity.”
Cyryl laughs and follows behind. The pair grab their food from the counter, with the cute lunch girl behind the counter giving the two a smile. Tymon suddenly feels a chill up his back, but it fades as soon as it came. They head into the main seating area of the cafeteria and sit by the window, giving them a good view of the canal and streets below them. With occasional glances outside, Tymon should see when his giant girlfriend is coming.
“What if I brought a sword?” Cyryl says. “Scars don’t count as maiming.”
“How does that help me when you’re gone? Even with a sword, I won’t be able to do much against Urban. I probably couldn’t even do anything against you.”
“I-I agree!” Cassandra firmly says in her weak voice, trying to announce her presence.
Cyryl’s ears perk, but Tymon’s entire body jolts in surprise. They look to the side, and there Cassandra is, standing there with a cardboard box in her hands. She has a slight smile, her face is mostly covered by her bangs, and she’s looking down to meet her boyfriend’s eyes.
“Oh, hey,” Cyryl says.
“H-how long have you been there?” Tymon gets up and pulls her chair out for her.
Cassandra sits down, placing the box in front of her. Despite being nearly eight feet tall, most of her height is in her legs, so she doesn’t look much taller than Cyryl. She’s also angled her chair to face Tymon. Her knees are together, touching the bottom of the table, while her feet are pulled back under her chair. She speaks only with occasional glances to Tymon, able to maintain eye contact for a few seconds at most, which is an improvement compared to when they first met. “After, um… when the break started, I-I ran over and sat down before you. U-um, but, when you and Mr. Cyryl came in, I tried to walk over to greet you, uh, but, uh… it sounded like you were talking about something important, and I couldn’t find a chance to say hello.”
“You could have just tapped me on the shoulder.” He smiles, “it’s always great to see you.”
Cassandra looks down at her box. They’ve had this conversation a lot, but despite his constant reassurances, it doesn’t help. She opens the top of her box, revealing three cheeseburgers with three patties each. Someone of her size requires far more calories than normal. She grabs one and opens her mouth wide, but pulls away then gently turns her head in Cyryl’s general direction. “H-… hello to you as well.” She quickly goes back to eating.
Cyryl forces a smile then gives a slight wave of his hand. He and Tymon begin to eat, but then an idea pops into his head. “Okay,” he says, before swallowing, “what about a bat? Or like an iron pipe?”
Tymon puts his food down. “That’s really no different than a sword.”
“…Okay so I come at him from behind and smash the pipe against the back of his skull.”
“Wouldn’t that kill him?”
Cassy swallows, then forces herself to speak. “N-not necessarily. I-I mean, Urban is the tall one in your office, right? I could survive a pipe to the skull so… he should be fine.”
Cyryl’s face lights up, “see! Exactly. Wham, one and done, teaches everyone not to mess with you.”
Cassy opens and closes her mouth repeatedly, trying to speak but bailing on the words before trying again a second later. Both men turn to her and quietly wait for her to finally drum up the courage. “I… don’t, um… think he would be knocked out. By you… sorry.”
“Haha!” Tymon leans back in his chair, holding his gut while he laughs, but Cyryl’s ears flare and he angrily grabs his meal to take a large bite.
“Alright then,” Cyryl says with his mouth full, “how would you deal with Urban?” He swallows. “No killing, no maiming, you have to put him in his place, and make him accept that this shorty,” he points to Tymon, “is his boss.”
Cassandra takes a large bite as a way to buy time to think. She chews, savoring the flavor, then swallows and quickly eats another. When she swallows, she panics and quickly uses a napkin to wipe the juice off her lips. Then she starts panicking as she realizes she’s wasting their time, so she stammers out, “p-punch him?”
Cyryl sighs and leans back, gripping his nose while his ears flap in distress. “Gugh, that doesn’t really help.”
“Hold on, actually,” Tymon says. “Cassy, you’re tall. How much can you lift?”
“Umm… not that much…”
“Come on,” Tymon says in his best voice, scooting his chair closer to his girlfriend. “When was the last time you went to the gym?”
Cassy can’t look him in the eyes, her ears are fluttering and her face is red, she’s working hard to suppress her smile. “Th-this mo-orning…”
“Urban doesn’t go to the gym, and hasn’t since he was in the military.” Tymon glances to Cyryl, “and unlike you, I plan for her to stick around, so this is a repeatable solution.”
Cassy’s ears jerk straight up in excitement.
Tymon speaks reassuringly. “I think it could work.”
Cyryl, an eyebrow raised, glances to Tymon, and then to the blushing girl with her hands tightly wrapped over her mouth to suppress her excited giggles. “You really do?”
“I think it’s worth a shot.”
“I-I-I-I I’ll-I I’ll do it! Whatever you want, I mean. Punching… this guy. Yes.”
“It’d be better if you could just intimidate them all into backing down,” Tymon says. “Make a face, how angry can you make yourself look?”
She sputters for a second, but then puffs her cheeks full of a little air, narrows her brow, and raises her ears high. Her face is too rounded and cute, it betrays her monstrous height.
Cyryl nods, then grabs his biscuit. “Okay, forget the intimidation. We’ll finish eating, then have you fight him.”
“Y-yes!” Cassy says, her hearts full of determination. But as she chews her next bite, her stomachs sink as she realizes what he just said.