Chapter Text
Something about lobbies sets MC on edge. They're liminal spaces to her, like airport terminals and shitty gas stations. No one is supposed to stay in a lobby. It is a place of transition from one place to the next.
She can't decide whether empty lobbies are worse, or lobbies with people in them. They're both bad, though, that much is true.
The lobby of Transstellar Travels isn't the worst lobby she's ever been in. It's minimalistic and pristine. The chairs are nice and lightly padded, dark blue contrasting with the grey walls. In the far corner, a single white orchid with three blooms presides over a table of download kiosks containing e-magazines and brochures detailing the different ships and destinations the company offers.
MC sits in the chair farthest from the desk and fiddles with her green tie patterned with red poppies. It was a gift from her father when she graduated from flight school, and going to an important engagement without it is unthinkable. Her leg bounces up and down, and she can hear her flight instructor telling her to “Put that energy to good use, don't waste it when you could be checking slipstream lines.” But she isn't on a ship, so instead, she scrolls through the holograms that shine softly above her paper-thin display portal.
Her feed is filled with lists of different galaxies, planets, and flights. Reading them helps ease her nerves. If anyone were sitting next to her, the information would be nothing more than incomprehensible jargon, but it makes sense to MC. She clicks on a sub-feed for calculations in the Milky Way – the other galaxies in her feed are wishful thinking on her part. One day, she'll pilot an extended space flight, but for now, she'll have to settle for what's in her home galaxy.
The feed expands when she clicks on it, showing calculations for sub-light travel and available slipstream jump points, as well as distances from other inhabited planets. When she selected a jump point, it spreads to cover most of the hologram, displaying dates and times where Earth will be closest to it. Elliptical orbit calculations are easier to predict – usually there's a window of a couple of months where Earth is significantly closer. Orbital axis calculations are harder; exact dates and times always are.
MC makes several pinching motions that return her to the original feed. A swipe to the left brings her to a new one filled with pictures and posts. She scrolls for a few minutes, admiring the series of pictures her mother took of her dad in their bookstore. Her mom's photos are good enough to be professional – her dad looks like a model shelving books. MC downloads the last two – one of her dad bending over a tall pile of books with a small smile on his face while he attempts to save his glasses, and the other of him and her mother standing by one of the displays of new books. They look like an Asian and Caucasian salt-and-pepper shaker set, with her blonde hair and his darker skin.
“First mate?”
She closes her display portal and stands, tucking it into the inside pocket of her suit coat and adjusting her tie ever-so-slightly as she walks up to the front desk. The receptionist – Yvette, her name tag says – smiles up at her. “Mr. Yin will see you now, First Mate.”
“Thank you,” MC replies, mustering up a smile. She can't stand that the staff here have to refer to her by her flight ranks – it's something that she thinks should stay with the crew and other affiliated flight members. But she brushes it off. “His office is in the back left corner of the floor, yes?”
Yvette nods. “Straight down the hall, then take a left. His office is at the end of the hall.”
MC heads through the door to her right and forces herself not to jog down the hallways. The whole building is painted in the same shade of grey as the lobby, and everything looks washed out under the fluorescent lights. After years of flight school and spending most of her time in hangers for air and spacecraft alike, being inside of a normal building is strange. Almost unnatural, even. It makes her skin crawl, and she picks up the pace a little, dodging what looks like a secretary heading the opposite direction.
She turns the corner and the door to Mr. Yin's office appears, a sleek black affair at the end of an unnecessarily long hallway. Walking down it makes MC feel like she's been sent to the principal's office – it's an experience she's intimately familiar with. She's unnerved by the time she's close enough to knock. A voice tells her to come in, and she does.
“Ah, MC. Thank you for coming on such short notice. Please, sit.” He gestures to the stiff metal chair sitting in front of his sleek desk.
His office is much the same as the lobby, clean and spartan in its design. The same designer must have been employed – it's too similar. MC has only been in the office once before, for her callback interview, and as far as she can tell, nothing has changed. It's almost eerie.
Through the floor to ceiling windows on her right, MC can see the city rising into the sky around them. Seoul is a metropolis, so very different from her hometown in the Independent Republic of Japan. Everything that she has seen of the Chinese Empire is urban, but she expected that – it's difficult to leave the city limits without documentation proving where you are going and when you are to arrive. The glowing of tall buildings and the rush of people wear on her uncomfortably, like a second skin that doesn't quite fit. She misses Iwatobi more and more every day that passes.
MC pulls her gaze from the view and focuses on Mr. Yin. “Of course,” she replies, inclining her head. “What can I do for you?”
Mr. Yin rests his elbows on the top of his desk, ignoring the feed from the large display portal sitting on the desktop. MC notices that he has a physical keyboard – mechanical, judging from the design of the keys themselves. It's an odd anachronism to the room, but she can understand that – her father does run a physical bookshop, after all. The little antiquities that she can find in her day-to-day make her smile.
Her superior's next words wipe the smile from her face. “We've received complaints from some of the other crew members about threatening emails being sent to their private accounts from an unknown source. Have you had any such emails?”
MC thinks for a moment. She keeps her email fairly private, and her spam filters do a good job. One slipped through the cracks yesterday – an invitation offering to take her to Magenta and Paradise, wherever that is. She remembered the logo, more than anything else, a beautifully stylized eye – she had marked it as spam and deleted it. But it certainly wasn't threatening in any way – she couldn't even remember the name attached to it. Probably a weird spa retreat or something. She decided it wasn't worth mentioning.
“No, sir, I haven't,” she replies, shaking her head. “Am I permitted to know the contents of the emails?”
Mr. Yin relaxes in his chair, a slight change of body language that is almost unnoticeable. “No, unfortunately. It's been marked confidential.” He sits up straight. “In that case, I have some news concerning your flight tomorrow. Captain Markyl has been removed from the flight, along with several other crew members. I'm promoting you to Captain for the duration of the journey. If all goes well, you may consider your probationary flight over and your promotion permanent.”
MC sucks in a sharp breath. “Ah, thank you for such an honor, sir, but this goes against the Interstellar Flight Conventions. I'm not supposed to run a ship until I've served as a first mate on at least one voyage.”
His smile grows wide, and MC doesn't like the decidedly feline turn it has taken. He looks very much like the cat who caught the canary. “Ah, but these are extenuating circumstances. We have some high profile guests on this flight, and I cannot afford to garner their ill will. If I could transfer them to another flight, I would, but this is the only one I have available, and there's no time to assemble another crew. I assure you, all will be fine. I have every faith in the scores that Seoul Flight Academy gave you.”
MC swallows, and she isn't sure how to tell her boss that this is a violation of intergalactic law. “Sir, this is a violation of company policy,” she insists, making the crime inward rather than outward. Surely, he wouldn't go against his own company rules.
Mr. Yin narrows his eyes and smooths down his tie. “Refusing to comply with orders goes on a permanent flight record, MC. I think it would be rather hard to find a new job without any flight experience and insubordination marked on your docket, don't you?”
It's not a particularly subtle threat, and MC hears it loud and clear. Her mouth freezes for a minute in panic as her mind scrambles to find a response. She swallows again, throat dry this time, and nods. “I would agree that such a situation would be difficult, sir.”
Difficult is an understatement. It would be impossible. Companies and captains view insubordination as just below mutiny in terms of danger to crew and passengers. Such a mark on her record would ruin any future prospects she might have – and it would certainly mean an end to her flight career.
Mr. Yin's face breaks into a smile again. “Excellent! I am glad we could come to an agreement. I expect you to clock in for the pre-boarding systems check at 0500 hours as planned. New uniforms befitting you rank as Captain will be delivered to your rooms before you arrive. Are there any questions you have for me?”
Her mouth and throat are still dry, and it feels like a stone has sunk into the pit of her stomach. “No, sir.”
“Well, then, that will be all. You can show yourself out, I presume?” He's already turning to his display, a clear dismissal if MC has ever seen one.
“Yes, sir.” She does not thank him as she stands, nor attempt to shake his hand. When the door shuts behind her, it sounds like an airlock slamming closed.