12 - Not a field agent!

[no_fastolfe]

[Mansooreh's Brooklyn accent, never really mild at the best of times, gets thicker when she's surprised. The effect is sort of 1940's-esque; it's been a hundred some-odd years, the slang was due for a comeback anyway.]

Can I speak to the captain? Is there a steward or something? Look, this is a really really nice space liner but I don't have a ticket or anything! I have to get back to Schenectady, yesterday! Oh man, you guys, you only get one screw-up at US Robots and then you're canned! I can't miss work unless I'm dying. They'd still fire me if I was dying! They'd drop the pink slip on my coffin!

Oh, sheesh, this is bad.

Comments

[no_fastolfe]

Excuse you, sir.

[Mansooreh's jaw juts out, and she actually takes her hand off the communicator to fix her blouse and headscarf, so she can look disapproving in a neat and mannerly fashion.]

[expectremorse.livejournal.com]

[Why are you so upset about this.]

Why have I offended you?

[no_fastolfe]

Well, I mean, America's a free country. I understand you have to stay 'in persona' all the time but that's a little rude!

[She's a little defensive because she may have called her boss a 'slave driver' over a pint of mint chocolate chip at one point.]

[expectremorse.livejournal.com]

[The spartan stops]

..what is this America.

[no_fastolfe]

All right, all right. I'll play along, until someone on the crew gets back to me. My country is the United States of America. We don't have masters and slaves there. [Unless you're into that? But that's really not her business.]

[expectremorse.livejournal.com]

[That makes the man pause] ...Does this country have men called po-lice?

[no_fastolfe]

Yeah. Yeah, we have po-lice men. From the po-lice department. [Slow nod?]

[expectremorse.livejournal.com]

....Are these rich men? Important?

[no_fastolfe]

Well I mean it's a government salary, you aren't buying a house in the Bahamas, but it's an important job, yeah. [She nods seriously.]

[expectremorse.livejournal.com]

...I see.

[He is thinking about this]

Not the equivalent of a Spartan.

[no_fastolfe]

They wear pants. [Pants pronounced with a well-loved dipthong. Pay-ants.]

It's a very respectable position.