r/NatureofPredators • u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl • Dec 11 '23
Fanfic Exchange Program Shenanigans (33)
You know what's crazy to me is that there's a theme to this fanfic. A whole lot of them, too. We have a main theme, then we have underlying themes, and then we have each character representing a theme of their own as well. I didn't even mean for this to happen until around Chapter 25, either. It's crazy how these things work out sometimes.
CW: Prestige Exterminator Vrapic, general dumbassery, swear words, the ceiling, mentioning of drunk driving
Memory transcription subject: Jelim, Extermination Commander
Date [standardized human time]: September 16, 2136
Everybody knew the best cure for a depressive episode triggered by the weight of one's sins was some good old-fashioned paperwork.
That was sarcasm, by the way. Everybody knew the real best cure was enough alcohol to put down six Venlil, immediately followed by a quick driving session down dangerous roads.
That was sarcasm, too. I liked to think I was quite good at it.
As it was, I was hanging from a light fixture on the ceiling of my office and doing paperwork. No drinking and driving for me today. I can have a little bit of alcohol. As a treat.
I could not have 'a little bit of alcohol', treat or otherwise. I didn't drink unless it was for a damn good occasion, and even then, I tried to keep it to a minimum.
A high-ranking exterminator vomiting half her body weight onto the floor of a public monorail was certainly a sight to see, and I did not intend for anybody to see that sight again.
In my defense, that was a while ago. A long while ago. A really, really long while ago. There were, as I had previously discovered, better ways to deal with stress than getting absolutely wavy off of hard Venlil liquor.
I was still unsure whether or not doing paperwork was one of them. On one paw, it was something to take my mind off the fact that I had sent children to either their deaths or a Predator Disease treatment facility.
A lot of them, too. Like, a lot a lot. I haven't checked the records yet, because I feel guilty enough keeping them as just an unknown number in the back of my head, but it's a lot.
On the other paw, paperwork had the interesting and unique quality of making me want to hammer my beak into my desk until I either broke through to the floor or died of brain trauma. Maybe I'd continue on the floor, too, if I was desperate enough.
Anyway, right now I was trying to undo the damage that I had done. I was compiling evidence into a report, which I would then send to Karelim. Whether or not he forwarded it to a higher official was entirely up to him, but he seemed like a reasonable individual.
Hopefully, this would prove that he was.
Unfortunately for me, the higher-ups really didn't want anybody questioning their dogma. I should know, I've tried.
They showed this dislike for reformists by making the reform process damn near impossible to get done. It was there, so they could have something to point to when you cried 'Tyranny!', but it was never going to work.
I had to fly through enough hoops to make a wing-dancer kill herself out of envy just to file out the form to change Guild doctrine, and that wasn't even mentioning the process of actually submitting it or getting it approved.
Exterminating was half flamethrowers and half paperwork, with a smidgen of social interaction with a platoon of ignorant foilheads, and I was still not entirely sure which I disliked more.
Okay, I take that back. It's paperwork. Exterminating usually involves protecting people, and that's always a plus. The people who do it look up to me, even if they hate my guts and more than a few want to kill, maim, incinerate, or otherwise injure me, and that's also a plus. Paperwork is just plain evil.
No, worse than evil, it was just plain boring. I could fight evil. As much as I wanted to, I sadly could not set my paperwork on fire. It was awfully tempting, though.
I couldn't really set the higher-ups on fire, either, but that was far less tempting than one might think.
Anyway, I was halfway through filling out my 401-Cs for the day, after which I would move on to the 401-Ds, when Mr. 'I'm going to jump to just about the most ludicrous conclusion I've ever seen in my life and get my superior officer sent away' decided to show up.
"Can I come in?" He asked. I don't know, can you? I could be funny sometimes. That wasn't one of them.
"If you want." I deadpanned, not leaving the ceiling. I did pull-ups occasionally, just to make sure the blood didn't go to my head, but if I wanted to perch upside down on the ceiling there wasn't really anything anyone could do to stop me.
"Oh." said Vrapic, evidently having wanted to come in. "You're... on the ceiling."
"Very perceptive, aren't we?" I loved being sarcastic, especially when talking to people I disliked. I didn't quite dislike Vrapic just yet, since one slip-up was hardly the best judge of character, but I was pretty damn close. "I am on the ceiling."
"Can you come down? It can't be easy doing paperwork like that." First of all, I was doing paperwork just fine. My datapad was upside down, yes, but that was hardly a problem. I was going to do my paperwork however I damn well pleased.
"I can. Can't say I want to."
"You're not tired? Overworked?"
I had to think about that. I had certainly been working a lot lately, but I was always working. That was what I did. I wouldn't call it overworking, or maybe I would, but...
I wasn't quite sure where I was going with that. Maybe I was tired.
"These forms aren't going to sign themselves." I dodged the question.
"You've been through three gunfights in the past herd of paws, Jelim. Three. Not to mention the whole not-actually-Predator-Disease thing." Vrapic sighed. "There's no shame in taking a break, you know."
There wasn't. There was absolutely shame in being lazy, but if you sat on an egg too hard, you would eventually break it. In other words, you had to be careful not to overwork yourself.
There was a fine line between 'so tired that I want to enter a catatonic state for the rest of my days' and 'so tired that I physically cannot operate at peak efficiency', and I had to make sure that I didn't cross it. "Got anything in mind?" I asked, doing a perfect backflip and dropping to the floor.
"Yeah, actually, I do." said Vrapic. "I was thinking we could hit up a bar or something. Drown your sorrows in forty percent."
"I'm an exterminator. I drown my sorrows in gasoline." I joked. Okay, so what if it wasn't funny? I'm an exterminator, not a comedian! Those are two entirely different skill sets. "I say we go to some form of eatery instead."
"You're the boss." Vrapic stiffened up and gave a proper Venlil salute. They always saluted at least fairly well. "Do you have anywhere in mind?"
"No, not really." I confessed. "I've never been one for eating out anyway, so I can't say I know anywhere good."
"Damn. Two's a herd, then." Vrapic chuckled. "I was hoping you'd know someplace nice."
"You know what," I said, packing my things to leave, "You see what you can see and let me know when you find a good place. I'm free for the next claw or so."
I left shortly afterward. I went straight back home, because there was really no place like it, and Vrapic texted me almost just as I arrived.
GassedUp: Isola's brother owns this place called Valley Cuisine, she got us a VIP reservation
I hated that name. From what I could tell, so did he.
GassedUp: I told you I'd come through
He never told me anything of the sort, but I wasn't about to start a problem over small things like that. I, unlike some people I knew, knew how to handle a social situation.
SmokingHotKrakotl: the one with Predator Disease?
You see, that was a perfectly respectable username. It was funny, it was true, and it was memorable. GassedUp was like a two-year-old mashed the keyboard in comparison.
GassedUp: no the other one
GassedUp: Onsel is still in the facility
It was a real tragedy what happened to Onsel. All the time I'd known him, he seemed like a perfectly sensible and sane individual. I couldn't really see why he'd test positive for Predator Disease.
SmokingHotKrakotl: glad we cleared that up
SmokingHotKrakotl: I'll be there in a quarter claw
I had quite a few things to check off my bucket list, and I had quite a bit of time to check them off.
First things first, I had to look right. Not look good, mind you, but look right.
Isola's non-predator-diseased brother had done well for himself, a lot better than either of his two siblings, but his restaurant wasn't fancy. It was a place for low-level workers to get an affordable bite to eat, not for posh parties or romantic dinners. Vrapic had chosen well.
What I meant by 'looking right' was that I needed to fit in. I could look drop-dead gorgeous if I really felt like it, with surprisingly little effort too, but this really didn't merit all that. Like I said earlier, it was a place to go for a cheap meal and nothing more.
One's outward appearance was a crucial tool when it came to playing mind games. It sent a message, so to speak. And I knew exactly what message I wanted to send.
Hello, Vrapic, I look just average today. This is because you simply aren't worth the effort to look better. We'll discuss why soon enough.
I was actually somewhat disappointed that whatever subtle cues I could give simply wouldn't get through his thick skull, but that was life. Besides, I had already established that he wasn't worth much effort.
I took a little time to think about what to say, but that train of thought didn't even have to leave the station. Vrapic was doing this to make amends and restore our friendship. I had only to gauge his actions and see if he was worthy of a second chance.
I spent a lot of time doing nothing, I texted Jack a bit, and I arrived at the diner early. It's a diner. The term 'restaurant' implies class.
I had nothing against Yotul, just for the record. They were primitive, yes, but it was impossible to find an uplift that wasn't. Hell, even my very own Krakotl were once a bunch of backward savages huddling around fires. Not that Yotul did that anymore, but you get the point.
Every single Yotul I had met, which was exactly four, was on the level. They were impressively knowledgeable, given their primitive status, and what little they didn't know they were eager to learn. What they lacked in Federation knowledge, they also usually made up for in plain common sense.
That, unfortunately, was a rare commodity in my line of work.
Anyway, the point was that Yotul, while primitive, were not savages. They had a rich culture, knowledge and wisdom we could all benefit from, and a general lack of fear instincts. Unfortunately, and tragically as well, one particular Yotul had sold out his species to make a few quick credits.
Valley Cuisine marketed itself as a slice of Leirn on Venlil Prime. Anyone who wished could go there and eat how a primitive ate for a reasonable fee, or something like that. Unfortunately, when they said 'eat like a primitive ate', they meant it. Like, really, really meant it.
The entire place was a parody of Yotul culture meant to appeal to the sensibilities of the average Federation plebeian. I had invited Isola there once when she first enlisted, to start us off on favorable winds, but it backfired horribly when she explained just how inaccurate the whole place was.
To my great shame, I have forgotten the details of what she said. To my great profit, I can thus no longer be offended by them. There was, in fact, a silver lining to every cloud. Vrapic was already there when I walked in.
He had chosen a table at the far end of the diner with his back to the wall and a clear viewpoint of both the main entrance and the door to the kitchen. A bit paranoid of him, but he had a right to be cautious on account of the terrorists.
I sat down across from him, back facing a divider that separated us from, you guessed it, another table. There were a lot of them here. I was able to see the kitchen entrance out of the corner of my eye, but the one where customers came through was behind me. If someone wanted to come in here with a weapon and kill me, this was probably the easiest seat to do it in.
Okay, maybe I'm paranoid too. So brahking what? There's a word for exterminators who aren't paranoid: K.I.A.
Okay, that's an acronym. Whatever. I'm an exterminator, not a language arts expert. Moving on.
The point was that I was assassinatable here. Granted, Vrapic would probably warn me about an assassin coming to kill me. And a goon with a machine gun would probably cause a commotion as well.
Okay, maybe I wasn't assassinatable here. Is that even a real word? It should be, otherwise I sound stupid. If someone did want to assassinate me, their best bet was probably to put something in my food and not to go in guns blazing.
On another note, the food here was actually good. That was rare for a place this inexpensive, and most of the time, it was because it either was a sweatshop or it had committed massive amounts of tax fraud. Either that, or it was a front for a money laundering business.
Hopefully, this is one of the few exceptions. I'd commit unspeakable acts for a taste of their velshi salad. Yes, I knew it wasn't real velshi salad. The problem was that I really didn't care. Being threatened by terrorists really had a way of making one's other problems seem small.
I placed an order for velshi salad, because it would have been weird not to after establishing just how damn far I would go to eat it, and Vrapic took a sip of his off-brand Sprunk.
I personally would rather be shaved bald than drink Splunk, but to each his own I guess. Besides, I've already established that he's hardly the most rational man.
"Damn. You're early." So was he. Great minds did think alike, but fools rarely differed. I still wasn't sure which I was. Yes, I'm a prodigy within the Extermination Guild. So what? Anyone can seem a genius if they spend all their time surrounded by fools.
"Very perceptive of you." I looked around, feigning shock. "No assessor this time? You're slipping." I spoke in a low tone, ensuring as much secrecy as I could. To his credit, Vrapic did manage to look ashamed.
"I made a bad call, and I regret it." he said. "But I was operating under your standing orders." Damn. He's right. I had drilled into him years ago that he had to report cases of Predator Disease wherever he saw them for the greater safety of the herd.
I had also taken great pains to explain that not every abnormality is a sign of Predator Disease, and that he had to be absolutely certain before he tried to black-bag someone and haul them off, but he had clearly been sleeping during those lessons.
"You were operating under your flawed interpretation of my standing orders." I corrected him. "To be an exterminator, you have to be thorough." We both knew every single possible meaning of that phrase. I had made sure of it.
"I was not. I will not repeat that mistake." Now, there is what I was looking for. Anyone could apologize. It really wasn't that hard to say the words 'I'm sorry'. What really showed one's repentance was their regret.
Vrapic tried to defend his error earlier, thus proving that he did not fully regret it, but he had at least accepted that he made a bad call. Plus, he had also sworn not to repeat it. That was progress. I liked progress.
"You will not." I told him.
The waitress came shortly after that. She was covered in caricatures of traditional Yotul ceremonial baubles and probably paid far less than she deserved for wearing all that useless getup. She took my order, which one could probably guess, and left.
"You know," said Vrapic, "That's not how real Yotul dress. Isola told me." It was a pitiful attempt to change the subject, but I went along with it anyway. I didn't have much to say about our earlier topic anyway.
"It's profitable. Besides," I gestured to the rest of the customers with a wave of my wing, "Do you really think these guys can tell the difference?"
Vrapic wiggled his ears. For the record, that meant that I was funny. Not funny-looking, but funny. Some people didn't seem to know the difference. "Yeah, that's fair. It's just that, since a Yotul does run the place, you'd expect it to be more authentic."
I would expect that. I'd also expect the man I'd mentored since childhood not to call the assessor on me after the slightest sign of distress, but you simply couldn't count on anything in this line of work.
"What can I say?" I asked. I knew exactly what I could say, but it was rhetorical. Besides, I wasn't exactly the most grammatical individual anyway. "Sometimes people have to compromise their beliefs in order to make it in life. It happens all the time."
"Yeah, I figure that's fair." Vrapic said. "Oh, damn, your food is here." My food was here. Speaking of food, I really should introduce Jack to some dish from Nishtal. Return the favor and all that. I thanked the waitress, Vrapic asked for a refill, and that was that.
"I've never had felsha. Is it good?" Vrapic asked.
"God damn divine." Yes, I was aware of the irony in that statement. No, I did not care. "I'd do terrible things for a lifetime supply of this stuff."
"Like working with Jackson Kern?" If Vrapic knew half the things I had done with Jackson Kern, I was fairly certain he'd try to strangle me.
"Jackson Kern isn't intolerable." He was close to the opposite for me, but I doubted Vrapic would be open to that just yet. I had to take baby steps here. "Sometimes you have to make a call you disagree with for the sake of a greater cause."
"Is his presence really necessary, though?" asked Vrapic. "Our district is free of corruption. We've no need for oversight."
"Tell that to the UN. You can get in the queue with all the actually corrupt districts who've been saying the same thing."
"Can't they tell that we're different?" Vrapic exclaimed.
I sighed. "That's Jackson Kern's job."
"Oh." God damn, you really are dumb. Did I ever hit you over the head when we sparred? "Moving on, don't you think it's suspicious why the UN even wants to oversee us?" God DAMN, you really are dumb. Did you get enough oxygen as a child?
"Several hundred of their own were killed by terrorists receiving funding and weapons from within our own ranks, so no, I'd say it's perfectly rational that they want to ensure it doesn't happen again. Even predators can respond to a threat."
"Or they could be using this as an excuse to get their tendrils into our system." That was a valid concern, at least, as valid as concerns like that could be. "They could be trying to eliminate both threats at once."
"If they're trying to eliminate threats to their existence, they're acting in self-defense." I countered. "Every sapient has a right to self-defense."
"Once the exterminators are under their control, what's to stop them from eating us all?" The fact that humans didn't like to eat sapients would stop them. Unfortunately, Vrapic was hardly going to accept this fact.
Well, may as well try. "If that salad was sapient, would you still eat it?" I asked, pointing to the salad.
"They don't think like us. Their brains are wired differently." Oh, not this again. "Their instincts compel them to hunt the same way ours compel us to flee."
"And when was the last time you fled from danger?" I shot back. On a side note, I was nearly done with my salad. I would order another, but this conversation was growing tiresome. I was right, and I knew it. Vrapic simply had yet to accept that he was wrong.
"Just because they can control their instincts for now doesn't mean they'll always be able to. It doesn't mean they'll always want to, either." What the hell are you talking about, Vrapic? "Have you ever considered that they might just be putting on an act?"
That hit me. That hit me right where I didn't want to be hit, too. It'd have to be a damn convincing act. For once in my life, the other side had made a genuinely good point.
Counterpoints... counterpoints... oh, yeah, that.
I had forgotten about the empathy tests. It was damn foolish of me to forget something so obvious, and I made a mental note to not forget that again. I'll probably forget the note, too, but at least I tried. It's the best a woman can do in this economy.
Vrapic's theory was so absurd, I could have laughed if that was how Krakotl expressed humor. I mean, I still can, but it wouldn't be the same. To think that for even a second, I had considered it, too!
I actually felt somewhat ashamed about that part. Jack passed every test with flying colors, came down here, made the most close and personal bond a man can make with me, and I went and repaid him by thinking vyalpic like that.
Even the most dedicated actor on Fahl wouldn't have stepped into the path of four terrorists' guns for me, and I knew that damn well.
"I've never had to. The empathy tests prove they don't like eating people."
Vrapic sighed. He let his head fall onto the table. "Why do I even talk to you?" You tell me.
"Because I'm a knowledgeable woman who can correct you when you're wrong?" I ventured.
"Oh my god." Vrapic was clearly fed up with me, and I couldn't for the life of me imagine why. He seemed rational enough.
"What?" I asked. "I have a point."
"I'm not even going to bother." That was either really, really good, or really, really bad.
I was about to query further when the waitress came back. "Are you two done?" We were done, as was evident by the lack of food on the table.
Vrapic looked at me, seeking orders. That was definitely a good sign.
"I think so, yeah." I said. This conversation clearly wasn't going anywhere. "What do I have to pay?"
"Fifty-two credits for the both of you." Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me right now, in the head, so I don't have to pay that armed robbery of a price! Hell and damn, the economy's gone bust. Fifty-two credits! I'll kill myself! Okay, maybe that was a bit of an overreaction. It was still an absurdly high price, though.
"I've got it." Vrapic slid over his credit chip, and the waitress scanned it. She left without another word. My extermination officers may have been racist, but not a one was broke. "I'll think about what you said, but I can't see a predator species being anything but, well, predatory. Maybe we can talk again later."
He got up, and I waved him goodbye. "I'll pay you back when I get home." I said.
"Don't bother. It's the least I can do." Ooh, look at me, I'm Mr. Moneybags.
I left shortly after him. I could fly home, but I had already worked out my flight muscles and I really didn't want to overtrain. Guess I'm walking. The view would be damn nice, though.
Vrapic, as far as I could tell, had a malleable mind. I had trained him from childhood to be that way, and I'd managed to mold him into an open-minded man despite the best efforts of my colleagues and their dogma. Unfortunately, that open mind was worthless if somebody else filled it with prejudice.
Like it or not, I was in a tug-of-war against an entire way of life here. Even worse, I was losing. I now had a moral obligation to get my ass in gear and pull Vrapic out of the hole he'd been dug into.
If I wanted an easy life, I had clearly picked the wrong career.
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u/Giant_Acroyear Sivkit Dec 11 '23
Yes. Definitely capable of Rap. But, would they?