Grunt Work

The Carrot

I was sweating under my helmet. I never knew my aquasuit was so heavy before. When did it become so heavy? Did they add weights? Maybe the doughnuts I stored in my boot have gone off and the mould is making it weigh more?

Everything was so dark, I couldn't even see Mr Huggles below me, though I could still feel the comforting controls in my hands, so I knew the saddle was still there.

Oh god, I've never been so nervous. What if I forget what to do? No, I've practiced. Like Winnie says, practice makes perfect makes not dead.

Wait, was that the cue? Fuck.

I give Mr Huggles a little vibrating boop, and he jumps in to action.

The curtains to the auditorium part and Mr Huggles jumps out onto the stage, waving his tentacles. The fireworks go off to either side of us.

'When I joined a month ago,' I yell at the watching students, 'I was just an entry level grunt. Now look at me! I get to ride my own kraken! Under the Kaptain's meritocratic leadership, anyone can become their very best! If you've got drive, determination, a special something that makes you stand out from the crowd, you can rise up in the organisation, from the lowest grunt to the highest henchling. Join now and you get a special signing bonus, as well as sponsorship to continue your university level learning upon the end of your contract! If you don't decide to stay, of course! So join now, or you might get inked by Mr Huggles!' I give Mr Huggles another boop and he shoots out a jet of ink over the viewing crowd. The students shriek and flinch away, but Winnie raises her hands and the ink turns into water balloons. I beam down at the soaked but smiling and clapping students. I don't know why I was so nervous. Maybe because I was never very good at school and the thought of going back was pretty daunting. But it was like Winnie had said. Just do your lines and all will be well. And it was.

I lowered Mr Huggles down so I could climb off him and organise the line of students who came up for selfies. 'Remember, no flashes! Turn your flashes off. We don't want Mr Huggles to get a headache,' I looked over their heads and saw Winnie direct a group of maybe a dozen students to the signing up booth and felt pleased at a job well done.

'I don't know how I feel about this,' said one of the girls in my queue, to her friend. 'They're the bad guys.'

'That's a popular misconception,' I interupt, remembering the script I'd been given. 'We see it all the time in the news. The villification' - yes! I got that right! It took me so many goes - 'of activists is a common go to of the right wing media. You remember when the last time the police shot that black guy in America? Fox News kept on going on about how people were using it as an excuse to loot, and were more concerned with the damage to property, but never paid attention to the lives affected by such a travesty.'

'That's...true,' she said slowly. 'But you still do do a lot of damage. Like that time in Tokyo? A lot of people got hurt.'

'Tokyo was before my time so I can't speak to that. But I can speak about a mission that I went on recently. We stole the wealth of several powerful US energy companies in a raid on the Caymen Islands and redistributed that among the poorer and working class areas of the island, as well as a number of outreach programs. We're just trying to tear down the apparatus of a society that's built to resist change and to keep power for themselves, while keeping down those who are just trying to better themselves. Sometimes that means actually tearing things down, to make a better, fairer society. Don't you want that?'

'Well, yeah, of course,' she said.

'We do too! Maybe you should check out some of our brochures! They go into much more detail and I'm afraid I have to concentrate on my work here' I said, reaching up to my saddle to grab a few and handing them to her. She went off to look them through, and I was relieved to see her go. That was a lot of big words and I was feeling pretty exhausted by it, not gonna lie. Thankfully the other students were happy enough to just take selfies, and I settled in to take pictures for them. I noticed that one teacher was walking about freely through the hall, which was weird because our security forces had rounded all the staff up and kept them safe in one of their gyms so that they couldn't get word out to Wellington PD. As I watched, though, Winnie cut him off and directed him to the signing up booth. I guess he just wanted to join us too, which surprised me because this recruitment drive was geared more towards the students, but we wouldn't say no to another recruit. We don't discriminate based on age, after all. As he and Winnie talked, I spotted that girl from my line signing up to join. I hoped she listed me as the referral, that way I'd get a little bonus too. That'd be nice. I hoped she didn't expect me to talk like that, once she joins. That wouldn't be so nice.

Two low but friendly beeps sounded out over my radio.

'What was that?' asked the student beside me.

'Oh, nothing,' I said, smiling as he took a selfie of us. 'Just telling me that we need to wrap things up. We have a prior engagement, and also lunch.'

'K,' he said and wandered off to another booth.

'That's it for today, everyone,' I said to the rest of the line. 'I have to get Mr Huggles back for his bath. Sorry! But if you sign up, you can always drop by to say hi, maybe even go for a ride in his pool.'

As the students drifted away, I saw Winnie head out of the hall and out into grounds. Through the window I saw her speaking to two police officers, but I didn't dare get closer to try to listen in. I had to get Mr Huggles out of there while Winnie provided a distraction. I clambered back into my saddle and directed Mr Huggles to head out through the back stage exit, lowering myself down low as we squeazed through the small, human-sized exits, then out through the back door and into the waiting trucks. I didn't have long to wait to see the other grunts and career counsellors head out, followed lastly by the new recruits, the security forces and finally Winnie, who joined me in my truck, along with some of the guards. Being in the back, I couldn't see where we were headed, but figured we were just heading back to the exfiltration point in Houghton Bay, but when the doors opened I saw that we were still somewhere in the city.

'Hey Boss, how come we're not going back to the base? Are we actually stopping for lunch? I thought that was just a line.'

'Not lunch,' Winnie replied, her third eye flashing. 'We didn't quite get the numbers we were hoping for, so we need to do some padding. Get comfy, we'll be staying here until nightfall.'