Planet of the Giants

Chapter Five: The Commute

You are woken up by a loud thud. It is already bright outside. The sun, or perhaps more fittingly, Proxima Centauri as astronomers on Earth call it, shining into the residence and illuminating the whole room. You look out the window from your bed to identify the source of the noise. It was of course Kai'shu, whose ankle you just saw fly by the window, out of view. Still drowsy from yesterday's needlessly risky adventure, but curious to see what he is up to, you drag your exhausted and battered body out of the bed and peer out the window.

Kai'shu looks to be performing his morning routine, attempting to walk as softly as possible so as to not disturb you. You can tell that he is trying his best to conceal his footsteps, but there's only so much he can do to lighten it before physics takes over. His immense tonnage still bears down with enough weight to rumble the surrounding ground, your house included.

Guess I'll have to get used to this inconvenience for now. You whispered to yourself.

You also have to get prepared as well. Today is your first day of work. You're going to meet with the chief director and the team at the To'kust division of your company. A small team of local residents has already been hired in preparation to kick start the operation, and you will be overseeing the business function while the team gets accustomed their duty. Personally though, you are thrilled to get to meet other To'kustars; not that Kai'shu hasn't treated you well, just that you'll get to meet To'kustars of different backgrounds and personalities.

Outside, Kai'shu is already at the kitchen counter preparing food. Your portion, as usual, is already prepared by the matching company's central kitchen, and is just being heated up.

Though still a bit bruised from being smacked head on by the colossal hand that packed quite the punch, you fully intend on keeping yesterday's narrow escape as a secret.

Fast forward to the commute to the worksite. You've brought along your necessary work equipment, and now sitting comfortably in Kai'shu's cushy palm. You'll never get tired of being carried like this. You get to admire the oversized alien metropolitan while your own oversized chauffeur does the traveling, certainly much better than being stuck in rush hour traffic all the time. A To'kustar would've been super useful that last time you had to wait hours for a tow truck after you drove your car into a ditch. They could just easily extract the toy-sized car in no time.

Still impressed at how Kai'shu can keep his hand so stable with you in it, truly defying your original expectations, and curious to know more about the kind of training To'kustars takes to make this possible, you asked, "So what exactly does this 'training to become a human servant' entail?"

"The goal is of course the ensure the safety and well-being of the human, and to get the To'kustar used to taking care of their customers. The most important rule is to always be attentive all the humans near us. We are huge, our movements are accordingly broad. So when humans are around, we have to be gentle and wary with our movements and our steps. Being observant also prevents accidents, which usually don't end for the human for obvious reasons. It is always the To'kustar that is at fault no matter how the accident happens", Kai'shu responds.

From his words, you could understand how Kai'shu not wanting to explicitly state the most obvious consequence of not being aware of a human's presence when moving around. Though Ironically, you did get a modest taste of the tremendous energy in their movements for even the most mundane tasks, despite really having only yourself to blame. One would be lucky to escape with only injuries in an accident involving a To'kustar. Any unintended physical contact with a To'kustar in motion would no doubt end with the human being crushed, as the human body provides zero resistance against their hefty momentum. You felt really lucky to have not end up smeared across his chest yesterday by jumping away just in time.