บท 93: Quack on the Dotted Line
Full of regret over not claiming the offered resume sooner, Lucas feels increasingly more and more uncomfortable with every step he takes towards Clarissa. She maintains her frozen stance for a sizable amount of his journey, but once he has gotten close enough that she's pretty sure the angle of her recording is currently lacking, she thaws enough to openly angle her phone upwards to aim at his face.
Snorting out a single laugh at her antics, Lucas bites back full-on open laughter at her brazen behavior. Leisurely carrying the clipboard and pen with his right hand, he holds his open left hand out towards her, wearing an amused smirk while looking down at her.
"Well, as the first officially hired employee, I should at least put your resume on file, yeah?" While Lucas does his best to avoid admitting the fact he just isn't confident on the spelling of neither her name nor job title, he inadvertently has made quite an impression on a large amount of the current live-stream's viewer base. Despite his casual tone and choice of words, a large number of viewers have decided to interpret his appearance as a domineering CEO type, now using his appearance and in some cases also his name for their legion of romance novel concepts.
"Eep! Ye-yes sir! Thank you, boss!" Jumping with a shrill yelp, Clarissa drops her phone onto her lap as she dives into the baleful purse with both hands to dig her resume back out in order to hand it over to him.
Struggling not to laugh at her, the only outward change on Lucas's part while he waits is his smile growing by a small amount. With the way her phone had landed, it's still recording his face, now looking like he is leaning over the camera while looking down at it.
Really, he's just impatiently waiting for the resume so he can go sit down again, far away from her. Good luck convincing any of the rabid fantasizing fan girls of that fact, though.
Once the desired document has been procured and neatly unfolded, Clarissa reverently holds it out to him. Gingerly accepting it with his waiting hand, Lucas nods slightly at her in thanks.
"Probably gonna need you to sign somethin' in a few minutes, then you'll be good to go, Clara." Managing to keep a straight face until he turns his back to her, Lucas ends up biting his lip while puffing up his cheeks, trying not to hysterically crack up at her expression.
"Sure thing boss! I'll be ready, boss!" Clarissa's enthusiasm when answering only increases the difficulty in Lucas's endeavors not to laugh at her.
Over in the meme zone, Miss Masher and Miss Chievous have been laughing intermittently the whole time Lucas has been over near Clarissa. It's a bit questionable if their laughter has been solely due to the memes, however.
Mikah, at the edge of comfortable mind-reading range, has his back turned while he's working with the service bot on finalizing the alliance agreements. While he hasn't audibly been laughing at all, if anyone saw his facial expressions they'd be able to tell he isn't far from breaking out into laughter himself.
Lucas lets out a sigh of relief as he sits down next to Jonathan once again. Once he claims the required data off of the resume, he drops it into Jonathan's lap on top of the folder, which hasn't moved in the slightest from where Lucas left it earlier.
Ready to finalize everything, Lucas pauses a moment to look at Jonathan's phone screen. Seeing how close his score count is to a full line of 9's, he quietly watches while waiting for him to get there.
Two pieces of fruit later, both Lucas and Jonathan cheer simultaneously as he pins his points total. Lucas claps Jonathan on the back, not holding back quite as much as he should have. If it weren't for the limited shock resistance provided by the material of his suit jacket, Jonathan's shoulder would probably be stinging right now.
"All right, let's go finish up and get outta here." Confident he gained Jonathan's attention after his smack, Lucas stands up to head over to the service bot for hopefully the last time.
Jonathan turns his phone off without letting the game end yet, stuffs Clarissa's resume into the folder, and follows behind him in short order, dutifully carrying the manila folder with his left hand throughout the process.
As Lucas nears the service counter, Mikah sidesteps out of his way, exposing an awaiting clipboard that has three empty lines waiting for him, in rows with three of Mikah's signatures as well as today's date.
"This is confirming that everything in the paperwork you just filled out is accurate and such, formally finalizing the alliances I'm responsible for." Mikah gives a bit more explanation, gesturing at the paper with his free right hand, indicating that Lucas should sign as well.
"Oh, uh, sure. One sec though." Lucas feeds the clipboard with the roster on it through the opening over to the service bot, keeping the separated pen for signing purposes.
Half-heartedly scanning over the writing on the paper Mikah was just indicating, Lucas has finally crossed the threshold of too much damn paperwork, just deciding to trust Mikah and take his word for it. Quickly signing on the three awaiting lines, he slides that clipboard over towards the service bot as well.
Mikah makes a curious hum when Lucas makes his decision, but then smiles softly.
"Well, thank you. I know all too well that that degree of trust is rare to find nowadays, I'm flattered." When Mikah quietly points out Lucas's decision, Lucas falls into a brief panic.
"Oh, um, well... It's just that, it would have been weird for you to wait till now to suddenly try to screw me over, yeah? And I mean, they all had to trust you enough to make you their rep or whatever too. So it's not like it's weird, or anything." As Lucas awkwardly fumbles with over-explaining his decision, his tsundere saga continues.
"Heh, yes, of course. As you say." As Mikah coaxes Lucas with aplomb, his smile has grown a bit. Truly deserving of his title as MF's head of HR.
Jonathan thinking about what a tsundere Lucas can be only serves to further reinforce Mikah's assumptions.
"Mr. President Lynn, I just need to witness the signatures of all members of your roster and your organization shall be finalized." As the service bot speaks up, Lucas is relieved to have an out from his self-conscious weirdness, which was definitely making an even increasingly bigger deal out of what he said than if he had simply not acknowledged it.
"Ah, sure thing. Willy! Clara! Come on!" Gathering the crew together, Lucas claims the pen he had separated once again, non-verbally calling dibs on being the first to sign.
The bot returns the clipboard for the final time, with just a single sheet of paper on it. It's a neatly printed version of the last page Lucas filled out, having everyone's name and title with a decently large space to sign next to each.
Once Lucas has done his signature, he hands the chain-enhanced pen over to Jonathan. While Jonathan is doing his own signature, Lucas has crouched down to lift up the recently arrived Willy, holding him so his front paws are level with the waiting clipboard.
The service bot and Willy quietly stare at each other for a moment, then the bot slides over an opened ink pad, still remaining silent.
Reaching over with his front right paw, Willy gently presses down on the ink pad and then firmly plants his paw on the page near his signature area, a bit further to the right than the others so as not to overlap with them too much.
While everyone else had been watching this happen, more of them chuckling than not, Jonathan has pulled out Mr. Quacks from his front left pants pocket, surprising Lucas.
"Wait, how did I not notice you had him with you? I could have sworn you left him at home." Genuinely curious, Lucas can't resist asking. That should have been a noticeable bulge, worthy of a 'Is that a rubber duck in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?' joke.
"Hehe, guess the j-jacket is big enough you didn't, um, didn't notice." Grinning with a look of mischief, Jonathan sounds disproportionately proud about successfully hiding a rubber duckie on his person. He also fishes out a napkin, holding it out so Willy can wipe his paw clean before Lucas sets him back down onto the white tile flooring.
'What the hell else does he have in his pockets? He's gotta have his knife, and that lighter, but something tells me that's not all.'
Mikah looks back and forth between Lucas and Jonathan, holding a hand up to cover his smile, snickering quietly.
As this exchange has been going on, the service robot has been staring directly at Mr. Quacks, who is quietly sitting on the little bit of counter space next to the clipboard.
Aware that Mr. Quacks doesn't seem to be in the mood for a conventional signature, Jonathan picks him up by his little head, holding him like a rubber stamp. He presses Mr. Quacks's bottom on the ink pad, then stamps down in his signature area sideways, spaced down and to the left of Willy's 'signature' paw print. When making his 'signature', Mr. Quacks gives a small squeak due to the amount of force Jonathan used when pushing him down.
Supervillain organizations are serious business, guys.
-----
Lucas kills this chapter: 0
Lucas total kills: 7
Lucas deaths this chapter: 0
Lucas total deaths: 10
Lucas current GDV: 9.28 (+.01 +.01 +.01 +.1 = +.14 net change)
Lucas's fame level: 3.5* (Beyond just local, viral meme tier)
Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2* (More than just passing suspicion for a few paranoid individuals)
Jonathan kills this chapter: 0
Jonathan total kills: 5
Jonathan deaths this chapter: 0
Jonathan total deaths: 2
Jonathan current GDV: 2.08 (+.01 net change)
Jonathan's fame level: 2* (Mostly just local)
Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)
Supervillain social circle size: 11
-----
Little character theater:
Jonathan, somehow not laughing at what he just did nor the squeak that was made in the process, speaking in a solemn tone: Congratulations on your official title, Mr. Quacks.
Willy, wagging his tail throughout the entire process of making his 'signature': Bark!
Lucas, still baffled that Jonathan was able to hide a full-sized rubber duckie without a trace: Wait, can my pockets stealthily hide things too?
427, who almost openly laughed when Lucas was at the far edge of Mikah's range: 'If only you knew what was going on in the live-stream's chat room right now, Lucas...'
Author, hunching over while mimicking a certain iconic fantasy character's voice: Tricksy Jonathan, what has he got in his pocketses?
Mr. Quacks, thankful for Jonathan's assistance: Quack!
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