Content Warnings: ableism
The wheels of the chair clattered across the cobblestones as Tazina rolled up to the Strokes headquarters. She paused, glaring at the stairs to the front entrance. Then she turned, rolling along the side of the building until she reached the back entrance: a door that only she had the key to.
Tazina braked in front of the door, fishing out the key from her shirt. After unlocking it, the familiar sounds of clanking machinery followed. Tazina waited impatiently - she doubted she would ever not be frustrated with the slower pace of Outcast life.
Finally, the door opened onto the platform of an elevator, the low metal gate at the other end closed off against a concrete wall. Tazina entered the elevator and pulled on a cord that hung from the ceiling. The door slowly shut behind her among more clanking noises.
She winced as the elevator jolted into descent. The sudden motion had sent a sharp pain across her hips.
Fluorescent light crept in as the elevator slid down. It jerked to a stop.
“Mother f-,” Tazina muttered, gripping the handles of her chair as she waited for the stinging needles gripping her legs to subside.
She glanced out at the room beyond with a groan. The elevator had stopped about a foot above where it should have. “Al!” Tazina cried.
Within seconds, Al appeared at the other side of the elevator gate. “Didn’t I just fix this?” he muttered as he examined the machinery.
Once he finally got the elevator down, Tazina wheeled out into the windowless basement that served as her and Al’s department. A few of the lights flickered.
“Thanks, Al,” Tazina stated as she went to her desk, set up along the same wall as the elevator. The clunky box of a computer sitting there was always a welcome sight.
“No problem,” Al responded. He walked back to his workstation where the partially re-assembled machine 216894 lay.
“Say, Taz, when’s our new coworker supposed to start?” Al asked, examining the frayed wires of the machine. “What’s her name again?”
“Dax,” Tazina replied. She stood from her chair to stretch her legs, using the desk to balance as she walked around it.
“Dax, right,” Al said. “I can’t wait ‘til she gets here. Maybe we can get some actual work done instead of this ‘top priority’ project. Re-assembling a city guard shouldn’t take this long!”
Tazina didn’t bother to reply. These dramatic outbursts of his had become routine over the past year.
“If I had a team, better resources...” Al continued, trailing off into incoherent grumbling.
Tazina settled back down into her chair. “We may have to wait a bit for Dax,” she said as she turned on her computer. “She was attacked recently and I don’t know how long she’ll need to recover.”
Al was silent. Then he said, “Of course she was. But I hope she gets here soon.”
“I can’t wait for her to join us either,” Tazina stated as bright blue code blinked to life on the black screen of her computer. “Maybe we’ll finally get somewhere.”