It's been a very long time since Rachel has had to actually work at her sunny disposition, to summon it as a cloak over a tightly-restrained blaze of incandescent anger and frustration. Two and a half years, maybe, since San Francisco, since the full machinations of the one person she foolishly trusted in spite of herself were laid bare, revelations like bleached bones showing through an eroded grave, stark and stomach-turning when you realized just what you were looking at.
But before that it was the entirety of her teenage years, what sometimes seemed to be a nonstop parade of oh-so-concerned teachers, neighbors, fellow worshippers with prying, pitying, pointed questions. She slips right back into it as if she never left, answering questions she feels are no one's goddamned business and enduring the inspection she feels they have no right to carry out--are they actually fucking patting her down, what the entire hell--with the good-natured poise and polite resignation one expects from someone who, gosh, really understands that people just have to ask these questions, have to poke around in your business, because it's for your own good.
Yes, she has business in the area--filing routine and mandatory paperwork on behalf of her employer. Yes, she likes her job. Yes, she's been down here before and likely will be regularly, you know how it is, there's always paperwork. No, she's doesn't live in Syriac Well, she just works there. Yes, that certainly is a big flashlight in her bag, she works late sometimes, you know how it is, a girl just needs to feel secure walking to her apartment building from the train late at night. Yes, that's the paperwork she's here to file, no, she has nothing else to do here but drop that off, it's back to the office once she has.
There are so many things they want to know, and though they're civil and full of sorry for the trouble, we gotta do what we gotta do, the clear implication is that there will be more trouble if she doesn't answer. Or if she demands any answers in return--who the hell do you think you are, what right do you have stopping someone on the street, how dare you question my business here, doesn't a law-abiding citizen have free movement here--and, above all:
What's so special about my cohort that merely being part of it earns me a public frisking and interrogation?
If she were still the afternoon server at the tea house, with no one to answer to but herself, she might try edging toward some of those questions. But she's well aware that she's not just a private citizen anymore; she works for and with Jack, and there's a lot at stake for him. Getting on the Militia's radar as a troublemaker or getting herself arrested for being out of line could screw things over for him
So she keeps smiling, keeps up the act of being a compliant, polite, understanding good citizen. Yes, I've been here a while now, almost a year and a half, I think. No, it's true, I haven't been at my job all that long. Yes, that's a picture of my dog on my CiD, yes, he's cute, isn't he? His name is George Tirebiter, no he doesn't actually bite tires, there was a school who had a mascot by that name near where I grew up and I always thought it was funny.
...Yes, this really is my natural hair color, no, there's no artifice involved, cosmetic, magic, or otherwise, oh, how kind of you to find it remarkable, insert perfectly-executed humbled gaze-drop here, gosh.
She keeps up the polite smile and idle chatter as her belongings are returned; she notes the number stuck to her CiD and she nearly asks, but she's not sure if it's an error, a test, or in some remote possibility, information being slipped to her, so she puts the device back in her bag without comment. She keeps up the act all the way to her destination and back, bright smile and brief you guys have a good day on her way back past the checkpoint, to the train, on the train, all the way back to Jack's offices.
Once she's safely out of sight, though... She's still kind and civil, this is a professional workplace, after all, but boy, is she a flurry of I can't believe I have to do this activity, striding from office to office, who's got a magnifying glass, I need a magnifying glass, I'll bring it right back until someone comes up with one.
And then she's in her office, the lamp on her desk turned so she can inspect her CiD with the magnifying glass under it, because like fucking hell is she using this again until she's sure it hasn't been tampered with.
Which is a problem, because now there are people she needs to call.
no subject
But before that it was the entirety of her teenage years, what sometimes seemed to be a nonstop parade of oh-so-concerned teachers, neighbors, fellow worshippers with prying, pitying, pointed questions. She slips right back into it as if she never left, answering questions she feels are no one's goddamned business and enduring the inspection she feels they have no right to carry out--are they actually fucking patting her down, what the entire hell--with the good-natured poise and polite resignation one expects from someone who, gosh, really understands that people just have to ask these questions, have to poke around in your business, because it's for your own good.
Yes, she has business in the area--filing routine and mandatory paperwork on behalf of her employer. Yes, she likes her job. Yes, she's been down here before and likely will be regularly, you know how it is, there's always paperwork. No, she's doesn't live in Syriac Well, she just works there. Yes, that certainly is a big flashlight in her bag, she works late sometimes, you know how it is, a girl just needs to feel secure walking to her apartment building from the train late at night. Yes, that's the paperwork she's here to file, no, she has nothing else to do here but drop that off, it's back to the office once she has.
There are so many things they want to know, and though they're civil and full of sorry for the trouble, we gotta do what we gotta do, the clear implication is that there will be more trouble if she doesn't answer. Or if she demands any answers in return--who the hell do you think you are, what right do you have stopping someone on the street, how dare you question my business here, doesn't a law-abiding citizen have free movement here--and, above all:
What's so special about my cohort that merely being part of it earns me a public frisking and interrogation?
If she were still the afternoon server at the tea house, with no one to answer to but herself, she might try edging toward some of those questions. But she's well aware that she's not just a private citizen anymore; she works for and with Jack, and there's a lot at stake for him. Getting on the Militia's radar as a troublemaker or getting herself arrested for being out of line could screw things over for him
So she keeps smiling, keeps up the act of being a compliant, polite, understanding good citizen. Yes, I've been here a while now, almost a year and a half, I think. No, it's true, I haven't been at my job all that long. Yes, that's a picture of my dog on my CiD, yes, he's cute, isn't he? His name is George Tirebiter, no he doesn't actually bite tires, there was a school who had a mascot by that name near where I grew up and I always thought it was funny.
...Yes, this really is my natural hair color, no, there's no artifice involved, cosmetic, magic, or otherwise, oh, how kind of you to find it remarkable, insert perfectly-executed humbled gaze-drop here, gosh.
She keeps up the polite smile and idle chatter as her belongings are returned; she notes the number stuck to her CiD and she nearly asks, but she's not sure if it's an error, a test, or in some remote possibility, information being slipped to her, so she puts the device back in her bag without comment. She keeps up the act all the way to her destination and back, bright smile and brief you guys have a good day on her way back past the checkpoint, to the train, on the train, all the way back to Jack's offices.
Once she's safely out of sight, though... She's still kind and civil, this is a professional workplace, after all, but boy, is she a flurry of I can't believe I have to do this activity, striding from office to office, who's got a magnifying glass, I need a magnifying glass, I'll bring it right back until someone comes up with one.
And then she's in her office, the lamp on her desk turned so she can inspect her CiD with the magnifying glass under it, because like fucking hell is she using this again until she's sure it hasn't been tampered with.
Which is a problem, because now there are people she needs to call.