Utterly Mad

The next day was much as the first, except with more harassment. Catnip had grown a bit bitter over what she'd been through, and that was what dominated her thoughts for a good portion of the day. This was because the day priors absentee workers finally showed up, and among them was a familiar face.

Catnip had asked for an assistant that second day. Back home, Kathrine had served this role while hanging around the workshop. Always moping around and looking sad in a cute sort of way that made Catnip simultaneously want to give her a hug, and shake the living hell out of her while telling her to cheer up. Kathrine was genuinely helpful to though, passing just the right tool to Catnip every time. She wasn't here though. None of her friends were here. Instead, she had a lineup of people waiting to be selected. Not that any of them looked too eager to be working for or even with her. They had their qualifications all in order, not that they meant much to her. So and so spent three years at Arizona technical college, this and that one worked for Charlie motors for seven years, she and t'other worked in a garage since highschool. Words that Catnip didn't understand and didn't much care for floated by until that familiar face was standing in front of her.

"L." Catnip growled. The tall Misling flinched, which made a bit of a sight. Catnip, who stood petite by some standards and perfectly average by others, glaring up into the face of a woman a good foot taller than her. The shaven rat and the cowering mouse.

"I-I'm sorry nip, i-"

"It's Miss Walker. Where's Mark?"

"I- he- I don't know. He wasn't paying my contract, so the agency seized it and put me to work in the airfarm. They let me transfer and-"

"Shut up. I don't really care. You work for me now."

The other applicants were clearly upset about Catnip's choice. L had no experience with the kind of work they expected Catnip to put them through, but to Catnip that mattered very little. She needed someone she knew, even someone as treacherous as she thought L was, and wasn't really looking for a mechanically minded assistant. Such "help" would counter her and might even undo her work.