Layoffs - MGNQ, Canon

Layoffs



It was a good party.

Wonderous food was served, the drinks plentiful, and delicious desserts devoured, all prepared by smiling, helpful company maid staff. QB Heavy Industries employee banquets were legendary affairs; held one a quarter, each for a diffrent department. This time, the honor was being heaped upon the courior service. The plucky men and woman who traveled to sometimes remote areas at odd hours to deliver mysterious pacakges to field agents who had gotten themselves into sometimes rediculous situations.

In the midst of all these excited people, Mami Tomoe worked the crowd, a smile plastered to her face. She directed the maid staff, chatted with employees and families she had gotten close to over the years, and delivered plush Cutebei dolls, the adorable company cat/rabbit mascot, to the children. Deftly dodging wayward groping fingers and talking down jeleous wives and girlfriends with a joke at the object of ire's expense, she made the picture of the perfect hostess.

After a few hours she made her way to the stage, observing the staff begining to clean up dinner plates but leaving behind generous amounts of alcohol and desserts behind. Stepping up to mic, she caughed a couple times, getting the attention of the room. She waved at a couple catcalls from the audience, reminding them they should wait until they were sober to chat her up, to the amusment of their fellow coworkers.

"Ok, lets get started with the presentation, shall we?" She paused to wave down the expected groans. "Oh, don't be like that, sillies. You knew this was coming." With a big smile, she turned and waved to a dour looking young woman standing behind her.

"This is my lovely assistant for the evening, Sayaka. She'll be handling the company report in a minute. It shouldn't take too long, I hear she has a hot date later tonight!" With a wave of laughter, Mami turned back to the crowd as she felt the heat of the glare on her back.

"Before I go, though, I just want to say how much of a pleasure it's been to work with each and every one of you. It's been my honor to have your long years of loyalty and service. I'd also like to thank you, the families. It's your strength and effort that lets us-"

She paused, blowing her nose on a delicate yellow handkerchief. "I'm, I'm sorry. If you noticed me with puffy eyes and a runny nose tonight it's because, um, well I think it's my allergies, actually." She smiled, dabbing at her eyes a little. "I'm really breaking up here."

She smiled at the audience's laugh that she was still beautiful. "Ok, well, I'm gonna cut this short and go check that everything is prepped for later. If I don't see you before I leave, see you on the other side!"

Mami waved as she exited the stage, nodding to a grim faced Sayaka as they swapped spots. "Filthy traitors, mocking us with feigned their ignorance, they deserve this."

Mami stopped, just out of sight from the crowd, standing behind a curtain. "Wha-what?"

Sayaka, with a large, fake smile for the benefit of the crowd, spat her words in disgust. It was... disturbing to say the least. "These pathetic turncoats, Mami. You know damn well one of them sold out Murderface to Kirika, and for what? Money? A pretty smile? Revenge for some slight? It doesn't matter. Betrayal is the worst sort of heresy, and demands no forgiveness; once done, a traitor is always one temptation from another."

Mami was stunned, shocked by the hammerblows she felt keenly against her own self doubts. She knew exactly who had sold out their friend. She could stop this, here, now, with but a word. Screwing up her courage to reveal this deep secret, to tear off the mask of civility, to show her true, cowardly self to one of her oldest friends, she opened her mouth before she could stop herself. "Sayaka, I-"

"No. Stop! I know you hate internal personnel purges like this. Let me do this. I might not LIKE Murderface much but..." she paused a moment, gritting her teeth to force the words out "...she's a friend, I guess. One of us. Let me help her, help YOU, in this way."

Mami hung her head, her will broken, the moment lost forever. Slipping out the side door, she flipped off the bank of lights before locking the door behind her. Taking a deep breath, tears starting to leak out of her eyes, she tied the door shut with a length of conjured ribbon, just like she had previously done with the six other exits out of the packed audatorium.

Her work finally done, she collapsed against the secured door. Pulling her knees up, she sobbed freely into her clenched hands, rocking gently back and forth as she forced herself to listen. Behind her, screams of terror began to echo through the the barred portal, soon followed by the pathetic scrabbling of hands and desperate pounding of fists mere inches behind her back.

They continued for a long, long time