Sitting in the small office, the ticking of the small clock on the wall falling far behind my racing heart, I tap my fingers nervously against the arms of my seat. The well worn padding of the cheap office chair does little in way of providing any sense of comfort, the wooden base of the seat easily being felt beneath me as I shift awkwardly in my seat.
My nails click dully against the coarse plastic armrest, my arms remaining held at my side as I try to take up as little space as I can in the tiny shoebox of an office. Beyond the small desk in front of me sits a rather bored and disinterested looking man in his late forties, a poor excuse of a comb over drawing the eyes to his shiny pale head. His large and doughy frame strains a similarly heavily worn seat, the arm rests jabbing into his sides and squishing his flab as he reads over the forms on his desk.
"Well..." he mutters in a low and huffing gargle, coughing slightly as he clears his throat. "It looks like we may actually have something for you" he muses, moving a set of stumpy sausage-like fingers to his thick walrus mustache before stroking it in deep thought.
Reaching down to his desk he slowly begins to open and close various drawers, a faint clinking of glass and metal echoing out of each one as he strains his beady eyes at the contents within.
"Really!" I croak, a cold sweat quickly beading up on my forehead and back as I watch him search for something in the drawers. A faint glow slips up from each draw as he opens it, an eerie pink light emanating up and over the man's sickly pale skin.
"High social aptitude..." he grunts, his voice coming out in a heavy sigh as he leans further down and forces the air from his lungs. "Educated, a diverse range of customer service jobs in your history. I'm sure we can find something for you in..." he mutters, reaching into a drawer and fishing around with a deep sense of concentration as he is bathed in blue light.
The man sticks his tongue out as he shifts around in the drawer, her beady brown eyes narrowing further and further as he looks for something in particular beyond his reach.
"Something in... Retail or Food Service maybe? Travel and Entertainment could also..." he mutters, clutching at a few of the clattering glass objects before pausing and starting to muse again. "With your education background... maybe a Teaching or Admin role. Given the breadth of experience we could maybe have you running a... Well you could be a Business Owner."
"Umm..." I mutter, my fingers digging into the chairs plastic arms as I try to speak up. "Do I get a choice in all this or..." I begin to ask, only to be cut short as the large man snort back a laugh.
Reaching deep into the bottom drawer he snatches at something, heaving himself back up as the chair groans in almost as much pain and discomfort as the middle-aged man. In his hand, clasped between two thick and pudgy fingers, rests a small glass vial filled with roiling and shimmering pink liquid.
"Well, you could always choose to remain unemployed" the man chuckles, his chins jiggling along with his belly laugh. "Or... you can accept the employment skills right here" he states, wiggling the glass vial for emphasis.
It hadn't taken long for unemployment services and recruitment agencies to jump into the latest new technology in the field of upskilling. These tiny pink vials seemed to be a miracle on the surface, a tiny beverage that, upon drinking, would seemingly immediately land someone a new job no matter how far out of their skill set or experience it may be.
All it took was a single drink, barely a mouthful considering the size of the vessel, for the applicant to be to suddenly find employment. The whole process was seemingly so quick that those administering it could barely remember who had been in their office for an appointment, the only important outcome being the teeny tiny uptick in the employment rate.
While in theory, these agencies could simply and these 'Skill Shapers' out like candy, they seemed moreso to ration and plan out just who to give these pretty pink beverages to in order to line them up with a job that they wouldn't be all to disagreeable with. With each tiny bottle came a small printed label, a basic description of the role these new skills would assist with.
Medical Care
Artist
Engineering
All these and many more would be sent out to the various agencies around the world, most of which would more then likely never see use as they waited to be paired up with someone in search of a job. Despite the range of profession, some were seemingly more common than other. Service industries and other low-skill jobs always seemed to be in ample supply, often times raising an eyebrow from staff before they turned their minds back to reviewing files and trying their best to find a good match.
In reality, the company behind 'Skill Shapers' would have loved to produce more scientists and engineers if they could as they were in desperate need of new minds to try and understand just what they had discovered.
Of course they had made the machine that produced the product, a massive series of devices designed originally to further research into quantum mechanics, however just how the pink and blue sludge was made or where it even came from still eluded them to this day. Their machine could test one thing though, the enormous device giving back simple job titles when the shimmering blue and pink ooze was run back through the machine.
It only took a single drunken dare from the interns to see just what the substance could do, the young woman seemingly being pulled into herself before disappearing entirely. It was only an hour or so later that the now far taller and more mature eerily familiar figure stormed back into the lab, the freshness of the incident and the oddly similar features of the intern turned marketing executive helping to piece things together.
It is doubtful the team would have continued their research or sold their discovery as a product had they known exactly what made up the thick gelatinous goo they were creating.
With each run of the machine, in some far off place in the multi-verse, someone soon found themselves being rendered down like some sort of animal byproduct. As the faint glow covered their skin, the screams of confusion growing garbled and faint, they would quickly twist and crumple into a pile of quivering liquid before being pulled to parts unknown as they slip out of consciousness.
This pure essence, once ingested, warped and rewrote reality around the drinker before quickly working on their own body and mind. The drinker's life, along with their very body, would become an effective blend of what they had once known and the life of the poor soul they had so wantonly chugged.
Worse yet, with their new steady employment it was highly unlikely they would get another chance to escape their new self for quite some time.
Heaving up from his chair a little, the man reaches out towards me. His hand trembles slightly as he struggles to hold the jostling pink vial, his fingers lacking much in the way of dexterity as he tries his best to extend the offering out without dropping it to the floor.
With a quivering hand I reach up, taking the sweat slickened vial with a wince. It's hard to tell if the thing is warm thanks to the shimmering pink liquid inside or from the layer of foul sweat that clings to the glass thanks to the grasp of the flabby man across from me.
"Well..." he asks, nodding towards the vial. "If you want to accept your new role go right ahead, otherwise I think were done here tod..."
"No no..." I blurt out, reaching for the label only for it to fall off thanks to the sweat soaking through it. I choke out a faint smile, trying my best to look happy with the situation. I slowly open the lid of the vial, the liquid inside shifting as if reacting to the fresh air slowly streaming inside. As the lid slides off I slowly bring the glass to my mouth, my free hand reaching down to turn the label over.
With the top of the bottle only an inch or two from my lips I slowly squeak out. "I'm more than happy to trying being a...
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