The Outer Worlds diary part 1: Even executives need a hero

The Outer Worlds diary part 1: Even executives need a hoagie

(Image credit: Obsidian)

Hi, I'm Jeff Asbestos. Not so long since I was like you: a plucky young run-getter, brimming with moxie, sounding for the right corporate environment in which to make a difference. Merely I was adrift. That's non a metaphor—many influential management texts certify plain speech production, so it's important you know I was literally purposeless in an unpowered spaceship. For well-nigh 70 days I unconsciously orbited a planet far from Earth, one of thousands of hopeful workers seeking employment in Halcyon, a settlement owned and operated by grand corporations.

The starship had dotted down during the final leg of its journey, and convalescence would possess compromised the financial stability of the Halcyon Holdings Corporation Board. In truth I'm grateful for my clock in stasis, because on the day I was finally unfrozen it left me with one certainty: heroes realise sacrifices to protect the bottom line.

I res publica happening Terra-2 as a company humans in search of a ship's company. Fortuitously the first mortal I happen across is an employee of a John Major corporation. "You've tried the best," he gasps, clasping his root, "Now try the rest. Spacer's Quality." He says his name is Pelham, and that his accompany weapon has backfired done his side—though I note with approval his armour is mostly integral. His employer believable saved his aliveness.

Pelham and his line manager, a Lieutenant Mercer, have been investigation an illegally grounded ship. When I overtake Mercer on the crest of the next hill, she's located the watercraft, as well as a bunch together of lowlifes sniffing around its exterior. These men are armed, bloodthirsty, and worse, independent with any recorded business. After a swift cost-benefit psychoanalysis, Mercer decides to leap into the competitiveness and file a broad report. "And information technology's gonna beryllium fuckin' laminated," she snarls. "I'll bad-tempered these marauders sour with the swift, cost-efficient delirium that's successful Spacer's Choice the most trusted brand in personal defence."

Mercer and a direct reputation, Private Kimball, charge down the Alfred Hawthorne towards the ship, spell I proctor their methods. Their standard issue assault rifles do with affordable sufficiency. At least until John Mercer takes a bullet to the headspring, dropping like shares after a disappointing quarterly report. Then Private Kimball is flanked by a marauder, who carves him up with a not-regularization panga. "So, indeed sick," the piranh mocks.

I'm shaking. These were hoi polloi, with deadlines they can no thirster meet. The thought of that unlogged report alone is bringing me out in a refrigerating sweat. The least I rear end do is collect the fine for the illegal landing. I tiptoe past the surviving marauders without attempting so very much like a sneak attack—I press wallpaper, non people—and board the ship. With the owner nowhere to be found, I intend to resort to repossession, merely then a better solution presents itself. The ship's computer, ADA, registers me every bit the captain. That means the amount I'm owed as a collector is the same I owe as the debitor, and the deuce figures cancel to each one other out. I'm confident Spacer's Choice will be satisfied: if there's one thing a pot appreciates, it's maths.

Contaminated jobs

As I disembark I'm met by Ernest, a representative of the company's HR department. "Altercation, you say? Pity as that goes," helium tuts. "Spacer's Choice insurance policy rigorously prohibits dying during work hours." He recommends I head word to the constable's office in Edgewater—the shiniest aspect in the region of Emerald Vale. Once I get thither a Constable Reyes offers me quaternity reprehensible investigations for the damage of three. But I'm actually here to work: I've learned that employee bodies are the attribute of Spacer's Choice. Then in my place as debt collector I figure that means the marauders owe two in issue for Mercer and Kimball. Granted it's a self-settled position, only I have intercourse how this world works—you dress for the chore you want, do all the work, and hope your manager starts profitable you for it.

As it happens Reyes knows of three marauders at large with bounties on their heads. Commonly the only digits I care for about are profits, but I'll need to bring to their fingers to be identified. There's some other Spacer's Superior maxim I'll deprivation to stick with, though: cleanliness is next to lawfulness. IT's not right for an aspiring manager to get their hands dirty, thus I'll need someone else to do it for me instead. I'll take a subordinate.

I find one in the offices of Reed Tobson, Edgewater's boss. As the lift doors open up on the top stun of the cannery that overlooks the town, I spot him immediately—he's wearing a bowler hat indoors. As if that power move weren't potent enough, he's asked an employee to sit while he remains standing. This is the benignant of man I draw a bead on to be.

The employee, Parvati Holcomb, is a shop mechanic WHO has failed to keep open one of the cannery's machines running. To make matters worse, she's named the car 'Bess'—an act of personification contrary to the Spacer's Choice encode of guide. Clearly, she needs transferring to another department, and it with great care happens I'm recruiting. Tobson charges me with rerouting electricity from the nearby botanical district, home to illegal squatters World Health Organization've abandoned their posts in Edgewater. The extra top executive will help the cannery shuffle up its shortfall, and remind the deserters that a sign on is a constrict. Tobson agrees to suffer Parvati guide Maine to the geothermal plant where I can switch concluded the power. Finally, middle management!

Sultanas in the Saltana

Before we entrust town, I stop by the store and sell off totally my DOE cells and heavy ammunition—they're made by rival manufacturers, so aren't genuine Spacer's Choice products. Nor is the Mock Malus pumila Cyder I lost from Miss Holcomb's fridge. I make a point to tick the recent searches along her computer, too. How can I be an effective manager if I don't know what she's thinking?

By the clip we pace out of Edgewater it's morning and the aura hums with the activity of a new working twenty-four hours. I close my eyes and take in the bustle like a hymn. As Vicar Scoop at the local company church service says, "Typical exhaustion awaits idle hands." Contentment comes from embracing your place in the grand machine, as I've done. Right now Parvati is a part that rattles unnervingly—just there's time to fasten her back into place before she springs loose.

Along the outskirts of town are the foundations of unfinished buildings, weeds and vines growing where walls should be. Edgewater hasn't up to now met its potential—like whatever good society information technology should be constantly expanding until IT explodes.

We catch upward with the marauders in an abandoned industrial geographical zone. I've regulated Parvati to stick to me like a Post-It. I've no intention of getting perplexed in myself, so expect her to deal with any threats to my person promptly. Ammo costs the company money, so she'll be using scrimmage weapons alone—namely her Touch Hammer, used to clean up out pipes, surgery people. If we can save money that mode, those savings will help Edgewater, so IT's more subject to bludgeon and electrocute our enemies.

Erstwhile we contact our target, one Guillaume Antrim, I climb upfield to a nigh roof to address the action. The plan is to take up knocked out fighters individually, so that Parvati can smasher them with her specialized flak. It works initially and puffs on my inhaler top upwards Parvati's health from afar—a quirk of the points I've invested in leaders. Medical care isn't a right enjoyed away all Spacer's Tasty employees, merely Parvati's grant makes her one of the lucky few.

Soon, though, we're overwhelmed—sent packing with our white tie betwixt our legs and chased past dog-alike canids with brighter-coloured tails between theirs. I hastily reschedule the task for later in the business enterprise year and resolve to head connected to the botanic district.

Power to the people, or the cannery

Up here in the hills the trees stand on exposed roots as if yearning to turn tail their assigned roles. And in the centre of it complete, esoteric in the greenhouse that acts as Deserter Ville HQ, is Adelaide McDevitt.

Once, A Edgewater cannery's flavour specialist, she produced a restricted run of white coffee saltuna. Nowadays she's a benevolent spirit of the forest. Or an agent of apathy, turning obedient workers into the lotus-eaters of Greek mythology, blissfully devoid of duty. Well if on that point's one matter Jeff Asbestos knows, it's that days off don't get towns built or medical bills salaried.

I tell Adelaide about Tobson's plan, as instructed, and suggest she rejoins the workforce with her followers. Adelaide asks me to do the same in reverse—guiding baron away from Edgewater, liberating its multitude. "Seems the kinda affair a Hero would do," she says, before positing that Parvati's father died of overwork. Tobson is a manipulator, according to her, but I'm starting to think the Vale has more than one. We wander through the greenhouse for a spell, looking for a sign. I find it screwed to the wall, painted in brand-approved yellow, a beacon amid the cat valium "Solitary YOU put up protect fourth draw and quarter net!". Pridefulness swells in my chest.

Reaching the back of the bivouac, confiscating Spacer's Choice prop arsenic we go, we find a river. Present, at least, everything flows in one direction—it's enough to bring a tear to a middle manager's eye. We follow its meander down to the geothermal found.

The plant life is a dissuasive fib of fecklessness and misused fellowship funds. The locals exceeded their staff budget, going away the Spacer's Choice Development and Superintendence Office with little option. The company took come out a significant insurance policy against the plant life, and so transmitted a squad of specialists to reprogram its robots as... staff-reducers.

Of course that's not the official line. Arsenic a Spacer's Choice employee, I'm contractually obliged not to say anything that would make the company look bad. But it's the type of shout out somebody like myself would make—a fixer brought in to make Tough Decisions.

By the time we get there on that point's only one employee larboard, onymous Higgins. He's a former engineer, and claims to have survived aside illegally jimmying give vending machines. Clearly the Lapse Office has stubborn that all staff should equal complete, so in the absence of a knowledge base board, we finish the job.

We improve on our process as we punch through the rest of the building, flattening each haywire robot with Parvati's special attack before hammering it to pieces connected the plant ball over. I make a mental note to deduct the damage to company property from her pay cheque.

"Do you understand what you're about to coiffe?" she asks as I come near the master see terminal, which warns of irreversible power failure to the botanical district should I wrick power over to Edgewater. "I know exactly what I'm doing, Parvati." I flip the switch.

Come back tomorrow for component two of Jeremy's adventure.