Gaia

Mari didn't wake up early. She liked to think of herself as a creature of the night. However, Eli had clearly thought of this ahead of time. There was an alarm that woke her up at six in the morning, but the problem here was that she had no idea where the alarm was. The ringing got louder and louder as she desperate tore the studio apart, looking for the alarm. She finally found it in a high cupboard, slamming the off button so hard that she heard something in the clock crack. At that point, going back to bed was pointless. Mari was wide awake. She took a long shower instead, using the fancy soaps and shampoos she found in there.

She sighed and trudged to the closet, but once she opened it, every last bit of sleepiness in her disappeared. The closet was stocked full of high-end clothes with the tags of some of the biggest designers ever. The price tags still remained on most of them, and the numbers Mari saw made her choke slightly. Neatly lines up at the bottom of the closet was several pairs of designer shoes that matched handbags sitting on the shelf. Okay. If this is what they wanted, Mari could certainly work with this. She wiggled into a black pencil skirt and a white blouse, pairing it with shiny black pumps and a bright red handbag.

She went back to Eli's penthouse, strutting down the hall like her own personal fashion runway. One or two people stared at her, but it was in a different way this time. This time, she looked really good. And she absolutely knew that. Reuben opened the door and greeted her politely, and she took a moment to examine him. He looked human in every way, but sure enough, Eli was right. Reuben was a bot. He stood too still to be human, and if there was anything those engineers couldn't get right, it was the eyes. There was something about the human eye that couldn't be replicated, no matter how hard they tried.

"Good morning, Miss Gold," he said.

"Good morning, Reuben," she said, nodding to him.

Eli was reading something off a thin tablet when she came in. When he saw her, his eyes widened. Not in a good way. He scanned her clothes, then looked at her in disbelief.

"Louis Vuitton? Versace?" he said in exasperation, looking over to Reuben. "What the hell is this?"

"You asked me to stock the closet, sir," he responded.

"Yeah, with like discount pantsuits or whatever," he said. "How much did all this cost me? You know what? Don't answer that."

"I don't have 'discount pantsuits' recorded in my system, sir," Reuben said politely. "I purchased these from the women's line of your own preferred designers. Would you like me to exchange anything?"

"No, no forget it," Eli sighed. "Come on, raccoon eyes."

Mari frowned, following Eli. "Hey, I don't have raccoon eyes. I fixed it."

She followed him into an office, where he promptly handed her a stack of files.

"The names and titles are in the top right corner," he told her. "Your job is to alphabetized them."

"What the actual fuck?" she said. "You still use paper? Who still uses paper? We don't even use paper on the Ground."

"I gave you a job. Do it," he said.

"You gave me busywork," she told him. "You don't actually need this, do you?"

"I'm walking away now," he said as he walked out. "I can no longer hear you. Get it done."

With that, Mari was alone with the stack of papers. She scowled and sat down, starting to read over the papers. They made absolutely no sense to her, but she started to alphabetized them anyways. She got through maybe ten papers before she got distracted by Eli's personal office. There were no picture, which was odd. There were a couple awards for security on the desk, but that was it. She rolled back in the chair and started opening drawers. There were some gadgets here and there, mostly for business use. Boring. She opened another drawer and found a bag of health snacks, rolling her eyes. Nuts and dried berries. Or, the lab created version of nuts and berries. She reached into the bag to grab a handful, but her hand pulled something else out instead.

"Oh, you son of a bitch," she mumbled.

The bag was just a cover so no one would know that the inside was full of chocolate pieces. Mari had tasted chocolate one other time in her life. She was seven years old, and someone from the upper levels was doing a project to "help improve" the lives of orphans on ground level. His project did little to nothing, but he gave Andy and Mari a chocolate bar each. To that day, it was one of the best moments of Mari's life. She popped a couple chocolate pieces into her mouth and it took her back to that blissfully happy day.

She took the little bag with her as she got up and started snooping around the rest of the office. She opened one more drawer and found it full of various hard liquor bottles, most of them with tags that said "Happy Birthday" or "Merry Christmas". She picked up one bottle of vodka and took a shot straight from the bottle, shuddering slightly at how strong it was. Two more pieces of chocolate. Two more shots of Christmas vodka. Mari considered it a work benefit.