Page 64 of Omega's Flight
"Oh, yes, I got a memo that you would be dropping in. Well, let's get your file started." She grabbed a folder and plucked several sheets of paper from different piles before swinging around the desk. "We'll go sit at the table over here, it's more comfortable than filling everything out standing at the desk." She set the papers down on the table and dropped a couple of pens and a pencil on top of them. "Now, you just take a seat there and we'll get started." She pulled one of the cheap steel pipe and plastic chairs out from the table and sat down in the other herself. "My name is Denver, by the way. I do the intakes, then we have a couple of other people who help out when it comes to setting up training or apprenticeships or things like that." She smiled and patted the chair beside her again invitingly.
I sat down gingerly on the seat and reached for one of the pens. "What are these for?" I asked, stalling for time. I'd thought they'd just give me a list of jobs to look at, or they'd just list off what was available once I told them how few skills I had and I'd choose what worked best around the pups' schedules. I hadn't expected forms.
"It's how we keep track of who has experience in what and who we can call on to fill in other packmembers if they sick. And it helps us figure out who we have that might be good for an apprenticeship." She smiled again, cheerful as a spring flower.
Dutifully, I started to fill the first one in with my slopping, unformed printing. As an omega, I hadn't been taught more than basic writing, enough to make grocery lists or leave a note so the family would know where I was. Denver watched with a pleased smile and didn't seem to be bothered by it, but I was.
I slowly filled everything in and then passed it over to Denver. She looked it over and asked, "What's your household phone number? We need to be able to get in touch with you."
"I don't know.” I fumbled the phone out of my pocket and showed it to her. “How do I find my number?”
Denver clucked and reached for the phone. “Give me a moment.” She poked around in my phone for a minute, then wrote something on the piece of paper and handed the phone back to me. "Now, write down all the jobs you held here and at your other packs, any things you learned how to do in the course of your day, hobbies, interests, things you'd maybe like to do someday. If there's space left, you can write down things that you watched other people doing and you might have picked up some idea of how it works, but if you don't have room, it's okay.“ She pushed the other piece of paper in front of me.
"Thank you," I said. She patted my arm and stood up to go sit behind her desk again.
I stared down at my paperwork, daunted. Well, at least it wouldn't take long.
By the time she came back, I had my meager list completed. Not much there—housework, small repairs, sewing and knitting and braiding rugs. Cooking. Then, at the end, a strange impulse had taken over me and I'd put painting and drawing.
Denver frowned slightly when she saw my list and I saw her eyes flick up to me briefly before she returned to staring at the paper. She sucked the corner of her lower lip into her mouth and chewed on it, frowning. "What kind of painting?" she asked in a doubtful tone.
I pressed my hands together in my lap. "Like, pictures. I did murals sometimes back where I grew up." I wasn't going to mention Nevada Ashes, hadn't even put it on my information. They seemed more accepting here, but I'd grown up knowing the other packs looked down on us and I wasn't going to risk my reputation here letting any more people know than already did. It was bad enough I’d run away from my mate—if I could avoid that stigma, at least long enough to establish myself here, I’d be much more comfortable. “I can draw with charcoal, too."
"There isn't much call for that," she mused. "It's a pretty unusual skill though. I'll have to think about it, Abel might have some ideas for doing graphic art type things. I know he had to hire out for some of the graphics for that game of his. Can you sketch something for me? Just quick, on the bottom of the page?"
"Sure." I picked up the pencil, stared at her for a few moments to get a sense of the lines of her face, then quickly sketched her portrait in the empty space below my pitiful list. "It's not perfect. I like charcoal better. It feels more alive." I passed the page back to her and held my breath while I waited for her to pass judgment on my image.
"Oh." Her eyes opened wide. "This is really well done." She paused to stare at it again, one hand going to her cheek. "Raleigh, this is beautiful, but I'm just not sure... Let me talk to Abel, he knows more about that stuff than I do. There's got to be some way for you to do this for your pack credits."
I felt my cheeks heat up and a bubble of happiness swelled in my chest. "No, it's okay. I know there's not a lot of work in it. It's just a hobby, really. I'm okay doing anything else you have, really. I just want to do my part and earn my credits."
"Well, that we can certainly sort out," she mused, but I noticed that she couldn't take her eyes off the page. "Bax said you were interested in going to school, maybe. Have you thought about what you'd like to do?"
"I went to look at catalogs this morning at the library, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me," I confessed. "I want to be useful. What does Mercy Hills need?"
She frowned and reluctantly set the paper on her desk. "We need a lot of things, but why don't we find out what you're interested in and we go from there? We have some questionnaires you can fill out and when we look at your answers, we can usually point you in the right direction. Do you have time to do one now, or did you want to make an appointment to come back another day?"
It still shocked me when they treated me the way they'd treat a delta, but I liked it so much. "I can do them now, thank you. Denver, I really appreciate everything you're doing for me. Back home, I was just an omega, you know?"
"Everyone works here," she said firmly. "I'll get the questionnaire, you make yourself comfortable. I'll send a message to Abel, too, and see what he needs for art.”
"Thank you," I said again, and marvelled at the changes a couple of weeks had brought.
C H A P T E R 4 7
B y the time I left Personnel, my head was spinning. So many possibilities, schools I could go to, courses I could take. Denver was set on me doing some sort of graphic design. I wasn’t so sure of that—I thought I might be better off to do something that would be useful in the new hospital. That would be good, high value work. I could raise my pups on that.
But there was so much I needed to do before I could get there and I needed to be earning my pack credits now.
One thing the questionnaires had brought to light was just how slow I was when writing, and how poor my math skills were. Denver had frowned and advised me to take some high school courses and that she could put me in touch with someone to tutor me. I'd protested—I wanted to contribute, not be a bigger drain on Mercy Hills but she was adamant. "Go talk to Bax or Holland, they'll okay it. You aren't the first omega whose academic skills needed polishing when they got here. And you can go to the Omegas for help with credits to cover the time it will take if you want to do it full time, or we can arrange a part time schedule working and part time learning. It's up to you."
If I could do it part time... "Would I be able to make enough credits to support myself?"
She waved a casual hand. "You get the stipend for the pups, and the one for you regardless, you'll never have less than that. I don't know how they did it in Jackson-Jellystone, but here, the expectation is that you'll work a certain number of hours a week and if you want to work less, you can pay the credits those hours would have earned back to the pack or to the person who has to do the work you would have done, or you can build up an account of hours owed—up to a certain point—and then pay them back after. Or you can work extra and bank hours against something you know is coming up. We've worked out all sorts of really odd agreements here."
At first I nearly leaped at the idea, until I realized that at some point, those hours would come due. Not only would I work my normal amount—I added it up in my head—but I'd have to be out of the house to make up those other hours too. And I had three pups, and no one to help me with them. The daycare did after-school supervision, but if I did this, I'd be essentially giving my pups to someone else to raise. I didn't want that; they were mine, I wanted to be the one to read to them at bedtime and hug away bumps and bruises, coax them into eating new foods and remind them to pick up their toys.
And as hard as I tried not to think it, I knew there'd be some shifters who'd call me lazy for doing it. I could almost hear my mother's voice telling me I needed to stop that doodling and clean up a mess my father or brother had made, because they were going off to work. She'd never called me lazy, but I'd sure heard the sentiment echoed in her words.
