Emmia was still shocked by that boy she had bumped into earlier. He was so ugly that Emmia was shocked that she had managed to keep from puking. Every time he did anything, Emmia was trying not to go into a coma. When he left, Emmia was honestly grateful that he left.
Clutching her broken bag, Emmia shivered once more picturing Chase's ugly face and horrible voice.
Shaking that image out of her mind, Emmia focused on what was going to happen next.
Slowly forgetting that abomination, Emmia slowly cheered up. She was currently walking towards the production district.
Today she had her shift in her part-time job. Anything relating to machines excited Emmia to no extent.
Humming an odd tune from her childhood, Emmia made her way toward the factory where she was employed at.
Entering, Emmia was immediately blasted with the dull yet heavy sound of machinery running. Instead of being repulsed, Emmia grinned basking in the glow of the machine in front of her.
Cutting arms, Bolt drillers, conveyor belts, and mechanical moving arms filled her view.
The factory that she was based in was one that produced transport vehicles to the city of Aster.
"Oye Struze! Ye're late." A rough voice broke Emmia out of her stupor.
Quickly rearranging her thoughts, Emmia rushed to the man who was her supervisor.
"Yes Sir!" She answered in a hurry.
"What do'ye mean yes 'ir?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I-I mean sorry sir!" Emmia fumbled with her words realising her mistake.
Her supervisor gave a harrumph at his junior. "Get to work. Ye've got a lot left."
"Yes sir," Emmia nodded and went into the changing room.
Dropping her bag into her designated locker, she changed into her work clothes and hurried out. Reaching her position, Emmia started to do the work assigned to her. It was to load the doors of the cars with the mechanical arms. While the factory was mostly automatic, there were still positions that required human supervision.
One of them was to decide which arm to use to load the car doors which were produced at arbitrary times. Due to this bad timing of the production of the doors, the mechanical arms couldn't be pre-programmed within a certain time to move.
Someone had to stand and press the button required to activate the specific arms. And currently that someone was Emmia.
Because Emmia was only a part-timer, she didn't have any actual work to do, only basic work such as the current one.
Each time she pressed the button, Emmia felt a bit of her joy drain away. While working here was a dream come true for her, she didn't expect to be doing menial labor. She wanted to design actually useful things and build them herself to benefit society as a whole.
'Why can't we make the machines smart enough to realise which arm to use and when to use as a dynamic process?'
'How hard would that actually be to do....'
While daydreaming with these grand thoughts, Emmia had left her boy on autopilot. Her face had turned blank. Devoid of all emotions, her eyes scanned which arms were free and directed them toward the incoming doors.
Moving like a machine herself, Emmia left a deep impression on her supervisor.
'The girlie is a ditz, but sure is efficient while workin''' the man thought impressed with her efficiency. But deep down, an uneasy feeling crept up looking at Emmia. No human should be able to move and act like a machine like Emmia was doing.
Shaking his thoughts away, the man focussed on his works, drawing a new design for a transport that could traverse the thick forests in the wild.
It was fairly easy enough to travel through the grasslands, but when it came to forests, they were a nightmare. If the vehicle was too big, it wouldn't fit through it. If it disturbs the environment too much, it would lead to attracting stronger animals and even plants that might endanger the goods or people being transported.
Of course, if the people transporting the goods were strong enough, then it wouldn't matter. But strong people like that were hard to come by and even harder to convince to help in the transport industry.
While the supervisor was breaking his head over how to come up with a decent design. Emmia was almost done with her shift.
Yet she blew past her given time slot and continued to mechanically load the car doors without a second thought. Currently, Emmia was actually sketching a design in her head for an idea that had been germinating in her head for a while.
Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around with her same expressionless face, she asked in a mechanical tone, "What?"
Slightly frightened, the worker stuttered slightly, "Y-Your shift got over 30 minutes ago."
Snapping out of it, Emmia returned to her regular self and rushed to respond, "Oh, oh! I'm so sorry, I should get going."
Seeing that the part-timer was still a pushover, the worker's annoyance returned, his previous fear evaporating into thin air.
"Can't you see your disturbing workplace productivity with your thoughtlessness?" the worker lectured, feeling refreshed after seeing Emmia's down expression.
After berating Emmia, the scumbag of a person started to do the same work as Emmia, but with much less efficiency. He got easily distracted by the network bracelet on his arm, which constantly rang him with notifications from someone.
Seeing this, Emmia's supervisor frowned. Calling the dejected girl over he asked her, "Why don't ye stand up for yeself? Ye weren't doing anything wrong."
Wringing her arms together, Emmia bit her lower lip, "I still took over time and worked into his shift. I'm technically wrong."
"Wrong?" The supervisor snorted. "Look at the lad. A useless dullard he is. Ye did more work in 10 minutes than what he'd do in his entire shift."
Turning to look at the ever-distracted worker who had replaced her, Emmia responded with a slight smile, "Yea I guess you're right."
Turning back to her supervisor, Emmia was about to thank him for his kind words when she noticed his sketches.
"What's this?" Emmia asked curiously.
Surprised at her curiosity, the supervisor decided to humor the young girl, "It's a new design for a truck that can travel through forests. It's probably above your level to understand these sketches-"
"The wheels can't be too big as there are too many dangerous animals that are sensitive to vibrations through the ground." Emmia pointed out. "They might attack the truck, and we won't have enough mobility if the wheels were too made to be too big and-" Emmia suddenly stopped as if realising what she had done.
"I'm sorry for cutting-"
"Stop apologizing! Now what's ye'r idea? It sounded mighty interesting." The supervisor didn't care one bit about the interruption. He urged Emmia to continue, more interested in her idea for the design.
Emmia was stunned, but after seeing the supervisor's expectant face, she started to explain her ideas.
The supervisor sat entranced, completely forgetting that his job was to supervise the workers, and began to exchange in a back and forth of ideas with the young girl in front of him.