I’ve been thinking about the scene just after this one for a couple of years.
It wasn’t a great scene that Bad Jack had walked into, though. It was mostly workers there, with his guy Yapper on the floor for once. That was weird; Jack had given Yapper the job of ‘shop steward,’ mostly because the Consortium said somebody had to have the job. Yapper was supposed to pass on bullshit from the workers or something like that, but Bad Jack didn’t care about that and did care about being whined at, so Yapper stayed in his office and did whatever.
Apparently ‘whatever’ wasn’t going over great with the Ombudsm- Morty; whatever he was saying to Yapper, it wasn’t happy-talk. Morty looked like he belonged there, though, although he was no way as hulking as the other guys. Maybe it was the suit; Bad Jack had never noticed before how solid Consortium formal clothes looked. Down here it looked a lot better than Bad Jack’s fancier local duds.
“What’s going on here?” Bad Jack said as he walked up to the knot of workers. “Don’t you all have shifts?”
“Good afternoon, Director,” said Morty, without even a trace of disrespect. “These men are witnesses by my order; I’m arbitrating a labor dispute, and I didn’t want Mr. Joeson here to feel like the bosses were singling him out.”
Who the hell is ‘Joeson?’ thought Bad Jack. Oh, yeah, Yapper’s dad was named Joe. Probably. “Whaddya mean, a labor dispute? What did they do?”
“The workers here? Nothing.” Morty looked at Yapper. “But I had some questions for Mr. Joeson here about boots. Like where all the ones he ordered all ended up.”
…. I’m still liking Morty .. and am wonderin’ just what makes Morty tick ..
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… and I’m remembering the origins of the term ‘Mort’.
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Mew