[center][h3]Vasishkan Institute of Alchemical Industries[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b]
Facility #36. North entrance.
[b]Time:[/b] 
Even the beggars are sleeping.[/center]

[color=f7976a]"What do you mean, you can't get me a job? You're hiring."[/color]

The man placed his palms together against his forehead and prayed for rain. He tried to be a good person. God knew he tried.

But this woman was testing him.

"What I said was," he explained, "that I don't have a job to give you. We are hiring [i]security professionals,[/i] mademoiselle. I do not deny your talent, of which I'm sure there's plenty, nor your willingness to work, which is... obvious." Maybe if he put the words in the exact right order, like ratchets in a key, her brain would finally click. His sleek navy coattails swished in a lost breeze.

"You are a combat gynoid, mademoiselle. I see that. But you are an [i]unemployed[/i] combat gynoid, with no work experience, no references, no official documentation, no ID, no clothes, no address, no idea where you are, no concept of timeliness, and only the most rudimentary knowledge of your own specifications. And, most of all, no clue what you're applying for. We are hiring [i]bouncers,[/i] mademoiselle. Doormen. For our annual office party. We do [i]not[/i] need anyone with a gun. Nor a..." He raised a notepad he had been filling in earlier. "'Dakimakura'."

[color=f7976a]"She could keep company on night patrols!"[/color] said Taidana the robot.

"Mademoiselle, bouncers don't [i]do[/i] night patrols."

Taidana stared at him. For the first time in the last half hour, she realised she wasn't going to get her way.

[color=f7976a]"Fuck you,"[/color] she said.

"Please leave, mademoiselle."

Taidana's gazed flicked from his one eye to his other, a trembling waver growing in her face, and she stomped out the way she came. When she was gone, he curled up on the spot and wilted to the floor, massaging his temples with his fingers.

[center]* * *

[b]Outside.[/b][/center]

Taidana sat down on the grassy slope outside the grand entrance. She sat beside her bag, which was exactly where she'd left it, and had all her things. A faint pitter of rain was starting to tap at her, soaking her synthetic hair and cooling her joints.

She'd hopped planet for this. Somehow, using more effort than she'd ever put into anything in her life, she'd seen that one line at the top of a distant corner of the grand internet, and, in a spin of chaos, she actually got here. She remembered buying eight tickets before finding the right one. She remembered talking to spaceport staff without number. She remembered asking a million passerbys for directions, and winced. 

She'd learned so [i]much.[/i] She'd tried so [i]hard.[/i]

Taidana opened up her favourite altchan and made a thread about it.

When that didn't help her, she cried.