Chapter 3: Gainful Employment

When I got up Tuesday morning I had several emails from ALPRA. The first two were easy, they were multiple-addressee formal notifications from ALPRA Scheduling to everyone in Team Newbie that two Portals had been reserved for us. One said we had a Violet Portal up in Sardis reserved for us at 10AM that coming Saturday. The reservation would be canceled and the Portal opened for others if we had not arrived or otherwise let ALPRA know by noon. The second one said the same thing about a Pink down in Ft. McClellan, the one we’d already been in, for the following Saturday.

They were both form letters. Someone looking at a database had selected our team, selected a Portal, and then selected a date and pressed “Submit”. After that, the database should mark us as in that Portal that day and unavailable for the next four days, marked the Portal as being busy with us that day and unavailable for the next 9 days, and then sent out those six emails.

The third email was a formal offer of employment with ALPRA as a “New Class Liaison” and/or “Portal Control Agent” (henceforth “PCA”) with pay at $26 per hour with duties to be determined, and who to call or email with my acceptance or rejection. The intention would be for part-time work, but in emergencies overtime up to whatever hours I was willing to work would be possible. The number and email went to ALPRA’s admin office. It looked like a form letter, too.

The fourth one was from Mr. Milton, the ALPRA Training guy, and it was more personal. It said that the ALPRA executive council had looked at what they wanted me and my people to do, and then looked at the public service sector to find comparable jobs. This was difficult, as no one in ALPRA in a position to make policy about this had the ability to enter a Portal. They had to stay behind, listen to others and hope they understood what they heard.

The “PCA” part, going into Portals and dealing with the occupants, looked to them like a cross between an explorer, a security guard, a fireman, and a soldier. In the end they had simply decided to offer the average hourly pay for firemen across the state as what ALPRA would pay Divers to quell portals.

Each team going on a training Dive would be paid for it, up to a maximum of four training Dives. Us “New Class” Weapons would be paid $150 each, while our ‘guards and guides’ would get $200 each.

After that us PCAs would be hired by ALPRA as part-time on-call technical support just like a plumber or electrician they called in as needed. We would be paid $26 per hour for each Dive we did for ALPRA without trainers. This would include two hours preparation time before entering as well as one hour recovery time after leaving the Portal. Time inside the Portal would be paid by the average time taken by all Teams entering Portals of that Class (color).

If the average time for a particular class of portal was three hours, each PCA would be paid for 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 hours, no matter how long it took us. There would be no bonus for speeding through it, and no additional pay if it took us longer than the average. They wanted us to be careful, do the job, and come home. We would be required to participate in debriefs and submit written reports after each Dive. While ALPRA may pay for refreshments at the debrief, we would not be paid for the time taken by either the debriefs or the reports.

It was on purpose that that this pay would be per PCA per Dive, not per Portal. We would NOT get paid more for being a hero and one of us doing it all ourselves. They wanted us to take as many as we wanted (up to 6, of course) to make up a complete and balanced team that could do the job without any casualties.

At first, all-NC teams would be restricted to only quelling the Pink portals. This would allow the older and more experienced Divers to concentrate on the more dangerous classes or colors. This restriction would be lifted as the all-NC teams passed a review board composed of two ALPRA officers and four veteran Divers who had survived Dives into the next desired class of Portals.

He pointed out that I in particular was, as of the moment I accepted the employment offer, able to participate in one of those boards as either an ALPRA officer or as a veteran Diver but only for Pinks. I’d have to survive a Violet before I could sit on a Violet board as one of the veteran Divers. Either way, it would count as liaison duty and I’d get paid for it.

He closed by saying that all of the above were still tentative and may change at any time, but they would tell me if any of it actually changed. This email would constitute proof of my employment conditions, the terms of which would stand until such time as we were informed of any changes. They were still trying to figure out what-all they could use me for. As I had said last night, I was, for better or worse, the spokesman for my generation’s Weapons. They’d put me to work and I’d earn my pay, but they wanted me to be happy with the job I did.

I didn’t have time to think about all that. I had to get to school. I sent all four emails to the printer in ‘Dad’s office’ and then forwarded the two employment emails to Cindy, asking her to think about them but not show them to anyone else until we’d talked. After I had breakfast and I’d gotten dressed, I pulled the printouts and put them on the table where Mom and Dad would see them. I made sure that Elaine was up and then had to go catch the bus, since Mom was too happy to have Dad home to take me to school like she usually did.

Today, the questions were about half about the party and and half about the Portal. I didn’t bring up the conference last night, or my job offer. I needed to talk to Mom and Dad about that before I told anyone else.

Cindy gave me more details on Matt. The surgeons had fixed the interior damage inside his arm, but he needed several weeks for everything to heal properly. Apparently she could help with that. She couldn’t help with interior wounds yet, but she could speed up the healing after the surgeons did the big repairs.

Three of her ‘Light Healing’ had left him with no pain, and only fading scars on the outside. Matt’s parents were going to take him back to the hospital in the morning to have everything checked out. He was supposed to let her know, and she’d pass it on to me.

While they were at it last night, they’d done some testing. The veteran Divers were right about how long it took to regain Mana on Earth. There were 1440 minutes in a day, and she had 9 Mana. After her first ‘Light Healing’ spell on Matt, she was down to 6. Two more dropped her to none at all left. 1440/9=160. She didn’t get her first Mana back for about two and a half hours, and she didn’t have enough to cast the spell again for a whole 8 hours.

That made sense to me when I thought about it. Casting that spell took a third of her Mana. It took a third of a day for her to get that much Mana back. She could cast it three times, one right after another, but after that she had to wait 8 hours to cast it again, then wait 8 hours to cast it again, and so on.