Stage 1: "Intern" Smith

Robin found herself slipping inside the station easily enough with the fake ID badge that Colline had made for her. The adventure felt totally different from her previous-- whereas the Soldiers had all been stalking around with their weapons out, spoiling for a battle and watching her like wolves, here, no one gave her much more than a passing glance. Every now and then, her cherry red suit caused someone to raise an eyebrow, but overall, everyone seemed too busy to bother with being suspicious.

The newsroom several floors up was Robin's stop; she rode the elevator up comfortably. The bottom floors had been pretty presentable, but the newsroom had an air of desperation to it, with long-time employees running around with their hair on fire and new hires shivering in their pencil skirts. Rather than rolling a live broadcast, today, they'd brought in each of the new hires for their first day on the job, and judging by the atmosphere, Robin thought it was going to be trial by fire.

She wasn't nervous. Having a literal guardian angel and a guardian devil took the edge off. For now, she decided to give her fellow new hires a look as they all lined up together in front of the green screen. It was interesting to compare their faces to those of the other workers in this place. They all had bright eyes and big smiles, unlike the clenched teeth and nervous action of the long-time workers. Robin supposed that chewing up new employees must be part of the evil at work on the part of the superiors at BIT.

To her left, a pretty Indian girl with hair in a long braid was standing, adjusting big, circular framed glasses. She was dressed in a pretty plain, gray pantsuit and was wearing a slight smile. Overall, she was mostly unassuming... except for having an absurdly high karmic number.

"Psst. Colline. What's with that number?" Robin questioned.

"... I've no idea. I don't know who this person is! Tis a mystery," Colline remarked. "Ms. Betty?"

"Don't care. That one's a new BIT hire. Therefore, she's not the one you're looking for. Leave her be," Betty grunted, still in a bad mood.

Robin gave the girl a polite smile, then turned her head to examine the other one next to her. This one was quite opposite: a slouching girl with hair in tangled pigtails, like she'd had enough time to put it in scrunchies but not enough to comb it somehow. A cigarette was hanging out of the girl's lip, even though she was carrying a coffee cup with the other hand. Her whole outfit was a mess. At one point, it might have been a nice collared shirt and pencil skirt combo, but the whole thing was covered in old coffee stains. Her tie wasn't on quite right, like she just didn't care how she looked, and it was just as stained as the shirt.

Huge, dark circles lined her glaring eyes. The girl's eyes darted to the side, briefly regarding Robin, then stared back forward, devoid of any interest. Robin took a moment to look the woman's body up and down, noticing that she had pretty huge breasts. Then again, that wasn't particularly uncommon around here.

Finished with her inspection, Robin followed the woman's **** glare to the figure at the front of the room. Another woman was standing just in front of the camera crew, looking dolled-up and TV ready. The fact that every newsroom worker seemed to be watching her in anticipation made her presence that much greater. Her blond hair, done carefully into a big, feathered, 1970s perm, along with her high-heeled pumps, added a lot to her height together. Her breasts were massive and pushed up high, her cleavage demanding even further attention than she already commanded. Her lips were painted red, the long lashes of her eyes were made to pop with careful mascara, and the grin on her face looked as satisfied with her lot in life as possible.

Beyond all of that, one more thing was worth noting: her karmic counter. It was easily the largest Robin had noticed since arriving at the station, with extra digits beyond the others.

"Bingo," Robin chuckled. She'd found her first target.

However, challenging the woman right this moment was impossible; it just wasn't her turn to talk yet. The woman made that clear as she spoke in a loud, practiced voice, drowning out the rest of the room. "Good morning, rookies! You can call me Miss Lyra! I'm head of the newsroom here and you'll want to remember my face, sweetie-pies," she chuckled with self-satisfaction. "Now, listen here. Look around at the gals standing in line with you. Statistically, a year from now, 95% of those pretty gals will be out of the studio on their cutie patooties! Making it big at BIT requires 25% brains, 25% beauty, and 50% ceaseless devotion. Not everybody can tow the line! Will you be the one to be the next Lyra, or will you be on the chopping block? Think about that carefully as we conduct these mock interviews!"

Robin gulped, then addressed Colline telepathically again. "I thought I was disguised as a new hire! Why am I doing a mock interview?!"

"Um, um, I-I suspect this news woman has her own selection process and plans to make a second judgment beyond HR's..." Colline offered. That turned out to be exactly right. As the interviews proceeded, plenty of ladies who thought they were new hires left the newsroom in tears after failing to answer blindsiding questions from their would-be new boss. In no time at all, the time had come to interview the surly pigtails girl next to Robin.

"Aw, sugar, honey-doll, nooo," Miss Lyra sighed, shaking her head sadly and placing one hand on her cheek. "That posture, that outfit, no no noooo! Smoking indoors on top of all that? We cannot hire someone who looks like a homeless person. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."

"You idiot. I work here. I've worked here over ten years, on your floor! I'm Smith, remember?" the slouching girl growled, then took her cigarette out for a deep slosh of coffee.

"Oh, right! The intern. Get out of the line, please, you're wasting precious minutes! Need to set a good example for the new hires, don't you? If you ever want to get promoted, that is, ho ho ho!"

Smith rolled her eyes and followed the instructions, moving with a lazy slowness that implied she knew good and well she was never sniffing that promotion.

"Now, you're up next, Red! What's with that outfit? Did you think one suit was as good as another, didn't matter if you wore a tie or a bow-tie? Baby, nooo!" Lyra cackled annoyingly, before switching to a pitying smile. "And sweetness, do you know what viewers think about a girl with a pixie cut, dyed two colors like that? I won't say it, but you know, it does not appeal to the average demographic! Oh, my clueless little sugar pie..."

Robin felt like Lyra was the type of person who'd be a pain to put up with at the blackjack table, but the time had come. "Ahem, you're supposed to ask me a question, right?" she asked as sweetly as she could manage-- her classic customer service voice.

"Oh! It nearly slipped my mind, with how you're dressed like you're in the wrong place and all, ho ho ho! Okay, so: what do you want more than anything in the world?"

"I want to play you in a game of strip blackjack to settle your karmic debt! Winner takes all." Robin answered, giving a slight grin. "What do you think?"

"I think... you are out of your cute little mind, doll-face! No, no, you do not just walk into my newsroom and say that kind of thing to me! Oh, sweet summer child!"

"So you're running away? In front of all your employees and new hires? I would think that kind of thing could lose you some face."

The woman tightened up her grin, her eyes forming eerie crescents. She wasn't sweating, but she was calculating, Robin could see it. Finally, Lyra gave her response. "A leader knows how to delegate! How about this, honey-doodle: play a game against the intern over there, Smith. If you beat her, maybe I'll play you too. Not like we ended up with any newbies to train today anyway. Threw them all out, ho ho ho! You though... when you lose, we might have some fun with you. No one likes an uppity girl, you know?"

"What? I have to play?" Smith questioned, setting down her coffee and approaching with an expression even more irritated than her previous one somehow. "What was all that about, strip blackjack? Karmic debts? What are you on about?"

Robin noticed for the first time that Smith didn't really have much of a karmic debt to speak of. In perfect circumstances, she wouldn't be playing an opponent like this. However, it seemed she was going to have to go over Smith to get to Lyra. "It's a little game I play. The winner gets to make the loser do whatever they want."

"... Okay, if it gets me out of work for a while, then what do I care? Anything's better than working my shit job," Smith agreed with a shrug. "You should get out of this place while you can, by the way. Nothing good happens here. This place will drain your god-damned soul."

"Thank you for the words of warning. I'm Robin, by the way. And your first name?"

"... Just call me Smith," her opponent grumbled, then pursed her lips and lit her cigarette. She took a puff, then went back to letting it hang out between her clenched teeth. "It'd feel weird hearing anybody say my other name in this place. Don't say I didn't warn you, by the way. If I lose to you, Lyra's gonna be even more of a bitch to me than usual, so one way or another, I've got to win. Never should have come here, Robin."

Robin smiled politely, but the woman's demeanor was giving her the chills. "Let's try to have fun with it!"

Smith's eyes shifted back over to Lyra and she narrowed them spitefully. "You can't humiliate me any way that woman hasn't already managed. You're going to find out what it's like to play against a woman with nothing to lose."

Opponent: "Intern" Smith

Pile: 3

Difficulty: Standard

Ability: Sweetener-- Immediately after losing a round, Smith begins the next round with a specific card. After her first loss, she begins with a one. After her second loss, she begins with a ten.

Karmic Rewards: 100 points per round win, 800 points per game victory, +1 Angel Power or Devil Power