???????????

This is probably a scam, but she's frustrated and desperate and feeling let down and betrayed by everything and everyone around her, so, so. Yes. Fine. She will go try seeing a fucking naturopath. (Eugh.)

Hmm yeah she does seem to be highly Imbalanced right now, but not suffering from any specific ailments. Probably she should, like, cheer up or something? If she stays this Imbalanced for too long she might develop something. The naturopath seems reluctant to sell her any elixirs because none of them will fix her but if she'd like to get some to fix any future issues that could crop up if she doesn't Balance herself again they guess she could?

No, no, that's. Fine. She'll try to cheer up. Get some water and rest. Thank you.

She walks home, instead of getting a cab. It's starting to get dark, and the cold spring air is good for not feeling quite so insane.

She loses track of the time and her surroundings and before she knows it she's home.

?!?!?????!??

This is not how transversing space should work, actually??? This is even more indication that she is so incredibly not okay?

...

She stands on the curb and whines.

She's not okay. Why isn't anyone else noticing that???

Inside she goes, though. Water and rest. Sure. Okay. She can do her best, and maybe the world will start making sense again.

When she's back home she might notice that there is now a wall and a door between the living room and the master bedroom.

There's a what there.

A wall. And a door. Right past the doors to the other bedroom and to the bathroom.

The wall's wallpaper matches the hallway's.

But that. But that doesn't... but that doesn't make sense???

She - checks her phone history. Yeah! She's not crazy, at least, not about this! Here, she was Siimgling contractors and doorframes and walls and then hardware stores and she would not have done that if there wasn't an actual tangible reason to, and, and, she's not going to be gaslit by her damn house!

She's going to go investigate the wallpaper, it's got to be new, right? Her neighbors mentioned her problem to the ominous real estate conspiracy - or, maybe, they are the ominous real estate conspiracy??? - and had some quick work done while she was being told by everyone that she is fine? That's what's going on, right??? Right????

The wallpaper on the new wall looks exactly as new as the wallpaper on the walls that were already there, which is pretty new, all things considered, but not, like, smelling of fresh paint or glue or anything.

But this doesn't make any sense!!!

She doesn't understand, and she's frustrated, and tired, and a bit hungry, and she's spent like half of the day trying to get strange people she doesn't know to notice that there is a massive gigantic problem here, and. And. She has work tomorrow and she really just wants to cry, actually.

Fortunately this is something she can do while making herself dinner, and she's better when she's doing something instead of not, so that's what she does. Then she can eat it, clean all of the dirty dishes, go to the bathroom, have a shower to clean the tearstains off of her face and the dust of walking who-even-knows-how-long from the naturopath to here from her skin and then she'll set her alarm on her phone for 6 AM, and go to bed. In the master bedroom. That now has a door. For some reason.

Night passes in the blink of an eye. She is feeling well-rested. The door is still there where she left it.

It's completely nonsensical is what it is, and she spends a little while glaring at it in disapproval at how little logical sense it makes, but, but. Fine. (She notes, absently, that her bank account is a little bit diminished, as if she paid for an extremely cheap contractor to add a wall and door to a house. This does not help with any of her problems.)

She's going to get a quick breakfast and get ready for work. Unfortunately for her own sanity, she is too efficient at this task, or at least she got up too early for this level of efficiency with her task, so she's ready early. Hm. Can she just... head to work now? Get there early? There doesn't seem to be a reason she can't do that.

Yeah, she can go to work early.

Great. Then she's doing that.

What is work as a lab technician like? Does she get presented with her very own tinfoil hat, as implied by the science career blurb? She is not acknowledging this blurb because it was personally offensive. She is so ready to just do some work, that sounds amazing, let literally anything in this world make any sense again, please.

"Oh you're the new hire," says her new boss, looking up from the desk Yvette was directed to by the receptionist. He rummages around in his drawer until he finds a piece of paper, and starts reading its contents. "Welcome to FutureSim labs! Here you'll be quite busy conducting essential experiments, researching new technology, and maybe even interacting with alien life! It's your job to leverage potent scientific equipment for..." Something starts beeping in his computer. "...the forces of good. Uh, we hope. Uh, anyway, welcome, go ask Eleanor over there about what you should be doing, excuse me."

"Okay. Thank you?" she says, a little bemused, but: honestly this kind of awkward stiltedness for conversation is charming instead of unsettling. Nerd who is bad at social! He doesn't look like her people to many outside observers, because she has learned the ancient secrets of acting like a normal person (... she thought, anyway, this is possibly being disproven by recent data but moving on it is work time), but he is. He is her people. And he just wants to go back to work instead of completely missing the point of the implications of what she's saying! Amazing!!

She goes over there to ask Eleanor about what she should be doing. "Hello, Eleanor? I'm the new hire, I am supposed to leverage potent scientific equipment for the forces of good. We hope."

Eleanor is an elderly lady with short grey hair and a kindly laugh.

She is also the hottest person Yvette has ever laid eyes upon.

"My, aren't you a dear! Welcome to FutureSim labs!"

... um.

that is very confusing, libido, why are you like this???

"Thank you! What should I be doing to start out?"

"Oh we are always so short-staffed, aren't we... Why don't you be a dear and cook up a couple of the candidate synthetic food serum recipes we have?"

Food whatsitnow??? That's a thing?? That's SO COOL!!!!

"Sure! Uh, how do I... do that, is it as straightforward as following instructions?"

"Yes! There are some flowers you can harvest from our garden over yonder. The computer on the chemical synthesis table will have recipes using any of them, I believe."

Ooooo~ there are ~plants~ to harvest and then synthesize, that sounds exactly up her alley!

"Okay! Thank you!" she says, with more sincere cheer than she's managed in two days, and happily traipses off to see about picking flowers (is there a specific method to picking these flowers? Particular parts of the flower that are needed for the synthesis? she will dutifully read any and all instructions that are available before flowers are actually touched) and synthesizing candidate synthetic food serums! Which sounds so useful, actually, what is that, just, drink a serum and skip meals? Because that would be amazing!!!

That seems to be the idea! There are several candidate recipes for her to try on the little computer, all looking extremely simple. She just has to cut this and that flower like so, put them in water, mix them up, heat the mixture up, then run an electrical current like this which the electrical doodad on the desk can do.

Very straightforward! This is a bit nonsensical, but then again, she hasn't actually done any science related thing before, so with what evidence would she accurately judge that, really? She is a dumb newbie, that they're giving the dumb newbie jobs to! It is fine for her to be dumb and do the dumb grunt work that she's told to do.

Even though nobody tells her to, she knows how science works, so she dutifully keeps careful track of what she does, what the results of her actions are, and any weird observed phenomenon, in a neat little table on a notepad. There will be such tidy notes on everything, and all will feel right with the world~