Mentor

When they came back to their room Ted was obviously distracted with Cerei. The adolescent gorilla didn't treat Hub, Ted's first pet with any weirdness at all. Instead she was completely able to understand the fact of having an older cyborg prairie dog brother. James had the sense that the three of them were already like family. If anything there was too much laughter and giggles.

Seeing James looking around as if he didn't know what to do next, Ted, ever his helpful self, spoke up,

"Hey, go get yourself a mentor. You get a salary from SPAM which you can spend however you want, but if you can impress your mentor they can give you even more money or even other stuff! The sooner you start, the better."

"Got it. Thanks, Ted."

James thanked Ted.

"No, problem."

Waving away the thanks Ted went back to bonding with his new pet.

'Really, that kind of relationship is what I need to build with Kareen and all the other mice.'

Ted didn't know it, but his model behavior was really making James feel bad that he hadn't spent more time with his mice. The period right after bonding with Wilbur had been such a wonderful experience and he was missing out on that even with Wilbur now, let alone all the others. They didn't seem to be that broken up about it for some reason. But James did miss those chances to bond.

Perhaps the nature of the contract or the fact that their entire society were contracted all at once could be at work.

'First I will find a mentor and then the first opportunity that they come visit me I will spend some time with them.'

Decided, James had to wait for them to contact him. At time James wondered who was the master and who was the pet. More and more he felt that the mice were in charge somehow.

Using his new app on his phone Jams made his way to the mentoring desk where he was warmly greeted as always.

"Welcome! I can see you are a new camper. I bet you are looking for your mentor?"

The woman behind the desk was in her forties and seemed to be a no nonsense type of individual. She wore a frumpy dress and wore glasses that came up at the sides to form wings. Right at this moment she took them off to look at James while holding out to him her phone.

Bumping his phone with her James accepted new coordinates to follow.

"I gave you a good one. He just posted that he has freed up a spot. His last mentee probably either entered the second year here at SPAM or is moving on from SPAM with lots of job prospects. I hope you like him!"

She called after unexpectedly trying to sell the mentor even more. And James had to turn around while walking to wave awkwardly back. Well, of course he didn't have to wave back, but he felt like it was a social nicety to acknowledge her encouragement.

Having a mentor was such a personal thing. James had had a few in High School, they never really panned out. Accepting teachings and feedback from others was always awkward for James. His usual mode of being was to either accept whatever anyone had to say as fact or be extremely critical of their motivations. And with appointed mentors he always started as accepting and ended up by becoming critical when life didn't go the way he had been told it would.

This time he wanted to start out by being more critical than accepting and see how it went.

Once he found the right door, he took a deep breath and knocked.

The door immediately opened and a voice from inside said.

"Come in, sit down."

James was surprised that he was not warmly welcomed. It had become so normal that when it didn't happen this time he was slightly put out. 

"Come on, come on. I don't have all day. Sit down, sit down."

The young man who was only slightly older than James insisted.

Having nothing better to do James decided to obey and sat down half resistant and half curious to see how this would go.

"My name is Victor. SPAM gives me a bonus if I score well in being polite and happy all the time. But in the three years I have been here, I have never once received that bonus. So don't hold it over my head. I couldn't care less. I am what I am and know I am one of the best mentors here at this camp. Got it?"

Victor up front explained how he would behave up front.

"Got it."

Shrugging James said he understood and even empathized with this approach. It made him even more interested.

"Let's make this short and sweet. I already know your name is James and a little bit of your back ground. So we can skip that part. Just tell me what you want to do while you are at camp."

Commandingly Victor said what he wanted and then waited for James to respond. With one eyebrow raised Victor looked like he was expecting something from James.

"Well, I want to study Alchemy. I am not good at it, but it keeps me sane. Also I think I need to study identification."

Expectantly Victor waited at the end of James' sentence as if there was more to say.

After a few minutes of silence Victor collected himself.

"I must say, I am impressed. You are the first that did not whine at me and the first to say what you wanted in only one sentence."

Here Victor paused as if giving James one last chance to say something. When James did not take the bait Victor went on,

"Alright. This is interesting. You want alchemy and identification. This isn't hard. Basically you just want to be an alchemist. You might not know this but alchemists often tame a pet that allows them to identify better. All serious alchemists have to have this ability. Since you say you are not good, I don't know how far you will get. But I am not one to stand in your way. I will find you a few alchemy masters and a list of identification pets. Review both lists, do any research you need, and then come back when you have made your decision."

"Okay, is that it?"

Confused, after all his expectation James was surprised when Victor made everything so easy for him.

"Yes, that is it. Easy. I am just going to give you all the alchemy masters that have an association with SPAM and the list of all pets that SPAM knows about that could assist you in identifying."

Then Victor turned back to the game he had been playing on his computer and James was left to leave on his own.

'Wow, that guy is intense.'

Thinking about what just happened James walked back along the corridor out of the building and then along the well manicured path back to his dorm room. Half way there James was interrupted by his phone which was set to vibrate when a new message was received. 

It was from his new SPAM app and it told him that a symposium was being held in the main auditorium. With nothing else to do James decided to attend.

Since this was not a required symposium there were plenty of seats and James chose one that was in the back at the top of the ring of stadium seats. With room for twenty thousand seats it was easy to find a seat off by himself. Strangely enough there were a lot of other campers who also found seats way from the crowd.

As soon as the speaker opened his mouth James knew that he had made a mistake.

"Today SPAM did some great things! We identified seven new potential S class space pocket openings! ..."

As the speaker droned on about how great and wonderful SPAM was James found himself becoming more and more relaxed. At one point to keep himself awake he looked around at all the other campers he could see while wondering how anyone would subject themselves to this willingly.

Most of the campers here were dyed in the wool SPAM believers he could see that Ted was down near the podium. But a lot of other people were just taking the time to check their phones or work on their computers.

'I really have to find myself an alchemy lab, this is going to be the most boring year of my life if I don't find myself something to do!'

James told himself as pinched himself trying to stay awake.