Pursuit of Diligence Part 4: You Can (Not) Deliver Again

Under the white columns of the Heavenly embassy, between equally white walls, a long explanation swiftly turned into an even longer lecture that echoed. It was enough to make Maxwell stare blankly at the cherubun in front of her.

It was only when Primrose took a moment to breathe, his mouth shut, that Maxwell took that moment to interject. She spoke loudly, trying to go for confidence, “So I just drop off these coffee beans to the cafe next door?”

Primrose gave her a harsh glare, irritated that he was interrupted, but given he lost his place in whatever he wanted to tell her, he ignored it. “Yes, you are to take these bags and deliver them to Beanny. As I already explained to you earlier.”

Maxwell decided she didn’t hear that demeaning tone Primrose was using, instead she nodded. “Okay, then I have the perfect thing for this.”

Primrose froze, his expression stern as he waited to see what she had.

However instead of some contraption, Maxwell wheeled over a hand pallet from behind her. “This was really annoying to get up the stairs.” She also wouldn’t mention she planned to just push it down the stairs once she was done with her delivery.

Primrose tried to hide his shocked expression, he was too used to her ridiculous robots at this point. She was already giving him another headache. “Just go take these already.”

Maxwell waited to see if he would load the coffee bean bags, before she sighed when he stood still. It was quick work at least to move the bags into the pallet. “Okay I’m off.”

Primrose didn’t say anything as he walked off, no doubt to lecture the next oblivious bun. 

Maxwell shook her hand and began to wheel the pallet over to the cafe next door. She wondered if there would be a day that Primrose wasn’t so harsh towards her, but she didn’t care to think about that too long.

She approached the cafe door, nodding towards a fellow succubun that held it open for her, before she wheeled the pallet past the doorway. The scent of coffee was strong as she made her way to the counter.

There Beanny was, the cherubun moving back and forth between multiple machines. They seemed stressed, ones of their ears twitching as they kept going back to the same machine with a frustrated hiss.

Maxwell should have waited a moment, but instead, she called out, “I’m here with your delivery.”

Beanny’s head snapped towards the doll speaking to them, before they looked down at the pallet and sighed, “So that was today? Primrose kept telling me he would send someone over with the bags if I didn’t get them myself.” He was annoyingly persistent like that, always wanting things on his own schedule.

Maxwell nodded, unsure what to say as she moved the pallet towards the open side of the counter. When she was close enough, she heard the weak sputtering of a coffee maker.

The machine sounded wrong, like each piece wasn’t moving like it was supposed to. The angry clicks of metal on metal, slick coffee stuck in between tank and funnel. If she didn’t know any better, she would say it was close to being completely broken.

Without much tact, she questioned, “Is something wrong with your coffee machine?”

Beanny groaned in a heavy breath, “It’s been doing this since early this morning, I’ve been having to push the espressos and fruit juices.” Which meant regulars were left unhappy and she had to make a lot of promises to have it fixed as fast as she could. 

Maxwell stared for a moment, until she popped one of her shoulders and replied, “I can fix for you.”

Beanny raised an eyebrow, but she did vaguely remember helping this doll with setting up some kind of robot in the embassy. But that was to mess with Primrose, she wasn’t sure how she felt about Maxwell touching her coffee machine. It would be a pain to fix if she had to wait any longer, or had to get a new machine. “Uh are you sure?”

Maxwell nodded, she didn’t need to answer beyond that.

Beanny rubbed at their forehead for a moment, before nodding, “Yeah fine go ahead.” 

Maxwell quickly got behind the counter and got to work, pulling out a tool or two from her jacket. They weren’t any special tools, just some loose ones she didn’t bother to throw back in her trunk before she made the trek up to the embassy.

Beanny decided not to pay her any mind as they focused on lugging the coffee bags behind the counter. They couldn’t believe Primrose handed this off to a succubun that was unfortunately in his path. They really needed to talk to him about that, it did help him speak to succubuns but ordering them around didn’t seem like something Beanny should let him do.

Or at least, if he was going to, he could assign one or two to help Beanny’s cafe with morning and lunch rush.

They were so absorbed in their own thoughts, that they were nearly startled when Maxwell got in front of them. “Wha-”

“I’m done,” Maxwell stated plainly, she seemed almost bored.

Beanny paused, “You’re done? Already?”

Maxwell nodded, moving to the side so Beanny could inspect their machine.

True to the succubun’s word, the machine seemed to work perfectly fine as the sharp scent of coffee filled the air. It might even work better than it did before, the fresh brew pouring out into the pot much faster than it normally did.

Beanny was silent, before they looked back at Maxwell, watched as she wheeled the hand pallet from behind the counter. Just who was that succubun and how did she just understand machines like she did? “How did you do that?”

Maxwell shrugged as she continued towards the door of the cafe. “It was easy.” 

She was outside, before the cherubun could question her further. She needed to return to Primrose or she was bound to get yet another lecture and could end up with uncomfortable nightmares of being scolded by the uptight cherubun. Maxwell shuttered from the thought.

But while Maxwell left the cafe and Beanny to their own thoughts, the cherubun couldn’t left it well enough alone. They were curious about that stranger they had met a few times before, even more curious why she could do all that she could. As much as they tried to understand succubuns, they haven’t met one that had such an interest in mechanical things.

That’s not to say Beanny didn’t believe there were very intelligent succubuns, they just hadn’t met one like Maxwell before. The succubun didn’t even gloat about fixing the machine or asked for compensation, instead she left as quickly as she approached.

Maybe that’s why Beanny was in one of the embassy’s backrooms, powering on a laptop that they kept hidden from Primrose. He would have a thing or two to say about some of the websites Beanny was on, so a secret laptop was a better choice for them.

“So let’s see what makes you so interesting?” Beanny muttered, clicking onto one of the various search engine links. “What’s the name again? Maxine, Maxi, Maximum, no wait Maxwell! Yeah that’s the one.” There were too many buns that frequented the embassy for them to really remember their names.

They clicked on the first link that showed Maxwell’s picture, being lead to a website that displayed academic information. “Huh, this wasn’t quite what I was looking for.”

Or maybe it was as they read the page and gawked, “Twelve PH.Ds? Who even needs that many?” She had heard about those from other succubuns, the kind of names for the education buns could get down here in the burrows.

That didn’t mean she understood why Maxwell had so many, it seemed like a lot of work for degrees that sounded kind of similar to each other.

The one thing that stood out was the mention of robotics. “I guess she’s just really good at robots? Huh does that really translate to coffee machines?”

It probably did since machines and robots had to be similar or at least they assumed the both of them had to be. Beanny wasn’t really into all that mechanical and robotic stuff, they much preferred to continue their coffee experiments and the science that surrounded that.

Still it made them a lot more curious about Maxwell and what else she would be doing in the embassy. It was easy to see why Primrose seemed to be unsettled, maybe they should bring this up to him.

They smirked. Or maybe, they should just continue to watch and see. There was nothing quite like watching Primrose get all riled up, he was sure to lose it one day over a bun like Maxwell.

It sounded kind of funny and it would probably end up giving them plenty of amusement. They just had to wait and see.