Xenoverse origins / R-078
Gigi GooOrigin story
Gigi Goo and the Sample Nobody Chose
A possessive Slime Viscosity Tester must surrender control of her sampling bench to defeat a supplier who has made every official test technically truthful and practically useless.
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By the fourth perfect sample, Gigi Goo wanted something to go wrong. Nothing in the Industrial outpost behaved that consistently, including the floor. Across her bench, the slime supplier was already extending his hand for a certificate. She gave him the empty spoon.
Gigi challenges a supplier's handpicked samples, but testing the shipment fairly will cost her exclusive control of the laboratory.
You keep offering me evidence by the spoonful.
From the dossier
Prologue — Four Jars, One Answer
As Slime Viscosity Tester, Gigi decided which batches could crawl through narrow feed pipes and which could hold the teeth of a mill apart. These were different qualifications. The Goblin Council preferred to purchase both under one heading because a single bargain required only one speech.
The delivery contained twelve drums. Six were destined for the mill's tooth cradles, six for the low tunnels where a crawling pump pushed condensation uphill. Every drum bore the same batch mark. Supplier Vetch brought four sample jars and a smile that appeared to have its own expense allowance.
Gigi's falling weight passed through each jar in exactly nine ticks. A respectable middle grade. Unfortunately, the tooth cradles required something thicker, and the crawling pump required something thinner. A material perfect for the purchasing description could still be useless in both places.
Vetch offered to explain averages. Gigi pointed to the door. He mistook this for an invitation to fetch a chart.
She sent for Councillor Brack, who knew her well enough to arrive without asking whether the problem could be solved by a larger spoon. Gigi knew him well enough to put the certificate under her elbow before he sat down.
Brack had promised both crews a restart at the shift bell. Refusing the shipment would leave the mill stalled and the tunnels unpumped. Accepting it without proof would make Gigi responsible for whichever catastrophe management found easier to pronounce.
Act 1
The Cost of Looking
Act I — The Cost of Looking
The drums were sealed with beetle wax. Breaking a seal began a short working life: the slime would crust before the next shift. Vetch had therefore obtained permission to supply sealed witness jars. His contract allowed Gigi to open two drums for a dispute. Any additional drum became her laboratory's purchase.
She chose one from the front rank and one from the back. The first swallowed the weight before she finished setting the clock. The second held it on the surface like an unwelcome visitor. Neither resembled the witness jars.
Vetch studied the results. 'Transit separation. Mix the shipment.'
Gigi put a little of each into a dish. For a moment the mixture looked promising. Then it developed a skin with liquid trapped beneath. The weight punched through, vanished, and returned sideways. The slime's two grades did not blend; they merely arranged a temporary deception without needing a supplier.
From the doorway, the mill forewoman asked whether her crew should unpack their dinners or their resignation forms. Gigi dismissed her. She disliked other people touching an investigation before she had made it elegant.
Alone again, she examined the witness jars. Beneath their wax were circular scratches, all the same distance from the rim. The jars had been filled from one measuring rack. That proved a shared source, not the source's contents. Vetch could still insist that all twelve drums were uniform when packed.
The forewoman returned with a complaint about moving the shipment. Some drums rolled readily; others resisted each turn. Gigi nearly dismissed her twice. Then she asked the forewoman to demonstrate. A drum with thick slime dragged its contents behind the roll. A thin one settled quickly. The shipping labels concealed a distinction the loaders had already felt.
Act 2
An Offer with Teeth
Act II — An Offer with Teeth
Gigi chalked two groups on the floor. She expected six drums of each grade. The loaders found eight that resisted and four that settled. One drum from each group had already been opened. The remaining seals were intact.
Vetch called the exercise unscientific. Gigi agreed that rolling was a clue, not a release test. 'You keep offering me evidence by the spoonful,' she said. 'Now you can offer me a purchase guarantee.'
She proposed a draw. Each forewoman would select a drum from the other crew's allocation, breaking the supplier's control over the samples and Gigi's control over the choice. They would open every selected drum directly into its receiving cradle. Failed material would remain Vetch's property; accepted material would be paid for by actual grade.
Vetch refused. His contract described one batch, not two. Brack suggested signing first and arguing later. Gigi slid the dish of treacherous mixture toward his sleeve. He found the distinction newly compelling.
Then Vetch made his better offer. He would replace the four thin drums with thick ones, give the mill its full allocation, and supply Gigi with a private testing cabinet. The tunnel crew could wait. Thick slime cost more. He would describe the substitution as an improvement.
Gigi looked toward her laboratory door. She had spent months keeping its key away from managers who borrowed equipment and returned suggestions. A cabinet with a lock was a remarkably precise bribe.
Behind Vetch, a loader tilted one of the thin drums. Its bottom carried the crawling pump's blue delivery stripe beneath fresh black paint. Vetch's transport crew had diverted designated stock into a more profitable mixed shipment. Gigi still could not prove what had been inside every drum. She could, however, see who stood to gain from calling everything thick.
She put her laboratory key on the table. 'Joint sampling,' she told Brack. 'Both crews get access. You sign the guarantee. We buy what passes, and he keeps whatever fails.' Brack asked who would pay if her floor test had misled them. Gigi put her cabinet fund beside the key.
Act 3
The Doors Stay Open
Act III — The Doors Stay Open
Vetch tried to wheel the shipment back outside. The mill forewoman stepped aside and invited him to take the two opened drums first. Their working life was nearly spent. Returning a premium shipment as crust would be difficult to explain to his own purchaser.
He stopped the trolley. He demanded payment for the opened material. Gigi offered payment after the release tests. He demanded a testimonial. Brack offered a receipt. Negotiation became much faster once nobody expected to enjoy it.
The crews drew marked stones from Gigi's empty lunch tin. Each draw selected a drum from the other group's rank. The thick samples held the mill's enchanted teeth apart; the thin ones passed through the crawling pump's silver throat. Gigi recorded the measurements while the forewomen watched the scales.
All eight thick drums passed. All four thin drums passed. The witness jars went into the reject cupboard. Whatever middle grade they contained, nobody had ordered it for a real machine.
The mill took six thick drums. Two remained Vetch's problem. The tunnels received four thin drums, enough to restart only their lower pump circuit. The upper galleries would stay closed. No clever test could manufacture the missing allocation.
Brack attempted to call the result a complete restoration. The tunnel forewoman asked him to carry her closed-gallery notice upstairs. He did, holding it at a distance usually reserved for wet laundry.
Gigi's cabinet fund remained intact, but her key did not return. Both forewomen now possessed copies. Before leaving, one moved the falling-weight apparatus to a height she could reach. Gigi opened her mouth, then helped level the table.
Vetch collected his surplus without apologizing. At the door he asked what the laboratory charged for independent tests. Gigi named a price. He paid the deposit.
His first commission arrived before supper: a sealed drum from the supplier Gigi had recommended for the missing thin stock. Its wax carried an unfamiliar seal. Attached was a request that Vetch attend the opening.
Gigi looked at the new chairs around her bench. Then she wrote the appointment where everyone could see it.
Who chooses the sample?
At the Industrial outpost, slime testing determines which machines can restart and which crews must wait. Gigi's dispute concerns scarce working material, destructive tests and a supplier whose convenient samples conceal the difference between two usable grades.