Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I see you've found the canine section," Jordan said cheerfully. He came around the end of the shelf, hefting a large bag full of minipet candies, which he was carefully doling out to the creatures in the tanks, one at a time, and making marks on a clipboard. "That kind usually just lies there like an abandoned mop. Want to feed it?"

Jordan dug what looked like a piece of hard candy out of the bag and handed it to October. "This is what they eat," he explained. "It's a candy from Halloween heavily infused with Fear, so don't be tempted to taste it. It'll give you intense paranoia for hours and leave your stomach very uncomfortable. Also, the flavors are disgusting. They like it, though."

"No, just passing along the warnings that I got when I started getting minipet duties," Jordan laughed. "It does look nice. I figured that the Rancid Fish Guts flavor label on the bag was enough of a warning. But I guess enough people have been curious and made the experiment themselves. Dr. H makes you write up a report on the experience afterward, too, I hear."

He continued to feed the various doglike creatures in the tanks on the row, occasionally reaching in to pet the friendlier ones.

"People should read labels, but they don't. I usually don't eat pop-tarts either. They're too sweet." Jordan dropped a candy gingerly into a tank with a fluffy little creature that appeared to be gruesomely decaying around its face. He did not reach in to pet this one.

"I'm on the duty rotation sometimes, but not as often as Lifers. But I like feeding and walking them. I have a tank in my room with my own mini - well, technically it's more a permanent loan, but it keeps her out of the experiment rooms." He frowned briefly at the last part.

Jordan obligingly handed over another piece of candy, and ticked off boxes on his clipboard as the minipets were fed. "No, I'm Sun," he replied. "Combat division, the jocks of the island." There was a half-joking tone to his statement, almost self-deprecating.

"My own mini." He nodded and put the equipment down to dig his phone out and pull up a photo for October to look at, though he didn't hand the phone over. "Once you've been here long enough, if you take particular care of a particular mini you can request to rent a carrier tank and keep it yourself. It's listed under research, but in most cases it's an excuse to keep your favorite mini with you instead of down here, subject to anyone's poking and prodding. Her name's Tinuviel," he added, smiling. "Isn't she adorable?"

"Probably depends on who you ask." Jordan shrugged. "I guess I wouldn't call myself that, though. Have you been assigned to minipet duty yet, or did someone just tell you about the zoo?"

He smiled at the screen before turning the phone off and putting it away again. "She's really soft. You should meet her sometime. Uh, I'm not sure how long. The individual carriers are a relatively recent development, so the option wasn't available when I was a trainee. You'd have to check in with someone associated with minipets testing as to availability and cost for that. I can give you some numbers," he offered.

"Thanks," Jordan said, smiling. "I wouldn't think you'd be a jock, either. You just don't seem the type. I'm sure you'll get the duty rotation eventually. Everyone gets a little of everything from time to time. Like it or not. Here, if you'll give me your phone I"ll put the numbers into the notepad app, people you can text to find out about the carriers."

He nodded. "It's safe for them to be out of the tank or carrier for roughly an hour a day. Even though the island has enough ambient Fear to make it dangerous for normal animals and humans, it doesn't have enough to sustain minipets for long periods of time. You need to watch the time that they're out carefully. Beyond that hour they'll start to melt. It's not pretty." He shuddered a little.