Hurrah.

Crunch, crunch.
The comforting sound of footsteps (his own) on relatively-undamaged concrete (real concrete, could you believe it?) was a relief to the young - well, young in appearance - man, as he walked the sidewalks of the surprisingly busy downtown area. Most carried either bags from various shops or food suppliers - er, restaurants. It seemed he was back in the era before time travel - which is to say, to Damien?
Almost archaic. He recognized the predecessors of his era of gadgets - teleportation technology, outfitters for different appendages, strange food - but most things faded into the background, now.
However he'd ended up here, he could say one thing with certainty.
It was unfamiliar. Again, almost archaic, from what the general populace looked like, save for a few exceptions that told him that the tech here was at least more advanced than plain old human tech from the 2000's. And that was kind of reaassuring.
He took one more glance around the area, noting the buildings around him. Skyscrapers - wouldn't they be also ineffective if earthquakes, tornadoes... basically anything that could destabilize the foundation.... if they came by?
Hhhhh. He shook his head, bringing a hand to the bridge of his nose.
If it was any consolation - they still used dollars here, which he'd been able to convert into Manta Carlos dollars. Though the food from around these restaurants were clearly not concerned about food conservation, Damien had to admit - he could see why people in this time ate them. Lots of flavor, and most of it natural.
But he had to digress. Some dollars to his name wasn't enough - he needed more of it to actually live here as long as was needed for his machine to recharge - jumping dimensions had seriously drained it.
HE needed a job. Something to pay the bills while he lived here. Something to pay for "food" from here. And not a waiter job. He shuddered at the memories - in particular, a child throwing clam chowder in his face and laughing. He intended to avoid that.
His gaze caught on one of the buildings. NextGen Sciences...
He headed inside.

@DOGE

NexGen Sciences.
Somehow that was familiar to Damien as he ducked inside the building. The sign-in, the miscellaneous gadgets everywhere. the excess of white coats (as far as he could tell) - it put him into a slightly better mood. No crawling through collapsed steel beams, no stupid candles, and most importantly, no stupid scientists claiming he was insane.
Well, not yet. The last part would have to stand up to testing, he thought with a frown as he paced around the lobby. Above the certain safeness of a scientific establishment like this one, and the certain paleness of it, rested one assertion.
Thank God they don't have anything relating to time travel.... well, not yet.
And, right on cue - a guy at the front, looking bored and almost uninterested, a stack of papers (what was it with the early '10s being wasteful of resources? Damien would never understand that) piled high enough to at least partially block whoever was sitting there behind them. Usually they were something like secretaries or receptionists - though Damien was still half-expecting them to be robotic, and speak whenever someone walked by - or up to - them.
Which is why Damien was mildly surprised by the guy at the desk speaking. Something about a list. Standard musing for a secretary.
Well, good a place as any. And at least it wasn't a waiter job. Hopefully the people here were at least competent.
"'Scuse me," he asked gruffly, shuffling up to the front desk. "Are you hiring?"

@DOGE

Huh. It was a strange move. For some reason, Damien still half-expected a robotic voice to answer him with a generic response, something along the lines of "Welcome to NexGen, how may I help you?" - certainly not the CEO of the company sitting on some Joe Blo's chair. Still - this proved how weird the 2000's were. So advanced, yet so dumb. At least it wasn't a robot bent on his destruction, or worse yet, a human bent on his destruction.
"It's fine," replied the man as he surveyed the situation before him - apparently CEO's had the time these days to be schoolteachers. Or, at least (understandably) large piles of paper to grade. He had to admit, though. Pretty Boy in front of the desk looked busy but hardworking. Good boss, probably. Damien leaned against the desk, and inspected the papers in front of him a bit. Paperwork for patents, probably. Or scientific papers. Proof that this business wasn't as fake as some he'd visited. Which was good. He wasn't into working for nothing. If he was working - he wanted some substance. Preferably something he could program.
"Good. Look, I need a job here. Are you willing to hire me?" Damien asked, pointing to himself with his thumbs. Hopefully he could land this job for a bit. Not stay too long, but enough to charge up to leave. And who knew? he doubted it, but he might be able to learn new techniques to fix up his machine.
Either way, it was worth a shot.

@DOGE

Shit, He'd forgotten, again - this wasn't like back home, or even in the 1800's - he couldn't just walk in and ask for a job. He needed resumes, degrees, references.... None of which he had on hand. Just the thought of printing up all that paperwork, with these printers... the thought of it made him want to tear his hair out. Fortunately....
He reached into his satchel and rummaged around a bit. When he'd set out to find a job, naturally he'd brought some proof of his abilities. Though he couldn't deny that forgetting to bring a modern (or, really, "modern") resume was a real stupid move, the kind a kid would make, he always had at least one of his degrees in his bag. He hadn't arrived with much on the island, but he made sure to bring every last one of his awards. At least, before everyone laughed him off the board for suggesting not to use time travel. Finally he'd grabbed what he was looking for, and brought it out - a bachelor's for robotic sciences, one he'd earned way back when he was still at his true home. The future. He'd gotten it redone in the 1800's, and again just recently. Glancing at it, he turned back to the scientist behind the desk.
"Damien Invasio, 33." He tried to be as direct as possible. "I want an interview. Is that possible?"

@DOGE

As he'd expected, the man behind the counter - Lewis - changed his perspective on hiring him. Keeping his face impassive, save for a smug quirk of the lips, he put the folder back into his bag. "Right now. If possible, I'd like an interview now." Direct, honest.... could use a little work on manners. Eh - it didn't seem to bother the man, that he was direct. Although Damien could plainly see that the man was, in fact, busy (so many papers... had they not yet converted to technological advances yet? The very thought made Damien want to sigh explosively), it looked like he was going to get his interview. Well, hopefully. Gruffly, he nodded. "Robotic Sciences, Mechanical Sciences, and Kinesthetics in Motion, as well as Biology -" he was careful not to say time manipulation "- a bit of Psychology, and years of experience." Hopefully this helped to build his case a little bit, until he could finally get to the printer and print out the entirety of his resume in the wasteful, white, sharp paper.

@DOGE