Story #2
Downtime
Apart from shifts, there was really no order to when someone was off-duty. You could spend your free-time still running ops planetside, if your frame was in working order. Some escaped into that, some to a bar, others shut their eyes and the world out, until they went back on the clock. And then there were those who did the first two, in equal measure, without the third and without moderation. Some also did not have to concern themselves with bringing any shame on their Houses, either.
Cullman was about to round a wide t-section, turning left, onto the ward that housed the clanless of the Gatestriders. Misfits whose forebearers did not integrate into any of the Houses, either because they were not offered, or they refused. They were nicknamed 'House Maverick.' Though, it was not an insult and actually more of a formality at Council meetings to have a proper clan to affiliate them with, around the 'big-table', and not just "N/A". It was to emphasize they were not considered in any way inferior, that they received no discrimination and were not looked upon with less regard. At least, not officially.
"You need tah sleep, sometimes, or ye're goin' tah burn yerself out." Fiadh's voice was coming from the adjacent corridor.
"Listen to 'er, Jim!" Moran's voice reverberated off the metal walls; not so much the reinforced glass that had a view of tiers of windows and the wards behind them, but not the stars. "Runnin' off all day, without even 'avin' a wink, won't do yew any good. We all miss 'er, man. But, we can'nah do anythin' about it. The Council could barely be convinced to drop their silly idea about tryin' to talk to these things." A short pause later. "Jim!" Moran called after him, as Jim Santiago stormed off, marching straight past Cullman, with no words from either of them. Santiago had been erratic ever since his wife got taken and Cullman was not exactly the first shoulder anyone would lean on.
"Chase! Jim just left fer another scoutin' run." Moran nodded after the man, frowning. "His worse than you." he added, without humor in his steel-grey eyes. And there was none in Fiadh, either, at the moment, who plodded back inside the nearest living quarters, their own. Moran went in after and Cullman stopped in the doorway.
"I have no one to burn the candle for on both ends." Cullman combined two expressions into one for a seemingly callous response. Stepping inside their barely above bog-standard, minimalist accommodations, Fiadh just plopped down on her bed, rather heavily and snorted at his words, disapprovingly.
"Hrr. Is that 'why' you don't eveh bother to get someone?" she wondered, perhaps for the first-time, since they have known each other, with pity behind her emerald glare.
"Partly." Cullman stated, rather frankly. And maybe he believed it himself. He was certainly not keen on pursuing any romantic entanglements.
"Maybe we should keep an eye on him." Fiadh worriedly suggested they look out for Santiago. "Make sure he doesn't do anythin'...'not smart.'" She gave Cullman a meaningful look, who did not even protest the unofficial assignment she was volunteering their team for. The Fabric, alone, was not enough to keep tabs on someone. They could shut you out or just lie and tell you they were not doing anything foolish, right from the middle of a fight. Satellite-tracking could call them on it, but it would not matter by then.
"Smart like your little sortie this morning?" Cullman nearly jumped, but only made a quick turn with his head, instead, to see Carmen was standing behind him, in person and arms folded.
With just a hair above six feet, she was as tall as him.
"Well, now! Surprised t'see yew outta yer lab, lass." Moran said, throwing his jacket, as old as him, on his bed.
"I surprise 'myself', now and again." Carmen did not like even her own surprises to herself much. "Speaking of which..." she turned to Cullman. "We still had time to run preliminaries on the Category 2 you so unceremoniously interred."
"Didn't think you were much for ceremony." Cullman remarked, turning to face her and she went on, ignoring his comment or his attempt at small talk, whichever it was.
"The tests showed the ore was altered by the decomposition of the beast's body. Some of the decaying flesh...'bonded' to it, as the body completely dissolved, giving it the unusual properties you saw. But, that is only the surface and we're about to scratch deeper than that. We'll be cutting into the ore, in a few minutes, to see if it is as volatile as it looks. The forge-technicians are already breathing on the windows to get a look at it. We can't predict, yet, how they will be able to mold it to suit our needs, but if they can...we might even have some new toys for you to play with." she said without any enticement in her voice, as if she was only vaguely aware that particular combination of words could sound inviting, but she had not learned how to do it.
"So...you came all the way down, 'ere, to little ol' us, 'in person', just for that?" Fiadh furrowed her thick brows at her and briefly moved her eyes onto Cullman, then, back at Carmen.
"I was on my way from a 'mandatory' meeting with the Council." She was annoyed they were pulling her away from her work. "My department is only a stop away from here, as you well know and I...had time." Was her plain excuse. "I suppose." she added, as if she was still uncertain.
"Well, you're here, congrats!" Fiadh gestured, pointing out it was already done.
"I'm well aware." Carmen felt it was already close to her socializing quota for the day, as mandated by her department's very own psychologist. She wanted to fire that woman. Looking back at Cullman, several seconds have passed. She would have called the silence awkward, but she did not know what even constituted "awkward." She supposed this was it. Cullman turned his head to exchange a look with Moran and Fiadh, before he tried to say anything.
"Well...thanks for the heads-up." Cullman had more time...and 'care' to practice being somewhat sociable. "I take it your lab has a blast container?" he asked with the hint of a smile and Carmen, still able to identify what she correctly assumed was teasing, leveled a small glare at him, for jinxing, not that she believed in that, their upcoming experiment.
"Any penetration will only be done via surgical drone, behind a multi-layered containment field." she slowly explained, unconsciously leaning closer to him, almost threateningly. Or perhaps actually so. With that, she turned on her heels and left as swiftly as though they had the exchange on the Fabric.
"Maybe she meant 'you.' Fiadh assumed the actual target of the penetration.
"Bloody 'ell, Fee!" Moran exclaimed, mortified and Cullman tried not to have even the briefest of a mental-image, as he walked to his own bed. The door behind him, now unobstructed, irised shut. Some levels and district retained such a design. All of them encased the spiral of metal in a standard containment-field, in the event of a sudden change in pressure. A palpable silence sat on them, with the constant low hum of life-support and after taking no more than a quarter of a minute of it, Fiadh rose from her bed.
"Feelin' like hitting C-Squared?" she asked, suddenly enlivened, or tried to seem like it, for their benefit, as well as her own.
"Do I ever?" Cullman made a dig at himself. Fiadh crossed her arms and gave a pouting frown. Cullman sighed.
"Fine. But, only if they restocked on Venarian-Jaeger." A digestif originally from one of the colonies the Gatestriders used to do business with. The two words together were pure pleonasm, if one cared to dig up their origin.
"I'll ask!" Fiadh said with some building cheer. She closed her eyes as she navigated the Fabric, like a bird flying, insanely fast, through a ghostly, neon neighborhood, quickly finding "Club Cithaeron" or C-Squared as many simply called it, usually those who were not sure how to pronounce the name, but also those few who did not even understand what 'squared' meant. They were either too young to have learned it, yet, but still felt adult enough to try and enter or they have visited too many times, already and their memory have suffered for it. And the latter effect is exactly why some went, to begin with. The club was one of the oldest on Home, with a steady stream of patrons, night and day, as much as people cared to keep track of the cycles, where they could not even keep them going artificially.
Though Fiadh could not actually see inside, she knew every dimly lit corner of the place that mixed Ancient Greek with late 20th century 80s, complemented with current-era conveniences, as a backdrop for the contained debauchery within.
"Anybody here!? Livi?" Fiadh pinged the staff's own comm-channel, a bubble within the club's physical and virtual bustle.
"Fee? Is that you, luv?" came a disembodied, voiceless thought-to-text.
"Aye! We're fixin' to hit the club, soon. But, Chase says he'll only be willin' to be dragged if you have his favorite."
"You mean, the 'only' thing he drinks! 'Course we have some! Since he's the only one who likes that alcohol-free stuff. Well, he and some of the youngsters we let hang out, so they could feel all grown-up. Management wonders every year if it was even worth stealing the recipe for it, way back when." The employee named Livi chatted. "Chase is a little on the young-side, still, though. Right?" Came the likely not entirely innocent inquiry.
"Maybe his body. But, his 'mind' is older than Moran!" Fiadh pointed out.
"I'm here, you know." Moran decided to make his own presence known.
"Orderin' drinks, already?" Fiadh virtually elbowed the man who was only a few feet away physically.
"And just reserved the last table fer us!" he triumphantly added.
"Good man!" Fiadh appreciatively said, with her spirit immediately lifted. She lost herself in her musings, for a few seconds.
'The whole point of life, or one of them, anyway, is to have a laugh and when it's time fer you to move on, all who love you should have one, too and send yew on yer way with it. Even Chase has his funny moments, as dark as they are.'
Fiadh could see him sitting at the front of his bed, elbows on his knees, staring almost blankly off into the non-existent distance, with his amber eyes. She knew he was actually reading through reports from all the teams, on the Fabric, doing his homework and not 'spacing-out.'
'Now there's a funny expression that's not even used by most people. It stopped being funny when techs used to have hull breaches early on, aboard ships and got vacuumed. People avoided the expression, ever since, 'cause it reminded them of it. And it barely survived.'
"Take the fun outta everythin', why don' ya." Fiadh's Fabric-feed showed her unintentional message.
"What?" Livi's confusion under it.
"Someone had another argument with 'emselves." Moran quipped.
"Oh, shut it, you. And let's go!" Fiadh pulled back from the Fabric, not any less spirited. And soon, she would be spirited in a different kind of way. "Up you get, Chase!" she raised her voice and Cullman gave a slight shake of his head, closing what he was browsing. He pushed off from his bed and Moran was already pulling on his jacket, when they were all pinged. The Fabric-feed blared an alert originating from the R&D department's laboratories. The AI responsible for instancing the news was already showing a brief report, having communicated directly with the monitoring systems.
ALERT! EXPLOSION DETECTED AT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT'S "FOREIGN SUBSTANCES" DIVISION, ROOM C-4. SCANS SHOW PERSONNEL SUFFERED MINOR CONCUSSIONS, BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA AND FIRST-DEGREE BURNS. NO CASUALTIES. MEDICAL TEAM DISPATCHED. SITUATION UNDER CONTROL.
Moran let out an impressed whistle. "They had to 'ave been wearin' their safety gear and everythin'. Plus the shieldin' Carmen was so sure of." And still the injuries were not negligible, as fast as they could be treated.
Cullman felt a mental tug and checked the Fabric to see a single new message.
"Damn it, Cullman!!" The outburst, as he was reading it, was followed by, "I did not mean to send that." Much more composed. It was as close to an apology as he was going to get from Carmen. He could feel a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
"Sorry?" he offered.
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