DOOMSDAY HIVE
A distant, isolated colony of robot labourers race to survive a destructive solar flare and impending conflict with their human caretakers. This work of fiction may contain strong content and glaring scientific inaccuracies.
PART ONE
THE X41 WAVE
CHAPTER TWO
At last survey, it was recorded that five-hundred-and-sixty-seven small astral bodies orbited the fertile, yellow planet of Arles, a body found in the Cetus constellation. The observations were carried out, compiled, and transmitted back to Earth by one of the human administrators stationed in orbit above Arles. This administrator had, one unassuming day, suddenly found astronomy as one of her new secondary duties.
Francine Flynt, who would modestly describe herself as a “glorified filing clerk”, was part of the team of caretakers to the Arles robot labour population. Counting moons and asteroids and dwarf planets was not, and never had been, a passion of hers. Nor had she ever mentioned to her employers that she was unsatisfied enough with her current workload that she could take on extra duties. Document shredding and managing the stationary cupboard was just the right amount for her. Lest it be said, she was not impressed with yet another spreadsheet to maintain, and attempted to get this additional distraction removed from her contract, once a year, during her performance review.
Today was Monday, Earth Standard Time, and Flynt had just begun monitoring a new asteroid which, with high probability and luck, might just burn up in Arles’ dense atmosphere before she found herself saddled with the obligation of properly cataloging its existence. Her computer was currently telling her that the asteroid should be passing by the office window during her lunch break so, there she stood, cup of soup in hand, soothing music playing, trying to catch the hunk of rock as it made its smug little guest appearance.
The office, which she shared with five, all but one of whom were currently out to lunch, other members of the two-hundred-strong administration workforce, was part of the building complex floating between the two most important astral bodies that Arles currently had to offer. The twin moons of Vincent and Theo, named after Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh and his art dealer brother Theodorus, were locked in permanent orbit around one another. The distance between the moons was deemed close enough to safely build a simple shantytown in space, reaching from one rock to the other. It had been the robots’ idea, with their electronic rational being that a permanent structural link between the twin moons would aid the overall mission objectives. The moons also shared a dense enough atmosphere that the human population could breath whilst performing extra vehicular activities, although the atmosphere had no discernible visual presence. Radiation exposure was still a fatal element, however, which also happened to be why the colony was stationed around Arles in the first place.
While the twin moons had been named after the Van Gogh brothers, the floating city was named after the wife of Theo, Johanna. Johanna Van Gogh had served as editor of the letters exchanged between the Van Gogh brothers, the resulting compilation still serving as a crucial document about the artist Vincent’s life, loves, mental state, and artworks, to this day. Therefore, “Johannastad” was settled on as an appropriate name for the city that physically linked the harmonious moons together.
Flynt sighed and kicked the wall-to-ceiling silica window pane before her, which responded with a reassuring dull thud.
“I told you, Fanny, you’re going to miss it the second you go top up your soup.” Said Mathis Deegan, Flynt’s only present officemate. Flynt found Deegan to be a smug, abrupt, but boyishly-attractive young man, whom she could seriously consider seducing, were it not for his abrasive personality. Although, when she did occasionally considering it, she realised that what she actually had in mind for him and his body mercifully did not require him to talk much.
Deegan also had little interest in honouring the contract he had personally made, as they all had done, with his employers, an attitude which he had no compunction in letting his colleagues be aware of. Flynt preferred her prey to have some minor integrity.
This all did not stop her having fleeting fantasies however, especially during a slow afternoon when Deegan would stand at the filing cabinets with his back to her neatly slipping away purchase orders.
She was definitely fine with that aspect of his work.
“Oh yeah? How much do you wanna bet?!” Flynt said, not taking her eyes off the window. “I’m good for it.”
Deegan snorted, derisively.
“No you are not, I accidentally caught a glance at your payslip yesterday.” He said, shuffling paperwork unnecessarily.
“Accidentally?!” Said Flynt, after gulping down the dried soup sediment at the bottom of her cup.
She whipped round to scowl at her colleague, which was the exact moment in which a flash streaked just beyond the window she had so diligently been monitoring.
“You just missed it.” Said Deegan, standing his ground against Flynt’s looming pantsuit.
Flynt ran to the window and searched feverishly for the asteroid.
“Son of a bitch!” She said, pounding her fists against the glass.
“Don’t worry,” said Deegan, grinning, “I’m sure it’ll be back in a few days.”
“But…”
Deegan bent down to his desk drawer and pulled out an envelope.
“Oh, by the way, it’s Gloria’s birthday on Friday, so you need to sign her card.”
“But…”
After a seemingly endless and impenetrable silence, the office’s intercom buzzed, which Deegan dutifully avoided answering. Flynt, still in a daze, moved towards the door in a low-energy amble and flipped open the airwaves.
“Yes?” She said, a stunned shakiness still in her voice.
There was a sound of angry scuffling through the speaker, followed by the tail end of an argument not intended for Flynt’s attention.
“Stand still, you horrible little boy!” Said a woman’s voice. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you!”
Flynt frowned in confusion.
“Uh, hello?!” She said.
“Yes, hello, this is Captain Jackson of Majolica Jug hive, I have one of your work experience kids out here.” Said the frustrated voice. “I need to discuss his reassignment.”
Flynt, without replying, released the exterior door lock and flittered back to her desk. It was already spotless, replete with comforting right-angles, but she still affected some rudimentary shuffling for appearances.
Two sets of footsteps could now be heard out in the hallway, marching down to the office door. One set was noticeably heavier and gainly, the other came with a staccato skipping rhythm
“I’m still on my lunch break.” Said Deegan, ripping open a sandwich packet.
“Thanks.” Said Flynt, her insincerity accompanied by balloons and fireworks.
The succeeding speech, made by the insufferably authoritarian Majolica Jug robot captain, mostly went ignored by Flynt, who felt confident that the captain’s inflammatory rhetoric could be safely tuned out. She did, however, regrettably tune in for parts. She caught something about the cargo brat disobeying direct orders. Something about a guide tether. Something else about a drone damaging Captain Jackson’s harvester queen. During all of this, Flynt mainly focussed on writing a birthday message to her colleague Gloria. Flynt had run out of unique platitudes quite some time ago, but she felt that, on this occasion, she had done a pretty respectable job. Perhaps she had been motivated by the immediate situation to care more. Flynt liked Gloria, especially when Gloria got drunk at parties and verbally abused her colleagues to let off steam. It made Flynt’s own foibles less distinct. But not invisible. That was a point, was Gloria even having a birthday party this year?! Flynt was pretty sure some of her colleagues had stopped inviting her to private events, but she tried to push such paranoid thoughts out of her mind. She could not rationally imagine why people would wish to excommunicate her.
As the captain continued, as if on a different plain of reality to Flynt and Deegan, Flynt checked her emails. She had just received a timed message from a lunching colleague, asking Flynt to query Deegan about upgrades to radiation shielding. It had become a hot topic, apparently, and the colleague clearly had not wanted to bring up the subject while in the office. Flynt grumbled, in the privacy of her mind, about how grateful she was to be working with such “brave” and “noble” human beings. Perhaps she should apply for a transfer down to one of the robot-controlled hives on Arles, she thought.
“Well?!” Said the captain, finally breaking Flynt’s alternative line of attention.
Flynt looked up at the captain, who started surveying the room like a territorial cat whilst waiting for an answer. Flynt looked at the harassed young boy in Jackson’s tow and gave him a conspiratorial wink, which he acknowledged with a surreptitious smirk.
Flynt pulled a form from a pile of similar-looking forms that lay in her dispute management tray. She was running low on these forms in particular, which she would need to confront Deegan about, which may very well be a waste of time.
“Yes, you need to fill out this form and wait five working days for approval. If the transfer is approved, you will need to wait an additional five working days for the candidate to appeal. If approval is given and there is no appeal, the candidate will be reassigned at the start of the next working week.” She said, countering the captain’s fury with time-honoured bureaucratic iciness. “It is very important that you sign it, date it, and provide your primary and secondary budget codes. I will need to countersign.”
Once the form was completed, slammed back down onto Flynt’s desk, countersigned by Flynt and date-stamped, the captain stomped back out the office, leaving the weary cargo brat in the guardianship of the two administrators.
“Are you going to tell my parents?” Said the boy, his hands potted firmly into his work-stained khaki pockets.
Deegan tuned back in from his sandwich.
“Only after the trial and execution!” He said, throwing his crusts into the bin by his desk.
The cargo brat, having read the room and noted the unspoken office dynamic, gave a halfhearted chuckle to the besuited layabout. Flynt, without even glancing down at it, screwed the reassignment form up, aimed carefully at the bin on the other side of the office, and scored.
The cargo brat, now bearing a relieved grin, applauded.
“Just turn back up on Monday. It’ll be fine. For a robot, that one doesn’t remember so good, trust me.” Flynt said, handing the boy the bar of chocolate she knew she should not have bought herself in the first place. “Plus they can’t usually tell us apart anyway.”
“Thanks. I’ve got some great friends at Mari.” Said the boy, shuffling out the office, but not before checking that the coast in the hallway was clear.
“Don’t worry, she’s definitely gone.” Said Flynt, releasing the exterior hatch for the boy’s guilty spacewalk home. “I saw her shooting past a second ago.”
After the cargo brat departed with an appreciative thumbs-up, Flynt found herself once again lost in mental autopilot.
Another flash went by the office window.
“You just missed your asteroid again.” Said Deegan.
“Oh what?!”
Flynt pounded her desk so hard that the envelope containing Gloria’s birthday card went skittering across the office, disappearing under the communal meeting table.
No comments:
Post a Comment