Somewhere in the far-future it rose before the dunes would bury it, and it still stands till today, the County: a not thriving, but at the very least ,surviving, settlement of humanity against the serene winds of rust, dust and particles, light breezes that seared the flesh of the largest elephant and pelted away a carrier’s plates. The history of how or when the gusts became like this is laid buried under rubble and sand, and only a few heads know the truth; which doesn’t matter for them. Centuries of ruling over their small kingdom left them content with the status quo- even if their crowns and tiaras might be a digital ever rising graph, it’s what makes them kings, queens, and CEOs.
Once the old order got a hold of the County, they started sealing off the floors, taking control of the elevators that traveled in-between and put the labels: Lower level was for workforce breeding grounds, while the middle was for industrial use, without pesky rules or regulations that stop ventures to run to the top. And, obviously, the segment closest to the sky was the realms of the owners. The pyramidal shape of the County gained a top, middle and down, with everyone from the last two forced to run on treadmills to keep production up; a situation in which a lowly manager found herself in since she entered the workspace.
Eless Chiub was one in a hundred approved births for those living in the Middle floor of the County; raised special, seen as special, and so she thought she was special- one of the few that will manage to take residence in the floors at the top. Just a few more steps up the ladder and she would have made it.
Recently Eless received a message tumbled down the same ladder and pushed upon her. “ Issues with water production. Production of bottles for top layer paused. Critical level, this has to be solved by noon.” She read and re-read the message for over 5 minutes, but for her it felt like hours. So many things left unsaid, so much information left to the wayside.
“Whatever. WHAT-EVER”, she repeated several times, making her bunkmates believe that she finally tracked some vicious cerebral disease. They just had an epidemic the year beforehand, and the fear of a patient zero sleeping in a bunkbed nearby scared the hell out of them. Fortunately, by asking them a few questions, Eless showed signs of a healthy mind, and by getting out of bed without tilting left to right, a healthy body.
“Hey guys, does anyone know where the water facility is?”
“ No way girl, you got an assignment to that rundown ruin? Nafa then, some manager might have it for you- guess they don’t want you promoted”, joked one of the roommates, but only Eless found it in poor jest.
“Stop saying shit like that even as a joke, this is serious stuff we’re talking about here. But it’s not like you’d get it.” The last part was murmured by Eless , like her usual complaints about her fellow roommates, but everyone could feel the ire. They could read it from her thick frowns, her rolling plastic eyes and the wrinkled forehead.
“…You know, Eless , I can share the location with you- take it, solve whatever “emergency” management has this time and get yourself promoted to a single room. You deserve it.”
Instead of up, as she expected, the office in charge with that vital role shared space inside the base of one of geothermal electrical generators buildings; apparently years beforehand one of the leading companies decided to cut cost and just cut off the map the three storied building holding all the historical files and documents about water gathering. “ After two centuries, we managed to set up cloud servers once again, people. No more storage waste, space waste or credits waste.” The water quickly became grimy and only by a tremendous amount of hirings did they manage to clean up the clogs in the pipes.
Before heading towards the office, Eless had to take a pitstop, not at the general place, but at one of the newly County imposed franchises- run by an albino person, she hoped they could fix a leakage from her prosthetic leg. The main shops conducted by regular humans were in high demand, with long lines and longer waiting time, but since she was in a bit of hurry, decided to take her chance with one run by a cloned employee. C.E for short,, a third hand in the workplace, as the companies tried to promote them.
“C.E, I need a quick fix. Help me out, will ya?”
“Of course, dear customer. Right away”, they replied in a hurry. It quickly became clear that they possessed the knowledge , but lacked the experience of how to even screw in a bolt without chipping its head. The lack of experience also meant a longer time on the “quick” fix, and after 10 minutes of fumbling around Eless reached her limits for how many eye rolls she could turn before they would roll out of her sockets.
“That’s fine, it’s enough”-
“ But, dear customer, the-”
“ No, you’ve done more than enough. Just send the bill to my office, they’ll cut my charge from my salary.”
Just as rumors foretold the office dealing with, probably, one of the most precious materials in this entire walled country has seen better days. At its inception, most likely. It didn’t take long for Eless to find out exactly why the problem occurred when she met with the man in charge.
“What do you mean the capturing specialist hasn’t come down in days?”
The interrogated manager was a few ranks above Eless , but since she was invested with an audit role for this task, it made that distinction moot. He stood straight, back held artificially that way by a prosthetic spine. Long, spindly fingers went in and out of a haystack looking fist, and his forced smile cracked with each word. He was in terrible trouble, the problem poured down from above and she was there to open up the umbrellas.
“Yes…we, we, we lost communication with them s-some time ago. BUT-but we followed protocol. We sent out a distress signal and made a request for help.” The office had no other employees present. Or on a roster.
“You made a help ticket, set to medium distress, NEVER mentioned the fact that it’s a personnel problem and THEN never answered back to any of the support’s questions!” she cut back at the manager, making him scratch the floor by moving his chair back a few steps.
Somehow, both were correct this time. And technically, he had an excuse- Just so happened that right around that day, the geothermal office had to shut down power for the entire block, otherwise- “ Kaboom…probably. But don’t worry, it won’t take more than a day to fix our problem” said an electrical engineer three days ago.
“OK, fine”, Eless almost growled. “ So climb up there, then? Take, uh, uhm, a robot or something and check up on the specialist? You’ve got drones, don’t you?”
“Welll” and once the swiveling manager instinctively dragged his sleeves to hide a pair of shiny mechanical arms, Eless guessed what happened.
“Oh my gud, you fu”, but after gulping a deep breath, she calmed down.” idiot. The unofficial protocol is to leave at least two functioning drones of each type around the office. Don’t sell all of them at once- you keep one, file the sold one missing and wait for the replacement to come.” That comment brought a pistol pointing at the temple of her nose, but in her line of work, that wasn’t the first or the last time it could happen. The trigger finger wasn’t even on the button, but trembling right next to it.
“I’ll d-do it, you know! The sheer lack of respect fro-from one such as you! You can’t be allowed to-”, but after the envoy casually slapped the gun away, the manager sniveled around, afraid of the perceived blowback. The sudden command, though, left him a bit speechless.
“The hell are you doing? Get up already and start preparing the rations and provisions packs. The climb will be a long bitch and we need-”
“What? Wait, what did- but I-the gun?”
“The gun? I think I slapped it under that couch. If you need it, just grab it already and let’s move on. We’re already under a tight schedule.”
The County was filled with towers reaching the ceiling, with the general knowledge being that they’re the only needles allowed to pierce the thin membrane between the layers of each floor of the warded megacity. Every single middle floor tower held elevators that were for top-down use mostly, as the top-level managers, investors and owners had to, from time to time, come into the offices, factories and what scrunched up buildings they owned in the lower parts.
A secret that everyone in the County knew, even the mud-eating wretches that lived in the lowest floor. And that was intentionally, as the leadership had to hide another secret beneath a common known hearsay. The first step was to devise a simple rumor- “Water? That’s from the ocean under the crust, everybody knows that.” Everybody knew that, except that the ocean was more of a lake, and since the world became a crimson sandpaper, that it couldn’t have sustained the County all on its own.
“So from what I’ve been told, there’s still something called a stratosphere, right?” Eless asked the manager who previously pointed a gun to her face.
“ Yes…uhm…well I know little, to be honest, about how the whole process works-”
“Figures.”
“But, Lawrence, our specialist, explained something about it. Something about…hygro, hypro? hygro-etc and that the County extends enormous plates covered with salt way above the storms. Into the stratosphere…I guess?”
The mention of salt soured Eless’s mood, a trigger for one of her earliest memories in her career- engaging in a hazing ritual for one who partakes the first step into the lowest level of managerial roles. Just go through a day with no water while ingesting foods covered in salt. Somehow, someone found this the funniest prank in the world and everyone was too cowardly to tell them to choke on it. Somewhere in the city, a ballooned elder with a wilted face felt a nod in the back of their throat.
A few moments later, the two found themselves at the base of a tower covered in rust, with debris falling left to right. “ Here it is, our gathering line. Whatever liquid is collected up there, runs down the pipe inside it, down into a filtering basin and finally, into our beloved lake underground. Simple, right?”
Unsure how to react at the sight of it, Eless just huffed and pushed the manager forward. “ C’mon, just take us to the top. I want to be done with this sooner than later.”
Grimy, dark and musky was the best way to describe the cabin that carried the two. And silent. Unless Eless asked something, like Lawrence’s habits and history of disappearing for days, nothing else came out of the manager. “That’s what my job is about. Actually. Finding excuses for why Lawrence is not there to log in everyday, time his tasks and whatnot. Did you know that he’s ranked among the worst in the efficiency metrics, even though I think he’s the best worker I’ve ever had the pleasure of keeping cover for.”
“Surprising, that’s high praise coming from a middle-K-manager for an employee. That would mark any employee for a promotion.”
“ No”, he suddenly became a bit somber, brushing his fingers one over another.” For anyone else, maybe. But we need him, I need him. You need him.”
Eless, already aware where the winds blew inside the County, didn’t grasp the manager’s warning, and spitefully commented about the state of the world. “For now. Soon we’ll probably have one of those chrome headed clones brought in to shadow him, until there’s no need for a body to cast a shadow. “
“How nice, miss Eless. But you should keep such observations to yourself in future, miss, your humanities are peeking out of the box; and more acute ears might catch your words.”
“Right. Thank you for reminding me, I’ll keep the lid tighter.”
The ride was mired in darkness and cast-off inside a tube to be seen by the inhabitants of the upper levels or for them to be able to cast their unworthy sight on them. Just panels after panels of concrete, wires and droplets of condensed water leaking down metal panels. Another method to capture as much as they could in order to stave off the quench of over two million people.
At the top, the manager searched for something he could only describe from a manual but not visually. As he said, besides Lawrence, some drones and a few engineers from time to time, no-one else set foot around this part of the County. They might, just as well be, the first managerial feet to ever walk around these guardrails.
“Aha, that panel!”, he pointed out a little device that made him sweat the moment he set his sight on it. “ I…uh…”
“ Oh, for fuck sake’s. Here, let me try”, Eless pushed herself into the console, already aware of how such a device works. “ This is basic stuff man, even you should be familiar with this program.”
“T-true. I just, well, I never kept up with the new updates and such. I’m kinda lucky they sent, apparently, that they sent someone so competent.”
“You’re lucky that you still have your job. Not for long, though, not after I send my report about the whole debacle and send you flying from the top of this tower”, Eless thought grinning, combing through the logs to piece together a timeline of Lawrence’s activities.
Day 1. System confirmed Specialist S.H Lawrence Ploy on-site. Check-ups started, nothing to report so far.
Day 7. Everything is mostly in order. Specialist S.H Lawrence Ploy is recharging in their room after 2 days of intense maintenance work. Collector is operating normally.
Day 13. Mechanical error in the plates expanding system. Collector is in temporary shutdown while Specialist prepares to venture at the top of the Collector and apply repairs.
“That’s it? I’ll refresh the System, this can’t be all there is. What the hell does it mean that he went outside?” She turned aside to ask some answers from the manager, but something about his posture sent shivers down her spine. He was relaxed now, sitting down on stair steps, legs crossed and eyes piercing right into her.
“Tell, miss Eless, why do you want a promotion? You’ve been a low level manager for…what, 4 years now?” With just a simple question, he felt more threatening now than when he pulled a gun to her face.
“This is…what is…” but at the sight of lights slowly turning up she guessed that something wasn’t right. “ Fo-four, yes. I’ve done more than enough time to be- “
“No, no, I want to hear a real motive. But no outbursts, no complaints, please. Keep that under a tight lid. Just a simple, real motive.”
Option 1 was to ignore the whole ordeal and try to fix the issue she was sent there to fix. But something felt putrid in the midst of this Collector. Option 2 was to tell him that she was tired of sharing a room with so many people, to stay in line for a simple repair, to be the runt the task fell unto.
She took a deep breath, back straight and chin forward. “ Because I outpaced my current level. It’s stagnant, and I need further stimulation in my workload.” A clean, perfect, real motive.
“Ha, same. I’m actually surprised that they managed to send someone competent. Hmm, if it were up to me, I would say that you passed the test.”
“What test?”
“But it’s not just up to me to-”
“What fucking test?”, Eless yelled internally.
“Lawrence, what do you say?” the man looked at the ceiling, waiting for the specialist to slowly creep his way down and introduce himself.
The entire County was filled with mismatched people, made out of organic bits and random metal parts. And then there were the C.T.Ds: robots, drones, their denomination changed from mouth to mouth, but one thing was certain- The only way someone like her was to meet face to face with something like that, it was through one of the County’s annual death games.
On the screen, you can’t see how odd one of these things really is, and the sight made Eless’s heart skip a beat and forced her to take a few steps backward in case she needed a headstart to run.
From the shadow first came the skittering sounds as it climbed down with its tens of tiny, plasticized insect-like legs. Soon came the body, a lengthy box made out of scraps of steel and plastic, resembling a rusty, black obelisk. A single red-dot blinked at the top of what seemed like a melted sleeping face of an old man.
“Say hello to Lawrence, your new and only employee in the tower”, said the manager as he knocked on a wall to the side of him. A few moments later, Eless received an extension file to her contract with all the information regarding her promotion. The same for the other party.
“Perfect”, he mentioned. “ By the way, do you know how the C.T.Ds like Lawrence recognize important people from vermin? Simple actually, through a biological sample stored inside them for DNA and other factors checks. One problem though”, and the manager then pointed at his mechanical arms. “Lawrence is…an older model. His storage is…uhhhh…not that good at keeping samples unspoiled for too long. And he needs large, continuous portions.”
“I…uhh…so I was tric-”, but thinking about her next words more carefully, Eless chose her words more carefully. “ Thank you for this opportunity. Will the missing parts be compensated with mods or prosthetics?”
Instead of getting an answer from the manager, though, another message gave it to her. “Due to budget cuts, only 50% of the cost of any artificial body part can be compensated at the end of each fiscal year. Please, offer a biological part to the C.T.D Lawrence and then sign the extension to your contract. We advise you to start with the ringer finger for now for a full month of your new status as water collection manager LV 1. “
The previous manager expected for her to take at least a few minutes to gather the steel necessary, but just a moment later a finger dropped to the floor, painting the metal around in a red hue.
“Huh- quick decision taker. Future meetings might get interesting.” He then threw her a medical kit and “fed” the finger to the robotic obelisk. “ Alright then, now I can sign up my extension as well. Thank you for the transfer, LV1 manager Eless . Tomorrow we’ll start the training for your new role. Don’t be late, like today.”
“Of course, LV 4, just send me the details for the meeting. I’ll be sharp at that hour.” Still writhing in pain, Eless waited for them to leave the room and only after feeling out of sight, she let out a scream. It was short, sharp and directed at nothing, but it all felt natural to do. Such was the way things worked in the County.