Conduit Engineers
After 18 beers of what few micro breweries were in the Sanctum, most notably from a brewery that named itself Post Rapture Brew, a cheeky enjoyable ale with a dark full bodied taste with hints of roasted Oates, Ved was clumsily throwing himself around his relatively large apartment. Enjoying the darkness of the outside world, Ved stopped momentarily to gaze drunkenly out the large window he had and took in the scenery through a haze of alcohol. The city was alight with different cars and building beacons and the drones flying the perimeter, constantly vigilant. Ved, smiling to himself, flopped himself on his couch and flipped his large flat screen on, there were late night streams of people deliberating about the current world outside the Sanctuary,
"Look Amara, it's not that I don't agree I just think things in the sanctuary are more than capable with dealing with what's ever out there, but you have a point we could send some reconnaissance just to be sure." This being said by a rather round and arrogant sounding bureaucrat, the woman named Amara shot back,
"Damn it Cameron,, don't shrug this off like some manila filed folder, this is serious, there have been reports, by some conduit engineers, that there have been signs of organizational patterns out there, it's been a damn long time since we've made any contact, there is a world out there you know!" Ved smiled widely, he enjoyed watching this fiery woman shoot some straight facts the fat man's way, but almost as he was thinking it, Ved saw the suit stroke his double chin, push back his grayish oily hair and go on assuaging this Amara of her concerns. Ved felt his eyes become heavier, the last thing her could remember hearing was his automated system call out softly, user entering sleep state, shutting off primary power, entering into night mode, and like that Ved was snoring loudly before the lights flicked off.
Good morning Mr. Robewise the time is 0800 hours and the weather today is a comfortable 75 degrees Fahrenheit-
"Damn it S.a.n.d.i. you know how I feel about morning wake ups after a vicious night of self destruction!" Ved cut off his home intelligence system, his eyes sore and his joints creaking as he moved himself from his couch, even if all alcohol in Sanctuary were re-hydrating in nature and tweaked so damn much as to actually enforce liver function and keep the mind clear, Ved still felt what his home system called a psychosomatic syndrome of over consumption, though he always thought you had to have a history of drinking the real swill in the barrens to get that.
"Uhg, please order me up some breakfast Sandi, and extra soda with that, something sugary would do wonders for me...and please no helpful suggestions!" Ved could predict when Sandi would offer some unwarranted, in his opinion, advice to greet the morning, he didn't want helpful advice. He ate his breakfast, and quickly throwing on fresh clothes strode out into the morning day, looking up into the blue sky. At least they had only built a damn 200 ft wall with sentries guarding the top, it seems that the progenitors felt that fresh real sky and air were worth the extra tech it took to keep this part fresh, at least. Having olfactory conditioners to prevent the terribly awful smell from outside the wall from getting in was a plus as well, but all the same Ved squinted at the sun and cracked his neck while walking towards his job's headquarters.
He strode through Jack London Square, the towering buildings that housed all the apartments and quarters of many of the conduit engineers were placed strategically here, Ved saw many of the same people on the same routine. The ground was pristine and the nearby bay quietly splashed against the pier decks. Ved approached a large hexagonal bunker and continued walking as though there weren't a care in the world, there was a swift wall of light that flashed in hardly a second and two glass doors with no apparent opening withdrew as he walked through. Within were the sounds of shoes hitting against marble floors, echoing in the open space, people chatting among themselves as they walked in pairs or groups. Ved came to an elevator that opened as he approached, and with a few others entering, they all separately called their floors, after which the elevator swept them to their desired location in order of who spoke. It took only about three minutes before Ved arrived at his floor, Assignment Allocation Sector, is what a massive bronze sign showed Ved as the doors withdrew and closed behind him.
Glass walls nearby desks, along the walls and even the desks themselves showed different displays, a glowing luminescent white or different color depending on person and desired affect showed on different glass terminals. A woman walking towards the elevator saw Ved and called out, it was Nalia, she looked entertained as always, as if everything were a big joke, she had a whimsical smile and her light brown shining hair flitted behind her as she strode up. She clapped Ved on the shoulder and imparted,
"Moron, the scenery was really gorgeous last night, and the bars were fun as usual, but then you avoid fun as if it were the plague!" The corners of her mouth pulled back in a confident and slightly arrogant smile. Before she let him respond she placed her finger tips upon the glass beside him at the entrance and stated, "Weather", a calm and collected voice began to read off weather, possibility of precipitation, forecast, the general mood of the outside. Ved smiling and rolling his eyes at Nalia remarked,
"You know I could have told you all those things."
"Yeah, except this doesn't give me your mopey self loathing bullshit, in any case, Harper is waiting for you, apparently he has some new fantastic assignment, frankly I don't know how many times you can dress shit up before people begin to realize its just that, shit. Go get em cowboy." Her last remark was said as she began to retreat within the elevator, Ved just scoffed at her as she raised a hand in goodbye as the doors closed, Ved strode swiftly over to director Harper's office, as he approached the foggy glass a display showed his face and a computerized voice welcomed him as a door in the glass became transparent and opened before him.
"Of course, yes executive administrator, of course it will be done as soon as I can get my men to that section," Harper motioned for Ved to sit as he finished his call, "Yes administrator I assure you we'll complete operations quickly and as you required originally, thank you sir, good day to you." Ved looked around at the various commendations and self serving medals and awards, he held back his sarcastic chortles and did his best to remain as stoic as possible.
"Veddit Robewise, graduated from New Harbor University at the top of your class, enrolled in Theoretical Avionics, dropped out, joined up with the conduit engineers. Your work has been exemplary, your aptitude for almost any job is par none, and yet, here you are, cleaning channel ducts and opening pathways for those under water rations." Ved quietly listened, though arched an eyebrow high at hearing his full name, no one called him that except his folks, and they were happily gone from this world, happily was definitely the word Ved came to. "So Veddit there is nothing wrong with working with the CE, but clearly your mind has a capability far beyond this, while our progenitors saw fit to wall off the Sanctuary and inhabit it with some of the most sophisticated and adept minds, especially those free of the influence of a zealous nature, one cannot deny that humanity, people, tend to excel in certain fields more than others, and the others excel in other fields as well, and so on and so on." Ved did his best to stomach the same speech he's heard countless times, all the while Ved focused on the well trimmed nature of Harper's sandy blonde eyebrows, or how he flourished his parted hair with this wavy look to it, all in an attempt to copy a professionalism that never sunk into Ved's disposition.
"In any case, Veddit, we are assigning you to a new field within the CE, we're calling them the conduit engineering scouts, or CES." This was definitely news to Ved, he managed to keep his expression mostly pallid and asked,
"So my work with Miss Abberquose, that's to cease then?" Ved doing his best to keep personal intonation out of his speech. Harper seemed more aware than Ved realized and remarked,
"Veddit, you're welcome to assign anyone to your exosuit pairing, if you feel that Miss Nalia Abberquose would fulfill this sufficiently, I can make it happen." Harper almost seemed self congratulatory about that fact, Ved sighed internally and allowed director Harper this one victory of personalizing as he always tried at the haughty pretentious company gatherings, standing in front of all the other CE's and spouting some corporate prattle obviously rehearsed time and time again, but the laughable part to Ved was most soaked that Prag filth up, which is why he liked Nalia so much, she shared in his sarcastic pessimism.
"May I ask why I'm being assigned to this detachment, what does it entail?" Ved asked tactfully, keeping any overstepping connotation from occurring in his position, though Harper seemed to grow thoughtful all of a sudden and tapping his glass display on his desk there was a soft muffled tone that rang out and stopped. Ved realized he had muffled the room, not a single sound would enter or exit and it would take director Harper's countermand to release the silent function he had enacted.
"It's not as if I'm worried about spies," almost reading Ved's look, "I just feel more comfortable this way, call it a primordial evolutionary tactic we homo sapiens have been unable to evolve out of our systems." Ved almost could understand Harper's reasoning, if it didn't also make him feel nervous at the same instance.
"Look Ved, seeing as I'll be sending you and four other people out there, making that five in total, I know I owe it to you to disclose it to you as soon as I can, I may be another uptight solder collar, but I was once just another graduate in this Sanctum of ours. The executive administrator, the one who reports to the Committee Directorate," Harper obviously trying to add gravity to the name, and not really succeeding with Ved, "has found some disturbing reports from the drones that scout around the state and sometimes farther if need be. The blunt heads, or regional derelicts as they are more PC known, have been showing signs of organizing, and not just the tribalism as we've come to expect, something else is stirring out there and we need to know what the hell is going on." Ved became far more interested than before, now his attention was becoming more enveloped by Harper's proclamations, seeing this, Harper nodded ostensibly and continued, "That's right, look those blunt heads made their choice a hundred years ago, the zealot wars concluded with a toll as far as we could tell being near somewhere of 1.9 billion, I don't think human history has ever seen something that bad before. The blunt head climbing the wall that was disintegrated, well you know as well as I that we would rather keep their radicalism and irrational behavior far from us, but this new threat, whatever it is, this is serious, serious enough to warrant a top ranking official calling me, a director," Harper almost scoffing at himself while saying it, "into action, and so I see your file, and a few others, and now the team looks fairly balanced and assembled."
Ved was trying to digest it all, he knew the stance of the Sanctum's and every other one founded, almost every single one at least, of their reticence to allow the people who started a massive war over trivial inane ideals pertaining to what one man may have said centuries ago and the plethora of other so-called zealots, but the whole reason this place was founded, as far as he knew, was to finally escape all that. Ved arched his eyebrow again and asked with more inquiry than before,
"So why me again, sir? Why not send a fleet of drones, solar helo's, a detachment of premier stratos troopers and wipe it out?"
Harper smiled meekly to himself before responding, "We, our progenitors, chose this Sanctuary and its confines not because it was convenient, but because it was to distance ourselves from the barbarism that this radicalism had wrought, to rain down 'hell fire' as they call it, on them, would only strengthen their resolve, and in the end that may be how it goes down, but for now we're going to show we're not the same brutish people. So with that, you, along with the others, show not only the experience of trudging around out in the filth, but have a propensity towards quick thinking, open mindedness, and we believe you to be up to the task." All the while Harper attempted to make himself look more amicable and tried to appeal to Ved's sense of morality, however that fit into the equation. Ved just sighed to himself and looking to Harper inquired again,
"So I suppose you'll debrief me on everything I'll need to know, but moreover do I get a chance to enjoy some time in the Sanctum before I'm sent out into the barrens?" Harper looking almost emotionally relieved calmly imparted,
"You have a week, after which time we'll begin to prep you, shouldn't take more than a month's time to train you adequately, remember you're just scouts, not the Stratos troopers." Harper suddenly becoming more grievous gave these last few words for Ved to go over during his week, "Ved, this must remain completely hidden from everyone, no one except you and those chosen are to know, we will tell Miss Abberquose after you leave, she went on lunch break, but under no circumstances can this get out, last thing we want is people to call for the bombs and destruction of every little atom on the outside, we must insure the safety of the Sanctuary. Ved, we don't know what's out there, we have our video captures and constant drone surveillance, but as you're fully aware our last contact with any seemingly coherent person on the outside was 23 years before the war ended, and since than, not a peep. We know there are still buildings and structures, there are still a good amount of people out there, we know the air is breathable if detestable to endure, and we know that somehow, people are living out there, killing each other still, trading in arms and drugs, some even continuing the zealot cause, which I know, is so completely unimaginable but happens all the same. As far as that though, there isn't much else, when you all embark out, we'll give you everything we know, but you'll be on your own, for a good amount of time figuring out what in the world is going on and that's what you will hopefully help us with." Harper looked resignedly at Ved who just slowly nodded and remarked with one final statement,
"Well fair enough, I've been looking for a change any ways, and I signed up to be in the conduit engineers, and if it wasn't me it would be some other poor bastard, so I'll see you in a week then?" Harper nodded and shook Ved's hand, Ved found it a little too ceremonial for his liking but shook Harper's hand all the same, and left the Conduit Engrineering headquarters, and just two or three miles east was the Sanctum wall, and beyond that, a whole congregation of psychotic drug addicted blunt heads, doing only what their god knows what.
TBC (maybe?)
WOW so that went on for oooooodddllleeesss of a long time, I get that way, sometimes I'll start something, and wont realize how expansive I'll make it. In any case those of you who have read it, I hope you enjoy it, and if not...well what was started can just as easily be ended quickly. Any who, lemme know what you think, what you hate, or whatever, and if not well hope your night is going well all! Time for this tired Rye guy to get some sleep!
And as always, roll your D20
-Ryan
