Weekly Drabble #221: Lunch Break (Patreon)

This week's drabble prompt of "worker's meal' from Lincoln Neal brings us once again to Horrak-Sarn, with a slice of life from one of the Masters' servants, currently enjoying a little downtime before getting back to work. Enjoy!

As well, due to personal events, there won't be a drabble next week but our schedule will resume as normal the week after.

~

Lunch Break:

“It’s Pinktober!”the scantily-clad sprite with pink hair declaimed as she danced across the menu screens of the food dispensers in the commissary. “Why not celebrate with some special Pink food? Brought exclusively to you by Selco Food Services! Think Pink!”

Abel Cartago was too tired to care about the advertisement. He’d been running double shifts for several days and hejust wanted a good meal. He didn’t care what Pinktober was; he wasn’t even sure if it was October. There were no seasons in Horrak-Sarn, none that mattered at any rate. Sunny and cold, sunny and warm, rainy and cold, rainy and warm, grey. Abel missed summer, actual summer. Ever since he was old enough, over Christmas break his family would fly down to the Philippines to spend a week with his grandparents. It had always amazed him how it could be winter in one part of the world and summer in the other.

The last time they’d made that journey, their plane had never arrived. There’d been a storm. His parents had told him everything would be fine. The plane had bounced up and down as it pushed its way through the turbulence... and then it fell. Not down, but up, pulled into the hungry maw of the thing in the center of the storm. People had been screaming, the captain’s panicked voice had crackled through the cries as he tried to shout out a mayday, forgetting that he’d left the intercom on, Abel’s mother squeezing his hand so tightly that it hurt...

...and thirty years later, he was here running trains. The City was criss-crossed by rails. Electric, magnetic, anti-grav or plain old rails like back on Earth. The Masters had their barges and yachts and there were lifters and air lorries here, but also trains. Individual vehicles were restricted to the upper echelons of the servants and the Masters themselves. They were also more vulnerable. The regions of the City that the Masters directly controlled were safe enough, but on their outskirts or between those sectors, single cars or transports were tempting targets for whatever was out there. Ground routes could be blocked or mined and skimmers could be shot down.

Despite that, the City had needs. Masses of cargo needed to be moved, people needed to be moved... people as cargo needed to be moved. Sometimes those trains rode on tracks supported by pylons that loomed over many of the smaller buildings here. Sometimes they threaded their way through urban canyons and labyrinths and sometimes they slid under the ground, slithering through the Beneath like great mechanical worms. There was a lot of complexity involved in operating Horrak-Sarn’s infrastructure. Skilled technicians were always in high demand. If you could distinguish yourself from the cattle, you had an easier future ahead of you.

Abel had been pulling double shifts for a while now, putting service credits towards a better apartment. He’d probably get taken off these overtime slots in the next couple days. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him and it wouldn’t be long before his biomonitoring implant would report an unacceptable level of physiological impairment to Human Maintenance. There wouldn’t be an actual person on the other end of that feed, of course. There were too many biomonitors for that. An AI tracked the incoming telemetry, routing anomalous readings to a second, specialized AI that could sort health conditions or injuries from specific events. After that, an actual organic mind – most likely a highly-ranked servant, but sometimes one of the Masters themselves would review the bio-data – would look over the results and make decisions based on the AIs’ information.

The Masters appreciated dedication, but not inefficiency. Any human, intentionally or not, imperilling their plans wasn’t in for a pleasant experience. It was a mark not only of his position, but of the value he had that he’d been given the implant to let them remotely monitor his health without a control or punishment implant alongside it. He hadn’t “earned” either of those and never intended to. The Masters didn’t use those implants as often as many people thought; unlike a biomonitor, the procedure to insert a control or punishment module was tricky. It was usually easier and cheaper just to get a new slave than it was to equip each individual with Lockups or Pain-poppers. Only the cattle disinclined to serve dutifully, but with skills too valuable to lose got Lockups. If you still caused problems, then they moved on to a Pain-popper.

Abel had never needed either. He’d worked his way up from the cattle crews to this position, keeping his opinions to himself and never speaking for or against anyone in particular. After it sunk in that he was never getting home, he’d done his best to stay above water, metaphorically speaking. He didn’t take sides. He was given a job and he did it well. That’s what he was doing now. He made the best of a bad situation. In Horrak-Sarn,that was all that you could hope for. If he built up enough service credits, he could get a bigger place. From there, he could get a woman. Linda and he were an on-again-off-again thing, currently on. Once he got that bigger place, he was hoping she’d move in.She liked him, but she’d always told him that she wanted a room with a view – and not the kind of view that an engineer could earn. Maybe this would change her mind.

Taika said chasing Linda was an idiot’s game. He kept telling Abel to be practical; instead of dealing with relationship drama, Taika had bought a woman with his service credits. He’d even been given a reproductive license. Of course, that was all because Taika wasn’t just a good engineer: he’d lost a hand fighting against a would-be hijacker. It would be several years before Abel could earn enough service credits to match that kind of heroism, but that was fine with him. Taika made his opinions about the grounded – those humans who’d escaped the Masters and eked out their own living in the City’s bowels – plainly clear, even coming out in favour of moving up the culls from an as-needed basis to every two to five years. It wasn’t just the Uglies that were becoming a problem, but the feral humans were growing in number, faster than expected.

None of that was Abel’s problem, though. He’d finished his morning run and he had just enough time to grab lunch before he had to take the 184 from here in the Docks out to Blackspire. Blackspire had a sinister reputation; not because of its name. That came from the darkened caps to its largest buildings, but it was a restricted region. Almost all of the traffic that went in and out was the Masters’ own ships. And, of course, the train. Running three hundred and ninety-four kilometers from the processing pens below the Docks, to Blackspire and to whatever region it was slated for next, but with all the cattle cars removed and heavily secured cargo pods attached instead. There were high-security paddocks in each region for special-cargo trains and the crew never saw what was in their cargo as it was off-loaded. All of them knew better than to ask and when they talked to each other, it was always speculation made in soft whispers.

Abel hated the 184. It earned 15% more than a regular run, though. That generosity made him even more uneasy about it, but he needed the service credits. They weren’t money per se, but a mark of your value to the Masters. You could spend them as you earned them for luxuries, while your lifetime accumulation was also tracked. As you hit specific benchmarks there, your standard of living increased. Slaves were rewarded service credits only for going above and beyond the duties assigned to them, while servants earned some as a matter of course for their work. The more valued you were and the more effort you put in, the more you were given.

Do the job, keep your head down, make the best of this situation. That was Abel’s motto and it was going well so far. Half a day done, then the 184, then another run and then he was finished. For this day, at least.

The line moved quickly and soon Abel was at the food dispensers. There were several nozzles, each labelled with a different flavour. On a whim, he selected the one with the smiling company mascot. As he popped it from its hook she let out an excited “Yippee!”. From the end of the dispenser, a gritty protein-rich slurry oozed out and into Abel’s bowl. It was sweet-smelling and, of course, pink.

After all, it was Pinktober.