I couldn't sleep last night. At least, not until the clock said we were on the other side of the time-slip. Perhaps Will's vape was laced with some kind of amphetamine, but my guess is that my unrest was more caused by nerves than anything.
After the incident with the killer drone, the rickshaw and the dead genie, not to mention the discarded ocular, my mind couldn't rest with all the questions and recriminations. So much so that I ended up looking up what information was freely available on IDA and the Chapel of Ascension on the neural net.
If the ocular felt like searching with a telepathic telescope, the neural net feels like trying to see through a pair of binoculars over an ancient dial-up connection. Worse: the information is baseless. Or the handiwork of an AI writer working for Control.
In my anxious state, I wait for another message from Manni, but it never arrives, so I go downstairs to the vending machine and buy some Kalming Moments to take the edge off.
They work. Of course they do, this is Ironforge for goodness' sake.
That said, I'm paying for it now. Have been paying all morning, my head pounding as we work inside the synthesizer domes while my sight appears to run on a microsecond delay.
My colleagues tell me such reactions are natural from first-timers, that the delay should wear off before long.
Still, the effects linger.
No matter. Our first period consisted of a three-hour block, during which we worked furiously over a group of robots synthesising processed chicken blocks. The smell of the meat and plastic hybrid is intense, as is the constant undercurrent of fear that squats over us like a cloud of immovable high pressure.
The dreaded Varis and his sidekick, Syrix, are working together today.
We were assigned to the Dream Team shift this morning, but neither Varis nor Syrix has had reason to threaten me with anything. At least not yet.
Syrix walks past, and I wonder if she knows that Varis is gaining a reputation for female supervisors. Or rather, I wonder if she cares. Maybe she has her own neuroses, or perhaps she is using suppressants to cover them up.
I continue to watch her run up and down the line, snarling threats and orders at my colleagues while refusing to engage in any actual work herself. Always using fear as the primary means of motivation. Fear of what will happen if we don't meet our targets. Docked wages, for example, or a beating after work. Even the fitting of a suppression cap.
I didn't realise such things were legal, and they aren't, but in Ironforge, it appears anything goes.
Presumably, Control will do anything to us to ensure we continue to make a profit and keep in order.
*
We break for lunch and enter a staff complex at the far end, a large grey hexagonal column running through all the northern edges of the dome. In addition to supplies, it also houses the lift chamber required to access this level.
However, we soon pass those and walk up a wide, curving on-ramp that leads past the tools and maintenance equipment and onto the level kept clear for the cafeteria.
There are only a handful of people ahead of me in line, and even fewer sit eating under the low ceilings and want light, so I get busy and get in line. An old woman with unkind eyes and a slow-moving genie doles out a choice of slop onto our plates. Yellow or green.
We can have tofu and fries or what appears to be a chicken stew with steamed vegetables. Nondescript legumes that look like they've had all the vitamins extracted. I inject a playful bonhomie.
'Wow, and to think that we've been working with man-made chicken all morning. It's like you guys already know we can't get enough.'
'What drink?' grunts the female gene-hack, and I'm forced to choose between the notorious Drunk - fruit syrup laden with fructose - or Spice - mineral water laced with levels of fluoride that would be banned anywhere in the Confederate.
"Really," I say, not attempting to hide my sarcasm as I decide which one will kill me quicker, but there's no way to know for sure. And anyway, surely such questions are moot when you live and work in a place like Ironforge.
Meanwhile, my mind is jumping from one fearful conclusion to the next.
The main concern is how to get through lunch without drawing Varis and Syrix's attention.
"It's like voting at an election," I joke with my colleagues in the queue, but no one laughs, so I get on with it and choose the fluoride. And then the cafeteria goes silent as the two star-crossed lovers enter the room.
For a moment, they spot me, and there is this sickening second when everything goes dark.
But then they move on.
You see, there's another worker with the unenviable status of being less productive today than I am.
My lucky day? Ha, I wish.
Normally, I'd shuffle onto any table with places to spare, but I don't want an enemy I haven't met yet coming along to make my acquaintance. There have been enough of those in my first three days already, so I reason that somewhere with known entities is best.
And then suddenly, I can see her, gleaming like a pearl in the corner of my vision, and when I turn to get a complete look at her, I nearly drop my tray.
Elise sits there in a regulation green coverall, hair tied back, her pale skin glowing bright white under the strip light.
I can't imagine why she would be here.
Unless it was to speak to me, of course. But why on Utaya would she want to do that?
'Please, Rene,' she says, warm and engaging. 'Sit down.'
'OK,' I say, and no sooner than I do, she promptly stands up to walk around me.
'I'm--'
'I know perfectly well who you are, Rene,' she says, and I can smell faint juniper as she moves behind my neck. 'We established that last time we spoke.' Her lips are only a few inches from my ear, and her voice tingles my spine. 'That man you were with at the block party the other night...'
I look ahead blankly.
'In Yvak,' she prompts me.
'Oh, right. You mean Manni?'
She walks around and nods, but it's more of a shudder.
'Do you know him?' I ask her.
'Do you?' She leans into my face. 'Look, I'm not sure what's exactly gone wrong with you,' she says as a slow and burning sense of horror creeps in around my brain's edges. "Make no mistake, I'm taking a big risk even speaking to you here."
"So why are you?"
She doesn't bother to answer me directly. "Think very carefully about the company you're keeping, Rene.'
'Oh...I see. Are you talking about Manni?'
She nods her head.
'Yeah, I think there's been some mistake. You see, Manni thinks you're a bloodhack or something, and, well, I think that--'
'Please, Rene. Stop.'
'No, I honestly think you could explain it to him.'
'Stop!'
'Is it to do with his ties with IDA?'
Do not speak that name here, she says suddenly over my headface, and with a ferocity she hasn't shown before. 'Do you understand?'
A mail icon pulses amber in the left-hand corner of my overlay.
'It's encrypted,' she says, 'Gives coordinates on where we can speak further.'
'Please," I say, trying not to sound so helpless, "just tell me something about who you are. What you said at that party. What is The Church of Ascension? Why will I meet my congregation?' I must look a bit dumb, what with the big frown on my brow. 'I'm not very religious, you see, and I can't understand why you think I would fit in so well.'
She shakes her head. 'It's not about being religious, Rene.' Then sighs, as if I'll probably never get it. 'Just meet me there, understand? And don't bring your friend.'
"Who, Manni?"
"You heard." And then she's gone again, leaving my stomach to clench with sudden dread. Like before at the skybar, she is out of the cafeteria before I can ask any more questions. Her absence feels like cold air rushing in after a door slams shut.
Who is this woman who keeps appearing - seemingly out of the ether - in this way? Some angelic sage, who can somehow pass through crowds, barriers, and every kind of managed space to reach me, or some quixotic female, sent to lure me into a trap?
I don't know how many more minutes that will be. It could be one or ten, it doesn't matter.
I sit frozen, her words echoing like a warning I don't fully understand. Although she was quite explicit. Don't bring your friend. The cafeteria hum fades around me, swallowed by rising dread.
My stomach twists, my breath tightens in my chest.
I'm unsure what to think. Don't want to think, even.
But then a klaxon rings out.
It is time to head back into the meat domes.
Thanks for checking out Hard Lines. To track the whole story so far, please visit the Serials page on Beyond Colossus. New scenes drop each Tuesday.