We Shadows

Chapter 21: projects

I made my way down to the printing as quickly as I could, trying not to get angry without any information. Perhaps, something had been mislabeled or forgotten, but still. My department had shown up on a weekend to get the parts installed only to find that the parts had never been printed. Or at least, that was what my papa told me.

It was a reduced crew in the printing bay, but to my surprise Vertov was talking with a couple men, swiping through his holo-rib. He turned to me when I walked up to him. I took a deep breath and smiled at him. Vertov was probably not the reason for this error.

"What brings you here on a weekend?" Vertov questioned.

"You're here too," I pointed out.

"True," he conceded. "But some of the new builds will take thirty hours so we have to start now. I assume you're here about the turbine parts?"

"They didn't get printed," I told him. "Did something happen?"

Vertov hummed to himself and pulled up the print queue. "Lully made some changes late last night; you're getting your parts tomorrow. Did he not send a message about it?"

"Not to me," I said, but pulled out my own holo-rib to double check. Bizarrely, it chimed in my hand and a message from Lully popped up; he had just sent it to me.

"Oh, now I get notice," I grumbled, glancing over the message. "Why did it change anyway? Do you know?"

"You'd have to talk to Lully, I'm not in charge of print queues," Vertov told me.

I frowned. "Really?"

He shook his head, gesturing to the whole print bay with one arm.

"I have this whole place to manage plus the role of captain that you loaded me with," he said. "Lully's had this job since Landing Day, and he's done a fine job. I trust his reasons."

"I'll call him," I decided. "Merci, Vertov. Oh, did you get my message about lieutenant responsibilities?"

"I did," he said. "I haven't read it all the way through; I'll probably message you back later this evening. So far, what you've suggested makes sense."

"I'm glad," I replied. "Anyway, I should call Lully."

I headed out into the corridor, waiting for Lully to pick up his holo-rib. He did so just as I made it to environment.

"Hello?"

My papa was waiting in the hall for me.

"Send everyone home," I told him and then turned my focus to Lully.

"Why did you change my print times?"

"Did you not get my message?" Lully questioned.

"This morning," I complained. "After I had called people into work and after I found out it didn't print."

"Joan and Ibsen had higher priority," he explained. "I'm sorry, Dylan, I didn't mean for you to get late notice. I didn't realize you'd be installing today."

"Do we even have enough steel yet for all of those projects?" I inquired.

"We will tomorrow," he promised. "Bell is shipping materials in tonight."

I groaned, but did not want to take it out on Lully. It wasn't his fault this had happened. I just needed to be more watchful in the future.

"When do you and Esperanza come back?" I inquired. "I'd rather talk to you in person about print queues."