The Shadows of Xaya

Kacey - 4

I rarely complain about the work I do. Even when Zeke tries to get me to "bitch and moan" about work, I often refuse because it will seem disingenuous and my parents would hate that and I don't want to disappoint them, even if I may never see them again. I try to stay positive by thinking about all the nice parts of my job. It's nice to feel needed and to help people. And I got to pick whichever company I wanted to work for, which was nice. Not everyone like me gets to pick their company. I am fortunate to be on Xaya. I could have ended up at GrevTech or Halorsync, which would have been less pleasant. 

GrevTech, in particular, is a heinous employer. The company didn't encourage people to be kind to one another, and touring the metal dusted factories on Riva had depressed me in a way that I can recall the unpleasant feeling years later. Emptiness and boredom. I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life working in a factory, even as an ancillary staff member who wouldn't, like the workers, spend all my day overseeing machines making the same parts ad nauseum. Everyone seemed so miserable there, I could hardly believe I was even on Riva, a beautiful planet from its ice-encrusted polar caps to its humid jungle forests. It was as if GrevTech had somehow found a way to remove all the color and life of the planet and replace it with lifeless gray motor manufacturing. 

I imagined returning to that awful factory when I had come back home and talked about the experience with my excited parents. They thought I would enjoy the relative amount of freedom a health professional assigned to an entire factory might be given. But I thought about how hard it would be trying to engage the broken down workers in conversation. People would ignore me more than when I was on Riva station. The thought chilled me. 

I had been ecstatic when I was offered a position at Found-ation instead. And I tried to invigorate my days with the optimism I had felt that day. Even if it became more and more difficult to feel much as my fourteen-hour days grew more boring. They were... often times monotonous, hours spent doing much of the same thing, separated by dreamless nights. 

But I got to interact with incredibly interesting people. The best part of being stuck in the galley for the majority of my awake time is listening in on conversations. It connects me to almost everyone on the base, and I am still grateful for my position as an audience member to an exciting crew even in my fifth year on Xaya VII. I am not invited to many social gatherings, and I have rarely seen the inside of an employee's personal space except for Zeke's, but I get to spend time in the galley and I listen to everyone. Correlating the personal information I am privy to as part of the health team with the behaviors I see in the galley is delightful. As a kid I used to love watching dramas, and while not nearly as interesting as some of those story lines, I was always surprised when I uncovered information about people that I would probably never get from them directly. I was like a little spy, standing behind my counter, making food, cleaning up, and absorbing all the spoken words like the solitary, flowerless vine that grew in the corner soaked up nutrients through a hydroponic medium. 

Oh shoot. I need to make sure I put in a request for more growth medium. And maybe I can get Zia to repot it. I don't know a lot about plants, but I have noticed a few of its leaves are turning yellow along the edges which doesn't seem healthy. The aesthetic rating of the galley is already abysmal for a non-office environment. 

My data bracelet vibrates against my wrist computer, urging me to get up. It's 0638. I woke up eight minutes ago and have been letting my thoughts wander for a while. This makes it easier for me to unplug for some reason. I use the sonic shower in my small room and put on another gray jumpsuit which is automatically delivered every other day in the pneumatic system which has output bays in almost every room. 

The hallway lights are brightening slowly to their full 1000 lumens. Right now, still about an hour before full brightness, they are around 700. I know this thanks to my left eye implant which overlays information onto the world to a sometimes dizzying degree. I have gotten pretty good at ignoring it. These are the quietest times, you could keep the hallways completely dark and it wouldn't impair anyone's function. Everyone in shift one is most likely awake by now, though. They're all preparing for being productive in their private rooms.