🌍 Building A World
Louis is overseeing a mega project that will help humanity take steps toward the stars. But he's still expected to be home in time for dinner.
“I won’t be home this week.”
The silence on the other end of the line was thick.
A sigh.
“The kids miss you.”
Louis pursed his lips and exhaled. Don’t engage, he told himself. “No, they don’t. The kids are fine. You’re using them to manipulate me.”
Shit.
“You asshole. I’m here cleaning this house, going to work, driving them to soccer and dancing and theater and a million other things. While you just sit up there with your big important job and… and…”
She was only lost for words momentarily. “Fuck, I don’t even know what you’re doing,”
“I told you, I’m overseeing construction on—”
“Spare me the boardroom definition. You know what? I don’t give a shit.”
The pitch of her voice got higher and the volume louder with each long, winding sentence.
His occasional interjections in self-defense barely gave her pause.
Glancing sideways, he saw the next delivery drift in and heard the click of the locks. He hoped it wasn’t—
“Hey! Louis, my man!”
He pointed at his earpiece, but Toby didn’t take a moment’s pause. “Gotcha,” he winked. “Big load today. I’ll just get it started.” He made for the control panel.
“No, don’t do that! What? No, not you, honey.”
A memory of his wife laughing in the sunshine on their first picnic drifted through his mind’s eye. Her voice, once lilting and hopeful, now punctured his calm like a baby crying in the night. A bank of clouds that weren’t there that day turned the scene inexplicably gray.
He stepped across the cabin and placed his body between Toby and the controls.
Dark brown eyes blinked mechanically. Broad chest grew wider.
Then, a smile.
“Right, you are, boss.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Melina, “Are you listening to a word I’m saying? The bill for the roof? Did you even hear how much it’s going to cost us?”
“Yes, I know.”
Toby’s head dropped to one side. “OK, but you better start it up. Next load’s not far behind.”
Louis nodded, attention wavering.
His head felt funny.
What was that smell?
“I saw the new diggers yesterday.” Toby was grinning again. “That is some machinery. Years in design. I should know because I went through the manuals, myself.”
The controls were as familiar as his own hand.
He tried to hear Mel’s words without hearing them. “Roof!” “Expensive!!” “Asshole!!!”
Toby gave more irrelevant details about the new diggers. Suddenly, he stopped mid-sentence. He was looking outside. “Oh, here it comes now. Check it out, boss.”
Louis broke concentration to glance through the transparent panel. The gigantic rock moved gracefully, like a whale through water. Rough edges formed valleys and mountains, canyons and crevices. Pockets of ice shone in the light of the moon.
Why was his vision blurry?
Look back down at the panel.
Hands swiftly moving.
Hang on, didn’t he already do that command?
“Hang on, honey.”
“Don’t you ‘hang on’ me.”
“I think you already did that command.”
He looked at Toby. Paying more attention than he was letting on. “Did you seal the door when you came in?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t work otherwise.”
Neither man broke eye contact.
He hit the final command and the sound of hydraulics and shifting conveyor belts filled whatever gaps were left by the non-stop words coming straight to his brain.
“OK, I’ll call you later, Mel.”
“Don’t hang up on me!” she barked. Then, softer, kind of whiny, “I need you to promise you’ll be back next week. We need you here.” A slight waver in her voice.
He felt worse than before. “Sure.”
“Sure, what?” asked Toby. “We can’t accept the next package until this one is done.”
He nodded. “Not what I meant.” He scratched the back of his neck. It felt clammy.
“Sure, sure. Well, I’ll be able to sort you out either way. Never been late yet, pretty sure I’ll be top of the leader board again…”
His head was nodding but vision still lacking focus. Better check the seals.
Melina was still talking.
Toby was still talking.
The hydraulics grunted.
The asteroid finished its pass, giving way to darkness.
A crunching sound under his feet let him know that the rocks from the transport were making it into the loading bay.
His head.
Better check the seal.
He tripped over his feet and almost fell down the ladder.
“Nothing wrong with that seal, boss,” said Toby.
“It could be faulty. You wouldn’t notice.”
He ran his eyes around the edges. Picked up the infrared glasses.
They were losing heat.
Losing oxygen.
Was he imagining that metallic smell?
The chatter was going to make his head explode.
“You should see the houses they’re building out there. I can’t wait for them to close the cylinder. Then we’ll really get started.”
Louis’ hand fell onto a pair of bolt cutters.
“I went there on assignment last week. They invited me personally, probably because I did so good with the deliveries lately. Do you want to see the footage? I can pull it up here and show you…”
“And Stacey almost failed math. This, despite the three thousand dollar chat tutor that spends an hour a day going through the easiest questions that I could be doing, myself…”
“Will you…” his hand closed on the handle. “Shut…” He lifted it in both hands. “UP!”
Spinning, it connected with Toby’s head, taking it clean off.
Wires and sparks exposed.
Louis released all the air from his lungs and dropped the tool.
Hand to his ear, he hung up on stunned silence.
The regular sound of machinery continued in the vacuum of conversation.
A soft voice.
“Everything OK down—”
A face poking around the doorframe. Her head dropped sideways. “What did you do that for?”
“Pol,” Louis said. He hadn’t noticed he was panting. “I think there’s a leak.”
“That’s gonna cost you.” She was still looking at the mess. “He was latest model. Optimized for positivity and conversation.”
“I know. Can you…?”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure.” She lifted the body and strapped it to her back. She placed the still-sparking head into a satchel. The face still wore the expression of someone about to say something he found exquisitely interesting, mouth open, eyes bright.
She stepped towards the waiting lift. “Will you be OK here on your own?”
He nodded. “I’ll seal the upper door and re-equilibrate.”
“Sure. I’ll see to this when I get back.”
“Thank you.” A quick pause. “Pol?”
“Hm?” She was halfway into the elevator below them.
“Don’t be too long. I feel like talking to someone.”
She smiled that smile and nodded.
The elevator closed and he watched it accelerate into the twenty kilometer descent.
He struggled against unconsciousness.
Scrambled to the upper room and sealed the door.
Reset the oxygen levels and locks.
Breathing evened out.
She’s right that I shouldn’t have hit Toby, he thought. Why do I feel like those damn bots are trying to kill me all the time?
The delivery was already moving from the top of the sky lift on transports bound for the giant habitation cylinder under construction.
It drifted into view, its orbit just behind and inside the asteroid’s.
He lay on the floor and watched the freight carriers cruise in to land on the gaping building zone.
Squinting, he could just make out the machines that covered the brightly lit hull.
Sun rays broke through the darkness, forcing him to look away. He imagined the Dyson sphere around it that was powering both his sky high workplace and the construction of the cylinder, but it was no more visible than the nuclear reactors on the ground far below that fuelled the power-hungry Earth.
How he was supposed to make sure everything was perfectly fit for human habitation, he didn’t know.
His priority right now was to finish up the week in one piece and get back to the family that needed him.
He closed his eyes.
Nice work on the changes!