Engineered Magic

1 AL: Irene

“There is an electrical problem down on deck fourteen. Darien; take Irene and sort it out,” the shift supervisor, Dennis, called from his desk at the head of the room. Irene was hanging out near the door to the recycle room watching the video feed from a huge forest growing up through a section of the ruins. A large section of the structure's roof had failed allowing in light and water. She had seen smaller examples of the phenomenon before, peeking over the shoulders of the senior engineers, but never anything this large. She looked up at the sound of her name and walked over to the door to the tool room where she could see Darien.

“Do you have your load out?” Darien asked when he saw that she was already carrying a tool bucket.

“No,” Irene responded. “I have been doing mostly plumbing work so I will need to switch out.” The two of them went into the tool room. Darien helped her by pulling the standard electrical tool set, while she checked in the plumbing tools her bucket was loaded with.

When the electrical tool set checked out in Irene’s name, Darien picked up his own bucket and they headed out. They took the central elevator down to deck fourteen. The doors opened to a darkened corridor. Only the emergency lighting strips along the floor were active.

“I think I see the problem,” Darien commented. Irene forced a laugh at his comment. Darien was of the landing generation but he was six years her senior so she didn’t know him very well. The landing generation was four times the size of the last generation of flight crew. Each couple was issued eight children, two at a time with a two year separation between each set. Darien was from the oldest group while Irene was a member of the youngest set. She was sixteen at the landing. Irene recently turned seventeen. She was looking forward to when she reached eighteen and could take the tests for the promotion from apprentice to intern.

They started at the electrical closet for this floor. The breaker for the lights was flipped.

“It will be a bad light fixture in one of the halls. I’ve replaced a dozen of them in the last month,” Darien commented. “The landing gave them a good shake. We will have to test at each junction box to isolate which bank the bad one is in.” Irene already knew that but she nodded at Darien like it was new. She put a tag on the breaker marking it as under repair, so no one would accidentally turn it back on while they worked.

It turned out that Darien’s ‘we’ actually meant that he would watch while she did the work. She pulled the first cover, disconnected the feed and tested all the branches. The second branch was grounded out. She read the code marked on the wires which gave the location of the next junction, then put it all back together.

“Did you hear about the fruit they found in the ruin’s forest?” Darien asked, as she set up her tools to work on the second junction. Irene mumbled around the terminal screw she was holding with her lips that she hadn’t heard about it.

“It looks like an apple but tastes like a plum,” Darien expounded. “They were going to call it a plum-apple but decided that was too confusing.” He went on to tell her about how the explorers threw the fruit to scare off a group of oversized rats. The animals scurried off into the trees.

“Isn’t it a little risky to be eating wild fruit?” Irene asked after she replaced the terminal screw.

“They used the field unit to test it first,” Darien explained. “They have found a lot of edible plants. Even the rat meat tested edible, although I don’t think anyone has eaten it yet. They shouldn’t have called them rats. I think the name alone is scaring everyone off.” He laughed and went on to explain how they weren’t certain the larger rats they found in the forest were the same animal. They were working on trying to catch or kill one so that they could examine it closer.

Irene knew that the rats weren’t actually rats. They were a small animal bigger than a rat. They were about a foot long and they didn’t have tails. When chased they disappeared down drains, air vents and gaps caused by the structure’s collapse. It was this behavior that led people to call them rats.

When they were first discovered everyone thought they would only live close to the edges of the ruin, where they could go outside for food. The explorers discovered to their regret that the animals actually got thicker farther in. A room they were camping in was flooded with rats coming out of the vents during the night. There must have been a nest in the ductwork around the room. Rat claws were incredibly sharp and could do a lot of damage if they got on a person. Several people were badly injured. That was when Irene’s mother was dispatched to the ruins to provide onsite medical care. Irene’s youngest brother, Phillip, went as well since he was apprenticed to the medical department.

The discovery of the collapse with the forest growing in it explained how there could continue to be animals so far inside. Luckily everyone in the ruins wass getting good at defending themselves from the animals. They could be frightened off with a couple sharp blows from a length of tubing or killed with a stab from a field knife.

Irene was aware the exploration teams were drinking the water in the ruins. They tested it and carried portable purifiers. Water was heavy. Carrying what they needed from the ship's purifying systems limited how far the teams could reach. It still seemed a little reckless to her to start eating raw fruit. The fruit itself may test out as safe but that didn’t mean it wasn’t contaminated with something else.

There were day-long lectures about the unknown microbes that would inhabit the ecosystem of the world before landing. These came along with instructions to minimize contact with the outside world and report any illness including something as small as a rash. Finding a living world in this system was the dream of the Speedwell’s builders but it came with its own set of dangers.

Irene was able to identify which bank of lights the bad one was in it at the third junction box. Darien helped her fetch a ladder from the maintenance closet. He stayed on the floor as she climbed it to test the fixtures.

The seventh light was bad. Irene set the meter down on the top of the ladder and fished the cover screws out of her mouth so she could tell Darien. She tuned out the stream of chatter that was coming from Darien as she worked. She started listening to him more attentively as she waited for a break for her to speak. He was saying something about swords.

“What?” Irene said. She did a quick recap in her head about what Darien was talking about. He was saying something about using self defense techniques against the rats. “I thought you were talking about stick fighting?” she questioned.

“Yeah, well some of us read in the histories that singlestick was used to learn the basics of the cutlass. Swords just seem so much cooler,” Darien replied with a spark of excitement in his eyes.

“Uh-huh,” Irene agreed. “This is the bad one,” she added before he could start up again.

“At last,” Darien said. He said it like he was the one climbing the ladder. “Pull the fixture and close up the connection. We will turn the power back on for this circuit while we are gone. We ran out of light fixtures in stock a few days ago. So we will have to take this up to the workshop and make the repairs to it ourselves.” This was new information for Irene. She acknowledged his instructions and started securing the wiring.

The fixture came out easily. The loose mounts were probably the reason it was damaged in the landing. She put all the bolts back into the holes they came out of so they wouldn’t be lost. She handed the fixture down to Darien.

“You can join us if you want,” Darien offered as they carried the ladder back to the maintenance closet. “We practice in the exercise room on deck eighteen most evenings. Being younger than the rest of us shouldn’t hold you back.”

“I’d like to,” Irene responded. “I am not sure I have the time. I spend most of my evenings studying.”

“Parents can be a pain,” Darien observed. “I remember how happy I was when I turned eighteen and got to move out to single housing.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait,” Irene responded. She was surprised Darien thought the only reason to study was a parent’s supervision. She had been without any parental supervision for months now. She enjoyed learning new things. It was true that some subjects interested her less than others but in engineering it seemed like eventually they all tied together somehow.

Irene actually dreaded having to move out to single housing. Family housing was incredibly cramped when she was a child. She shared a bedroom with three sisters, while the second child’s room was filled with her four brothers. Everyone in this generation grew up that way. Ever since her father died she was living alone in the same space. She had learned to cherish her privacy.

Single housing consisted of barracks that were hastily constructed in empty warehouse space. Earlier generations consisted of exactly the same number of individuals as the previous one. With the wide spacing between them, children lived with their parents until they passed on. People only changed housing when they paired. The plan was to replace the barracks with new construction built outside the ship.

“Well come when you can. You never know when we will get sent out to investigate some piece of recovered tech. You will need to be able to defend yourself,” Darien commented.

Darien’s comment lingered with her the rest of the shift. Irene repaired the light fixture by replacing an internal wire that was missing some of its insulation layer. It must have rubbed off during the rattling descent. Darien supervised her replacement of the light. When they finished Darien said he needed to use the restroom and that he would see her up in the office.

It was still about an hour until the end of the shift. Irene didn’t think there was time to complete a new repair, so she went back to the workshop. She worked on repairing light fixtures until the end of shift. The stack of them on the intake shelves was really impressive. Not all of them were as easy to fix as the one she brought in. By the time the shift was over she was forced to return several to the intake pile, unable to repair them with the parts on hand.

The engineering center lights were in power save mode and most of the desks empty when Irene carried the five she managed to repair over to the stockroom. She spotted Agatha at her desk in the back of the room. Irene did not lie to Darien when she said she spent most of her evenings in study but she was spending some time with Agatha. She liked to keep up to date with how inscription decoding was going.

Agatha was successful decoding three symbol inscriptions by coloring them with shades of gray by row patterns and then by column patterns and overlaying the two masks. Neither Agatha or Irene figured out what any of the images meant.

While putting the lights away and entering their return into the inventory, Irene decided to talk to Agatha about Darien’s comment. Agatha seemed distracted as Irene approached her.

“Good evening,” Irene said to catch her attention.

“Oh, Irene,” Agatha said as her attention focused on the young woman. “Good evening. Working late again tonight?”

“I was just putting a few items away,” Irene replied. “I have a question about the ruins and I wondered if you had a moment to talk about them.”

“Yes, of course,” Agatha responded. “Pull up a chair.” Irene sat down and glanced at Agatha’s screen. She was surprised to see it was showing a video of a group of explorers throwing fruit at a group of animals. She was expecting to see an inscription.

“What was your question?” Agatha asked, after Irene settled in her chair.

“Something Darien said to me today made me start thinking. I remember when Command first decided to send an exploration team into the ruins, the stated goal was to find resources and technology that we could use,” Irene explained. “I was just wondering… Has anyone found any?”

“Any what?” Agatha asked.

“Resources or technology,” Irene said. “Although honestly I am more interested in what technology has been found.”

“It depends on how you define resources,” Agatha said. She gestured at the video on the monitor. “Technically those apples could be considered a resource. Although we may have found something similar if we did a better survey of the local area. As it is that green area is too far into the structure to make hauling those apples out worth it. A more obvious resource is the material of the structure itself. That is mostly stone, steel and glass. Again it is a little questionable whether it would be worth the effort to haul it back here.

“At one point there was talk of refitting the outer rooms and using them as housing instead of building new. That was before everyone realized how dangerous the rats could be.” Agatha sighed. “As for technology… No, Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Irene asked. “Not even the ruins of it?”

“Nothing,” Agatha repeated.

“How is that even possible?” Irene asked. “I don’t mean computers and robots. What about air handlers, lights and plumbing?”

“They found ductwork obviously. The rats seem to love it. They tried to follow it back to a mechanical room but there is always a narrow spot no one can get past,” Agatha explained. There are panels of some kind of crystalline material embedded in the ceiling. They shatter when we try to pry them out. There doesn’t appear to be any wiring to them. When the shards were tested with the mobile unit they came back as silicon glass. As for the plumbing…” Agatha trailed off as she decided how best to describe what they found. “The sanitary facilities appear to be rather organic. The water oozes out of a section of sandstone. They tried to dig it out to find the water source. When they broke the stone looking for the source, the water flow stopped. The stone got harder the farther down they went. They were forced to give it up after about five feet. Command has some theory about water tables and surface tension. The water cascades everyone is drinking from is thought to be rain water gathered by the roof.”

“Organic?” Irene questioned.

“The current theory is that some of the greenery we saw growing in early collapses was actual overgrowth from the restrooms,” Agatha explained. “I guess that is a technology of a kind, just not the kind we were looking for.” Agatha looked at her display again. Irene realized the fruit throwing was playing on a loop. “You know,” Agatha said thoughtfully, “this greenspace might actually be the air handler… No, the ratio doesn’t work out. Maybe that is what we are supposed to believe…” Agatha said those last words so softly that Irene barely heard them.

“What do you mean ‘supposed to believe’?” Irene countered.

Agatha looked at the young girl like she forgot for a moment that she was there. Irene returned the old woman’s gaze and waited. Agatha turned to her desk and stopped the video loop. She pulled up a static image of a section of debris outside the entrance to the structure. She zoomed in on a section of collapsed stone wall.

“What do you see here?” she asked Irene. Irene studied the image. Her first response of ‘a collapsed wall’ seemed way too simple. The stone blocks were massive. In the lower section that was still standing the blocks were so tightly fit together that she could not see a seam. The upper edge was broken in a ragged pattern. She could just see the outline of a butterfly clamp made of metal holding one of the blocks to its neighbors where the block on top of it was shifted out of line. Vertical rods of steel rose up from where they were threaded through the stone blocks. Some of the broken rusty ends were bent forward. One block was half swung forward from its position. She could see the hole the rod was once threaded through.

Wait a second, Irene thought to herself. There was no way the block could swing forward like that, without either breaking the steel rod or splitting the stone at the hole. The only way the stone could end up in that position was if…

“It was built that way,” Irene said out loud.

“Yes!” Agatha said excitedly. There was relief in her voice. Finally someone else saw it too. “I don’t think it is real. I mean obviously there is a structure there but I think it was built as a ruin.”

“But what would be the point?” Irene asked.

“I don’t know. There are a lot of other things that don’t fit either,” Agatha responded. “It is impossible that all the water a city this size would need was delivered by water tension alone up five feet of stone! The amount of pressure you would need to do that would be tremendous. Where are the pumps?”

“Pumps take power,” Irene commented. “Where are the power plants?”

“Exactly,” Agatha replied. “All the guts of a city are missing. It is like the structure was built as a stage.”

“A stage for what?” Irene asked.

“That is the question we should be asking,” Agatha responded.