NOVEL WEB Chapter 9: 9. It is what it is
Despite feeling disgruntled about being kept out of the loop, having no idea when exactly did huge oval table appear in the throne room, Tzol had to admit it was an improvement. Since whole natural population was long gone, there was really no reason to keep role playing and acting as actual royal court. He never considered himself being of lower status compared to Xul or Ah Kin, yet he was still required to kneel on mats when being up here. Which was main reason why he spent all his time down at middle levels. There, others had to kneel in front of him.
He carefully examined a name plaque in front of him. His name and officially appointed title were redundant in his opinion. Was it a sign of some new role playing routine? To his left, Xul had such plaque as well. Stupid.
Then, plaque on his right made him frown. "Zed, Lab-tech" why did they bother placing that? Zed was dead. Jumped into waste disposal unit and got crushed beyond rescuing. But, since they could not retrieve his tags and decommission him officially, he never got replaced. Another reason why he chose to stay at the middle. He had to do all the lab work there by himself. Well, he did not need to do it at all any more, but what else is he supposed to do? Go gardening with Dagda? Not even if his life depended on it.
He could not clearly read next tag, but he assumed it's for his only other subordinate, Mani. If he even could count as such. Mone at least helped him out here and there, until he completely crumbled. This new guy.. well, whatever.
Opposite of him, left from Xul, sat Ah Kin, Geb and Hama. Which made sense, as they were biochemical research personnel. Ah Kin was a top class chemist, which he mostly used now to make those awful spirits he and Xul called holy potions. Ged was biologist slash cook, and Hama was biochemical tech with love for pastries. They both got into their roles so much that they actually modified their lab into a kitchen and cooked for them all since last set of manual servants got, hm, dismissed. That young one, Jone, was usually delivering their meals once a day, leaving them to scrounge their other meals in a day by themselves. If they felt the need for it, which was rare.
Next to Hama were three empty seats, and then that silent guy. Wuo? He was part of logistics, working in greenhouses, so those empty seats are likely for Dagda and his twins. Being late. If he had to guess, Dagda was pulling some nonsense over them again. That guy had no bottom line nor common sense.
Kane, Ler and Soma were sitting together and comparing notes as last group on that side of the table. Or were they gossiping again? They looked too giddy to be discussing inventory issues.
Tzol frowned as it hit him that there were really too few sitting places around this table. On his side, there was only maintenance crew left. Olaf with his three stooges that arrived 5 cycles ago. Scraped from the bottom of some barrel and sent down here to fill the holes in their crew.
At least Notos, Veles and Rudra could actually maintain functionality of their infrastructure. Plumber, fire manager and, what was Rudra's job? Wires?
It took some time to remember. Rudra came 35 cycles ago. With Zed, Geb and Dagda. Originally he was following Ah Kin around, due concerns over his safety and integrity of circuits at top level labs and landing pad on the roof. So, a security officer of a sort? But he did not do that for long. Some 5 cycles later, Ah Kin stated that he does not need a nanny, so he got sent to Dagda to assist with garden's infrastructure and maintenance? Something like that.
That left like 8 empty seats. Was that all? Since when did their numbers dwindle so low? He cast a glance at Xul next to him. Is he aware that this is not normal? What were gods doing up there, stripping the crew down to this levels? Even though all of the production on the bottom level was automated, to maintain station of this size, there should be way more people. As there were in the past.
Tzol closed his eyes and started meditating. What gods did or thought was not really important at this moment. Their current situation could not be solved by divine intervention, even if those above still cared about them. If they ever did.
As everyone slowly gathered and took their seats, murmur dwindled down. Blaze stuffed Mani into his designated spot as he had no patience to watch him freak out over something so obvious.
Then he settled himself down in his own place, between Rudra and Cid. Looking around he was a bit surprised by how few people were here. Being tied to the basements, and only seeing Mani, Jone and cleaners for most of the time, he was really not aware of how few people were left here. Jone shot him a look from opposite side, and he suddenly realized that this is it. After 10 cycles of waiting he and Jone finally arrived at the expected starting point: following Yax and Ivory on their mission to the unknown wilderness outside.
Jone could not decipher Blaze's face. What is there to be so happy about? He decided to ignore him and focused his attention to their, er, General Director Xul.
Xul looked over faces of his complete personnel. Majority of them he knew for over 20 cycles, and willingly or not, all of them became indispensable to him. To care about well-being of his subjects was in his blood. He was made to be King, and no matter what he is called now, that's who he is. Only unknown face was kid named Mani. Xul observed him trying to sink in his chair and hide next to Olaf. Really shy. Young and immature.
No point in dragging it out, so he stood up, placed his hands behind his back in his best royal posture of confident leadership, and summed up events up to this point.
"As you are all aware already, a few days ago there was a fluctuation in geothermal output levels, big enough to trigger both manual and automated alarm. Side effects also included temperature anomaly in the middle greenhouses that somehow made a part of it freeze solid. Since then, thermals stabilized. Sections, report latest status by order of priority." He sat back down, and looked at Kane.
Having been declared first priority never before happened to Kane. He stood up, nodded, and summed his findings. "In my records, the Eye of Great Serpent was described as holy key with alarm functions, mentioned to be installed at throne room at the same time that station became operational. Thirteen cycles ago, as being instructed from above, Eye was placed into a insulation box that was meant to cut it's receivers and deactivate its alarm functions." He glanced at Yax. "Being removed out from the box, it was reconnected and activated during last geothermal anomaly as per design. It is impossible to say if there were prior occurrences where it would be triggered if it was not stored in treasury." He sat down, as there was really nothing more he could add to that.
Xul nodded and clarified. "That Eye was made and placed in throne room by original constructors of this station. It is a receiver connected to monitoring instruments underground, serving as early warning for a case of thermal energy depletion that should trigger Station Relocation Protocol." When orders came to deactivate it, he knew that meant those above decided not to keep production going if current geothermal reserves run out. There were signs showing that tendency even before, when they were instructed to reduce numbers of normals working for them. He glanced at Ah Kin beside him, knowing that he still did not get over that period of time.
Xul felt sadness spreading through him. They all spent their entire existence in servitude, obediently following even most ridiculous instructions and orders, doing things that sometimes left scars deep enough to drive them into madness. Like An Kin. Like Old Mone. Zed. Only to be left to fight for their survival on their own.
He stopped himself from falling into familiar downward spiral. Now was not the time. He firmly looked at the youngest of them all, little clerk still untainted by despair. "Mani, tell us, what is result of your calculations?"