Future Assignments

Maro woke before the dorm lights came up. For a few moments, he lay still in the gray, listening to the gradual hum of waking critters bursting into song. The slate was still on the floor where he’d left it. Maro picked it up and shoved it into his footlocker. The lights began to ease up the brightness and he forced himself into his usual routine. Wash, dress, pack, grab a wrapped breakfast for later, field.

Dew on the grounds, he knew that for certain. Dew clinging in the darkness while the dawn sun began to pale the horizon. Workers still gathered in their groups as their foremen wrangled whose assignment was what today. Cold and wet. He joined his group where Tipéko was sorting through tables on his slate while everyone waited for the transports to arrive.

“You’re here early.”

“I work here.”

“Not usually so in these minutes.”

“Call the day auspicious, then.”

“Yeah, ’cuz you’ll be out of here by dinner.”

Maro ran his hand through his hair. “How the…” He huffed. “I should be efficient, then. Before they get here.”

Tipéko looked back at the residence hall. “Do you know you’re not scheduled?”

Maro looked at him squarely in the eye and shook his head with a strict face.

“What the hell,” Tipéko clapped his hands and stashed his slate. “Man hates it here until the last day.”

Maro stretched his arms out, still stiff from sleep, and started after the arriving truck along with the other members of his cohort. He hopped up, rubbing his neck. The morning was taking its time to begin. Good. Regardless, it would still take about an hour for the sun to make pleasant weather, and from there it was a quick jump into tough sweat.

“So, Maro, I hear you go back to the Core.”

No secrets with Tipéko.

“Come now, Rodgio, they only said ‘under review’”.

“Ha, they only ‘review it’ when they need you! Rest of time? Sit on shelf with us.”

“Touché.”

He massaged his neck again, looking up at the now-ruddy-blue sky. There were few clouds and daylight was spreading across like paint spilling on a blank canvas. But as he looked, he noticed a small speck in the distance. Maro blinked, making sure it wasn’t a trick of the light, but it remained. He watched for a couple of minutes, and he noticed it was slightly moving.

“Hey, look! They’re bringing an airship for Lunsi boy over here.”

Chatter quickly sprouted up, only for Tipéko to intervene.

“Focus, focus. Come on, it’s a dot. Probably some cruise ship. Now let’s get off Maro’s back and get to work.”

Maro nodded in his general direction as a show of gratitude. The truck stopped and Tipéko hopped out.

“Flower duty! Again! Ugh.”

The morning settled into its rhythm. Bags filled. Flowers disappeared. Sun hastily burning away the dew. They were more closely packed today; this group of pala had been sorely mistreated. But there was an atmosphere in the group. Every so often someone stopped working long enough to glance skyward. The speck had grown a little, but it didn’t seem to be getting any closer, which more than confirmed for the farmhands that it was, indeed, an airship.

“It has not moved in an hour!” Cried Rodgio. “Why they take so long?”

Thankfully in the next hour a crawler rumbled a few rows close. It was a substantial vehicle, with a wide arm, held together by a tangle of triangles, that hovered over the pala. It whined noisily. And what should have been a distraction helped to drown out the others’ jokes. Up, down, left, right, twist. How tedious, yet how many days had he done this from sun up to sundown?

It was nice to have people picking up the waste. He watched the crawler advance between the rows between picking. The machine’s arm hung over the rows like the neck of some enormous animal, drinking in anything that might disturb the plants. Its sheer size gave Maro an irrational unease every time it got closer. It seemed to be following him. Row after row. It was getting a little too loud. He looked up again and noticed that they and the crawler were approaching a lookout tower.

He paused with a flower half-twisted from its stem. The crawler’s wheels rolled near the tower’s foundation before sliding into the next row. Not dangerous, necessarily. Just careless. Uncharacteristic. He started to keep an eye on the thing. The tower was set upon a few rows’ worth of space, and the gap between the crawler and the tower was getting smaller each time it turned around to clear some more pala. Maro knew he shouldn’t be anxious about it. He was probably misjudging the distance—or maybe it was just programmed to swing wide on these rows, the crawlers had become very precise in recent turns—but now more farmhands than him were warily eyeing the machine. It came up awfully fast on the next row, stopping just before anyone got worried. He looked around for Tipéko.

There he was, at the clearing around the tower, with an incredulous face as if he was sensing something off. Maro wasn’t even working now, he recognized, and it seemed that everyone was doing the same. That crawler was erratic. It was coming back now on the next row, and a low, bassy revving accompanied its vacuum’s whine. Not good. Not at all. Maro finally stopped staring and turned his back on the plants, moving to where Tipéko was standing to ask if something was going to happen. He had just crossed under one of the plants when the crawler jumped out at the clearing, careening towards the tower.

Somebody shouted, and there was a scuffle as people frantically tried to jump away. Then a sharp crack. Maro looked up just in time to see the machine’s arm falling apart as it slammed into one of the tower’s legs. Quite a bit of cursing popped up from everyone around him.

“An actual retard programmed that thing! Who the hell sets it to do that?”

“Ah, crud, this is gonna catch fire. Somebody call the trucks.”

“Is the tower leaning? Does it look like that to you?”

“Oh shit.”

The tower’s upper platform swung sideways with a groan that carried across the field. It was chaos. Workers, Maro among them, racing every way, trying to get out from under the tower, the deafening crunch of wood and metal cracking and scraping. The whole tower tumbled down on top of the crawler. People reacted in the only way they knew how: shouting, cursing, running.

The noise dissipated quickly. But it wasn’t quiet. Among the shouting and panicking, Maro remembered that people were in that tower. He broke into a sprint back to the remains as others remembered the same.

“Maro, come here!” Shouted Tipéko. “Help me lift this.”

He and several others grabbed a slab of wood and hoisted it up, slamming it down behind them. Fragments of wood and shattered glass lay around them. They were about to grab another piece of the tower when a pained scream sounded on the other side of the debris.

“Hold still, we’re coming! Is anyone with you?”

“Jus’ me!”

A relief there. At least they wouldn’t have to wade through the mess more than once. They picked their way through the wreckage, searching for the man. They strained for several minutes dragging away walls, posts, and ladders until they came across him. A beam had trapped him from below the waist against a section of the crawler’s chassis. Every movement drew another cry from him.

“Easy, easy,” somebody said.

“Don’t move him.”

“We need jacks.”

“The trucks are coming.”

Maro shook his head. “His legs will be gone by the time they get here.”

“They’ll grow back.”

“You want him to be in a wheelchair for seven turns?” Maro crouched beside the beam. It was not truly a beam anymore. The impact had twisted wood, steel reinforcement, and part of the tower’s ladder into a single tangled mass. Even if twenty people lifted together, they would never move it evenly enough. The wrong shift would crush the attendant outright. The man knew it too.

“Please,” he gasped. “Get me outta here.”

Maro put a hand on the wreckage. For a moment he only stared. It had been so long. Not since Te‘qaye. Not since the reports and interviews and recovery boards and endless conversations about rest. His hand remained on the twisted metal. Strange how quickly he remembered where everything was. How everything felt.

“Maro? What are you…”

Tipéko’s voice became distant. Maro was aware now that people were watching him. He had almost forgotten that nobody here had ever seen him work. A shadow extended from his hand, pressing itself into the wood. The beam vibrated beneath his palm. Maro closed his eyes and tried his best to feel. Feel the dirt beneath the man. The debris around him. The heat beating down on him, and the components of what used to be the tower. It was easy, enough to hurt. So much time had passed, and so little had been accomplished since he last experienced these sensations.

The shadow became tangible now, like tendrils of smoke. Wrapping around the beam, emanating from his hands. He lifted his arms, twitched his fingers. The beam rose up just a bit, causing gasps to erupt around him. He pushed a bit more…just a bit more, until the beam was high enough. Maro immediately gasped for air. He was out of practice, and this effort was taking its toll.

“Now.”

Nobody moved.

Maro grunted. “NOW.”

Hands rushed in and ripped the man from under the beam. He had started shaking and it hurt; the feeling one gets when training. A shallow breath turned into a huff, until he couldn’t bear it anymore and dropped the wreckage. It clattered to the ground, and so did he. Maro looked up and saw new faces on not-so-new people. He didn’t care. He’d finally done something of note here. He glanced over at the attendant, who was now laying on the ground, broken but free.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

A slow, almost mocking applause developed into heartfelt acclaim. Maro wasn’t in a good place to process any of it. Blood still rushed in his ears. His heart seemed determined to keep pace with the clapping.

Clap. Clap. Clap. The workers parted.

A small group of strangers stood beyond them in dark uniforms bearing the five-leaved shield of the Security Service. A stiff bunch. Rank insignia, unfamiliar faces, a particular unease with the temperature.

The man in the front wasn’t a stranger. He was broader than Maro remembered, more silver at the temples too, but an undeniably familiar face.

“Well done, well done,” said Sangoku, with an amused expression Maro remembered all too well. “An impressive performance from our favorite zariki.”