The lobby at the power plant is empty, the lights are dimmed and Stacy isn't at the front desk. Jordan told me to come to work 30 minutes before the meeting, but I came 45 minutes early. The manufacturing area is quiet except for one or two people who also came to early to get some work done. I walk into the staff lounge and put my belongings in my locker. One of the newer employees, who I'm not quite sure the name of, sits on the couch on his phone. After putting my stuff away and peeping into the meeting room and seeing two people sitting down on their laptops, I leave the staff lounge and back into the manufacturing area.
A text comes in from Jordan. The sound of the notification resonates throughout the entire manufacturing area. It's quiet when you don't have twenty people working at the same time. "Come down to The Cube," it says. The Cube, slang for the glass box control room. But how did he know I was here? Oh. The cameras. I look up at one of the security cameras that hangs above the staff lounge door.
With a swipe of my ID card, the gate to the cargo elevator swings open and I walk in. It goes down slowly while creaking and groaning the whole way down. At the bottom, the gates swing open. The control room is a large glass cube in the middle of a T-shaped hall intersection. It's made of a privacy glass, so the people inside can toggle it on and off any time they want. When it's on, the entire cube turns translucent. Jordan is inside leaning against one of the glass walls. He sees me walk in.
"You're early," he says very matter-of-factly.
"You are too," I say. Anyone here this early on Tuesdays is either in the meeting room waiting for the meeting to start, or getting coffee and waiting around in the staff lounge. He's the only one from the control room team that's down here.
The control room is filled with at least twenty workstations, each having three monitors, some in the front have six. Each one belongs to one of the employees that work down here. They were supposed to be shared, but the fact that we had more than we needed and that people started to decorate their workspaces, it non-verbally changed to personal workstations.
"C'mon follow me." He gets up off the wall and starts to walk out of the glass box.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see. I need to tell you something."
I follow him down one of the maintenance halls that branches off from where the control room is. I'm not unfamiliar with the maintenance hall. I've been down here before, but not often. Small autonomous robots, the size of water bottles, roam around cleaning the floors this early in the day. The walls are lined with pipes and wires. Dim fluorescent lights light the halls, only enough to see where to walk. At first, I think he's taking me to the reactors, but then I realize those are the other way.
After a minute or so of walking, Jordan pulls me into one of the cubbies in the hall. I think I lose my balance. My head slams into the metal grate that stops my fall. He apologizes.
"So?" I say jokingly. "What's up?"
"Shush." He speaks in a loud whisper. Not saying a word, I look around the corner where we came from thinking he means someone was following us. "I brought you down here to warn you of Nathan."
"Nathan?" I also speak in a whisper. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know. I know you two are friends, but I work with him most of the time down here when he's no on the ground level. So you have to trust me on this. He... has not been himself recently, to put it simply. He's kind of secluded himself down here from everyone else. Doing just his job and that's it. I don't know if he's just having a bad week or if it's something else. I brought you far back here because I didn't want any of the cameras to hear or us. It's bad enough that they saw us walk down here.
"Should I talk to him about it? Him and I are—" he cuts me off before I can finish.
"No," he says quickly. "Don't tell anyone. This is only between us so far. If anyone asks, say that we came down here to do an inspection. Righto?" He speaks almost normally now, no longer whispering. "Believe me, I've tried to approach him and he's just hid even more."
"What do you thinks wrong?" I ask, already knowing he won't know.
"No clue. If I had to guess, I'd be something within in family. I really couldn't tell." After an awkward moment where neither one of us talks, he pats me on the shoulder, "Neat. This meetup never happened alright?" He continues talking before I can even respond. "Also... nice job on the progress of the new control room. I'm sure you're happy about the things you'll present meeting eh?"
"Meh. I guess you could say so."
"Meh? Whatever... let's get going back. I'm getting a little cold down here." He wears a hoodie, but being deep underground, it does get cold in the maintenance halls away from any of the heat sources. The only thing that's warm down here is the steam in the pipes that run along the hall, but it doesn't heat the hall itself.
At the meeting, everyone attending sits at tables arranged in a U shape. Only the crews assigned to tasks and senior employees have to attend, and if there's space left, anyone who wants to participate can also come. With it being the first meeting of the month, more people show up to watch each of the crew's short presentations. The room sits 40, but some people stand in the back. At the front of the room, a presentation is displayed from a projector on the whiteboard.
Most people have their laptops out looking at our project management tool, which shows everything from what's being worked on by who to what needs to be done. Some people take notes. Each of the crews had to prepare a short presentation about their crew's progress in the previous month and what this month looks like.
The crews are pretty flexible. People can join and leave crews as they wish, but most of the time they are assigned by Jordan or Grover. Crews go into hibernation after their assigned task is completed until another task is assigned. Members of the crew can join another crew or join the ground crew when that happens. The leaders of each crew always hold the title of leader, even if their crew is in hibernation.
I'm the leader of the Delta Crew. The most loyal under me are Jake, Nola, and Adrian. People have come and gone but those three have been the active and most loyal across various crew assignments. We've gotten together well and have had good times together. Our skill set is diverse. Nola is very tech-savvy, Jake is experienced in construction, and Adrian is a little bit of both.
"I guess we will get started," Jordan says, standing at the front of the room with Nathan and Grover. "Hey everyone. Welcome to the weekly meeting. This is June, meaning we are approaching the peak of summer coming up. Because of this, we have already seen some smaller power surges in the commercial districts of South Newgle and residential districts of Legas. Those have been properly handled and resolved."
"That's right." Grover takes over the conversation. He's the reactor operator and can be considered by many as the boss around here. Everyone thinks that his job is super easy, but every time the conversation comes up, he says it's harder than everyone thinks. "Last month's upgrades have been working perfectly. We have broken our power production capacity record again at 1.3 gigawatts. Expect that to go up again shortly. Good job guys." Everyone claps.
Nathan begins to talk about the work of the ground crew and what they have done. He also covers the progress of the infrastructure improvements. Stacy sits on my left with a notebook opened to a blank page, seemingly staring off into space. Jake sits to my right, along with the rest of my crew. Inside my pocket, my phone vibrates. I wait until Nathan turns his back to point at a map on the projector to check it. It's a message from Dale.
It's a strange text to receive, given that we talked just last night about the party this morning. I type a short message back saying yes with one hand without looking down. Nathan finishes up his update.
"Alright, we're going to move on to our crews now. Alpha crew, you're up." Nathan says. A group of eight people gets up from where they are sitting and moves their way up to the front. All the presentations are already loaded onto the computer connected to the projector. Their crew is working on improvements to the reactors themselves and improvements to the infrastructure in the power plant. They point out graphs of the increasing throughput and potential plans in the future to widen the maintenance halls, a much needed improvement.
Our crew is up next. The four of us walk up to the front. Our presentation is already being shown. With me being the leader, I start it all.
"Hey all. As some of you know, we have been working with the ground crew over the last few weeks to work on the new control facility. Things we still need to finish include installing the final additions and splitting the control lines leading to the old control room in preparation for a seamless migration in the coming days." On the presentation includes the concept drawings and the current progress on the building. It's built with several inches of concrete on each wall for safety.
Nola continues after me, talking about the tech improvements made over the last month and the things still to come. It's impressive the work she has done. She has even hacked together a few things which somehow make things more aesthetically pleasing. They might not show it, but the people working in the old control room are eager to migrate to the new control room.
I close it off with a final update on the whole thing, "We expect it to be completed within the next two weeks. Possibly even within the next week if we can install the ventilation control system quickly."
After we are done presenting, we all sit back down. Stacy still has nothing written down in her notebook. Adrian gives me a fist bump, reaching over Jake. After us, the two last crews present. One is in charge of maintaining and upgrading parts of the infrastructure around South Aderas. The other is the ground crew, which includes everyone else who isn't a part of any specific crew that works in the manufacturing building and helps out where needed.
Once the presentations are completed, Jordan, Nathan, and Grover set goals for the month and close with their closing remarks. Presentations and the new goals are posted to our project management tool.
"Our company party is still on for this afternoon despite the possible rain, be sure to check your email for updates," Jordan says. We all leave the conference room and the staff lounge once we are dismissed. Nathan calls my name and catches up with me.
"What's up?" he says.
"Nothing much."
"We still doing lunch today?"
"Sure. Where do you want to go?"
"I was thinking about Lisa's." That wasn't what I was thinking about. Lisa's Bar and Grill is one of the newer restaurants in town. It's family-owned, and kind of pricy, but I don't have a big problem with it. Every so often the entire staff here goes out for a dinner somewhere. Last time it was Lisa's, and Nathan loved the fish so much he now goes there at least once a month with his family.
"We can do that." I say. "Noon?"
"Sure. Jordan and I gotta finish some stuff up so I have to go right now. I'll see you then."
"Bye," I say. He rides the cargo elevator down with Jordan, Grover, and two others. I head into the staff lounge and grab some of my stuff to start the workday. I think about what Jordan had told me for the rest of the morning. I watch him ride the elevator down until I can no longer see his head. All seems to be normal.
The morning after the meeting goes by quickly. Our crew works on the finishing details of the new control facility. The team that works down in The Cube swings by and takes a look at it. They seem impressed with the technology inside. I spend the morning working on the airtight door that leads from outside into a decontamination unit with Jake. It's a heavy blast door that needs it's locks to be remotely controlled from inside if needed.
Nola and Adrian start working on the ventilation system. It includes controls to allow air flow from outside, its own air conditioning and heating unit, and a way to vent all gasses from inside to outside, including fires. Because of this Grover has needed to spend months convincing and getting approval from the government for a room that can lower the room's pressure and oxygen levels to dangerous levels. It'll take another few days of installation and testing, and another day or so for checks and approval.
At quarter to noon, Nathan and I head out to Lisa's Bar and Grill in his car for lunch. Roads are busy as usual, it doesn't help that there's an accident and multiple lanes blocked off on the busiest road in the city. We park at the bank next door because the parking lot is full. Almost every table and booth in the restaurant is taken, many people are getting carry-out instead. We snag one of the last empty booths. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but lunch is their busiest time of the day by far.
"Looks like you had a busy morning," he says, noticing my wet hair. Even after taking a shower, I still sweat just walking from the car to inside.
"You could say so. Doesn't help that it's humid and 88 degrees outside... but a lot got done this morning, more than I was expecting."
The waitress swings by and asks what we want to drink. He orders up a soda, when I simply ask for water, making sure to rehydrate myself. I still think about what Jordan had told me about Nathan as he sits across from me. Nothing feels different about him. It feels like any other normal time. We catch up on life like always, talking about our families, talking about work, and what we're going to do later.
Once our waitress brings our drinks and takes our orders, I order up a simple BLT, and Nathan orders a tuna sandwich, each comes with a side of fries. After she steps away Nathan stretches out with his arms in the air and legs almost kicking me.
"This job is getting to me," he says.
"Already? You have at least 20 more years before you retire."
"I know, I know." He gulps down almost half of his drink. "It's just boring and stressful. 18 years here does a lot to you. You'll learn that later. Might quit in the next few years."
"Ever think about what you would do if you were to leave?" I ask him. It's a strange question to ask. I never expected him to consider quitting the job. Maybe that was what Jordan was talking about.
"Oh man I don't know. You would probably take my spot as the head supervisor... only if you would like of course."
"I don't know. I don't think I could handle the responsibilities of leading people like that. What did you do before working here? It doesn't seem like your type of job, but you don't seem to mind it."
"I don't think we need to go there." He chuckles.
"Aw why not?" I say. "Only curious."
"I'd rather not," he says in a more serious tone.
"Alright alright." Nathan has never been one to talk about himself too much. He'll tell stories from his childhood but he'll leave certain details out. He can talk about what he likes to do but not in great detail. It's a strange quirk about him that I can respect. How his wife deals with it is beyond me.
An awkward moment passes between us before he talks. "I'll tell you though. I'll work here until I die or the company dies. I stay loyal."
"I see. You do seem to bring life to the place." He doesn't say anything after.
There's one large television hung high on the wall, visible from everywhere in the restaurant. I notice Nathan staring at it. The entire time we've been on here, it has been airing the latest speech from John Johnson's political campaign. Nathan stares at it. It ends with him walking away from the mic while his audience cheers and waves flags and large signs.
"I despise the man," he says, "all talk no action. That's all his party is. He supports censorship and a weaker military. What a joke. Worse than the current Lead Admin. I can't believe anyone would vote for him or his party."
"Yet they still do."
"Yet they still do," he repeats. "If he gets elected this country will fall to pieces."
"You said that last election."
"Well it was true with Dunn wasn't it?" He's right. "His military reform? His regulations on the internet? His extended and more intrusive information collection on all the citizens in the country. It's made the country worse off and more polarized in the last five years. In fact, ever since a candidate from the New Unity Party has ever gotten elected, things have gotten worse and worse. Both of us seem to find common ground on a lot of things nonetheless.
In recent years, it's become more and more dangerous to have a political opinion different from the majority. There have been violent attacks in the streets and fires in neighborhoods just for someone stating their opinion. Even murders in broad daylight, yet the government and law enforcement couldn't seem to care less. It's only a matter of time before things get even worse.
After Johnson's speech, the midday news comes on with a breaking story on a two murder cases outside of SuperMart late last night. There's only one major news channel, with multiple smaller channels with a much smaller audience. It's become everyone's habit of watching Channel 4 for news and other channels when they're not airing. They have the largest amount of funding, straight from the government, and have their content in the most locations.
The food eventually comes and we eat while discussing various things. There's always food to take home because of the amount of food they give you. I take half of my sandwich with me, and so does Nathan.
We make it back to work, after only spending 45 minutes away, and the work day continues on as normal. The company party was confirmed to be happening after the weather this afternoon cleared up. By 3:30 p.m. everyone's mind seems to be off work. Outside of the manufacturing building are some yard games like volleyball and cornhole. Jordan and Grover are playing catch with a football. Some of the younger employees grab and drink bottles of beer from the cooler. I don't grab any of that this time knowing that there'll be enough of that tonight at the party.
The staff lounge has appetizers on a large table like chips and salsa. Most of the appetizers were made by the employees here and brought in today for a potluck-style meal. These celebrations only happen a handful of times per year, but it's a nice way to take the ease off.
Nathan is in the back grilling hamburgers and hotdogs on a large two-meter-long grill. It's quite early to start cooking everything, but with the rate at some people here eat things, we'll need a lot of food. It isn't the cheap wholesale burgers either, they're restaurant quality. He probably got them from his wife, since she works at one of the five-star restaurants downtown. He'll never tell us though.
"Looking good," I say.
"Yeah? They smell... mmmm... so good." He flips over a patty and rolls over some of the hot dogs. A splatter of hot grease lands on my arm, it's not enough to burn me, but I quickly swat it. Nathan laughs. "You cook much?"
"Yeah, but not this much," I say. "Just checking in. I'll see you later."
"See you later man."
With the extra time before food is served, I take the cargo elevator down to the control room to take my possible last look at the place before it's abandoned. No one notices me go down. Nobody is down here. Everyone is up on the ground level celebrating. I walk into the glass cube, sitting myself down in Nathan's chair in the back. The screens at the front display numbers and meters I don't even understand.
A long time ago, it started as simple as a hole carved into stone, then everything was cemented and it eventually evolved into a room made of drywall. About ten years ago, it was replaced with privacy glass and has been what we've used ever since. The team down here was hesitant about the move at first, but the new control facility keeps everything they like, plus a little more. The privacy glass still stays and easy access to the maintenance halls is better with a more modern elevator. The old cargo elevator will stay until it breaks. With advances in technology, the glass can serve more as a privacy shield. Images or even videos now can be projected onto the glass, making it almost a virtual reality room.
I'm sitting at Nathan's desk watching the graphs on the big screens go up and down, listening to the whirring of computer fans, when the sound of something falling over echos outside of The Cube. It's muffled, but I can still hear it. All the lights are off except the ones inside of The Cube. I get up from where I sit and walk out of The Cube and take a lap. Dead silence except for the faint chatter from the ground level. Another noise, almost as if pots and pans have fallen over.
My attention turns to the origin of the sound. It's down the same maintenance hall that Jordan and I walked down this morning, except this time, the lights are off. The sound of things rattling together continues more frequently as I approach the sound. I stop, and so does the noise.
"Hello?" I say curiously. The sound leads me in front of a storage area protected behind a metal gate. It should have been closed off and latched shut, but it's not. Someone's in there. I take out my phone and turn on its flashlight. Inside is a lanky man slouched over, sitting with his back against a metal rack of pipes. He squints at the light. He's an employee here, I've seen him and he has his ID badge, fairly new, but I can't quite recall a name. "What are you doing here?" I ask him. He doesn't respond, instead, he hangs his head low.
The door to another storage area swings open, making a loud crashing sound as it hits the wall it swings into. Someone else runs out toward The Cube, lightly pushing me out of the way. This time, I recognize him. Ethan. He's on the construction team and has been around here for about a year at 22 years young. The other man in front of me gets up and followed Ethan chasing to catch up with him. They take the cargo elevator up. What's strange is that their ID badges should have never allowed them to take the cargo elevator down here in the first place. They don't have the proper permissions to do so.
After latching both doors, I head back to The Cube. No one has their radios on them so I can't directly contact someone. Back at Nathan's desk, I queue for a system refresh on his workstation. I open his notebook looking to tear a page out, to let the team down here know what happened with the two employees and my system refresh when they come back. Half of the notebook is already full, containing pages of numbers and calculations, symbols and terminology, and graphs and diagrams that I don't understand. I leave the completed note on his desk, and head back up to the ground level.
The party continues until midnight, containing much more partying, games, and a mini-stage for the comedy and karaoke hours. I eat the food that is served and leave early, just before sunset, giving enough time to pick up Dale and leave for the party. But before that, I drive home. I don't tell anyone that I leave.
The car, as always, perfectly parks in the garage. But before I walk out, the screen on the center console to the car illuminates. A missed video call from Nathan and a text from Dale came in when I was driving. I try to call Nathan back but he doesn't respond. The text from Dale reminds me yet another time of the party starting in an hour.
I leave the car and walk into the house carrying the bag of leftovers from lunch, placing my work bag near the door, next to all the shoes we have. "I'm back."
"Hey. How was work?" she asks me. She sits in a chair reading a book. "You're home late."
"Boring." I walk over to where she sits and kiss her. "Julia in bed?" I ask, noticing the quietness in the house.
"Yeah, she was tired after her field day at school."
"So," I say as I take off my shoes, "Dale invited—"
"You to a party tonight..." she interrupts me. I'm taken off guard. How did she know? She closes her book and gets up from her chair.
"You knew. How did you know?" I ask while pulling her into a hug. She accepts it and we do a little spin.
"Darling I know more than you think." She kisses me on the cheek and breaks off from the hug. " I wish you were home more."
"Me too. I promise I'll be home more for the rest of the week."
"You can't promise that." She's right. She looks up into my eyes with a sorrowful look. "I need you here. She needs you here."
"I know, I'll try my best." With that, she smiles back.
"Don't stay too late... or party too hard. You still have work."
"You're my mom now?" I say jokingly.
She laughs softly. "Maybe. I'll see you tomorrow," she says as she kisses me again. "Have fun. Oh, and remember Julia's graduation on Friday."
"I won't forget."