Chereads / Silicon & Gold / Chapter 4 - Cage Stroll

Chapter 4 - Cage Stroll

"Work and shop. What oh what shall I choose." Said Lukas, sprawled back on the white sheets of the bottom bunk.

He moved his fingers between both panels, expecting whichever one he chose to be equally disappointing. He was forced to decide when the device made a short rumble, sending tingly vibrations up his arm. Suddenly the work panel's icon moved to the left to make way for a bubble with the number 2 in it.

'Notifications already, cool. Work it is.' He thought, tapping the panel.

The navy blue panel slid to cover the entire screen before fading to show a simple profile screen that Lukas found to be very reminiscent of a social media profile. The wide screen was split into three parts: A top banner containing a picture of him to the left, and his name, case number, and main job to the right, a smaller side banner to the left with what he guessed was around 12 icons, and the rest was taken up by a feed. The only two things in it were titled, "How To Use your Briareus Brands Brand Net Buddy Assistor" on the bottom, and "What Can Be Expected For Your New Job (IMPORTANT READ THIS)" on the top.

'Thank Fates, finally some useable information.'

Lukas tapped the event he thought would detail what his job was, which then expanded into a cookie-cutter welcome message that went on for who knows how long. Being fluent in corporate bullshit, his eye's caught onto the actual relevant text like a spear through a fish.

"-as such. Because of your past experience in Inokum, you will aid in maintaining the structural integrity and flow of our mining operation. We at Briareus understand you may not be familiar with the type of complex machinery we use here-"

'It's a godamn giant vacuum, not exactly a star engine.' Lukas sighed, being reminded of the temporary jobs in Inokum he'd take up. Everyone wanted someone more experienced, and the turnover rate for the mechanically inclined was unreasonably high were he'd lived. Being told he was stupid seemed like it was just another part of the job description now.

"-wich is why we will start you out in an 8-week training program, beginning tomorrow at 3 am. We understand it's early, but we here at Briareus believe in the power of one on one teaching and-"

Time. Lukas completely forgot about time. He didn't know what day it was or what time it was.

'I wonder.' Lukas dragged the top of the screen down, and a tiny lip of a bar slipped open to show that it was currently 5:24 pm. Next to it was a WIFI symbol with full bars, and next to that was a rounded square icon with the number zero in it. 'Ok, not that late then.' Although he didn't see an exact date, knowing the time was enough for him. He almost didn't want to know if he'd been frozen months or days in stasis.

Lukas skimmed through the rest of the work assignment. From what he gathered, he'd be doing various maintenance on different parts of the ship. Not the easy sit back and press a button crap either that actual workers did. He was there because he owed a debt, one Briareus would gladly accept his life for. Hydraulic work, Fuel cell replacements, probably shitty vent work. He'd get the stuff that would leave him either dead, stupid, or impotent.

'Enough of this introductory epic, let's move onto the fun stuff,' he thought, wanting to see what the shop had open. He backed out of the message and suddenly found himself stuck.

'Shit, how the hell do I get out of this thing.'

He tried swiping left, pinching the screen, up, down, 4 tap and close, whole hand turn, playing the thing like a Bop-It.

'Clever design, Asshats.' He tapped the bottom event in the feed titled: "How to use your Briareus Brands Brand Buddy net assistor" and skimmed through.

'Hello user blah blah blah, user rights.. user functions, limited availability, aha! Work Application UI.' Lukas smiled at his victory before reading the next few lines.

"To exit the work Application, simply press the red x icon on the lower left utility bar."

"What!" He yelled. He never remembered any red x. After backing out of the message and gunning his eyes to the utility bar, sure enough, a red x.

He pushed it with hurt pride, no longer excited to go onto the shop page.

Now back on the binary app screen, he poked the purple tote icon, and the device repeated the same action as with the work panel. As the purple faded, he was met with a list of apps below a simplistic search bar. They all looked like the type of apps Briareus would peddle. Greedy, money-sucking, microtransaction filled code dumps. Thinking back to what the PE had said about credits, he realized once he got some, this store would probably be the worst thing to look at without someone else's guidance.

Lukas sighed and turned the Assistor off. He then pushed himself back to be fully on the bed and stared at the bars keeping the top bunk stable.

"What else to do," He blindly asked no one. His question was answered by a sudden pressure in his bladder.

"Fuck, stasis liquids."

He got up with an annoyed groan, moving toward the divet in the wall. He tried the door parallel to him, sliding the grey panel to the left. A round light lit up, and he was met with a stacked washer dryer.

'Sweet, individual washers' The pressure mounted. 'But no dice.'

He slid the other door open and was greeted with a bathroom that looked like it's favorite outfit was a cubicle and a headset. Most immediately toward the door lay a beige counter with a sink all below a tin outlined mirror that stretched to the ceiling. After that was the glorious off white throne he was searching for. In his need to piss, the frosted glass shower taking up the rest of the bathroom barely registered in his mind. He hurriedly stood in Infront of the toilet, whipping it out and getting ready to have the piss of the Millennium before hearing his stomach grumble and pulling his pants down and made an emergency landing on the seat.

Sweet, Relief.

As he washed his hands with the soap mildly reminiscent of dish detergent, he cursed the stasis fluids they pumped into him.

'Must have been some seriously cheap off-kilter crap to leave my G.I. this messed up. I mean, I've been through stasis before, it's never left my piss blue.'

After finding no hand towels to dry his hands, he settled with toilet paper and walked back out to the middle of his room, closing the two doors behind him. He took another good look around, seeing everything and taking in nothing.

'Drawers, probably clothes in there.' Lukas stepped over to the drawers inset into the wall and found what he was looking for; white shirts in several styles and a couple of beige work pants. He was in the middle of changing before realizing he was going to sleep soon and just continued with his clothing stripped off. He didn't really know what to do with the jumpsuit he wore, so he just chucked it on the floor.

Lukas stood there, standing, waiting. A nude primate stuck in a pale hole in the wall. Then he felt a twinge of pain start to buzz into his veins. The stasis fluids he'd just ejected meant he was about to have one rough night.

'Stasis withdrawal already? They could've at least put some more painkillers on my awakening injection. Sleep's gonna be my best friend, but this is gonna be a rocky fall to dreamland.'

He makes his way toward the light switch next to the door panel, flips it, and heads to bed.

As he lay in bed, the buzzing turns to tingling, and his veins cry out for more stasis fluid. Where his biggest blood tubes lay is where it turns into soreness. From the base of his neck to the tapering of his femoral arteries, he felt like someone had started pulling each end of his spine toward each other. He stretched into a fetal position as he felt his muscles twitch in various spots, and his breath shudder.

'Welcome to Briareus Brands Lukas. Enjoy your stay.'