The white hexagonal elevator platform was a smaller dilation of the main room. It was controlled by a pedestal whose screen showed the chosen floor and a short map of it in the corner. The map was akin to a YOU ARE HERE type map. Without touching the Pedestal, Cygnus merely needed a glance to take them to the very top floor with his NHN. Lukas envied the technician's blatant use of his NHN.
After stepping off the elevator, which promptly returned to the next waiting user, the technician led him to the entrance directly to the right. The first thing he noticed after walking the was the abrupt plunge of darkness and the smell of stale air.
"Welcome to the directory and diagnostic room." Cygnus said with a loud bellow and a double hand wave in the air.
The room's air fans and automatic lights burst into action from the movement, starting up the bright screens on the walls and the two Moddel Lite displays on each side of the room.
"Sorry for yelling, this room doesn't run 97% of the time so I have to be a bit more 'active' for the sensors."
The Moddel Lite displays, giant rectangular pieces of a glass-like substance on a black ribbed bases. They reminded Lukas of home. The temporary status of his jobs, coupled with them being one of the very few that had him going out to traverse the omnidirectional expanse of a district he'd grew up in, had meant he saw a handful up close now. There wasn't anything special about his district, it was just like the rest of Inokum; the centuries of global inter connectivity had left culture specific to the individual. He'd seen them used for many different things, but never at this size.
"We're in that? In there?" Lukas said whilst punctuating his T's with a finger prod at the superstructure on the left.
The entire ship was something else. It reminded Lukas of a parade float adorned by a city. For a humorous observation, it could be considered a very expensive yet queer collector's ship in a bottle, if the ship was made out of glowing plastic filaments and the bottle had edges. It was like if The legendary city of Atlantis grew one giant hoof under it and started moving.
"Well.. more like right there." The technician replied while pointing at the back end of the beast, right in the parade float area.
"How does it move? I don't see any wheels." Asked Lukas, taking in the depth of the structure.
"It moves just like the xyloph do in the city." Cygnus replied, showing a smile that hinted at pride.
"What do you mean like the xyloph? Those transports run on the magnetic field rails put into the city's infrastructure. I highly doubt Briareus would go through the means to even fund the tech needed to run something of this size; I mean look at the berth on this bitch, she's packing atleast a-"
"Iron core." Cygnus snickered at the mans disbelief and indecent vocabulary. 'He'll make a fine one when he adjusts.'
"The planet we're one has a massive iron core just like all the others in the system. With a metric crapton of gyroscopic power, the free form hovering it provides lets us create our own rail. I like to think of a blade drone."
"Ah.. ok. But the size needed for something of this size i mean come on man how is that eno-"
"We only need to hover a couple meters of the ground. Its why the bottom of this thing is shaped like that. The exhaust from the sand suckers help propel us up a bit too but that's really negligible force."
"You know what. Good enough for me."
Cygnus proceeded to teach Lukas how to interact with the displays, surprised at seeing how comfortable he was with the technology, he moved on to the more advanced parts.
"And if you put in your PIN, you'll be able to see something quite relevant to your position."
Lukas put his code in, then the display's floor plan dulled to barely visible grey while multiple lines that flowed around the ship like a blockish circulatory system glowed up in bright purple. Only handfuls of tubes reached up into the top part while the ones in the bottom were saturated in the most complicated geometric spider webbing he'd ever seen. It all seemed to coalesce into 4 central hub areas in each of the four corners, he guessed he was on one of the back two.
"What are these for then?" Lukas said, dragging his pointer finger all over the glass-like substance.
"Well. Briareus was so-ever-so kind to give us our own little pathways. This is why the main hallways seem so.. dull. If you're ever walking down one and hear an indiscernible rattling or rumbling its probably one of your own taking the wormholes."
"Wormholes. Really. That's the best name you could come up with?"
"Hey I didn't come up with it, it's been here since I arrived. They're technically called Maintenance Employee Access Tunnels."
"MEAT? There's so many ways to play of that." Lukas Grimaced in self conjured imagery. "Now all I can think of is maggoty meat, thanks a lot.
"Maggots in meat." Cygnus said with an inquisitive look and pursed lips. "Hmph. Close one but we're sorta doing the opposite of what maggots do aren't we? What with fixing the structures instead of feasting on them."
"I uh, guess. Can we not talk about maggots? Or forget I even said anything. They're disgusting." Lukas looked back at the highlighted passages that stretched around like a bottom heavy circulatory system. "Plus the more you talk about it that way isn't gonna make me want to go in these things. Which I guess I'm essentially about to be living in them right?
"Like maggots in meat." Replied the technician with his pasty faced shit-eating-grin. "Oh no I'm so sorry I wouldn't want to make you feel sick again." He mocked. "Like a worm in the dirt."