Simon walked down the gray passages with lights on the sides, guiding many people from different employs to their cells of the Hive, their rooms and homes.
Simon finally came to the common area of his living-cell, an area called a cluster due to the motif of cells being rooms and homes, and the complex being the Hive. Multiple doors in the cluster, 15 in total, lead to the 15 living cells. Simon could see some children playing with a patched rubber ball, bouncing it off arms and legs to try and gain some arbitrary "goal" in whatever rules the game had today.
Simon's smiled slipped a bit as he noticed how worn and patched the rubber of the ball was, clearly obvious other kinds of rubber had been processed to fix it.
'It wasn't that bad when me and Matt were the ones using the common area's ball... how much longer will we have the raw materials to keep fixing things?'
Simon tried to ignore it, but now everywhere he looked, he saw rust and different materials used to fix missing panels, some bits of the lights on the walls weren't lit anymore that once were when he was younger.
'We're running out. The doom of the Hive is going to come, whether we go outside or not.'
A small voice, in the back of his mind, whispered: 'You know where we get these different materials to fix things...'
But it was snuffed out with Simon barely noticing he had the thought, and he forgot it as soon as he had it.
He went to the door that was his, scanned his bracer, and the steel lifted with a quick hiss of air-
"YOUR HERE!"
Simon suddenly found himself tackled into a hug the second the door opened!
"Gah?!" Simon let out a grunt/yelp as something soft and warm collided into him and wrapped itself around him!
"Who the-?!"
"Hi! I'm your sister-in-law! Nice to meet you!"
She finally let go and stepped back, and Simon finally got a good look.
"Tsk." He tsked as he shook his head. "I guess Matt didn't get someone decades older... and I was so looking forward to his expression too."
The young woman in front of Simon blinked, turned to look at Matt behind her, who looked like he was trying both not to laugh and to not strangle his little brother.
She burst out laughing at Matt's helpless expression, turning back to Simon. "Yeah, you're exactly how Matt described."
"Oh? Nothing too bad I hope?"
She shook her head, beads in her hair clicking. "Nope! Just that you had a bit of a toxic mouth sometimes, but are funny when not directed at him."
"Oh really? Well maybe I should tell you about the summer when he was 9, and he-"
"OH-Kay! That's good! We know each other now, yeah?!" Matt quickly interrupted, trying his best to save his image before the rather beautiful woman matched with him.
She laughed. "Sure thing, Mathew."
Simon blinked, turned to look at Matt...
'He seems to... like it?'
"I guess when everyone calls you by a nickname, your actual name becomes the loving way to say it huh?" Simon muttered to himself.
"What was that?" She turned and asked curiously.
"Oh, nothing." Simon shook his head casually. "So, I am Simon, as you seem to already know. And you are...?
"Oh! Sorry, I'm Corey! You probably don't recognize me, I'm from an €%#£&$/‰ §$&₽!"
Simon blinked, scratching his ear. "Sorry?"
"I'm from one of the €%#£&$/‰ §$&₽'s."
Simon blinked. 'I have no idea what she is saying...'
His eyes went blank for a moment as his train of thought stopped, jittered, and jumped tracks, leaving his confusion and the words he couldn't catch, blurred and garbled as they were to him, forgotten.
He didn't even notice himself forget.
Corey had darker skin than Matt or Simon. Not quite black, but not anything close to white. Her hair was dark and had a few thin braids with beads of colored plastic and glass woven through, with a strange sense of order to it, like the beads meant something.
Simon entered and looked around, noticing the bags at the side, and a few knickknacks missing from the shelves of the room that worked as kitchen, dining room, and sitting area all at once.
"You're moving out then?"
Matt nodded. "Yeah, Corey is a higher-level employee so her Hive-Cell is better... and this way you don't have to be allocated to a new cell."
Simon shrugged. "Whatever, I was just worried you'd cry without me sleeping next to you."
Matt's eye twitched slightly, glancing to check and seeing Corey had entered the only other room of the cell, the bedroom, to give them privacy.
"I'll be fine, I'd much prefer sleeping next to my beautiful new wife after all." Matt gave a shot back, and Simon smiled at him.
"Yeah, I suppose huh?" Simon sighed, rubbing the counter/table that stood disconnected from the counter wrapping around the walls of the main room of the cell.
The island had cupboards built into it, and also functioned as a table with some stools around it. The stools had been changed into chairs by having little cushions or pillows sown onto the top, and a back welded onto them. Like so many things, it was making the best of what resources the Hive had.
The counter, meanwhile, had the stove, dishwasher, and sink built into it, as the counter wrapped around the island against 3 of the walls of the room, leaving a bit of space between counter and island to stand and cook in. The counter was only interrupted by the doorway to the bedroom, which was really a closet with two beds that folded up into the wall when not in use, and when folded down, the clothes were impossible to get to.
There was only the public washroom for showering and relieving oneself, shared among the cluster.
Soapy water for dishwashing and hand washing was easily reusable after going through filters that would be cleaned and replaced every day by the related employees, so the room could be considered high standard to most of the Hive. Most families didn't even have a sink and had to use the public bathroom for hand washing as well.
"You know, if I have this whole place to myself, somebody will eventually claim I'm using resources I don't deserve based on my employ." Simon shrugged, a melancholy obvious in his slow movements, even as he tried to suppress it for his brother's sake.
"Well you better pass the exam soon then." Matt smiled sadly, walking up to Simon and putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay Si. No matter what... we're family. You can always visit, and I'll definitely drop by to take care of the place when you go out after being promoted."
Simon fixed a smile to his face, a little confused. 'Out? Where would I go? I know my current weird-as-hell employ has promotion opportunities that are supposedly great, but why is Matt talking like it's guaranteed?'
Simon cast the thought aside... perhaps too easily.
But this time, he didn't forget it entirely.