Ogolvy was only really human at work. He thought to himself, in third person. In his tired and exhausted mind, it seemed an objective truth.
At the KDF life entirely revolved around getting out of work and going home, there was a sense that work was just one small part of his day and that, in actuality, his âlifeâ was a vast landscape stretching out across and away from the border wall that was 6:30PM.
But then of course he had to drive home and stop to go shopping and by that point itâd be 7:30PM and then heâd get dressed and ready and then heâd just sit there, for an hour, every day, and by the point that was done, his phone would read 21:30. By which point heâd make dinner, eat dinner, then shower, and then itâd be 22:30 and heâd have, what, two and a half hours âtill midnight? What the hell was he supposed to do with two and a half hours?
When he was in his crappy little shed of a house work is what dominated his life. Work was the thing that stretched out in its mile-long corridors beyond his meagre present-day restfulness, how is a man supposed to find peace when peace is but an island in an ocean of exertion?
The tick-tock of an electric clock counts back to the prison commute, a 9-6 workday which requires waking up at 7 and getting home at 8.
He sighed. Decided his fear of tomorrow was probably worse than what tomorrow would bring. And, he goes to sleep.
The next day, Ogolvy is pacing the dilapidated âmilitary baseâ of the KDF. A military base which is operated directly by the most important woman of the Prophrecian military complex, a station that was, up until the 11th, entirely ceremonial. A unit for the protection from and elimination of interstellar alien threats that once, apparently, had ravaged the planet.
Thereâs a kind of madness in living your entire life learning about humanityâs mighty war against those that would serve to destroy it, only to actually be met with the exact same entities from a thousand years ago, and what does Warner do?
She says, âThe ambassador for the Psybran Principate is here in two hours. Not a single mention of Juj or any and all of you are in front of a firing squad, got that?â Ogolvy stewed in anger exacerbated by Abldinâs âI-told-you-soâ smirk.
He watched the news on the monitor in the corner of the room, more about the oil-field explosion as well as some parade for the Royal Warcaskets, some prince or dukeâs machine was walking through the streets of the West Quarter.
Later in the day the ambassador stalks the control room, monitors and teleprompters showing off the hyperscope. The outer-orbital scanner listed off Kyrosâ five moons, and the cluster of thirty micro-moons.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Her badge reads âGugutulnâ with no last name, or maybe that was their last name. Her wirey and many-cornered arms trail along the desks, as though the machine could register touch to the brain enmeshed in the torso which acted only as a storage for the personâs organs. Her feet clacked on the glasticrete, cold metal on cold pseudo-stone.
âYou like working here?â She asks with a throatless mouth. Ogolvy could not help but stare at her abdomen, sucked in like it was shrink-wrapped, a waist so thin it was just a plexus of muscle adorning a robotic spine with the ribs draped over that like a balcony, heaving with ach breath. He knew from documentaries that that meant she was an old one, an old droid. She still breathed; a footnote to her experiences as a proper human, the thoraic cavity stretching and writhing to satisfy a once-fulfilled desire to ingest atmosphere. New generation droids don't breath, they don't ever remeber wanting to do so.
But in her there was no lung left to actually take in even a single litre of air, it was just an impulse, an old want never to be fulfilled. Like an octopusâ severed limb carrying food to an absent mouth. A mutilated body still attempting to fulfil its end of the bargain, long after any such thing was pointless. It was so repulsive.
âHello?â She murmured again.
âAh, yes, no, itâs great, sorryâ¦â
Her face cocked to one side, like a dogâs, a singular metal plate took up the most of her forehead, and her mouth sagged like a fishâs to either side â when she opened it to speak, the light reflected off the back of a mouth with no hole.
Abldin took over âCome this way, we have state-of-the-art interplanetary defence systems we are proud to display!â
Ogolvy left the scene, his mind felt like it was swimming around in his skull, he sat himself at someone elseâs desk. Looked at someone elseâs computer. âWhat are you up to?â He asked Tama. She clicked off of and then back onto whatever work she was doing.
âMadam Fassi has asked me for the ETA of the airships that are coming in, weâre going to use them to survey the area for the Juj that have dispersed.â
âWhat if they hide, like -â
âWell, thatâs why we survey the region, dumbass.â He was meaning to ask how they would detect the Juj if they were under a roof but he didnât feel like it anymore. He stepped up to listen to Abldin Fassi herself talk at the ambassador about ablative resin technology and how thatâs somehow important for preparing against Juj incursion, and how Prophrecia is proud to be a member of the vanguard accords to protect against extraterrestrials if they ever return and bla bla bla.
Core. My head is fucking pounding.
He bursts into the breakroom to see other lay-about assholes drinking coffee or injecting stims, was anyone in this building not dependant on some legal high?
The fold-up chair is suddenly his bed. He felt like saying something dramatic like âthe worldâs going to end.â but when the words came out, it was just deflated, depressing, unsatisfying.
âYou good, mate?â
âYeah, just tired, lady.â
âYeah.â He catches himself thinking if all the men in the facility are just in the breakroom avoiding their responsibilities, but seeing no women about he felt a certain peace and closed his eyes. Feeling his energy returning he was ready to think about work again, "You think the HD's out on the field are faring well?"