The Titania

“Okay, but if that gasket goes there, it’ll blow as soon as too many people decide to switch on at the same time,” Sorrel reasoned. “If we put it here—”

“Then the pressure will be more spread out,” Amaranth realized. “Right! Let’s do that.”

Sorrel marked the gasket location on the blueprints. “Is Mister O dropping by for lunch?” They rolled up the blueprints and slid them into one of the scroll cases strapped to their hips.

Amaranth fixed their harness to the lift cables by the carabiner. “Yeah, he’s gonna make a pit stop. Oh, and Elle’s going to be there.” They watched Sorrel hook on too. “You cool with the Grand Café?”

“I’m always cool with the Grand.”

Sorrel flipped the switches that triggered the cables, and the two were steadily pulled up towards the main concourse on level 12. The sound of the lift motors was too loud to talk over, so Sorrel cast their gaze out at the levels they passed. There from G8, 9 and 10 emerged the edges of the great gears that churned slowly in sync to help power Subfloors A through G. The gears were being oiled by someone who was probably Tatsoi, judging by the hair. (One day he was gonna get caught in the gears and he was gonna be sorry, Amaranth’s sister had liked to say, but today he was at least wearing a ponytail. Small blessings.) In the other quadrants and the sublevels that they rose past, people scurried back and forth, hustling through tunnels and quads to deliver this and tinker with that.

More gears stuck out from the Basement level, named before the subfloors were dug out; this set powered the entirety of the aboveground layers, so it took up the whole Basement, with no quadrants. They might have to expand it into Subfloor A next year, but Mister O had mentioned developing a new location instead of expanding upwards. The Titania’s HQ was nowhere near the upper level limit mandated by the city council, but Mister O didn’t want to go much higher anyway. Sorrel and Amaranth specialized in underground operations and builds, so that wasn’t really their business.

They hit ground level and glided up past twelve floors of gleaming glass and prime office space, just a hint of sunlight peeking through, before the lift juddered to a halt and the pair unclipped their harnesses. The concourse was loud, as usual; dozens upon hundreds of employees taking breaks and navigating to and from offices and meetings tended to add up. The Grand Café was quieter though, with respect to it being Mister O’s favorite drop-in lunch spot.

Sorrel grabbed a sandwich and a smoothie from the counter, Amaranth following suit, and snagged the best table: the nearest wall to it was covered ceiling to floor in a hydroponics rack filled with herbs, and you could grab a few leaves as long as you were careful and respectful of the plants. It was mostly mint at this time of the year. Elle refused to sit anywhere else in the café, which was very like him, so they were lucky it was free. He was near plants, the mint grew more abundantly, and everyone was happy.

“Sorrel! Ama! Save me a seat!” someone hollered from the entrance. Sorrel didn’t bother to turn around, but Amaranth waved earnestly. It was just Elle.

He plonked himself down perpendicular to both of them. “Mizuna and I made progress on our project! Remember that stumbling block I told you guys about? The one about conversion and loss of energy, you know how it is with solar power and concentration and photovoltaics and all that, well we figured out a—”

Sorrel stopped actively listening. It was just a reiteration of what he’d told them last week. Still, it was always nice to see his fronds curl and ripple with delight when he got to chatter on about something he was genuinely excited by. Some people looked at Elle and wondered how he ever got where he was, to being one of the best Topside engineers the Titania had. That was because people saw the bright orange frills on his scalp, the way he was easy to smile and quick to laugh and eager to fill silences with mindless words, and they made assumptions. In fairness, Elle was unbelievably dumb. But behind the clacking teeth and under the symbiote on his head was a mind sharp enough to cut diamond, if it would just focus.

No one ever believed Sorrel when they said that.

Either way, he was decent company if you could keep him from being distracted (or alternatively, if you could distract him enough). He’d since hopped tracks to hydroponics and then to aeroponics, both of which all three knew enough about to comfortably carry the conversation along. Elle was Topside, and Amaranth and Sorrel were Underside, so they really only met up for lunch, but gardening was a topic they all liked.

A plate with a sandwich slid onto the table before the only empty seat. “Hello, you three,” Mister O greeted with a smile.

“Hi, Mister O.”

“Heya, boss!”

“Hello, Mister O!” Amaranth beamed. “How are you?”

The man took a seat. “Oh, I’m excellent, better than ever. You two look well.” Sorrel and Elle nodded. “And how are you, Amaranth? Everything working alright?”

“I’m great!” Amaranth patted their thigh. “I played soccer last weekend and my knee didn’t so much as creak.”

Mister O nodded encouragingly between bites. “Is maintenance going alright?”

“Yup! It’s not bad at all, I only need help with a couple parts and then my sister helps me out.”

“And the calf? No side effects?” His fingers drummed frenetically on the table like his mind was elsewhere.

Amaranth pulled their heel up to the seat of their chair and rolled up their pant leg, revealing the somewhat scuffed-up casing of a cybernetic leg. After the accident a year ago, their lower body had been replaced with entirely cybernetic parts and Mister O had taken a personal interest in the case. Amaranth had thankfully recovered well from the accident, though they were quite understandably leery of the giant gears on the power levels, now. They popped open a panel, revealing well-oiled, well-insulated mechanical insides, full of pistons and cogs and wires. Sorrel discreetly admired the workmanship. “It’s good! The knee malfunction didn’t damage anything I couldn’t fix.”

Mister O nodded. He finished half of his sandwich and wrapped up the rest in its paper. “Make sure you go check in with a biomechanic soon, alright?”

Amaranth let their leg drop. “Yes sir!”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Mister O said, and pushed away with a rueful smile. “Busy day today. It was nice meeting up with you three!”

“Bye Mister O.”

Elle swallowed a large bite. “Bye, boss!”

“Goodbye, Mister O!” Amaranth waved.

Sorrel rested their chin on their palm. “Did he seem frazzled to you?” It was subtle, but yeah. Mister O wasn’t as serenely frustrating or infectiously gleeful as usual.

Elle mimed wiping away sweat. “Good, it wasn’t just me!”

Amaranth chewed thoughtfully, swinging their foot. “I think the expansion is stressing him out. He was going to name the second location something with pucks, but got vetoed by the Board. And with the downwards push happening now too…”

Sorrel took a long pull of fruit smoothie. “Poor guy.” The next pull resulted in that ugly strangled sucking sound: it was empty. “Are you still eating?”

By mutual consensus, they got back to work.

The lift down was as loud and mildly interesting as the ride up. Sorrel did feel a bit more comfortable below ground level, where the lighting was all artificial and everything was just a bit cool. That probably meant they had spent too much time down there of late, but the projects were interesting. Also, Sorrel ran hot, and it was summer outside.

“Wanna check out the site?” Amaranth suggested. “Or do you wanna do maintenance?”

Sorrel considered it. Checking out the site meant trudging through as-of-yet unlit areas and helping map things out. Maintenance meant hanging from cables to check over boilers and turbines. “Maintenance.” Sorrel was a sucker for maintenance—it was mildly-engaging essential work that let them immerse themself in cogs and gears and the hiss of scalding steam, where they felt the most at home. “R5?”

“R6,” Amaranth corrected, and with a moment to get their gear situated, the pair took the lifts further down, into the bowels of the Titania. There, employees swarmed like ants, and the rumble of heavy machinery digging, digging away below trembled up through your boots. Some people liked it, and some people didn’t. Sorrel had never minded the dark and the damp and the distance from the Sun. (Elle, for example, couldn’t stand it… but then that might have been the symbiote talking.) Sorrel hooked onto a cable rig and set to work inspecting gargantuan boilers and mammoth cogwork systems. Amaranth went farther, headed for the turbines and ancient water.

Steam hissed, machinery whirred, and all around was mechanical thunks and a stench of oil so thick you could taste it.

Life in the Titania was good.