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“Today marks my 15th birthday. Dad managed to get a broken Log Tablet to work and gave it to me. Dunno what exactly I’m supposed to write in here, but he said to just occasionally journal my thoughts.
I hate how loud the earthmover is when its walking, so hard to sleep at night. Since I’m 15 now, I gotta get a work specialty. My parents both work with the Shield Generators, and my older brother went into Offense Maintenance. I had been interested in Power Services, so ended up specializing in it, like my uncle. It’s an okay job. I got trained all on the solar converters and blood engines. It’s weird, seeing the blood reservoirs after having put so much of my own in.
I managed to finally sneak out a pair of headphones meant for the industrial guys. Makes sleeping so much easier, not having to hear the earthmover moving. Still is annoying having an IV in all night. It’s so itchy. I get why all that blood is needed, I did just see the engines firsthand, but still. Plus, it’s not like it’s just me. I do wish the guys up in R&D could figure out a way to make them more comfortable, it’d definitely be appreciated by everyone.
But, as my cousin says, the guys up in R&D have size 2 fish to fry. Not sure what fish are, but it sounds like important tech. My cousin said something about them working on better efficiency engines or solar panels or something. I wonder how long that will take, some of the other guys in Power Services complained about cleaning the solar panels from all of the ground dust, they said a lot of it gets kicked from every step of the earthmover.
The first week of the job was just training on what to do and what not to do. Don’t touch the heaters, don’t touch the solar panels without protective gear, don’t touch the blood, don’t step over the warning bars, stay out of the capacitor rooms while the earthmover is shooting something, so on and so forth. A lot of don’ts, actually. Mostly don’ts. Most of the do’s basically boiled down to do what you’re told.
Week 2, I actually got to help maintain the blood engines and solar panels and everything. It’s long and hard work, but it’s at least something to keep away boredom. Better than counting the hills on the horizon. Honestly, I would’ve figured being in the middle of a war would be more exciting, but in my life, we’ve only fought with 4 other earthmovers.
I overheard a couple of the senior Power Services guys talking about the solar panels generating less power than they should. I wanted to question why, but it made sense when I thought about it. The clouds have gotten a bit darker than usual in the past couple weeks, granted we haven’t had a sky sighting in a few months. Clouds have been pretty thick, it seems.
Today on the job, we had to restart one of the solar converters. If they get too little power, they stall out, apparently. So, I got to actually practice the hand crank restart alongside a dozen other Power Services guys. I offhandedly mentioned what if the earthmover fired a blast into the clouds, but they said that trying would be super dangerous and probably a waste of power. I don’t get why though, we’ve got shields that can stop blasts from other earthmovers.
Been a couple of months since my last writing. Work has been real busy, troubleshooting stuff. The NutriSynth at the central canteen has been bugging out and so we’ve been having to use backup rations. Likewise, the steps of the earthmover have been a hair slow. I got to spend a full day helping wipe down and clean the dust off of the solar panels. It looked easy, but that dust is layered on thick, it took a lot of muscle.
I figured I should start writing again since we came across a destroyed earthmover. Ours came up to it before stopping for once. Honestly, it’s weird not hearing those loud, rhythmic pounds. A bunch of guys from every specialization formed a scavenging party and took the maintenance route down to the feet of the earthmover and across to the dead one. They look so small down there, like tiny rivets.
They couldn’t immediately get onto the other one, and had to have our earthmover step closer so they could bridge over. It was actually quite a big hassle to get to it, despite it having fallen over. Something to do with the ground dust being too hot to walk on safely. But, it’s been a few weeks since they’ve been exploring down there. Apparently, a lot of rare materials, spare parts for minor gadgets, and so on, were left on it.
I could see big letters on the side of the dead one from up on our earthmover. They read 1000-THR, so our Commander and Mayor said it wasn’t a friendly one. Ours is designated M990 Thunderbolt III, by the way. I’m guessing that means they were one of the bad guy earthmovers?
It’s been so nice, having new stuff for once. They found a bunch of research materials down there, tons of gadgets to replace the ones of ours that were broken or nearly broken. It’s a real treat having a NutriSynth that doesn’t have half of the options grayed out. Apparently, fish is a type of food, I got to try some. Plus, they must have found a clothing storage unit on it, a lot of people, including me, were given new clothes. It was annoying to clean all the dust off of, though.
It’s been almost a month since we stopped here. The last scavenging party came back up after having gotten every last material we could carry. Then, those distinct pounding steps started back up. Maybe I was just misremembering, but they felt slower than I recalled. Probably just misremembering, or maybe they got sticky after standing around for so long.
My favorite things they found down there were new solar panels to add onto our own, after scrubbing the dust off, and a weird handheld black and white board. Some of the older guys said it was some kind of game. I’m not sure how though. They took a few pieces of metal scrap and bent them into these weird tower things, then put them onto the board and moved them around and took them off and stuff. They seemed to be having fun though, and a few people stayed around to watch or to try it themselves.
One thing that’s been on my mind recently was the war we’ve been in. I asked some of the seniors, and they said that the war started over a hundred years ago. I asked why, and they said they didn’t know. Nowadays, I think a lot about why the war started, what cool grandiose reason behind it all. I mean, it’s not like there could just be a war without reason.
The clouds have been getting dark again this month. The other Power Services guys have been more annoyed and irritable than before. The blood reservoirs have been fine and up to standards, but the power production has been continually decreasing ever so slightly. They disabled a bunch of the alley lights and security defenses and turrets and stuff. I get why, but it’s still annoying that the streetways have been a lot darker. I’ve already tripped twice.
It’s been another month-ish. The speed of the earthmover has definitely slowed down recently, even with us turning off or down everything non-essential. We also had to turn off the heaters, so it’s gotten a lot colder since the only heat we’ve been getting is from the ground, which is not exactly the closest. The clouds have gotten really thick.
The overall mood and tone of the city has gotten worse. Most people only leave their homes to either go to work or to the canteen. One of the guys from Shield Gen, an already kinda crazy guy, decided to jump off the earthmover. I don’t know why he would, there’s no way anyone could survive the fall. The NutriSynth has also been limited, and food has been getting rationed more often.
Power Services has gotten sadder as well. A bunch of guys don’t even do their jobs anymore. The solar panels don’t need cleaned as often since the earthmover has slowed down so much. Plus, they seemed to work worse even when clean.
I was talking with my brother, and mentioned the idea of shooting the clouds away, and he actually said that’s a really good idea, and that he’d talk with the Command and Control guys. I don’t get why the Power Service guys said it was a bad idea though, maybe they just didn’t know if it was dangerous or not.
One of the C&C guys talked with the Power Services head about something. My brother told me that, after he talked with the C&C guys, they agreed with him and wanted to try. But, they said we didn’t have enough power for a powerful enough blast. The talk they had with us was about shutting off literally everything not extremely essential, like shutting off the shield generators and IFF beacons, and only keeping on what’s absolutely needed, like the oxygen refixers. Opening a hole in the sky would’ve given us a clear view of the sky and the sun, if it was day. We couldn’t tell if it was or not, by now.
Though they said that even that wouldn’t have been enough. If I brought it up sooner to my brother, maybe we would’ve had enough power. It put a knot in my stomach, but I just had to accept it. Our earthmover was about to run out of power and die. The mayor gave an announcement, in person rather than over the PA, and said they got an announcement from “HQ”, whoever that was, that the “New Peace” was being established. I asked what that meant, and they said it meant that the war was over. So, we won? That’s good.
Still, our earthmover hasn’t moved in a while. The legs have been sounding like they’re creaking or like they’re trying to move but can’t. I kept going to work, thinking I could help at all, but my boss told me and a bunch of other guys to leave and go do something fun. So, I just wandered around the streets. I met one of our historians who was smoking outside of their house. Dozens of cigarette butts littered the ground. He said he had his own private stash he’d been building for a few years, for situations like these.
We talked for a while. Well, really, he talked to me, but I could tell he was enjoying it. He told me all about the past, like before the war started and how it had different phases. I asked why it started, but he said he didn’t know. But, he told me that, before all of this, the ground used to be where people fought. Before earthmovers, there were much smaller machines, smaller than a house, that would fight each other. Before even them, people fought people on the ground. According to him, the ground used to be mud and dirt and grass and plants, instead of the searing dust it is now. We used to have cities on the ground, but they’ve all been destroyed by now.
I wondered if, maybe someday, we could recolonize the ground, and move the city off of the earthmover, and onto the ground. Maybe, since the clouds had been getting thicker, and it had been getting cooler, the ground would get cold enough to walk on. At this point, I had to wear both of my sets of clothes at the same time to stay warm.
Week later writing. It’s so much colder. The NutriSynth ran out of power, and so did the oxygen refixer. We had to start staying inside as much as possible and wearing gas masks when we go outside. Most people have been formed into a group to try and venture the ground, and one group said they’d go on a journey. I don’t know what they’re looking for, it’s not like we can see anything from the earthmover. We can see for dozens of miles around from the C&C center, up top.
It’s a lot colder. I heard a few people have passed away from the cold. And from asphyxiation. And starvation. It’s bleak. I’m scared. The legs have been creaking a lot more. My dad said we’ll figure something out. I just hope they don’t collapse or anything like that. One of the maintenance guys that my dad knows stopped by and said they were gonna see what they could do, and that they’ll give us an update tomorrow. I haven’t got anything else I can think to journal till tomorrow, then.”
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