Ariel rubbed his temples with his fingertips as he stepped out of the briefing room. Most of the strange terms he’d heard in there, he had heard before, but now it was like hearing them for the first time. He knew the words, but he couldn’t recall what they meant. Any semblance of their meaning was slipping through his fingers. He… wasn’t ready for this. He wanted to go back inside and tell them that there’d been some mistake, that he clearly needed much more training before he could even begin to work on this project, that maybe his parents’ work was just beyond him.

Ariel Fares had always prided himself on his intelligence, but here, he was out of his league, and he knew it.

Taking in a slow, deep breath to calm himself, he rolled his shoulders, tried to shake the tension out of his jaw and neck, and finally allowed himself to look up.

Outside the briefing room, a hallway extended to his left and his right. Not far to his right, the corridor turned suddenly, branching off either way. To his left, the hallway continued until it opened up into a circular room, centered on a pit built into the floor. That pit was surrounded by a railing, and a lighted sign displayed the number 70 in large red numerals.

Ariel was about to turn on his heel and head for the right branch when he saw two people step into view. The first was – it took him a moment to recognize her – one of the higher-ranking people from the initiation thing. Eliya? He’d seen her around from time to time over the past few years, always with that odd-looking jacket she wore everywhere. Ariel couldn’t help but notice that the collar of the jacket was a bit tattered. Eliya was walking backwards, talking rapidly.

Ryan walked with her, smiling.

Smiling?

Ariel stopped in his tracks and watched as the two passed through the circular room. Eliya gestured toward the pit at the middle of the room, toward the sign, and Ryan nodded along with whatever she was saying. Their voices were too far away and came only indistinctly to Ariel’s ears, but Ryan sounded almost excited. Ariel frowned. This was a very different man from the one he’d spoken to yesterday, and this morning at the initiation. Then again… Ariel couldn’t help but recall that Ryan had been brought to anger by something Ariel had said. Something he’d asked about…

Ariel found himself fingering the blue patterned trim on his coat. He’d sewn it in himself, despite his parents’ exasperation. The whole garment looked much more Settan that way, and Ariel wanted to look Settan. Thankfully the fabric was thin enough not to stick out very obviously. It would take a fashion expert to tell the difference and – Ariel had to be honest with himself – it seemed highly unlikely that anybody really cared enough to look.

Of course, he recalled – Ryan had been angry that Ariel kept asking about Rivenstad. He certainly hadn’t liked Afafa either, or Hope for that matter… so what was it about this Eliya? She was, Ariel supposed, Ryan’s boss now – perhaps he was acting this way simply because he had to, because it’s better to flatter one’s employer and act friendly around them.

Without even thinking about it, Ariel found himself following the two of them, walking rapidly down the hall. He tried to keep his steps quiet – though his mind was occupied, speculating about Ryan’s behavior. He drew closer to them as they moved to another part of the room. Ariel stood still by the corner of the hallway.

“So this machine over here is how we control that core.” Eliya’s voice was very matter-of-fact as she ran Ryan through a series of instructions to operate… whatever it was. “It’s very important that we manage the power routing manually. A while back we tried attaching a remote system to it, but the signals were unreliable, and power overloads would happen on occasion. It shut down power to the entire building once or twice, even caused a fire at one point which is why we gave up on that.”

“I can see why.” Ryan’s voice was nearly unrecognizable from the grouchy, rumbling growl Ariel was accustomed to. He sounded bright – still with that rumble in his every word, still with a little bit of an edge, sharp corners to his words, but bright. “And so I’ll stay up here and watch whoever’s down below, and route power to whichever machines they have need of at any given time?”

“Well,” Eliya replied, “Sometimes. But I think I’m going to have you working down there with me most of the time.” There was a lilting cadence to her voice that sounded vaguely foreign to Ariel, but he couldn’t quite place it. Something was familiar in the way she spoke, though, the syntax she used. It stirred memories of sitting with his mother on the edge of the southeastern spire, looking out at the distant horizon – imagining the far sea that she said lay thousands of miles to the east. “I mean! You’re strong enough to carry some of our heaviest machines. Aren’t you?”

A light laugh. Ariel stepped out into the room, trying to calm himself. If he didn’t feel like he wasn’t supposed to be here, he wouldn’t look like he wasn’t supposed to be here.

He was supposed to be here, he reminded himself. His laboratory was just down the opposite hallway. Ariel shook his head to clear it, and tried to visualize a map of the building. He gave up after a few seconds, still walking around the room away from Ryan and Eliya.

“Anyway, the way this place is wired every building has a strictly limited amount of power it can draw at any given time. This is all legacy from when it was a Place of Refuge, and all our past attempts at changing the system have failed, so just… don’t ask. I know it’s inconvenient, but presumably during the Desert power had to be rationed, so the systems naturally built bottlenecks into the very architecture of this place.”

“Take it up with the Angels, or something like that?” Ryan asked. The voice Ariel remembered was back, and instinctively Ariel glanced up. He met Ryan’s eyes immediately – the man was staring, no, glaring, at him from across the way.

“Ha! If only….”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed as Eliya spoke, and Ariel felt himself wilt. He gave a little wave and started to back away, heading towards the hallway, his mind racing as he tried to remember where his laboratory was, as he tried to process the words he’d heard earlier in his briefing. He tried to imagine what it was going to be like to work on the deep space surveying system, he imagined finding new stars and new inhabitable planets, he imagined Afafa up there on Proxima Station talking to the Aliens and translating their texts.

He didn’t let himself think of Ryan’s glare and the ire he’d drawn, or the way his father would look away when he tried to show what he’d learned at the academy, or of all the friends he’d driven away because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, couldn’t stop arguing and asking too many questions and –

When Ariel was gone, Ben drew in a deep breath, pinched his nose, and let the breath out as a sigh. He heard Eliya speaking next to him. “Oh, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to offend. That was more of a… an affectionate joke.” She chuckled. “Abrist humor, you know.”

Ben blinked and looked up. “I’m not offended. I guess I just zoned out.” Then: “Wait a second, what did you say?”

“Oh. Nothing.” Eliya smiled. “Alright, you think you know how to use this now?” Ben nodded. “Good. Okay, come on, let’s go to the workshop.”

As they headed for the stairwell, Eliya kept talking. “So, I don’t mean to pry too much, but I wanted to ask how you’re settling in. I know this was all very abrupt, and I’ve read –” she stopped. “Well, I know this is a big adjustment for you.”

Ben took a breath to steady his pounding heart and rolled his neck over his shoulders a bit. “You’re right,” he said. “It is a big adjustment. But don’t worry, I’ll get used to this place and I’ll be useful. I can turn a wrench as well as anybody else I know.” He put what he thought was a little note of self-deprecating sarcasm in the statement, and gave a halfhearted smile from the corners of his mouth. Eliya nodded vigorously.

“That’s good. If you need any help with academy business, too, let me know. I want to make sure you’re up to speed as quickly as possible – less trouble for me that way. Keep in mind I have to give Nura and Brice the same spiel I’ve given both of you. It’s a bit of a pain if I’m being honest.”

“Why aren’t they here now?” Ben asked, though he had to admit, he was glad they weren’t.

“Robert.” She said it with a grunt of mild distaste. “He thinks it’s better each new recruit meet their immediate supervisor one-on-one. I guess he’s right, but it’s still an annoyance.”

Ben nodded, and set his foot at the bottom of the staircase. He was about to speak, looking toward the automaton tethered to the far wall and pointing, when a cheerful voice interrupted him.

“Hey, there,” said Annie Manex as she started up the stairs, taking the first few steps up and then halting. “What are the two of you up to this morning, heading to… well, I can see you’re heading to the workshop, but what are you up to?”

Eliya gave a slight smile, though Ben thought it looked a little strained. “I’m just showing Ryan here the ropes,” she said. “It would be nice if I could have all my new students here at once, particularly considering the amount of heavy physical labor required for my team, but Ryan still has my other two recruits.”

Annie nodded. “Oh, I see – well, you know what they say… it is better to have that personal touch when it comes to bringing someone onto the team. That’s just the way we do things in these lands, you know, and it’s – oh, I’m sorry, you know I didn’t mean it like that, right?” Ben glanced up at Annie, whose face had fallen, the cheerful smile gone. Eliya didn’t appear to have reacted appreciably, but Annie looked almost mortified.

“Well, in any case, I have to go give Hope the… spiel? Yeah, that. Hope Reese, the new code jockey, I only just met her but I think she’ll do fine. I never did really understand how exactly Robert picks these new people – it can’t just be whoever signs up, right? I mean, I know that this place is a bit remote and isolated and, well, empty, and not everybody wants to move a thousand miles to help out a bunch of people who might well be delusional, but come on, there has got to be some kind of selection process here, right? If there isn’t some sort of candidate filtering I’d be very surprised.”

“I don’t know,” Eliya sad. “I didn’t exactly go through a normal process… and neither has anyone else I know.”

“Well, I did – multiple rounds of interviews, talks with the Deputy-Director and even the Director himself – oh, but that was a while ago. I suppose things may have changed in the past couple of decades.”

“I suppose they may have.” Eliya nodded. Annie smiled, waved, and turned to continue up the stairs.

Ben followed Eliya quickly into the workshop, trying not to let the strangeness of the conversation get to him.