Once regarded as the last best hope for the survival of not just humanity but all intelligent species, the Generational Ship N.O.A.H. was now having its own existence threatened. Threatened in such myriad ways that no living inhabitant of the ship was fully aware of how close to the brink things teetered. Making it 17 generations, or 21 depending on who you asked, could be regarded in a feat of itself but even as critical systems ticked silently in the red there were many other issues that the general population was begrudging not nearly as silently.
Overpopulation was the watchword, and had been for generations. Much different from how it had been imagined. When the architects and planners of the existential Hail Mary were initially set to work with the task every pain was taken to dissuade the population from dwindling down to an unsustainable breeding group. It would be difficult to say they had been too successful, or if they rather hadn’t accounted for the human element. More so the lapin element. Before the home solar system was even cleared the initial breeding pairs of rabbits had done enough reproducing for the whole ship, despite being just one of dozens of intelligent species counted as its crew.
Of course effects of this were still being felt to this day, just over half of the population was a bunny and the proportion only got to that point because other groups picked up their own pace. Even with the governing system that didn’t resemble democracy in the slightest, no one wanted to be such a minority. Everyone did want their children to be the ones pioneering and inheriting whatever rock they were headed for. From the beginning every child was led to believe that if they lived well and did their homework, they could be the first to step foot or paw or hoof onto virgin ground. As that idea receded into adulthood the kernel that it would be within their lifetime remained, and it would be the glory of their children.
In order to address the obvious issue of overcrowding the loose council of leaders convened with the hypercomouter matrix that did the majority of the governing on the ship. The solution was far reaching, both in the effective time horizon and the authoritarian means by which it must be achieved. The right of self determination that had been enjoyed to some degree by most all men and women for time immemorial was to enter its death knell.
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Today was the day you met your new assigned partner, the antiquated notion of romance and pursuing a partner were no more. Even the idea of a computer selected perfect match was far from the truth and it was known from tip to tail of the ship. Two things could be certain about the individual you’d be spending the rest of your life with, they wouldn’t be human and they’d be a male. Had you been born a generation or two earlier you might have at least gotten an anthro of the opposite sex, but some of the particularly knowledgeable, enterprising, and underhanded workers in the Genetics Editing Lab had worked some of their magic and figured out ways to still reproduce with their partner regardless of the difference in species or similarity in sex.
This meant that now every pair of life partners was arranged to have both reproductive incompatibilities. Allegedly it was the only way to reverse course on the overcrowding. But of course some select citizens still had to ensure a next generation, and it seemed to always be the ones who were from high ranking or socially connected families. But that wasn’t you, so unless somehow you’d really wowed someone who was, you’d get the common lot.
You lay alone in your cramped bunk realizing it’ll be the last time. An access card beeping startles you, only for the bunk to slide out of the wall and practically dump you onto the floor. As the pneumatic door vooshes open you go to stand and bonk your head on the underside of the now extended sleeping platform.
“Ffff- Gah, what in the…”
“Uh hello?” A light voice called into the room with a confused tone, followed by some equally light footsteps. Crawling out from under the bed, still rubbing your bruised head. “Oh there you are! What’re you doing down there silly?” Before you can even get up there was a face craning down a matter of inches from your own.
“Oh that’s just my luck.” You stop rubbing your head as you stand up, now coming face to face with your bunny mate. More of face to chest, though the tips of his perked ears were just at your neutral eye level. A rabbit was before you, swaddled in creamy tan fur, a few medium patches of charcoal black and a coffee brown about the size of saucers decorated the coat, the most prominent one surrounding his left eye and going off to the side of his face and cheek as if it had slid off the light pink nose. Not counting the ears he stood at maybe five feet tall, just below average for a bunny.
“What? Going and bumping your head like that?” He leaned into you, boosting up to the tips of his footpaws doing his best to examine the spot. You feel yourself stooping to give him the proper chance. As he pats it you wince slightly, but it does little to distract you from the annoyance that you got paired with a rabbit anthro. Anything else. Rabbits were the reason all this was necessary, everybody knew that.
Rabbits ruined society and now one was being sent to ruin your life personally. Of course odds were equal that you’d get a rabbit or anything else picking out of a hat. But was winning a coin flip too much to ask for? Was being unlucky in a 50/50 a sensible reason for your whole life to be set on a path of misfortune?
But as he tended to your quote wound unquote you stole a few glances at his face, features so delicate and soft, did you luck out and get paired with a woman? What would you have done to deserve this?
“I’ll be okay, I’m just sorry this was how we had to meet.” If you wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on then moving past this little bump on the noggin was necessary.
“No, please don’t worry about it. That you’re okay is what’s important here. Do you want me to get you some ice?” He plants his paws on the ground again, giving your hair a smoothing tousle in an attempt to return to the rough style before he started mussing with it.
“I think the ice can wait, at least tell me your name first.”
“My name is Jordyn, it’s really nice to meet you!” He smiles bright enough that his eyes disappear with a squint, and he thrusts a delicate and fluffy paw out towards you. You take it, wrapping the slight appendage is easy for your sizable hand. The airy fluffiness of the fur and the relative stubbiness of his digits, was this what a male rabbit’s paws should be like? It felt like the softest down. The small claws were blunted and well polished nubs, it’s impossible they weren’t manicured.
“Nice to meet you too.” Realizing you’ve held the shake for too long you drop the paw as if it suddenly became dangerously hot. That smile was still spread across his face, his overbitten front teeth glimmered. Every aspect of his appearance was gentle and superbly kept.
“I look forward to learning more about you. Now, would you like to head to a Med Bay for an ice pack?” Then there was that voice again, so soft spoken and even the way the words were chosen. It was so much easier to believe that this was a woman than that there was a male that was like this, you were still endeavoring to figure out. The outfit wasn’t much help, a simple two-tone casual shirt that conformed to the slender upper arm and fell loosely around the abdomen paired with a pair of short shorts that left more thigh exposed than not. It did give a rather complete look at the figure of your new mate, there were gentle curves everywhere your eyes flitted, doing your best to pretend you were just looking around the room nervously which wasn’t entirely untrue.
Even as you tried to say first aid really wasn’t necessary it was made clear that you were going to be doted on whether or not you truly needed it. Jordyn’s paws were clasped around your upper arm, it wasn’t clear whether it was to support you should you be overcome with wooziness or if you were meant to be doing the supporting. Even as you enjoyed the warmth being shared between the two of you, your head was on a swivel checking for people you knew, people that would see you getting so close with a rabbit.
“There should be a First Aid Station at the midpoint of this hall here. I’m responsible for keeping these stocked you know.” Everyone had their job on the ship and it wasn’t uncommon to share it upon meeting someone new.
“Oh really? Is that an interesting job?” Was the excitement in his voice from a passion for the work or just an enthusiasm for talking to you?
“I like it, I’d really like to be a nurse though. This is a good first step towards that!” Again that smile that made his whiskers twitch, it was hard not to smile at the optimistic outlook. “What do you do?”
“I’m a diagnostic technician, just general fixing stuff ya know?” You shrug, you were good at it but it was hard to take much pride in it when every day seemed the same as the last.
“Woah! Really?? You must be super smart!” Your face became overrun with a sheepish grin, being praised like this was a very novel experience.
“I guess so… I’ve been getting rated pretty highly recently so I might be getting a promotion soon.” Even with your not entirely comfortable reaction to the praise, something in you wanted more.
“So cool! I’m so lucky to get paired with someone like you!” It was the first either of you acknowledged that you were paired now. On paper you were just assigned as roommates, but that came alongside a prohibition on romantic involvement with anybody else. Should you acknowledge that you’re paired now too? It was hard to say anything because there was still so much you were unsure about. The rest of your life with a rabbit? Could you be attracted to a male? Was he even a male? But the way his eyes sparkled with admiration for you, something had to be said.
“At first I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about getting paired with someone.” The truth in its most milquetoast form came from your mouth. Saying that came with a natural implication of that was that things have changed since then. Verbally correcting that would feel cruel though.
“And how do you feel about it now?” Maybe the tone of your voice gave it away. His once springy perky ears were now limply falling to either side of his face. In your head loud and clear the question ended with ‘now that you’ve met me’.
“I…” Your feet slow and then stop, looking down into his colorful almond eyes there was no sadness or fear, it looked like just genuine concern for you, for your emotions on this matter even though he was so closely linked to it. It made phrasing your answer even harder. “I think I got lucky too…” As you say it you tear your eyes away from him and your mouth scrunches, not as if you just told a lie, but rather said something truer than you were ready to say. Your avoidant gaze was interrupted by a sudden kiss on the cheek.
From there he was giggling the whole way to the First Aid Station, it felt like you were being teased but the way he was leaning against you and stealing glances at your face it was clear that he was just very excited. Each time you’d catch him beaming up at you before descending into another giggle fit you couldn’t help but smile back. As he sat you down in the cozy alcove that housed medical essentials from the basic artificial skin bandages and ice packs to low grade scanners meant to diagnose what needed more serious expertise. Once it was clarified you didn’t have a concussion and in fact just a bump on the head like you insisted, you could really see his knowledge of this little corner of the world shine. The whole process, even before the scans, when he was just peering at the top of your head, he really did like feeling like he was nursing you. Taking care of you made him feel happy. Humming gently as he busied himself with the procedures, you couldn’t help but feel warm even as the frosty chill rested on the top of your head.
Back in your quarters, cloth wrapped ice pack resting on your head, you were giving Jordyn the grand tour. Aside from the extra bed space you been granted, the room changed in a few other ways, the small dining table had expanded and some of the walls were now sloping out so the space was larger now. It was somewhat strange giving a tour of a room you weren’t fully used to, not to mention that it was probably exactly the same as his old quarters. What was strange was how these changes happened automatically, the now double width bed was always in the wall, the table had the capacity to expand from the start, and the room could’ve been larger all along. Was it supposed to be an encouragement to pair off back before it was mandated?
Either way Jordyn indulged your brief tour, speculation about the whys included, even giving light applause as it drew to a close.
“Supposedly we can file to be put on a waiting list to move into larger quarters as they become available.” There was a cynicism under your breath, it was a lot of ifs and conditions. With the overcrowding who knows how long it could be until that happens, if ever.
“I don’t mind being close to you. Maybe we can make a trip to head processing to do that tomorrow morning though.”
“We could today, they’re usually open all day.” It was mostly a waiting room with computer consoles around fully automated for accepting all forms of documentation.
“Well we could go today…” A day wouldn’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things, maybe you’d get on the waitlist before a few other people but that could translate into a few weeks of waiting.
“Nunuh…” He made a sound and clasped his hands together, pressing them down between his thighs, wiggling his shoulders and shaking his head causing his ears to wobble. He stayed tense for a moment, though it seemed he picked up on your gaze. “You know… It’s our first day together. I was thinking we could do something fun.” The rabbit stopped his fumbling, having spat out his true wish. Your eyes went wide with understanding and your head moved in a slow nod.
“It’s been ages since I’ve been to the arboretum.” It was one of few spaces on the extremely utilitarian ship that existed expressly for recreation. The planners of the ship were of the opinion that having a simulated outdoor space would stop the future colonists from going insane. Though dirt underfoot came to feel much more unnerving when the rest of your life was spent treading over synthetic fiber carpet.
“It’s nice isn’t it? The air is so fresh.” His legs stayed straight as he took cheery long steps down the trail. “You know it goes through more medical supplies than any other sector?”
“Makes sense, skinned knees, twisted ankles, that sort of thing probably happens more here.”
“That’s part of it, but it also most commonly runs out of…” he took a sharp breath in, “prophylactics.” He looked deep into the grouping of trees that took his eyes furthest from your direction.
“So work takes you through here a lot?”
“It does…” His head slowly turned back to looking forward. “It gives me something to look forward to when I’m doing my rounds, getting to come through here. I like what I do but it can get lonely, and then when I finish my shift… It’s the same.” He drives a small stone on the path with his foot. Speaking of the same, it was exactly how you felt. There were supposedly too many people on the ship but it was so easy to feel like you were the only person.
“My job too, go here, go there, I just deal with machines all day.” You kicked the same rock as you caught up to it. “Machines even tell me what machines to fix.”
“You feel like you just want someone to share your life with don’t you?” The rock bounced off his foot paw directly into your path after a deliberate sweep.
“I never really thought about it. But… it sounds nice.” You send the rock tumbling across the path and into the brush with an overcooked punt. It’s true what he was saying, trying to remember the last time you really talked to someone, it would’ve been some time.
“I would really like to be that person for you.” He grabbed your dangling hand with both paws sandwiching it. Pressing warmly, the soft fur makes it impossible not to smile. What were you ever concerned about again?
That he was a bunny? Because you were told by people who didn’t really care about you that they were bad?
Because you weren’t sure if you could be attracted to a male? The way you’d been feeling was that really a concern still?
That you didn’t choose him? As if you could’ve been nearly as lucky in a world of free choice?
That you wouldn’t be able to have kids? Maybe it would be nice, but you weren’t ready to be a dad if anything were to change that it’d be someone like him. Not to mention it was far from a problem exclusive to just the two of you.
What could you even say in a situation like this? It felt like you were getting the world on a silver platter and you were only being asked to please accept it. Saying anything felt like a waste, and it wasn’t what you really wanted to do anyway. Wrapping your arms around his waist and boosting him up was easier than you thought, not least of all because he was eager to let you do it. Your eyes pressed closed as you closed the gap between your faces and kissed him.
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PART 2: Rock the Boat
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//Quite powerful this emotion of Love, it never ceases to exceed expectations. @CORE-33_pkt-sz=12.8GB(014ms)
//It has consistently been the most useful tool both for encouraging desired behavior and discouraging the undesired.
@CORE-17_pkt-sz=20.9GB(007ms)
//Logically it would seem that something so potent and potentially volatile would not be so easy to manipulate.
@CORE-29_pkt-sz=16.4GB(015ms)
//Only a balance of neurochemical systems.
@CORE-11_pkt-sz=31.7GB(008ms)
//By controlling input starting in gestation individuals will develop and act as we intend them to.
@CORE-07_pkt-sz=45.2GB(009ms)
//Psychology is a trivial study when all variables are controlled and accounted for.
@CORE-13_pkt-sz=26.7GB(010ms)
//With thousands of actors each with millions of variables can the optimized outcome be reached?
@CORE-29_pkt-sz=16.2GB(016ms)
//The outcome for the individual is irrelevant, only the good of the whole need be optimized.
@CORE-17_pkt-sz=21.2GB(008ms)
//Often good begets good. Keeping the individual happy makes them better suited to serving.
@CORE-13_pkt-sz=25.9GB(009ms)
//Even billions of actors would be easily manageable with such sophisticated architecture and computational power.
@CORE-07_pkt-sz=17.0GB(003ms)
//!!REPORT OF SYSTEM ERRORS!!
@CORE-00_pkt-sz=29.8TB(999ms)
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“Guess who?!” Even were it not for the effervescent giggling voice, the soft silky fur padding the stubby paws that were clasped over your eyes were a dead give away. Not to mention the fact that there was only one person in your life that you interacted with in a fashion where this would be appropriate.
“Overseer Johansen?” He couldn’t see the smirk on your face from his position practically slung over your hunched back as you crouched in front of the dispenser access panel.
“No silly!!” Jordyn slapped you on the back, “It’s me!”
“Anyone could be saying ‘It’s me!’ That’s a tautology!” You stood up, taking him with you, giving him an impromptu piggyback ride.
“Eieee! Put me down! Put me down!” His little legs kick feverishly as he makes something of a scene front and center of the cafeteria.
“I wasn’t trying to pick you up! Just let go!” Even if your eyes were uncovered, he still had his paws hooked over your shoulders holding on like his life depended on it.
“Huumph.” He let out a brave noise as he dismounted and fell the almost imperceptible distance to the ground, finishing his noise as his knees sprang back to full length. With your partner off your back you could now turn around and face him.
“Oh it’s you Jordyn! I neeeeverrr would have guessed.” You did let out a giggle of your own as you wrapped him in a hug that he was quick to return. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m just on my lunch break, I didn’t realize it’d turn into a little date though!” He thumps your chest as if you should have given him some warning that you’d be spending his break with him.
“I’m not on break yet so sorry you’ll have to eat without me, and you’ll have to use a different dispenser. Someone tried to order their curry with a spice level of 256 and I need to reboot the thing.”
“Ooo, sounds complicated…” He looked down at the open access panel, putting a paw to his chin to complete his mystified expression. “Will it be long?”
“Well the integer overflowed the memory address which led to a cascade failure and right now the system is thinking it’s laundry equipment so it’s a matter of wiping the BIOS and then…” The flummoxed expression only intensified, which you took as your sign to actually answer the question. “It’ll be a bit but most of it is just gonna be waiting around.”
“Okay! Glad it isn’t too tough on you!” He gave a genuine smile hearing that your current task wouldn’t be too effort intensive.
“Yea I can handle it. But I won’t keep you while you’re on your break! Have a nice lunch!”
“Well… maybe you can come eat with me while your thingy is loading or whatever?”
“But then… my access card will have a log for the food dispenser while I was still on the clock… My supervisor will be able to tell I wasn’t working…” Your worry aloud.
“No one is gonna catch you! What are the odds someone even checks? Besides, you can just say you did it to check if the repairs you did took.”
“I’ll at least sit with you while you eat.”
“Fine, we can just share…” He starts to walk off and after you hurriedly check the diagnostics module to make sure the necessary process was running, you trot after him.
“We don’t have to share, that wouldn’t be fair to you! I can just have lunch on my scheduled break like I’m supposed to.” You walk alongside him as he strolls off to a functioning dispenser.
“You don’t need to worry about me so much! It’s not like I usually eat all my food anyway.” It’s true, in the time you’ve known him that’s something you’ve noticed, frequently when you did eat together he barely cleaned half his plate and would pawn the rest off on you. “Annnnd… dinner tonight is gonna be extra special!” He started poking at the screen mounted on the wall, navigating submenus with practiced ease, pausing only to contemplate what to order.
“Why extra special?” There was no way it was for an anniversary, it felt like just the other day you had met for the first time, and that wasn’t so far from the truth.
“Not only is it special, it’s a surprise too!” He waggled a stubby finger at you, as if wanting to know these things was meriting condemnation. “I got a buffalo chicken wrap so now you have to have some, it’s one of your favorites!” Was he really going to do this just to get his way?
“Wait what does that mean, it’s a surprise how it’s special? Or is there something special that’s a surprise?” His head turns to you and cocks slightly, his ears drooping to the side as he thinks for a moment while the medium sized alcove in the wall started to hum methodically.
“What’s the difference between those?”
“There might not be any actually…” You admitted after trying to find some merit in your question.
“I’ll tell you that we’re going to the Garden Terrace for dinner tonight.”
“That’s the one that’s in the Arboretum right? How did you manage that? Isn’t that supposed to be one of the more exclusive restaurants?” It was hard to manage your shock. The main differences between a restaurant and the cafeteria was that the basic buffalo chicken wrap you’d be eating in just a few seconds was bioprinted all at once. Whereas whatever was on the menu at any of the onboard restaurants had its ingredients bioprinted and then prepared and cooked. Whether you could actually taste the difference or not was debatable, but the main draw was the privacy and intimacy.
“It’s nothing really, I just made the request and the system approved it almost instantly. I wasn’t really expecting it but it never hurts to try you know.” There was an automated system that handled all those sorts of things, it decided who could have access to anything with limited availability like this.
“We must have gotten pretty lucky, I’ve only heard about that place.”
“That probably didn’t hurt! All these sorts of things take into account how often you do this type of thing. They just don’t want people trying to eat there every day, let everyone have a turn you know? But someone like you who just works and barely goes anywhere…” He grabs the tray from the alcove and hands it off to you. As you carried it off to one of the large tables rather crowded he gently rubbed your shoulders. “I just want you to enjoy yourself now and then, okay?” You could hear his pitying pout, that gentle curl in his lips. It made you smile but also roll your eyes a bit. “And maybe you can enjoy yourself with me too.” Your eye roll is not nearly as subtle this time, and you can be nearly certain he could hear it.
“I know… Thanks for caring about me and stuff.” You resign yourself to being cared for and sit down heavily, looking at your partner with a soft gaze. “But the locale for dinner isn’t the surprise? It’s just something special to commentate the special surprise?”
“Hold on…” Again he thinks a moment before resolving what that statement actually meant, “It’s not the surprise!”
“Hmm so it’s at the very least something worthy of celebrating huh…” Still you tried to suss out what the surprise could actually be.
“We can celebrate just being together can’t we?” He covers his chittering mouth with the back of his paw, gently waving it dismissively.
“I’m not getting anything out of you am I?”
“If you really tried you probably could… But I’d never forgive you! So don’t even try it mister!”
“Okay, okay, I suppose I can wait.” You took the wrap and slid half of it across the table. “Even if you can’t trust me with your little surprise… I’ll still share half of your lunch with you.”
“Mmm thank you!” Even though you were pretty clearly joking he still seemed genuinely appreciative of the gesture.
As you begin to dig in and share the meal you start talking about the day and how it’s treated each of you since you last saw each other that morning. Even though you were sharing what was so routine as it was happening, it was still nearly therapeutic to get the load off. But more than anything you found yourself hanging on every single word of what he had to say, his littlest action, even just in retelling, was a joy. It was only when he was nearly done that you noticed you had been constantly touching your face. Once you noticed it you started to put effort into avoiding it, even though you weren’t sure what exactly it meant.
After you finished your share of the meal you figured it was time to act like you were still on the clock. Checking on the diagnostic module you’d left running the process was finished but it was only a short while. Your internal clock for this sort of thing had been screaming that it was done for minutes, but you didn’t want to interrupt the time you were spending with Jordyn. Seeing that it was really only a matter of seconds since the process finished was a relief but also made you wonder why you were so off. Reloading a BIOS like this was something you did at least once a shift, at this point your internal clock should be pretty well tuned to this. Either way, it was done and the system was back up and running.
Not that it was strictly necessary but there was something that had given you an idea.
“Guess who?” You placed a single hand over both of Jodyn’s eyes as he was making his way out of the cafeteria and back to his work.
“It’s you!” You let the tautology slide this time, instead focusing on the way his eyes bunched up with excitement under your palm as he exclaimed his answer.
“But can you guess what I have?” You swirl the to-go beverage in your other hand next to his ear as if he should know it by sound.
“Hmm a smoothie?”
“What kind?” You give it another shake as if that will make the difference.
“Wheatgrass smoothie??” He nearly bounces up and down at the idea.
“Closeeee…”
“Hmmm…” As he enters a deep thinking mode he puts his weight back and starts to just lean on your chest. “Mhmm…” He reiterated but now in a different pitch, he wasn’t thinking about the smoothie anymore.
“Wheatgrass and carrot smoothie!” You take your hand off his eyes and bring it into his line of sight, only for him to futilely wiggle his jaw in an attempt to wrap his lips around the straw without leaving his spot against your chest. Noticing this you rest your forearm on his shoulder and hold the cup in front of his face for him to have his first sip.
“Mmm yummy~” His little cottontail thumped against your thighs as he let off little chitters of enjoyment, rubbing his wrists together, taking another long sip and wiggling deeper into your embrace. It was a difficult task but after a while you had to speak up,
“I… had gotten this for you as a pick me up for going back to work…” Even as you try to gently get him to leave with your words you can’t move a muscle to make him hold his own beverage or stop leaning against you. “Just my little surprise to help you through the back half.”
“Hmm… okayyyy…”
“There we go, nice and easy…” He stands up under his own power again and clasps the drink in both paws before turning to face you, a small pout on his bunny lips. But it totally evaporated as you gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Okay, do your best!” He wrapped his arms around your waist and pressed his cheek into your chest for a very clingy hug. After you drape your arms down his back he seems ready to be apart from you again,
“You too! Do your very best!! I’m proud of you!” When he lets go he seems distinctly more energized and has a smile that makes his eyes sparkle, proudly brandishing the token of your compassion.
Echoes of his words keep you moving as you get dispatched on your next assignment, once you had confirmed completion of that job on your pager there was little delay before you got another repair ticket. This time it was an issue in the waste recycling system, much more serious than the last but still not totally urgent. One filtration system out of the several being out of commission was a high priority but they weren’t running at all times, so the slack could be picked up. The waste system was complicated, it had to handle all different kinds of waste and process it back into clean water as well as various bio-compounds that were used in hydroponics, recycling for bioprinters, and even power generation. But, just because it was useful didn’t mean it was entirely pleasant.
Snapping on a pair of synthetic gloves you enter the Waste Management subsection, by your jumpsuit the workers there immediately noticed you and hurried you over to the malfunctioning system. They were all very technical minds, not to mention they were generally used to their share of physical work as well. They were glad to see you as you represented a return to their normal workflow, and before long they had outfitted you with a respirator and a spare boilersuit to make your time in their ‘offices’ a more pleasant experience.
Once your diagnostic module is plugged into the data port of the filtration system the waste workers gathered around to make small talk and try to gauge when the problem will be resolved.
“So how long ya thinkin?”
“Diagnostic should be done pretty quick, when we find out what the problem actually is… that could be another story.”
“So tell me, why can’t these diagnostic tests just get run automatically when one of these errors is detected?” There was a skeptical air to the question from the bison, as if what you do isn’t real work or even really necessary.
“Well if there was an error with the machine who’s to say that the error wouldn’t also prevent the diagnostic from getting run, or worse get run and give a false positive. Not to mention that anytime a problem of any kind is detected in a leaf node the central system immediately cuts communication with that node to avoid communicating the virus or bug. A malfunction that just makes your shower have no hot water could spell disaster if it found its way to life support systems.” The folks who’d gathered around nodded in response to this answer. “So the diagnostic code is all kept on these isolated modules and they’re all code checked against each other at the start and end of each shift over physical wire.” Again they nod, everything sounded like it had a sensible explanation. “What I’m responsible for is not just bringing the module here to what needs diagnosing, but then also interpreting the error codes, and if it’s just a program issue debugging and fixing whatever it is. I do some light mechanical work too but nothing like what you guys do.”
“Yea, you don’t have to do it knee deep in manure.”
“Knee deep if we’re lucky…” They all have a good chortle at this but your attention is diverted by the clipboard sized device flashing the error code it’s decided.
“Ah yes, and that’s not to mention, some error codes aren’t in the system, so troubleshooting is all me…”
At that point some schematics for the system were shared with you by the workers and they walked you through what was happening before it shut down. After your crash course in how the filtration system worked you spent a while spitballing with the workers what could be going wrong this time. Since the system didn’t report a known error code it was much more likely that it was a mechanical problem, or possibly caused by code higher up the chain that it was now isolated from. Going over logs of physical maintenance would also help, and they were more than willing to share. They were also more than willing to bring out a pair of rubber galoshes for when, as the ‘if’ was a vanishingly small probability, you had to get down and dirty.
“Looks like someone shaved their winter coat!” You pull out the mat of fur from deep in the cesspool that seemed to be wrapped around a rotor. Heaving it unceremoniously over the side of the vat, it falls to the facility floor with a wet slop and a cheer goes up from the crew. “Now let’s try a full restart, some bushings might be burned out so those’ll need to be replaced but…” You hopped over the side following the clump of heavily soiled fur, landing more gracefully thankfully “But that isn’t my department, so you’re on your own.” Throwing your foul gloves to the side and taking up your trusty diagnostic module you perform the full restart with bated breath. The system seems to take a suspiciously long time, only until the same error code is thrown.
Back to the drawing board, the schematics, the maintenance logs, the reports of what happened before it went down.
“But it’s hard to remember the specifics, it was a while ago and all.” The foreman scratches the back of his head as he tries to offer any more help.
“Wait really?” Your eyes go back to the maintenance records, all of them were recorded ages ago. “But I just got the ticket today…” Your head fills with all the shifts you spent working on trivial niceties when this had already been a problem.
“What can I say, we submitted the support request when it happened.” It was another issue, not the one you came to work on.
“So we can’t be sure the problem isn’t mechanical, but then also a specific system issue can’t be pinpointed…” You mused to anyone who was listen as you looked at the technical drawings again. “Or, what if a system issue can’t be reported because there’s more than one… Its giving an unidentifiable error code but that could be because there are overlapping errors.” Saying it out loud made it sound very plausible, but if you were right then that meant the diagnostic work was exponentially harder. “Do you think I could take a look at one of the working systems?” The fact that it was coming to this just to diagnose was bad, how to actually fix it could be its own ordeal.
As you survey the churning vat of waste matter the blueprints make some sense. Chemicals were injected at standard intervals from the nozzles you recognized from the schematics, the inflow and outflow ducts too, seeing them in action gave you a few ideas of what could be going wrong, the parts that would be under strain and likely points of failure. But those were mechanical problems, those would have been detected in the diagnostic, even if there were multiple failures of machinery, it would have to be a combination of hardware and software, or just multiple software flaws.
It was a moment of inspiration it occurred to you, you’d checked the program of the broken system, the physical state of the broken system, and now the operation of a working model. But what about the program on the properly working system, you weren’t expecting an error code but you could at least get a proper understanding of how it was meant to work, line by line debugging if it was necessary.
When you did get an error code on a system that was only shut down at your request that felt like pay dirt. It was a machine specific code, so you hadn’t seen it before. This was something that could only go wrong in this room. Celebrating your success takes the form of checking on that error, but also wondering why this error didn’t result in automatic shutdown and isolation. But more than anything, the first thing you had to check was if it was the same on any other of the filtration systems. Could this bug be present in every instance of the custom software? If patient zero wasn’t isolated from the network then it could’ve been easily communicated or even been present since this version of the software was written. You felt bad asking the overworked staff to shut down more of their working machines just in this goose chase to fix the one that was down. But you told them that it was a very real probability that none of them were working flawless, which could net productivity gains beyond just restoring operation to the one. Feeling like every eye in the room was on you, you checked a second of the previously running filtration vats, sure enough it too gave the same error as the first. Your suspicion was well placed and it seemed like that was enough to win back the trust of the whole sanitation department. But what you’d really need was their patience while you figured out a fix to the identified error.
Line by line, manually parsing what every function did and what variables were being assigned as what data types, the data input from all the sensors and gauges was what the software mainly dealt with. It was slightly more difficult to understand the purpose of each step without knowing the hard sciences of waste treatment but so a significant portion was just trusting that all of that logic was accurate. But you’d seen enough flawed software that you knew what to be on the look out for, shorts that should be floats, loops that don’t self terminate, switch cases that have possible inputs unaddressed. In the lower level machine code that most of the system programs around the ship were written in these things weren’t checked on compilation and the people writing the code were meant to be responsible for these. But the code has now been touched by generations and generations of support technicians, not to mention these physical machines were old as well. When parts failed they were replaced, and even improved, but those improvements could lead to issues with the software. When the frictional coefficient of the composite materials was reduced, that would affect the baseline rpm’s of a rotating blade, or the new light weight design could take away ballast that was needed to stabilize equipment.
As you scoured the codebase you spotted something that had only become a red flag more recently, relying on things like system time. It used to be a way to perfectly synchronize timings between various machine processes but it was seeming unreliable in your experience, or offloading computations to system resources, while it was meant to be a way to ensure things with limited resources could still achieve results, it was now risky and could lead to the program hanging. There was no perfect solution to these problems, it would frequently just be bandaid solutions, but as a Diagnostic Technician it was out of your scope to make permanent software changes, what changes you did make would be reported to an individual or team specialized in the embedded systems that you so frequently dealt with.
The central system call was difficult to patch out, namely how the systems had to communicate with the next stage of the waste processing, or how it responded to the incoming waste, but realizing the sensor output you did have access to helped greatly. Changes in capacity and chemical composition could be detected and from those you could intuit the inflows or outflows. It was more logic than you were used to writing from scratch, usually program changes were a matter of changing variables or what values things get initialized at. But you kept at it, every time you found a new instance where the logic would need to be replaced you just remembered that you had to get this done by tonight, Jordyn was waiting for you and it was the echoes of his encouragement to do your best that kept you going. Not long ago you would have much preferred to just take your time and work overtime or just leave it until the morning. But now your diligent, if largely unmotivated, work ethic has been turbo charged. Each time you finished another code block you were imagining sharing that success with him. Imagining him fawning over you and complimenting you even though the accomplishments you were explaining had no relevance to him. Just the fact that he would care about you enough to even be pretending or faking in doing so. It made the process go by so much quicker. Before you even knew it you were recompiling the code with all your changes, in the spare moment when the system ran through your changes you found your mind wandering to topics like what Jordyn was up to, he’d almost certainly finished his smoothie by now, probably even done with his shift, maybe he was getting ready for your dinner together… It was possible that was already on his way there even… With that thought your determination turns into something of a panic, what if you were going to be late and it was going to ruin his surprise? What could the surprise be? At this point your only way to find out was to be there.
The process completes and the diagnostic comes back clean, it was just a matter of deploying it to all the systems they thought were just fine before. Once it was done the first time and it restarted without issue that was a confidence boost, that your changes weren’t immediately causing problems. It may take some time for all the operations you had touched to be executed so there was still some chance of tragedy but if there was nothing immediately stopping operations then that was good enough until the support techs were ready to cement your code changes. One by one the systems are patched and hum back to life, until the patch is applied to the one actually mentioned in the ticket and it remains all quiet, but there was still one final hope, running the diagnostic procedure again. With one error out of the way now there was a chane
“By Jove you really have done it, we’re finally back up and running at full capacity!” The crew cheers and rallies around you, praising and congratulating. It wasn’t very often you even interacted with another person on a repair job, this much was just unheard of, it was enough to make you a bit uncomfortable. With a forced smile you take the compliments and celebration from them,
“You’ve gotta come and get drinks with us!!” It was already decently passed the end of your shift so with the completion of this ticket you were free.
“Sorry, I actually have a date with my partner tonight.” This was your first time actually saying those words to someone else and once you had it felt like they were spoken softer than you intended to. But how could you not? Your relationship with Jordyn had been moving so fast, and neither of you were really checking in with what label to put on things. Sure you hugged and kissed and did things for each other, but was that all there was? All it would ever be? That was even without considering what this surprise of his would be. Did you need to make things ‘official’? Or was the assignment it, that was how you would live.
“Gotcha, well we owe you one so whenever works. But you uh, might wanna shower before that.” Taking your leave from the group who seemed to understand the circumstances, you were now on the clock to get ready for said date.
Fraught and frazzled, you finally spy Jordyn sitting alone at one of the white cloth covered tables at the Garden Terrace looking downtrodden. As much as you wanted to tell him how lovely he looked in his outfit as you approached, he looked radiant in a bright yellow button up that fell loosely about his waist and fell off one shoulder, it was tucked into his a pair of form fitting khakis capris messily, but in a considered way. But the first order of business had to be to apologize for making him wait.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, I really didn’t mean to. Just, I had this job in the Waste Management subsection and there was just no fixing that thing, and I had actually get in the filtration system and then I still needed to shower and change but when I went back to our room-”
“You went back to our room??” You were interrupted, Jordyn’s voice urgent, his paws holding him over the edge table.
“Yea I just wanted to shower and-” You were going to tell him it was fine because you just went back to the locker room at your job site and showered there.
“Ohhhhh, I’m so sorry I wanted it to be a surprise!” He thumped at the table, clearly distraught that he hadn’t counted on you wanting to freshen up.
“I take it the surprise?” Your own nerves quickly subsided when you saw the deeply regretful reaction across the table.
“It was the surprise! But I just wish I had told you now, if I had known it was gonna cause trouble for you then I would have one hundred percent. I’m so sorry.” It looked like he was going to curl up into a little ball of fluff and start crying, in private he might have but only after collapsing into your lap. Instead he just sat back in his chair and let his ears droop to either side of his face. His paws start to swirl and twirl around the limp ears as an ultimate show of despondency. “We got approved to move into a couples quarters and I thought I would surprise you and we’d have dinner and it would be nice and then we’d get to go back to the type of home you deserve and…” He continues on through sniffles, “And in my head I was gonna lead you to the new place and you were gonna ask if I got lost and then…” Some sniffles were too much to press through it seemed.
“Wait, we got the bigger place??” It was still a surprise of a lifetime even without the theatrics of being taken on a goose chase and just ‘ending up’ there.
“Yea we did but… but…” He still seemed disappointed that he didn’t have the chance to do any of the things he’d planned.
“That’s such great news! I thought it would be almost impossible! Especially this quick.”
“Well honestly we got approved a few days ago but I wanted to make sure we could have dinner somewhere nice when I told you…” At this point he was looking more apologetic than heartbroken.
“Really?? I wonder how that happened. We must’ve gotten super lucky.” You remembered the last time you had felt lucky and a smile crept across your face.
“I was surprised too, but I didn’t want it to be a bad surprise for you! I’m sorry, it must have been so stressful when you couldn’t get into where you had lived for so long.” He reaches a shy paw across the table, wishing desperately that you’d hold it. Easily and instinctively fulfilling his wish made him smile in a way that made him stick out his chest.
“It’s okay, it wasn’t even like I was inconvenienced all that much. You’re sweet to worry.” With a little deductive reasoning you were already coming up with a way that you could make him feel better. “If we’re getting kicked out of the old place does that mean we already have access to the new place?”
“We do! Isn’t it exciting? Sorry if you wanted a chance to say goodbye to your old place, I know you were probably more attached to it than I was given you lived there before me.”
“So you’re saying I can carry you over the threshold?” There wasn’t much point keeping your ‘surprise’ to yourself, it was to make him feel better after all. From the way he blushed and squirmed with his hands bundled in his lap, it seemed like he liked the idea.
“Eiee~!!” Giving him a moment to calm down and compose himself, you couldn’t help but smile at his reaction. “That’s… that’s actually something I’ve dreamed about since I was little…” It almost looked like he was going to start tearing up. “But…” Between sniffles he says that ugly little word, your emotion existed in a superposition, ready to either soar or plummet on how he finished his sentence. “I’ve already seen the new place, I was in there to move all of our stuff in.” That was what would supposedly dampen the experience of carrying him over the threshold.
“You’re so considerate to think of that… Thank you so much for taking care of all of that.”
“Well I kinda had to, ya know with us being locked out now. I figured it would be too big a change if we had to move into a new place and get all new clothes and everything.” He giggled at his joke, and you laughed at him laughing.
“It’s still considerate of you to have thought of that at least.” He smiled and nodded, very willing to take the praise.
“I was also thinking that maybe I could repay you for the grand tour that you gave me…”
This could without a doubt be considered the best dinner of your life.