The Ring of Acies

Chapter Three: A Tingling Intuition

Amid the star-speckled void, a tiny blue flame sparkles in the dark. Through the wide window of the fitness centre, Terrine watches an automated cargo ship leave P. Op. As she runs on the curved treadmill that she is strapped to, her mind begins to wander. After the events of that afternoon, her investigative instinct is tingling like a limb that has lost circulation. There are more people in the fitness centre tonight. The post-gravity soreness has worn off, and people are eager to do their best to toughen up for next time.

Whether or not the project she is working on is for malicious intent, the increased station security presence in Biz. is very suspicious. Fortunately, that presence has not bled over to R&R. Not yet at the very least. She gets distracted briefly by some off-worlder sprinting on a treadmill as though he were trying to beat the deep space groundspeed record. The sound of him stomping on the treadmill is mildly infuriating, but she does not have the energy to get into an argument. She focuses on her movement, ensuring each foot properly plants and holds onto the belt, how her legs counteract the normal force caused by the straps pulling her to the surface of the treadmill. She increases the volume of her music to drown out the ever-increasing noise of the other people in the fitness centre. To think that in a few generations, this room, this module, this entire station will be on the surface, being repurposed to build Acies' first cities. That R&R will experience proper surface gravity produced by a planet. Something Terrine has gone her whole life without ever experiencing, as is with most of those born on Initium.

Even if she were not born in a colony, Terrine thinks that she would have found a way to work for one. She finds the whole setup to be fascinating. She admires the engineering behind the station. It is built from materials from over a dozen different solar systems and is essentially made to live two lives. One as a pressurized ring around a potentially viable planet, and the other being the seed that will sprout a civilization on a world previously unknown to the human race. This is why Terrine is worried about what is happening in Biz. and P. Op. The station is a collective sum of the hopes and dreams of billions. She does not want it to fall simply because some executive in some office in the executive district in Biz. got a little bit greedy. If she has the power to prevent the station from failing, she will do everything she can to ensure its survival.

The treadmill beeps, indicating her hour-long session is complete. As she unstraps herself from the machine, a sanitation drone quickly rushes over to clean the device before its subsequent use.

She makes her way over to a tensioned rowing machine. She chuckles at the irony that she will never actually row anything in her lifetime. She sets the tension a little higher than she is used to and gets to work. Her arms are stiff, and it is challenging to start at first, but after the initial stages, she begins to enjoy it. She loves the feeling of bending the fake oars to her will. She takes out her frustrations from the day out on the machine. She imagines pulling open the doors to some private conference room in the bowels of Biz. and finding whoever set the ridiculous security protocols in Biz. She imagines grabbing them by the collar and shaking them while asking why. Before she can go deeper into her fantasy, her tasker starts vibrating. She cannot grab it at the moment, but her headphones tell her that it is Avener. She lets it go to voicemail as she continues her session on the rowing machine.

Out of the corner of her eye, Terrine sees a newsfeed playing the special emergency alert banner. She cranes her neck to try and read it, but she cannot see it. She speaks to the Artificial Intelligence on her tasker, Tiko.

"Tiko, are there any Duodecant-wide alerts being broadcast?" She asks.

"One moment, please...." Tiko responds in his overly chipper voice.