MD Shift: Overture

Chapter 12: EndProg

Quarterly reports were meant to be simple. Disassembly teams checked in, reported the number of workers they dispatched, and then were dismissed. Ideally, they wouldn't be heard from again until the next quarter. Rinse and repeat. On the off-chance a Disassembler was destroyed, word was sent to the technicians to build a replacement. It all ran like clockwork.

But the Director had grown used to things not being simple. The primary complication was bandwidth. The landing pods were the Disassemblers' only line of communication. They were advanced, but sending and receiving signals from Intersol's moon station to a perpetually overcast planet was tricky. The second issue was the planet's rotation. While the Disassemblers mitigated signal complications by positioning their pods atop skyscrapers or mountains, nothing was getting through if the moon was on the other side of the planet.

These reports would be much easier if he could gather all of the team leaders into a conference call, but the pods' bandwidth couldn't support it. There were a total of eight Disassembler teams active on Copper 9, each assigned to a sector with the thickest worker population. That meant holding eight individual conference calls of varying lengths. Add in spotty signals and the planet's rotation, and quarterly reports could take several days to get through. The Director didn't need to spend any more time on them than necessary.

Sometimes he didn't bother with calls, opting instead for digital reports, which came with their own set of problems. It circumvented the signal and rotation problems, and digital messages came through much quicker, but it also meant reading every report, and they were always lengthy. Disassemblers were nothing if not thorough with their paperwork. The Director's secretary sometimes joked that the next quarterly reports would be ready by the time they finished the last ones.

It's always something, the Director bitterly thought while massaging his wrinkled forehead. Rising from his chair, he turned to study the white planet beyond the viewport in his office.

Despite the catastrophe, Copper 9 retained elements of beauty from orbit. It boasted a single large landmass dubbed Beryllia. The early colonists likened it to Earth's Pangaea. The surrounding body of water came to be known as the Ebon Sea, named for the mineral content that gave the water a black hue. Pockets of islands separate from Beryllia existed, though no efforts were made to establish settlements there. Everything humanity needed from Copper 9 was on the west coast of Beryllia, which was where the first and only city was founded.

It was called Alloy City, a sprawling metropolis with eight interconnected districts that were named after various copper minerals. Back when humans populated this once-crowning achievement in human settlement, they could travel freely between districts via an intricate monorail network. The Director reminisced about riding one of those magnificent machines with his wife and daughter. Sometimes, they rode without a destination in mind. They remained seated as the monorail took them through all eight districts, seeing what each had to offer, taking in the fruits of human achievement.

Alloy City was often referred to as Copper 9's New York City. It could have become the capital of the entire planet if humans had continued to expand. Now, it was a tomb of what could have been, crawling with drones like maggots in a corpse.

The flicker of remembrance faded like a ghost when the faint chime of a digital bell rang outside his office.

"Director Elliott," a female voice buzzed through a small speaker next to the door, "The quarterly reports are ready."

James Elliott turned away from the viewport of his office and pressed a button on his desk linked to the door's speaker. "Come in."

The door slid open, and Elaine Ridley entered with a data pad in hand. A woman in her mid-thirties, Ridley was punctual and efficient. Her sharp hazel eyes were the most discerning James had known, which made her the ideal assistant.