Libram

Chapter 1: Edwin

Seated on an uncomfortable chair with nothing to occupy him but his mountainous collection of paperwork, Edwin sighed and lethargically moved on from one formulaic report document to the next. There was no clock in his "personal" office, (personal being a word used liberally when it was little more than a cramped wooden room with a desk and a pile of books he had been instructed never to read,) so it was impossible to tell if he'd been working for a full shift or for less than a minute or anywhere in between. The only sound was the scraping of his pen on parchment and the whining servos of his mechanical prosthetic hand. During a routine medical checkup, he was informed that his old hand needed to be amputated, but would not tell him why no matter how many times he asked. They always told him to file a report, and so he did, but never received a reply. He had come to accept this new metal appendage, and to be fair it did make his life a tad easier considering a robotic hand never tires from writing. Edwin found nothing strange about the documents he was absently filling out, as he had by this point grown numb to the various buzzwords, doublespeak and overall nonsensical language used by his employers. Even when conveying very simple concepts, the forms he completed apparently felt compelled to get their message across in the most confusing and overly complicated way possible. Over his three years of working under Libram-9, his planetary sector's local data nexus, he'd learned to decipher some of the convoluted jargon of the Cerebrum. All in all, by experience and grit he worked his way through the laborious process of filling out well over a hundred reports and forms, none of which contained any useful information, mind you. Looking upon his finished handiwork, he couldn't help but feel a little bit proud of himself, and finally he had the opportunity to do something unrelated to his work. He... didn't exactly know what that something would be, but he'd figure it out. Or so he thought, because as he opened his office door to leave, he was wordlessly greeted by one of his superiors, a humanoid skeleton held together and animated by a network of sparking cybernetic augments. Its every step whirred like a small factory and its left eye had been replaced with a glowing red lens. The skeleton unceremoniously shoved a heavy box of even more desk work into Edwin's hands and shut the door before he could object. Instead he simply sighed, yawned and made his way back to his menial logistics.

It took several hours, but Edwin did in fact manage to complete his duties for the day. It was getting dark, but he still had time to actually do something for once, and that at least excited him somewhat. Stepping outside the claustrophobic halls of the Libram-9, Edwin looked around him and breathed the open air. Admittedly, he worked on a rather arid desert world, so the fresh oxygen outside wasn't much less stuffy than the dust of his office, but still. The walk back to his apartment in Designate City 8-j4-938-X wasn't too long, but it was tiring and hot trudging through the sand. It was a cloudy night, but on occasion he could just barely make out the silhouettes of Cerebrum empire spacecraft orbiting his nameless planet, patrolling for whatever it is the Crypto Sentries spend their time on the lookout for. Every now and then he'd see a transport tank full of the skeletal military police whizz by, and he could not help but wonder why so many were making their way into the city. He also wondered why a cybernetic skeleton has need of wearing clothes, but that's not as relevant. His first question was answered when he finally reached the city limits and stopped to watch what was apparently a Cerebrum military parade. Tanks, armoured cars, Skullwalkers and more came lumbering down the street as the crowds just silently stared. You'd think that a parade would be cause for cheering and celebration, but no one dared make a sound. Platoons of Crypto Sentries came marching uncannily in lockstep, their laser cutters at the ready and their cutlasses on their backs. The massive weaponized mammoth like skeletons known as Skullephants caused minor shockwaves wherever they stepped and the machine guns on either side of their ribcages swiveled like vultures on alert. It was only when the Voxblaster, a blaring, walking skeletal siren with a speakerphone jammed into its mouth, came down the street that Edwin realized this was no parade whatsoever.
"A class eight curfew is now in effect under authority of [REDACTED]. Please remain in your homes. Failure to comply will result in a fine, imprisonment and/or death. Your safety cannot be guaranteed when outside after curfew. If you have any questions or complaints, please fill out form 3-93-95829-285-6863-9220-56 and turn it in to your local Nexus. A response may take thirty days or years or more."
The message repeated as the people dispersed, and Edwin realized he wouldn't actually get to do much this day. He depressedly walked home to his apartment and did what he did every single day: wait for tomorrow.