Aedan wasn’t thinking of anything when a seductively smooth voice filled his helmet.
"Warning: Walk-pathing deviation detected. All facility staff must comply with pre-authorized Technician Walk Route navigational markers indicated on the terrain overlay map on the bottom right of your heads-up display. Please direct your attention to the highlighted area- now." Even through the poor-quality speakers, the mining station A.I.’s voice came through with disturbing clarity- it was downright distracting. Which, he supposed, was the point.
And then, as though on cue, the border of the unremarkable square map- crudely depicting the local surroundings of the Alta Caelo space station relative to his position- began pulsating in a neon-yellow hue. A color nearly as visually obnoxious as the danger ping system (DPS) rhythmically shrieking in his ears. That, and the flashing, bold red 'WARNING' sign within a transparent rectangular border that unapologetically superimposed itself directly in the center of his field of view. It was, in essence, the most humanely-minimal alarm ever developed. At least in his opinion. But the worst part had to have been his inability to toggle the function.
If only it were that simple.
‘But things can never be simple, now, could they?’ The thought spread like a wildfire, igniting, feasting- devouring- through the dry, dead kindling of his heart and soul.
His eyes glazed over, and a darkness crept in at the edges of his vision.
His heartbeat slowed.
His breath dragged.
His ears rang.
His vision swam, wreathed in clawing shadows.
Then, a memory. A caring smile. A firm hand. And a stronger voice. Much stronger than him.
“Get it done.”
The darkness and ringing pulsed angrily, then receded like a fleeting tide as the world snapped back into place with excruciating clarity.
He couldn't help but close his eyes and slowly inhale and exhale as he leaned his helmet against a conveniently face-height rung, the glass of his helmet 'tinking' against the cheap, coarse metal.
He stayed that way for a long time.
The alarm gradually morphed into a sad parody of a torturous lullaby. And in that strange, monotone oneness of sound, he let his mind wander.
Out amongst the beautiful pinpricks of starlight reflecting across the front of his visor.
The DPS faded into obscurity as his mind retreated somewhere else. Somewhere safe... Somewhere practiced.
A place he often sought when life became too much for his shoulders. A place of solitude, respite, and healing.
He almost found peace in that perfect, fleeting moment.
But it was an imperfect world.
"Technician CD-HDI-one zero five six," a woman's voice spoke above the alarm, yanking his perception out of that safe place and back to reality.
Aedan slowly blinked- the gleam of awareness and life returning to his eyes as they oriented to the blinking caller I.D. portrait in the center of his HUD.
The face of a mature woman with a sun-kissed complexion, hair as dark as empty space, and glowing azure rings for irises stared across from him.
The woman’s eyes narrowed, and her full lips parted. "Sones, Aedan. Is this correct?"
Aedan silently returned her stare.
"Your silence has been noted.” She deadpanned in a voice nearly as flat as Aedan's expression. "However, I must inform you that neither your consent, or your admission, are necessary for these proceedings. As such, please be informed: a disciplinary note has been added to your permanent record for the following reas-" Her voice oddly disconnected through the speaker system with a sizzle and snap and her digital portrait was scribbled across with pixel flares.
Then, the portrait stabilized. And a long moment passed.
Aedan's expression never changed, and his eyes didn't move from hers.
"-your position has not changed despite multiple warnings." She easily picked up from where she'd left off without skipping a beat. "The event has been marked, time-stamped, and filed on your permanent record. Additionally, as dictated by company security protocols, your employee identity tracker has been remotely activated. This system will deactivate upon your arrival to the nearest designated technician walk route. You have... One-hundred and twenty seconds... before local automated security countermeasures are deployed. And, please, always remember- have a nice day." The blaring DPS alarm replaced the A.I's sultry voice at the precise moment it winked out of existence.
It was probably his imagination, but the alarm sounded shriller than usual.
Letting his expression crumple back into the shape of suppressed pain, he let out a long, exasperated sigh and released his grip on the clamber tube rungs. Then, with a gentle kick off the lowest rung, he was weightless- suspended in the emptiness of space.
And for just a brief moment.
It all went away.
Then, the artificial gravity grabbed his torso in a vise grip and pulled. The descent was steady, but harsh, his boots shakily slamming onto a narrow section of the lower exterior catwalk. The whole structure shuddered violently under his weight as he landed with a grunt, but was soon already walking; too used to the constant tremors and creaks of the station's infrastructure to truly care. His trudging silhouette stood in stark contrast to the vast expanse of space surrounding him.
And when compared to the dull, blocky space station above and the beautiful planetary horizon curving up from below like an immense space whale about to breach the surface tension of a twinkling sapphire sea, he appeared quite small. Puny, even, as the limitless ocean of stars dotting the dark canvas of the cosmos imperceptibly moved relative to the station's rotation.
Only a thin sheet of rickety metal separated him from a fathomless abyss.
He didn't spare a glance for the view.
The upper section of the station's main outer bulkhead was over two meters above him now. So he was no longer technically on the station but standing on the boundary of a maze-like network of patchwork scaffolding structures haphazardly attached to critical sections of the station's exterior. It almost looked like the welder foreman had played telephone with the blueprints- that's how comically bad it looked from the outside.
When Aedan had first seen the thing from the window of the shuttlecraft that'd left him here, he thought the station was still under construction in some places. Naturally, he quickly learned that those areas were for maintenance teams after a Section Head shoved a tool case into his arms and pointed at the nearest airlock.
Since then, he'd learned from the other indents that the haphazard eyesore was lovingly called the Cluster, short for clusterfuck.
And with that reminiscent thought, he reached the opposite end of the catwalk and strode to a stop on solid "ground."
He cocked his head as a handful of seconds passed and the DPS remained as vibrantly loud as ever. Then, mercifully, he finally got the ear-full he was actually hoping for.
An empty caller I.D. portrait displaying the company name and logo popped up, followed with a painfully pre-recorded message in her voice: "Technician walk route connection has been re-established."
He'd once been asked his opinion on why ship, station, and colony A.I.'s tended to be distinctly of the female persuasion the further one explored industrial and commercial deep space.
A small part of him pretended not to know.
And some even smaller part of him didn't have the strength left to do anything about it.
"The Centaurus Division of Haellen-Drayk Intragalactic Industries thanks you for your loyalty, cooperation, and continued service. Have a nice day." The helmet's worn speakers sizzled and popped with static as the internal communications module struggled to simultaneously switch off the automated message.
Even the map's borders flared a final time in what distinctly felt like a silent "fuck you" before settling back down to its original opacity. And then, silence.
Aedan's brow furrowed.
Given the context surrounding the warning he'd received just now, there were a few things going on that he hadn't expected. Predominantly among them however, was the strange fact that the station's status seemed not to be synced with his suit's restriction sub-routines. There should've been a seamless uplink between his suit and the station at all times, a connection that supplied real-time suit user vitals and visual environmental data uploads through the helmet cam. But without all that occurring, every step he took off the pre-loaded maintenance pathing was akin to trespassing.
Granted, the corporations took their investments very seriously, so it wasn't any secret that security was inordinately rigid even among the citizen-processed corporate rank-and-file. Let alone the untrustworthy, unpaid indentured employees. And so, the upper maintenance section he needed to access, where he was ordered to conduct maintenance, was currently inaccessible unless he wanted the station's A.I. to consider him an internal security threat and depressurize his suit.
It was just his luck.
First, he needed to collect more information on the problem. Because although he could directly eyeball the issue and heuristically guess the fix based on his years of technical experience, without the proper clearance IFF tag broadcasting his location, any access panel he opened would be considered a security breach. And at that point, being vented out of the nearest airlock would be the least of his worries.
Though, in that case, he'd finally have left the station.
He preferred to focus on the silver lining.
Secondly, after gathering said data, he needed to authorize clearance to preemptively activate his Omnitool. Hopefully its low signal amplifier wouldn’t crack through the station’s ambient com static to alert the section's Overseer. He could only hope. Because at that point, unless he managed to manipulate one of those black-hearted corporate suits, his stay aboard the station was going to become decidedly more unpleasant than it already was. And it was already pretty damn unpleasant.
He'd learned early on that it was always best to leave a data trail of his goings-on and communications regarding upper management. The realization came sometime between being beaten senseless in a secluded corridor and being framed for a botched repair job by a ruthlessly pragmatic Section Head.
Thankfully, the ever-present threat of the boss's boss routinely combing through the station's export logs and com-traffic kept most of the level-headed supervisors in a delicate dance with one another. There was the occasional power-trip hungry, trust-fund baby dumbass of a corporate bigwig who would roll through for a few cycles of remedial duty as punishment for whatever fresh hell they cooked up back in-system. That scenario, which had already occurred twice, didn't leave much room for anything besides keeping your head down and working hard. Then again, it was best to do so no matter who stood over you. It was a difficult scale to balance. You didn't want to be too good at your job for fear of drawing the ire of an insecure, attention-seeking sadist who was so bored in their new position they would make you work over forty-eight hours of manual labor without hormone stims or even essential rest. But you also couldn't slack because then someone made an example out of you to incentivize the others.
He mentally shrugged. He would take the good with the bad. After all, he had food, water, a place to rest, and mentally stimulating work. His current quality of life was significantly improved.
Now, with a rough plan of action, his distant gaze sharpened. He gave his surroundings a cursory glance and caught movement in his visor's warped peripherals.
He turned to see what it was. His brow rose in mild surprise.
A small icy blue comet crawled across the immense backdrop of space, a thin trail of muted blue vapor following in its wake as it cut through the system. Aedan didn't see any other movement around the comet at this distance, nor the telltale glint of mining vessels orbiting the mass.
With his evening plans well and truly scrubbed, he gave into what small inkling of curiosity lingered within the sinking ship of his ambitions and tapped a conspicuously flat portion of his suit on the center of his inner left forearm without taking his gaze off of the comet. That portion of his suit suddenly came to life with a dull thrum that traveled up his arm, followed by a gentle flash of azure blue as hundreds of complex connections and calculations were done in mere moments. The result was a transparent, holographic interface and a small side display hovering an inch above the surface of his forearm.
The display was the same color as the initial bootup flash. With practiced ease, he keyed a simple sequence through the interface and watched as his view of the comet suddenly drew closer. Much closer. At maximum viable magnification through his HUD, the comet was no longer an icy blue streak against the backdrop of space, but a discernibly large, craggy, volatile, ice-composite body with a positively massive vapor wake. And at this distance, his previous assumptions were confirmed. There weren't any sporadic flashes across the comet's surface to indicate any current mining operations, nor were there freighters or inert drilling platforms closely following the hunk of ice.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
'Weird.' He thought.
He locked in his visor's current magnification before inputting another sequence of commands- his fingers dancing across the holographic interface as the complex orders caused significantly more thrumming vibrations to run up his arm. His gloved fingers remained steady, and his face didn't betray an iota of frustration with the cheap equipment.
The commands were finally accepted a few seconds later, and the vibrations held steady at their current amplitude.
His HUD simultaneously came to life with half a dozen additional displays and readouts popping up on the sides. At the same time, pale golden brackets appeared around the comet, indicating that the readouts he was receiving were explicitly drawing from the selected target. Of course, given the distance between himself and the comet, there was no way his old maintenance suit's decrepit sensor array was nearly powerful enough to get any readings. And he also wasn't patched into the station's long-range sensor array, not that he could even if he tried.
No. The results scrolling across his HUD derived from his suit relaying visual feedback to the station's extensive library of stellar objects and phenomena. The object's size, shape, color, relative speed, wake radius, and approximate mass were compared against other discovered and cataloged anomalies in the suit's latest onboard library.
Ten seconds later, he had a complete guesstimate based solely on visuals.
He grunted. 'Very weird.'
The results were purely speculative and with a non-negligible margin of error. Nevertheless, there were too many apparent flags even if some of these deductions were off by half.
Essentially, if the readings were to be believed, the comet was a veritable gold mine of volatile elements. The results only further cemented the oddity of the situation.
He was never one to sing the praises of trade corporations like Haellen-Drayk and their ilk, but he wasn't blind or stupid.
These corporations were bold parasites; strip-mining non-terraformable exoplanets, terrestrials, and comets for their volatiles and rare earth elements. And, over a decade ago, some mad team of scientists and bat-shit insane engineers even managed to invent the tech needed to establish massive I-Rings at the poles of moderately-sized gas giants.
He'd never seen one in person, but supposedly I-Rings acted like giant vacuums- steadily sucking up untold quantities of hydrogen and helium. The operational logistics surrounding those mining platforms were so extensive that most workers and support staff set up shop on the rigs themselves, that kind of tactic ending up a self-perpetuating prophecy as an explosive demand for life support systems, residential units, commercial zones, and entertainment modules seemingly sprung up overnight. At this point in fact, most I-Rings developed bustling mini-cities around their framework as job openings and freighter crew demand increased by leaps and bounds already on top of the economic boom.
A retired miner once explained to him that the science and physics behind those ridiculous contraptions were astonishing, even in modern times with today's tech.
So, Aedan was confused. This comet was extraordinarily valuable. And in plain sight, no less.
The microgravity industry in particular would love to get their paws all over this treasure trove. The pharmaceutical branch in particular, as its research and development was dominated by natural volatiles and organics- especially with volatiles playing one of the most critical roles in humanity's galactic expansion.
Take ammonia for instance- an abundant compound on the comet's surface. Ammonia could be cooled into a liquid state for agricultural fertilizers, industrial chemicals, life-saving drugs, fibers, and even plastics. These were raw materials and supplies were critical to colonial expansion and terraforming efforts.
So why hadn't they started mining it? If he could see it, then the station and its Overseer had seen it.
Aedan sniffed and looked away as he keyed off his visor's magnification and deactivated the parsing program, but only after having made sure to store a recording of the comet and his findings. Better safe than sorry in case someone was bored enough to question a maintenance Indent on a delayed Route. Speaking of which...
He rotated his left hand counter-clockwise until his gloved palm faced up and held it there for over three seconds. The holographic interface along his forearm briefly glowed brighter before gradually dimming and deactivating. The thrum along his left arm lessened until falling entirely still. And with that, he started making his way along the twisting catwalk, following the small, pulsing orange trail leading him to the repair location.
The distance was now effectively doubled since he couldn’t use the clamber tube. Still, he followed the path, making sharp turns, ducking beneath coolant pipes, stepping over bolted-down construction materials, and finally reaching another clamber tube beneath an overhang of partially-welded bulkhead. Crouching down, he held onto an extended section as he ducked underneath and crouch-walked a few feet before standing again in the pocket surrounding the clamber tube. He craned his head up, carefully following the trail of navigation markers leading up the tube with his eyes. Once he made sure he was still on the damned Route, he grasped the lowest rung and ascended. He reached the top without any difficulties and looked for the trail again, finding that it went off to the right between some inert exhaust ports and looped around the corner.
No doubt heading back in the direction he'd just come from.
The Route was uneventful, with no jarring issues cropping up along the way, and it took him about another ten minutes of hiking through the Cluster before his objective was in sight. He came to a stop below a ledge and looked up at it. He glanced down at his right thigh and keyed a switch that made a previously small green light wink out, then flare red. Making sure that he saw the proper light, he looked back up, grabbed onto the ledge with both hands, and heaved himself up, releasing his grip the next moment as his suit ignored the artificial gravity and gently carried him up and over the ledge. Once he cleared it by a foot or so, he reached down and keyed the same switch, the red light turning green. And suddenly, it was like his body possessed mass again as he fell boots-first to the platform. He took a few steps forward to catch his balance, but nothing terrible happened, and better yet, he'd finally found the damned junction box in this maze. Even after four years, he was still discovering things about the Cluster that surprised him, and this Route was one of them.
The junction box was situated into a section of bulkhead dyed yellow, indicating that it was a section connector. A connector whose release clamp was well and truly fucked by the looks of things- practically fused into slag.
'Fantastic,' he mused.
These fuckers were always a handful. One mistake and every section routing its power through this little shit would go down, or issues would flare up with some critical systems. And now he needed to perform surgery on the damn thing. Before starting, he glanced at his oxygen supply and energy cell capacity.
The oxygen was still well in the green, and his sole energy cell was sitting at a comfortable eighty-five percent. However, it would drop pretty soon once he started. Looking around the area, he couldn't see the cause of the issue or any obvious problems like a coolant leak. He looked back at the junction box. It was time to go digging.
This time, he tapped a small, nondescript panel on the inside of his right forearm with his left index finger, eliciting a tiny spark of deep sapphire upon contact that instantly latched onto the finger and gradually spread across the glove of his left hand, up his forearm, and finally stopped over his shoulder, resulting in his entire left arm being encased in an elegantly simplistic lattice framework of thin, holographic lines mimicking the exterior of his suit. Again, the previously dormant energy cell activated, and this time, the thrum traveling down his left arm was magnitudes heavier than before. He didn't pay it any mind. Instead, Aedan took a moment to admire the design's near-perfect symmetry, aesthetically pleasing curvature, and soft, blue-ish white glow.
No matter how often he saw the Omnitool formation sequence, he always still felt a childish wonder at its look and feel. He couldn't help it.
It didn't matter that he knew the exact process. Its execution was so flawless, so unique to any other equipment, that he couldn't help but think of it as magic.
It was a sad fact that reality left little room for magic.
He discarded the thought like last night's leftovers- the real reality, the only reality that mattered, was that not fixing the junction would pose much more severe repercussions than simply not following proper tech Route procedures.
He'd learned early on that noticed success was another form of invincibility.
'Until it isn't,' he darkly thought, moving the Omnitool closer to the fused mag-clamp until he registered something that gave him pause. He clicked his tongue.
"Well, shit..." he muttered, not bothering to activate the magnification tool, and instead leaned in a bit closer with eyes narrowed. A few seconds later, he leaned back with a frown, shifting most of his weight onto one knee as he lowered the Omnitool to his side while keeping his arm bent at a ninety-degree angle.
He silently pondered the situation. As it turned out, whatever genius that had been put in charge of this section's construction had used the same material when attaching the magnetic clamp to the junction box.
In the calm haze of retrospect, Aedan supposed someone was liable to make that mistake at some point, given the size of the station and its place in the galaxy at large when compared to the truly lucrative and super-massive stations in the Sol system. That, and the fact that cold welding the box to the station's bulkhead meant that the worker already had a steady supply of the same materials. Which, out here in the space boonies, was a miracle in and of itself considering the narrow and costly resupply windows. However, some goggle-eyed worker off their stims had made this particular mistake with a master junction box, of all things. So not only was the box cold welded to the station, but the mag-clamp also wholly sealed the side of the junction box with absolutely no space left to leverage a tool behind the frame.
Aedan silently considered the box and wondered how it was almost miraculous that this was the first time an issue had cropped up with how sloppily this critical system was installed.
His original plan had been to insert the Omnitool into a space above the mag-clamp and use it like an old-fashioned crowbar to pry it open. Still, it looked like no matter what angle he tried; he had a better chance of either twisting his shoulder out of its socket or accidentally ripping the box out of the bulkhead altogether. He glanced down at the Omnitool, then back at the mag-clamp. His lips curled in annoyance.
'Plan B, then," he grabbed a small, flat cylindrical device off his utility belt and held it up to his visor. The side he was looking at had the circular pressure switch, which meant he'd taken it off facing the right way. Small miracles. He pressed the button once with a thumb, causing a band of yellow light to appear around the device in response. Placing it flat against the surface of the junction box, he held it there as the glowing yellow band leisurely rotated before blinking twice and solidifying. The device remained attached to the box after he released it, though he ensured the finicky thing was fastened by giving it a few tugs at the base. He then grasped the device like a dial, slowly rotating it clockwise until the digital number 'five,' the same color as the band, appeared in the center. Once the diagnostic program was selected, he held down the pressure sensor for an additional three seconds until the band and number turned an emerald green- signifying its activation and the protocol it would be performing. A second later, the green ring began gradually spinning, increasing in speed until the ring was moving so quickly it appeared solid. Then, nanometer-thin projectors along the sides of the device spontaneously released a green, grid-like holographic projection across the surface of the junction box, highlighting its entire surface area. Next, the number started rhythmically blinking as the device identified its target and ran a specific series of pre-programmed comprehensive diagnostics.
He closely watched the sensor buoy at work until the number stopped flashing after around ten seconds, and the holographic grid vanished in the blink of an eye. Nodding to himself, he keyed a series of switches on the palm of his right glove that released a thin, flexible cable from a hidden container on the top of his right forearm. The cable slowly snaked out of the container for a few feet under the influence of ambient microgravity and an unspooling mechanism in the suit itself, letting Aedan easily snag it behind the copper-headed connector and carefully plug in into the now-open port at the top of the sensor buoy. A brief message appeared across his HUD, informing him that 'port one' of his suit was now interfacing with sensor buoy 'HD-1J9' and downloading the three most recent operational results. The message vanished, replaced with a simple box showing the three most recent operations, including dates, time stamps, operators, and a drop-down option for each that would display results.
Aedan naturally wasn't interested in the previous two operations, which dated back about five days. However, a cursory glance did show that he was familiar with the previous operator. He may even see the old bastard tonight in the mess hall. But to even think about what they were serving tonight, he had to finish this. So he selected the most recent scan results.
The small box was replaced with a vertical rectangle spanning the width of his heads-up display, showing a downright headache-inducing amount of minuscule coding scripts designating quantities, percentages, measurements, applications dates, emergency maintenance procedures, regular use manuals, and drop-downs that gave a laundry list of other sections' power usage, energy cycle schedules, and all the hundreds of devices routing through their respective sections.
Aedan wasn't fazed as his HUD was bombarded with security warnings, administrative clearance requests, and maintenance access code blocks that superimposed themselves over the more critical/security-sensitive diagnostic results. He calmly entered his codes, identified himself, and digitally signed the date and time stamps before dismissing the other half-dozen firewalls preventing his access. With that out of the way, he finally had a clear view of the more standard menu options. He navigated a few tabs over to what he needed, ignoring the other hundreds of reports containing information solely for corporate-sanctioned engineering and construction teams.
'Nitrogen...' he confirmed his suspicions and closed the diagnostic report before promptly unplugging the connector with a gentle tug. The wire gently bobbed and floated until he keyed another switch that caused the wire to snake back into its home like an unlocked measuring tape.
With the connector secured, he grasped the sensor buoy and rotated it counter-clockwise until the color of the number and ring turned yellow again. Once he confirmed it was deactivated, he held down the switch for five seconds until the display went dark, then all it took was a firm tug for the device to separate from the junction box. But right before he went to fasten it back onto his utility belt, a red ring appeared with the number 'zero' in the middle. Aedan paused, his brow creasing.
'Of course...' he sighed to himself—more paperwork.
After this was over, he was going to need to submit the damned thing to the section's requisition officer, complete half a mountain of paperwork before his shift was over, and then put in a replacement request for another unit that had a high probability of being just as defunct as the first. Typical end, to a typical week. Or had it been a month already? He couldn't even remember how often he was called out for repairs, using equipment that was sometimes worse than what needed fixing.
But it wasn't any particular person's fault that the station's modules were so finicky. The place was entirely crewed by a rotation of poorly trained, indentured employees with essentially no prospects and fueled with only the dim hope that their debt with the corporation would be paid off if they kept their heads down and quietly did mediocre work.
However, these corporations had operational overheads spanning entire star systems with insufficient labor to supply the severe industrial demand for raw materials and rare earth elements. Indents, as they were colloquially known, however, represented free labor predicated on accumulated debts. Debts that were recorded, reviewed, and revised on the corporations' Private Networks and with practically no input or interviews afforded to the debtee. Yeah. Fat chance they would ever see their freedom again.
Because of this relationship between a relatively large population of underfunded workers and a minority of corporate drones, minor uprisings were more common than they'd admit. However, with CRTs' (Corporate Response Teams) swift and brutal nature, most uprisings were short-lived.
The most recent uprising had occurred in the Gliese 411 system for a total of ten hours before a small corporate fleet arrived, boarded the rare earth mineral mining station, and ruthlessly executed over 2,000 "employees" before patching a live cast of the uprising leader's execution to every nearby facility. A few hours later, more transport freighters arrived, unloading the necessary equipment and materials, including an entirely new batch of employees to re-staff the recently opened positions.
Indenturement was the unspoken life sentence. It could be worse, though- the corporations needed labor and, therefore, semi-healthy and sane humans.
The stations had plenty of unappetizing food, an old recreation room, a barely-passable fitness center, a barebones medical facility, a disillusioned shrink for routine talks, and of course, if you were feeling particularly contemplative about life and your place in it, you couldn't beat the view of the mining world, surrounding asteroid fields, and passing comets.
Aedan had quickly come to learn one of many harsh realities involving the industrialization of the known galaxy was that human lives were inordinately less valuable than the equipment they operated.
He was pulled from his dark thoughts when he finally got the call he was expecting. Fastening the sensor buoy onto the mag-clip at his waist, he focused back on his HUD.
A caller I.D. box suddenly sprang into the top corner of HUD. A station administrator logo placidly spun within the box’s borders.
‘Go figure.’