'Good fucking God what a mess.' Greg thinks to himself while attempting to fix the wiring mess within the wall panel of the station. The wires are burnt, frayed, unorganized, and hardly color coded. '7 years spent training and studying, all to just be an electrician.' Greg muses to no one as he fumbles with a wire the width of his pinky, and promptly pinches his finger in the port he's trying to plug into. With a hiss he withdraws his hand and inspects the damage. He's not bleeding but it sure feels like it'll bruise. Greg is standing in a dark hall with little to no decoration. There's not even any paint on the spartan walls. Just panels upon panels, each giving access to something or another. The power has been cut in this hall so he could work without dying from electrocution. The darkness only adds to the annoyance of the poorly accessible wiring. Greg has a flashlight that can conveniently attach to his shoulder or sleeves of his light blue jumpsuit. 'Doesn't mean it's any use though...' The beam of light can hardly reach 10 feet ahead of him, and the wiring is akin to a dense bush. Blocking the light to anywhere useful. That leaves him to work by touch. Double checking the wires, at least the ones he can see, Greg sighs and moves onto the next burnt one.

While working his rather mundane job on what is possibly the best place to be in his eyes, Greg thinks about what brought him here. He spent years of his life, dedicated many sleepless nights, to get where he is now. Working on The Ring. The Ring is a very large, magnificently massive, structure constructed close to Jupiter. As if the complete opposite of the colossal machine, is the amount of people it can house. A grand total of... 300 workers and 200 scientists. Only 500 people for this thing that could easily wrap around the moon. Greg doesn't know the exact size, as that's classified for some reason and only the architects know. What Greg does know, however, is that he is in charge of a whopping 12 miles of the structure. It sounds impressive and you'd think the position would come with subordinates, but he's completely alone within these 12 miles. Not a single soul can be found. The only reason Greg knows he's not alone on this fucking awesome, and very much desolate, station are the ship "elevators" that travel up, down, left, and right of this place. They're more like small ships with little ion engines, but they are magnetically locked to the wall outside so they can't just leave. Who would have thought that people wouldn't want to walk 12 entire God forsaken miles of just bland hallway.

Greg's always been a bit of a recluse, so he doesn't mind being alone most of the time and could go 2 or 3 months without contact easily. It has been well above his comfort limit. 9 months, and 14 days. Greg stops working while thinking of just how long it's been since he's just heard someone else's voice. He's not... completely alone however. There is just one voice he hears, every damn day.

"Please get back to work." sputters a synthetic monotone voice on a speaker on a wrist watch like device on Greg's left wrist.

The fucking thing just does not shut up. He can't take a break for 5 minutes without his "boss" getting on to him. It hardly resembles human speech sometimes. It'll just release guttural static every now and then. like it's trying to breathe. It freaks him out. The voice repeats itself several more times before Greg snaps out of his stupor and goes back to unplugging and plugging in wires. Greg's been working on this station for the last 2 years and some change. It has been, extremely, uneventful. No accidents. No drama. just... nothing. After a few minutes, the panel is put back in place and Greg brings his strange H.U.D. watch up to his face. He doesn't know why they decided that a Heads Up Display would work better as a watch as compared to, I don't know, a fucking visor? Some sunglasses? It's pretty lame in all honesty. The bare minimum is displayed. A heart monitor, a step counter, and a clock with an alarm. The H.U.D. is a piece of fucking garbage tech that he thinks his real bosses got scammed into buying. Greg doesn't get paid to complain or think. So he speaks the verbal command to the dogshit V.I. built into it. That’s Virtual Intelligence. Unlike an A.I. that’s actually smart, A V.I. is just designed to seem smart.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Turn on power to sector 8-32-F3A."

"I'm sorry, please try again." The watch recites its typical song and dance.

"Every fuckin' time... Piece of shit." Greg mutters.

"Deducting 0.05USC for the Swear Jar. Please watch your mouth, Mr. Hudson."

The Watch MOCKS him. He KNOWS it's mocking him. It's fucking LAUGHING at him HE IS-

Greg calms himself and pronounces it as slow and deliberately as possible.

"Turn. On. Pow. Er. To. Sect. Er. 8 Dash. Thir. Tee. Two. Dash. Ef. Three. Ae."

"Thinking..." The watch speaks its uncaring, loathsome mockery of a voice.

Several seconds pass and then a loud humming comes from somewhere unseen. The lights come back on one at a time. Starting at both ends into the darkness and meeting in the middle right above him. Greg lets out a sigh in relief and lowers his arm. Greg stretches his back and stands a bit straighter. A chime plays from his watch, letting him know of a "Job well done". Sounds like an abomination of a mix between the birthday song and some other chipper song. It was cute at first, then got annoying the second day. Now he hates it so, so much that he tries to ignore it so he doesn't smash another watch. Turns out they are not cheap.

There is one piece of tech that he enjoys to use in his hallway to defeat all hallways. A little electric one seater cart with a small flat bed. It's about as wide as 2 people but only about 4 feet long. it's not very fast but it is incredibly fun. Well, about as fun as it can be when it's really the only thing he can do when on the clock that's enjoyable. Greg plops the burnt wires and some tools onto the bed and climbs into the seat. With a pull of a parking brake lever and the push of a button, he's speeding down the bland hall at a speedy pace of 15 miles per hour. He could push about 20 if he pedals to the metal but there are NO seatbelts on this thing, and he'd rather not die some stupid death. Or some injury that he'll have to explain to the small group of medical staff on board. His death would be caused not from grievous wounds but by the embarrassment that a trained professional got hurt. Or something else like that.

One of the benefits of a low population? Personal rooms. Greg was so happy to know that he'd have privacy, and with a window no less! Well less of a window and more of a camera feed but it's still pretty! and grainy... but it's fine because he'll be outside and fixing that problem soon. One of the many things on his to-do list is replacing some of the cameras outside the station. Well not officially and only the ones he cares about. He simply cannot wait for his shift to end, but he will. He is not getting 2 paychecks withheld again. He just needs to wait a few more hours...