Jane opened his eyes to the brassy bugle tones of his phone playing reveille. The job site lay in front of him, sprawled out like a fat concrete toad in a desert. The thick stone walls of the school-in-progress loomed over the surrounding landscape-in-regress, looking out of place against its rural farmland backdrop. His eyes felt gritty just looking at it. The dull throb at the back of them told him he needed the energy drink in the center console of his truck. He grabbed it as he looked at the clock, 5:46, too early for any sane person to be up and moving. With a scowl, Jane cracked open the tall can of liquid motivation and thought about the life choices that lead to this moment.
“I could have gone to college,” He mumbled under his breath, taking a long draw from his caffeinated savior. “I could have been an accountant.” The drink tasted like a combination of artificial strawberry and butter. The butter flavor may have been from a caffeine induced stroke. “I could be sitting in an air-conditioned cubicle, playing on a computer, making passes at Janette from accounting, and getting paper cuts.”
It was a tired complaint, more ritual than thought at this point. Jane knew he wouldn’t be happy in an office, that he was making more money as a plumber than he would as an accountant. He knew that office life would have been full of its own problems and annoyances, but he liked to complain, even if only to himself.
He looked at the clock again, 5:51.
“I’d better get in there. Eric’ll have my ass if im late.” Eric was his foreman. He was usually tough, but fair, although lately he had been getting increasingly irritable. “On this job, we start work at six, not show up at six!” Jane said, his voice an octave lower than normal, trying, and failing, to reach Eric’s usual baritone. He grabbed his hard hat off of the passenger seat, looking around for where his safety glasses had fallen to.
“Stupid things never stay in the hard hat.” He mumbled, eventually finding them in the passenger side cup holder. Jane donned his PPE and got out of the truck. He hated wearing them, especially the hi-viz vest, but the general contractor on this job was very safety conscious, to put it mildly.
“At least it has pockets.” He said, feeling around his vest, checking to make sure everything was still there. “Nuts? check. Washers? check. Marker, reamer, pencil? check, check, and check. Okay, lets carpe some diem.” Jane squared his shoulders and marched into the job site.
The gang box stood in the middle of the room, its large metal lid still closed and locked from when Jane had shut it the night before. Am I the first one here? I didn’t think I was this early. Jane looked around, seeing only brief glimpses of other trades through the skeletal forest of steel studs and conduit.
“Hey Jane, still rockin’ the girl’s name?” Fuck. Jane turned around to see Ryan behind him. He leveled a pointedly unamused stare at him, while the younger plumber nervously ran his fingers through his short blonde hair.
“Where’s your hard hat?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” mumbled Ryan, finding sudden interest in examining a crack in the floor, “I think I left in my girlfriend’s car.”
“Why was it even-,” Jane started, “nevermind, just go get the spare from the trailer.” Jane turned away from him to unlock the gang box, its heavy lid creaking open to reveal the valuable tools inside.
“But it’s pink.” Ryan replied in sudden annoyance.
“I know its pink, and we’re going to make fun of you for it. Maybe next time, you won’t forget yours.” Jane flatly stated, grabbing his tool bags and placing them on a nearby cart. He began searching through them for his soldering stuff.
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“Morning Jane.” Greg called out, striding in from the nearby door, “Ryan! Where the fuck is your hardhat?” He asked, louder than strictly necessary.
“I-” Ryan started, about to make the mistake of defending himself.
“I already got after him about it.” Jane said, forestalling the incoming reaming.
“Oh.” Greg said, suddenly deflating, “Well, why are you still standing here? Go get the spare.” He turned to Jane. “Hey, I need that cart this morning.”
“Well, you should have gotten here earlier. I didn’t see your name on it when I set my stuff down.” Jane smirked, needling the journeyman plumber.
“This is why I hate you,” Greg replied, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I need to move a bunch of Victaulic couplings into the mechanical room.” He stated, referring to the thick metal collars used for joining grooved pipe.
“You hate everybody, but I guess if you really need it, I can let you have it.” Jane pulled his tool bags off his cart, heaving the thick straps onto one shoulder. Doing so would throw off his balance, but he didn’t have to go far with them. He looked around for a nearby torch rig.
“Thanks, man,” Greg started pulling his tools out of the gang box, placing them on the bottom shelf of the now empty cart. “What does Eric have you working on today, anyway?”
“I’m still on hydronics. Hooking up some heat pumps downstairs, I got the mains for them done last week.” Jane said, thinking about the task ahead of him. The copper pipes he was putting in would carry 180° F water mixed with 30% glycol antifreeze at a pressure of 15 psi through the heat pumps in a continuous loop, allowing the heat from the water to heat the air running through the ductwork attached to them. It was simple work, but very detailed, because the piping would be exposed.
“ ‘Bout time you got on that, I’m surprised Eric hasn’t been riding you about productivity, I think the generals been pushing him pretty hard.” The job had been ‘behind’ for a couple months, and the general was blaming the plumbers. Nothing new there.
“He knows I’m working on it. I think he wants me to take the time to do it right. Besides, I don’t think we’re as far behind as Tim wants us to believe, he’s just worried about his bonus. Speaking of Eric though, we should probably get to work before he catches us standing around talking.” Jane said, suddenly feeling the anxious itch of idleness in the small of his back.
“Yeah, you’re probably right, ‘work begins at six,’ after all.” he mimicked with a small chuckle. “anyway, Ill catch up with you at break.” He grabbed the tool laden cart, steering it towards the nearby door.
“Sounds good, man.” Jane looked around. “Now, where was that torch?”
The torch was downstairs by the lift Jane had been working from. Grabbing it by the handle, he pulled it along with him. The wheels of the tank cart wobbled along behind him as the high center of gravity of the acetylene tank threatened to tip the whole rig over. The attached fire extinguisher flailed wildly on the broken mount it was wired to.
As he crossed the threshold into the mechanical room, the temporary lighting cut out, casting the room into perfect darkness. His foot caught on a raised piece of something. Stumbling, the torch rig flipped sideways into the back of his knee, his bags pulling him down to the floor in a heap.
“Ouch.” Jane disentangled himself from the pile of tools and twisted limbs he was a part of. I thought the sparkies said they would let us know before they killed the power. The electricians on this job were usually pretty good at working around other trades. Oh well, I think I have a flashlight somewhere in my bag. Jane felt around in his toolbag for a minute, before sheepishly stopping. Feeling like an idiot, he dug the old flip phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open and hitting enter, 9, 1, 0 with a practiced motion. The small LED on the front of the phone barely illuminated the space in front of him, but it was better than nothing.
The scene in front of him nearly made him drop his phone. Where before, there had been the smooth lines of a concrete walled mechanical room, twisted and bent piping now surrounded him. Copper, PVC, steel, and even glass piping tangled together to form a wall where the door had been. Through a door sized gap in the piping that made up what had been the adjacent wall, a soft red light flickered on.
System Initialized
Welcome to Pipe Nightmare Dungeon Complex
Jane looked at the blue boxes in confusion before finally looking down at his torch rig. He patted it on the acetylene tank before looking again to the hovering blue messages.
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”