Another virtuous life was cut short by an explosion in Bay-Six. A poorly laid wire sparked and set alight nearby gasses leaking from a damaged valve, left unrepaired from turbulence earlier that week. These problems, and more, resulted from a horrifically mismanaged custodial department. Their supervisor, Alai, was up for reelection, and spent the hours of his day securing supporters in the hopes of winning a very close race.

His opponent was selected from amongst the ranks of a political faction of dissidents and journalists. They campaigned on clearance, a new slate, promising to remove the many inadequate title-holders ruling various functions of the station. Supposedly, I was one such head up for their block.

As the chief in charge of security for logistics, dispatching and receiving, I felt immensely responsible for last month’s breach when a box of contraband explosives made it into the hands of their terroristic purchasers. If not for the rapid action and accuracy of the militia, I’d have blood on my hands.

The methods of these dissidents came across to a great many of us as too drastic, too ready to uproot established systems simply because they saw the occupants of those systems as themselves, corrupt. Some called it ignorant, and others idiotic, to apply to the system the faults of its users. However, they argued loudly in reply that the repeated mismanagement had rendered the system itself corrupt, having been poisoned by years of occupancy by tyrants and thieves.

I say to myself, “I don’t disagree.” But never to my contemporaries. I sit for coffee every morning in a small corner cafe. It’s front window, rose-shaped stained glass, touts ‘Coffee, Pastries, and Flower - Best East of Sector B’. But it’s just okay. And while I sit and drink I watch the supervisors of Arms-Acquisitions and Tax quietly discuss their arrangements.

Apparently, Jakou, the taxman, is gouging the lower classes, and funneling the extra money to the Acquisitions supervisor, whose name I haven’t caught yet, to smuggle in H with his shipments. Whatever’s left over he sends to the underbelly’s cartel to split resale gains at ridiculous prices.

An ongoing drug trade is no surprise; the station is too large to adequately suppress crime. However, this is the first time political involvement in that crime has come to light, as the apparently rampant corruption plaguing the upper echelons of leadership has been exposed reaching so low. In the recent past, I’d have argued this as being a non-issue, but the Captain isn’t speaking out.

For however republican the middle-management of the people and our systems is, the final say resides with the dictator-at-the-top. From the beginning, our founders acknowledged the turbulence associated with elective systems, and deemed it necessary to empower a single figurehead with the authority to act during stressful and vital situations.

Early on, the Captain was one of us--organic--but we die, of course, and succession was an immediately unclear issue. So, before the last of the founders fell prey to age, they devised a technological solution, and handed the crown to an AI.

It grips the station with a shocking degree of equity, and passes judgement with extreme discretion and respect to precedence pulled from thousands of pages of past legal decisions, lawbooks, and case studies. In spite of this consistency, many still perceive our leader as a symbol of unease, so alike the discomfort experienced when one becomes anxious upon suffering the delusion, or reality, of being followed.

Whatever one’s opinion, it cannot be denied that its recent absence is a separate catalyst for anxiety. Of all times to shut down and sit back in what I shall call ‘maintenance mode,’ the turbulence of today’s political strife makes this the wrong time.

My assistants in security have shared similar thoughts with me as we watch on camera the protests, speeches, and instances of vandalism tagging crates and walls with revolutionary slogans. Conrex, my main intelligence officer, surprised us with a suggestion over lunch, as we lie bathing in the light of our artificial sun.

“My cousin Llaeli works under the Head Electrician for the upper sectors--” Where the AI is housed, just below the bridge, “--and I asked ahead of time whether she might be able to get us into the maintenance tunnels. There, we’d be able to shimmy through to reach the Captain.”

His brazen attitude left us taken aback. Newly promoted and hitherto level-headed, Conrex spoke in a tone that carried mortal concern. He expressed in no uncertain terms the fear we were beginning to accumulate. If the Captain doesn’t do something, we will have a real crisis on our hands.

He went on, “Look, I’m not promising what we can do when we get there, but I think I speak for the group when I suggest this as a viable shot at something.” I didn’t speak, but afforded him the look we collectively did: it’s better than sitting around, waiting to die or lose our careers.

Once we were sufficiently recharged, we collected ourselves and stripped down to the bare necessities. For once, my leaves felt a passing breeze from the vents, free of the usual warmth of my protective carapaces. Strapped only with some basic tools, we set off, off shift, to meet Llaeli outside of a custodial waystation.

She sat there in wait for us atop a storage container, swinging vines flush against the front metal, creating a clangorous wobble. Jokingly, she opened with an exasperated “Finally!” as she hopped down and took us inside.

The waystation was surprisingly large, I’d never had the chance to be inside one before. A railway passed overhead, suspended by large cables and braced against flying walkways. Almost immediately after our entrance, a railcar passed overhead and halted midway through the room. Llaeli quashed our sudden fear with a quick speech, saying “It’s automated, don’t worry.”

And as we moved further through the room, I looked up and watched as an autonomous arm offloaded two boxes from the car, placing them onto a conveyor that moved through an opening in the wall. Then, the car went on, but before I could watch it disappear, Conrex called for me, and my eyes turned to look upon a passageway marked ‘DANGER - SHOCK AND FIRE’.

It was a tight squeeze to make it in. Our feet were planted uncomfortably on slim beams marked with red striping that gave us a sense of direction in near total darkness. Below us lie a mass of criss-crossing wires, pipes, and various bits of machinery, panels, and access ports for electronics.

Prior to us setting off properly, Llaeli left us with a warning, noting our lack of safety supplies or protective suits, which we neglected to wear for purposes of noiselessness and being unencumbered, “Whatever you do, avoid the exposed yellow wires on the walls.” Even without the warning, it would’ve been hard to miss the obvious electrified hum of the taxi-yellow cablework running along, waist high. It’s what carried power from the station’s core to the Captain, one of hundreds of separated connections all around the station.

We walked for a good forty five minutes, occasionally having to duck and crawl where the thoroughfare’s roof collapsed under roads, basements, and other unavoidable changes in the surface grade. Worst of all was an excruciating inch through an opening where the passage passed through the outer wall of the station’s main security building, which housed the armoury. If not for our near-nakedness, we’d have been too bulky to fit, and if not for slow, careful movement, we’d have danced with death touching the yellow wire.

Our trip culminated with us stepping into an open cylindrical chamber housing a generator, and batteries, powering the lights, doorways, and utilities for sectors L through R in the upper level of the station, where the wealthy and professional live and work. Lemurx, whose father worked as an engineer in life, pointed out the condition of the room, pristine and colourful, as being an oddity in its high quality.

We took a moment to rest here, sitting around on the floor and double checking the supplies we’d brought along. As the others regained their energy, I circled the central construction, which was guarded by a steel grate. It buzzed and hummed, and was illuminated by a farrago of coloured dots and lines running up its many spines and along its panels and patches.

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Just as I turned away to hail my friends, my periphery caught a spot of orange, moving. I darted my attention back to the machine, but seemed to have missed it. A few moments spent staring garnered Conrex’s attention, “See something, boss?”

“I don’t think it’s anything, just my tired eyes playing tricks.” I know it sounded cliche, but I wasn’t lying when I said I was tired. All this cramped walking and crawling had taken something out of me. Surprising, for sure, given my physique, but perhaps it’s been the vivid change in conditions, and the real danger of our mission, that’s making up all this added weight.

We collected ourselves and began ascending a ladder at the back of the chamber, opposite where we’d come in. The climb was about three hundred meters before we arrived at a section of ductwork. Shifting to a crawl, we collectively moved another hundred meters before pushing out a grate and slipping into another waystation.

Unlike the last, this one didn’t seem to be in operation. It was dark, damp, and dusty, with cobwebs in every corner, tools strewed about, and screens cracked or shattered. At this point, we weren’t entirely certain where in the grand scheme of the station that we were, but we knew it was far outside of the usual living and working quarters.

As we stepped out of the waystation’s door, we were amazed to see the gargantuan room before us. It had to be, at least, the size of four sector blocks, three stories in height, with a vaulted glass ceiling revealing the starry sky of open space masked only by the growth of vines and other basal life growing out of very large gardens running along the walls.

Portions of the floor were sectioned off into pools sculpted to meld seamlessly with the gardens, taking on a natural appearance, with the only real presence of synthetic in the room being a central bridgeway over the handmade verdure, and the transparent walls. The walk led to another door, which surprisingly lay open, and very visibly damaged.

One side of the sliding door was entirely ajar, and the other was torn and shattered, with shards of metal, wire, and plastics painting the floor--scarred black, as if by fire. Further into the room we witnessed what we’d hitherto only heard of in stories about the station’s origination, cyborgs. They appeared to be one-third organic, and two-thirds machine, with glowing icy-blue eyes and built-in defense mechanisms that mirrored, with metal, many of our physiological armaments.

They were in the heat of battle with a mass of orange life that whipped about at ridiculous speed, punching off of innumerable tentacles and slim limbs that shot out and functioned like slingshots. It wrapped, beat, and crushed portions of the cyborgs, before doing enough damage to render them immoble. At which point, it tore their heads from their forms, and sent them barreling into quietus.

Once having dispatched the duo, it receded through an archway into a room reminiscent in appearance to a server-farm. Towering rows of rectangles alight with steady-burning and blinking lights, slots, and terminals. The rows rounded a central terminal that appeared to be physically damaged, cracked with missing pieces. The AI?

We looked at each other with concern, and spoke in a whisper to figure out our next steps. Conrex went first, “Did anyone overhear anything about a breach alarm?” “No.” “Feel a rumble? Hear a crash?” Another collective, “No.” We were flabbergasted. How did it get in?

“The damage looks recent, at best. Within a few days? Let’s get back and alert the militia.” I suggested.

“They will crucify us for trespassing--” Conrex said, getting cut off by a frightened Jhormax, “We cannot let them know we were here. I will not lose my life; I will not lose my footing. We must find another way.” He spoke with a sense of urgency. Self-preservation firing off like a gun in a mad dash to empty its magazine.

“Alright, alright, just breathe for me.” I started, “Maybe we can use one of the terminals to activate an alert condition.” I looked to Conrex, “Do you think you can get in?”

He nodded, and pulled a device off of his hip. One of the few tools he brought along as the tech genius of our little coterie.

Conrex crouched low, and slow-walked over to the far left wall where he peered up and started on the keyboard, utilising his tool via the device’s main port.

The rest of us kept watch over the doorway into what we assumed was the Captain’s chamber. The creature from before was out of sight, but we heard its sounds, slurping and slimy like fresh fish on the gutting board. Sickening. The damage would probably be worse if not for the hermetic seal on the casing around the electronics. Standard practice for stations this large.

He spent shy of twenty minutes at the terminal before returning with a shit-eating grin on his face. We didn’t share in his amusement, but he spoke jovially regardless, “I was working with limited options. I guess these guards were programmed to only alert the station in the worst of circumstances, and I think this is close enough.” He thumbed the terminal, “We need to leave immediately. I activated an alarm for an XF-Class breach. They’ll be sending the elites up here within minutes.”

The naming standards for breach classifications are entirely arbitrary, and that which Conrex activated signals, if I recall correctly, something akin to ‘unknown alien - threat.’ A very basic, and very serious, notice. They won't take it lightly.

We turned and made haste for the ductwork. Charging across the bridge and back into the waystation where we quickly and carefully helped each other up and back into the confined crawlspace. As we were reattaching the grate from the inside, we overheard heavy boots on metal, and moments after the eruption of gunfire and explosions.

It took us nearly two hours, almost twice as long as the way in, to make it back to Llaeli. We had to stop periodically to sit in silence as soldiers and militiamen moved past the passageway we were using, fearful of their hearing us through vents that occasionally opened into adjacent hallways.

As we reentered the original waystation, Llaeli warned that the entire station was on lockdown, and that the Head-of-Security had declared it. Curfew, reasonless searches, open-carry, among other such annoyances.

We remained with Llaeli for eight hours, passing the time with casual jokes and sun bathing, until the lockdown was lifted. We emerged from the waystation and into the street to see Deviran, Head-of-Security, scarred and armoured making an announcement on the public screens and station-wide PA.

“Unbeknownst to us, for the last week and a half, an alien threat had breached our station. We are still in the process of calculating the extent of the damage, however I am happy to report that no civilians were harmed, and we have successfully dispatched the invader.”

The screens then switched to show live footage of security personnel moving the orange organism we had seen earlier, now apparently dead, into a transportation container. The background was limited, however it appeared to be the space outside of the bridge.

“It appears as though the automatons programmed to protect our Captain signaled the alert. I am happy to report that the Captain is safe and well. All may return to normal pending further announcements as the aftermath of the situation develops.”

Then, the screens cut. The populace returned to their lives with a layer of added gossip, the usual conjecture and lowbrow assumptions about a topic they vaguely understand.

We bid Llaeli adieu, for now, and made our way back to my barracks. Whilst in the process of recanting our experience, and reequipping ourselves to return to work, the doors opened, and we were greeted by the familiar face of Deviran, flanked by elites, and a machine that stood at nearly seven foot, with glowing icy-blue eyes.

Machines weren’t an uncommon sight on the station, but this one was certainly something new. A mark on its chest mirrored the badges that the security officers carried, differentiated from the militia by its colour: gold.

I immediately offered them a hospitable look, only to be set back by Deviran's barking, “You shouldn’t meddle in affairs you don’t understand. How else do you expect me to turn those agitators into a pariah?”

A moment passed before realisation washed over me. “You brought that thing here?”

“You’re damn fucking right.” He shot back, immediately, almost cutting me off. “I don’t need the Captain to shut them down when I can do it through public opinion, and keep my boys in office.”

I knew it wasn’t my business to pry. The fact he was revealing this much meant he had plans for us, and I didn’t want to make it any worse. Conrex started to speak, but I shushed him and spoke louder. “What happens now?”

“You sit down, shut up, and forget you ever had the foresight to look into it.” The machine spoke that time, its tone was mono, a medium baritone. Surprising, I expected something akin to robotic text-to-speech, but was met with a pleasantly sapient vocalisation.

They turned at that, as a group, and departed. They left us nothing more than an ominous, subtextual warning.

In the following weeks a series of midnight arrests were made. The perpetrators of the recent political strife were captured, indicted, and executed, all charged with treason for being connected to the breach. When the elections rolled around, every incumbent won, unchallenged, myself included.

I looked on it all in silence, sipping coffee as I read the morning intake reports. Apparently, someone was caught smuggling in H through Bay-Four.