Chapter 20: A Strange Factory Find

The sound of the train’s wheels clacking along the tracks of the sky roads rattled through Celia’s empty thoughts as she stared blankly at the page of the book in front of her. She didn’t know how long she had been staring at the same page, just that whatever she was doing, it certainly wasn’t comprehending whatever was written on there.

It’s okay, she thought to herself, hopefully going to visit the factories will give me a better idea of how to solve these issues.

After studying all day yesterday with no progress, she had resolved herself to head to the factories of the company. She hoped that by physically examining the machines she was working with in their natural work environment, she would gain a better understanding of how they functioned.

It wasn’t that Celia never used metal synthesizers before — it was just that industrial grade synthesizers that were used by large companies for mass production, were much larger and more complex than the institutional-grade ones she was used to.

As the train comes to a stop, she quickly places the book back into her backpack and makes her way to the factory. 

The factory was a large, white, dome-like structure with an even larger interior since most of the machines were located underground to reduce the noise pollution of the city. Upon entering, she was given a few tips about the dangers of the place by a staff member, and an emergency walkie in case anything went wrong down there.

Celia walks down the long stairways inside the factory taking note of the large number of metal synthesizers located around the place. Each synthesizer was connected to a simple conveyor belt that carried the newly processed terrasteel to be cooled down, washed, and then packaged for shipment. Around each station was a humanoid robot that mindlessly surveyed and made sure that no problems occurred along the way as mechanical arms and other machines did the cooling, cleaning, and packaging.

Despite coming to the factory to mainly examine the metal synthesizers, she got distracted by the intricate yet uniform process of how terrasteel was produced. Each robot and machine methodically moved and repeated the same small process over and over again in a rapid motion; their repetitive movements simple yet mesmerizing. As she continues walking around the factory she suddenly notices some unordinary movement from the corner of her eye.

Huh? What was that?  she wondered as she quickly turned around, however there was nothing there but the same redundant movements of the machines.

I could’ve sworn I saw something human there… she thought to herself as she kept a close eye on the place, and yet at the same time I don’t trust that what I saw was just an illusion… Everything moves so methodically here that something moving out of the ordinary would be easy to detect, but at the same time, if it was a person, what reason would they have to hide from me? If it was a staff member doing a routine checkup, they shouldn’t be afraid of me… Could it be… a thief?

Celia firmly clutches onto her walkie, and orders Tabby to examine in a close proximity in front of her as she slowly follows behind him. Not even a few steps later however, a person suddenly appeared from underneath the conveyor belt.

“Fine! Fine! You got me!” a girl no older than Celia with short black hair in a white lab coat called out as she stood up, “you’re not a very trusting person are you?”

Celia gives the girl a weird stare.

“What?” the girl asked, “I work here, if you can’t tell by my lab coat — yes that’s right — down here in the factory area and not up there with all the other humans. Mind telling me who you are? You don’t look like you work here”

“Uh… well I’m just an intern who was given access to the factories,” Celia replied, still clutching onto her emergency walkie, “and quite frankly, I’m still not sold that you work here. How do I know that you didn’t just steal a lab coat and sneak down here to do something? If you actually work here, then why are you acting so suspicious and hiding from me?”

The girl scrunches her face at Celia.

“You’ve been watching too many movies,” she says, “stealing a lab coat and sneaking down here? To do what? And with all that security around the building?”

She then rummages through her coat and pulls out her employee ID that had her face and name on it.

“See? I work here. It even has my name on here, An Tran,” she says pointing to her name on the card, “as for why I was sneaking around… if you can’t tell it’s a bit embarrassing for me to be working down here… all the tasks down here are automated by robots so I’m doing a very a replaceable and low paying job, and I really rather not let anyone find out.”

“Oh…” Celia murmured, “well if you don’t mind me asking, why are you working down here if you’re not even getting paid that much?”

An sighs.

“Some sad combination of not really being good at anything and needing to get some quick emergency money,” she said in a tired voice, “I’m mainly a freelancer so I pick up some odd jobs here and there... As for why I do it, it’s mainly because I find it fun. Recently though, my grandmother’s been in need of a repair in her prosthetic leg, and those things aren’t cheap, so I needed to settle down with a ‘real’ job, but the problem is I lack a lot of qualifications, so here I am.”

“A prosthetic leg repair?” Celia asked, “I can actually probably fix that…”

“You can?!” An suddenly exclaimed.

“Yeah… I’m a general robotics engineering student so if it’s a simple repair, I can most likely fix it,” Celia explained, “I can’t fix anything too complicated though.”

“Well… can you at least take a look at it?” An begged, “if you can help me repair it I’ll owe you a big favor.”

Celia thought for a moment before she replied, “well there is one thing I do want…”

An looked at her with expectant, hopeful eyes.

“Ever heard of the ProtoTask app?”

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the train arrived in Sector Jiading where An’s grandmother lived, Celia took note of the drastic change in architecture compared to the capital sector despite it being not too far away.

The buildings here were a lot more traditional and modest in size than the towering skyscrapers and buildings of the previous sector she just came from. There were a few modern buildings here and there, but the vibe of the place felt a lot more peaceful and residential with the beautiful wisteria trees and gardens that decorated the city.

Celia makes her way through the stone brick sidewalks of the city, walking underneath the shade of the beautiful trees before finally reaching the address An had given her. It was a small traditional one story house with a few rooms in it — a rare type of house nowadays that Celia only expected to see in the historically preserved sectors such as Regensberg.

She enters through the gates and knocks on the door before an old lady with gray hair tied in a bun wearing a maroon cardigan with flower patterns on it, appears at the door, sitting in a wheelchair.

“Ah you must be the foreigner that my granddaughter told me about,” she said with a smile, “ ‘not many people around here with fluffy brown hair so you can’t miss her,’ was what she said.”

Celia blushed, not sure of what to say.

“Well then young lady, come in,” she slightly wheezed out as she rolled her way in.

The inside of her house was pleasantly nice and tidy; everything was organized in a neat and clean way, with a minimal amount of decorations here and there. The walls were white and had some intricate patterns made out of brown wood plastered onto them, and the floor was constructed mostly out of tiled, hardwood, boards.

After making their way into the living room, An’s grandmother finally settled down and extended her prosthetic leg out from underneath her old dress as Celia kneels down next to it to examine it closely.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong with it?” Celia asked as she looked at her leg, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

“Ah, it’s just that when I try to walk around, sometimes my leg starts malfunctioning, causing it to uncontrollably spasm, which leads to me collapsing on the ground,” she explained, “I thought it was a random problem the first time, but unfortunately the second time it happened, I nearly hit my head on the table, so in order to not risk injuring myself I’ve been wheelchair bound for a few months. It’s also why this place is so cleaned out — just in case I might injure myself again, but the leg doesn’t seem to spasm as long as I don't put pressure on it.”

“Hmm…” Celia murmured, “I see. It’s probably a problem with how the gears are arranged inside of it. I’ll try my best to see if I can fix it.”

“Thank you kind dear,” she gently croons.

Celia pulls out the toolbox from Tabby and begins unscrewing parts of her leg. She diligently begins working on it, gently poking around at each gear to see if she can gauge a pressure based reaction that would tell her which gears went bad.

After a few minutes of working, Celia sits back on the ground, taking a short break from her efforts. As she was resting however, she finally got to take a good look at the decorations around her, as she eyes widened when she saw what they were.

All around her were old posters of the space program that hung around the walls of the room and tiny models of miniature rockets that sat on the counters.

Seeing her reaction, An’s grandmother asks with a smile, "interested to know what those are, are you? I could tell you about them while you’re working if you’d like.”