Chapter 23: Working on Saturdays

Just another Saturday at the office. Another tedious council meeting. As Chairman, Jefferson had grown to despise them many years ago, but now he was starting to dread them as well.

As councilor after councilor droned on about minor matters he felt the hours stretch on into infinity. As essential as all this was, everyone here knew the real reason for this meeting, and he wanted to get on with it as soon as possible.

Compared to the future of their generators, a few complaints from citizens about reduction in meals or cutbacks on electricity rations seemed rather unimportant.

When it finally came time for Duncan to present his findings to the assembly, the room was deathly quiet.

The look on his face did not kindle hope.

“Well, chief? How did the results of your testing go? Have you found a recipe to improve our fuel quality?”

“I’m sorry, Chairman, but no,” Duncan said. “I’ve tried countless combinations, run countless simulations, and they all end up the same. It’s simply not possible to improve the production quality of the fuel repurposers with what we have on hand.”

“If it’s an issue of resources, we can cut further, can’t we?” Jefferson turned to a stunned Avarna for confirmation. “We’ll make any sacrifice it takes; we have to keep those generators functioning!”

“It’s not a question of resources! It’s a question of machinery, and frankly, the fuel repurposers are faulty! Even if I had a hundred times the biodegradable waste I’m working with now, it wouldn’t make a difference!”

“That’s not an acceptable answer!” Too shaken by this news to contain himself, Jefferson began to tremble with frustration. “Do you understand that without that fuel, our generators will fail? Everyone here will die, our families, our loved ones, the entire human race will go extinct unless you fix! Those! Fuel repurposers!”

“I can’t change the laws of physics, Chairman!” Duncan shouted back. “Those repurposers are over 200 years old. No matter how much we try to keep them running, at some point, there’s just not anything more you can do!”

Jefferson was about to shout back with a scathing word, but he caught himself. He’d been working with Duncan for Generations, and he knew that the old man would have done everything he could before arriving at this conclusion. Shouting him down wouldn’t fix anything, certainly not their repurposers.

With a defeated sigh, he sank back into his chair. “Given the current state of the generators, if we begin rationing right now, limiting our output to sustainability levels, how long do we have before total system failure?”

“Until the last generator shuts down? I give it 10 Generations at most.”

“10 Generations… 60 years… practically a lifetime…” Jefferson murmured. Every adult in the Bunker would be dead by then. Briefly, he wondered who would be sitting in his seat when that day finally came. What decision would they make, for the sake of the human race’s survival?

He turned to the conference room’s telescreen, where Ai was listening.

“Ai, what about you? What’s your advice for this situation?”

“The first line of business should be to fix the repurposers! Once the fuel repurposers are capable of generating fuel of acceptable quality, the generators will be able to increase their production output to acceptable levels! Until that time, you can ration as necessary to reduce the burden.”

Duncan scowled. “Didn’t you hear a word I said?! That’s not possible! The brightest engineers in the Bunker can’t fix something that’s breaking down naturally! We could tear the bloody things apart to their nuts and bolts and built ‘em back up again, and it still wouldn’t make a difference!”

Ai’s smile didn’t waver.

“That is not an acceptable answer!” She chirped. “This Bunker was created to be self-sustainable. Any issues in performance are the result of human error. Please make all necessary repairs to the equipment in as expedient a manner as possible!”

Duncan seethed, and Jefferson sympathized with him. As knowledgeable as Ai was, she just couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that machines made by man could be faulty and break down all on their own. Perhaps because she was entirely self-sustainable herself.

“Tell me… if human error is to blame and not an inherent fault in the machinery…”

Jefferson flinched. “Duncan, watch your-“

“Why did you mandate the Culling?!” He exclaimed.

The room fell silent. The smile left Ai’s face.

In a voice devoid of affability, Ai addressed the Chief Engineer like a warning drone. “The event you’ve alluded to is forbidden from discussion. Any mention of it is a rules violation necessitating incarceration within the Punishment Box by a period of no less than one year. May I assist you further in this regard?”

“Duncan!” Jefferson hissed. He turned to Ai. “Ai, if we’re going to comply with your instructions, then it’s imperative that we have our Chief Engineer working around the clock, don’t you agree? The faster we sort out this problem, the faster we can get everything working at peak efficiency.”

Ai’s smile immediately returned. “Absolutely! Duncan, please proceed with all necessary repairs to the fuel repurposers. If production levels are not at an acceptable quality by the next council meeting, then we will consider more extreme methods of conserving resources. Is that understood?”

“Absolutely.” Duncan’s face was pale with resignation.

“Excellent! Then everything is decided. We must make whatever sacrifices are necessary to ensure the survival of the human race! Until the Generation we rise out into the sun.”

“Until the Generation we rise out into the sun…” The words hollowly echoed across the council chamber.

…

Jason finished up his breakfast and wished his parents well. He was all smiles, because it was finally Saturday!

“I must say, whatever Doctor Sylvia is doing, it’s definitely working,” his dad grinned. “You always seem so excited to go to your meetings with her!”

“Oh, it’s, um, she’s just a lot of help,” he laughed it off. “She’s very smart, especially about all this stuff.”

“We must invite her and her family over sometime, to thank her for taking such good care of you,” his mother agreed. “Meetings every week? That’s certainly a woman dedicated to her job. It’s always nice to see people working so hard for the betterment of the Bunker.”

“I’ll tell the doctor you both said hello!” Jason said, wishing them the best. He headed down the hall, beginning the agonizingly-long walk to the doctor’s office. His heart pounded with anticipation and he wished he could just run there immediately, but he couldn’t break the rules and risk drawing attention to himself like that.

He reached the waiting room and his face lit up with glee. There was Moira, sitting patiently in one of the chairs outside the door.

“Good morning, Jason,” she greeted him with a smile.

“Good morning, Moira.”

He took a seat across from her and they sat in silence, as if everything was normal. Then the door cracked open and Doctor Sylvia ushered them inside. She locked the door behind them, taking her seat.

“Hello you two. So here we are again. You’ve gotten more comfortable holding hands, it seems.” She raised her eyebrow.

Jason and Moira glanced at each other and laughed, their faces as hot as the sweat on their palms.

This was the solution Sylvia had proposed all those months ago, when she’d first called them into her office and revealed she knew the truth about what was happening between them. She offered them a chance to be together, as a couple. To “date” without anyone being the wiser.

They’d been dating for the last six months.

On the surface, they were just close friends. Playing their roles as students perfectly, acting the part of dedicated Partners to Andrew and Skye.

But for two hours every Saturday, that all went away. Here, in the safety of Doctor Sylvia’s private office, they could shed those fake feelings and be together, the way they so desperately wanted to be, without worrying about what anyone else would say.

It was rather clever. Doctor Sylvia proposed to both Jason’s and Moira’s parents, as well as Ai, that she needed to see the two for one hour sessions every week. Jason at 8:00 AM, Moira at 9:00. Only Moira always went to her session early because she “couldn’t wait at home that long”. Then they would have two blissful hours all to themselves.

Both of them knew how risky it was. If their parents came to check up on them, they would be found out immediately. But they never did, because they never had a reason to. Sylvia was a respected doctor, above suspicion.

“Now Moira, last week, you said you were going through some problems with the arrangement, is that right?” Doctor Sylvia asked, turning to Moira. She winced and nodded.

“It’s just… it’s so hard sometimes, you know? Sometimes, when it’s just the four of us all together, I just… I just want to grab him and kiss him, you know?” She sighed.

“I see. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that behavior like that would be-“

“I know I can’t do it! I’m not an idiot!” She groaned. She turned to Jason and smiled shyly, her cheeks flushing. She squeezed his hand tighter. “But I want to.”

Jason’s heart skipped a beat. He knew the feeling. Sometimes he wondered how he could resist kissing her all the time. He’d begun to understand why his sister had done it so much with her Partner.

“Moira, I understand that you’re taking medication to help you focus, right?”

“Yeah. Because sometimes I just… do stuff, even if I know I shouldn’t. My body and brain just do it anyway.”

The doctor sighed. “Well, I sincerely hope that you can fight your urges to ‘do stuff’ with Jason outside this office.”

“I’m doing the best I can!” She wailed. “But it’s HARD! Two hours isn’t enough time, I want… well, you know.”

Again, Jason couldn’t agree more. Only being able to spend two hours a week with his… what was it? Girlfriend? Moira was right, it just wasn’t enough.

Doctor Sylvia stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Well, how about this? Let’s call the weekly review a little early, and get you two to the practice room right now, sound good?”

Moira brightened. “Really?!”

She nodded. “I think you’ve earned it.”

The practice room was an attachment to the office. It wasn’t much bigger than a bedroom, in fact, all there really was in there was a bed. But Doctor Sylvia let them use it privately to practice all the things they learned in class that they couldn’t do together.

Walking hand in hand, the couple entered the room and locked the door behind them. The second they were alone together they mashed their lips against each other and fell onto the bed, relishing the feeling of their loved one in their arms.

In the other room, Doctor Sylvia silently sipped her tea, staring at the clock. Just another Saturday at the office.