Chapter 2 - The Slacker

The reward of hard work
Is itself a reward
A happiness to last
Ask for nothing
And commit to everything
For love is what you must
And good is what you do

Harmon maintained the spotlight for about 5 minutes. Still, as he realized the Lieutenant might require his service for quite some time, it seemed a good idea to free up his left hand to hold the binocular and watch what was happening.

So Harmon removed his shoes and socks and pushed the carpet away so his feet would touch the stone floor directly. He also took a glass of water from his desk and threw a bit over his feet to better conduct electricity. The grounding was now complete, so there was no longer a need to hold the ground wire in his mouth. Instead, he placed the polarized wire in his mouth. The shift caused the network to go down for a millisecond, along with the light in his palm. He hoped no one would be bothered by this minor disturbance, though.

He held the binoculars with his right hand and checked on the other outposts. Things appeared to be in order with most of them. Every once in a while, he would notice a malfunction with some machine or an anomaly with some systems, so he would write them down so he could debug them later and prepare a fix. He always had a massive list of pending issues, which became longer and longer as the number of light outposts in the area grew.

If he treated this as a regular job, it would take him months, maybe years, to fix everything. Instead, he worked hard and spent many hours daily to finish the important ones on time. He slept less each week, and his body showed hints of exhaustion. But once the system was complete and fully automated, and the light would cover the entire world, he could rest in peace, knowing that his mission was complete.

He moved his binoculars back to the Lieutenant and her squad of robots. She was still in the same place, giving commands to the robots in the form of the usual cards she would insert in each of them, programming them to do specific actions, such as moving cables or setting up a lamppost.

Establishing a new outpost was a well-known procedure. Still, Harmon was updating the standards now and then, and new outposts were designed to cover more ground than their older models. The initial Outpost design would only cover one-third of the size of the current Outpost model. The current model was also more efficient in the long run. On the other hand, it took more time to set it up.

The Lieutenant was now clearly shaking, although she continued to do her work efficiently. Harmon could tell this from the voltage fluctuations passing through him—the amplitudes began to vary, and the fluctuation was making it harder for him to keep the spotlight steady.

In any case, his spotlight was still impeccable, as was expected of him. In the meantime, he went on with checking the other outposts. After about one hour, the Lieutenant stopped discharging energy into the network, and the light went off. Harmon looked at the area and saw the lamppost mounted correctly in the middle of the new site.

"Good," he whispered to himself. He returned to his desk and added the measurements of the new outpost to the records. He wrote the name, Outpost #59, along with other relevant data about its location, structure, and other parameters. He opened a drawer and took another folder. On the cover, it said "Lieutenants".

He had precisely five lieutenants, each leading specific squads of Wheelers and other machines. He had assigned Lieutenant #1 with the Nexus security and protection; Lieutenant #2 to patrol the Outposts and scout the borders of the darkness to gather information and dig to discover new resources, such as gas, metals, and minerals. Lieutenant #3 was the young woman from before; she was responsible for expanding the system by setting up new outposts and increasing the light surface. Lieutenants #4 and #5 were responsible for maintenance work. They were the ones who would go and fix any broken stuff that Harmon would discover via his binoculars.

Harmon's job was to give detailed instructions to each Lieutenant, supervise, and improve their operations. The success of every operation relied on his own efficiency as a leader.

The door opened, and a Wheeler entered the room, bridging even more files and placing them on the desk. As the robot left, Harmon read the title of the folder: Weekly Reports. He sighed.

"Work never ends, does it?" he said as his fingers slid through the files. "Right, Friday is reporting time. Five reports, one for each Lieutenant, each describing their weekly accomplishments. He felt that the results could have been more satisfactory.

Maintenance Lieutenants, to begin with, did a decent job, though their list of tasks was growing larger and larger. They took care of the high-priority tasks quickly but always postponed the lower-priority ones. He would send them a written warning that he expected them to pick up the pace and move faster.

The Expansionist Lieutenant was doing good work so far, but he felt a bit of disorganization on that side. So far, it did not harm performance, so he decided not to write a warning for this one and let it slide for now.

According to their report, the Scouting Lieutenant has had relatively poor results this week. Although some significant ore mines were discovered, the gas reserves were dwindling, and he wasn't thrilled to switch to petrol, which was much more polluting. He felt that a warning would not be enough in this situation; instead, he prepared a more imperative note, letting them know that they should secure a new gas reservoir by next week. Unlike the underachieving Maintenance Lieutenants, Scouting Lieutenant #2 usually performed well; therefore, Harmon had greater expectations.

Lieutenant #1's report from the Security Team was a clone of the previous week's report. No sighing, no enemy, the robot guards going by the same patrolling system daily. Now that their defense system was in place, Harmon thought it was a waste of time for the Lieutenant to double-check it daily. So he informed Lieutenant #1 that they would be assigned to the Expansionist Team and go South West. In contrast, Lieutenant #3 would continue to expand in the North West.

Harmon paused for a second and scratched his head. He tried to remember the face of Lieutenant #1 as he realized he hadn't seen this person in a while. Given that they were supposed to work inside the city of Nexus, Harmon expected to have noticed them at some point, right? But he couldn't remember seeing them lately. Actually, he couldn't even remember their faces. To his surprise, he couldn't remember the looks of any of the Lieutenants. Not even Lieutenant #3, whom he just helped set up the new Outpost #59 a few minutes ago.

Memory playing tricks on him didn't help. And he felt exhausted. But he continued to go through his folders and make the plan for next week.