Chapter 14:// Waking up

 

The wifi constructionsite7 was strong, with limited access and with a noticeably bad signal to noise ratio due to the heavy machinery being operated at the site.

The skyscraper being erected was the third one in Athens. It was kind of a big deal in the media, because the mayor was pretty vocal against it. The site was busy and everyone wore hardhats, those standard-issue, yellow plastic ones, with biometrics monitoring and collision detectors.

A huge, fat foreman was bellowing out orders in his radio, but he was loud enough to be heard just fine over the heavy machinery. On his belt he carried a measuring device with a red laser. It was always on for some reason, as if he didn’t have time for such frivolities as off switches, the beam visible in the dust, flinging around as the huge man talked.

The user took in a big breath, gathered up his courage and went to face him.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” the foreman said, making a show of checking the time on his phone. “Huh. Whaddaya know. It took getting cut in half for you to show up on time for work. Cooongrats.”

“Goodmorning sir. Did you get my email? I contacted you as soon as I was able,” said the user, his gaze low on the dirt.

“Yes I got your damn email. You think that losing an arm is a good enough excuse to miss a week’s work son?” His eyes darted curiously to the matte black cyberarm.

The user leaned even lower and said, “Actually yes sir, I think-”

“Well I don’t!” yelled Robertson. “But somebody from Public Relations,” he said, the words bitter in his mouth, “thinks it is. And since your recovery was so fast and miraculous, they think I should let you get back to work at once while the asskissers thank the Apollo Medical CEO for it!”

The user was baffled. “So… Do I get back to work or not?”

“As if I have a choice you lucky bastard! You get your ass back to work right this instant and quit wasting my time with your pathetic stupid face,” he yelled and threw his laser device at him.

The user covered his face, picked up the device from the dirt and put it on a crate next to foreman Robertson. He ran towards his post, people saying hi as he went past and he kept saying, “yes, I’m fine now, yeah, thanks, thank you, good to go.”

He walked to his post, and went up the construction elevator. It jerked wildly and made loud noises but it got you there. Up on his post his coworkers welcomed him, patting him on the back and shaking his hand. He looked back, to the spot where his accident happened.

It was cleaned up, but you could still see the blood stain. Metasteel is porous, that is the main reason it’s so light anyway. But porous means absorbent, and the blood gushing out of his severed arm had seeped into the foundation of the building. You could clearly see the darker texture on the metal if you knew what you were looking for.

People blabbed on but the user was focused on that stain. The day of the accident, it had all happened too fast: Aibo, the stray dog the crew had adopted from the streets, was keeping them company, enjoying the sun while the workers were busy. Leo’s instincts had kicked in and saw an accident waiting to happen, a loose grip on the machine above their dog. He had extended his arm to push Aibo out of the way. The proximity alerts on his hardhat didn’t have time to warn him, and he couldn’t react fast enough anyway even if they did. The metasteel beam had simply slipped out of its hinges as it was being carried above him and sliced his arm off as clean as scissors cuts paper. A faint woof was heard. He didn’t remember anything after that, it was all black.

He extended his left arm and swiped his palm over a device that gave him operator access to the machinery.

 

rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

eyed> So that’s what you keep saying…

armd> He still needs to shut up unless talked to. I’m gonna punch his bits out.

 

The company RFID chip that was implanted on the soft tissue between the index and the thumb of his left hand, gave him access to the machinery and helped keep logs of the worker’s activity. A combination of old-fashioned preparation and machine logic spread out the commands to every worker, making them build stuff as efficient as an ant colony. You just showed up, received your bite-sized instruction and made sure you do it.

He sat in the heavy lifter. His veil, the Shared Augmented Reality that was fed in a see-through overlay in his vision by his eye implants, showed him the metasteel beam he was expected to move. The correct levers flashed in front of him like a videogame tutorial, but he already knew the right ones to push. The heavy machine clamped the metasteel beam and he carried it easily to the place it was needed, a glowing schematic pointing out the exact location it should be held until the workers buzzed in and shot rivets in place. Even though the whole thing was perfect for workers in, let’s say, China, here in Greece it was also empowered by human yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. Nevermind that the system showed him when the beam was in place down to the millimetre, the guys in place were yelling commands and accompanying hand gestures like “lower, lower” and “OPA!” when it slotted precisely.

It drove foreign workers mad, but they soon got used to it and joined along.

The workday went on like that.