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  Ok. So first order was to run the maintenance protocols. If the clock had malfunctioned, then the protocols hadn’t been run in over 9 hours and needed to be done. He ran through them with a practiced hand, everything looked fine, no worries. His stomach, now finally unclenched, grumbled slightly. He was hungry, he realized, not totally sure when the last time he had eaten anything actually was. First, however, he manually reset the clock, and made sure the system propagated his changes through. The GHIB threw him multiple “Are you sure?” messages, but finally the time change looked to be done throughout the system, and everything was still green. He had been a bit worried that the manual change to the correct date would in fact cause other issues. But everything at least appeared to be normal. With a final check on the tunnel lines, noting that the trams were running 0.0001 slower than the nominal range, but still well within the tolerances listed, Jameston stood and left the control room, heading to the galley and food stores. As he headed to the small galley he smiled, happy he had solved the issue, and happy that he really wasn’t losing his mind. Simple, easy, and done. A simple broken clock. His steps, which had been so loud before, were now silent as they should be. On top of it the clock mishap had allowed him to actually get a good full rest in, in the sunroom to boot! Feeling better than he had in months, Jameston grinned to himself, 4 and a half more months, and then he was free. Rich and Free! Can’t beat that at all. His stomach brought him back to the present, he WAS hungry.

  As he continued his trip he thought about what to actually eat. The one thing he realized very early on was that while the food met all the “approved and validated nutritional guidelines” it honestly had the flavor of cardboard. Oh, it looked like all kinds of different food, but it was as bland as it could be. One of his preppers had told him that was because at these depths his taste buds would change, but he really just thought it was because the DTA didn’t give a crap if it tasted good as long as it kept you alive and functional. Finally he arrived at the Galley and went in. Everything looked normal here, things were where they were supposed to be, and nothing looked out of place. He looked around and decided just a quick grilled cheese would be good. The cheese was the most palatable thing in this place, and he wanted something fast, in case something went wrong somewhere. Opening the cold food storage he paused, there seemed to be more cheese than he remembered the last time he ate it. Strange. He shook his head, just a suggestion from some back part of the mind, still being jittery from his earlier panic. He grabbed some bread, the spray that was sort-of-but-not-quite butter, made up the sandwich quickly, and scarfed it down. He put the plate and water cup in the quick clean unit, and stretched. Yes, he felt good. Hunger satisfied, well rested, pretty damn good all things considered. His walk back up to the main control room was a bit slower, as he stopped at just about every door and checked the lights, turned them off and kept on. There wasn’t any really good reason to turn them off, the sphere technically couldn’t really run out of power. They had tried to describe it to him, how the outermost shell interacted with the heat and pressure to produce electricity, but he had honestly kind of phased out and just had the “interested and considering” look on his face that he had perfected, while in reality his brain had been mostly off, and what was there was thinking about what he was going to do when he got the money. He mentally checked off each area as he walked. Galley, check, gym, check, storage rooms A, B, and C, check. Sunroom and washroom, check. Sleeping quarters, check. Library, and system spare parts, check. And finally, control room, check. He wanted to check that system clock again, make sure it was good to go, then go read a book. He still had a few titles to read that he hadn’t gotten to, mostly because lately he’d been in a serious funk and the thought of reading anything had turned him off. He walked into the control room to a gentle hum and no alerts again, a sound he was growing to love. And then froze in his tracks, because sitting on the small table by the main control panel, was a glass. A glass of cold, fresh water. Panic flared anew, and Jameston backed out of the room, then turned and ran.

  Straight towards his bed, closing the sealing the door as best he could. He fell onto the bed, curling himself up in a ball, and began to tremble and shake. Part of him, semidetached, realized it was a reaction to the adrenaline flowing through him now. Panic and fear had forced his system into overdrive, and he couldn’t cope. He shook and trembled for a good ten minutes, unsure of what the hell was going on. He took a few deep breaths, ok... Let’s think rationally, he told himself. Panic does me no good now. Did I leave water in the control room when I went to get some food? He knew he hadn’t though, he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink, and that glass was near full. He could even see the condensation on it when he looked at it, meaning it was probably still cold. So the only options he could think of were either it was another hallucination, or someone else was in the sphere. The thought that someone else was here was absurd, really. He was miles underground, no method to get here really. There was the refill and replacement tram, and the long walk. The long walk was just that, a long walk. An emergency maintenance and evacuation tunnel, which eventually would get you up to the main cargo loading area, a mere half mile from the surface. A crew of 40 manned the loading zone, and surface trams came 6-9 times a day there. The tunnel entrance was only supposed to be openable from the inside, not the outside.

  But he knew he was going to have to go check it out. If only for his peace of mind. Jameston went into full troubleshooting mode, considering his options. One of the reasons Jameston had gotten this job was his uncanny ability to find the cause of a problem and fix it quickly. Those same mental skills that allowed him to narrow down on a system error and fix it, he pushed to handle this situation he now found himself in. So if he was going to check the tunnel, that meant he had to leave this room. Rationally he knew that there was not a chance in hell that he was not alone in the sphere. But the non-rational part just wanted to check it the hell out and get it off the list. Back in crisis management mode, Jameston calmed considerably. Ok, he thought to himself, let’s see what I can do. Glancing around, he realized his sleeping chamber wasn’t much for weaponry. Maybe the side table lamp? Small, mostly metal, electric. If nothing else it would, if swung with enough force, make a decent club to hit someone with. He sort of wished that it was one of the antique lamps, glass tubes, and hot to the touch. If by some outside chance there was something in here with him, hitting it with a hollow glass tube might do some harm. But these days everything was super-efficient OLED stuff. The power pack in the lamp would keep this thing on and running for nearly 20 years without a replacement. He hefted the lamp, at least it was solid.

  Chapter 3 – Crazy Man

  Jameston steeled himself, and holding the lamp in his left hand, opened the door. He could feel the panic rise again, but again pushed it down. Focus, he told himself, focus on this. With a deep breath, he walked out into the hall. Quiet greeted him, like every other day in the last year. He quickly made towards the emergency exit and the tunnel. He kept pausing, crouching and turning around to make sure no one was behind him like some low-grade horror flick from his childhood. He hated those kinds of movies. Either all the good guys were idiots, or the plot was so full of holes it didn’t make any sense. He recognized to anyone actually watching him, he looked like a total idiot, half crouching, and half dancing down the hall towards the stairs, down towards the manual release. After a good 10 minutes of this, he finally arrived at the exit room. With another deep breath, he opened the door to the room. Feeling the fight or flight response flood through his body. But the room was normal. 2 emergency exit suits, the door was so flush to the outside it had to be lit up to even actually see it. A desk and a log recorder, in case you had to leave the sphere. You could leave an emergency alert if anyone came and looked for you.

  Jameston put down his lamp, and frowned. So, odds are I’m now going crazy, he thought. Oddly, he found the thought far more comforting than the idea of there being an intruder in the sphere with h
im. Crazy he could deal with. There were protocols, processes in case the Engineer found himself in an “unbalanced mental state,” as he believed they put it. More like bat shit crazy, he thought. Hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety, the whole works. He started the walk back towards his quarters, calmer now, less on edge. There were meds for this exact situation in the medical area, though they were protected by a series of tests to at least try and keep anyone from using them in a more recreational way. Finally arriving back in his sleeping quarters, Jameston put the lamp back and smiled. He was simply having a brief breakdown of his mental state, too much alone time, not enough mental stimulation. At that moment, the alarm went off. Jameston rushed out of his room towards the control room. The training and ingrained behavior of the last year took over. He realized as he approached the control room that he hadn’t even thought about his reaction, he’d just done it. As I guess it should be, he told himself. His prior thoughts about how to deal with his slow mental breakdown were forgotten as he went back into the comforting embrace of the technician mode. Just fix it and forget it.

  As he entered the control room, he took stock of the situation. Three ambers, not good, but not horrible, amber means potential issues but nothing horrible. One blinking red, very not good, hardware failure most likely. And, one solid red. Jameston stared at it. A solid red meant complete system failure immanent. A total system failure at this point, in this place. Meant certain death for him, and no money to boot. The sphere in total failure would just be a metal bubble, surrounded by rock and pressure. Hot rock, in fact, VERY hot rock. Without the systems on board to provide a regulating field, the sphere would get cooked, and fast. Jameston took action, first step, what’s the red light coming off of. As he approached the panel, the sphere shook, and Jameston fell, hitting his arm, and injuring it. He paused for a moment and moved his arm around. Clutching the arm, pain radiated down his right side. While there was no blood, he could feel the lance of hot pure pain in his upper arm. Slight fracture maybe, the more clinical part of his mind reported. No time to deal with that now, he thought, and stood up. The red light came from the panel next to the date:

  August 18, 2094.

  Jameston swore, and swore loudly. That was... Months in the future. What exactly was going on here? He quickly punched in the new date information. He wouldn’t even be in the damn sphere at that time. He’d better be hanging at one of the new weather controlled beach resorts, relaxing, and spending his time drinking and just lying there in the sun. Stuck in a damn metal bubble miles beneath the surface of the planet being a repairman to a glorified traffic light was not in the cards on that date for him! As soon as he punched in today’s real date, all the lights went green but for one Amber light. Jameston, still in pain on his upper left arm, checked the alert. The error read:

  **SYSTEM ALERT: GHIB-T47 RECORDED ANOMOLY T9, UNABLE TO COMPENSATE**

  What the hell does a T9 anomaly mean? Jameston wished at times like this that the GHIB worked like the systems in some old sci-fi movie. All Artificial Intelligence and talking to you. He would rather enjoy that, having something to talk to, argue with, and swear at. But speaking AI never had caught on--those same Sci-Fi movies always raised the specter of the AI deciding to get rid of the human factor. And as a result, speaking AI was actually a rarity. So he’d have to look up what the “T9” anomaly was. He’d never seen it listed anywhere that he could remember. He cleared the readout and the remaining amber light went out, and all was calm.

  He sat down heavily, the events of the day having drained whatever energy he had gained from his earlier nap. Adrenaline, fear, and worry had made him an exhausted wreck. But he still needed to get down to the medical area. Do something about his arm, and get access to the anti-hallucination drugs. He wasn’t entirely sure anymore if he was hallucinating. Seeing the glass, the steps, those he was pretty sure hadn’t been real. But the time readout errors? Those were real, and getting worse. With a deep sigh, Jameston stood. He was wasting time just sitting here. With these time errors on top of the normal items, he couldn’t afford to waste time. Even more so if he could not trust his own senses, his own perception of reality. He slowly walked to the small medical bay, his arm burning like fire almost in counterpoint to his silent steps. At least for now his senses seemed to be paying attention to reality. He was surprised at his own calm about the situation. Stuck in a metal sphere deep beneath the earth, on his own. The system that runs everything on this sphere starting to malfunction in serious ways, add a large deficit of rest, a probably broken arm and on top of it hallucinations. Not the best way to spend his time. He was sure he was in some kind of shock, and given a different set of circumstances, he’d break down. But he couldn’t. There was no one else to rely on. Arriving at the medical room, he stepped inside and paused. It was red, painted red. Everything looked the same, equipment in the right place, basically untouched, but instead of pale blue, the room was... Red. He could feel that worm start to turn in his stomach, fear and panic rising. He paused and put his head down, and took several deep breaths. It’s just a room color, I’m hallucinating a room color change. It’s medical right? Medical stuff sometimes deals with blood, and blood is red. I was thinking about medical and my brain came up with this hallucination. Part of him didn’t buy it, and in his gut he knew that it really didn’t make sense, but he kept repeating it like a mantra in his head.

  Jameston didn’t speak much, there wasn’t anyone to speak to obviously, and he had always been reticent to talk to himself. Always too many pictures of old crazy cat ladies and the like in his mind if he spoke to himself. But at this point, he was sure he was already going crazy slowly, so why keep it in? He screamed, a raw sound of anger, fear. He could feel the pain in his throat, he was going to injure his vocal cords doing this, but he kept on until he was out of breath. Then like a shaken soda, his long suppressed emotions came welling out, and Jameston began to cry. Cry, followed by sobs, then following by near hysterical screaming crying. The loneliness, anger, panic and fear, all the things he’d been suppressing, all the stress and frustration, all of it, in a caustic rush. Jameston slumped against a wall, holding his injured arm, and tried to calm down. He gulped air, and appreciated the release of emotions he had pent up. He admitted it, he was damn scared at this point. You can only cope with things for so long, and he had reached it with these new added stressors.

  Finally, after a few deep breaths, and a few minutes of silence, he stood, and hooked himself up to the medical diagnostic system. The diagnostic system was a true marvel of technology. It used a combination of light sensors, scanners, and a blood test, and could accurately diagnose most issues with 95% accuracy. There had been a major push back from certain medical fields when it had been introduced, but it had found great use in third world countries, poor rural areas, and in cases like this where you’re not going to get a doctor anywhere near you. Jameston tried to calm his frayed nerves, and wincing from pain, sat still. Small round spots of light crawled over his skin as the scanners measured things like temperature, stress levels, pain levels and the like. The machine asked for a blood sample, and Jameston put his right hand into he machine, a quick prick of blood, and his hand was released. The sensors winked out, and the diagnostic machine paused for a minute, then spat out a readout as other machines went to work in the background. He could hear the medical fabricator spring to life as he read.

  SUBJECT: JAMESTON HARLAN AGE: 42&( WEIGHT: 174 pounds HEIGHT: 6’2” DIAGNOSES: SUBJECT HAS HAIRLINE FRACTURE OF LEFT HUMERUS, NO TEARING OF MUSCLE OR LIGAMENTS PRESENT. SUPPORTING CAST AND US TREATMENT IN PRODUCTION. ETA 6 MINUTES. SUBJECT SHOWS SIGNS OF EXTREME STRESS. CORTISOL AND EPINEPHRINE LEVELS ARE 120% OF BASELINE SCAN. CITALOPRAM IN PRODUCTION. ETA 8 MINUTES. NO OTHER MEDICAL ISSUES FOUND.

  Jameston paused. That age readout was funky. He queried the system on errors and the age readout. NO ERRORS FOUND. PATIENT’S AGE UNDETERMINABLE DUE TO T9 ANOMOLY. What the hell? He thought to himself? That T9 anomaly thing again. On top of it,
the system was telling him that he wasn’t crazy. That there wasn’t anything wrong with him other than a hairline fracture and he was super stressed out.

  Chapter 4 - Anomalies

  As he considered this, the medical fabricator behind him spat out his cast. A white honeycomb structure with small ultrasonic generators spread throughout the cast to help speed the healing of the bone. The nice thing was the cast was custom generated for him, and it fit perfectly. He snapped the unit onto his upper arm, and the ultrasonic automatically started up. He knew technically he couldn’t really hear them, but he kept imaging a mosquito-like whine going on. But if it helps, it helps, he told himself. And it won’t be on all the time. Another minute of silence, and the drug fabricator opened to reveal his prescription. He hated taking medicine for this, but if it helped him calm down, all the better. But he was still worried, the diagnostic had told him two very worrisome facts. One, he wasn’t going crazy, and two it had reported the T9 anomaly reading as well.

  He took a pill, sat back and thought. Let’s get on track for what we know, he thought to himself. One, the T9 anomaly has something to do with the clock errors. And now the medical diagnostic couldn’t tell him his age, also due to the T9 anomaly. So the facts lead to an issue with how things tell time. He’d need to open up the manuals on the timekeeping features of the GHIB. He wasn’t sure he remembered all the details, some kind of custom atomic clock. It needed to be hyper accurate for the traffic flows. But it was strange that while inside the sphere timekeeping seemed to be messed up, outside the sphere in the tunnels, he couldn’t see any issues. Traffic was flowing correctly, minor normal adjustments were being made constantly, and everything seemed normal. He’d be far more worried if that wasn’t the case, but everything else seemed fine.