The mezzanine level of administration was a different thermal reality altogether than the forge level below it.
Alucent had expected it to be cooler, with the high ground and distance from the pressure chambers giving at least a bit of respite from the heat that made breathing an effort. But it was hotter. Not the warm linger of the forge fires, nor the soggy thickness of the steam vents, but an arid trapped heat that implied an abandonment of air circulation for something else he could not fathom.
The room was quieter as well. The industrial din that reverberated through the steel grating of the catwalk filtered through as muffled but no less oppressive, a constant hum of which you could almost turn a blind ear and pretend not to notice, which was all the more painful when you caught yourself noticing some specially loud bang or the moment of silence before the pressure cycle restarted.
All surfaces were polished to the point of reflecting efficiency rather than spend resources on beautification. The metallic rails were worn but not rusted or damaged. The glass panels separating the mezzanine levels from the open air were cleaned enough to be visible but not to the point of being spotlessly clean. It was all kept at the bare minimum of acceptable levels.
Data shifted across various slates lined up at regular intervals along the length of the mezzanine. Not individual terminals for individual supervisors, but a display showing cumulative data for the entire facility. Throughput rates, logs for pressure variance, numbers of injuries reported, equipment maintenance routines. All reduced to numbers and charts that stood for the operational status of the facility without any overt recognition of the human cost inherent within those numbers.
There were no names. There were workers with their numbers in the form of tokens that registered their production levels and cooperation. There was the token Alucent used when entering the system—something like F7-AUX-142 that he had managed to read when receiving equipment—but he had never actually heard anyone refer to a worker by that symbol. Workers comprised bodies that manned the posts.
However, retention markers were not the same. These were applied when algorithms picked up statistical outliers and when the output of certain individuals surpassed what could be expected in a way that suggested expertise that was better conserved. Not names, but a set of identifiers that said certain tokens indicated resources that were better spent rather than being used as cogs.
There were three tokens marked in the current cycle of shifts. Alucent noticed them as they scrolled through the data, marked in amber against the usual cyan background. Not marked in a group, not suggesting that there was some link between these marked workers. Just three different people who'd shown competence in their designated work.
F7-AUX-142. His designation. Flagged for retention due to response times for pressure management, as well as decision correctness in high-pressure situations.
M3-AUX-089: Gryan's assignment; Alucent noticed after doing the calculations related to intake procedures. Identified for their mechanical skills and ability to work well under pressure.
P9-AUX-177. Raya's code. But there were no flags for retention, no amber highlights, only standard performance data suggesting satisfactory competence without outstanding features.
The Iron Vale does not support groups, Alucent believed, observing the information flow through yet another update. It marks personal utility and directs resources on that basis. A group identity is an inefficiency.
Which meant they were being separated. Not taken apart, necessarily, but separated into strata with differing levels of operation that would affect their use, their assignments, and their vulnerability to risk in the future. Some of them would be retained, kept where their skills could be fully utilized. The others would stay in general labor, useful but nothing out of the ordinary.
The implications were enough to make his chest constrict. If they couldn't work together, couldn't pool their intel or work towards a joint operation in reaction to what they learned about the parasite operation, everything they found out would just be data in a vacuum. They would become mere data points in the system.
---
Gryan was claimed before the shift officially ended.
He'd been manning the calibration bay for perhaps two hours when the senior overseer materialized, his arrival signaled by the subtle shift in the behavior of the other workers. Not a fear reaction, exactly—not the kind that resulted from threatening authority. There was just the extra awareness, the extra focus on the task at hand that people displayed when they realized they were under the scrutiny of someone who held the power of decision.
The overseer was a good deal older than most of the supervisors Gryan had met before. He appeared to be in his fifties and had a face that was more suited to a lifetime of work in a forge than in a well-paying office job. In fact, burn scars on his left hand testified that this was so.
He halted alongside Gryan's installation, observing without comment. Simply observing, weighing, analyzing information with the skill of a man who'd spent countless years ranking employee abilities by observation alone.
"You maintain pressure discipline under variance," the overseer finally said.
Not a question. Not an accolade. Just a statement of fact.
"Yes," Gryan replied briefly. To have said more would have labeled him non-compliant with the norms of communication in use by everyone else.
"You will continue."
There was no option. No consideration of whether Gryan wanted a transfer or whether he was content with where he was. Just a message detailing how his abilities had qualified him for increased use in more demanding roles.
The overseer jotted a mark on his slate, the tip of the stylus moving with practiced ease. "Core Support Maintenance. Report at next shift bell. Replacement will assume your current station."
Then he was off to the next review, the next decision awaiting his attention. Gryan was assessed and sorted and reassigned—all within perhaps two minutes of interaction that felt far more like inventory control than communication with a sentient being.
Core Support Maintenance. Gryan's analytical brain was filled with significance while his stomach sank in recognition. This was core facility maintenance, support systems that kept essential operations up and running, infrastructure that couldn't ever be lost or else it would create other problems. An area closer to secure regions where sensitive processes were ongoing. Significantly farther from escape routes where people could egress.
It was here that failures were anticipated and documented. Where the plant chose to place its most qualified employees because failure was inevitable under the way in which the plant was being operated.
He was starting to be pushed towards the breakpoints. It was at these points where the ideology of optimization at Iron Vale met with the unmalleable truth of what could be withstand in the world of physics and materials.
Highly visible positions with high rates of casualties. Where those who were competent were given more exposure to deadly environments.
---
Raya finished her assignments without problems.
No flags were present alongside her designation. No retention indicators, no managerial awareness of her performance as something better or worse than acceptable. She relocated boxes, tracked material movement, and kept up her even pace of perimeter work without succeeding or failing in a manner that would alert her system of superiors to her particular performance.
Which was deliberate, she was coming to realize. People who lacked skills were by definition disposable. You could substitute one person easily enough, easily replace them, substitute one body for another. It had nothing to do with ability; it had to do with what was lacking. Pointing to things that could not be easily replicated.
She had nothing. Nothing here, nothing that the Iron Vale could quantify and appreciate. Her combat skills were irrelevant when the use of force was prohibited. Her strategic thinking offered her zero use when all her choices were dictated by her superiors based on set procedures. Her survival skills, honed from experiences in conflict zones in other regions, were useless in an environment where survival itself consisted of adhering to the rules.
The lack of skill in these areas was accepted because incurring no actual costs in this regard meant that this lack of skill could be freely tolerated, and withholding workers from tasks with no need for skill before they actually had any skill meant a loss in manpower. But tolerance did not mean security. It was only a temporary status of continued existence, which could be withdrawn at any time with no true repercussions if and when conditions altered.
She'd never felt this helpless. Each time, every time, every conflict, every crisis, every impossible set of circumstances, her skills had counted. Quickness, accuracy, fighting skill, paranoid reflexes—these had kept her alive, made her an asset to units who needed an expert who could deal with physical danger with precisely controlled lethal effect.
These characteristics were merely inefficiency in this case. The excess capacity that provided no service and thus needed no investment or protection.
She lifted a further box and continued on her way, her expression schooled into a mask of calm behind the wrapping that was beginning to itch against her scarred cheek. It wasn't onerous, the distance was short, the simple task of moving boxes repetitive and menial. Anybody could do this. Which made her anybody, interchangeable with anyone else who would be willing to do the simple labor until the facility didn't need her anymore.
The absence of the retention marker wasn't an oversight. It was a correct assessment. She had survived all the wars by being dangerous in ways that mattered to the individuals she worked with.
But danger was irrelevant at this time. And she had nothing else that the system valued.
---
The slate runner materialized unexpectedly at the control alcove of Alucent.
Young, about sixteen years old, dressed like the others but with the same energetic gait as though his sole purpose was delivering this message between sections. No words were spoken or gestures offered; instead, a token stamped with a singular mark was offered that Alucent could not decipher at first glance.
Retention Pending.
Not approved, not confirmed. Pending. To-be-assessed. The system was aware of him but still hadn't made up its mind about what to do about that awareness.
The runner gestured upwards towards an administrative mezzanine which was visible through the heat distortion. It was direction rather than explanation; Alucent would assume that summoned meant obeying immediately with no current task defined.
Alucent checked his instruments for the final time, ensured all was well with the parameters acceptable, and followed. His replacement was already on his way, another employee who would commit the sequences to memory and perform the corrective adjustments with identical mechanical skill. Functions were transferable. People were replaceable.
The stairway to the mezzanine was narrow enough that passing someone walking in the opposite direction would involve unpleasant closeness. Metal stairs with no backing, so that you could see through the slats to the forge floor below. Heights that could be fatal if you fell, drops that would give you just enough time to understand what was happening before your mind ceased to function.
No railings. Simply have faith in your own equilibrium and the belief that if a person wasn't capable of climbing stairs without assistance, they weren't a vital part of the company roster to begin with.
The mezzanine led into this strange quiet heat, the smooth surfaces reflecting the dim light of the lamps that supplied just enough illumination to see by. Administrators were intent on this activity, checking screens and making notations in their logbooks and juggling the complex needs of running such a large operation at full capacity.
One of them caught up with Alucent before he'd taken more than a few steps onto the platform. Waving toward a glass-walled office overlooking a particularly complex pressure array, indicating that that was where they were headed without needing words.
The office is small, perhaps three meters on each side, with walls that were transparent enough to allow observation of the facility while creating sufficient acoustic isolation to protect from the background noise. In the center of the room stood a single desk stacked high with slates and technical manuals.
The supervisor who was waiting there did not look old. Mid-thirties, perhaps, with a face that was not remarkable in any way, implying that it was not remarkable enough to be memorable. Not pockmarked from industrial accidents, not lined from forge work, not bearing any signs of the violence that the Iron Vale had wrought upon most of its workers.
Which made him more dangerous than a man who had been obviously damaged might have been. In that, a rise through ranks into supervisory posts without these signs meant either superior aptitude that had kept him from dangerous missions, or a ruthless willingness to risk others in order not to risk himself.
He was calm in a way that was far more intimidating than if he had been angry. His movements had a smooth quality that was calculated, his tone when he finally spoke had no emotive edge at all--only the flat clinical tone that someone gives when they are relating facts.
"Your mean response time was point-seven seconds below the station baseline," the supervisor stated, gesturing to a slate filled with performance information, which he knew was his own shift data. "Accuracy of variance detection is ninety-three percent. Decision time on critical scenarios is adequate."
Not praise. Just data, for acknowledgment and confirmation.
"Yes," replied Alucent, as any sort of explanation would indicate non-compliance, and he needed a better grasp of where he was headed in order to decide upon a course of action.
The interrogators, appearing to have
"You decided on yield instead of personnel in chamber scenario seven-three."
The three workers. The rupture that Alucent had caused by stabilizing one chamber while failing the other. The decision that had kept him awake through what passed for the rest period, replaying the moment in his mind while searching for alternatives that did not exist.
"Yes," he confirmed again, his voice more stable than he was feeling.
"Correct."
Nothing more. Only that. A word of neither judgment nor assessment, a statement of fact that Alucent's choice was within facility procedure and a recognition of priorities. Lives could be sacrificed against capacity. Production capacity was of a higher value than people when compromises had to be made.
The supervisor made a note on his slate, his stylus moving precisely. Then he raised his head and met the eyes of Alucent for the first time, his features reflecting that odd calm that seemed like a man who'd made enough of these kinds of calculations that they didn't register anymore.
"We have processes that cannot abide hesitation," he said, and in the way he said it, there was a sense in which he seemed to be indicating that it was processes not in machines but in people that hinged here. "A worker who freezes in situations where decision-making is necessary becomes a hindrance. They disrupt the flow and affect the yield."
Alucent knew it all too well. This was not an assessment of his technical skills. This was an alignment test – whether his psychological profile fit the needs of the operational service. If he could do the mathematics correctly, without letting his feelings get in the way or his scruples hamstring him.
They were testing whether he had broken in the right way. Whether he had been successfully normalized into someone who could function in this kind of industrial cruelty without becoming non-functional due to feelings of guilt or resistance.
"I understand," said Alucent, as if this was what was being asked for.
The supervisor nodded, pleased with the confirmation. "Good." He turned his attention to another slate, his fingers darting deftly across its surface to call up differing levels of informaton. "You have knowledge of Thread-weave systems."
Not a question. Assertion based on observations about how Alucent behaved in relation to the inscribed gauges, what he knew about the underlying infrastructure of magic that was operating in the building's mechanics.
"Thread 3 Silverline," Alucent confirmed, offering the specificity that would be expected.
"Adequate for current applications." It was apparent that adequate was considered the greatest compliment one might receive, that to go above and beyond might raise suspicions rather than earn acclaim. "Certain processes necessitate individuals with an understanding of Runeforce integration with industrial systems."
The slate he had been working with settled on a particular display, showing a type of cargo manifest but in a different pattern from standard materials tracking. One line lit up with a yellow highlight, and its text identifier made Alucent's breast constrict in understanding.
BIO-REACTIVE INPUT (UNSTABLE)
No origin indicated. No destination apparent except for generic processing codes. Only status classification to denote that whatever was tracked was living, responsive to environmental stimuli, and exhibited unpredictable behaviors warranting special processing treatment.
The parasites. Being treated as input rather than as cargo, as material for a process rather than as a finished product that is distributed. Which implied that this facility was neither storing them for transport nor simply distributing them but was somehow utilizing them. Bringing them into the system in a manner that required specialized management.
The supervisor was monitoring Alucent's eyes, following his gaze as it settled on certain things, judging his reactions to the data being offered. Not searching for fear or shock or moral revulsion. Searching for understanding, a recognition that suggested Alucent could be entrusted with knowledge of a sensitive operation.
"Input categorization means we have to watch them," the supervisor spoke, keeping the same distant professionalism, "regular material handlers will not do, we need people who understand metaphysics."
Which meant Threadweavers.
Individuals who could intuit the changes in Runeforce, who could understand the interactions of magics with organic functions, who could spot potential problems before they developed into catastrophes that would interrupt whatever process was in progress.
They wanted to place him wherever the parasites were deployed. Give him access to the operations that these people had come to this place to scrutinize. And all it would cost him would be to accept, to show that he was willing to remain a part of this machine, that his moral compass had been sufficiently degraded to make him useful.
"I can do that," Alucent said, loathing the smooth tone of his own voice. Such ease in making this agreement. Such lack of struggle in deciding to compromise his own core values.
The supervisor made another entry, pleased with the response. "Reassignment will process at shift change. Report to intake sector nine for specialized protocols."
Then he gestured towards the door of the office, marking the end of the discussion without warning or explanation. This was a discussion that was over, where all the resolutions about the fate of Alucent had been made.
However, before Alucent could even reach the door, the supervisor added one final comment which seemed far more important than anything that came before it.
"People who know about flow are retained."
Not protected. Not rewarded. Not advanced into positions of security or influence. Retained. Kept operational and used until they had outlived their useful lifespan or until their diminished ability made it more cost-effective to replace them than attempting to keep them operational.
The Iron Vale's version of job security. The right to carry on existing as long as you served the purpose the system valued, with the tacit understanding that to lose that value meant to lose all.
Alucent came back to the forge floor feeling even more trapped than he had in the Steamwagon's cargo compartment.
At least in that regard, the danger had been external. Discovery, capture, death by circumstance or bad luck. Things that might happen to you as opposed to things you might participate in voluntarily. In this case, the trap was internal.
It came with the erosion of resistance, the normalizing of horror, the understanding that survival itself made one complicit in ways that couldn't be justified or explained, but could certainly be carried out with ease once the necessity had been accepted.
Raya's eye caught his in the din and bustle, a sharp glint of recognition that something was different. There was no speaking, no speaking that would reveal their resistance to the communication guidelines in place, but the looks conveyed a multitude of things.
Questions without answers, concerns without solutions, a recognition that they would be parted and that there was no way for either of them to change that. Gryan didn't go back to his old post either. Alucent waited for him to return to their assigned location but found a new worker occupying that post.
No reasons were given for this new assignment; no one bothered to let him know that he had been relocated. A new bell sounded in the plant. Not like the markers for shifts or breaks or casualty alerts, but a particular note with a definite message that rallied all the supervisors together. Priority cycle, Alucent noted their activity. Something needing prompt action and a higher level of productivity, which would mean systems approaching critical points.
Iron Vale had noticed them. Had identified the capabilities, measured the degree of compliance, classified the utility. And it had deemed them worth keeping—not as threats to eliminate or outsiders to cleanse, but as resources to use until such a point as extraction no longer justified the effort. Retained. Until they weren't. Alucent adjusted his face mask and continued to check the readings for the pressurization systems that could shrink human tissue into data points.
His hands remained steady, his actions economical, his thoughts already working through what lay ahead while still holding onto sufficient moral fabric to recall why.
The distinction between infiltration and absorption was eliminated at this point. They no longer pretended to be a part of the system.
They were a part of the system. And the only question that was left was whether they could turn the system on its head before it swallowed them whole.