Siyanda

Siyanda was one of the tenth patch of the First Colonists. Her radiant brown eyes matched with her rough dark skin, both radiating strength and determination. Her skill as a mechanical engineer was unmatched even by The Legendary Six, and when it came to redirecting power conduits, she was a step away from a sorceress.

So, this one day, only a regular day it looked from the outside, she was realigning a series of supercoils down in The Lower Cluster, when...

... Siyanda silenced him with a wave.

"Stop apologizing, please", she said. "You apologize far too much. Mostly for good reason, though, I give you that. But still, it gets tiresome."

They were in one of the minor stops of the tube lift. Siyanda finished up the supercoils, and they entered the capsule together. Inside, there was a column of buttons. The labels included: "Top Level", "Biospace", "The Canyon", "TAU Master Core", a stop with no label, and "The Speedgrowth Chambers".

"Where are you heading with that?" Siyanda asked.

There was a quiet hum as the capsule zoomed upwards...

The Biospace, located above the Canyon was part of the terraforming machinery. A complex system of massive tanks, pipes, pools, and chambers was used to grow, boil, mix and distill the various life-forms to be sent out to the outside world. While TAU went about its masterplan, humans scurried about the plentiful supply of biomatter, taxing it here and there for their own purposes. Levels after levels of platforms, connected by bridges and elevators had been built in the spaces between the tanks and pipelines, equipped with labs and factories and various gardens all dealing with life in one way or another.

The air was warm and humid as Siyanda and Johnathan stepped out at the Tubelift Central at the mid-level of Biospace. The floors and walls around were covered by growths of various fungi, algae, even small weeds. The tanks and pools leaked at various places, releasing spores and nutricients to the air, allowing for growth. The life was mostly harmless to the machinery here, though, so instead of trying to keep it all tidy, the colonists used it as soil to grow magnificent gardens of trees and flowers and meadows.

They needed to take two elevators down to get to level 3. It was a long, narrow platform between two tanks of bubbling, green algae. Siyanda helped Johnathan carry along the biomatter container as they made their way towards the other end, between smiling scientists and gardeners.

But they never reached their destination.

"Who?" snapped Siyanda. "Is it the Lambda 41 again? You can tell them that calling their production runs 'emergency' will not make them any less ridiculous. I'm sure Johnathan knows exactly what to do with his own biomatter, don't you, Johnathan?"

"Uh..." that was all Johnathan could say as he watched the women argue about his container, "I was just trying to sort out those messages when the floor gave way under this container you want me to haul around so badly. I'm sor..." Johnathan looked at Siyanda, "I mean, I have no idea where Tobby disappeared, but if I can't get another junkmonkey to haul this, it won't go anywhere, neither to L3 nor to L2." Johnathan crossed his arms over his chest at this point and leaned against the container, "But if you want an 'emergency delivery', I can just toss it over the edge it will arrive on L2 in no time." Johnathan sighed, "What are they producing so urgently by the way?"

"Oh, I didn't mean that you should get me one." answered Johnathan then he turned to Jenka, "It was more directed to you, as it's your job to redirect the resources. You can also help me drag it all the way down there, if you really want it to go there..." Johnathan looks at Siyanda, "I wouldn't want to keep you from your duties, even though I don't think the two of us can drag this beauty without any help."