New Place, New People

The elevators stopped and Michael followed Ishu to what looked like a large dormitory.

"Have not been down here in years." Ishu declared.

It reminded Michael of his freshman year, but unlike then, the staff engineers had their own private quarters here. He saw both male and female faces, mostly young and smiling as they passed by.

"Here it is, your own living quarters, as I promised." Master Ishu pointed at the white door with his chin and produced an ID with a fob key. "This will open any door that you will have access to."

"And how many doors we are talking about here?" Michael smirked at his own joke, as he stepped inside the modest living quarter.

"Ah, hard for me to recall. But, not to worry. Your companion here has it all perfectly listed."

Right on cue, the tablet announced.

Michael opened the new message and sure enough it was all there in the list below his personal data and qualifications.

[Entry Access:

Room # 206, Dorm 4;

Third floor Cafeteria, New Building;

Workstation 206, Main Hall, New Building;

Workspace, Master Ishu, Director, USV;

Data Repository, Master Ishu, Director, USV]

"As you may have noticed," Master Ishu walked over to the other side of the room to pull the curtains back and allow the dimming red light from Vermos inside the room, "I granted you special access to my workspace and memory bank. Just a little welcoming gift."

Michael walked over to the generous window of the room. "Is that light of a real star?" Red lights for stars wee not unheard of, but they were usually dying, with little possibility of life in their planetary systems.

"The entirety of Cricolithis is artificially made. Think of it as a space station, but instead of space, we exist in a system, that helps us access any point of the time-space continuum." Master Ishu's bleary eyes peered into the vastness of Cricolithis from inside the glass window. "Vermos is one our the artificial sources of light. One of these days I will take you on a stroll out to our glamorous milkdew garden. An evergreen genetically engineered plant, created in the laboratory, that produces the most delicious nectar in the universe."

Michael passed the lanyard of his ID card over his neck. "Is there anything here that is not artificial?" He did not expect any answer to that.

"We are real, the engineers of USV, and so is our work," Master Ishu said with smile.

-------xxxxx---------xxxxx----------xxxxx---------

The third-floor cafeteria was worse than the hospital canteen Michael used to eat at when his older sister was getting cancer treatment. The food there was especially sickly, but now, Michael had discovered food that was worse. The bacon was limp, the mac and cheese looked from days before, and the rice pudding had been cooked to death. The servers behind the buffet counters at least had a welcoming smile plastered onto their faces.

Once Michael filled his plate, he turned around and found most of the cafeteria tables taken. People there sat in groups, mostly young and entry-level engineers. The large hall created echo from all the buzz. Most customers did not seem bothered by the lackluster food, happily chatting away as they bit into their soggy sandwiches.

Michael caught the eye of a blonde girl, who seemed too young to be working as an engineer. Unfortunately, he did not turn away fast enough and caught her waving at him to come over to her table. He did what custom dictated.