1. As time goes by, things are bound to change

Mani thought that today will be a good day. It should have been a good day. He woke up on time, had a breakfast, arrived at his basement office without a hitch, and even got that best first cup of coffee fresh out of the pot in the break room without having to chat.

Well, all right, breakfast was just a dry fruit snack bar that was supposed to be his dessert after lunch yesterday. And going down the stairs all the way to his office was as uneventful as ever. There was no one to meet and nothing new to see. He got used to strange jungle murals on the wall during his first five years on the job. Arriving earlier than his only coworker was only noticeable change from other days, but it was enough to make this day better than the rest!

Then he noted down today's water levels in colored tubes on the wall panel and started daily data comparison and efficiency assessment. Which was what he was supposed to do as it was his job for past ten years. And he did it daily, except on weekends of course. And official holidays. And that one time he got down with a flu, so Blaise did it instead. And it was always fine, every single time. Even if he was sleep deprived, hungry, or irritated by mindless chitchat he had to endure to get his coffee.

And all right, he did not have a flu back then, it was just a random excuse he gave. He just spent whole night experimenting with that stuff he found in a box left by previous tenant and then overslept his shift. It was impossible for him to get any viral disease, but Blaise just let it slide for some reason. Not that Mani was complaining about that.

Before assuming this post, Mani did his homework. He read all required manuals and guidebooks but had no practical exercises. When he found those tools that were used by a previous person in his post, he knew that they were obsolete by now, yet he read about them so decided to try them out. But somehow, the descriptions he remembered from the manual did not really fit the actual things, so he got stubborn about it and messed around with it until falling asleep much later than usually. Not even main lights turning on woke him up.

Mani sighed and scowled at calculations he just made. It was supposed to be a good day, why were his numbers off today? He squinted. Numbers were still the same. Perhaps he should go back to the break room for a dose of chitchat with Blaise? If he gets properly annoyed by whatever topic gets hurled at him, perhaps it could tip the scales and fix whatever happened to his numbers. Or not.

Despite of general lack of self-esteem, Mani was very confident in the level of his precision while calculating. Equations used might seem hard or even impossible to untrained brain, but for him they were easy peasy lemon squeezy. And they were more than a just a job. It was just his thing. Since he was a kid, numbers and equations were something that helped him to make sense of the world he lived in. He loved to play with numbers, more complicated the problem, more fun for him.

He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. Then he pressed the button on the toy Blaise gave him. He watched a glittery ball sliding out from its box, slowly moving down the coil, tripping over the bridge, drop to level below then follow the transparent tube to the goal. Then he placed it back in the box on top and pressed the button again.

He never understood how Blaise had time to make toys during his working hours at the workshop next door. Yet he got new handmade toys every year on the anniversary of his arrival. Blaise said he just likes to tinker, and each toy was different and interesting, so Mani reluctantly accepted them. He had nine of those up at his room, keeping just the most recent one at his work desk, to distract himself when his thoughts start to jumble.

Eventually, he had to do something about this odd situation. No matter how reluctant he was to call other people to his hideout - no, working space, he was just delaying the inevitable. Which was pointless as it would only draw suspicion. With determination, he resolutely pressed that One Big Red Button his predecessor labeled with a handwritten note 'do not touch unless calculations show s*tf*k is gonna happen'.

When he first saw it, he thought that using a word like s*tf*k in a professional setting was a sure sign that old codger is ripe for retirement. Even feeling lucky that he managed to slither his way through all the hoops and land himself at the right place and a right time to get this easy, monotonous, safe, non-exciting post at the bottom of the pyramid.

All right, it was not luck. It was years of careful investigation of ground stations conditions, eliminating the obviously dysfunctional ones, then ones that did not need new personnel, then finding the one which needed someone with his qualifications. After finding this specific one, he spent some time learning details of the job as it would be silly to get down here, then be found out as impostor right away and send back.

Then he had to falsify his identification card, create whole new person for him to be, fake the death of the person he used to be, and then hide until personnel dispatch time. No, it was not luck. Even after he managed to settle in, for ten years he carefully avoided rest of the work crew in fear that he would be found out.

And now… He leaned back and slumped in his chair with a sigh. All he can do now is wait. Those managers from above will come down and bring the key to open isolation chamber where measuring instruments were placed in strictly regulated environment. Perhaps it's just some tear and wear in the wires. Perhaps it's due the world spinning wildly through the night. Perhaps it's just normal consequence of time passing by.

He sighed again, which established his new record on sighs, and picked up his mug. At least he got his coffee. He can wait. All he can do, anyway, is to wait. And hope that situation is not all that serious as it seems. Or even better, that everyone will be properly panicked by the situation and thus have no time to pay him any attention.