The Fan Contoller

I live in the Puddles.

Sigh. I know. I'm a swamp dweller, a slop monster, human garbage, come on what other words do you want to call us.

The poor.

I live in the 500 level range, a few hundred meters up from the street. Lightning level. For some reason when heavy garbage, or people, or anything falls down they cause lightning which typically happens at around my kitchen window. It's terrifying. I know I know I'm protected, the windows are grounded, there's lightning rods outside the building, and there's science things doing science. Still.

I work in fan control. You'd think that some fancy AI would manage the whole thing but there's so much "human capital" available in the puddles that they don't bother. So I literally control a bank of 200 fans all days long on shift with 3 other people. I also work from home so that I can jump every time there's a thunder clap or lightning. It's wonderful.

I've tried dating but nothing ever feels right. When I was a kid I got into an accident at street level, swallowed a LOT of that brown crap that's always raining, and I've been sterile ever since. They scooped out my uterus, and all of my natural breast tissue. They also grabbed some lymph nodes and a few other organs I can't be bothered to remember the names of right now.

Bonus - no periods AND I got to pick how big my breasts are. Not bonus - they took all of that out because I had tons of cancer. Cancer treatment has come a long way, driven mostly by the puddles. Everyone down here gets cancer, somehow.

Once guys hear that I can't give them children I get one of two reactions - the horny let's go without a condom on our first date assholes despite a billion STD's running rampant in the puddles - and the I really want to start a family sorry goodbye see ya we should have sex without a condom before I go assholes. Typically the ones that stick around either didn't hear me or were trying to decide which kind of asshole they'd become in a week or two.

Sigh.

I hear a chime from my kitchenette. Food's ready. I place my hand in the scanner because I have to but I know what's going to say.

The scanner chimed - yep - 4 yellows, 2 green, 1 red, optional brown.

The scanner picks up the cancer treatments running around my system even to this day, and always recommends the yellows because they're packed with anti-inflammatories. I want reds.

I want to gorge myself on reds.

I want to eat so many reds I shit myself. I don't know if that's a side effect but I want to find out dammit.

The door opened up and I found the usual - 4 yellows, 2 green, 1 red, and I always accept the brown optional. Might as well live dangerously.

I then stare at the plumbing to decide between water, coffee, tea, or flavour of the week which is... what is it. I turned the tap on, it's orange. I tasted it. Hmm. Orange...ish...bubbles... It's ok I guess, I go for it.

Citizens of the puddles are offered 2 ways out:

1. Death. Pretty simple. Breath the air long enough and your lungs will crap out. Or some other cancer will get you. Or some rich asshole will push you off the upper ledge. Or something will drop on top of you. Or... Lots of ways I guess.

2. Off world colonies.

Every apartment in the puddles contained some form of a deep space kit out:

- Plumbed drinks with some sort of anti...everything plumbing to keep the drinks safe

- A scanner to determine a persons immediate health to always give them fucking yellows and no reds

- Access to a pneumatic tube system that delivers the food cakes

- And a crash couch for high g maneuvers but everyone just calls it a "bed".

Research in the puddles is rampant. Every company, every idea, every product begins life in the puddles. Don't make much sense to be honest, it's not like we're rolling in money like the rich people. My suite alone has 6 brand new technologies being prototyped here for the off world colonies. My shower - holy shit my shower - is a next gen decon shower developed for some colony with a toxic atmosphere. Imagine an army of horny fingers scrubbing your skin - and that's before you hit the decon button. Best thing ever.

I sit back down at my desk and start to pick at the yellows, might as well get them out of the way. A beep at my console.

Fan 17 is acting up again. The readings contain a bunch of words that I don't understand but I'm supposed to report on. For instance right now it says flocculation is down 17 percent. As hard as I've tried I've never found the definition for flocculation. So I like to pretend its bird related.

But we don't have birds in the puddles. so...

Report submitted, I sit back and my eyes naturally land on THAT. I sigh and stand up, my butt was aching anyways, and I pick it up. My certificate exonerating me from the parental match program. Not being able to give birth kinda kills the point of matching you with someone to make babies. I was assigned someone at 3 - 3! I found who it is a few years ago and I cyber stalked him for a while. Total nerd. I thank the years of cancer treatments for letting me dodge that bullet. He works in the scummers. Sub-sub-sub-sub-sub puddles. I bet he stinks something fierce. Instead I get to date for love! Yay!

Of course that means I can only date people who also have a certificate, and when a guy can't breed, depending on why they can't I mean, it messes them up. Know what I mean?

I've had a lot of first dates with guys with no / disfigured penises, and trust me that comes up early in the conversation and usually involves tears. I'm still unclear as to why there are so many of them, like, wouldn't they be wary of that shit?

Another bunch of guys are like me, cancer killed off a portion of their reproductive system, some could get it up with drugs, others not.

Finally there was the terminal crowd. They fuck like maniacs. Until they break down in tears. Sigh.

And then there's women, they can be something else in fact-

Another beep. Fan 17 is back up. Hooray. Another 3 hours left on my shift before I can... I don't know what. Probably get drunk in a low rent bar.

I've dated a few guys who were married, that doesn't go anywhere but it's nice while it lasts. I don't care that I'm the other girl anymore. I should. I'd be furious if... Sigh. I don't want to get myself worked up for nothing. Breath. Relax. Breath. Relax.

Fan 193 is.. hm. Offline. That's unusual. I raise a ticket and then direct 192 and 194 to compensate.

I remember when I got the certificate. Some Dr. gave it to me and said that I was gifted the gift of love. That's some bullshit right? Gift of love. I was in the recovery ward, last chemo session, the ward was empty which I thought was unusual, but I guess there's a lot in the puddles. This old Dr. handed me the certificate and said my file had been updated. No babies, no forced marriage, no forced 2.8 children. I cried a lot. I kept crying for a week. And then I got over it because what choice do I have?

Fan 192 is down. Weird. And 191. I hop onto the incident bridge and listen to people cross-talking. I hit the unmute button and start talking. "Looks like a cascade failure, 191, 192, 193, and 194 just now."

The cross talk is intense, you need to listen for your ops lead respond to you over the chatter, "191-194 offline check. What's the health on the rest of the rack?"

Fuck I should have anticipated that, I run a quick health check on the rack and it's all red. "Red across" I shout into the bridge.

181 just went down. I ran a health check on that rack too, it was failing. "Rack 180 is turning red in real-time, do we have an engineer on site?" I shout.

"Engineer on site, looks like a bad power node, your board is about to light up, everything from 180 to 200 is going down in 3."

"Bridge clear!" Shouted the incident manager. Everyone stopped talking. "Engineer - repeat."

"I'm taking down 180-200, bad power node." The engineer repeated this time to a quiet call.

"Bridge resume." The cross-chatter picked up like it never stopped. My board turned red and then green a few minutes later.

"Board all green. Operator disconnect."

Just then I saw the telltale lightning the precedes the thunder. I kept staring and watched a bogus power node slip past my window. Fuck I hope no one is below.

I'm on the 55 level at a bar called the Cosmos. It's shitty but cheap and generally men looking to cheat creep the edges. I'm not putting much effort into it today, I've showered so I don't smell like ass but I'm wearing my most comfortable clothes and my dads baseball cap. I'm not exactly screaming fuck me, but at least I'm here so I'm probably screaming easy. Ha!