I literally crawl to where the technicians are supporting the assembly as they work to engage the braking pads. The black flows out in song, a sticky tar that I shove into each of the four braking pads that piston out of the assembly to grip onto the drive shaft. If my grief can provide extra grip for those braking pads, then perhaps future catastrophe can be averted. Maybe I can spare some future technician the same all encompassing pain I have endured. 

Denzai are not supposed to be torn from their fellowship like this. Those threads of connection are supposed to be gradually withdrawn as life closes out. Having them ripped wholesale from their moorings hurts. Though the pain is not physical, it rings with an ache every bit as painful as having bones snap and crumble to dust. That sudden severing snaps back like a rubber band, slicing into the psyche. Though I cannot see it myself, I can feel how raw my landscape remains. How barren it is around the great chasm that tears it down the middle. The fracture is as jagged as the broken ends of bone.

A sob catches in my chest. It hurts in a way I have never felt before. Like the grief is stuck, too thick a mass to emerge from a passage as narrow as my scrawny neck. "Damn it all," I whisper. My mind is spinning out of control again. All about the edges, little spatters of black flicker and flutter like dying moths. I cannot pull the grief out fast enough to ease the anguish. With a physical spasm, something within me cracks.

"DAMN IT ALL TO THE UNHOLY DARK!"

The words rip free. On their heels, three voices broil forth and swirl in a vortex of agony. The grief and madness erupt outward, landing on the nearest technicians and forcing them to their knees even as I am pulled to my feet. I grab the tail of that emotional surge and grapple with it, muscling it into a band of pitch that I use to lasso the nearest portion of the armature. With a strength borne of desperation, I physically hoist the piece of armature assembly and use the grief suffused madness to bind it to the drive shaft without welds. It will not hold under strain at speed, but there is so much tension coursing through that join right now, the lift crews will not need to get chains upon it. 

And then I repeat it three more times.

Only then do I feel the relief of emptiness start to settle over me. Two of my voices drop out in rapid succession. I manage to keep the last voice going and croak, "Weld it!" at the nearest technician. When he doesn't move, I scream, "NOW!" The single word cracks like a whip, galvanizing everyone in my vicinity into motion. Technicians scatter like droplets of water when tossed on a hot griddle, skittering outward from me.

I tug my goggles into place again as the welding team hustles over and starts to hastily set up their rig, maintaining my single voice throughout. There is no danger of the assembly falling apart if I let the song drop. Rather, I feel like if I do not keep pouring song into it, I will not be able to start again. All about me, material just begs to be taken, reshaped and reformed into something new. Emotion flows.

In the back of my mind, there is a brief awareness that the ambient emotional layers are highly prevalent because a new set of teams has come on shift. Good. The previous shift was probably close to grey out, where the emotional landscape is depressed but not so badly as to be in danger of husking. I will definitely need the fresh teams soon; I still need to construct the scaffold, and there will be no rest whatsoever for me during that.

The coughing sound of the welding team igniting their flame brings my thoughts back to reality, grounding me somewhat in the present once more. They work methodically to meld each strut of the armature assembly to the main drive shaft. I have no more need to work on that, as those are as secure as they can be until welding permanently affixes it all together. And though I still do not want to let my song drop, there is nothing I can do until after the next meal break.

With a pang of regret, I allow the last voice to fade away.

Everything feels too still. I despise it. 

"Sir." The technician at my side does not startle me. Though I did not consciously notice his presence, I knew with a small portion of awareness that someone was beside me. The proximity of his landscape gave me some alert. That is an oddity that I will examine later. For now, I turn to face him. "Jakara designated that I would be lead for this next shift. I have food for the next meal break arriving soon and half a dozen techs awaiting its arrival so it can be laid out in orderly fashion." He keeps his voice pitched low enough that his words do not carry, yet still loud enough to be heard over the bawling of the welding torch.

I wrack my brain for his name, since he does not provide me with it. Not that he should need to; it is part of my job to know every technician under my lead by name. But I have been so distracted of late. I study his face intently, willing my brain to provide me with a name, even as I nod acknowledgement of his words.

"Once the welders are finished, allow a half hour for meal break. I am going to avail myself of food as soon as it arrives, so that I am away from others for the duration of the meal. When we return, I will need all teams to be spread throughout this room; I have to construct the support scaffold for the generator, which will consist of nothing visible to the human eye. But I will be drawing an immense amount of unity from all present and it will take many hours to complete each side of the structure." 

"Understood, sir." Devlin. The knowledge comes to me like a spark arcing across bare wires. His name is Devlin. "I'll pass word to the other leads and make sure everyone is informed of your needs." His voice is calm and deep. Though it lacks considerably in resonance, it reminds me a lot of that voice I will never again hear. I am not sure if this fact calms me or angers me, and I decide to stop considering it before I can make up my mind.

"I expect that there will be at least one more shift change before the scaffold is complete. Possibly two. Make sure to coordinate the teams so that there is smooth transition between incoming and outgoing; I would rather have too many personnel on the floor than not enough. Further meal breaks can occur between sides of the scaffolding, but there will otherwise be no opportunity for breaks of any sort while I construct each side. Be certain that all technicians know to take themselves off the floor should they begin to feel excessively tired or sluggish; I will not be able to monitor anyone for grey out status." Including myself. But Devlin does not need to know that. "For now, you have the floor." Devlin offers me a sloppy salute that I largely ignore as I turn and stalk toward the door. I further ignore the technicians that hurry out of my way with hastily averted eyes. 

Food still sounds unappealing as I make my way to the entry lobby of the station. I can smell the first of the deliveries arriving and it causes my stomach to churn. But I need to eat; crafting takes a great deal of energy, and there is still a lot of work to be done. I will have to force myself to eat, otherwise I risk passing out. Both seem like equally poor options at the moment.

I take small portions of a variety of things, all vegetarian selections. Though I can gain nutrition from meat, it is not my preference. Being raised among the Denzai means I am far more accustomed to their meatless dietary needs and still prefer few meat based choices in my diet. Besides, the heavy fare smells nauseating at the moment. 

I barely taste the food. Fortunately. Eating is little more than a necessity at the moment, much like urinating. Which, now that I think of it, I should do. A few minutes spent in the restroom takes care of that before I go back out to the generator floor. 

The scaffold is the most intensive part of this build. As I told Devlin, the entire structure is invisible to the human eye. A heavy interweaving of unity is needed to support the generator unit and keep the entire structure encased in stability. Three sides will need to be constructed, then the drive shaft will need to be stood erect without accidentally touching any of the unseen construct. Then the teams will need to keep the main drive in place as I assemble the final side. Should any part of the drive system come into contact with the scaffold, the entire unit will have to be reexamined for damage and the scaffold torn down before completing rebuilding it. Needless to say, I cannot afford to have a slip up here; there is no guarantee that I will be able to construct the entire system a first time, let alone a second.

And so it is that I spend the remainder of the meal break with my toes pressed to the vent cover, mentally rehearsing how I will go about crafting the scaffold sections. Through the ends of my shoes I can feel the warmth of the thermal vent as it heats the cover slightly, the geothermal gases sealed tightly for the moment. Once it is time to install the drive shaft, the vent covers will have to be pulled to allow the end of the drive to be seated within the vent itself, which means the technicians will need to have their personal respirators in place. I will have to notify Devlin of that so he can coordinate it. 

I almost fail to notice when Devlin approaches me, so wrapped up in my head am I with mentally rehearsing the build. He at least has the courtesy to loudly clear his throat before he speaks. "I have the teams briefed and ready, sir. When you are ready, we are standing by to assist." His voice is the only one I hear. It surprises me; I was expecting ambient conversation that I would have to reprimand. 

With a quick glance, I scan the room. Eighty technicians fill the room with barely enough space to move between them. The barest thought of accidentally brushing against one of them sends a chill racing up my spine. "Send one team into the walks. Have that team rotate out every two hours. There is no room for me to work with so many bodies crushed into this space." 

"Understood, sir." Devlin gets it arranged and quickly sets up a rotation schedule as I pull out my roll of tuning forks. 

Up to this point, everything has been rather more spontaneous than I was planning. My emotions have been bouncing around like a rubber ball in a tumble dryer. But for this, I need to be organized. As much as possible, anyway. And that means starting from a predetermined pitch.

Unity. I will need a major key, with a fairly basic melody line. My vocal range is still a high tenor, so I need to keep that in consideration. Perhaps a G. I draw forth the appropriate fork and tap it gently against the scales of my forearm. It rings quietly. No, too low. C it is then. I swap out the forks then roll the rest back up with quick motions.

I make a firm strike of the tuning fork against my forearm scales, setting it to ringing. The tone floats about me and I strike a second time, just because it is lovely to hear. I feel the hum that drifts out of my chest before I really hear it as I fix the tone in my mind. Song wants to burble forth, and my throat aches to let it out. Absently, I drop the tuning fork into one of the random pockets on my work belt as I feel the crafting begin to swirl up and outward. My mouth opens. Song spills into the air, swirling around the chamber as it wraps tendrils about every individual to tie us into a single unit of existence.

My feet move without conscious direction. Instinct guides me, allowing me to gently bend the forces to my will and obtain thick pylons of unity from this very mixed group of individuals. My voice calls upon the emotion to come forth so that my body can manipulate the iridescent strands into a whole. Time loses meaning as I work, drawing forth material and shaping it into an enormous scaffold that starts at the floor of the room and extends up into the dynamo housing within the roof of the chamber. 

I once asked why the generators were constructed in such fashion. It made more sense to my young mind that the assemblies should be installed first and the scaffold placed around it afterward to minimize that chance of accidental contact. But the reality is that because of the obsession worked into the drive shaft, placing the unity scaffold afterward becomes far more difficult. It does not want to solidify in the presence of such volatility, and the structure is weakened. By setting the scaffold first, the entire structure self supports and each side in turn reinforces the others. The fourth side becomes the most difficult to construct, but the other three sides work to assist in tugging the girders of the fourth into place. Overall, though, much less effort is required by placing the scaffold first.

Which is a necessary thing for me right now. And I am working one side at a time, with a meal and rest between each so as to allow for recovery time. Even still, after that first side finally solidifies, I practically collapse to the floor from fatigue. Sweat runs freely from beneath my scales and my legs are already shaking. The current teams are only five minutes into a new shift, I discover, as Devlin approaches with Teagris as my legs essentially collapse out from under me when my song finally dissolves away.

“Sir, I officially remand next shift to Teagris,” Devlin reports once he is certain he has my attention. “I’ve filled him in on your instructions so far and have meals arriving for the next shift as we speak. With your permission, I can have someone bring a plate in to you here so that you have additional time to recover before work resumes.”

Dark. Do I want to allow this? Or can I find the strength in my weary limbs to walk out to the lobby for sustenance? Damn it. This just makes more sense. But I do not want to be seen as weak. Especially right now, when I have so much to prove. But is it weakness to conserve my strength?

“That is probably advisable,” I mutter aloud. It is not until Devlin gives me a verbal acknowledgement and Teagris starts to call instructions to a nearby technician that I realize they have taken my commentary as assent. “No meat!” I snap in irritation instead, misplaced though it is. “Give the teams 30 minutes.” Which is to say, I do not want to be given more than that to rest, lest I fall into slumber. 

“Of course, sir.” Teagris is the one to answer this time. He converses briefly with Devlin, which I summarily ignore, before turning back to me. “Do you have any further instruction at this time?”