By the time Thomas had reached the doors of the Logistics Center, he was already twenty minutes late. The Logistics Center was the only way for supplies and people to come in and out of Point Nemo, making it the literal heart of the town. Everyone, human and alien, had to go there at some point just to survive. It didn’t matter how many detours and shortcuts he tried; the crowd was simply unavoidable.

At least the crowd here showed some signs of life. Languages of a dozen nations could be heard at any given time, with traders selling their wares, customers haggling prices, or doomsday preachers commanding the masses to repent. It was as if the Penitent had taken the populations of Earth, shuffled them up, and scattered them across the surface of Akkaven like dealing a deck of cards. It was much the same for the Korokti but with their own cultural variations. Thomas saw several with antler-like appendages that wore some sort of metallic regalia and lighter clothing rather than the thick robes that the majority wore. They seemed far more morose and prone to aggression, too.

Thomas snuck along the edge of the entry hall and made it to the locker room reserved for maintenance techs without being spotted. Thankfully, the staff room was empty, with no supervisors in sight. He found his locker, gathered his tools, and ran through a mental checklist to ensure he had everything he needed. He was only supposed to do inventory today, but he expected to be pulled off intermittently for urgent repair jobs, and he couldn’t afford to make the trek back here if he missed something. There was a very limited stock of equipment, with only whatever had been brought from Earth being available. Radios, cameras, computers, and even clocks were now irreplaceable. Some raw materials could be scavenged from the city’s ruins, but Point Nemo didn’t have the machinery to manufacture anything themselves. The Atrium, the de facto capital of Akkaven, was constantly overwhelmed with requests from all over the planet. They had to make do with what they had.

Thomas zipped up his tool bag and made for the door. He strode into the elevator and looked for the button for sub-level four.

If I work fast, I can make up for lost time. He won’t even notice I was late.

As if on cue, a thick, hairy arm burst through the crack, revealing a tall, bearded man with a beer gut. The scent of stale chewing tobacco permeated the air.

Outstanding.

It was Richard, the manager in charge of maintenance. Thomas steeled himself for what was to come.

“You’re forty-five minutes late." Richard sighed.

“I’m sorry. I ran into-”

“You picked damn near the worst day for this. The folks back at the Atrium are sending out someone special to inspect us today and have placed the mother of all inventory requests to boot. You signed up to work from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, so I expect you to be here, working, at 8 AM on the dot. Not just preparing to work. Not talking with a buddy. WORKING.”

“I’ll…I’ll do better.”

“I’ll hold you to that. If you ever want to get back into programming, you’ll need to tough it out here first. You’re not the only one itching for a better position back at the Atrium, and I’m not going to recommend someone who can’t make it in on time.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.” Thomas looked down at his shoes for a moment and then said, “I was in engineering.”

“What?”

“I was studying to be an engineer, not a programmer.”

Richard just stared back at him. Then, after a few breaths, in a low voice, he asked, “For how long?”

“I was finishing up my freshman year when the Exodus started," Thomas replied, staring a hole into the elevator door in front of him.

“So, less than a year. Doesn’t make much of a difference then, does it?”

Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. That first year in school had only really been the introductory courses, and he had struggled enough with those. But before Thomas could think of a response, Richard moved on.

“I want you to inventory Room 422K by the end of the day. The Atrium has a real itch for copper and steel all of a sudden, and we need to scratch it.”

“What about the inventory job from yesterday? We still had a few rooms left to go.”

“If you had been here forty-five minutes ago, then you would know that we’re postponing that until next week. This new job takes priority. Inventory 422K, run the list by admin, and then pack up whatever they mark. I need you to get this done before you leave. Understand?”.

“Yes, sir," Thomas sighed.

“Prove it to me.” The elevator came to a stop, and without another word, Richard sauntered out.

The pit in his stomach carved a little deeper.

 ***

Once he reached his floor, he walked down a narrow hall with a high, arched ceiling. It reminded him of the old churches his grandparents used to take him to. A dim, blue light emanated around each doorway, illuminating the yellow sticky attached to each one. The hallway gradually curved out of sight, like some sort of carnival funhouse. Thomas pitied the poor soul entrusted with sticky-note detail.

He inserted his hand into a small hole to the right of the doorway, and it hissed open. Inside, the room was at least forty to fifty feet long and twenty feet wide and filled to the brim with copper scrap. Thomas pulled out the inventory list from his tool bag and tried to get some sense of where to start.

Suck it up. Maybe it’ll take a while, but this will keep you fed.

He pulled over a crate next to the nearest shelf of scrap and began the slog. It didn’t take long to fall into a rhythm, which freed his mind to wander.

Who the hell took the time to pack up this much copper in the middle of an alien invasion?

While much of the copper seemed to be scavenged from Akkaven’s ruins, a majority of it was unmistakably of human origin. He saw stamps in English, Spanish, Russian, and a myriad of other languages. The human technology and supplies that Thomas had seen before were mostly things that refugees had brought with them, like cell phones, earbuds, and personal belongings. Some of the few military and emergency service units that had made it off Earth had brought whatever weapons and medical supplies they could, but even those items had been what was immediately needed for survival or what could be easily transported. Bulk copper scrap fits neither of those two categories. Thomas chewed over the mystery through the first three shelves, but his mind gradually shifted to other matters.

So, less than a year. Doesn’t make much of a difference then, does it?

The question wormed its way into his mind over and over again. Why couldn’t he have just gotten up when his alarm went off? Why did he have to freak out over some random Korokti going about his day? One year of struggling through college only went so far. Richard had only hired him because his slight bit of technical experience made him somewhat of a better choice than the other applicants. And since most of the work involved skills that he hadn’t learned in school, he was constantly floundering over something new. For all he knew, Richard thought he had lied about his background and was just waiting for Thomas to make a big enough mistake to fire him. Is this all that his life would be? Scrambling to a job to earn ration cards to earn just enough food not to starve? And what would it matter if they came back?

Easy. Take it easy.

He imagined the words in his dad’s voice, then his mom’s, just like whenever he had had a bad day at school. He breathed from his gut and felt a spark as he remembered what he had hidden in his tool bag. He rifled through and found the small plastic bag he had hidden in one of the bottom folds. Inside was a tangled and torn set of wired earbuds. He plugged them into the side of his watch and twisted the dial on the side. It was solar-powered and had the bizarre feature of storing a small amount of music. Thomas had begged his dad to get him a smartphone for his thirteenth birthday, to no avail. Instead, he had gotten the watch. He had worn it for close to a year until he had saved up enough money to buy a smartphone on his own. After that, the watch found its home in the bottom of his school backpack. And there it stayed, for seven years, until Thomas found it again when he had first arrived on Akkaven. He had never been so happy to not get what he wanted.

The only photos of his life before were on his phone, but he still at least had the watch. It had no pictures, but it did have one album downloaded to it by his mother. It was the soundtrack to his favorite video game. He hit the play button and was instantly drawn back to his basement on a Friday night. The ethereal feel of the choir and strings drowned out his thoughts about Richard.

For a time, the pit was filled.