Part 3

The next day

Walking into work, apprehension filled my gut. I looked over near the break room. The yXX rep was already sitting at her makeshift desk, bright eyed and stiff spined at 5AM like she never left the building.I shook my head and sat at the bench next to my locker until Natalie arrived. When she walked in she looked relieved to see me.

I pointed subtly across the shop

“Nat, look who is here bright and early again.”

Nat grimaced. “I know it’s like she sleeps under the desk.”

“Hopefully getting OT”

I stood, took a breath, and walked over to the rep’s table like a kid about to get scolded for sneaking out past curfew.

“Aren I did hear you are one of the employees that had a calibration issue. Rest assured we are doing our best to make sure that does not happen again.”

Without looking down she picked up a form and lifted it towards me.

“All employees that were absent yesterday because of the calibration fatigue will be paid for the hours missed. Just fill out this form.”

“Oh, what? That’s awesome.” I said in surprise, relief blooming in my chest.

I thought for a moment and asked “Does the same issue also cause strange dreams?”

She blinked twice. “Symptoms like that have not been documented. Let me make a note for the engineers.” She grabbed a clipboard and scrawled on a sheet quickly. “We will follow up about this.”

“Thanks”

The buzzer went off, and we split off and the rest of the day passed quietly. Uneventful, but foggy. I scrolled past Halcyon, hovering near it, but careful not to open it. My curiosity tugged at me.

What was it for?

——————————————-

At the end of the shift, towards the front of the shop. I looked up the high factory walls, staring at the windows perched up at the top. They were meant to let in some sense of afternoon light. However, black dust covered them.

I’d looked at those windows hundreds of times. But in the moment, something about them gave me a sinking feeling. It made me feel like we were sealed off from the rest of the world. The factory was just a large metal box holding us all inside together.

Natalie’s voice caught my attention. “They’re paying you for being off?” She asked as we both moved towards the lockers. “That’s strange. But I’m sure you’re not complaining about it.”

“Not. At. All.” I said.  “Well, besides the migraine I had to endure.”

“It’s just weird, stuff like that should have been caught with the beta group. I know I was excited about the update at first. But now.” She said worriedly. “Isn’t it strange they still have that app listed that doesn’t work?”

She opened her locker and stared inside like she was looking for something she had forgotten. Neither of us said anything more, as we packed up in silence.


———————————————————————-

The hot air was stale. Faintly metallic, like hot circuits. As soon as I got home my body wanted to crash from the summer heat. I shut the door behind sealing the oven behind me. Inside, the hum of the air conditioner treated me with a dull whisper. 

I looked at the calendar as I walked in.

Great, only a whole more month of this crap.

It was the end of July and I was none too pleased about it.

I sat on my couch and cooled off. I tried my best to enjoy the A/C. I spread out like I was trying to become a part of the cushions. The cool air brushed over my skin, but didn’t reach the inside of me where my unease lied. I was beat, but I didn’t want to sleep.

I didn’t want to have another stressful dream.

I scrolled through my phone, the light of the screen reflecting in my eyes as my fingers moved slower and slower. My body betraying me. Scrolling, my eyes got heavier and I slowly melted onto the couch.

Somewhere between a blink I faded.

I was floating in a black space, too big to understand. Cold and full of an oil-like substance. I saw two massive gears at the center of a galaxy. The solar system, not as it is now but as a machine. Hurling through an oily cosmos with the power of an infinitely unwinding spring.

The universe wasn’t alive, but built.

And I was too small to belong here.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I felt watched. Not by something evil…but something that had already disassembled me and put me back wrong. My body became covered in a tangle of warm wires, all twisted around me. In a strange way I felt. Safe.

Safe, in the way a tool feels safe in a box.

I woke up gasping, tangled around my unplugged charging cord like a web.  The room was dim and quiet but not completely silent. The kind of quiet that you only notice after a machine powers down.

I blinked at the ceiling, trying to shake the dream loose.

But it stuck.

The vision of the spring. The turning gears. It felt too specific, too constructed. Had I seen it somewhere before?

A movie?

A comic?

Some obscure Sci-fi blog post I half read?

I couldn’t tell anymore. I’d consumed so much media at work that my dreams felt secondhand now.

Still unsettled, I reached for my tablet and opened a browser. Just typing in a few vague terms trying to follow the thread.

“Galaxy made of machine unwinding spring”

The first few results were nonsense to me. Something about an aftermarket vehicle part. “Galaxy 380 spring tensioner” Whatever that was.

One link caught my eye and made me laugh.

Some fringe article about a crackpot religion of a broken god. Crude page, and bad layout. “Unity through disassembly. Perfection through purpose.”  I searched for a few more minutes. But I couldn’t find anything online about a movie or a game that had the same description.

I searched for a few more minutes. But I couldn’t find anything online about a movie or game that had the same description as my dream.

I pressed the power button to shut off the screen and rubbed my eyes.

Weird dream.

I told myself. But nothing more.