However, Konstantin had hated the overall experience less than he'd anticipated.
The small base was air conditioned, at least, and there were screens and fences to keep the wildlife out. They were far from the Amazon River itself, away from villagers and tourists and kitschy travellers who took too many photographs with their sophisticated cameras. The research team there focused on the complex plant life found throughout the rainforest, the ones in ecosystems too delicate to disturb by moving them to a better site.
"Trust me," Sally had intoned with a dry voice, handing the Moon his briefing, a ream of lined paper half-heartedly stapled together. "We've tried. Nothing lives. Try not to kill any of the remaining experiments."
It was a direct order, as far as Konstantin could tell, so he took it to heart. Reading the briefing on his coat, he learned that there was a shortage of Life techs and technology alike at this particular base. It was large enough to comfortably house 45, but there were only 10 or so on rotation at any given time, due to the bare bones staffing.
"What, do you think we grow on trees?" Sally had said, unprovoked, wagging her finger at him disapprovingly. He was ninety three percent sure that she had meant "technicians" when she had said we, but opted not to ask for clarification. Instead, he buried himself in the work of the base. It was a chaotic mess at first sight, but there was a methodology to it all, a science that he could read and interpret and obey.
It was therapeutic, but it was by no means easy work. The recording methods were crude: pencil and paper, feeding and sunning times dictated by the green letters of a dry erase marker on a white board. Controls and variables had to be measured by hand instead of by any sort of device, which was often troubling when an experiment required an addition of FEAR or something else, which he wasn't classified to handle as a Trainee, for purposes unknown to him.
"Alll on a need to know basis, rookie," Sally had explained, and Konstantin was starting to think that explaining was all she did. She clearly hated that fact.
After that realisation, Konstantin stopped asking her questions.
There were no creature comforts from the 'home' he had started to think of Deus as. Things as simple as a proper bed, his own room, an intranet full of information at his fingertips. He spun the bracelet cuffed to his wrist, the modification of the globe he had snatched from the pile of artifacts as tall as him.
Time passed.
Konstantin remained a loner amongst the others at the base, but it was of little concern to him. He obeyed any directive given to him, with an eager and concise disposition. There was no second shift he would not pick up, no experiments he wouldn't cover, no chore he wouldn't volunteer for.
It wasn't to be a kiss a**. It was to pass the time. Syntax crooned at him in his proprietary programming language while he worked, a constant him of brackets and braces and semi-colons, of excited colours blinking behind his eyelids. There was no Mimsy, here, and that was unfortunate: she was a rock he could use as a basis for understanding the world. She would explain anything he asked her to-- for she would almost assuredly understand it first-- and while it was a crutch, it was one he found comforting. She spoke very clearly, and while her language was sophisticated, he rarely felt unintelligent for asking her to explain. Konstantin was not a child: English was just his second language.
A fortnight passed, and then a month. His routine was the same every day; up at five, breakfast at five thirty, check on the first plants at six fifteen. Attending to the compost at seven, fertilize the correct ones at eight. Check on the small farm of minipets to ensure their survival, in a pen a few minutes walk away from the main base. Dig ditches and sow new crops until lunch. Consume the rations somewhere in the forest, return to the base by one. Transcribe all results meticulously until three. Assist any others until dinner, assist in the cooking of dinner (the only hot meal, most days).
It was clockwork, and it did not deviate even once his entire shift. It had done good for his head. There was no room for error, and so none were made. Konstantin merely existed as a tool to serve, a machine with instructions to follow until the loop was closed.
He breathed, turned the key, and entered the room he shared with Mimsy.
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# $i=1;
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# while($i<=8)
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# { echo "You have been gone " . $i . weeks. "
";
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# $i++; }
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# print "Welcome Home."
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# while($i<=8)
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# { echo "You have been gone " . $i . weeks. "
";
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# $i++; }
[syntax.error@K.BASHMET ~]# print "Welcome Home."
