An electro technician's life - part 10

Now finally the last panel was back in place again, the faulty backup units
replaced and new power supplies in place. The junk was sent off to recycling as
usual and the ChimpBot beeped when it started up after getting its battery back.
It took a while to get everything sorted and cleaned up, it had been a real mess
alright.

She stretched out while giving everything a good last look before the tiredly
started to wander back for some rest. The steam baths seemed like a real treat
and she decided to take a detour round them to get some of the stress off her
and hoped to get some energy back. Said and done and half an hour later she was
in the bath closing her eyes and just let everything go. It felt really good to
lie there, or levitate in the water. She hadn’t take any relaxing drugs since
she never really liked them. She didn’t know why she was not appealed by them,
there were no side effects for her which she had tested. They were not effective
for her in some way, and if they are not effective then there was no real use in
taking them. Perhaps it was she that was wrong in some way, still all tests and
trials had come out as normal when done. Except for some particles and microbes
that did not belong to a human body but the reason for that was simple; it was
just ordinary dirt that stuck on her when she was running around fixing things.
She were often a bit dirty but that is to be expected when there are lots of
things to be done and even less time to do them.

When some more people started to join her in the bath she got up and dressed
herself. She did not mind others, just that she wanted to be a bit for herself
for now. As she was walking in the corridor towards the elevator she had a look
at her portable device and did not notice the one that was coming in the
opposite direction a bit down the hall. They bumped into each other.

“I’m sorry I was looking at the screen, I should have….” she said to the one
she met..

But there was no reply and the one she had bumped into just kept continuing
walking down the corridor towards a door a bit further down.
She looked at the person for a moment and then let out a silent sigh and
continued towards the elevator.

“I guess there was something important at the other end.” she thought to herself
as she punched the code that called for the lift to take her a few floors up.
She still had her Portable Device in her hand and she found herself just to
stare at it. It was not an ordinary issue of a comm device or anything like
that. It was something she had made herself in an attempt to create a multi user
tool to have when CommConsole broke down or accessing rerouting units and look
at blueprints when in haste. All this had, in a way, resulted in the device she
held in her hand. Not standard issue but an effective device nonetheless and
that was the whole point. Efficiency.

She was not sure if it was because she was tired from all the work, after all
the drugs can only keep you going for a certain amount of time before the body
rejects. Like a machine it can be made running above its common capability, but
only for some time before the cooling or controlling starts to fluxuate. It was
a natural reaction of the machinery.
Still she walked a bit slower than usual and her mind was not as focused as she
wanted it to be. Suddenly she found herself at the walkway that was covered with
glass and she looked out a moment before continuing towards where her floatbed
was.

Finally she reached the little space she had made her own, well inside she got
out of her overall and placed the belt on its hook. She sat down and looked at
her Education Terminal, or computer as she preferred to call it. She had found
that name once while browsing through the history data file of TAU. Quite
interesting so see how things were sometimes. For now she just looked around
herself, was she still tired or what was the cause of this. Seemed as she
wouldn’t get a clear answer on that one so she let it aside for now.
She looked at all the things that was around her, the Education Terminal which
of course had undergone some modifications in order to improve it. It is a shame
to waste good hardware and not let it work at its fullest potential. The machine
that made the beverage that reminded, according to the history files, of coffee.
It seemed that the only thing that was of standard issue there was the floatbed
that was still untouched and would remain so.

All these standard equipment around her, almost everything modified and changed
to improve performance and to cream out more effect. Why was it like that ? Why
was it that what others found to be working efficient enough to fulfill it’s
purpose she found ways to improve, even if it was a little. It was a bit
strange, still it seemed so logical to be as efficient as possible and according
to the data it was why things were as they are in the Tower, efficiency is the
future.

She looked around as she sat down leaning towards the wall, not on the floatbed
as expected.
She looked at all the equipment, everything had its place if not in the room but
in the Tower.

“Perhaps I am the one thing in here that is at fault…”