The days aimlessly drag on, the months pass, and eventually years roll by.
It’s been a little over six years since Cyryl and Tymon became friends. The year is now 594; ten years into Cyryl’s 35-year sentence.
Cyryl comes into the main lobby of the bureau with a nice suit, a freshly shaven face, and a tray of steaming coffees. Given the 3-year seasonal cycle of Peldor, it’s winter again in Heaven’s Reach, so everyone’s bundled up.
“Morning,” Cyryl says as he drops a coffee off to Laura.
The chains on Laura’s ears have been taken off, and there’re deep bags under her bloodshot eyes. She’s sitting on her chair, wrapped tightly in several blankets, and can only manage to nod weakly. She can’t even turn her eyes to look at him, while her cheeks, ears, and nose are flush. She’s still like a statue, Cyryl doesn’t even see her blink.
Laura’s pregnant again. Only a few months into a 3-year pregnancy, it’s been over 80 years since her last child, so her body is in whiplash as it adjusts to the sudden shift in hormones. It’s a temporary problem severely worsened by the cold weather, and that she’s in a lobby where people keep opening the door. Her eyes lazily fall to the cup of coffee, studies it for a moment, then her steel-colored eyes climb back up to Cyryl’s smiling face. With shaky hands, she slowly brings her arm out from under her blanket, and Cyryl hands one off. Carefully, she grips the paper cup, then brings it under her blankets, letting the warmth spread to her tummy.
With a nod, Cyryl leaves for the gym. He works out for an hour, hits the showers, gets dressed in another nice suit that follows the modern peldak fashion, then heads to the office.
He struts into the office a few minutes before his shift starts, and spots Tymon talking to a strange man. He’s a little taller than average, and is wearing a fancy blue military uniform with a red cape over his shoulder, and plenty of ribbons and metals. Cyryl recognizes that some of the medals denote him as a veteran of the Unification Wars, which means he’s older than the Protectorate itself. He’s also carrying a pencil and a clipboard, so he’s probably important.
“Hey,” Cyryl says as he walks up.
The man’s gaze is sharp as he eyes Cyryl up and down, but then he turns back to look down at Tymon. “Who?”
“He’s my number two in the office. If I’m not here, he takes charge.” Tymon replies swiftly, prompting the uniformed man to jot that down on his clipboard.
Cyryl smiles, “technically that makes me your number one.”
“I’m my number one,” he says. “I’m the person I can rely on most.”
Cyryl rolls his eyes, then puts out his hand. “And who are you? I’m Cyryl Racki, 367.”
The man brings his hand around, slapping Cyryl’s palm before firmly grasping his hand. Cyryl squeezes back as hard as he can. “Ignas Kosinski, 3,742. I’m the director of the Protectorate Bureau of Critical Infrastructure.”
Cyryl’s body stiffens a little at hearing Ignas’s advanced age. With his newfound ability of basic addition and subtraction, he knows that Ignas was born 3,148 BP. The capital city of Pelda was founded only a few decades prior, meaning Ignas is a second generation peldak. “Ah. So… what brings you here?” The two stop shaking hands, and for a moment, Cyryl can’t decide whether to stand at attention, or stay casual. It’s not every day you find someone so venerable, but Cyryl decides on folding his arms. A moment later, he switches to putting his hands on his hips.
Ignas’s voice is cool and calm. Older peldaks like him claim to have seen and done everything imaginable, so nothing surprises or excites them anymore. They keep their voices steady, their eyes half-open, their voices barely more emotive than a dull monotone. Though, since entering space half a millennia ago, peldaks like him are continually blindsided by new advances that take place every few years. He was blown away when he first saw an alien, a car, a train, an airship, when he first got shot by a firearm, when he first looked out a window and saw a space beast. At this point, he’s spending his days passing from hobby to passion to job, waiting for something new to happen, hence why he’s in the bureaucracy.
“As I was explaining to Mr. Czepiel,” Ignas says, “recent failures in the nine annexed worlds have revealed various flaws in the bureaucracy, so we’re planning a massive restructuring.”
Cyryl nods, “a massive restructuring.” He pauses for a second, then glances between the two men, “wait, recent failures?”
Ignas raises an eyebrow a few centimeters, barely noticeable. “You haven’t been listening to the news?”
“I’ve… been spending my spare time trying to get a wife.”
“Any luck?”
Tymon turns his head and tries to suppress his laugh.
Cyryl shoots a glance to his shorter friend, but turns back to his senior. “Not… not really, no.”
Ignas shrugs, “oh well. You have a nice face, I’m sure it won’t be too long.”
Tymon mutters, “if only he could fix his personality.”
Cyryl frowns, “you’re the one person I don’t want to hear that from.”
“Regardless,” Ignas continues, “the goal of our occupation is to bring the nine annexed worlds into a baseline standard of development, allowing the various member states of the Protectorate within each to become stable and self-sufficient. The territories we captured in the first war have seen relative improvement, but the states we annexed ten years ago are the same shitholes they’ve always been. The short version of our failure is due to three simple reasons. 1. The native ethnic groups all despise each other, and there’re hundreds of insurrection groups fighting guerrilla wars against the administrative regions we set up. This means, to keep the peace, we have to maintain more soldiers in the region than we anticipated, and we’re spending more resources for the occupation than we wanted. 2. Because of our higher troop presence, Peldor’s economy hasn’t recovered, and we’re facing manpower shortages everywhere.”
Tymon interjects with a nod, “my girlfriend, Cassy, was fired as a guard a few months ago for that reason. Nobody can justify letting a peldak stand around all shift just to impress aliens that are already our allies.”
Cyryl purses his lips, and decides not to mention how he had no idea that Peldor’s economy was doing poorly.
“Therefore,” Ignas continues, “our spending is up, and our economy is down. This made us raise taxes on other members of the Protectorate, which they’re complaining about.”
Cyryl rolls his eyes, “when do aliens not complain?”
“True, but having their taxes raised three times in just a few years has… well, I won’t pretend to know the specifics, but their economies are suffering as well. Somehow. They aren’t paying as much as we want.”
One of their fellow bureaucrats, Urban, walks in. The giant of a man nods to Cyryl and Tymon, and the two reply by perking and dipping their ears.
“The 3rd point is that there’s a disgusting amount of corruption happening in the new territories. It seems that every week there’s a new investigation that’s revealed fraud, or outright sabotage from natives with connections to anti-Protectorate groups. Of all the supplies the PBoCI’s has been sending, it’s estimated that only around 5% is going to their intended purpose. Schools aren’t teaching the curriculum we’re paying them for, apartment complexes aren’t being built to the correct specifications, factories and infrastructure weren’t built, and nobody knows where the resources went. The only reliable source of development is what our military is making, like roads, bridges, railroads, and outposts. But then, those are targeted by insurrection groups, keeping the repair bill high. So the Protectorate’s current plan involves selling off territory to settlers and colonizing the region. Hopefully the colonies can handle a bit of infrastructure development, and fight off insurrectionists without our aid. But with the colonization initiative, there’s also been a desire to crack down on corruption.”
“So what does this have to do with us?” Cyryl asks.
“Do you keep track of your requests and where the strategic resources go?”
“No. I don’t even read them most of the time, I just pick a random request and send the stuff.”
“That’s a problem. We need more control over where the aid is sent, and a way to keep track of progress. If you sent 500 tons of whatever in order to build a road, we need to know the road is actually being built. If it’s not, and we know that 95% of the time it isn’t, we need to figure out what part of the chain is broken, and figure out how to fix it.”
Cyryl cocks his head. “And how do you do that?”
Ignus looks over his clipboard and scratches his cheek with the eraser side of his pencil. “That’s the question I’m trying to figure out. We’re going to go one link on the chain at a time. I already started with the warehouse, and I know for a fact that an accurate count of resources are being sent to this bureau. Therefore, next step, is the issue with the bureau? I’m not accusing any of you of fraud, but Mr. Czepiel says there are staffing issues?”
Tymon nods, “Cyryl and I do over half the work in the bureau for the first shift. I also have doubts on if we can really rely on convicts to do this work.”
“There’s nothing for it. We have volunteer positions in the bureaucracy, but nobody ever applies. Plus, there’s the aforementioned manpower shortages.”
Cyryl perks his ears, “why not just hire cirathans? Or monsoorai? They’re good at that kind of mindless paper pushing.”
Ignus doesn’t look up from his clipboard, “the goal is to lessen fraud, not streamline it.” He taps his pencil on the clipboard, “I think I could pull some strings and get more convicts assigned here.” He looks to the side as another dead-eyed peldak, Klem, walks in to start his shift. Looking up to the clock, Ignus notices the shift started a few minutes ago. “Is it normal for your personnel to come in this late?”
“Yes sir,” Tymon says, “most of them filter in over the first hour. It’s really only Cyryl and I that appear on time.”
Ignus looks down at him, connecting dots in his brain. “And you said you two do half of the work?”
Cyryl nods, “combined, we do a little over half the strategic resources. Everyone else is only in charge of one each. I don’t know what it’s like for second shift.”
Ignus looks around at the cubicles, then walks a lap around the office, inspecting each before returning to Cyryl and Tymon. “Would you say that there’s… a lack of enthusiasm for the convicts working here?”
“I would-“ Tymon cracks a smile, “yes sir, I would say that.”
“Why haven’t you disciplined everyone with a low work ethic? This is an important job, vital to the plans of the Peldak Protectorate. If they don’t understand that, you need to beat them until they fall into line,” he puts his clipboard under his arm, then slams his fist into his open palm. “No wandering in whenever they feel like it, no sighing or whining. They’re all convicted criminals. It’s not meant to be pleasant, and they’re not supposed to wallow in self-pity for a few decades. They’re here to do a service to society, and if they don’t get that, you need to make them understand.”
Tymon sighs, raises his arms a little, then lets them fall back against his thighs. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“You-“
Tymon interrupts by placing his hand on top of his head, then he pushes his hand out until it connects to Ignus’s lower chest.
“…Ah.” Ignas says.
“Yes sir.” Tymon nods.
Ignas thinks for a moment, tapping the eraser of his pencil on the clipboard. “Alright, that’s one problem that’ll be easy to settle. There’s no discipline, it can’t currently be enforced, so I’ll send over a guy I know. He was a high-ranking officer, so he knows how to beat his subordinates into shape.”
Tymon clenches his jaw, but doesn’t speak.
Cyryl frowns and straightens his back, “you’re taking the manager position from Tymon? Sir?”
“Basically, yes,” Ignas says, unenthused. “My apologies, Mr. Czepiel, but it seems like you haven’t done much management in the first place. A manager is supposed to delegate tasks, not do everything himself.”
Tymon lowers his eyes to Ignas’s chest, and tightens his fists. “…yes sir, that’s… fair.”
“Whoa, hold on, no it’s not!” Cyryl grabs Tymon’s far shoulder and pulls him closer, “listen, Sir Kosinski. We can absolutely whip these jokers into shape and teach them who’s boss. What you said is absolutely true, the lack of discipline is a problem, we just didn’t realize it! Now that we know the issue, we can work to fix it.” He gives Tymon’s shoulder a shake, “right, boss?”
Ignas casts his eyes down to Tymon. It’s nearly impossible to read his facial expression, though he is noticeably looking down his nose at Tymon.
“Uh, right. Yeah.”
Cyryl smiles, then releases his friend to slide closer to their elder. “Just give us a few weeks to try. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue, right? If we succeed, great. If we fail, you can just replace him later.”
Ignus taps his pencil on the clipboard. He seems to think of something, then just sighs and shakes his head. “Mr. Racki, was it? Very well. You and Mr. Czepiel are free to use any method at your disposal, save murder or mutilation, to get this department in working order. In the meantime, I have a few ideas to fix the structure of the bureau, but that will take time to finalize. When I come back, I want,” he gives a half-hearted amount of thought. “An equal division of labor between all the convicts in your department, and a bare minimum of discipline such as coming into work on time, and the enforcement of a proper dress code.”
“Easy!” Cyryl declares, putting his hand out for another handshake.
Ignus gives him it, squeezing Cyryl’s hand hard enough to make him wince. He then shakes Tymon’s hand, mercifully applying almost no pressure. “Gentlemen.” He then heads out, going up the stairs to investigate the next department in the bureau.
Tymon sighs, “well, thanks for standing up for me.”
“No problem,” Cyryl slaps his friend’s back.”
“Any thought on how we actually do it though? Can you beat anyone into submission?”
Cyryl purses his lips. “I’m… decently strong, but I don’t know about Urban. He’s like a head taller than me.”
Tymon thinks for a moment, but shakes his head. “Let’s get to work. We can think about this during a break.”