Tales of the Admins

[Zukeenee]

Zukeenee awoke with a start, nearly falling out of his seat. Where was he again? He was strapped into some sort of seat in the dark. He couldn't make out even the slightest detail of his surroundings. All he could feel was the worn, thin cushion of his seat and the cold emptiness surrounding him. All he could hear was a faint rumble in the background and the sound of his own breathing. The air was stale, like the recycled oxygen of a spaceship. As Zuke moved his head, he felt the texture of some sort of cloth as it shifted in his face. It's not just dark. I'm blindfolded, he thought. Why was he blindfolded? Zuke attempted to raise his hands to his face, but found that they were bound tightly behind him. As he struggled, he felt the safety harness over his chest, keeping him pinned to his seat.

How did this happen? Zukeenee tried to recall the events leading up to this situation. I was at home, getting ready for bed, and then... It came back to him. Two strange men had broken into his apartment, and before Zuke could get a good look at either of them, one whacked him in the back of his head with some sort of club.

Zuke leaned into his seat and allowed the back of his head to connect with the headrest. Yes, there sure was a lump there. It barely hurt, though. How long had he been knocked out? Hours? Days? He had no idea. Nor could he think of anyone with a motive to do such a thing. Zuke squirmed in his chair, trying to find a way out of the situation.

The faint rumble in the background stopped. There was a hiss, the sound of metal sliding on metal, and then footsteps. The footsteps stopped in front of Zuke, and he felt a pair of hands undo his safety harness. The same pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him out of his seat. Zuke was led through a small doorway, down a ramp, and into another open space that felt and sounded much larger. The hands that had guided Zuke undid his blindfold.

Zukeenee was in a hanger. An enormous one, by the looks of it. Several small spacecraft of varying types were littered about the room's floor, many appearing as though they hadn't been used in ages. Zuke looked behind himself to see the man who had taken him. He was mildly surprised to see that it hadn't been a man, but a robot, like the automated dockworkers you see on the more advanced space stations. The robot was returning to the ship from which Zuke had just departed. It was an old, battered Rhino freighter, apparently modified for passenger transport, with the words "A.D.M.I.N. Taxi Service" hastily spray-painted on the side. Zukeenee suddenly began to understand who had taken him. He started to sweat.

"So, the new recruits are here," said a voice behind him. Zuke turned to see a man standing on a raised platform against the nearest wall. It was a man that everyone in the galaxy knew of, but few knew. Many were of the opinion that he simply didn't exist, but the evidence to the contrary stood right here, roughly a dozen yards in front of Zukeenee. It was Cannon, arguably the most influential member of the Autonomous Departmental Managers of Interstellar Navigation. Taking another look around the hangar, Zuke could see the other "recruits" that Cannon was referring to, each one stepping forward from the various freighters that had delivered them. Zuke recognized some of the newcomers as his peers from the Moderation Department. The others were also familiar to him, though he couldn't quite point out from where he knew them. They were all beginning to group up around Cannon, so Zuke joined them.

"You are currently onboard an advanced warship which is stationed at the edge of the Omicron Delta system," Cannon said. "You are each light years away from your respective homes. I hope you said your goodbyes, because you won't be seeing them again any time soon." Cannon's platform lowed itself to ground level, putting him on equal footing with the recruits surrounding him. "The six of you have been chosen to become Administrators. You have been watched, you have been tested, and you have shown us that your individual skills can be of use to the A.D.M.I.N. team. You are to become the deities of Sirius and its neighboring sectors. You will assist us in setting and enforcing the rules of our universe."

Six more robots entered the hangar, each carrying a device which appeared to be some combination of a syringe and a staple gun. The robots approached the recruits and grabbed their arms. Before Zukeenee could react, the robot held the device against his immobilized arm and pulled a trigger. Zuke felt a prick, followed by a brief, intense pain, which quickly dissipated into a mildly unpleasant tingling sensation running through his entire body. He looked around at the others to see if they were getting the same treatment, but the simple act of moving his head made Zuke incredibly dizzy. "You're being injected with thousands upon thousands of nanomachines," Cannon said to the group. "The nanomachines are working to rebuild your cellular structure at a microscopic level, turning you into one of the most powerful beings in the universe. You will each have the ability to warp space around yourself and others, you will be able to hear everything that gets said in Sirius, and you will have the power to alter the fundamental laws of reality. It will take a few minutes for the machines to finish their job. Once they're done, the vertigo and numbness you're feeling will wear off."

The robots departed, and Zuke rubbed his arm, attempting to find out if the tingling sensation had worn off yet. "This power comes at a price, though," Cannon continued. "As Administrators, you have a new set of standards that you have to meet. We will strip from you every shred of sympathy, and drain you of every ounce of compassion for your fellow space pilots. We will turn you into a cold, unfeeling ruler, completely detached from the world around you. Your day-to-day life will be filled with tedium and torment, and you'll find a distinct lack of joy for your job as you wade through the ocean of tears and disapproval created by the very beings you exist to serve." Cannon smiled. "Of course, this won't all happen at once. You'll change over the course of time in the Administration. Some might take longer than others, but we'll hollow you out eventually. My advice is to hold on to your innocent cheerfulness as long as you can. You'll need it."

"With all that out of the way, it's time for you all to get to work," Cannon said, and he pressed a button on the wall behind him. A metal panel sunk inward, and then began to slide slowly inside the wall, revealing a doorway into an even larger room. Through the widening gap, Zuke saw literal mountains of paperwork and datapads, with automated forklifts rolling from pile to pile, picking up and depositing more stacks of rule violation reports. Giant holoscreens hung from the walls and ceiling, some displaying messages sent to and from every corner of Sirius, others monitoring specific ships and people. Pneumatic tubes crossed through the center of the room, carrying help requests from departments all over the warship, and dispatching replies to be delivered out to the space pilots who had sent them. A console on one side of the room displayed various statistics and spreadsheets describing open space, telling how many ships were active and giving readouts of the general traffic in space. A console on the other side of the room displayed charts and long lists of conversations being had on the Neural Net.

Cannon took a few steps into the room, then turned back toward the new Administrators. "This will be your new home. I suggest that you get very familiar with the tools and equipment here, because the majority of your job will involve them in one way or another. So make yourselves comfortable." Cannon grinned, and stretched out his arms to either side of himself, as if to present his surroundings. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conspiracy."

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