Dream d1952-s: Leave Taken, Bench Claimed

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we crossed the Casting Floor a second time and something settled in us like cooling metal finding its final form.

The heat came first, the way it always does here - not the ambient warmth of a living place but the working heat, pressurized and purposeful, rising from the forge-engine where it has risen for longer than any of us have walked. The Builder put her hand flat against the iron wall beside the main duct and held it there, feeling the pulse of it. The Wireman crouched near a bank of dead conduit and traced the casing with one finger, reading it the way he reads everything - as a text, as an offer.

The Weather Reader had called it before we crossed the threshold. Cold front stalling to the north, she said, pressure building against the ridge of the waste. Means the rain holds off but the air gets heavy, carries smoke low. Good for staying put. Bad for anyone still moving.

Nobody was still moving. We had stopped moving the moment the bench came into view.

It is bolted directly into the engine housing, that bench - someone years ago decided that the only logical place to work was against the source of the work itself, and welded it there without apology. Four iron legs, a scarred surface, a gauge to the left that reads pressure in units I cannot name. I sat on one end of it and felt the hum come up through my bones.

Lano found the cool channel running along the base of the engine and stepped into it without ceremony, her white coat bright against the grey slag floor. She turned twice, lowered herself, and rested her chin on the channel's lip, watching us from below with that particular patience she reserves for moments she has already understood before we have.

Rurik leaped to the far end of the bench and sat. He did not announce his intention. He simply occupied the place and it became his.

"We are staying," the Listener said. Not a question.

"The bench was bolted in," the Builder answered. "Someone meant this to be worked at."

The Scavenger ran his hand along the underside of the bench and pulled out a folded thing - old, oilcloth wrapped - and set it on the surface without opening it. Not yet.

Oxy drifted close to the gauge and hovered there, reading the needle's steady position. Still, they said. Pressure holding.

Outside, the waste continued its long grey indifference. Inside the Casting Floor, in the red-and-grey light, we took leave to stay. Not visitors anymore. Something closer to residents. The engine hummed beneath us and we let it.