Prelude to Crystal Cove Chronicles

Chapter 4: Breakfast Before Work

While the Tri-Cities were heavily militarised due to the issues with Musea, they were also, for the most part, quite free and allowed people to live their lives as they saw fit. There was always some job somewhere that needed doing, and it was possible to earn a decent living if you were willing to put in the effort.

Of course, this also meant that you had the freedom to starve to death, or freeze in your home if you weren't willing to put in the effort, and people were generally okay with that. If your laziness led to your death, so be it, though it did annoy the people who had to clean up the corpse.

Zenya belonged firmly to the former group, and had been working her cotton (occasionally wool, when she could afford the extra) socks off in a variety of jobs. A good source of regular income was working the docks, and she had become quite proficient at handling the big cranes used for loading and unloading cargo.

Stopping in at a nearby phone booth, she held the receiver a little away from her ear in order to avoid issues with freezing it in place, and rang the Dock Master's Office. It was answered by a familiar voice.

"Dock Master Silas's Office, how can I help?" said the young-sounding female voice.

"Morning, Doris," Zenya said, shivering a little. "It's Zenya."

"Oh, back home at last, are you? How did it go?" Doris said, her tone immediately changing from the usual boring, dry professional one to something rather warmer.

"I have a new appreciation for the problems over the sea, let's just say that," Zenya said with a vague laugh.

"Bad time, was it?"

"No, not especially. I just never realised how serious the monster problem is over there. They had one of their big barriers go down for a couple of weeks for maintenance work, had to replace something big."

"They use those to keep the monsters away, don't they?"

"That's right. Suppose it's no different to our Barrier Line," Zenya said.

The Barrier Line was a series of guard posts stretching from Tantagal to Tragost along the northern border with the region known simply as the Northern Wasteland. There were a great many technological horrors roaming those lands, and they sometimes found their way south into Tri-Cities territories. The Barrier Line was their first defence against such encroachments.

"Monsters, Automechs, there's not much difference when you get down to it," Doris said.

"Anyway, because they had to keep the monsters at bay while the barrier was down, there were more injuries than usual, so I was helping out with that. They paid well, too," Zenya said, shifting from side to side and stamping her feet in her vain efforts to keep warm. "Speaking of pay, any jobs going this morning? I could do with something while I have my boiler fixed."

"You're just in time, Zenya, one of the usual dockhands came down with something yesterday, we need a replacement crane operative for the day," Doris said. "Just come on down to the docks and talk to Master Silas, he'll be glad to see you."

"That's great, thank you, Doris!" Zenya said, relieved. At least the dockyard cranes had a sealed cabin and small oil heater for warmth. Better than freezing to death at home, and she got paid to boot. "I'm just going to have some breakfast at Marlow's, then I'll be there."

"I'll inform Master Silas," Doris said, and wished her a pleasant morning.

Zenya thanked her, then spent a moment ringing her landlord in hopes that he might be able to get the boiler fixed by evening.