Overclocked -CH2- (Patreon)

Wrench flipped the utility knife around in his hand. Using the flat back of it he began to push along the seal experimentally. There didn’t seem to be any give to any of the sillicon like substance, though he didn’t trust it either.

He’d found more often than not that the better these seals looked, the more suspicious he got. Improper maintenance often led to them looking well enough to pass a casual inspection, yet fail an actual pressure test.

More often than not because the material itself failed and became less adhesive.

Pulling over his water bottle, Wrench poured some out over the area he was inspecting.

Something had apparently happened here at some point. Wrench wasn’t sure what, or when, but the tell tale signs of someone messing with the seal was obvious to him.

Once the water had pooled up over the area he set his water bottle back down to the side. Flipping his utility knife back over, he slide the sharp end of it down against the glass and into the joint area. If there was any leakage at all, his little blade would allow the water to be pulled right out.

If the sealant was fine, it’d adhere to the blade and make it impossible for the water to escape. A simple test that if the sealant failed would require him to do a much longer one.

One that he’d have to somehow make sure a Tongsta noticed being done.

Looking up Wrench looked to the structure above him.

It was a material he’d never been able to identify. Something that was a lot like wood, but not.

Certainly doesn’t burn like wood either. Just soaks up blood, piss, spit, or water, too.

See it in every habitat.

I wonder if it’s something made specifically for us.

Looking back to the water, Wrench found nothing had happened at all. He didn’t remember any major habitat issues in his past life, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take this seriously.

Until he ran through an entire month of service and maintenance, he wasn’t going to feel safe with this habitat. Then and only then could he take it a bit easier with these kind of chores.

Pulling the knife out he did it slowly. Watching to see if the sealant would hold to his blade and stick. As if not wanting to let it go.

Purple tar like goop pulled free of the seal as he did so, clinging to the metallic blade. Once it got a certain distance it broke away from the knife and sank back into the seal, returning to where it came from.

“Perfect,” Wrench said and flicked his utility knife shut. Sticking it into his pocket he stood up and adjusted his tool belt. So far everything had been perfect, or nearly so.

There’d been a miniscule adjustment he’d had to make to the air filters, but nothing that anyone would have noticed. All he’d accomplished was to get better efficiency out of the air-scrubbers.

Converting more oxygen from carbon dioxide than one would normally get.

“Well… I think that’s my task list. The entirety of it,” mused Wrench with a smirk.

Putting an arm across his middle, then planting the elbow of the other arm on that, he put his chin in his hand.

And stood there.

He enjoyed standing there quite a bit in fact.

There was no desperate burning need to free more of his people. To break more Hume out of their prisons.

To scrounge, farm, hunt, and drag in food from where-ever possible. Often venturing into dangerous locations to get even a small amount. Where a single Tongsta might kill an entire group of Wrench’s people upon discovering that they were all strays.

No all out death-battles to the end for someone to become Head, only to turn around and wastes lives over a pointless raid for something that individual leader wanted. Where it would only come to an end when a new challenger killed them and became the new Head.

Looking out the glass, Wrench saw a number of Tongsta. They were in the middle of whatever it was they did.

Wrench had watched them for decades only to finally discover that it would never actually make sense to him. The Tongsta and their world was incomprehensible to him.

At the moment, they were in the middle of what he’d often called “family gatherings”. Where Tongsta would group together, then begin moving through one another, joining into one giant blob, then coming out the other side again.

Often for hours and hours.

Wrench noticed there was a very small Tongsta not far off from the habitat. It was perched to one side of the family gathering and Wrench was fairly certain they were watching the Hume tank.

Grinning, Wrench raised his hand and waved it at the Tongsta. He’d found that they often responded to being acknowledged, and if done often enough, would pay more attention to you.

To the point that some Tongsta would even go so far as to directly provide a Hume with something specific to them. Going right over the normal process of giving things to the Adminis to hand out to everyone else.

Now that he thought about it, most of the Fixers got their stuff from Tongsta rather than the Adminis. Everyone else got everything from them.

Food, furniture, tools, clothes, all through the Adminis. Often in a bid to incite the Tongsta to provide more for them. Attractive Hume got more of everything and were encouraged to try and be visible to the Tongsta.

Even Club-Head would often listen to the Adminis if only because they were often quite right when it came to the Tongsta. Their knowledge of Tongsta behavior really did get them more things more often than it didn’t.

Wrench had never really cared enough to learn all of that.

After Freckles had been taken he’d set off on a journey to reclaim her, only to realize he didn’t actually give a damn about her. That she’d certainly not cared about him in any way.

Turned all that anger against the Tongsta and blamed them all for it.

When really… really… I was in love, with being in love. Not with Freckles.

It was food for sex, a companion, and not much else.

Shaken from his thoughts, Wrench found the Tongsta he’d waved at was now in front of the habitat. Hanging in midair, one long thing appendage was reaching out toward the glass in front of Wrench.

When it touched the glass it did it with a thankfully vibration-free touch. There were far too many of the Tongsta that didn’t seem to realize that the way they floated through space caused severe discomfort for the Hume’s they owned.

Most Hume knew this because at some point, one Tongsta or another would yell at one that didn’t know about it. Even as Humes would end up falling to their knees and covering their stomachs in pain.

Wrench responded in the best way a Hume could when Tongsta investigated.

He reached up and touched the glass where the Tongsta had done so. After having done so, Wrench then moved several steps to the right and waited.

Tongsta would literally follow a Hume with their appendage if they were feeling amused.

Which of course it did so, to which Wrench once more responded by reaching up and touching the spot the Tongsta had. Only to move several more steps to one side.

Wrench realized he’d have to entertain the Tongsta until it went away. The opportunities to interact with an interested Tongsta were quite limited.

It’ll be worth it, if only because the Adminis might give me things to tempt this behavior from me more often.

Pavlov’s dog and all that. Train me to respond to the right signal.

Then again, maybe I was already trained.

Maybe I’m like Schrodinger’s cat. Trained and untrained at the same time until someone tries to test it.

I wonder if I’ll meet Teacher again. He taught me quite a bit.

Wrench realized this was an opportunity to differentiate what he did from the other Hume as well. Touching the spot where the Tongsta had put their tentacle, Wrench then sat down, and started pulling out all his tools.

Holding each one up to the Tongsta, one by one. Playing the part of an excited young Fixer showing off.

It never said anything to him which was curious, but not unheard of either. Tongsta were quiet more often than not.

***

Exiting the service duct Wrench let out a slow breath.

For some reason, this was rather nerve-wracking to him.

He’d been more than willing to accept traveling back through time. If anything, he’d been afraid to doubt it, for fear of losing the chance.

Having a random masked, suited, stranger tell him he had a super power, than unlocking it for him, was again something he could go ahead with. Telling him he was more than average and better than others fed his ego quite nicely.

Coming back with all his memories, experiences, and awareness of the world left him feeling like he could conquer anything. Even his plans for becoming a gladiator weren’t actually something he feared in any way.

But going into the communal area where almost every Hume gathered pulled out a host of bad memories. A never ending slew of fears and thoughts taht he’d never actually dealt with while living here, nor after he’d escaped.

The main area of a habitat was rectangular in shape. Each one was different from another and no two were the same, though they often shared similar features.

This one had a number of trees, bushes, open green areas, a few shaded covered spots, and two partly ruined buildings. Hume were expected to be visible throughout the day and be visible.

This was also where bad things happened, when they did happen.

Rape, murder, assault, always occurred in these spaces. Almost nowhere else since these were the only areas Hume could be.

Only Fixers could get into the service ducts and that was somehow keyed to the implant in their heads. If they died, the implant would cease to work as well. Killing a Fixer to access the area wouldn’t work.

Not far off a number of School-Hume were chatting, looking attractive, and generally being visible. They were often a key point of interest to Tongsta.

Wrench had no doubt Freckles was in there somewhere but she wasn’t a concern for him. Their relationship had died for him too many years previously. When he’d found her blissfully enjoying herself with a number of School-Hume and then shooing him off when he showed up.

Walking for one of the trees, Wrench was looking forward to sitting down in the shade, and dozing. As a Fixer, the expectations of him were entirely on a non-visible side. He’d already been quite sociable with a Tongsta today as well, which meant he should probably cool it off a bit.

Adminis got a bit nervous if the Tongsta were paying too much attention.

Walking across the grass, Wrench noticed and recognized almost too many faces. Everywhere he looked there was someone that he swore he could pin a name to from his past.

Except in the next moment, he realized that there really was no one that he knew. They were all acquaintance at best, known existences at worst.

To Wrench, they were unimportant to him now, as they’d been unremarkable to him in the past.

Now that I think about it, Freckles sought me out when I joined the Habitat. I had only been here for a few minutes when she’d swooped in and bargained herself to me.

As a Fixer I get more than my fair share of food , and better food, to boot. She gets half for sharing a bed with me.

Or got half for sharing a bed with me?

Hm.

Technically it’s still an active agreement I guess.

I’ll need to run her down and see what’s going on. Where we are in the trade.

Let alone what year it is… this could have been any time frame in that fifteen year period.

Getting down onto the grass Wrench stuck his back to the tree, relaxed, and let out a satisfied sigh. A few seconds after that he closed his eyes and more or less turned his brain off.

Those were worries for another time.

Right now, all he had to do was enjoy the peace, quiet, and lack of problems he couldn’t solve.

Because even if Club-Head did show up, Wrench was actually confident he could handle it. Could handle him, more specifically.

He’d been toying around with his new found Overclocking power considerably. Playing with what he could do and how to do it.

In the short time it took him to do his tasks, he’d burned off all his fat reserves, converted it to muscle, figured out how to make his reflexes lightning swift, and provide him with an extreme sense of body-control.

All he needed now was time to finely hone his body into the perfect weapon, then get into a gladiators role. That’d start with killing Club and making sure the Tongsta knew it’d happened, then positioning himself as the new head, and the Brawler now in that position.

“Wrench, what’re you doing!” hissed a voice.

Coughing once, and shuddering to full wakefulness, Wrench opened his eyes. He’d apparently been drifting off into a doze while thinking. Not even realizing he was right on the edge of completely falling asleep.

“Napping. Why?” Wrench asked, finding the speaker.

It was an older Admini. With grey-eyes, grey hair, and a stooped back. He had age-lines that were practically carved into every inch of his face. A life long spent worrying and endlessly fretting over things and only rarely smilling.

He’d been an Admini too long, Wrench figured. Except if you weren’t useful in your old age here, you tended to get killed by a Brawler and dumped into the filter.

Your corpse slowly decomposing against the gentle vacuum of the filter as it cleansed the habitat.

At least until a Tongsta noticed you, fished you out, then hucked you into a port to vent you into space along with their waste.

Wrench had to hunt around for a few seconds to remember the name of the old man.

“Is there a problem with that Old Puff?” asked Wrench. He had no idea why he’d been named Puff but it was likely something in his long gone past.

“You should be doing your job! We rely on you to make sure everything is working,” growled the Admini

“Already did it. Did it all. Everything is perfect. Literally,” Wrench reported. “The measuring device will come back tomorrow with everything working as it should, though it’ll note an increase in oxygen, and a decrease in carbon-dioxide. I got some better efficiency out of the scrubbers.

“I’m betting you won’t get a new met-ape from it’s printer either for a bit. Actually, while we’re talking about it, what’s the official date listed on the device?”

Wrench had only now remembered that the measuring device that monitored the habitat actually gave a date as well as the suggested maintanence. That date would tell him how far along he was and what to expect next.

“Haaa…? It’s… it’s June twentieth. Thirty-eighty-four.

“You’re sure about the hab though? Everything really is fine? You even made the oxygen better?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Everything is fine, and yes, I did,” Wrench replied absently, thinking about the date he’d just been given. It meant he was about twenty-years old. This was the first or second year he’d been in the hab.

Which in retrospect made sense given his furniture, lack of extra items, and his own physical age.

Given everything that’d happened, he figured he could allow himself a few mental lapses like this.

Just yesterday he’d blown up in a nuclear blast, after all.

“Oh. Okay. Good… good work. We’ll see about getting you a reward if you really did make it more efficient,” answered Old Puff.

“Protein. Could use protein,” Wrench answered quickly. He knew that request would be hard for them given Club-Head’s personality and disposition. Thankfully, he didn’t think it would be an issue much longer.

If he didn’t miss his guess, Club-Head would be making his rounds at some point today.

It’d be the last time he did it ever again. After that Wrench could start working on the next part of his plan. Bulking up and out till he could put on enough muscle and mass to competently fight in gladiator games.

Closing his eyes, Wrench leaned back into the tree once again. He didn’t see any reason to anxiously wait for Club-Head. The man would appear when he did, as he did.

Often after running down one of his hangers-on and having them in front of the rest of his people. The man tended to be very direct with his wants and desires as well as he ran his entourage.

Wrench heard Old Puff leave and wander off. Leaving him to once again enjoy the perfect weather and environment to his heart’s content.

“I’m glad you came up for once, Wrench,” stated a voice that had been haunting Wrench’s thoughts as of late. This wasn’t an ideal time for it either. Realistically he’d been hoping to get a chance to doze off right here in the sun, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen.

Freckles had just shown up givne the way she’d said that, he didn’t think he’d like the conversation. An oddly inflected sentence that’d felt more like a preamble to a punch.

Searching through his memories, he couldn’t really remember anything around this time period between himself and Freckles. He’d fallen in what he’d believed to be love at the time with her while she’d treating him as warmly as she could manage, while keeping herself distant at the same time. All for what protection she could get from being the partner of the local Fixer.

“Oh?” Wrench asked, not opening his eyes this time. He didn’t actually want to look at her.

“Yes. I’d like to have a conversation about our arrangement,” murmured Freckles.

“Alright,” Wrench replied, finally remembering this event.

Freckles was barren and couldn’t have children.

Her previous owner had had her modified so she could never have children. She was able to move about freely in a habitat and be with whoever she wanted and never worry for having kids.

That also meant she had no worth outside of what she could establish for herself and then rely on. Family would never really be a possibility for her.

She was going to ask him for more than what they’d previously worked out, for nothing else in exchange. He’d been forced to go to the Adminis and ask for more rewards be given to him in his past life. They’d reluctantly agreed but he’d been under their thumb for a while after that because of it.

“I think I deserve more for being your bed-partner,” Freckles boldly declared. “I want more from you for what I’ve been offering.

“There’s a Brawler that’s offered me a ration and a half to be his. Chuckles, that is. You’re only giving me a single ration but yours is a better quality of course. I want a ration and a quarter going forward.”

“No thanks. You can join the other School-Hume tonight or with that Brawler you mentioned. When everyone goes back to their pens. If you have anything in my pen you might have forgotten this morning just tell me later and I’ll swing by with it,” Wrench immediately declined. “Thanks for the good times we had. I’ll miss the sex and what little affection you offered. I’ll see you around.”

“I-you… I-I… what?” stuttered Freckles. “You what?”

“I said no. No thank you. I don’t feel you’re worth that price. You should go be with Chuckles if he thinks you’re worth more, and that you’d be happier with him.

“I wouldn’t want to be in the way of your happiness or your success. Because some part of me does care for you, I will celebrate your success and mourn your losses. In this case, I’ll consider it a success since you’ll get more of what you wanted.

“If it wasn’t what you wanted, you wouldn’t have brought it up to me. You wouldn’t have put me in this position. So, I decline, wish you well, and will celebrate your success.”

Freckles didn’t say anything to that, nor did she leave. As far as Wrench could tell she was just standing there. Staring at him. Stewing in her own thoughts now that he’d so firmly declined her, and then rebuffed her outright.

“Ha… what’re you doing out here, little Wrench,” growled a voice. “I thought I told you to stay in the ducts.”

“Ah… Club. Good of you to show up. Finally,” muttered Wrench.