'Janiteering'

Who: Andy, Skutters
Where: Deep within the ship's life-support systems
When: Day after previous post
Number of crew members six hundred (at peak), number of civilians
aprox' two hundred, number of stowaways and other miscreants unknown
presumed over three hundred, total Blue Dwarf population estimated at
1,200; why did you need to know this?
The short answer is that you don't. The only person who ever needed to
know this was the ship's designated census officer, a man who was
notoriously bad at doing his job. So why would I ever mention this?
Simple, because Andy was hyperaware of this fact at all times.
Why as Andy hyperaware of this? Simple; people are the primary, no,
only mess makers aboard the ship. Andy being the prim- erm… only
janitor aboard ship meant that his job's difficultly was in direct
proportion to how many people were on the ship. Putting it bluntly
1,200 people made *alot* of crap. Meaning that his job was all the
more vital. Although many people didn't quite realise it, Andy, that
guy in the brown/green jump suit and usually smelt like a farm,
actually did more to keep them alive than most of the 'Defence' members.
Oh sure, he wasn't as strong as Dante, he wasn't as utterly focused as
Harris, he wasn't as brave as Jay and he defiantly wasn't as bat-shit
insane as Jed. They all didn't beat a wink at danger and would gladly
go out in a blaze of glory. However, when a sewage drain broke…
Andy growled in frustration from underneath his insectzoid mask.
Dangling 10 metres from a cat walk, held up only by a quartet of
Nano-skutters, Andy attempted to mend a crusty brown pipe that
currently vomited forth a stream of excrement from its sides. "Okay…
lower down me!" The Janitor yelled up at the four robots. There was a
momentary pause before Andy was plummeted face first into the bar. A
dazed groan of pain erupted from his mouth before being yanked up
again. Had they heard him, the skutters no doubt of have picked up
even more filthy words from the infuriated cleaner's mouth.
The taraire continued on for another half hour before the pipe was
successfully mended then welded shut according to the skimpy space
corps training he'd received. Had be been part of the engineering crew
they' would've just sealed it with a bit of fibreglass from a
fibro-dispenser tm gun and called it a day. Andy was never one for the
quick and easy. People tended not to appreciate when their toilet
started to pee on them instead after it had been 'fixed'.
Huffing, wheezing and smelling like a septic tank; Andy took a short
break to both clean his suit and lower his body temperature from a
nearby chemical wash. The schizophrenic timer was momentarily
appeased. Holly better hurry up with that damn firmware update. Andy
pulled back the suit until it hung limply around his waist. The laser
wound still had a heavy dent in his chest. It had mostly healed up. He
could thank Keto for that. The ointment he'd thrown at him in a rage
turned out to do more good than harm after all. The Skutters
approached him afterwards with his thankfully hearty lunch. He had
full day of work ahead of him and couldn't afford to zone out from a
lack of energy.
What seemed like seconds later, Andy's food had mysteriously
teleported into his stomach and a Skutter was nudging him that the
break was over.
Andy was off again.
The other 296 Skutters were all off doing their own work. Things had
been left undone for too long and the Janitor was way behind. A sudden
buzzing jolted his wrist. Slowing down from his jog, he detached his
gloved and pulled his sleave back. It was blinking madly for some
reason, the sides where lining up and down with criss-crossed yellow
and black lines. "I'm definitely going to need to get that update.
This thing is going mental-."
"Andy!"
"SHIT!!" The Janitor screamed as his head snapped from side to side,
quickly resting on the tiny tannoy screen to his left. "Mark?! What
the hell are you doing on the Tannoy?"
It was hard to tell Mark Ten's emotions, him being an expressionless
robot and all, but if there was anything to label his current
mannerisms it would be… nope… he still had nothing. "Sorry about that,
didn't think you were so… high strung. I was just testing the Tannoy
screens and sounds. From that scream of yours the microphone seems to
be working too."
Andy's face screwed up in confusion. "'Testing?' The Tannoy works just
fine! Besides… couldn't Holly just do that?"
Mark Ten gave an approximation to a shrug before adding. "Dunno.
Holly's been missing since yesterday. Probably deep software
maintenance or something, anyway Jed gave me orders to personally go
through them all. Well I still have 40 thousand other screens to go so
I've gotta run. Say hi to the skutters eh?" Seconds later the blue
robot vanished from the screen.
The buzzing in Andy's wrist suddenly increased to almost unbearable
levels. He took a second look at it, suddenly the pain subsided. The
Janitor blinked as he noticed the display had changed to 'Plug me in'.
Plug it into "-what?" Andy unconsciously verbalised. 'The screen, ya
daftie!'
Andy looked down at his Skutters who looked back up at him, the
tilting of their heads all quizzing him why they weren't moving on.
Because of the nature of the hardware installed, the temperature
monitor built into the very flesh of Andy's right hand was also
created with a very short range wi-fi connection. Pulling closer to
the Tannoy screen, he flicked the short-wave transmission switch on
and held his hand close.
The Janitor growled manlily as his wrist began to buzz more and more
violently. As though it was straining something out with great agony
and pain. Somewhat like Germaine Greer saying 'sorry'.
The second the buzzing stopped Andy pulled his wrist back and beheld
the face that had acted as he make-shift 'boss' ever since he'd
arrived aboard the ship. "…Holly?" The Janitor drawled in confusion.
He hadn't seen the AI's glorious balding head since Boris took over.
"Hey Andy… you good?" The AI asked with a blank grin.
<To be continued!>
OOC: Pretty much wanted a post to actually see Andy and the Skutters
doing their job rather than just mentioning it.