The coolant regulator was malfunctioning again. Frustrated, Johnson pulled out his thermal wrench and banged it against the hard surface of the station. But the force of the wrench against the metal exterior did not make a sound, because Johnson was in space. And in space, no one can hear you fixing a coolant regulator.
Johnson looked at the micro dent. No one would ever notice the blemish on the station’s hard metal shell, but the self-deprecating thought was just enough for Johnson to continue his daily exercise of feeling sorry for himself.
The coolant regulator was one of many coolant regulators positioned around the station. This one in particular was regulator 23-C (23rd level, station side C) and was always acting up. Johnson swore this was at least the third time this cycle he had to put on his suit and perform a manual repair. The regulator was a large box about five feet by six feet and protruded two feet off the station’s hull. The box housing the coolant regulator had a cool blue finish to its metallic casing, a stark contrast to the dark gray of the station’s structure. A half dozen pipes shot out of the box, their color a shade of blue darker than the box itself. The pipes sprawled out in all directions but after a few feet burrowed themselves into the station, delivering coolant to the numerous systems that controlled the station.
The micro dent made by Johnson was located near the upper right corner of the box, right next to the manual interface panel. Johnson was compelled to strike the station because he once again received the same error message he received every time: "Error: Undefined reference to main()." Johnson didn’t know what that meant, and no one on the maintenance staff knew what it meant either, so they decided to ignore it.
Johnson himself didn’t just not know what the error meant, he also didn’t know how the coolant regulator actually worked. He just knew how to fix it. Knowing how it worked was above his pay grade. All he knew was that this big blue box was one of many big blue boxes that regulated the station’s steady supply of coolant, which served its purpose in cooling the main energy reactor and enabling environmental controls for the thousands of people housed aboard the station.
Perhaps knowing how the coolant regulator worked would allow him to prevent this damn error from showing up time after time, but the alternative fix of performing a manual reboot worked just as well. The only issue was that performing the manual reboot took about thirty minutes, valuable time that Johnson would never get back. Johnson was looking forward to going back to his bunk and sleeping. He’d had a rough day filled with maintenance requests from the waste treatment facility and just wanted to lie down. But now he was stuck in the vacuum of space performing a manual reboot on coolant regulator 23-C.
Johnson gripped his thermal wrench and aimed it just below the manual interface panel. He pressed a button on the side and a red beam shot out of the wrench and collided with the box. He traced the red beam along the outline of a secondary panel, melting the adhesive that kept the panel cover connected to the box. He traced the red beam in a small rectangle until the panel cover detached from the box and slowly drifted away. Johnson was careful to catch the panel cover, he didn’t want to be reported for losing it. Not again, anyways.
With the panel covering removed, Johnson located a large red switch situated between a mess of wires and circuit boards. He flipped it instinctively and all lights within the guts of the box immediately shut off. Knowing he now had to wait thirty seconds before turning the box back on, Johnson looked up at his surroundings. The majority of the station was below him, or above him, depending on your perspective. He was on level 23 and there were only 27 levels to the station in total. He looked out at the colossal rings that orbited the central “tube” as they called it that ran through the center of each ring. The station looked like a massive drill, each ring spinning at a slightly slower rate than the one in front of it. It created an optical illusion for Johnson, as if the rings kept spiraling up and up and up into oblivion, but he knew that thought was too good to be true.
Feeling like thirty seconds had passed, Johnson quickly resealed the panel cover with the thermal wrench and moved onto the manual interface panel. He pressed a combination of buttons that he was all too familiar with and the display on the panel read: System rebooting, please wait. Only thirty minutes to go.
Johnson usually passed the time during a manual reboot watching the different ships as they passed by and through the station. He would count how many ships he could spot, and then figure out how many of those ships were unique in model and country of origin. One time he counted seventeen different ships of four different models from six different countries. It was quite the day.
But Johnson didn’t see any ships today. He hadn’t seen any ships in a few weeks, not since the announcement that the station was being demolished next month. The station was over fifty years old and when it was announced that there was a fatal flaw in the structural integrity of the habitat rings, almost all the station’s residents fled. The only people left now were the maintenance staff, a few engineers, and about a hundred residents who refused to leave until they absolutely had to. This was their home dammit, and they would stay no matter the risks.
It was precisely because of these hundred or so stragglers that Johnson was still aboard the station. Even if there were just one resident left, he’d still have to perform all his duties just the same. But while Johnson resented these hundred or so people for staying, angry that he still had to repair a station that was about to be destroyed, he also secretly thanked them. For Johnson knew that when the station was eventually reduced to space junk, he’d be out of a job, and a home.
Johnson had lived and worked aboard the station for the past thirty years. He knew the ins and outs of the station, almost every maintenance hatch and service tunnel. He knew the problems and knew how to fix them. Well, except for the coolant regulator. But that didn’t count. Johnson had worked from level one to twenty-seven, familiar with each of their unique quirks and problems. While hard work, it was good work. Work that Johnson felt he had mastered.
But when the station was gone, that feeling of security would go with it. Johnson could easily transfer to one of the many newer stations out there and continue working, but he knew that would be impossible, for Johnson was a man of a different time. With all the new stations out there came new technologies and new systems. New tools and new solutions. They were filled with maintenance men and women who knew how to fix coolant regulators that said "Error: Undefined reference to main()." He would never join their ranks.
Johnson still didn’t know what he’d do after the station was gone. Retirement sounded unbearable: he couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting around with nothing to do. He had no family to spend time with, no pets to care for, no friends to visit. So this was it. The station was all he had. When it went, so would he.
Before Johnson knew it, thirty minutes had passed and the coolant regulator was back up and running, this time with no errors. He placed his gloved hand on one of the protruding pipes and felt the subtle vibrations of coolant moving through it. It was a familiar, comforting feeling.
Johnson slowly pulled himself along his tether, guiding himself along its path until he reached the maintenance hatch from which he originally came. Once inside the airlock, he detached himself from the tether and pressed a button on the wall, closing the open maintenance hatch and sealing it tight. The green safety light then flashed, indicating to Johnson that it was safe to remove his suit. He started with his gloves.
Johnson walked through the empty halls of level twenty-three: abandoned homes, dead plants, closed storefronts, and no sounds of life.
He finally arrived at his bunk. It was located in a small room near the maintenance office. The room was really only big enough for a small bed, a desk, and a dresser, but it was home. He removed his workers jumpsuit and laid down on the bed, the gentle hum of the station permeating the walls of the room. Finally, some rest.
Johnson was happy here. Happy in his bunk, in his room on level 23, in this old, failing station. He was so happy that he thought he might stay here for the rest of his life. No matter what the future held.