Free Tech Tack by Viola Grace Page B

housing.
    Five guards were now watching her, and one nervous young woman stood staring at her.
    “It should be ready for you now, miss. Go ahead. I will just get out of your way.” She piled the tools on top of her kit and looked at the guards. “Where to next?”
    They waited with her while the terminal was activated. The young woman did a search and said, “The data lines are clear. No interference. The terminal is valid for use once again.”
    One of the guards called it in and waited for the signal of what to do next.
    When he got something via his earpiece, he nodded even though the other party couldn’t hear him. “Miss Lenz, please come with me. I will show you to your quarters while you are on duty.”
    “I have quarters while I am on duty?”
    “You will not be allowed to leave the building, so it is necessary that you live here. You will always be on duty.”
    She winced. “I see. Right. Well, take me to my quarters then. I need another meal and a place to bang my head.”
    They milled in confusion, but she wiped her hands on the edge of her shirt and looked at them expectantly. “Well?”
    Her snapped word brought them to their senses and she was led into the hidden world under her feet. Her incarceration in service had begun.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    Ainora Lenz disappeared into Tech 534. She was called out over and over to repair and replace the technology damaged by the underground movement.
    Deep under the surface of Resicor, she lived and learned that she was one of an army of those indentured to the government. Some were bound with bands that restricted their useful talents. Tech 534 had to fix those as well.
    She tried to smile at the talents who were restricted by electric shock or injected paralytic but conversation was not allowed.
    She was flown around the globe, and she fixed what they set in front of her. The guards that escorted her were always different, always new and no friendships ever got past day one.
    Tech 534 was uncomfortable when she was sent to work on another talent with a talent guarding her. It felt like betraying family and being betrayed at the same time. It was the worst family gathering ever.
    When Tech 534 got her first assignment to New City, she was amazed. What could have gone wrong at the height of advancement on Resicor?
     
    Tech 534 looked at her manifest and winced. “Restraint cuffs?”
    The guard piloting her skimmer gave her a dark look. “Whatever is on the work order, you fix it. You are being sent to lock on and maintain those cuffs.”
    She wrinkled her nose and ran a hand through her hair, her cowl would hide the blue fluff, but she liked to have it out until the last moment.
    New City gleamed and shone in the bright sparkling light of their sun.
    Tech 534’s skimmer landed in the shadows half a kilometre from the city.
    The guards at the gate eyed her dubiously, but they let her through. With a wince, she pulled her hood up to cover her hair.
    She was shown to a door and left to open it with her credentials. She slipped inside the tunnel that led ever downward. Ainora crossed a gantry over a chasm and approached the inverted cone structure that was the only source of light.
    The steps led up and into a peculiar arrangement. On the lower level was living quarters and on the upper, the room was filled with monitors and one solitary chair.
    The woman sitting in the chair was wearing a neutral expression, a bodysuit and four heavy cuffs.
    “Hello, I am your new tech. I am here to check your cuffs.”
    “Of course you are. I will just go about my duties while you work.”
    Tech 534 knelt next to the chair and checked the cuffs and their linkages. The moment that she looked at them, she saw that an expert hand had tampered with the cuffs. They were no longer able to do more than deliver an unpleasant jolt. She replaced the necessary wiring, one cuff at a time but didn’t touch the altered settings.
    It took about an hour and Tech 534 hummed to herself the