Continuity
The cast made the work difficult. Sprained wrist and fractured index finger on the right hand. Fumbling power tools and keyboard picking. The chamber had a vague egg shape. Held in its basket by a frame of four girders. They had to be secured to the floor and balanced. The upper left the last of it. Fixed, finished. A hollow cube with the egg inside, balanced and suspended a fraction of an inch. Three steps knelt at its base. Cabling festooned on the concrete before it like intestines that tangled and slithered to the command terminal. A fair distance away. Ten feet or so. Just a hair below the recommendation. On the desk were four monitors. Bracketed panoramic along the width of the station. Legs bolted to the ground. Two CPU's concealed below and two keyboards perched above. A hunched worker. Winnowed eyes and pale skin. Hands clawlike from nights of sleepless toil. Sluggish, exhausted devotion. Amnesiac. Imprecise. One monitor displayed a map used to calculate the latitude and l...