A small cliffside with a cove carved into it was barely visible from the street, about 100 meters away. What wasn't visible is the laboratory building stationed in the cove. Chloe returned from her lunch break, walking all the way to the cove from the quiet street, when something caught her eye.
A massive traingular metal structure could be seen in the distance. It was decorated with elaborate white diamonds and neon lights, floating in the horizon above the ocean. This was not unfamiliar to Chloe; she had seen this skypainting beacon every time she had walked to the cove. This time, she set her gaze on it for... an amount of time she wasn't sure of. Maybe a minute, maybe twenty. Her favorite colors to see in the neon lights was indigo, but right now it was a deep crimson.
She sighed heavily. Two more sets to go. She turned to the laboratory, unlocked the doors, and stepped inside to find everything just as she had left it; she wished it had changed. Scattered on the central table and about the walls were nanotube alloy casings, titanium trinkets, chunks of aerogel insulation, and various measuring instruments. She looked at the ground next to the door, where one such nanotube alloy casing resided. Seeing the blueprint for this part next to it, the rhombus shaped plate should be 335 millimeters on each side, with an internal angle of 40 degrees. She knew, of course, that the top left side dimension measured to be 333.7 millimeters. Even so much as looking at this part made her heart sink. How much was the raw material worth? 1.5 thousand dollars? 2.5 thousand? She had no intention of remembering.
Chloe wanted to forget, and she wanted to do so by fixing the problem. Reaching for another plate of stock, she carefully measured the imperfections in the top face, and flipped the plate to measure the bottom face. After some hassle, she set up the part to be flatly aligned with the horizontal photon cutter that she had realigned after the previous plate had been cut.
The work continued at this pace for about an hour, completing the same difficult and tedious tasks as she always had, and she was ready to begin assembly. She reached for several small tools, a pair of resistant welding gloves, and a large mask. She decided to weld these two particular parts vertically. Upon reaching for the welding torch, she turned to look at the parts, set in place rigidly by metal brackets. This was it, the second to last assembly of the day. The freedom from her own arbitrarily set agenda could be felt.
She set the parameters of the machine, aligned herself perfectly to the parts, and was ready to begin. She braced herself, and tried to pull the trigger, but found herself unable to. She was exhausted, and her muscles refused to do anything but back off. Again and again she tried to pull together the motivation to pull the trigger, but each time she was met with the same sinking feeling, and couldn't.
She backed herself onto the table, where she set down the torch, and flipped up the mask. She knew why she couldn't bring herself to finish the wings; this was a common occurence, but the last thing she wanted was for it to happen right now. The entire time that she had to be within the bounds of her own lab, she felt trapped, a feeling aided by the loneliness of being here. It was horribly tiring to keep working like this, and despite her friends insisting, she wasn't willing to reduce her work load. She saw it as giving up. On the brink of tears, she sat down in a small desk compartment, and turned off the computer monitor.
Chloe looked at the edges of the window. They were painted titanium white, surrounded by light gray concrete walls. On the windowsill sat a kinetic device, a Newton's cradle, beating in sync with nothing but her own desire for rhythm. This distraction would suffice, she thought; as long as she doesn't cry, she can get through this.
Suddenly, the skypainting beacon outside the window burst into action. A gigantic pillar of light immediately rushed from the center and touched the top of the sky, slowly converting the entire skyline from a deep crimson to a fresh, vibrant indigo. The neon lights on the device slowly faded to match the sky. The fog had instantly cleared, allowing her to see the sky in its entirety.
A text from her phone caught her attention. It read:
"I hope this helps, Chloe... It's hard to see you like this."
She reached for the phone, and responded:
"I haven't seen you at all today..."
Chloe was closing her eyes for extended periods of time. She did not want to cry.
"Honey, you haven't texted or called at all since you woke up at 4 this morning. I know you better than you think I do. And you best be ready to head out to that pizza place when you get home."
She burst into tears. She sat in her desk compartment, head down in her arms, crying for... an amount of time she wasn't sure of. Maybe a minute, maybe twenty. She felt overwhelmed with a slew of emotions ranging from loneliness, to hope, to diffidence.
After some time, she picked up her head and responded:
"I love you Colette."