AJAX Tarnished, Book 1 of the AJAX Chronicles... Part 1: Steel Worx, Chapter 1

This is the first Chapter of AJAX Tarnished as I serialize it on the Steemit Blockchain. I hope you continue to enjoy the story... please forward to any of your friends and family that you feel might enjoy the story.

If you didn't get a chance to read the Prologue first, you can do so by going here.

In addition, if you're too antsy to wait and would like to purchase a copy of the published version, you can do so by going here at Amazon. If you want, you can also go there to leave a Review regarding the book.

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Part 1: Steel Worx
Chapter 1:

“Time to shut down everyone,” Aaron Jaxler called out to his line, passing the word over to Gaven, who would make his routine circuit around the foundry floor. “Get that final piece finished!”

“Right, sir,” answered a thin man with wings of grey at his temples. “It’s still not quite there yet, though.”
“Well, keep an eye on it… you know how they are about going past hours.”

Aaron turned his attention back to the smelter unit’s thermostatic dial. The gage line had twisted to about 1500, not quite up to the needed 1538 Celsius. He could just envision the iron being sort of lumpy and congealed, if metal could be described as such. The heat dial twisted more and he waited impatiently, tapping his foot until the lines matched.

“Kelvin!”

“Ajax?” replied a droop-eyed man younger than nearly everyone there.

“Fill the mold,” he hollered, exasperated. Kelvin wore on him, needing to be told what to do all the time. “Quickly, please.”

“On it.” The man pulled up the long handle and swiveled the mechanism around.

Aaron hurried over to pull out the guard pin. He slid the pin into its loop and slowly opened the furnace door, shielding his face against the heat. He instantly felt the sweat droplets form and evaporate from the back of his neck. He puffed with exhaustion.

Kelvin swung the handle inward and twisted it. The smelting pot slid into its holder, locked in with a click, and the molten metal began to slowly slide out and fill the rough-looking mold beneath. The metal glowed white and orange as it flowed down. Kelvin held his eyes close together in a squint.

Aaron breathed in the hot fumes and pushed the door closed to the furnace, locking the pin back again. “Ok, now just a little bit for it to cool down and we can put this final piece into the quenching baths.” He wiped moisture from his forehead and fanned himself with a hand, moving stagnant air as if it would keep him cool. He spun the heat dial down to the lowest setting once he noted the metal flow halt. The furnace had to cool down before switching it off, so he waited a long handful of minutes while the unit cooled down. He never did understand why the unit would break if shut down before the cool-down, but he wasn’t about to test it out.

Once he could touch the metal to the right of the dial without feeling the heat it was time to shut it down. He glanced down the other lines and saw that the other smelting units were already cutting their power. The gears wound down loudly, some of them squealing in protest as the steam rushed out of the heat vents… he could almost follow it on its journey out of the foundry, hearing the hissing heat echo softly as it moved out of the building. The gas lamp bulbs above the other units were being turned off one-by-one. Short of his own line, he was sure the other lines all had their last pieces in the quenching baths, maybe even past that.

He pulled the lever and the final piston piece popped free of the molding, still far too hot to touch. Pulling his leather-bound working gloves tight, he grabbed up the long-handled tongs and warned the others behind the gate so nobody would get burned. The tongs began to brighten from the transient heat, but the handle remained dark and cool.

The piston piece was all one solid unit, with a split down one side, a slot down the middle, and a flare on either end. Most of these were used in the grand air ships that often drifted through the clouds. Some ended up on the Steam Locomotives that routed at the edge of town. Some even ended up in strange mechanical contraptions that Aaron had never actually used.

“Ajax, you’re losing it,” called Gaven as he returned.

“Thanks,” he answered back, pulling his attention back to the task at hand and turning the tongs to keep the piston piece so it stayed steady in the tool’s grip.

He first dipped the piston in the first quench, the salt content in the water enough to make the metal sturdy. The second quenching bath was made of pure water to cool it down further and clean off the scale and brine that normally built up on first quench. Otherwise the only structural positive was that it seemed to allow somewhat more flexibility. The last quenching bath was the ‘secret formula’ that was pre-mixed by people that understood the science behind it far better than he did. It smelled bad, that’s all he really knew, and it threw out a discolored steam. A bellows forced the noxious fumes away as he performed the final quenching in a detergent-water-sand mix that was spun rigorously by 2 men on either side of the vat. This one washed, polished, and acted as a rinse.

He tested the water with a copper coil. The metal indicated that it was safe to touch. Removing his right glove, he dipped a finger in the vat and then plunged his arm in far enough to pull out the piston piece. They were always so much heavier than he expected. He placed the final piece on the cooling rack and wiped himself down with a towel that suddenly appeared in his hands.

The final whistle had just blown and everyone hurried over to the time clock. The line quickly grew as each person irritably had to wait their turn to punch the time into their card. It took a long time to get through the line as each person had to undo belts and snaps and other things to get themselves free enough to handle their timecard. The handle of the time clock always ground and seized up. Whenever he glanced back, there were all sorts of heads popping out of the line to peer ahead, hostile and impatient. He could understand the sentiment, especially for those on the far lines that couldn’t make it to the front of the line. People shuffled and milled around, talking to their friends nearby.

Aaron was never one to make too many friends where he worked. He did his job and went home to his family… this was just a means for food and shelter and a sense of pride. Others liked his quiet attitude, for the most part, which is why he always ended up getting the promotion or the position of authority wherever he went. He never really asked for it or even wanted it, but he had to be good at what he did otherwise he wouldn’t get it.

He pulled the lever and heard the slight crunch as the cutter bore the oddly-slanted hole in his timecard. He had to tug and wiggle the paper to remove it, but at last it came loose in his grip. He slid his timecard in the corresponding slot and nodded to the next person in line, a hard-faced woman that he only knew from others.

“All yours,” he told her. She didn’t really respond, instead just smiling slightly as he backed out of the way. He shook his head slightly and started to walk away.

“Ajax, how are you?” asked one of the workers. He answered back that it was going well.

“Hey Ajax, how are the wife and kids?”

“Ajax! See you tomorrow.”

“Hey buddy, I don’t get to see you often anymore… still on line 1?”

“See you in the morning.”

Aaron didn’t mind them all, but he didn’t really understand how he had become so popular. His own line didn’t seem to enjoy him being there, but others seemed to take it that he was a close friend. Maybe they all thought of him as a way to get promoted… he had seen it before, people crowding to the bosses to get more money or power. To think that, if it came down to it, he would have been content to go back to being ‘just one of the guys on the floor’.

As he made it beyond the line of floor workers, he heard a keen whistle and looked up. To the far side of the work floor, a narrow door blocked the heat from escaping to the offices, meeting rooms, and upper management suites. He didn’t even really know what all was up those stairs, but he suddenly got a very ominous feeling. A head peeked around the door, with brown curls and long lashes. Eila Garner, secretary to his direct supervisor, motioned for him to follow her. Most men found her quite appealing to look at, but she was just a little too thin for his taste.

‘She isn’t a troll or anything,’ he thought to himself as he took to the flight of stairs. Her frame seemed to curve and wiggle in a dance as she climbed upward.

“Weller wants to speak to you,” she spoke downward, her voice mild and accented from one of the Eastern sea-side cities. She was a bit muffled, but still the condescending tone came through.

Aaron didn’t respond. He didn’t really like this woman’s attitude or personality. ‘She acts as if she owns the place,’ he thought… then, like a whip, it hit him that there may be a reason she acts like she owns the place. He harrumphed at the thought. She turned back quizzically, but he just made it seem as if he was worn out.

Eila reached the Third Floor Meeting Room and pushed open the steel doors. The room was brightly-lit with a dozen third-turned gas lamps. The steam-piped furnace was currently off and none of the normal heat rose from its coils. Eila’s mahogany-inlaid dictation type machine rested in the corner with a tall stool pushed up to the lettered keys. Aaron closed the door behind him with a quiet thump… it was then that he took note of the filled room.

Unfamiliar faces, all of them. Eila grinned back at Aaron, her lips curving with haughty condescension. She looked to the head of the long oaken table and leaned forward, her lips pursed. Aaron could only imagine she thought this was sexually provocative and would land her some sort of recognition or reward from the man that represented the power seat. All eyes seemed to swivel towards the man, finally familiarity among strangers. Eila blushed girlishly and dashed to her stool.

Herrmann Weller, Foundry Manager and Vice President of Operations for the entire coastal region, sat in a high-backed chair made from high-grade aluminum. He wore his customary black, pleated trousers and burnt-umber shirt in the flowing, trim-sleeved tunic style. The man’s overcoat was adorned with a pair of military stars and a badge of recognition hanging from the shoulder.

The man himself was a stone slab of a man with a stolid expression at all times. He motioned Aaron into the room and waited. “Please, come in and feel welcome, Mr. Jaxler,” Weller invited. A flurry of clicking sounds and quick whooshing noises seemed to repeat his words, the sound of pistons and gears echoed from Eila’s corner. “You can have the seat at the foot, Mr. Jaxler, and then we will explain what is going on.”

Aaron took the indicated seat and furrowed his brow. Rapid introductions were made, with cursory head nods or quiet, accented words from the other meeting attendees. The room grew silent before it became extraordinarily busy and intense. An hour passed by as he heard from several men and women. He listened intently to arguments, criticisms, suggestions, and demands. A second hour was gone before he knew it and he was ushered out of the meeting amid a squabble of voices, all talking over the top of each other. His mind swam with confusion as he tried to process the information… he listened to the clicking of keys, the humming of the typing machine’s inner gear-works, the babble of words, and the sounds of the steam furnace hissing with sudden life.

For him, this meeting was over and he could leave. He couldn’t fathom what needed to be done, not at the moment. He decided he would let the information simmer. Eila was standing before him, speaking, but he wasn’t able to focus on the words. Her indignant stare and quick tugs to his jacket pulled his attention to the realization that they wanted him now to leave the room. She pushed him from the room, barely opening the door to allow him room to leave.

He climbed down slowly. The stairs downward were dim and he was aware that nobody else would be there still. His feet echoed loud in his ears, but he couldn’t think about what was beneath his feet or in front of his face. There was too much going on in his head already.

He shook himself as his hands twisted the handles of the outer door, just now taking note of the intervening space he had crossed in thought. His brow creased and he puffed out a concerned breath… he didn’t know what he would do.