#walidthreads

Walid wasn’t happy with their mom gone. Even if they hadn’t had her around for a long while, it was simply odd. There had been a real chance of them finally getting to create some closure, to have her in their life for just a little while after they’d disappeared so many decades before. For a moment, they almost felt like a kid again. 

But then it was time to say goodbye. A goodbye they’d never had before, and one that should’ve been incredibly hard if not for how objective and truthful their mom was. ‘We’ll see each other again, beta,’ she’d said before he went through to the teleporter and returned without her there. 

Afterwards, Walid had thrown himself into work and been even less available than ever before. If there were specific requests, he let his troops deal with it. If it was tasks outside of the tower, he sent someone else. He only left the tower for food and perhaps to sleep - though the little bedroll in his office worked just as well.

The island might keep him young, but it certainly didn’t erase the bags under his eyes and the way his fingers were calloused and dry. He sat down with his breakfast in the main dining area, legs pulled up, hugging his knees to his chest as he poked the egg, watching with narrowed eyes as the egg yolk flowed down over his piece of toast. 

They felt like they were alone again.

Walid didn't like to go outside of the island. The teleporters were great, for most people, but they mainly traded their credits with others for technology from the outside, refusing to go there. Only if it was absolutely necessary did they even dare to step inside, but only for as long as needed: hopefully not more than ten minutes.

Orion had called them up for some reason or other, and they had been stressed about it from the walk from their pod to the tower, then highly anxious when they settled, and absolutely electric when they'd finally landed. They hadn't even done any research, not changed their clothing, nor checked out where exactly they were: but they didn't like the look of it: a city that hadn't survived the end of the world.

"Orion!" he called, fear vibrant in his voice. He gritted his teeth together and hugged his tools to his chest as he set out to find the other. This better be good. This better be worth it.

Walid often put themselves first when it came to teaching new people the way of the tower. Mostly because they wanted to do it, not because anyone told them to. They simply wanted to control this.

People had to do exactly what they should do, and Walid figured that if they were the one to tell them, they would do it the correct way.

Nothing to do with control.

Nothing at all.

And despite being able to completely ignore other human beings, he did spot newcomers. They had this glow about them, which he understood. The tower was amazing.

He also had a way to introduce himself and the work that was perhaps a bit too intense, but it had worked out so far.

"Hi," he said, spotting Arden at the entrance of the tower. "This is your first shift, right? I'm Walid, I'll gladly explain the work to you." The right way. Not that other people did it wrong... but yes, they did it wrong. They didn't look at the tower the same was as Walid, as a tool, not an entity. It might look like they were helping the tower, but in the end, it would turn out that the tower was helping them.

Walid hadn’t thought his mom would be capable of translating her most favourite pastime into a skill to use as a ghost. But now instead of his most trusted water bottle, he’d been sipping from mugs of tea. Especially made by their mother from beyond the grave.

She was happily making herself busy while they continued working. But because she’d never been good at not doing anything, she had begun distributing pots of tea to random passersby.

To say Walid got off badly with people was an understatement in some cases. It wasn't that they had enemies left and right, it was just that... well, things didn't work out with everybody. Some people they just didn't get, and because they didn't get them, they couldn't agree with them either.

But the island was small, and there were times when running into those people was clearly avoidable. Walid had their tools with them as they headed through the tower, suspecting a new person who had managed to fuck up the program one way or another. The tower never broke, but the things they brought to the tower did. And people liked to use the tower to charge their phone devices, which was dumb in their mind, because why mess with a place that was not meant for such things? While you had a perfectly working on in the dorms - one that Walid had helped built as well.

"Alright, what did you do?" Walid asked, as they set their tools down, mind on getting out the ones they would possibly need, before turning their head and realising it was Hector of all people. Their eyes got slightly wider, then returned to normal again. In a world where it was the machines versus mankind, they would be on opposite sides.

Walid felt as light as a cloud, which would be - they guessed - a normal reaction to a good manner of drugs. There were very few thoughts of great importance in their head, and everything looked a little brighter. Even if it was about 2 am, even if they had a shift in four hours. They could perhaps sleep in their office.

They walked through the hallway, smile on their face, smelling very obviously of weed and being very oblivious to it. The Tower was always quiet during the night shifts, maybe a few people on call, most of them either droning away or fallen asleep behind their desks.

Knowing it would be office that they were high - not just the smell but how red their eyes were - they still risked a look inside the main operating room, and almost collided with someone heading out. "Ooooh," they slurred, then smiled. "Sorry."

Walid wasn't in the library often, not because he didn't like it or because he had an aversion to books and other media, but because it was simply rare that anything broke that his fellow engineers couldn't fix.

They all knew how to fix a light bulb, so they really didn't need him to do that for them.

Sadly, today of all days, they did need him to do such an easy task as that, and he was growing very impatient with the tiny mistakes. He could be doing bigger and better things!

HE COULD BE AT THE TOWER.

But instead he pressed the button on the back of the computer, waited ten seconds, turned it back on, and moved to reboot the pc. The windows 10 wallpaper returned and about half a minute later the pc was back in working order. He turned to the other with his arms crossed but figured the mad look on his face - whether angry or actually mad was up for the beholder - was enough of a message. The other excused himself, and Walid was left to ponder the capabilities of others in the library.

He walked back to Amelia. The most familiar faces were those who'd been there the longest. "Hi. Uhm, it's fixed, nothing wrong with it really, it just needed a quick reboot, all your files are intact." He smiled. "So I will go now. Yes." He already moved to leave.