"There's no way this is all gonna work out, is it?" Donna emitted downward, eyeing a useless manufactured chunk of stone next to her that had been recently torn off of a wall, painted red, almost a kilometer below them.

"None of us have a way of knowing," replied the familiar crewmate that Donna spoke to. The stone shuffled as if it had the legs of an insect, but it was just an honest run-of-the-mill rock. Donna felt the grainy skin of the dense mass. The winds of Ta-298 LBE made wet paint a few meters away flutter. The inquisitive one looked on at flittering drops. A singular speck of dye was whisked away into the unknown by thinned wind.

The two lanky humans perched themselves on a crimson steelen beam that spanned a gap between two vertical trusses that shot into the sky. Not entirely unlike skyscrapers— after all, it was the start of one— their work was deemed doubly important by supervisors that they seldom laid eyes upon that the project be completed in six Earth-months time. Lest they actually pick up the pace, they faced termination, or worse, false accusations placed upon a fake oak desk by a powerful court that had nothing to do with them and all to do with blind corruption, unknowing of the reality these two souls bathed in at theses life-threatening heights. Granted, the girls knew this, but having done been submerged in danger for so long had them both numbed and acclimated to a lot of the scenarios that could come their way— numbed by the adrenaline, and acclimated to the wind. Mainly because it required concentration, though. What didn't?

The Outer Nautilum Agency had an eight-fingered hand wrapped around the countless constructors that risked their lives nigh daily to erect antiquated megaprojects in light of their shady practices. These practices included, but of course weren't limited to: interstellar resource exploitation despite the long-past ratification of the Global Propagation for Stellar Resource Amplification Treaty, trade of illicit goods such as militarized Miotran injectors and tourism shuttles, bogus therapeutic agents for the agency's constructors (it was oft reported they only provided the contraindications), and relocation of finished projects, especially the now-paid-off extraction of the Martian Transit Tower, which was whisked away before the sprawling city was subsequently glassed from orbit by the Inner Nautilum Agency's own proprietary propulsion systems. 

Despite a sizable number of the INA's fleets in Martian orbit coming under fire in response, the Martian Transit Tower was one of humanity's most defining pieces of architectural prowess. It was a materialist masterpiece that scraped the bare edges of space though this very facet of its existence was the one that allowed it to be plucked away largely intact in the first place. There was collateral, such as the numerous explosions at its base to sever it from the rusty planet below, but the act of lifting the tower away from the planet by the ill-fated usage of a traction engine in a gravity well was the inciting act of a glorious feat of strength that had numerous other treaties beside the GPSRAT screaming for mercy. The entire procedure was a marvel in and of itself, but as this was over two hundred years ago, Donna couldn't dare try to recall any aspect of that mission— just that the orbiting Brine Station she resided in was just about caught in the engine's massive manipulated manifold. 

In light of humanity's greatest collective heist, the Nautilum Agency practically disappeared from the miniature galactic fold of Sol. Not that there was much there anyways; Earth had suffered a loss of 99.9% of all eukaryotic species, sans humans, avians, and protozoa. Granite mines had run dry, their rocks redistributed to the foundations of space elevators on the equator. Rare metals have been all but cared for, forever exhausted from the crust, and now flew through space at fractions of the speed of light toward destinations free from almost-instantaneous transmission of information. Luna was a vacuum resort for the rich. The icy moons of Jupiter had become fuel refineries, namely electrolysis plants, but the outer gaseous planets had spotty yet dense infrastructure projects meant to support interstellar travel. For some, this was a wonderful reality, but it had dire consequences for those who it would impact, such as...

"Say, Christine, do you even know what we're doing here? Yes, we're building a skyscraper to try and sate some bigwigs, and yes, we're kind of in danger right now, but where the hell even are we? How can I ever be happy if I don't know my place in the universe?" Donna asked.

"I don't get paid close to enough to worry about that," Christine murmured, a wispy exhale sparkling as water vapor crystallized in the cold air. She rose from her iron seat, hand on a tether almost an inch in diameter, and thumbed a button on the waist of her thready overalls. Two flat feet clung onto the metal framework beneath her. "But, in whatever weird little case you would just love to dream up, we do have work to do. Can't you move on?"

Donna had been hung up on their location for the past three years. While power generation and grid management were now largely autonomous beasts with the goal of somewhat breathing life into their power tools, she had overseen that operation in other locales in the past. From a distance. But now she was the autonomous beast; she was watched from afar by those rolling in concentrated currency while a failure of one of her magnetic boots could spell out a reorientation of her last seconds into flailing for purchase and, she hoped if it did come to it, silent acceptance. 

"No, I can't move on. Have I ever moved on in the however long you've known me?" Donna retorted. She hadn't, as far as she knew, ever forgot about something. She lased red-hot holes into the far-away ground of Ta-298 LBE with her stare, not quite aware that this is what the planet was named.

Boots whirred. "Yes, actually! You almost threw Captain James Halley off of a cliff because he wouldn't give you that nutrient paste. He told you to stop, you did, and you walked off with coff as payment for not, you know, ending his life over a sachet of goop."

Donna's head spun, gears creaking in her skull as if that was what she was destined to do. "Sounds like something I'd think about," she thumbed her waistband, "and yet I don't believe you."

"Then that's on you," Christine conceded. "Your whims are precious, my dear, but you get far too lost in your thoughts about things you're unable to control. Like, for the star's sake, we're going to be without anything if you don't get up and help."

Donna didn't move, speak, or even think about that. Noticing this, Christine went on. She clicked over to her crewmate and grabbed a woven strap on her shoulder.

"And I won't forgive you for that tower if that happens to us. It is you, me, Logan, and three thousand other faces on this single wing alone. You can be scared all you want but that will never help us get to the point where we need to be if you don't turn on those mags and kill those little bugs of yours."

Donna looked at the chunk of stone to her side. None of that was her fault. 

She reached out toward the object, thumbed a crease of silicate that took on the shape of a spiraling fractal, and dragged her eyes through the lines up to the point where the traces coalesced into a shining crystal, and then used that very thumb to tilt the rock over the edge of the steel beam.

"The hell are you doing? That's going to really mess something up!" Christine stepped forward. Donna held up the inciting hand in her direction.

"No, it won't. I'm just giving myself something new to worry about," she urged. Her mate seemed taken aback, but it was quickly tamped down when Donna stared up at her with a stupid half-grin full of don't-worry-about-it energy.