Why Keep Me Alive

"If anything goes wrong, come straight back. Well. You already know that without me saying it."

"Right. We've confirmed the outside isn't a lava field, at least?"

"Pfft."

The two people being checked over head to toe — dressed in something that looked a little different from the sealed suits I'd imagined — laughed as they bantered like that, hemmed in by the pair inspecting them.

Whether that was just their nature or a way to bleed off the tension, I couldn't say...

Absolutely not.

Even if this was a country from another world entirely, I wasn't completely oblivious. So when something that looked even a little dangerous came up, I'd been the first to volunteer—

But everyone had answered with one heart and one mind. Soyeon, Dahyeon, and most of the people whose names I still didn't know.

Worry for me was probably the majority of it, of course...

I looked down at my body. This rank of mine probably wasn't one that existed for anything physical.

"...Um, what exactly is my rank...?"

Soyeon wasn't nearby, so I grabbed whoever was closest and asked. The reaction, of course, was roughly the same as a child watching a parent in the grip of delirium.

"...Environmental-Ecological-Infrastructure-Integrated-Safety-Administrator. There's a dot between environmental and ecological... When we actually talk, though, here or there, we just call you Administrator, or Safety Administrator."

The woman immediately spat out a word that left no room to breathe. Honestly, I'd already forgotten it.

It seemed to use that peculiarly rigid formal style. Well — a corporation had been involved, but the state had led the project, they'd said. Having the entire job description packed into the rank name was convenient in an intuitive way... meaning even someone who didn't know could hear it and understand what the position did.

The nameplate only said Integrated Safety Administrator, anyway. Which meant they shortened it in private and official settings alike. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Probably.

"Inspection complete. Gas injection is stable. Don't let go of the safety tether, just in case."

"Yes, ma'am. Hah. Everyone, let's head out."

When the nameless woman pressed the button beside the door, a red warning light blared — bee-yong, bee-yong. I startled and stumbled backward, and the woman who'd been explaining things to me carefully caught hold of me, as if that flinch had shown her something even more hopeless.

"It's just procedure. Everyone has to clear out before the airlock opens... Hmm."

"Ah, r-right...! I-I'm sorry!"

"You don't need to apologize that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much..."

I hurried out of the room. So that oddly shaped door had been an airlock all along.

After we got out, a moment passed and the noise vanished completely. A few short steps brought us to something that looked like a Control Room, where a fairly large monitor was displaying what seemed to be a feed from cameras mounted on the helmets.

Could power for something like this be generated without my authorization?

"The lights everywhere else are off."

When I looked around the fairly bright Control Room and was about to ask, the woman still standing beside me explained. That was why the Control Room was packed with people.

"...I, I don't know your name. Could I ask your name — your name..."

"Hyeon. Just Hyeon. It's a single character."

"Ah..."

With the incongruous impression that her fluffy hair reminded me of a puppy, the woman stared fixedly at the screen.

The two women's voices came through carrying a curiosity that still managed to shine a little, even in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠situation like this. It struck me all at once — this was an alien planet. A hopeless backdrop, and at the same time a place that pulled at the interest.

The sound riding in on the radio's characteristic static cut off without warning. On the monitor I'd been watching the whole time, the woman rubbing the metal surface with her foot in fascination pulled out something like a drill — and fell.

A thrashing, scraping noise as the mic dragged against everything around it — the kind of sound you almost never hear with bare ears — came through for just a moment.

The woman checking over the one who'd fallen — as if there were regulations for even this — circled the other with her arms spread wide.

Inspecting even the parts that hadn't touched the ground, meticulous to a fault, and it reminded me once again that this place had been built as a mountain of regulations by a bunch of paranoids.

The two women spun around and started running hard. And only then could I see the escape ship I was riding in — or maybe trapped in.

An emergency escape vessel, and it was still this big.

"Let's go. Ah — just put on a mask for now. Results are in. It's reading as non-toxic, but just in case."

I followed the people moving in a hurry as if entranced, imagining how magnificent the mothership must have been.

Maybe it was because I'd heard the title of administrator — I did it without thinking. And the others handed me a mask as if it were only natural that I should go along.

"Doesn't look like a real problem, but one sealed suit took minor damage. Atmosphere seems fine, but we should confirm while moving out to about five kilometers. We'll have to pull out a spare."

"Haa. My head."

Back in the meeting room. A few people pressed hard at their temples.

"......"

"God. If the scanners were just running, this would be a half-day job."

"...Don't take it that hard."

"No, I — I know, I know. It's just frustrating."

"It's frustrating for everyone. And if we're talking frustration, what about the Administrator? Right now a room full of strangers is blaming her for everything."

"...Still. Rank is rank."

The two women traded words. Both of them wore cold faces.

"Does rank matter? Rank itself isn't the problem right now."

"Mm..."

She looked at me, then the woman who chose her words carefully.

"...I'm... sorry..."

What was there to say? No one was saying it out loud, but everyone was blaming me. Like it or not, there was no way around it.

"That's right! No one's badly hurt, and nothing's actually gone wrong yet! Um...! Let's eat first. We're doing everything we can, but it's pretty hard, so drinking water will have to be limited to one liter per person per day for now."

"Ugh, we have to eat that again."

Another woman grabbed her head. It had been meant as a joke to lighten the mood — she was the one who'd fallen — but with the first mission after the crash half-failed, some people seemed to be taking it a little more sensitively.

"Fuck..."

A sound much closer to muttering to herself — small as it was — rang through the meeting room, which was quiet enough with power generation cut to the bare minimum.

"Ah — I, I'm sorry...!"

She immediately panicked and apologized to everyone, but no one said anything further about it.

You could tell, clearly, that this was a situation that threatened survival — just from the cold atmosphere in the cafeteria. No one would feel good about having to eat that... that stuff. And if it was going to keep being like this going forward, even less so.

A thought struck me all at once.

The Security Chip embedded in my brain was fundamentally a device to prevent seizure. As long as I was alive, and as long as I couldn't remember the Passkey, no one else could use the systems.

And if I died, succession was automatic. In that case, I'd been told, Soyeon and Dahyeon would take over.

So then... was there any real need to keep me alive?

The machine that dispensed the food — something that looked like an advanced vending machine — was truly hateful. Under normal circumstances, Soyeon had explained, it would have cooked and produced food matched to your preferences: nothing luxurious, but at least edible, with a variety of flavors.

So it was a little hard to walk around with my head up. What good was a high rank? I was earning resentment from everyone, one way or another.

I was grateful that reason was still holding on.

At least the fact that food would keep coming for five months even if we did nothing was a mercy. If it hadn't been, dead weight like me would have been executed long ago, and Soyeon and Dahyeon would have been leading this Colony. Maybe while tearing into a well-roasted strip of my thigh.

"..."

"...Hehe. Don't take it so hard! We decided to go out again this evening. We'll take it slow this time."

"Is that so..."

Dahyeon, who'd been looking at Soyeon as if finding it strange that she'd suddenly started using formal speech today, shoved the last of that garbage cube into her mouth, swallowed without really chewing, and opened her mouth.

"Yeah. And the water will get through eventually. Or we just break everything down and use the parts we need. Food's still got a decent amount left. Not enough to last until we die of old age, sure."

"......"

"Ahaha. We were always going to have to be self-sufficient anyway. You're gonna make me cry, talking like that."

Dahyeon's casual speech came so naturally I wondered how she'd held it back before. After being treated like a borrowed sack of grain all day, receiving comfort that at least had some reasoning behind it made something in my chest thaw a little.

Of course, a little later — once the meal was over and everyone fled the dark again into the packed Control Room to listen to the ragged breathing of people walking a ten-kilometer round trip — it would all reset.

...

No matter how I thought about it, this was a little... off, wasn't it.

Honestly, the thought crossed my mind that they could snatch even those garbage cubes away from me any second and tell me not to eat.

Maybe it was something special about space programs, but it was strange that no one was expressing direct anger even though nothing was working properly because of me.

This went so far beyond simply being dead weight that...

People got murderously irritated after a few hours without running water — and right now, because of me, no one could even wash ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠properly.

You could gather every useless character from every medium in my head and still not find anyone on my level. Even movie villains tormented fewer people than I did. Even a dictator gone mad in his final years probably didn't do worse.

"...I, I'll, I'll clear these."

So I collected the trays in front of everyone. They tried to stop me, saying it was fine, but...

Better to do something — anything — than become the administrator who got beaten a few days from now.

Odd jobs and errands were things anyone could do. I figured I might as well start with those.

"...Just rest."

"I'm sorry — I'm sorry. I, I really didn't know, I, I heard we had to save power, so..."

No matter how I looked at it, it had just seemed like a monitor left on a standby screen.

All the way through unlocking the water reclamation unit that had been mid-hack.

N+4 hours remaining.