Chapter Text
Day 1
2:30 AM her alarm sounds, Yang groans and rolls over to find wherever her scroll was to turn the ringing off. Eventually she sits up and stretches her arms above her head.
“Alright let’s get it goin’.” She says through a yawn.
Yang’s not a morning person by nature (despite her namesake and likeness to the sun) but somewhere between raising Ruby and acclimating to her job she learned the practices of early birds to where she can fake it and make it. Hopping out of bed she flicks through her playlists and puts on some tunes for an energy boost.
Humming along to some rock, 3:00 comes and she has a breakfast of 2 eggos and a leftover rib from last night's dinner since she’s way too tired to actually cook for herself this morning. Yang takes her mug in her hand to relish in the warmth the hot coffee provides. She pulls on her work clothes after her meal, brushes her long hair out, grabs her essentials and almost forgets her scroll before locking up the flat.
At 3:30 Yang hauls her beloved Bumblebee out from the mini garage the work flat provided her, she had to make some adjustments to the bike to handle the rougher roads instead of the paved city streets when she took this job. And she’s been fixing and adjusting ever since. Yang pulls on her helmet, starts bee up and peels down the road to the site.
This is the routine she’s kept for some 3 odd years while working at the SDC Vale Mine. Yang always described the job as “Fixing things that could crush, electrocute or mangle me over and over and over again.” She’s damn good at it. Was practically born into it considering she’s been helping in the shop her parents owned since she was knee high to a grasshopper. And with the rewards being as high (if not a little higher thanks to the bonus work she’s able to score) as the risk, it was good money she used to put Ruby through college and to the first chunk of her masters of engineering.
“Shit that’s right! Ruby startssss,” Yang cuts the engine and pulls out her scroll to check the date. “Tomorrow, whew thank the brothers.” She loves her sister to pieces but she has a lot on her plate today.
She cuts through the office waving good morning to Ciel and punching in at 4:00 to start her workday. Retrieving her gear from her locker she pulls a work pencil and note pad from her coat pocket, trying to remember all the maintenance that needs tending to around the site so she can form a battle plan.
“No trainees today. Looking like a couple CATS and Deeres in the garage who need feeding,” she laughs at her own little joke “and afterwards a trip to the tunnels for clean up and maintenance, and then fine tuning the new section of the labs.” She says while writing down her schedule in bullet points.
“And anything in between will just have to be an adventure.” Yang puts the notepad in her pocket, the pencil behind her ear and cracks her knuckles.
Yang looked up at the big digital clock on the wall from her place in the driver's seat of a dozer. It was already 6:30 by the time she finished up her work in the Garage. Other grease monkeys have filed into the building and given her a sleepy greeting.
“Yatsu!” She calls over the sounds of power tools and air compressors.
The tall man straightens up from his stick welding and turns to her.
“What do you need chief?” Somehow Yatsuhashi’s calm, even voice is loud enough to carry without issue.
“Nothing I’m gonna be heading out soon though and you’re in charge. I’ve fueled up all the dozers that are in working order, ordered new treads and sprockets, and fixed-“ she says while jogging over to him.
“Everything on the site in a matter of hours?” Yatsu jokes with a small grin.
“Pshh yeah, right.” Yang smiles and scoffs “If only, then our merry little band could take the rest of the day off.”
“You did good Yang.” He says putting his heavy gloved hand on her shoulder and shaking her lightly. “Go and take off to wherever it is you’re going.”
“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you’re trying to get rid of me, is there a coup I don’t know about?” She says pulling out her notepad and checking off a few boxes.
“No. But if I did it’d only be so the rest of us could do some work too.” He spares a glance at the notepad. “You’re taking someone with you to go down there right?”
“Gods Yatsu, you worry too much. I'll be fine, the tunnels are nothing but a hole in the ground.” She says lightly, trying to placate her friend’s worries. Judging by his face it doesn’t work. After the accident a month-ish back her crew’s been even more cagey about her adventures down below.
There were always a few from the heavy duty mechanics crew who got taken aside and offered the below deck position that came to be known as gophers. For a good bonus, they’re permitted to go around the site or down into the mines to do needed maintenance on generators, battery banks, dust storage carts as well as check on or fix pillar and beam integrity and many more.
It used to be that there were anywhere from 1-3 gophers at a time to do tunnel runs or hop around the site but everyone but Yang has firmly refused the position since a large cavern in sector Bravo all but collapsed on top of the crew who was drilling into it. It was so sudden, and hellish and bloody. The weeks after had hung heavy in the air and sobered everyone to the real risks of the job they’re doing.
“Look, I’ve got all the up to date seismology readings for sector Bravo on my scroll, my semblance won’t be a problem, the supports haven’t taken any hits on account of no one being there and this is the last clean up trip that I’ll have to do for that sector. I’ll resurface without issue like normal.” Yang glanced up at the clock, 6:39 she had to go now if she was going to get Bravo’s cleanup done in time to do her other tasks.
Yatsu’s large stature deflates a little bit at his friend’s mind being set. “Be careful please.” He says in a defeated tone.
“You know it.” She taps his fist with hers and walks out of the bay doors.
The descent down into the tunnels was slow like normal. With nobody working in the sector due to the accident not being cleaned up yet she had to put a couple large carts and an excavator into the vehicle elevator and lower them down herself. A direct contrast from the other tunnels on the site which were bustling with bodies and machines running back and forth across the lot. The full body harness Yang wore kept her more than secure as she repelled down from the lip of the hole.
“Alright,” She pulled her radio from her pocket and switched it to the proper channel to reach the office’s tower. The SDC is creepily adamant on knowing where everyone is. But coming in from Atlas the authoritarian air didn’t surprise Yang in the least and she’d grown partially accustomed to it. “Checking in, checking in. This is Yang Xiao Long descending into Sector Bravo for clean-up, over.”
A pause and then a man’s voice crackled through the speaker “Hear you loud and clear Yang. Talk to you when you’re back on the surface, over.”
“Thanks Bruce, over and out.” She clipped it to her back pocket.
Once her feet touched level rock she looked around for where she stashed her tool bag at. Yang always kept little depots of tools that she needed depending on where she was doing her job. Not a great habit, but if she could keep track of what is where then there was no problem. She pulled the bag out from in between a support beam and a stone wall with an “Aha!”. Yang opened up the vehicle elevator, hitched the carts to the excavator, tossed her bag in a cart and drove towards the cavern.
When she first started cleaning up the place was a wreck. A large chunk of the wall had fallen and a lot of the ceiling had come down with it. It’d taken her about a week and a half to clear and send up the large boulders with dust veins in them with proper care. Then another week to collect all the rocks and rubble left over. And today was the final day of clearing. Brothers know why they couldn’t just call it quits and close the cavern but she’d been told to clean it up before the start of the month so she did.
2 hours go by till she can’t fit any more rock into her carts. The dust settles and she hops out of the excavator to hitch the carts back up to it. Yang’s eyes wander, then catch on something on the cavern wall. There are bore holes about 15 feet up the stone wall that had collapsed. The liquid that had spilled out from them was oily and slick, it must’ve pooled on the floor. Except there was no trace of any oil below it.
‘What the fuck is this now? There’s no oil reservoirs in the mountain? A little oil spill is what caused everything to go haywire?’ Yang thought, furrowing her brows and scratching at the back of her neck.
Yang pulled out her scroll to take pictures and started up the vehicle. She’d do the repairs after she’d reported the situation. “Always something.”
The tunnels were a damn maze and took a lot of time to memorize. Its uniform yet twisting corridors and shafts made everything look the same yet so confusingly different. When Yang first took the job as a gopher she got turned around for 30 minutes before Harriet, a former gopher, had found her. But now she knew them like the back of her hand which made it no issue to resurface.
“Yang Xiao Long, resurfaced from Sector Bravo. Over.”
“Yang? Why’re you back so soon? Over.”
“Bruce, tell Weiss I’ll be over sooner than scheduled pretty please. It’s urgent, I’ve already got a mean headache and cannot take a lecture.”
A heavy sigh crackles out of the radio. “You owe me one.”
“Thank you Bruce, you’re a godsend. Over and out.” She pumps her fist in the air at dodging a long talk from Weiss. She dumps the stones she collected and drops off the excavator and carts before starting for the offices at a jog.
Yang and the aforementioned white haired heiress didn’t work well at first. Yang had been working there for just over a year when Weiss came from Atlas and was given (most of) the keys to the kingdom. Their different personalities rubbed each other the wrong way and Weiss didn’t take kindly to someone knowing more than her. But they learned from each other over time and made things run smoothly between their fire and ice, always checking and balancing.
Ciel raised a disapproving eyebrow at Yang appearing in front of her desk an hour and a half before her meeting. Yang opened her mouth but Ciel raised a hand to halt any pleading
“I’m not going to scold you, you’ll get that from Miss Schnee. All I will say is you picked a very poor time, she’s not in a good way.” Ciel’s tone is hesitant at best and nervous at worst.
“She still stressed about bringing in the new eggheads to the site?” Yang leans on the desk with a concerned look.
“Very much so. You know that SDC headquarters hand picked these specialists and technicians from Atlas and Miss Schnee is expected to deliver for them.” Ciel states, trying to keep her voice neutral but her downcast eyes betray her.
“Let’s see what we can do about that then.” Yang nods and lightly slaps the desk before walking down the hallway to Weiss’ office, it was always closed. She takes a deep breath and raps her knuckles on the door.