Chapter Text
The zones exist to do one thing and one thing only.
Help the boy.
The guardians, not friends in the slightest and prone to disagreements, handled this in very different ways. Japhet would not be shocked if the only reason the Queen separated the world into Zones instead of building Hugo one massive utopia, was to stop him from pecking Enoch's smug, satisfied, beady little eyes out-
So there were three zones.
And those Zones existed to satisfy Hugo's needs. The Queen said nothing beyond that, because she knew the guardians well enough. Dedan would want to create a place as close to the world we knew as possible- which would no doubt include strife. An attempt at toughening the boy up- making the frail, sick little thing as strong as he was.
The idiot would get the boy killed, surely.
And Enoch, being himself, would likely make a massive kitchen- something meant only to have the child eat away his worries. Another foolish idea, but one that would come to fruition. The queen and Enoch had the closest bond- and the unifying desire to rid little Hugo of his thin, gaunt body.
Japhet was the only one of the three who knew what Hugo truly needed. What would truly help him as his body fought off the horrible illness he faced.
Hugo needed a distraction.
A place that was soft, and completely free from strife- what good is Dedan's constant preaching of tough love and hard knocks, if the boy is too frail to take the blows? And surely the constant sugar the queen and Enoch were cooking up together would only worsen his condition.
No, what Hugo most needed was a way to pass the time his body took to recover. An alcove to read his comic books, perhaps a soft guiding hand to push him toward novels.
Hugo needed a library, so that is what zone 2 would be.
It was Hugo himself who made up the building blocks of this new world. A rare and heartening showing of imagination that Japhet happily encouraged, even if the resulting elements were quite limited.
Metal, meat, smoke and plastic.
How on earth was Japhet meant to work with that?
Worse still was the limit they were given- the zones would have to produce whatever more they wanted on their own. Only so much of everything to get started.
Japhet scooped up as much metal and plastic as he could get away with to start on the library.
The frame used up all the metal Japhet could get, for some ungodly reason Enoch wanted all the rest. Plastic was in abundance- the world was all but flooded with the stuff, so building the walls of the soon to be great library was as simple as draping the frame.
The books themselves were made of thin, paper like plastic sheets. Japhet put every book he could remember and more into the shelves of the library. Copies of Hugo's beloved comics. Children's books from the most simple and nostalgic early-readers to the thick sweeping school-set novels of a particularly bookish elementary schooler's taste.
Japhet didn't stop there, he stuffed the library with information. Encyclopedias of the old world, long lost. History and culture. And in some tucked away corners, Japhet put adult oriented novels. Horror and thrillers and complicated books that no child should read, but all children eventually do.
Hugo would be a man someday. This little inclusion was Japhet's silent assurance of that fact.
Japhet- and all the other guardians, were initially under the impression that all of what they were making was for Hugo and Hugo alone. It was a shock, then, when the Queen summoned them to meet the inhabitants of the new world- the people that would fill up it's empty spaces.
The Elsen.
They were initially an accident- a blip of creation unintentionally conjured when Hugo was thinking of what to make with his new elements.
He accidentally questioned who would be using it all.
Apparently, the Elsen were modeled after a teacher Hugo had before his illness. Someone he had fond memories of. But Japhet couldn't see anything that signaled such a thing.
The blank eyed, dress shirted waste of a being the queen was presenting to them was little beyond a featureless stick figure- A blank body.
The queen explained that she'd emptied this particular specimen's head for the sake of demonstration.
She insists they'll be an interface between the zones and Hugo. What Hugo needs, they will need, and so on. More pressingly to Dedan and Enoch- they do what they're told.
Japhet doesn't care at all for the things. He was under the impression that Hugo would come to the library himself. That the boy would tuck himself under his wing and ask for a story.
What use does Japhet have for some empty headed lemmings in his masterpiece?
But the scheme was brought up for a reason. Hugo was simply too ill to go anywhere. so, reluctantly, Japhet accepted his lot of little lemmings, and told them to make sure the shelves were dusted.
They tottered into the library and swept. Japhet, nested on the top floor, impatiently waited for the boy to get stronger.