Chapter 6: Chapter 6: The Director’s despair

Day 4: Morning - +10° C

Today, the workers' thanks to the structural profile, could start the construction of the shaft structure, but strangely, many workers fall sick, very quickly the news spread on the site, and the hole becomes quickly according to many very religious people, a hole to hell, which had to be quickly filled or they will all be killed. There are no serious accidents yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Fortunately, a few hours earlier, William, thanks to the advice of the union worker, had sent Henry and a group of engineers to inspect the profiles manufacture, but also the hole where the work will soon begin. They discovered a very bad news that could complicate all.

Henry arrived at William's door and knocked, "Who is it?"
Henry answered in a preoccupied tone, "Director, it's me, Henry, I have another piece of bad news. A few of our employees fell ill from breathing strange fumes wafting from the shaft. It could’ve been worse: one of them passed out and fell from a scaffold. We can’t ignore health hazards any longer.”

William frowned and sighed, ‘Again, we can't get anything right in this camp for more than a day. Should I quit?’
William was tired of the site, wondering if he could just go back to England and beg his father to be allowed to come home. He still remembers the times when he was young, doing nothing all day in the manor, being able to eat whatever he wanted. Here, he certainly ate better than black bread, but life was much harder.

You have to understand William, like any man, couldn't be motivated all the time and with time the motivation drops, especially with so much bad news.

But William remembered that if he didn't finish the construction, he wouldn't be admitted to the London generator and would certainly freeze to death, unless... unless...
William had a very bad little idea, ‘Should I buy my place on the black market? It will be easier!’

His spirits rose for a few milliseconds, but he was immediately in a bad mood again, it's a good idea for the rich, but for a poor man like him, it's no use. His father will never give him even 1 pound.

While he was thinking of plans to get out of here, Henry brought him back to reality very quickly. "Director, is something wrong?"

"No, no, I'm fine, just give me time to think."

William could not come up with any plan, he sighed, and resigned himself, the only way to survive for now was to build the generator. Putting aside his plans for an escape, he thought of a solution to the problem of the gas that was making people sick.

“Henry, from now on, the safety level of every workplace at the construction site will be monitored. Henry creates 5 levels of work safety, the first level is safe, the second unhealthy, the third harmful, the fourth dangerous, and the last deadly. I'm going to sign up right now to create a regulation to increase safety because if all the workers are injured or sick, they can't work. Oh, for the regulation, tell the engineering group to create safety procedures.”

"Director, if we create safety procedures, productivity will drop significantly."

*sigh* “We don't really have a choice, do it, Henry.”
The co-director was about to leave when suddenly he remembered something. "Director, it is not really important but looks at this letter."

William took the letter and read it very attentively, but when he finished, he was confused, why had Henry given him this letter? "Henry, why are you giving me this letter? it's just that one of the workers' daughters is sick, it's not serious, it's not like she's dead."

“Director, as you may know, supply ships occasionally carry sacks of post destined to the employee. For security reasons, every inbound and outbound mail is opened and read but we may sometimes require instructions from you regarding our censorships. In this case, a worker received a letter from his wife informing him that one of his daughters is gravely ill. Dire news suck as this may impact the morale of the employee. Should we redact the part about the sick daughter? Because in difficult times like ours, it is hard to take care of oneself, so since the girl is seriously ill, she has a great chance to die, this will worry the workers and will be less motivated and will surely inform their friends and in the end, all the workers will be demotivated.”

William, not wanting to think, immediately said "Censor the letter, it is not so important if it creates discontent.”

When Henry left his office, William stood up and looked out the window, "I run a shitty site, but at least it shows I have the skills to lead people and create something.’

The life of a powerful person is often lonely and cold.

William finally realized what his father, the Prime Minister, felt when he lead the country. William was not a high-ranking person, but on this construction site, he was the supreme leader, and that makes him extremely lonely.

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Day 4: Night - +10° C

As the security of the manufacturing profiles was only unhealthy, William decided to postpone the law, choosing only to make short shifts, anyway with the lack of resources, they will not be able to run the factory all the time.

“Listen, everybody, new regulations are in place! For all employees, building a generator is exhausting and dangerous. Only when people are not overworked, they will make fewer mistakes. So the director reduced the shift of the factories in the generator perimeter by 2 hours, so you only work from 8 am to 4 pm!"

“I hope these shorter shifts will be actually used.”
“Shorter hours? I’m all in favour!”

Most workers are extremely happy but some are suspicious. Will they keep their promise?

**From this point on, I will start to merge the days into one chapter to make the story advance more quickly.**

Day 5: Morning - +10° C

The next day, the site had finally finished the research and construction of the fishing harbor, they are no longer dependent on the drill camp to provide food, so even if there are no animals around the camp, they will still be able to have nature with fish.

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More importantly, they are finally finished making 8 structural profiles and could start building most of the shaft structure deep in the hole, they only did scouting and superficial construction. But the engineers have seriously underestimated the danger of the hole, even with the short shift, the level of danger is harmful, with a moderate chance of getting sick or injured.

The workers are absolutely not happy with this news, and some are organizing to protect their interests and their survival.

At first, few people joined Martin's syndicate, but when they saw their condition and many people joined him, they followed everyone and joined the syndicate like sheep.

Outside a tent, a group of workers gathered around the leader of the syndicate, Martin. The crowd speaks all at the same time, and it is difficult to understand each other.

They have all heard stories of workers getting sick or injured on the construction site, and in a place as wild as this, the medical care is not very good, and even if it's only a small wound easily healed with bending, they don't trust the engineer. So they criticize all the engineers for their authoritarian behaviour, who think they are lords even if you don't have to put them all in the same basket.

"The engineers are slavers!"

"They want us to work in unsustainable conditions!"

"Yes, they want us to die at the end of this hell hole!"

"We have to form a united front and force the director not to give any more advantages to the engineer."

"Of course, we have to do like the French and abolish the privileges, the engineers also have to work on the generator and see what we suffer!"

“SILENCE!!!” said Martin in a loud and authoritative tone, trying to calm people down.

Martin knows that they have to get everyone to agree on something or they won't get anywhere. So he makes a speech to calm people down and show them his ideas.

"My fellow comrades! Don't worry, I, Martin, have a lot of experience in protecting our interests, in England, I was the head of a syndicate that organized strikes from time to time and it worked, we had better conditions, and better food!"

Martin obviously omitted the fact that the leader rarely agreed, and preferred to just kick everyone out and call the police, in fact, workers like them were waiting for work, and there was no lack of workers. And that even if he did accept, it was for a day or two.

"We must not accept these terrible working conditions, we must join together to fight! In a few days, we will make an appeal for better conditions! We will show the director and the engineer that we are not ants that they can crush at will.”

"Yes, long live Martin"

"Long live the working class!"

"The director is not gentle enough!"

But on the other side of the camp, in a big engineer's tent. A similar meeting is taking place, but with fewer people.

"The director is too gentle!"

"Yes, he doesn't know how to run a construction site!"

"I was the head of a small company and I knew how to make the workers work, look at what is needed, he openly meets and talks about strike!"

But one man stands out from the rest, he is standing on a small stage, it was the engineer who was denied the right to have an access to the engineer tent. But thanks to the solidarity of the engineers, he managed to live in one of the tents with 11 people instead of 10. The engineer announces a piece of information: “Fellow Engineer, thanks to a spy, I know that the workers will soon go on strike, the moment has finally arrived to put pressure on the director to obtain more benefits and put the workers in their place!”

William, through his office window, could see all the things happening on the site, he sighed

and called Henry: "Henry, take this letter, and send it to the Prime Minister by telegram, tell them it is urgent and that if it is not sent, the security of the site may not be assured.

Henry asked no questions and personally sent the letter by telegram to London.

William had asked his father for the last time for something. He needed help, he asked his father to send him men he could trust to try to maintain order and authority in the camp.

Site 113 is on the verge of explosion and is in danger of falling into civil war with 3 camps. The camp of the workers, the engineers, and the director. It is only a few days since he left London but the situation is already serious.

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