If you worked for the Foundation, especially in one of the more secure facilities, you might be forgiven for thinking it would be a nightmare once someone filled you in on all the details. No one sets their morning alarm to klaxons after all, and the chance of death or massive injury in terrible ways was likely higher than it was in other industries.
Excluding possibly customer service.
But that didn't mean that it was constant chaos, always dancing on the razor's edge. It wouldn't be sustainable for humans, anomalies, or anyone really. When it came down to it, it didn't matter how much danger surrounded you - the light bulbs would need replacing, the paperwork would need to be filled out, the garbage would have to be removed.
The fabric of the Foundation was made up of so much more than just the unusual and the dangerous, and anyone who insisted otherwise was so out of touch they likely needed time off, at the very least. Maybe it came off as trite, but it was important to keep in mind just how many humans doing human things made up the Foundation's whole.
To remember, especially in the end.
"Director Ababe?" The head of Site-89 looked up from her desk at her admin assistant Oya, who had the telltale shimmer in their eyes that told Zala what had happened before they said a word.
"Ashton passed this morning."
Like so many at Site-89, Ashton Nelson wore a lot of hats. He'd worked at the beginning in maintenance, showing a proficiency for making any machinery work, anomalous or otherwise. He was a true handyman, a jack of all trades with a smile for everyone and an encouraging word, often when you needed it. When they first had met Zala Abebe had only been a junior researcher at the time but she'd been impressed by how Ashton just always managed to keep his cool no matter the situation, repairing whatever had broken no matter how grave the danger. Just so they could keep this site running and the people there safe.
And in Ashton's eyes, they'd all been people. As long as they had both been working here, she could never remember him calling sentient a 'skip'. Christ, he'd talked a few of them into his book club, which had been hell on her nerves at first, but Ababe had come around in the end. Ashton had convinced her that some of the Safe, sentient entities might appreciate a little distraction, a little enrichment.
He was right. 6059 did have excellent taste in paperbacks. Such a shame they had to move to Site-58.
When the diagnosis had come late last year, Zala could remember the way that Ashton had sort of shrugged his shoulders, hair no longer the sandy brown it had been when they met but a lively salt and pepper that he insisted made him look like a silver fox. It was almost like he'd made his peace with it, all at once.
"It's all right. When it's time, it's time."
He'd worked up until he couldn't get out of bed, and the medical staff had done all they could to make things as peaceful for him as possible, as comfortable as it might get. He wasn't the first to pass naturally, even in a place like this, and Ababe had the numbers to prove that they didn't have nearly as many breaches that resulted in casualties as they used to. Maybe they were all getting better at accepting what they could, handling what they could not. Ashton was just one little piece of that journey, but a piece all the same. An important piece.
And he would be remembered.
The memorial wall wasn't labeled as such, starting just as a makeshift bunch of labels that someone had made after a particularly nasty breach that had taken out an entire MTF. These days it felt like there were less moments like this, when those who could gathered in the cafeteria in silent memory, waiting for Director Ababe to place the latest 3D-printed plaque in the list of the departed. It didn't matter if it was entity, cancer, or age, they were all there, listed to bear witness to their deeds at the small site in the middle of East Africa. To be remembered as they made that last journey that even the Foundation couldn't quite predict.
Later, in small quiet groups in their quarters and in labs would remember the small things, the ways that Ashton had made them laugh or their lives easier in some small way, carrying his humanity forward as a torch to light their way. That was the point to it all, wasn't it? Zala had never quite liked the idea that they died in the dark, because quite frankly, they didn't.
They might be unseen, they might need to inhabit the shadows. But as she affixed the plaque bearing Aston's name to the roster of the lost, she found herself smiling slightly in spite of the tears rolling silently down her cheeks. He'd exemplified that truth to her every day, as did so many others at their site, and all around the world, even into the stars.
They burned as brightly as stars, each one of them on this path to secure and protect, for as long as they were able. And their light would help guide the way of those who followed, long after.
"Safe travels, my friend."