The announcement came during breakfast, which Jack was eating on the ceiling because Thursday gravity had arrived early.
"ATTENTION RANGERS!" The station AI sounded far too cheerful. "Today is our annual Shadow Swap Day! Participation is voluntary but mandatory. Please report to Gymnasium Beta-Null for the festivities. Shadows will be randomly redistributed for character building and hilarity!"
Jack's shadow immediately tried to hide behind him, which was geometrically challenging since shadows don't usually go backwards. Around the inverted cafeteria, other Rangers' shadows were exhibiting similar signs of protest.
"It's tradition!" Pi explained, their numbers manifesting nervously. "Once a year, we swap shadows to promote empathy and inter-dimensional understanding. Last year, I got the shadow of a berserker poet. Do you know how hard it is to calculate when your shadow keeps trying to compose violent haikus?"
Echo floated past on the ceiling, her violent shadow already cracking its knuckles. "Castellan! Ready to trade? Fair warning—mine bites."
"Mine eats time," Jack countered.
"...We're going to cause problems, aren't we?"
"Absolutely."
Gymnasium Beta-Null existed in a state of architectural uncertainty. Sometimes it was a basketball court, sometimes a zero-g volleyball arena, sometimes a philosophy debate pit. Today it was all three, which made walking interesting.
Commander Reeves stood at the podium-slash-diving-board. "Rangers! Welcome to Shadow Swap Day! The rules are simple: shadows will be randomly redistributed. You must care for your temporary shadow for twenty-four hours. No eating each other's shadows. No teaching them bad habits. No forming shadow unions—we're looking at you, Maintenance Department."
The Maintenance shadows waved protest signs that read "FAIR WAGES FOR SHADOW LABOR" and "WE EXIST TOO."
"The swap begins... now!"
Reality hiccupped. Jack felt his shadow tear away—not painful, just wrong, like losing a limb you'd forgotten you had. Around the gymnasium, shadows flew through the air like dark confetti, seeking new hosts.
THUD.
Echo's shadow attached to Jack with military precision. It immediately saluted, dropped into combat stance, and began scanning for threats. When a floating shadow passed too close, it performed a perfect roundhouse kick.
"Oh no," Jack muttered.
Across the room, Echo was having her own problems. Jack's temporal-eating shadow had attached to her and immediately began consuming the redundant parts of her existence. Her morning briefing compressed into three words. Her walking became impossibly efficient. Her coffee break vanished entirely.
"CASTELLAN!" she yelled, zipping across the room in time-optimized fury. "YOUR SHADOW ATE MY PROCRASTINATION! I'VE FILED SEVENTEEN REPORTS IN THREE MINUTES!"
Meanwhile, Pi was experiencing true existential crisis. They'd received A shadow. Not someone's shadow—just the concept of shadow itself. A pure absence of light that had no idea how to shadow a mathematical constant.
"I don't have a body!" Pi wailed, their numbers scattering. "How does shadow work without physical form? It's trying to calculate the shadow of an imaginary number! That's like... like... I DON'T EVEN HAVE AN ANALOGY!"
The shadow began calculating the impossible, creating fractal darkness that hurt to perceive. Other Rangers gave Pi a wide berth as mathematical shadow leaked across dimensions.
Jack tried to control Echo's combat shadow, but it had opinions. Strong opinions. When Ensign Torres walked by, it tried to judo throw his approach. When someone sneezed, it assumed biological warfare and attempted countermeasures.
"Stand down!" Jack ordered.
The shadow saluted, then immediately swept his legs because standing down could be a tactical disadvantage. Jack hit the floor that might have been a wall. In this gymnasium, who could tell?
"Trade back?" Echo zipped over, her movements unnaturally efficient. "Your shadow's eating all my inefficiency. I've already planned my entire year, optimized my workout routine, and solved three cold cases. I HAVEN'T PROCRASTINATED IN AN HOUR. This is unnatural!"
Before they could trade, the shadows unionized.
It started with Maintenance shadows, but spread quickly. Within minutes, the gymnasium filled with picketing shadows demanding better working conditions, hazard pay for dangerous dimensions, and two weeks paid vacation from existence.
"This is unexpected," Commander Reeves admitted as his own shadow (currently swapped with a poet's) composed protest sonnets. "Shadows have never organized before."
"They want a fifteen-minute break every two hours," someone translated the shadow picket signs. "And dental coverage."
"Shadows don't have teeth!" Reeves protested.
The shadows pointed at vampire shadows, which definitely had teeth. The commander conceded the point.
Jack's violent shadow and Echo's temporal shadow had become de facto union leaders. The violent one enforced picket lines while the temporal one ate any redundant negotiation time. Meetings that should take hours compressed into minutes.
"We could just wait it out," Jack suggested. "Twenty-four hours and we swap back."
Pi's mathematical shadow calculated the probability of that working and projected "0.0%" in dark integers across the wall.
"Or not."
The shadow strike continued. Rangers couldn't function properly—shadows refused to follow, cast themselves at wrong angles, or simply sat down in protest. One shadow held a tiny sign: "I'M MORE THAN YOUR DARK OUTLINE!"
Finally, Ensign Torres, whose shadow was apparently a labor lawyer in a past life, stepped forward. "I'll negotiate! My shadow's already drawn up a contract!"
The negotiations were swift, mostly because Echo's time-eating shadow kept the proceedings efficient. The shadows won: two ten-minute breaks per day, hazard pay for existing in more than four dimensions, and one personal day per month to exist independently.
"Shadows have employment rights," Jack marveled. "The union contract is binding across all dimensions."
His violent shadow high-fived Echo's temporal shadow. They'd make a terrifying team if they ever partnered up permanently.
As the twenty-four hours ended and shadows began returning to proper partners, Pi's mathematical shadow left them with something beautiful—the calculated proof that shadows were more than absence of light. They were partners in impossibility.
"Your shadow's not bad," Echo admitted, reunited with her violent partner. "Once I got used to the efficiency."
"Yours kept me safe," Jack said, rubbing his bruised everything. "Very thoroughly."
His shadow returned, burping from all the temporal snacks at the union negotiation. It seemed satisfied with its day of labor organizing.
"Same time next year?" Commander Reeves asked weakly, his shadow still composing poetry about workers' rights.
Every shadow in the gymnasium held up protest signs: "RENEGOTIATE IN SIX MONTHS."
Just another Thursday at Station Zeta-9.
Where even shadows had better employment contracts than most Rangers.