Clunk. Clunk.
“...”
Clunk. Clunk.
“...This is so boring.”
“Stop complaining.”
Clunk. Clunk.
“...How many hours until we’re done for today?”
“Boss said we’re behind, so we’re all doing overtime.”
“Yeah, I know, ya knob. I asked how long?”
Clunk. Clunk.
“... five hours.”
“Seriously? Ugh. This sucks.”
“Look, Scoots. Pip did you a solid and gave you the boring job rather than the dangerous one, so—”
“Yeah, yeah, stop complaining and get to work. I know this is way better than—”
“This is the machine that needs repairs?”
“Hey, Flit. Yeah, it keeps making a weird clunking sound when I pull the lever. Know what’s up?”
“The weights are probably off. I’ll hop in and realign’em quick. Keep the machine off while I do.”
“Can do.”
“...”
Vroom.
“...”
“So the boss’ll make us work an extra hour over this, huh?”
“Of course he will, he’s—”
“Why aren’t you workin’?!”
“We’re just waitin’ for Flit to—”
“I don’t want your excuses! Get back on the line! …Is the machine off?! You lazy worthless wastes of space! I told you never to turn the machines off!”
“Wait! Sir, don’t—!”
“I told you I don’t want to hear your damned excuses!”
Vroom. Clunk. Clunk. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
“...”
“...Flit?”
“Flit? What was she doing in there for?!”
“...She was fixin’ the counterweights.”
“Then why’d she take so long?! Ugh, useless, all of you. Now I’m down a worker! Extra hour of overtime from each and every one of ya! Scootaloo, why is your uniform dirty?!”
“...It’s Flit’s…”
“I want it cleaned up by your next shift or I’m moving you to repairs! All of you back to work!”
“...”
Clunk. Clunk. Squelch.
“...Scootaloo. You need to get back to work.”
“...She’s dead. I can see her through the gaps. It’s spilling—!”
“Scootaloo. If you don’t get back to work, you’ll be joining her.
“Get back on the line.”
It was a massive, living organism. That was Scootaloo’s conclusion after only a few minutes of travel through the narrow passages of the Trauma. Belching machines of smoke and noise overflowing with fleshy organs pumped by oil-filled veins. It spilled between gaps in the gears, taking up what little space there was in the heated alleys between monstrosities. She was careful not to touch anything metal, knowing that the orange glow emanating from it meant that it was too hot to touch.
All of this served to flood her with memories. She was overwhelmed by the horrors of working in the factory with an owner that cared more about output than the safety of his workers. She saw the pile of bodies piled up before her, all entangled within the pistons and gears of the machines. A constant clunking turned to a morbid squelch.
Stains and rust mixed together into a reddish-orange that could never be scrubbed out of the metal. Minced remains staring at her through the open gaps, the mangled corpses left to rot as they worked through it, letting the machines digest the remains and leaving behind a stench of rot and burning.
The machine struggling to pump out the next product while protesting against the odd obstruction that the owner had deemed unnecessary to remove.
Because it took too much time. Because it lowered output.
She hated it. She remembered it. She hated it. All the sights and sounds and smells. She hated it. She was never going to escape it. She hated it. She hated it. She hated it. She—
“So everyone in the Smoke Stacks had to work in the factories?”
“Obviously, Bradbury. Take a damn hint!” Scootaloo snapped. “You live here, you work here, them’s the damned rules. Only Tartarus-blessed psychopathic kissasses got excused, and that only meant they got to be Owners instead of Workers.”
“Huh, okay! Thanks for clearing that up,” Bradbury replied.
She seemed ignorant to Scootaloo’s current mood, as usual. Scootaloo hated that about her. Salinger took that moment to give her a disapproving scowl. She wanted to punch it right off his stupid face.
“So why would anyone want to be a factory owner?” Bradbury asked.
“Why do you even want to know?” Scootaloo retorted.
“Oh, well, I was just thinking—”
“Oh, she thinks! Great!” Scootaloo threw up her hands. “How about you think quietly!”
Bradbury’s smile faltered.
“She’s just trying to distract you,” Salinger said, his tone soft. “We can all see you’re having a hard time.”
Scootaloo surveyed the rest of the group. They all looked back at her in various degrees of sympathy and pity. She did have to admit that it was unfair to be taking out her rage at them, when it wasn’t like they made her go through her own personal Tartarus.
“...It’s the quickest way to earn your way into a Haven,” Scootaloo answered.
“Really?”Bradbury put a finger on her chin. “I thought they only let the smartest people in from the outside?”
“Maybe in yours, but here it’s based on productivity,” Scootaloo continued. “Every Factory Worker gets one point per product made. Factory Owners get three points per product made by each worker under them. If you get enough points, you can get into the Haven.”
“Wow! That’s… incredibly unfair!” Bradbury exclaimed.
“That is rather skewed toward the Owners,” Salinger remarked. “I imagine Factory Owners ascend on a frequent basis?”
“One every decade or so,” Scootaloo said.
A moment of silence.
“...I don’t understand. A Factory Owner gets three points per product made by each worker under their employ. An average workforce would be around fifty to a hundred people based on the size of these factories. With a worker able to produce a hefty number of products every hour, an Owner would be garnering at least a thousand points in a mere few hours. For there to only be—”
Another bout of silence.
“Billions?!” Bradbury exclaimed. “I don’t even know what that number looks like!”
“It is… several zeroes,” Salinger said. “Why is the entry requirement so high?”
“Cuz they don’t want anyone in the Haven!” Scootaloo around to face the group feeling her frustration boil over. “Having an entry requirement is just cuz they have to! They don’t want any of the losers down in the Burn Out cloggin’ their streets since then there wouldn’t be anyone to make their stupid garbage!
“That’s all this place is for! They keep people here to churn out their trash and then throw people down here that aren’t good enough to ensure the factories are always runnin’! No one cares about us! No one wants anyone from down here! The only thing you can do is work here until you die!”
Her breathing ran ragged from having shouted too long. Her emotions were running hot with equal measures of shame at having aired out her frustrations and rage at having them in the first place.
“London…” Bradbury said. Then, while reaching out to grab her, she shouted, “Watch out!”
Too late to react, a nearby vein burst, spraying a clear liquid all over her. She realized quickly that it was coolant and thankfully not the boiling oil. She wiped it off and stared at it, her hand shaking.
In her eyes, it was red. She saw the corpses peering at her through the gaps.
“I-I’ll grab a towel and clean it off!” Bradbury exclaimed.
“Where are you going to find a towel here?!” Salinger demanded.
“I dunno! Isn’t there usually—”
“...I can’t,” Scootaloo whispered.
“What?” Both Salinger and Bradbury asked.
“I can’t do this.” Scootaloo shook her head, and stepped back, deeper into the belly of the factory.
“Wait, London,” Golding said as he moved toward her. “You can’t separate from the group. We don’t know what Deviants are lurking around here.”
She took another few steps back.
“London!”
Then she was gone. She ran, desperately seeking the exit out of the bowels of the beast. She would not be devoured by the factories, another corpse feeding the monstrosity. She had to—
Scootaloo hit the metal floor hard as something tackled her to the ground. That something turned out to be a metallic insect-like monster. It had six long curved blades for legs, two of which kept her pinned to the ground. They were attached to a central dome covered in glass eyes.
The bottom of the creature dropped into a small cage. It was stained with dried blood. A mouth of razor-sharp metal whirred to life underneath, rotating in two congruent circles with a metallic screech.
She was going to die. The machine had finally caught her.