Chapter 63
In the ball car, I asked the slig to read me the headlines.
The slig cleared his throat and spoke. “The top headline reads, ‘We’re Screwed! Economy Collapses!’”
Huh? “Keep reading.”
The slig nodded. “It says here that due to a huge number of missing mudokon workers, lab animals, and mudokon labor eggs, it would have taken a year to bring things back up to speed. But, since so many glukkons poured their life savings into the Lulu Fund, just to have it all spent on a can of Gabbiar, the economy lost a whopping three million moolah when Vykker’s Labs crashed - not to mention all the revenue Vykker’s Labs produced. And we can’t sell the damn can because the dumb gluk lost the can. Another headline here is blaming Lulu for the Vykker’s Labs disaster.”
I wanted to laugh, but my role as a glukkon was to be pissed at this news. So I tried to act accordingly.
“Well, shit. It’s a good thing none of the glukkons here donated their cash to Lulu, eh?”
The slig snorted. “It doesn’t matter. This place is on a fast track to nowhere, let me tell you. With our general in charge of slig training gone missing and Swift dead in the crash, we’ve lost two very valuable and wealthy glukkons. The company’s net worth dropped by two million moolah in the past three days.”
I hissed. That was, despite my better mudokon judgments, a bit rough on the glukkons. Don’t know why I was feeling sorry for them. Probably the glukkon in me taking it to heart.
“So what good is it to keep the factory?” I wondered aloud. “Why not sell it?”
The slig snorted again, and I realized how stupid an idea that was. “No wonder the vykkers got rid of you. Look, stupid, there’s no one around with enough money to buy this place. Two months ago there would have been, but that Abe guy took out Mollock, Dripik, Phleg, and Aslik. And Tex died in the crash. Now that Lulu is back to being a bum, the only gluks with enough money to buy this place already own it. And besides, why would we sell the
only factory for miles that still produces food products? We should be raising our prices. And we could get away with it, since we’d have no competition in the market.”
I shrugged. It made enough sense.
We arrived in the hub and switched over to a ball car that would take us to Zulag One.
We rode there in silence.
The ball car let off in Zulag One’s Animal preparation Center. I took a quick look around and formulated a plan.
I took a deep breath and shouted at the sligs. “All o’ yeh!”
The sligs turned and looked at me. A scattered chorus of “Hi!” greeted my ears.
“Come ‘ere.”
The sligs buzzed and gathered around me.
“You guys … take the morning off.”
The sligs, whom I expected to be confused, crowded into the ball car without another word to me, and soon they were all gone. Even my little valet with the newspaper had disappeared.
So it was just me and five mudokons. The mudokons were working at a conveyor belt. Animals would drop in through chutes, still alive and kicking. Their job was to administer the blow that would kill them. The mudokons had to pull levers at the appropriate time to inject the animals with a poison that would kill them but not spoil the meat. The animals, soon dead, continued on the belt and through an opening in the wall into the next sub-zulag.
I turned to the workers. “All o ‘yeh!”
Nothing. Then I remembered I was still a glukkon.
I concentrated and popped back into my mudokon body. I was swimming in my glukkon outfit, but I managed to shed it. I marveled briefly that all but cuts and bruises, garnished in my fall through the trees, had been healed in the transformation.
I tried to speak again. I was about to speak when I remembered the Zippy Cameras that floated overhead. They administered a shock to anything that spoke in a mudokon voice.
So I whistled. “Everybody!”
They turned and looked at me. A shrill chorus of whistles greeted me. I realized with some hilarity that this was the same group of five mudokons I had almost convinced to follow me back when I was escaping the factory.
I raised my hands at them, then began to chant, as quietly as I could…
No good. A sharp, electric pain erupted in my back. It knocked me off my feet.
The other muds whistled encouragement, and I climbed onto my feet.
How to take that thing out?
I looked around for something I could use. After a moment I settled on breaking a loose piece of metal off the side of the conveyor machine. I hucked it up at the Zippy and, amazingly, watched it crack the lens on the front of it. The Zippy reacted violently, and began to hum and shake. I whistled at everyone to get down, but there was no need. It didn’t explode, it just fell out of the air and hit the ground with a
clunk.
Time to try again. “Heya, chumps,” I said.
When no shock came, the others were overjoyed. I began chanting, and a bird portal tore itself open in a space nearby. The mudokons cheered and leapt through.
I waited … no. No shrykull power this time.
With my first five mudokons saved, I contacted Druna to get my glukkon morph back.
Five minutes later I was dressed and calling for help.
Two sligs came a-running.
Time to take a risk. “You! Stay with me. I want you to follow any orders I give you.” I took a deep breath. “I think Abe might be on the premises.”
I believed no such thing, of course. But if it could cause a panic in the sligs and on up through the ranks to the executives, it would be worth it. I was hoping it would make the glukkons worry too much about finding and killing Abe to replace any workers I saved.
The sligs were instantly on alert. They stood on either side of me and began to look around. It was like they wanted to see in all directions at once.
This might work out, after all.
Employee Status:
