[Splat]

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Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway...

Chapter 18 introduces two characters that will have all the W@RF fan-boys and fan-girls squeeing with barely contained ecstasy.

Chapter 18

Dean was a mudokon who worked in the kitchens. This would seem strange in many facilities run by glukkons, for (as a vykker would say), glukkons liked efficiency, but they rarely did much about it other than throw money around and hope things would speed up. Vykkers thought about things, and in this case their thoughts were ‘that mudokon called Dean is good at helping with food preparation; let’s put him to work in the kitchens’.

It was widely recognised across all factories in Mudos that sligs as a general rule tend to make rather terrible chefs, so anything that could improve the quality of food anywhere could only be a good thing.

Dean liked to cook. He was also rather good at it, and the sligs in charge of the kitchens would never admit just how much of his input went into the two meals they received everyday; after all, the chefs had to eat the food they made as well, and they didn’t like eating their own culinary disasters any more than anyone else did. The mudokon was good at cooking; he was head-chef in every way except by title. In fact he occasionally gave the sligs lessons.

If anyone happened to ask Dean how he became such a good chef he would reply that he just was, the way some people were good with animals, the way some vykkers were better at surgery and some were good at chemistry. He could work out in his head how things would taste the way other people worked out sums.

Most of the vykkers were rather busy, what with the sudden announcement that this time tomorrow they would have a miserable experiment to cater for – and she would need her own room, her own meals, her own everything – and so the job of picking out a mudokon to look after her was shoved onto a high-ranking slig. The slig ranked highly because he was good with the employees, but this did not necessarily mean he was good at anything other than hitting them with his gun rather hard.

He was told to pick a mudokon who was likeable and wouldn’t be too badly missed from their current position. Not knowing much about anything really, he decided that the kitchens wouldn’t suffer from having one less mudokon, and since Dean spent most of his life around about 10 sligs and he didn’t get beaten up on a daily basis, he must be fairly likeable.

And so that was why, at 2 in the afternoon one day when he was just preparing for the afternoon meal, Dean was approached by a couple of sligs and told to follow. He was somewhat confused and somewhat annoyed because he wasn’t much good at anything except cooking and he resented being made to do anything else. But he knew he couldn’t disobey a slig’s orders if he intended on keeping his teeth attached to his gums, so he shot the official head chef a ‘You can do it’ sort of look and hurried off.

They walked in silence for twenty minutes before Dean realised they were heading in the direction of the mudokon bunks and decided to ask, “Where are we going? What’s this job you want me to do?”

The slig grunted and muttered “You’ll find out soon enough.” As the approached the bunks they turned down a side corridor which Dean had never been down before, and after turning a corner came face to face with a vykker who was standing outside a closed door.

“This is the mudokon Erket picked?” The vykker asked. The slig nodded and the vykker waved him away, “Fine, you can go.”

The slig slumped off. Dean looked a little uneasy, since the vykkers were not liked or trusted by the mudokons in that place.

“Relax,” The vykker said impatiently, “We’ve just got a new job for you.” That was largely what Dean was worried about; he had tasted the sligs’ cooking. “It’s nothing hard,” The vykker went on, “We’ve had a new mudokon sent here, a female, whose worth a lot to the managers of this laboratory. She’s rather sick and we need a mudokon to look after her until she gets better.”

Dean was vaguely surprised by this news and replied, “I don’t think I’m the best guy for a job like that.”

“Nonsense, you were picked out especially by your superiors. She’s just in here,” And he stood back, opened the door he was standing in front of and ushered Dean through, “I’ll just leave you two to get to know each other,” He said quickly as soon as he was in the room, and closed the door behind him.

It was a dark little room, sparsely furnished with just a bed, a tiny table and a sink. Two other doors led from the room. The mudokon girl was lying on her side on the bed, facing the wall with her feet towards him. She hadn’t shown any signs of recognising that he’d entered and he wondered if she was asleep. Her skin was oddly coloured, mostly pink with patches of purple and grey, and she looked very young. He reminded himself that mudokon females aged much slower than males since they had more chemistry going on preparing them to look after mudokon babies, and he guessed that she was three or four years old.

“Hi,” He said awkwardly, still not sure if she was awake, “I’m Dean.” He went and sat on the corner of her bed, and then thought that maybe this wasn’t wise since if she was asleep and she woke to find him sitting there she might get a bit upset. However, before he could move away she raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes travelled over him slowly, taking him in fully, and she pouted slightly before lying down again, looking away from him.

He raised an eyebrow, “So, er, what’s your name?” She gave no response and he began to wonder if her hearing was alright. The vykker had said she was sick after all. “Look, are you ok?” He asked, slightly louder. When this produced no effect he decided to resort to the thing he knew best, “Do you want something to eat?”

She made a sort of shuddering motion, curled up into a loose ball and, to Dean’s horror, began to cry.

“Hey, what’s up? What’s wrong?” He placed a hand on her shoulder and she shrugged violently, forcing him to withdraw. Her sobbing grew louder and he sat back, panicking slightly and wishing he knew what was going on so he could do something about it. As her crying grew louder into full-on bawling, he leant forwards and gently placed his hand between her shaking shoulder blades. She didn’t push him off so he rubbed her back softly and after a minute began whispering “It’s alright,” and “Don’t worry,” And similar phrases that tend to get whispered in situations such as this. After five or ten minutes her sobs softened to sniffs and he decided to risk speaking to her properly.

“How are you feeling?”

She raised her head slowly and looked at him again. “You’re a mudokon,” She stated softly.

Dean was a bit thrown off by this comment so he reacted in the best way that he could and tried to make a joke out of it. “Are you sure? Hang on, arms, legs, feather… By Odd; you’re right!”

She smiled weakly and he decided to try his first question once more, “What’s you’re name?”

“Anni,” She answered, her voice trembling.

“Well it’s nice to meet you,” He said, smiling gently. Make engaging conversation but not anything that’ll make her cry again, a little voice in his head told him, so he asked, “How old are you Anni?”

“Four,” She replied quietly.

He nodded interestedly, mentally congratulating his own guess-work. “Are you hungry?”

Her weak smile faded like a sunrise in reverse and she lowered her head again, but fortunately she didn’t start crying. In case she was thinking of it, Dean added quickly, “If you don’t want anything to eat, that’s fine. I mean if you do just ask; I work down in the kitchens, I mean usually, and I can get us food pretty much any time of the day.”

She stirred slightly but didn’t reply, so he took the opportunity to examine her more closely. She was very skinny, and it looked like she hadn’t eaten in a while. His immediate thought was that wherever she had been before they had starved her, but then he realised that since she hadn’t accepted food just then she’d probably starved herself. He was beginning to wonder just what the vykker had meant when he said she was ‘sick’. Now he was closer he also had a better look at her skin, though he wished it wasn’t so dark in the room. Now he looked it seemed like her skin was naturally purple, but had faded to pink and even to grey in places, and he wondered what had caused it. This girl seemed to be just bursting with mystery, he mused. Unconsciously he placed a finger on one of the purple patches of her skin and traced it out. She shied away suddenly.

“Sorry,” He told her quickly.

“I’m pretty tired,” She whispered and he stood up.

“Sure, fine,” He said and hurried to the door, opened it and slipped out of the room.

Outside he ran into the vykker who looked at him unpleasantly, “Well, how is she?” It demanded in its shrill voice.

Dean shrugged, “I don’t know, she seems pretty miserable, and it looks like she hasn’t eaten in months.”

“Did she speak to you?” The vykker snapped.

“Yeah, she told me her name and stuff, and then she said she was tired and wanted to sleep.”

The vykker looked rather unimpressed and informed him, “From now on your job is to look after her. You noticed the other doors in there? The one on the right leads to the room where you’ll sleep; the left one leads to her bathroom which you are not to use! You will use the main one with the other mudokons.”

“Hey, but I’m needed in the kitchen!”

“I’m sure there are other mudokons who can work in the kitchen,” It told him sniffily, “You will look after her, take her food if she wants it and be on hand if she needs anything. You will also tidy both your rooms and her bathroom. I suggest you go and get yourself settled in,” And having said that the vykker headed away from him down the corridor.

“Hey wait,” Yelled Dean, and fought for something to say for a moment, “Do I have to do that on my own all the time or can I get someone else to help me?”

The vykker sighed heavily, “If you really find that meagre task too much for yourself, you may pick one other mudokon to lend you a hand from time to time.”

Dean grumbled to himself and waited until the vykker was out of earshot before re-entering the room, “It’s just me,” He told Anni, unnecessarily for all the attention she paid. He decided to check out his room and opened the door the vykker had mentioned. His room was tiny, and contained just a bed and an old chair. He also glanced in on her bathroom, which contained a shower and a toilet, yet was still bigger than his bedroom. At the moment it was very clean.

He came out and glanced at her, but she hadn’t moved. “Listen,” He said, “I’m gonna be sleeping in the room just through this door over here, so if you need anything I’m right there.”

With nothing else to do he spent the next few hours in his room until hunger drove him out. He went into Anni’s room and sat on her bead again. “Hey, I’m gonna go and get some dinner. Did you want anything?” She waggled her head which he translated as ‘no’ and he left the room.

The official meal time was over and the employees’ cafeteria was now dark and empty. He headed to the kitchen, which was also empty, and grabbed a plate of leftovers. A few bites in he decided it was too bad to eat, and after resolving to give the sligs a few more lessons, he threw himself together a quick meal and went out into the dark cafeteria to eat it.
He was just finishing when the door opened and a gruff voice said, “Hey, Mud! What happened today? Dinner was terrible!”

“Hi Javi,” Dean muttered. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

Javi was a muscular mudokon and Dean’s best friend. “Shouldn’t you?” He laughed, grabbing a chair and sitting on it backwards. “Seriously though, what happened at dinner?”

“I wasn’t cooking it. Right as we were starting some slig came into the kitchen and told me they had a job for me,” And he told him about Anni and about having to move into a different room.

“Great, so you’re not going to be cooking from now on then?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on then, why aren’t you working?”

“There’s a storm coming on, and it’s too dark to see out there.” Javi worked out in the animal pens around the factory, since animals were to him what cooking was to Dean.

Dean stood up and carried his plate to the kitchen. “Come on up with me and I’ll introduce you to the kid,” He grunted, “She won’t listen to a word I say so maybe you’ll have more luck.”

Javi shrugged, “Can’t see the logic in that,” But after Dean made a sandwich to take up for Anni in the hopes that she would want something to eat, and they headed up the stairs together.

Anni was lying on her back when they arrived at the room, and a brief investigation revealed she really was asleep this time.

Dean showed Javi around the three rooms on tip-toe and they were just about to leave when Anni awoke. She tossed over violently and looked up, staring at the two of them.

“Anni,” Dean said quickly, “It’s me. You remember me don’t you? This is my friend, Javi.”

Anni looked at them and then went limp, flopping down onto the bed and turning away from them. “Javi works outside with the animals,” Dean told her.

She was silent for a few seconds before asking quietly without turning to face them, “Animals for the vykkers to kill?”

Dean looked stunned, but it was Javi who spoke softy, “Yes Anni; sligs capture the animals and bring them here for the vykkers.” Anni curled up tighter. Dean glared at his friend, but Javi went on. “I can’t stop them doing it Anni, so I do my best to make sure the animals are as happy and comfortable as they can be before the vykkers take them. I know they’ll have to die eventually, but I help them to live the best lives they can first. I think everyone should try to be happy, and try to make other people happy as well.”

Silence followed this speech, and a few minutes later Javi and Dean left the room. They talked for a while until the end of the work day and then Javi left for the bunks and Dean returned to Anni’s room.

She was once more lying on the bed with her face to the wall. The sandwich he had set on the table earlier sat untouched. He whispered a soft ‘goodnight’ and went into his room.
He didn’t see she was crying.

* * *

Dean woke slowly and it took him several seconds to realise he could hear screaming.

Moments later he burst through the door of his room to see Anni, writhing on the floor, shrieking.

“What’s wrong?” He cried, panicking.

“IT HURTS, IT HURTS!” She screamed, clutching her hands to her head. He threw himself onto the floor beside her and tried to grab hold of her. She started scratching at him viciously, leaving long red marks across his skin. He wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and pulled her up onto her knees. A moment later she lunged forward and sunk her teeth into his shoulder as she continued to scream. He gasped, his eyes watering. “Anni,” He wheezed.

She released him a few seconds later and he pulled her up to her feet, holding her against him as his blood ran down his arm. She was about a foot shorter than him. He staggered to the bed as she went on shrieking and thrashing, tore off a corner of her sheet and hobbled over to the sink where he wet the cloth and pressed it against her forehead. She screamed harder and wriggled from his grasp before falling to the floor again. He swooped down on her, holding her down with his body and her screaming fell to sobbing violently, like a very young child, from pain and sorrow and fear and loneliness, and he lay over her, protecting her, ‘shushing’ at first but later in silence, as her tears began to slow and she stopped writhing, but she trembled as if from terror or cold. It seemed like hours before her crying subsided, and then they lay on the floor in silence, stillness, him sharing her sorrow. The dim electric lighting in the room flickered on announcing the factory’s wake-up time, but still they lay unmoving. He found himself stroking her head, her back, calming her like a parent would.

It was some time before she stirred, focused slowly on the wound on his shoulder and gasped. “I’m sorry,” She said in a hushed voice.

“It’s alright,” He replied, easing himself up off of the floor. He had forgotten it was there, but now she had brought attention to it the pain came back. Dried blood covered his skin, but the wound had scabbed over by now. “What was wrong Anni?”

“Headache,” She whispered, “I’ve had them really bad since…”

He pulled her into a hug. “Are you ok now?”

She nodded against his chest and whispered, “I’d like something to eat.”

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