Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have just finished taking notes up to the end of Part 6 (Sadist's Choice), somewhere round the middle of W@RF 5, and let me tell ya some pretty intense stuff will soon be coming your way!
Firstly I'd like to say thank you to everyone who'se posted here over the last few months. It's a great encouragement to find out you guys are still behind me even after this really slow year.
But as I say, I am now ready to start writing again (at least for a while
) and so I will not make you wait any longer!
Anni's back!
RUPTURE FARMS PRESENTS
DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS
SCRAB CAKES!
MMM-MMM!
THEY’LL COST YA AN ARM AND A LEG!
______________________
Part 6
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Sadist’s Choice
Chapter 30
“Get off of me!” Shrieked a high-pitched voice, and there was an enormous crash from inside the lab.
Standing outside the door on either side of it, the two sligs glanced at each other and tried to keep straight faces. A moment later, the door crashed open and a small, pink figure came rushing out in a blur and disappeared up the corridor.
“Seven minutes and 12 seconds,” Said the first slig, sounding slightly impressed.
“That’s a new record,” Added the second.
The door burst open again and a very disgruntled-looking vykker almost fell through. “Where did she go?”
“Uh, that way,” Said the first slig, pointing up the corridor.
The vykker glared at them, realising how he’d just been humiliated by the tiny mudokon and barked, “Well, get after her, slurgs!”
They said their ‘yes sirs’ and ran off in the vague direction that the pink blur had taken.
* * *
Dean was sliding a huge metal tray into an oven when an enormous crash made him jump, and he burnt his elbow on the oven door and suppressed a curse. He turned quickly to see a shame-faced slig frantically trying to scoop a pile of bloody scrab steaks off of the floor and onto a table.
He wrestled with himself not to start yelling and instead called to one of the other mudokons, “Andy, bring that bin over here.”
“It’s still ok!” The slig barked, ill-temperedly, though gave up trying to pick it up.
“It’s touched the floor. We don’t eat what touches the floor,” Dean said bluntly. “Clay, fill a mop bucket and get this cleaned up.”
“Yes, boss,” Barked the slig who had been head-chef before Dean arrived.
“It’s fine! No one will know!”
A deathly silence fell in the kitchen.
All eyes were on the slig and Dean, who both stood very still, staring at each other. The slig suddenly realised that everyone else in the kitchen was siding with the mud, and wondered if he should start running. There were, after all, a lot of sharp objects in the kitchen, and Dean was somewhat closer to the knife drawer.
“Um.”
“We would know,” Dean said pointedly.
“Um.”
“Clay, Andy, clean this up.” The tension lessened, “Craig, go see if we have any more scrab-meat in the store room.”
“There’s none, Dean,” The other mudokon told him. “There’s that meep for tomorrow, and-”
Dean sighed, “There’s that huge barrel of Rupture Farms scrabcakes. Bring those in; we’ll take the pastry off and fry them down.”
The kitchen began to bustle again, and the offending slig backed away slowly, mostly ignored by everyone else except when he got in their way. With nothing to do except stand and feel awkward, he lingered for a few minutes until the door opened and a small, pink mud female wandered in.
This particular slig hadn’t worked at Emlech’s lab for very long, and grinning maliciously, he grabbed the dirty knife he had been using on the scrab meat and approached the child.
“Oi, Mud, you’re not allowed in here.”
She looked at him (spared half a glance for his bloody knife) and rolled her eyes, “I’ve come to talk to Dean. He’s my friend,” She said, sounding unintentionally patronising.
The slig growled and raised the knife, “Don’t you talk to me like that-”
“Anni! What are you doing here?”
The slig was suddenly shoved violently aside by Dean, and the knife fell from his hand and clattered to the ground.
“Put that with the washing up, will you?” Dean said exasperatedly, “And then go and help Craig with those scrabcakes. Dinner’s in two hours. Anni, you’re supposed to be with the vykkers, still.”
Anni’s smile dropped as the slig stalked off, grumbling.
“Anni, they’re trying to help you,” He said, trying not to sound impatient.
Anni gritted her teeth, “They’re horrible. They just like hurting people.”
“They want to help you.”
“I don’t want their help,” She muttered.
Dean sighed at the ceiling in annoyance. “What about the headaches, Anni?”
“There were more when you let them do tests on me!” She said accusatorily, “I’ve not had a bad one for ages now! I’m fine as long as I stay away from them!”
That, annoyingly, was true. He doubted that the vykkers’ tests had been causing the crippling headaches that sometimes woke her screaming in the night, but there had been fewer recently and nowhere near as painful of those of the first few months when she had come under his care, just over a year ago now.
He squatted down so his face was level with hers, “Anni, you promised me this time you’d let them do the tests. After last time you came out, you said you’d let them do the tests the next time if I didn’t send you back then.”
Anni fixed her eyes very firmly on his feet and said nothing, though silently knowing he wouldn’t send her back.
“Next time, Anni,” He said firmly, “I’m going to wait outside the lab and make sure you let them check up on you properly.”
She didn’t raise her eyes, but her posture straightened up, knowing she’d gotten away with it again.
“Go and help Craig get the pastry off of those scrab cakes.”
She nodded, grinning at the floor.
“And wash your hands first,” He added, straightening up.
It wasn’t the best dinner ever, but they managed to mask most of the chemical taste of the processed scrab meat, and Dean’s kitchen had produced worse (mainly when he wasn’t around).
While mudokons ate and sligs watched from catwalks around the cafeteria, the vykkers ate their own dinner in a room a floor above. Doctor Emlech, owner and administrator of the lab, was tucking into his main course when the door banged open and an irate vykker stormed in.
“Can I help?” He asked politely, looking up from his dinner.
“
That girl!” Hissed the vykker.
“Ah.”
“I will not be humiliated like that! She treats this place like a slig in a barracks!” (This vykker had a very media-influenced opinion of what went on in slig barracks) “She has no respect for rules, no boundaries, completely lacking discipline, no sense of her position…”
Emlech let his ears switch off until the shouting stopped. The twelve other vykkers in the room (there were others in the factory, but for a vykker there were many things more important than such piffling needs as food, sleep and personal hygiene) fixed their eyes on Emlech, eager to hear how he would deal with this little obstacle.
“What would you suggest I do?” He asked quietly.
The vykker gave a very graphic, very rude and most likely very painful answer.
Emlech considered this for several seconds before passing verdict, “Interesting suggestion. I suppose it might deal with the problem, but only because it would likely kill – or at the very least, cripple – her, and that seems a little unnecessarily harsh.”
“What’s the point in keeping her? She’s just another female mud!” The vykker looked around the room for support, and while most of the other vykkers did agree with this statement, none were likely to say it in front of their boss.
Emlech, however, seemed to sense the mood, “I shall put it like this,” He said. “In terms of investment, and potential outcome, losing the girl would cost me rather more that losing any of the vykkers in this room. I hope that that is all you need to know; now if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish my dinner.”
He returned his attention to his plate of food. The vykker stared at him apoplectically for ten seconds before storming dramatically out of the room.
After dessert had been cleared away, Emlech left the executive dining room, made a brief fone call in his office and headed for the lift, nodding to the intern who operated its controls, who obediently set it to take him to the unofficial laboratory hidden underground. A short while later he was sat in his lower office, a bottle of pills and half a glass of water on his desk. He was leant back in his chair, waiting, until another vykker walked in, nodded to him and sat in the chair opposite him.
“What’s concerning you?” The second vykker asked.
Emlech smiled like a man who has just sat down for a chess game with a skilled friend and knows he is in for a challenging, but fruitful, game. “I have dissenters among the ranks; Anni is still refusing to be treated, even after all this time, and the vykkers who do not know what she is are growing impatient. Obviously, I cannot tell them the truth about her, but I think a few of them are approaching the upper limits of their endurance.”
“And I suppose you want to resolve everyone’s tempers without any more bloodshed than is necessary?” The other vykker concluded.
Emlech nodded, “I have a lot of people to keep happy; I don’t want to have to terminate any more employments if it can be avoided.”
“You value your staff,” The vykker said approvingly.
“I value
everything.” Emlech replied sharply.
The other vykker nodded and leant back in his chair, looking thoughtful. After some time, he asked, “What effect do you think this is all having on Anni?”
Emlech looked sour, “Her reaction towards the vykkers hasn’t improved at all. You suggested that moving her up to the upper lab would-”
“Would save her life,” The other vykker said easily, and Emlech scowled, “Which it has.” After a pause and a glance at Emlech’s expression he added, “A lot of damage was done to her by those vykkers who took her last year. In some ways she has healed but in others she is as bad as ever. She has gotten over her depression by moving into a more caring environment; she wanted the care that she had with her sister. What does she want now, Emlech?”
Emlech brushed off the question, “What does any mudokon want?” He shrugged, “Food, warmth, a sense of security…”
The other gave him a pointed look, “You make a mistake when you think of her as any other mudokon, Emlech. You know she is different.”
“Then what should I give her?”
“She is still angry at what happened.”
“She doesn’t remember what happened! She is convinced that the experiment was intended to save Nova!”
“Then she is bitter that it failed! It makes no difference; she harbours a grudge and as long as she is surrounded by vykkers every day, it’s impossible for her to forget it.”
Emlech paused, and then spoke slowly, choosing his words with caution, afraid of what he might be talked into, “You’re suggesting that she needs time to forget?” The other vykker nodded, “Time away from vykkers?”
There was a knock on the door suddenly. Emlech swiftly picked the bottle of pills off of his desk and dropped them into a drawer, “Come in.”
A slig entered, “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but…” He trailed off, looking puzzled, his eyes settling uncertainly on the telephone.
“Can I help?” Emlech said sternly after a moment.
The slig looked up quickly, “Um, yeah, yes sir,” He stuttered, staring through the other vykker to look at Emlech, “Got a call from the upper lab; they said I was to notify you that experiment 07…” He glanced at a scrawled message on his arm, “071 is at the…” He squinted at the writing on his arm for several seconds before giving up, “At the stage you wanted notifying about, sir.”
Emlech nodded, “Inform them that I will be up shortly.”
“Yessir,” The slig replied and left the office, after a last curious glance around the room.
Emlech refocused on his visitor, “Where were we?”
“We had just concluded that Anni needs to be separated from vykkers for a while,” He replied quickly.
“And how do you propose we do that? Confine her to her room?”
The vykker smiled at him knowingly, “You can think of a better way.”
“Out of the question; I’m not sending her out of the factory.”
The vykker nodded, “It wouldn’t have to be alone. She has friends to go with her, those two muds the sligs label her with. Obviously, you would need to pick a destination for her carefully, one where she will be properly treated.”
“I’m not going to put her in danger.”
“She may be dying, Emlech, and there is nothing you can do about it because she won’t let your vykkers near her.”
“What will prevent a glukkon from allowing his sligs to beat her?”
The other smiled, “A friendly donation, and of course there are some glukkons out there with rather… modern approaches to discipline.”
“Yes, where all the employees are allowed to run free and do as they wish!”
The other vykker raised an eyebrow, “Don’t tell me that you haven’t considered experimenting with such an approach at one of your other laboratories, Emlech. It could be worth a try, and it won’t hurt you to at least look as some of these places.”
Emlech leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could feel a headache building, which meant the pills were wearing off (half an hour sooner than the bottle has promised, too). “I will consider it,” He said bluntly.
A few minutes later, when the headache had faded, he opened his eyes on his empty office.
He glanced into the drawer that was still slightly open, at the bottle of pills inside. He closed it and locked it.
Still, he was tempted to check. He went to the door and opened it. The slig who had been lounging outside straightened up at once, “Has anyone else come through this door?” Emlech asked sniffily, as if to accuse the slig of inattentiveness.
“Nossir!” The slig replied smartly, “No one since I came in with that message half an hour ago!”
Emlech nodded, “I’m going to the upper lab. Tell the computer technicians that I want to access public records for all of the factories within, oh, two hundred miles of here. I want the information available to me this evening.”
“Yessir,” Snapped the slig and gave a totally unnecessary salute before running off. Emlech paused and glanced back into the office, and then nodded to himself and left, locking the door behind him.
* * *
It was 3am that night and Emlech was sat at his desk, a list of seven factories scribbled on top of a pad of paper in front of his computer. All employed few or no vykkers, were lenient on physical punishment on slaves and a few of them even had good references from previous employees.
He was running his pen up and down the list, scribbling in the margins, trying to decide which were best, and what he really wanted for Anni, what was too much and what was too little.
“They have to have
some vykkers,” He murmured and crossed off a couple from the list, but left one of those with no vykkers, because their profile gave positive testimonies from a number of sligs who had worked there previously; “Despite some trouble in their first year of re-opening, I got a lot from this job,” One had read, “Even though this factory put restrictions on how we punish muds, I did enjoy working here, and somehow the place kept working!” Said another.
He reflected, bluntly, that of all of those factories on the list, this one had to be his most controversial choice. Past reputation aside, it was still in a site designated as a terrorism hot-spot.
The terrorism hot-spot, even! He sniggered, leaning back in his chair and stretching. What sort of crazy glukkon would even think of reopening Rupture Farms?
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Sorry. That's what you get when I work in a commercial kitchen for a year. Don't mess with the Dean!
I had a lot of trouble with this chapter, mainly with the issue of Emlech and his 'visitor'. Originally he was just going to talk to another vykker, but I thought that no person (especially no vykker) is that perfect, and certainly Emlech wouldn't let anyone into his trust so much - Emlech is a very lonely vykker, but he likes it that way, and the conversation makes him less than the other vykker, and he always has to be on top, cus he has to be in control. Emlech is essentially a massive control freak. So I had this idea of him taking drugs which allow him to hallucinate a person he can share ideas with, though at first I decided that Emlech wouldn't do that, as he's far too much of a control freak to take the drugs. But in the end I decided it worked a lot better that way than having him talk to a real person.
I also struggled to work out why he'd pick Rupture Farms as a place to send Anni. But you know, at least he's giving it a chance, right?
And finally, I absolutely loved the vykker's, "Graphic, rude and most likely very painful suggestion", and Emlech's thoughtful consideration of it, and the slig who can't read his own arm-writing
I'd forgotten about them, I wrote this so long ago, and it was a nice little surprise when I found them.
Can I say that about stuff I wrote?