[Splat]

Right, change of plan; I've written one chapter since I said I wanted to write two, but I'm gonna post earlier anyway!
Firstly as a celebration of W@RF's seventh birthday; ok, I'm twelve days late, but I got the month right. You know, introduce W@RF to the story around the RPG's birthday.
Secondly, as celebration of Dripik's birthday. Ok, two days late for that one, but it's the thought that counts, right? He did create the RPG that created this story, and I am about to introduce two of his characters with this chapter. Happy birthday, dude.
Thirdly, cus T-Nex really wants me to, and she not only created Anni, but she was also the first person to get me into RPGing, and for that, this story belongs to her Everything that happens to Anni, Dean, Javi and a few other characters to appear over the next few chapters are based on events written by her.
And fourthly, cus I just want to. Plus I think when I was doing weekly updates right back at the start, I was doing them on Fridays, so this makes sense. I'm really trying to get weekly chapters for all of this section.

Since I'm now in RPG territory I'll try and attribute all characters to their respective players at the end of the chapter. If I forget, remind me to!

Also, I'm gonna recap the last paragraph of the previous chapter, because I made a joke there and you'll all going to miss it if I don't.

Ladies and gentlemen, come with me now, and let me tell you a story of Work at Rupture Farms...

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“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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Chapter 31

“Director Arzick, good to meet you,” Emlech said, nodding to the glukkon as he stepped down from the train.

“Welcome to Rupture Farms,” The glukkon replied, “And you can just call me Arnie, if you find it easier.”

“Good grief, you do run things casually,” Emlech muttered before he could stop himself; he had seen far too many tree-hugging glukkons for his own good in the last two weeks.

Arnie rolled his eyes, “I believe you had some business to discuss? We can go straight to my office-”

“Actually, I was hoping I could see around the factory first,” Emlech said smoothly. “I’d like to see how the place runs before we talk about my business.”

Arnie nodded, “We’ll walk along the production lines, if that’s what you want. My security chief will come with us.”

Emlech nodded and he and Arnie followed a middle-aged slig in a very modern-looking mask out of the station and onto a catwalk in the middle level of a tall room containing one incredibly huge three-story tall meat grinder. “There’s enough power in that to make dust of a ball-car,” Arnie said calmly, noticing the direction of his gaze.

Emlech recovered himself, “Looks like it could use a good cleaning,” He sniffed.

Two things began to stand out about Rupture Farms as they walked. The first was that there was a fair bit of machinery not in use, some not even installed. The second was that there seemed to be a very small staff working the place. He saw no more than ten mudokons, and slightly more sligs than seemed necessary to guard such a small work-force. But then he remembered where he was and thought he could hardly blame Arnie for taking security seriously.

They had taken a lift to the second floor of the factory and were watching a pair of mudokons working a machine that was busily packaging paramite pies when Emlech asked, “I heard from your file that you had some trouble a few years ago.”

Arnie looked disgruntled at the mention as the security slig (who went by the name of ‘Number Seven’) went over and spoke with the mudokons, checking up on their work.

“The factory had been open a year – this is the first place I’ve run as manager – and I was unfortunately focussing more on security from external threats than from the internal ones. A couple of muds got it into their heads to cause some trouble; they released a lot of livestock and they and a few others used the chaos as cover to escape. Two of my sligs were killed and I lost about half of my mudokons, as well as most of the paramites in the stockyards.”

Emlech nodded, watching the slig talk with the workers.

Arnie added irritably, “I paid the bill, and I won’t make the mistake again.”
“But I can’t help noticing that your slig over there is being rather unusually respectful to those mudokons.” The mudokons were at that stage returning to work while Number Seven looked on.

“Doctor Emlech, you may recall what happened when my predecessor in this factory decided to treat the mudokons without respect, and I can promise you that all the mudokons who have worked here have some idea of what happened, too. It reassures them to know that they can be treated fairly, and no matter how irritating it can be at times I’ve done my best to keep the mudokons assured that I’m not about to kill them for profit.”

Emlech was mildly surprised and mulled this over as they walked on.

Rupture Farms had been fitted with a small laboratory that doubled as an infirmary, though this was rarely used for anything other than first aid as there were no vykkers working there. This was on the middle floor, and they stopped there briefly on their way to the ground floor. As Emlech wished to continue the tour, Arnie led him into the warehouse.

There was a female worker-class mudokon moving crates in there and Emlech looked surprised, “I didn’t expect to see one of those,” He said.

“They’re cheap,” Arnie replied, “Female mudokons. They’re not as strong as the males but this one pulls her weight.”

“I noticed you seemed to…” Emlech was busy thinking of a delicate way to finish the sentence but Arnie saved him the trouble.

“As I told you earlier, this factory is my first business. I bought the site because it was cheap, and as you can probably guess, I had some difficulty finding investors to back the project. Repairing the factory to a useable level cost me most of the money I had; I have only one production line but apart from the main grinder, they’re all outfitted with two of everything, so that we can keep one off while the other runs. We circulate the products we make – scrab cakes, elum chubs and all the rest of the classics – every week. We make a steady profit but I can’t afford everything. I’ve hired some decent sligs – Number Seven for one, is very dependable, and then I have a slig mechanic called Nick. With proper training, sligs make great mechanics, but no one takes them seriously, so they’re quite cheap, too. Nick is probably more capable than the vykker I hired to oversee the factory’s repairs.

“After that I had to pay rather less for most of my slaves and my other sligs but most, like the girl, are dependable enough. I don’t want to invite trouble so I won’t hire just anyone cheap.”

Emlech decided to be blunt, “Have you had any trouble from natives?”

“I had some sligs investigate the native lands to the north as soon as I bought the place. They found nothing; three decrepit temples and not a mudokon in sight; they cleared out of there long ago.”

This talk had led them through the kitchen and into the cafeteria, where Arnie invited Emlech to take a seat and sat down opposite him. Number Seven ran back to the kitchen to get them food. “Most of what goes into the pies and cakes is offal, and since Rupture Farms never had a reputation for gourmet products, most of the good meat goes to the staff. Wasted on most of them,” He added, “I’ve met no sligs and barely a handful of muds who care about the difference between a good cut of meat and a scrab cake.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Emlech replied as Number Seven presented him with a scrab leg on a plate and gave another to Arnie, picking it up so the glukkon could bite at it.

“Anyway, you’ve seen most of what matters. When we talked over the fone you said something about lending me some employees. As you’ve probably realised, I won’t be able to give you much for any mudokons, so I don’t know if I’m really the glukkon you want.”

“Actually, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Emlech told him. “I don’t know how much you know about me, Arnie, but I’m well-known amongst most vykker circles. I’m not boasting when I say I am one of the richer vykkers left since the fall of Vykker’s Labs, though like everyone else in the world I took a fall when our little blue friend did his work there. I own a number of laboratories working on various projects and I employ a good number of sligs and mudokons. But as I say, I lost a lot of money with the destruction of the Labs, and now I’m facing the cost. I’m having to shut down one of my laboratories in the north. At the moment I think I can avoid selling it and I should be able to reopen it in five or ten years when the economy has recovered a little.

“The fact is that all of the sligs that worked there are now seeking employment with other managers, and so are a lot of the vykkers, but I want to preserve as many of the mudokon labourers as I can. I’ve put some of them in other places but a few of them won’t fit anywhere else…” He paused then, but he couldn’t help but think that Arnie had impressed him much more than the other places he’d visited, where the glukkons had mostly been oddballs, environmentalists and government-shutdowns waiting to happen. Arnie had given a good reason for his easy policy, and Emlech also liked the idea of Anni working with another female mudokon again. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision on an issue he had intended to spend a lot of thought on, but this just seemed right…

Emlech didn’t believe in any sort of higher power, but if he had been, he may have thought that this was fate. If he’d been able to see forward a few years, he might have stopped to consider who Fate worked for.

“I want to give you three of my mudokons to look after, for a few years. They’ll be in your care and the profits of their work will go to you, under the condition that when I want them back, you’ll give them to me.”

Arnie looked suspicious, “Free of charge?”

Emlech replied easily, “I don’t charge you anything, and you don’t charge me.”

“Three mudokons?” He asked, still suspicious.

“Three mudokons.”

“From one of your laboratories?”

Emlech smiled, “I can tell you’re no fool.”

Arnie looked at him nastily, “Very astute of you.”

Emlech nodded, “Alright, I confess. One of them is an experiment. She’s a female, a test of growth hormones, seeing if worker-class females can be brought to the same standards of usefulness as male labour,” (Well, that was sort of nearly true), “Genetically, they’re easier to produce artificially than males.” (That on the other hand was a downright lie, but he really doubted that Arnie would know that), “The experiment is in an early stage and we don’t expect to see any development in Anni – the mudokon – until she’s two to four years older.” (That was true.) “I know a lot of glukkons would be discouraged by the thought of taking in one of our experiments, but Anni isn’t dangerous. She does suffer from a lack of discipline I’m afraid to say, but I hope a serious factory environment will help with that. On the other hand the two other mudokons I’m sending with her are both very competent workers. One of them is a high-ranking mudokon from out stockyards, and the other is, I’m told, ‘the greatest chef on Mudos’. Certainly, my other employees have been in a better mood since he was moved into the kitchen, and he’s a competent worker on the factory floor, too.” He had done his homework on Anni’s two friends, as he knew he’d have to give them away with her. “You can think of those two as payment for your service looking after the girl – though I’ll want them back with her when I take her,” He added, not wanting the glukkon to get any funny ideas.

Arnie leant back in his chair and considered, “I’ll say you sell them well,” He said at length. “I’d like to take things on a trial basis, say two months; I’ll take them for that time and if they prove more of a hindrance than a help I can give them back to you. If, on the other hand, they prove themselves over those two months, then I’ll keep them as long as you want me to.”

Emlech grinned – a somewhat terrifying expression – “Deal. I’ll have my secretary handle the paperwork and fax you the contract tomorrow. Once everything’s signed, I’ll send them over to you.”

* * *

And so a week later, Javi, Dean and Anni left their laboratory (Anni spent a day saying goodbye to all of her friends and was grinning through her tears as they left; Dean was more serious-minded and was cooking dinner an hour before he left, leaving more than one sobbing slig chef in his wake. Javi on the other hand went off cackling wildly at all the misfortunate people who were losing Dean’s cooking skills forever) and boarded a train with a couple of slig guards on their way to their new lives.

Anni was full of excitement on the journey, completely unable to stay still for more than 10 seconds and chatting wildly to her friends and to the sligs on the train, who she left feeling somewhat stunned.

Evening was drawing in as they drew up outside Rupture Farms and were met by a pair of sligs – one of them a big-bro – on the station.

“Right,” Number Seven said to them upon their arrival, “We’ll discuss your work tomorrow morning. For now, I’ll take you to the cafeteria to get some dinner and then set someone to take you to where you’re sleeping. You three get a room to yourselves tonight, then after that you’ll be sleeping in the bunks with the others.”

They had a meal alone, which Javi said wasn’t bad and Dean said could have been worse, and then Bela, the big-bro, led them to a small room on the first floor set up with three camp-beds.

“When the alarm goes tomorrow morning you go down to the cafeteria and look for Seven or me,” He grunted and left them.

It took them a while to calm Anni down enough to go to bed, and even with them all lying down she was still full of questions, “Do you think we’ll meet a glukkon tomorrow?”

“There’s nothing exciting about glukkons, Anni,” Javi said wearily.

Dean added, knowing she wouldn’t shut up about it otherwise, “I dunno; we might see them around. Now go to sleep.”

About five minutes she started, “What about-”

Dean groaned and Javi moaned, “Go to sleep!”

Anni fell silent, though for a long time she was tossing and turning in bed, unable to settle.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the factory, trouble was brewing.

A female mudokon, Seventeen or eighteen years old, was cleaning an oily mess off of the floor and grumbling to herself, “Not my mess, let the sligs clean it… I’m supposed to be in bed…”

She looked up at a bang and a huge big-bro slig stumbled into the corridor, smelling of alcohol. “Bela?” She said nervously, rising to her feet.

Before the slig had gathered himself another big-bro ran in and shouted, “You think you’re clever?” The smell of alcohol tripled and she scrambled for cover behind a crate someone had left there when work ended.

“Hey!” Bela yelled at the other slig, “You want to put someone’s job in danger, do it to your own! You’re not getting me fired for your mistakes, gtrz!”

“What did you call me?!”

“You heard!”

Almost quicker than the mudokon could follow (which was impressive for a slig so drunk) the second big-bro grabbed his gun from where it was slung at his belt and struck Bela with it, hard. Bela stumbled down the corridor towards the girl, cursing loudly. He pulled out his own gun and the mudokon squeaked, closing her eyes and pressing her face against the crate. She heard a rattle of gunfire and a SLAM! She looked up. The second slig had Bela pinned to a wall.

“You trying to kill me now, slurg?!” He yelled into Bela’s face, “You trying to kill me? You know how that makes me feel?”

Bela tried to answer but all he could do was wheeze – the other slig had his hands around his throat and he couldn’t breathe.

“Expert, get offa him!” Another voice yelled. The mudokon peeked out from around her crate and saw the owner of the voice – a weedy little slig called Reg. Her face twisted with hatred.

“What you gonna do, Slurg?” Expert slurred, his hands still around Bela’s neck, who was gasping like a fish out of water, “You gonna snitch on me? You think you’re a big slig?”

“Expert, you’re gonna kill him!” Reg yelled from his safe place at the far end of the corridor. The two big-bros were so close to the mudokon that she could have counted their scars. If they looked in her direction they’d see her and she had no idea what Expert to do to her when he was that drunk.

“‘Bout grhzzing time someone did!”

Bela’s tentacles were turning grey and the mudokon cowered behind her crate and looked away, but there was a scuffle and a grunt, then a clatter, and she looked up to see Reg had grabbed Expert’s arm and was trying ineffectively to pull him away. Expert dropped Bela, who collapsed in the cradle of his pants, wheezing, but before he could recover Expert punched him on the side of the head, throwing him to the floor, where he lay very still. “You wanna die instead?” Expert roared, throwing Reg to the floor and the mudokon smiled spitefully; now the little slurg would get what he deserved!

Reg was lying on his back, the feet of his pants scuttling on the floor as he tried to shuffle away from the drunk, angry big-bro.

“Don’t be an idiot!” He yelled.

“This is fine with me,” Expert yelled, “I’m sick of you both!”

“Get the grhzz away from me!”

Expert picked up Reg’s gun from the floor, his own lying at the other end of the corridor where he had dropped it before tackling Bela. It looked tiny in his hands as he pointed it at Reg. “Last words?” He growled and though he was so drunk, his hands were frighteningly steady.

The mudokon watched on and suddenly the smile slid off of her face. As much as she hated Reg, when she realised that she was about to see him get killed…

Her legs trembling and cramped, she staggered out from behind her crate and shouted, “Don’t hurt him, Expert.” Her voice sounded squeaky and silly after the loud, low grumbles of the sligs.

Expert looked over his shoulder, saw her and disregarded her, turning back to Reg. “Tell Odd I said he’s a brzstrk,” He grunted.

As his finger fumbled for a trigger far too small for it, the mudokon stumbled in between them. “Leave him alone!” She shrieked, her knees trembling, shaking from head to toe.

The big-bro stared at her with his eyes blazing as his marinated brain dredged for the information of what was before him, “Get out of the way, Kuh… Kix.”

“No! Leave him alone!” She was so terrified that she could feel her pulse painfully in her neck and her chest. Her eyes were watering from the alcohol on his breath.

“I’m gonna kill him!”

“Then you’ll kill me too!” She squeaked.

He glared at her furiously for several seconds, and then huffed as if this was no more than a joke or a prank and stormed away, dropping Reg’s gun and scooping up his own as he passed.

Kix’s legs were trembling so much that she could hardly stand. She turned around slowly to face Reg, who was staring at her in shock. Taking in his face, her expression warped into one of hatred. She opened her mouth to say something cruel, but was stopped by a load groan. Bela was stirring.

“Get out of here, bitch.” Reg hissed.

She stood there, frozen, breathing hard, barely able to comprehend what she’d just done.

“I SAID GET THE CHKUHR OUT OF HERE!” Reg roared and she ran.

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Finally, the first bit of action since Stivik quelled that riot! There's been way too much mushy stuff with all this Stivik and Dionysia stuff!

Righty-ho,
Arnie and Seven belong to Dripik.
Anni, Dean, Javi and Kix were originally created by T-nex.
Expert was created by Cyber-Slig.
Bela was created by Will the Wander (or sg...). will Dripik or Nexy get that joke I wonder?
Reg was created by Feeco executive.

All events in this chapter are based on the writings of these guys.

W@RFers, please remember not to post any spoilers for the RPG Some pretty exciting stuff happens in the RPG, so be careful of what you might give away! I'm going to post the W@RF map with the next chapter for those who care

(I was re-reading the first chapter this morning and deleted about six commas.)

LOOK INTO MY EYES! LOOK DEEP INTO MY EYES! WHEN I CLICK MY FINGERS YOU WILL GO AND REPLY TO THIS CHAPTER!!!