[Splat]

Nooo, don't die, Gretin! I need you to read my stories! And be nice to everybody!
I won't be leaving W@RF. I did, for example, introduce Grace so that when I do bring on the action, I won't be left with next to no characters.

I'm glad you like the way I'm doing Stivik, Sci. I just like the little hints dropped now and then that he's picking up dangerous information. But he does become pretty significant before long!

Anyway, on with the show! This chapter dramatises one of the RPG's most famous scenes. I'm afraid it changed rather a lot in translation... (sorry, everyone who was looking forward to this as it was! But at least there are no fuzzles throwing video tapes around anymore!)

Chapter 39

The five mudokons were in the main lifts, Javi pulling the rope to raise them towards the top floor. Kix stood the opposite side of him to Anni and was using the noise of the lift to whisper at him angrily, “I can’t believe you’re letting her go through with this. She’s just going to get upset.”

Javi checked that Anni wouldn’t hear him (she was looking slightly sick with nervousness and seemed hardly aware of anything around her), “She’s old enough to make her own choice.”

“She’s just a little girl! You’re supposed to be responsible for her!”

“It’s her decision, Kix.”

“You don’t really think the glukkon will side with her?”

Javi didn’t answer, and to be perfectly truthful, he was sure the glukkon wouldn’t side with Anni. Before his lack of reply could become suspicious however, the lift arrived at the top floor, Dean woke Anni out of her daydream with a tap on the shoulder and they all piled out.

Arnie had chosen to hold the meeting in the smallest of the factory’s conference rooms. Nick was already waiting outside when they arrived and Groll was with him. He nodded to Dean as they approached, ignoring Anni. Both sligs looked edgy and were smoking. Kix tried to remember if she’d ever seen Nick smoking before.

Before anyone could think of something suitable to say to break the unpleasant silence that fell between the sligs and mudokons, the door to the conference room slid mechanically open and the two parties were drawn in.

Though not a big room, it was none-the-less designed to be an imposing one. All good glukkon conference rooms naturally were. Though not circular, the walls curved round making a sort of round-cornered triangle. There was a raised podium at the far corner where Arnie was standing with his junior executive, Otto, and Seven. There were other, small podiums in the other corners which, of course being designed for glukkons, were rather austerely furnished, and to the nervous mudokon girl looked horribly exposed. The room was plainly decorated; the metal walls were exposed and, though brightly lit, it was lit in such a way that seemed to make it harder to see clearly.

The first thing Arnie said was, “I don’t think we need all of these mudokons.”

Dean instantly grabbed Math’s wrist, “We’ll wait outside,” He said softly to Anni and the two of them slipped back. Javi stood tall and firm on her left, between her and Nick. Kix was just behind her. Arnie, though evidently still not entirely satisfied, nodded, gesturing her and her friends to the podium on one side of the room, and Nick and Groll to the other. He nodded again to Seven, who pulled an unobtrusive lever on Arnie’s podium and the floor of the room sank two or three metres, leaving them all marooned on their platforms. Javi uncomfortably wondered what prompted this, unaware that it was a fairly standard architectural feature. He and Kix stood close behind Anni, who was boldly standing at the middle, highest point of their podium. Nick was opposite her, cringing slightly, Groll leaning back on the wall behind him.

“The aim of this,” Arnie began, “Is to work out exactly what has been going on here over the last few weeks. What I understand happened three days ago is that Anni borrowed Nick’s keys from the security office without asking, but under Expert’s orders, to shut down the malfunctioning grinders. Nick returned to the office before she did, found them gone and rightly alerted security of what he took to be a theft. Then Anni returned with the keys and Nick… reacted with an action which might have been justifiable – I say might – if Anni had indeed stolen the keys with bad intent.”

He stopped and there was a long silence. Anni felt a sort of sinking in her stomach. She hadn’t realised how things had looked to Nick before.

Arnie looked up at the ceiling and spoke again, “Nick, you’ve worked for me for nearly three years now, and the impression I’ve been given of you is not that you are quick to take the law into your own hands. I’m wondering just what provoked this.”

Nick looked startled, suddenly realising he was expected to explain and fixed his eyes very firmly on the wall a foot to the left of Arnie’s head, “It’s been a few things, sir,” He muttered, then coughed and went on, “Just since I’ve gotten back from my… my break, I’ve noticed Anni hasn’t really been working hard, playing around and stuff. Then she wasted a whole morning painting the cafeteria wall and had to spend the next week clearing up the mess she made. And she…” Odd, it all suddenly sounded so petty. What had she done, spoken to him at the station? “She…” Painted more flowers? “She was told not to waste any more time, and she went back and painted more of the cafeteria, and-”

“I didn’t!” Yelled Anni angrily, red-faced.

Nick jumped and glared at her. Before anyone could silence her, she shouted, “Kix and Math painted the rest of the flowers, not me! I wasn’t going to! He told me not to!”

“What?” Nick spluttered.

“It’s true,” Kix said meekly, just about raising her eyes enough to talk to Arnie’s elbows, “Me and Math finished them. We wanted to do it as a present for her.”

There was a long pause which Nick broke, “But then she jumped on me! I went to talk to her and she attacked me!”

Anni snorted, “I did not attack you!”

“You leapt on me and tried to-”

The other glukkon, Otto suddenly cut in, speaking over him, “Are you saying you were attacked by a little girl mudokon?”

Behind Nick, Groll let out a snigger. Nick spun round and glared at him.

“And Nick threatened to kill me!” Anni put in suddenly.

“I did not!”

She nodded stoically and addressed the boss, “He dragged me out into the stockyards and said he was going to feed me to the scrabs! And I told him he couldn’t kill a mudokon and he said he didn’t care! Then Javi saw us and stopped him.”

“I was just kidding! I just wanted to teach her a lesson! I wasn’t even hurting her; I was only going to scare her!”

“And you did a good job of that!” Javi interjected.

Nick rolled his eyes and muttered, “Not that good.”

“And what happened three days ago?” Arnie cut in, addressing Anni.

Anni looked annoyed at how little sympathy her near-death-experience had garnered but answered, “Expert sent me to get a key from the office, or get Nick. He wasn’t there when I arrived but I saw the key he’d described on a desk and took it. I didn’t have time to get it apart from all the others.”

“Well you should have brought it back, afterwards, not leaving me to worry!”

“Expert told me to stay where I was! I brought them back when I got your message! I could have gone to him, or hidden them or something! But I did what you’d said! That’s all I was doing!”

“What exactly happened when you saw her with the keys?” Arnie asked Nick firmly, but Anni interrupted.

“Kix was there!”

Arnie gave a sort of ‘whatever you say’ shrug and turned to Kix. She looked uncomfortable and now looking at Arnie’s boots answered, “It… It was scary. I mean, he really wouldn’t listen to us…” She took a deep breath and looked straight at Nick, “I’m sorry, but I really thought you were going to kill her. I was panicking and maybe I was wrong, but… If Expert hadn’t come, I don’t know how far you would have gone.” She fell silent and then added apologetically, “But, I mean, I’ve never seen him lose his temper like that before. Even when Reg was here and hitting us all when no one important was around, Nick wouldn’t join in, when some of the other sligs would.”

She spent the next minute meeting as few eyes as possible.

Arnie was silent for a while, “I think it’s fair to say,” He eventually began, “That it isn’t in Nick’s character to act in the way he did. While this doesn’t absolve him of what he’s done, it does mean we have to address why it happened, which seems to be Anni’s particular attitude to work.” He turned to Anni, “I don’t know what things were like for you in that place you and your friends came from, but here I expect you to work, as hard and as long as anyone else. Obviously, you seem prone to getting distracted, so it may do well to assign someone the role of keeping your attention on your work…” He looked around at Groll, “You seem to like following people around where you’re not invited; maybe you’d like to follow Anni.”

Groll jerked to attention, “Uh, sir, but, um, with respect, uh, I mean, I’m not really used to this mudokon thing, nice to mudokons, not yet, and I’m still sort of used to… So I don’t know if my… If I would be suitable-”

After letting him stew for a full 20 seconds, Arnie gave him a nasty look, “Perhaps not, then. You two,” He turned his attention to Kix and Javi, “Perhaps you’d be more suitable for the job of keeping your friend focussed.”

“I don’t mind having her help me in the stockyards; she’s useful to have around out there,” Javi said. Kix nodded.

“Good,” Arnie snapped and nodded to Seven, who reached for the lever to raise the floor. “Then you two are assigned to making sure Anni keeps working. Seven will work out something official for tomorrow. You can all go.” Anni balled her fists and glared at the glukkon, but Kix gave her a firm push and led her out of the room.

Looking relieved, Nick hopped down off of his podium. “Oh, except you, Nick,” Arnie added, “You can meet me in my office in five minutes. We still need to discuss this little incident, you and I.”

* * *

Dean and Math spun around as the door opened. “Anni!” Dean declared, “How did it go?”

“He didn’t care about Nick at all,” She said angrily, “He just told me I had to work with Kix and Javi, to make sure I keep working!” She gave a horrible laugh and ran off.

Dean looked questioningly at Javi, but before he could speak the four mudokons slid back respectfully as Arnie, Otto, Seven, Nick and Groll also emerged.

“Get us a bite to eat, Dean?” Seven muttered wearily as the door closed, “Cafeteria in ten minutes. You lot can have something afterwards, too.”

Dean nodded and turned to the others, “What happened?”

* * *

Nick was scuffing his heels on Arnie’s not-very-expensive rug while Arnie settled himself slowly behind his desk.

“You’re not a natural trouble-maker, Nick,” Arnie said mildly.

“No sir,” He replied uneasily.

Arnie sighed, “Why do you think you’re here?”

Nick looked puzzled, “Um, because I hit a mudokon?”

“Because you broke one of my rules,” Arnie corrected. “It doesn’t matter if the rule was ‘don’t hit mudokons’ or ‘don’t drink when you’re on night shift’. We have rules; it’s your job to keep them.”

“Yes sir.”

“I have a factory to run. It’s not a big one, but none-the-less it only works if all of the pieces are doing their jobs properly. How do you think I should treat someone guilty of sabotage?”

Nick didn’t answer, but seemed to be renewing his familiarity with his feet.

Arnie growled, “You’re a hard working slig. There aren’t many about in the world, especially for someone in my position. But I still have expectations of you.”

Feeling he ought to say something, he settled for mumbling, “Sir.”

Arnie nodded, “Take this as a warning. I don’t want to see you breaking rules again. And if you can’t cope with Anni, then stay away from her.”
“Yes sir.”

Arnie rolled his eyes, “And you can get your own meals tomorrow. From a vending machine. Alright, you can go.”

Nick was gone from the office faster than a fleech from a scrab-nest.

* * *

“Anni?” Kix was standing in the doorway of the bunks. She spotted Anni’s shape in the gloom, lying on her bed, and approached. “Anni?” Other than the girl, the room was empty. As far as she was aware, all the other mudokons were down in the cafeteria going over the trial. She was more popular that evening than she had been for weeks.

“What?”

Kix chewed her upper lip, “Dean’s making some food. He thought you might want to come down and have something.”

“Not hungry.”

Kix looked upset, “Anni, I’m sorry about what’s happened.”

“It’s alright. I’m tired.”

Kix hesitated, but nodded, “If you want anything, you can come down.”

Anni lay in bed as her friend left. She had a horrible head-ache, like she hadn’t had in years.

* * *

“So Arnie’s like, ‘Just make sure she keeps working and that’s fine’! I mean, who’s he kidding?”

“You’re joking?”

Groll, Razor and the new slig, Stivik, were noisily discussing the results of the trial at the other end of the cafeteria. Ignoring them, Kix sat down with Javi and Math at the counter, “She says she’s not hungry.”

“You should have told her to come down,” Javi said.

“Well I don’t want to push her around, not when she’s this upset. Odd, she’s going to get enough attention after this, isn’t she?”

The other mudokons had been told very firmly by Javi to leave them alone, but the trial was a hot topic, and people would want to hear the story not warped by the sligs.

“I’ll go up and check on her later,” Math offered.

“Dean or I might. We’re both well used to trying to guess her moods.”

“I dunno, it’s just… I didn’t expect her to take all this so hard,” Kix muttered.

Dean, coming over from the depths of the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches said soothingly, “It’s alright; she’ll probably be over it in a few days, if Nick leaves her alone.”

“I’m not sure; she’ll be even more upset when Expert goes next week.”

“Just keep an eye on her,” Javi said.

“That won’t be hard now.”

“Kix…” He said firmly, “Watch out if she’s acting odd. And let me or Dean know, really! I don’t want her doing anything stupid.”

Kix nodded. “I’ll tell you.”

* * *

In her bed in the bunks, Anni groaned, clutching her hands to the sides of her head, “You’re hurting,” She muttered. Tossing and turning, she murmured to herself, “It hurts, go away…”

‘You knew he wouldn’t do anything; you knew the slig would get away with it.’

She groaned, hating the world. ‘Arnie won’t do anything. Nothing you do matters. You’re nothing to them.’

“It hurts…”

‘You shouldn’t be here.’

“Go away…” She muttered again and stopped tossing. The pain eased a little and a while later she was able to fall asleep.

* * *

Work recommenced at Rupture Farms the following day, four days since the grinders had broken down, and Nick was promising to have them running again by the end of the next week – the same time Expert and Bela were leaving – assuming the parts he had had to order arrived when they were supposed to.

To Kix’s consternation, Anni’s mood didn’t recover quickly. Now that Anni had to be working inside with her or outside with Javi all of the time, they were able to keep better track of her. “You haven’t visited Somi for ages,” Kix said the next week, two days before Bela and Expert were due to leave. The air of melancholy was pervading the factory; Kix would miss the big-bro, too. He wasn’t exactly a friend, but he was something she could trust, and it hurt her to lose him.

Anni shrugged, “I haven’t seen her for a while. I’ve been going down and there’s no sign of her.”

Kix was surprised by this news, “Well, I’m sure she’s down there somewhere. You should go and look for her this evening.” Kix didn’t exactly approve of the paramite, but she wanted to see Anni happier again.

Anni shrugged and didn’t answer. Several minutes passed before she spoke again, “Have you ever thought about… what’s out there, Kix?”

“What do you mean, ‘out there’?”

“Outside the factory. It must be so big out there, so much to see.”

“Anni, don’t think about it. Really,” Kix murmured.

“But don’t you want to see any of it? I would love to!”

“Anni,” Kix said sternly, “Don’t talk like that; you’re going to get in trouble. Don’t think about it. We’re ok here!”

“I’d come back! I just want to see a little of the world!”

“Anni!” Kix said firmly, “Get those ideas out of your head! The glukkons would be so angry if they heard you’d been talking like that!”

Anni pouted but fell silent. Kix eyed her uneasily as she returned to her work, wondering if she ought to tell Javi and Dean about this.

In the end, she kept it to herself. Such a short conversation surely couldn’t really mean anything; Anni wouldn’t really try to escape…

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Of course she wouldn't, Kix.
Man, I really don't have much to say here, for once. It wasn't the most active chapter. I promise more excitement in the next one!

Every time you don't reply... something bad happens to someone. (Hey, it's after midnight! Gimme a break!)