Seeking Strays - Chapter 89 - Rust and Work (Patreon)

AN: Short chapter. Shortest catheter I’ve ever written, I think. Honestly, I’m really, really not feeling this arc. I’m thinking about scrapping this whole Overlap for something else, but I haven’t quite come to a decision yet… I dunno.

That’s, like, two or three chapters I’d be scrapping and I’d feel bad a bit bad having you guys read this stuff if it wasn’t going somewhere. I just think I could’ve done something better, and this doesn’t feel like it’s up to the quality I want. I’ll figure it out by Thursday, probably.

I put this in front of the chapter today in case you want to skip reading in case I end up scrapping this arc.

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A lumbering shadow appeared from the fog and slowly approached. Its shadow was backlit by a flickering red fluorescence. At a glance, it was some kind of dog creature. Only, it was a nightmare-fuel type variant that looked like someone created it based on their impression of a dog rather than what a dog actually looked like. 

It stepped out of the fog, and the factory all around me went silent outside of the groaning machinery. Its head, a twisted amalgamation of flesh kinda like a Redcap, twitched in my direction. It didn’t have eyes. Instead, its skin was smeared over where its eyes should’ve been as if someone had taken a photo and used a blur tool on it.

”Wurooof!” The creature let out a low bark, and tendrils erupted out of its back. Despite the horrific scene, the people around me stayed totally silent without moving an inch. On its chest, pinned with a sticker of a dopey smile, sat an ID badge marking it as Operations Head #37.

Two Managers flanked the horrific dog like body guards. They both had the same nearly featureless faces outside of their disturbingly wide grins full of sharp teeth. “Break time, Workers.”

Several people shivered, and dropped their tools. Honestly, I couldn’t blame them. I carefully tacked the dog with my eyes, mind lost in thought as it went around the gathering of workers. Its tendrils swept up the Ironwood scraps into its maw. In short order, it had consumed far more scraps than should’ve been possible for a creature of its size.

 “Worker, where are your scraps?” A Manager asked the leader of the trio that tried to take the scraps of the other guy.

”Sorry, boss. I’m just a slow worker.” The man shrugged. “I’ll get there.”

“You won’t get paid if you don’t work, Worker.” The Manager’s smile dropped for the first time since I’d seen the weird monsters. “I’m afraid we’ll have to let you go at this rate.”

“I’ll have it by the next break, Manager.” The man’s head shifted around toward the rest of us. Even with his face obscured by the mask, it was obvious what he was thinking.

“Good.” The Manager’s grotesque smile returned, and he followed after the Operations Head as it collected scraps. 

“Woof!” The Operations Head slurped up all of the scraps I’d managed to cut off the dense logs of wood. 

The Manager that’d been following it marked something down on a clipboard. “Thank you for your diligence, Worker. That makes 157. Keep up the good work, and you’ll be done in no time.”

”I will.” I needed to gather 237 to hit quota. That was, what, eight left? I should be able to hit it by the time they came around next. Assuming nothing went horribly wrong.

“Woof!” Instead of simply moving past me like it had with the other Workers, the horror-mutt nudged closer to me and sat down in the rancid water. Its tendrils pulled back, and it looked up at me. 

“Do you need something, Operations Head?” I kept my cool even as I felt the eyes of the others turn on me weirdly.

The dog let out a whimper, and took a step closer to me. A shiver went down my tail as I hesitantly stretched my hand out and patted its fleshy, squishy head. The creature was incredibly hot under my hand like a furnace. Its tendrils swayed like tails for a moment before it stood up and moved onto the next one.

It slowly moved through the rest of the Workers, ripping their scrap away and sloppily filling out their quotas. Compared to how the Operations Head treated the others, it was down right polite with me. I always did have a way with canines… even if they were freaky nightmare-fuel abominations, apparently. 

Once the Operations Head moved through the area, devouring the Ironwood scraps into a seemingly endless stomach, it left us behind to move onto a different section to repeat the process. Or, at least, I assumed it did. I lost track of it once it turned into a pathway formed by a dense array of rusted pipes.

The Managers followed it quickly, though one turned back just before leaving the area. “Oh, right, we regret to inform you that supplies are running low, Workers. Try your best to finish before the next break. Without enough work, we’ll have to let you go.”

A murmur went through the crowd around me as the Manager stepped into the fog. Although the Manager was putting it nicely, we all knew what it really meant. There was no way an Overlap would simply let us go. That, and the rules had clearly stated that we needed to complete our quotas.

”You heard that creature!” The guy that stood up to the gang alongside me spoke up. Bronson, based on the name tag on his jumpsuit. “We should all try and work together to finish this so no one else has to die.”

No one else? Did people already die here? That… honestly, it made sense why they were all being so docile around the actual employees of this place if that was the case. 

”So what, you want to take the scraps we get and give it to others?” A woman shot back. She was sitting on a log with a blood covered axe in her hand. Her own blood by the looks of her palms.

”Of course not. I only need five more to hit quota.” The man frowned at the woman. “I’ll help whoever needs it to hit their quotas afterward. Worry about saving yourselves first.”

”Me too. Though I need eighty,” I spoke up too. I originally came here to save people, so there was no way I’d just turn a blind eye to people that needed help. My eyes settled on the gangers that were slacking off.

”Did you say eighty?” Bronson asked in surprise. “My entire quota was only fifty.”

”Really?” What the hell was this discrimination? I nodded to the guy who’d been knocked on his ass earlier. “What about you?”

“Fifty seven.” He pushed up his glasses with a small frown. “You turned in such a big mound of scraps already, though. How much did you originally have?”

”Over two hundred.” My tail curled around my thigh, and my nails dug into my palm. Did the factory assign workloads based on what it thought we could accomplish, then? That meant the Owner of this place had already seen through all of us. My wariness spiked once more. “I’ll contribute what I can, though.”

”I-I will too! We’ll all get through this together!” The woman who’d originally shot down the idea said.

The guy that’d been maliciously looking at the rest of this entire time uncrossed his arms, and went to go grab an axe. His buddies followed along beside him. His eyes darted around all of us with wariness. “We’ll help too.”

”Then we’ll be glad to have you.” Bronson accepted the offered olive branch for what it was. I wasn’t so certain, though. It seemed more like he was changing his tune now that we were uniting. I’d have to keep my eyes on them.

The emergency lights flashed overhead, and the conveyor belt once more started to churn. More Ironwood logs flowed down into the workplace, and the people around us got to work. Whereas before the employees had showed up there’d been an atmosphere of dread, now there was one of grim resolve. It was a good change.

I leaned my axe against a pipe, and crouched down to move my Ironwood log into a better position to strike at. My muscles swelled with strength flowing through them. The logs were seriously heavy. I thought I was strong, but working here was slowly washing that delusion away. 

I got it half lifted, and propped it up against my knee as I roughly panted for air through the mask covering my face. I wiped my hands off, and threw my all into pushing the log upright once more. It wobbled into place a moment later. Do I need to start hitting the gym again?

”Of course you do, flabby.” My ear flicked in annoyance at the ethereal voice. It wasn’t too bad yet, but they progressed extremely quickly past the incoherent stage this time around. Was this place having an effect on me?

“Operator, do you really intend to keep working until you meet quota?” Vigil, who’d been no help hacking away at the Ironwood, asked. “I suspect it’ll be a moving goal post.”

“I know.” I lifted the axe and slammed it down with a sharp exhale. It barely made a scratch on the log as rust flew in every direction from the axe’s head. Not for the first time, I was tempted to pull out Rend to speed the process along. There was no point in revealing my cards quite yet, though. “Just be patient.”

I wasn’t just working. I was carefully sensing out my Wisp’s Lantern with Seek, and tracking where and when it popped up. If we just needed to claim what we were looking for to get out of here, we could maybe bypass the quotas entirely. I wasn’t sure about that, though. 

My axe slammed down again and again. It was back breaking labor, and I could definitely already feel the burn in my muscles. Maybe this place was intentionally trying to tire us out so that we’d be weakened for whatever else was to come? By the looks on the other’s faces, I wasn’t the only one thinking as much.