She was middle aged, approaching her 50's, her lower back hurt so bad she could barely move. Working in those damn factories for so long, ever since she was orphaned when the last big fire that swept through the city killed hers and so many others' families, had broken her. Then they came. It was late in the night, she'd gathered a huge amount of old, scrap, cloth stolen out of dumpsters and did her best to make it comfortable for her to lay. When she awoke, she was being carried silently on a liter between two strong.... what were they? They certainly didn't appear human, though the live-suits made it hard to tell. She saw others, like her, broken, in pain, barely moving, also being carried in a stream heading to a large, dark, ship. She opened her eyes and asked, in a fearful tone, "Are they getting rid of me?" The ones carrying her said in but a whisper, lest the patrols hear, "We're here to save you." -- Anon Guest
A body in motion must stay in motion. Time to lean? Time to clean. Keep the workflow up, meet quota, match goals... or enter forced retirement. Glyss had once worked a lever in the Forced Retirement department - back before the Executives decided it was bad for bottom line, and automated the entire process. Nevertheless, rumour continued as to what Forced Retirement was.
They had ways of wringing every last speck of value out of their workforce. Organs, marrow, blood and bone... it didn't matter. As long as the expense of your upkeep was justified, the Executives wouldn't decide to liquidate the entire facility. She'd seen one, once. That was one too many.
Glyss worked until she creaked. Worked until it hurt. Both of those were happening earlier and earlier now that she had hit the age of impending redundancy. She was almost fifty. Some workers were lucky to keep going until they were sixty. Whispers held that one had been maintained until sixty five. Glyss knew it was the friend-of-a-friend thing that maintained other nonsenses. Rubbish like certain stims making a person believe they were an orange, and feared being squeezed[1]. They were told, talked about, but never seen.
Finally, when she was just about ready to cry from the agonies, the whistle sounded and they were free to trudge to the assets warehouse. The younger ones helped the small ones in and out of the dumpsters, where they grabbed everything soft for the others to use as bedding. One of them called her "Gamgam," even though they were not related.
Her children and children's children had perished in the last factory fire. Memorialised as a terrible loss... of profit. The years they took to recover were the same years it took the overdose of orphans to grow to the age where they could follow instructions. Now, Glyss' only family were the nieces and nephews of the factory floor.
Others deferred to her. A kindness born of the knowledge that she didn't have many days left. They let her have the warmest corner, and some of the tiny ones cuddled up with her for companionship. It was easy to sleep with exhaustion as a lullabye. Tomorrow... was either more of the same or the end of it.
It was not.
Glyss' bed was moving. It was that fact alone that made her startle awake to see... four large humanoid shapes in armour. One for each corner of... what the hell was she in? It was a box. A box with clear sides and top, and the handles where the soldiers were. She hammered at it, "I ain't dead!"
Across from her was another box containing two of the tiny ones, arranged under a silver shroud like hers, but placed feet-to-feet. They were also breathing. One of them twitched and rolled over.
"I ain't dead," Glyss repeated. "They ain't dead! We ain't dead!" If they were going to kill her, she would have been a much easier target in the warehouse.
"Language acquisition complete," said a mechanical voice from one of the soldiers. "Terran English variant number three. Two. Five. Eight. Zeta. Bravo. Initialising. Autotranslate."
Something had gone terribly wrong with the universe.
"We know," said a surprisingly feminine voice from the same soldier. "This is a rescue operation. We can mute you, but we'd prefer it if you chose to stay quiet."
The soldier at her right shoulder said, "We're from the CRC. We're here to help you."
This was beyond anything in Glyss' experience. "Why?"
"We'll give you the full story when you're safe, but the short version is... nobody deserves to go through what your lot have been through."
What story the Executives told about it, Glyss would never know. All she knew was that this was the evening and the morning of her first day in subjective paradise.
[1] Urban legends never die, they just transform to fit the era.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / erllre74]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [47 remaining prompts!]
