It was a strange kind of numbness, punctuated now and then by the jaggedy, pulsating feeling of a whole machete shoved into Job’s gut. His guts pierced, chopped. Fluids sloshing where they oughtn’t slosh.
Job considered himself lucky, actually, considering the nature of his occupation. He had encountered, for the most of his life, only minor injuries. Tiny dents, scratches, little pebbles in his joints. Nothing a bit of poking at with a pair of tweezers over a campfire wouldn’t fix.
Perhaps it was a sort of karmic justice, then, that had lead Job to become impaled on a surprisingly sharp machete, wrought from what seemed to be melted down signpost bits and a door handle.
He wouldn’t call it a good day, certainly not, though that meant nothing. He hadn’t had a good day in a very long time. He was, admittedly, a pessimistic man. He was given to a general despondency of tone, a passive acceptance of things. But the city was uniquely depressing. Also, it, and other things, kept trying to eat him.
Nobody who was there liked being there, and even the drones, though their lenses were perfect blank circles, seemed disappointed as they gazed over the landscape. The train stations, too, either were wrecked, with torn fences, bashed in platforms, raging graffiti, or nearly constantly crowded. They went to places with terrible and ominous names. This did not stop people from taking them.
He regarded his current circumstances, then, as a cherry atop a big, sad cake. He always heard it was a bad idea to pull out knives and other such objects, after being stabbed by them. It happened a lot in movies, of course, they’d tear them out, slathered in their own blood, and immediately turn them back upon whoever had placed it there in the first place.
Job didn’t do that, of course. He had simply yelled at, shot at, the men who were trying to mug him.
He punched a hole in one of their chests. It gaped dumbly at him. It seemed rude, almost inconsiderate, the way it squatted there, took up all that real estate. And you could see the ends of ribs, exposed, and the globules of blood flowing, clotting.
They all ran from him, of course. Job wanted to run, too. Maybe his guilt over using the tunnelgun was all false. Bathed in some kind of nonsensical privilege, some hidden belief in the back of his head that he was a better person than he really was. How was it fair, after all, that he had riddled holes in the bellies of great hissing lizards, or vaguely formed beasts, growing and ungrowing limbs, and other such things? Yes, he felt guilt, too, for those–he always felt guilt for that kind of thing. But it was a weaker guilt, easier to set aside.
Maybe it was in the eyes. Those things couldn’t sob or gaze or weep like a human face could. Their faces didn’t go white like a human face did, rigidify with the horrible awareness of death–death, death now.
Well. So it went. So Job was wretched, and so were they, for forcing themselves on him, lead pipes and makeshift knives, demanding a trade of either things Job didn’t have, or violence. What was he to do? Suplex them, one by one? Hold them down until they, as a group, yielded, so they could all split apart, free?
It had been in one of those wide, empty streets that felt like a dried up river. The buildings slumped over, and litter scuttled like bugs. And they emerged from an alley, dark shapes, morphing into human forms. The air stunk like damp mould and paint fumes.
While the mental burden, Job was sure, would hang about on him, the physical burden was certainly the most distinct one. They had not left Job without leaving him a little gift. In fact, it was the man whose chest had been punched open who had given it to him. It was a somewhat unbalanced trade.
So the man–he had the shitty half-moustache of an idiot teenager too lazy to shave–had thrust the machete forwards. And Job, held down by his bags, half distracted, tired, or uncaring, or whatever it was–was pierced through. Skewered. The man laughed. Job recalled that. When he pushed it through, was done grimacing, gritting, he laughed. A few of his friends laughed, too.
That did piss Job off, that.
So maybe the situation was more reasonable, really, than it seemed. What could Job control, about that flood of chemicals to the brain? The little drifting electrical impulses that said ‘rage, rage,’ to him? He was hardly in a situation to meditate, after all.
He had yelled, on instinct, then: ‘Dickhead!’
Maybe not the choicest of epithets. It was not a bad one. He was fond of it. It provided amusing imagery, at the very least. It was insulting to the insulted, and amusing to the insulter. Still, perhaps something harder was more called for. And something more relevant to the situation, too, as the man, dick-headed or not, would have stabbed him anyway.
The gunshot did punctuate it well, anyhow.
So it went. And now Job was stumbling around with the end of the machete jiggling at his every step. It wasn’t so bad. It hadn’t hit anything particularly important. He could still, generally, walk. Carry things. Speak. Though, his left leg struggled, slightly, to move to the side. Perhaps a joint somewhere was caught.
Pain came in waves. Rising, sinking. He would sometimes think he was still made of all that meat, flowing clotting warm blood. There wasn’t anything that felt like it. Its thickness, oozing stickiness. How it caught in your hand, spiderwebbed over the crevices, dripped down. He’d wheeze, sob, look down and in the fog of tears it was flesh, flesh all over again. Skin. And a puddle of blood flowing.
And he couldn’t walk, of course. In those moments he was utterly certain he was in the process of dying. He stood there and felt that strange yin and yang, hot and cold all at once. The blood was so warm, lively, like holding a tiny mammal. But the rest of him–freezing. Like he’d been emptied out.
But then he would scrape something, or poke one of his rubber joints. He’d recall, then, what he was. His name was Job. He had no skin. He was made from metal and plastic and rubber.
Even the numbness was uncomfortable. Pressure, blunt, anonymous pressure, blooming outwards. The wind blew on him. It was freezing. And his coat, once more, was cut. He hoped it didn’t go all the way through, pierce his bag, too. That would prove a proper cherry atop this cherry.
He was slumping down the very same street he had been stabbed on. It was a long, wide one. The dead body was far behind. A hill was blocking it. He wondered what they would do with his body. Did they bury, in this place? That was unlikely. It was all tarmac and concrete and bricks. What, then? A sky burial? To be picked apart by crows and those leathery winged figures, atop a skyscraper? He had known people, who did things like that. Perhaps he would be fed to the city. He had known people who did things like that. The windows gazed down at him, his distorted self, hunched over, pathetic looking, glaring back.
The streets were being normal, so far. The shades were around occasionally, of course. Dark crowds in the corners of his vision, carrying on daily life. Disembodied wind, the sudden roar of a car, blazing down the road, to bash into Job, crush him on its windscreen and spin away down the street–though nothing was ever there. And, in the sky, a single skyscraper stood, vertical. Its shadow laid in a long line over the streets. All Job could see was a midsection, could not tell if it was floating, or sprouting from somewhere and bent over, or anything like that. Or perhaps it was like a rainbow, forming a perfect flying loop, but so far away, so dependent on the trickery of photons, that you could never really see it in its entirety.
Needless to say, he needed to find a doctor, before the streets began to get really stressful. Before giant maws formed out of the ground to eat him up, or big fists blasted from windows to slap him dead and steal his money. Whatever hellish scenario Job could imagine, he was sure was definitely a thing that could occur, was waiting, legs primed, in store, to occur.
The humming of a drone arose. It was of a small breeze, the kind that flicks locks of hair, that scrapes leaves against gravel, but does not flip them, rattling, hollow, through steel. It was the same noise of spaceships, the same noise Job’s own home, once, had made, but lower, squeakier. Wind, captured in nets in outer space, tamed and stuffed into engines.
Job turned to watch it. He slowed his step, observed it soaring, blandly. It was a thoroughly uninteresting sight, and he appreciated that. It stopped. A round eye whirled down, and narrowed on–him? Job looked down, if there was a pothole, or crack he was stepping on. The machete wobbled, bit.
The hum rumbled, and Job felt warm wind, his coat wrinkling and waving back. It hovered, then, steady, in front of him. Looking right at him.
‘Are you okay?!’ said the drone. It was a clear voice, thin as air. It was the voice of a young woman. It didn’t even sound filtered through a microphone–it simply was.
‘I think I’m hallucinating,’ Job admitted. ‘I’m going nuts.’
‘You have a thingy in you!’ the drone exclaimed. ‘You’re stabbed!’
‘Yeah. It sucks. Listen, are you a psychopomp or something?’
The drone’s eye twisted, turned. It narrowed and widened, went in and out. It almost looked expressive. ‘No. I don’t have a job. Listen! You need help! Follow me!’
‘I won’t,’ said Job. He was feeling lightweight. He felt soft, watery. Warm blood, pulsating. Gloopy. Clotting. ‘I won’t follow you. To the Underworld. Christ. I’m not done here, yet.’
He pressed his hand to his stomach and loitered there, swaying. The feeling of warm syrupy blood, vivid, voracious, globular and fat with life. Spiderwebbing his hand, stickying up the little crevices, edges.
‘Christ. I’m not done here, yet,’ said Job. And he stood there, keeling, groaning. And he fainted.
It took Job an entire day to be convinced that he hadn’t fallen completely into madness.
Actually, that was a lie. He was never unconvinced of that. Indeed, his waking life was filled with thoughts of that kind. He knew for almost certain that at least some part of his life was a waking dream, and was only about eighty percent sure that he wasn’t a child dreaming it all in a coma, or hooked up to some machine where they sucked your dreams out to power engines, or in the DMT hallucinations of a dying man. Or so on.
Anyways, it took them an entire day to, at the very least, get Job comfortable with his new set of hallucinations.
The autodoctor chatted to him all throughout the operation.
‘Gosh, man. You really got stabbed out there, didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ replied Job. ‘I literally really did.’
It was an uncomfortable metal slab hanging in a room of beige walls with dark cracks in the corner, and washing bright white lights from above. And hanging metal arms, sides gleaming, all stinking like chemicals and ice. The autodoctor did not, traditionally, have a microphone. And yet it spoke.
‘Thats bad. Yeah, gosh. That’s really bad,’ it said, over its own clicking and whirring, the fizzing swing of arms and claws and implements flinging around, switching, dancing, too fast for the eye to land on. And Job felt himself being stitched, moved, rumbling and moving. And, a sudden give–and a metal claw emerged, wielding the machete, tossing it aside with a clang.
‘It’s pretty bad,’ Job agreed.
And it was a flashing whir of arms and awkward small talk, as Job’s metal skin peeled and unpeeled. He sat there, trying not to look down at his body, trying not to feel anything. Sparks flashed up, fizzling orbs of light. And he felt sudden tugs, sudden snaps, separations. He grunted, remained gazing up. Chatting.
‘So what do you do for a living?’
‘Scavenge, as of late,’ Job admitted.
‘Gosh, yeah. The job market’s hard, nowadays. Yeah.’
‘I’m sure you’re secure enough.’
‘I guess.’ Something whirred in the autodoctor. The microphone seemed to rise closer. ‘Yeah, I guess. But, you know, man. What I really always wanted was to be a baker.’
With that, all the arms stopped. They slunk steadily away, rose into the ceiling, clicked and clacked into place until Job was staring at what seemed like a blank plate of clean steel.
‘Well. It’s done! You should definitely be fine, yeah. Just don’t get stabbed again like that, man.’
‘I’ll try my hardest,’ said Job, laying still, for a bit longer. His body felt cold, strange, new. He felt like a recently refrigerated vegetable. He wiggled, raised his arm. Sat up, felt his entire self lurch beneath. He looked down. All smooth chromium, gleams running along the edges. It was cleanest where all his dents, injuries were–where the machete had stabbed him looked almost brand new. Elsewhere was all adorned by scratches, corners raggedy. But clean, somehow. Cleaner than he’d seen it in a long time. He tapped his own belly, heard the clink.
‘How much am I paying? I’ve got a few hundred in cash, if you take that. Or I got some–’
‘Oh, gosh, no. No thank you. We all help each other out here, man. You and us, we’re all family, aren’t we?’
Job sat there, looking, vaguely, at the ceiling. ‘I suppose,’ he said. He stood, stepped to the door. The floor tapped gently beneath him. And, without the wild clicks, whirs, he heard the washing, flowing noise of chatter, outside, almost wavelike. Metallic footsteps, a low groan of moving engines outside. He couldn’t help but sigh to himself. He felt–smooth. Languid. He felt like he had awoken after a deep rest, and that rest still hung onto him, in clinging round droplets. So the world wasn’t trying to eat him, right now. Good. He felt warm.
‘But, cheers. A lot. Thanks. If you need anything, I’ll, uh. Yeah.’ Job paused. Then nodded. And left the room.
‘G’bye,’ said the autodoctor.
The door opened to glass and steel and sunlight. Metal railings with dots of light sliding along their round sides. And smells of warm metal and ash and dry grass. Clattering of feet on metal arising from below, around the sides. And chatter, warm chatter, spinning, turning. Job was on a metal walkway, deep grey, almost white in the sunlight sliding through a clear roof window above. It rang down like a great pillar, a huge blocky rectangle of light. Dust danced in it. Over the railings, Job saw it go down, down, down, all shining and lit until even the sunlight backed into a corner, and couldn’t go further. And, deeper down, in the blackness, Job saw twinkling orange lights. Some of them stepping, moving.
The autodoctor’s door was embedded, somewhat, into the wall, in a small nook. Job turned, saw the light running over the bumps in the concrete. His coat and bag were there, laying to the side of the door, and he picked them up, clinking, hefty. On the door, he saw, on a tag: GHOSH, DOCTOR.
Ghosh. It suited an autodoctor as well as any other name, Job supposed. It was fair enough. It was a reasonable expectation for a talking autodoctor to also have a name. It was a nice enough name, yes. And Job supposed he had certainly earned it.
‘Cheers, Ghosh,’ he muttered, turned around, and looked left to right.
There were other doors embedded within other nooks, all around the wide rectangle the room formed. One of them gently opened, and Job watched a military security mech clank gingerly out, quietly shut the door with a makeshift claw welded onto where its minigun arm should have been. And, on hissing, thumping legs, brick-shaped, skull-crushingly heavy, it walked to the right, to the stairs. And descended. And Job caught the whizzing conversation from across the room. He heard it distinctly say: ‘Hello!’
Job leant over the railing, to see all the other sets of walkways ringing the pit. And he saw similar sights. All chromium, metal edges shining. They all walked with a strange smoothness, tilted their heads at each other as they–stopped and talked. And some waved. Job saw, even, things like himself. Human-shaped. Face-plated, with dark rubber in their joints. Some clothed, like him, but some–naked, was the only word, he supposed, he could find for it. Sticking out even more were the occasional humans. Regular humans, clothed, meat, breathing, all guts and blood and carbon dioxide, cheerfully stepping along, weaving around the larger machines.
He wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t sure where to go. He leant on the railing and felt the sunlight press against him. It was a dry, cloying heat, clutching you, sinking to your bones. But it was comfortable. And the operations room had been so cold, and so had been the streets. He wasn’t disconcerted, really, by not knowing where he was. He was used to it, now. He leant there, and nothing was trying to eat him, nobody was trying to kill him. Job leant there in the sunlight, listening to the rising chatter.
‘Hello,’ said the walls.
‘Hey,’ said Job, who was being lulled further into a slow languor.
‘It has been very long.’
‘Has it?’ Job blinked. He rubbed his forehead, spun around, patted his tunnelgun. ‘Who’s talking? Who’re you?’
‘Pardon me. I am the factory. We should not talk here. You might disrupt traffic.’
Job saw spots on the wall wiggle, slightly. Swirl, move in on themselves, like liquid.
‘Sure. Um. I don’t know where anything is.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the walls. ‘It has been very long. O.K. I will guide you.’
It was a low, rumbling voice, the exact sort you’d expect something made of concrete to speak in. But there was a strange humility in it, though it rang out from all the walls around, though it claimed to be the voice of the building itself. It was ringing, heavy, fatherly, in some sense. Job found himself fond of it, perhaps far too trusting, really, for what it was, where he was. At the very least, he found himself wanting to trust it. His hand slid off the tunnelgun as he walked.
And it told him about the places he passed.
‘And there lives Arnheim. Who crafts the most wondrous cakes. Though he cannot eat them, himself. And neither can I. Actually. Statistically speaking, only thirty one per cent of people here are capable of even tasting cake. But, the small minority who do eat them assure me they are very wondrous.’
‘And there lives Telto-2. Who is my chaplain, lead pastor, and voice. She is a wonderful and wonderfully spoken woman. She is admittedly somewhat redundant, around here. Whoops.’
‘And there is Ventport, who is a remarkable tailor, despite being a tank. You must see how he threads it all together, even lacking arms and hands. Ingenious.’
Job spun down the walkways, clanking down the hanging stairs. He squeezed past various people, various robots, drones, machines. They clanked along on their own business, or chatted amongst each other. And some nodded at Job, even seemed to smile, somehow. Job nodded back at them.
He stepped past a floor that opened up into a great garden, and Job saw, in the singing sinking beams of falling sunlight, fields of grass, and trees letting the light glow in their leaves, and benches. And he stepped past a series of floors lined on all sides with storefronts, doors painted, patterns scratched into them. And bright signs hanging over them, clashing colours and huge fonts. Glass windows revealing rows of watches, or menus depicting rows of foods besides rows of batteries. It was all clashing sharp smells, the rustlings of plastic bags, shoving crowds, chatter, chatter. The walkways, here, were thicker, wider, to compensate. It was not quite enough.
Further Job walked, until, floors down, he reached a place where the entire wall opened up, opposite to the stairs.
‘That was the Residential Tube. It is, I admit, an awkward design. And unfriendly to those afraid of heights. There are other places, of course, to stay, assuming you are.’
‘I’m fine with heights,’ Job replied, pushing past an android of uncannily similar design to him.
‘That is good! I am glad to hear that. Now, you are entering the centre square.’
The centre square stretched high Job. Its top disappeared into a faint smog. Concrete, as far as he could see, and great straight walls rising upwards. And more sunlight fell in, glittering, dancing in the crevices. It was long and cavernous, grey factory space stretched out into the form of a cathedral, but did not feel it. The air was fresh. A cool breeze fluttered. Plantlife twirled from gardens, cut into the ground. Job stepped under a tree with branches spreading far outwards, umbrellalike. And the leaves on the concrete crunched underfoot. An infrastructure drone hummed there, watering it all from a lumpen watering tin. Grass rustled. Tiny white flowers, bell-shaped purple flowers shook. It smelled of pollen and sunlight.
Job stopped, there. People swept by him. Real, physical, stomping, clanking, breathing people, mismatched frames, whirring robotics, androids, humans, marching past. They were not shades–Job had been jostled and bumped and thrown around and had his toes crushed plenty. A faint, cool wind brushed through, from nowhere.
‘What is this?’ asked Job, gazing vaguely upwards, in search of something to lay his eyes on. Had he seen a building this tall, while in the city? The place was labyrinthine, of course. And clearly not within the laws of physics as he knew them. And yet, it seemed uncanny to him, that someplace this colossal should not roar up over the landscape, cast a great shadow over all the other buildings, block out the horizon.
There was a worn bench by the garden. It looked to have been taken from some park out in the city, bolted into the ground. The green paint on it was new, but Job could see, still, the bitten edges, the tears in the corners. And he sat down.
‘What do you go by, now?’ asked the walls.
‘Job.’
‘That seems… unlucky.’ The walls paused for a moment. ‘But–lovely, in its own right. In a gothic fashion.’
‘It’s apotropaic,’ Job said.
Job looked down, saw the concrete floor, now, slightly rumbling, squelching, moving.
‘I see. That is very clever. I may consider something like that.’
‘Uh. So, who’re you?’ asked Job.
‘The factory. Or mum. Dad. God. Or “you”. People call me lots of things. You can call me whatever you like. Unless it is rude. I would not like that.’
Job leant back. ‘Okay. Cheers. You’re, uh. God, huh?’
‘No. People like to call me that but I am not. I am a factory. I make things. But these are people who do not have gods. And have been abandoned by gods. And are looking for gods. But I am not god.’ Job gazed into the twisting, squelching, bubbling concrete. ‘But that is uninteresting. Job. How have you been? Are you okay? I was very worried about you. What have you been doing? I hope you have not been stabbed like that frequently. Are you okay?’
Job felt buffeted. He sat there, leaning against the chair.
‘I’m good,’ he said, after a moment’s processing. ‘Ghosh fixed me up good. I don’t usually get stabbed. But, I suppose I do it a lot more than I should. Um. I’m okay, though.’
‘That is good. You should try and be more safe, though. There are people who don’t want to see you hurt. Job.’
And Job looked, more, into the concrete. He knew their movements. A moving, a shifting, turning of concrete, unlike anything else, almost like mercury. But distinct, thoroughly. Had he dreamt this, before? Walls talking to him? A great factory, piled up like a chapel? And that voice, throaty, heavy?
He knew it, he knew it, no doubt. When? Was it the voice of a relative? Twisted into a dreamlike form, floating, babbling along confused neurons, as his body lay, asleep?
He saw himself, foggy, stretched. A shut in kid with too few friends. And concrete walls, and the wind making the windows clatter. The blue-white shine of a monitor, when everything else was dark and quiet. And that voice–there? The swivelling of concrete in his wall?
‘But Job. I cannot speak with you for much longer. Though I wish I could. Certain repairwork requires my attention. Even now, my sides feel terribly cold. Buffeted by the wind. I will go. I will leave an assistant, to further guide you.’
Job raised his arm towards the ground, and stood. Flying electricity fizzled in his head. And the angles in the walls, and the fall of the sunlight, the rise into the air. The windows. The dust in the light. All the sounds of engines and clattering. The tapping of his feet on the floor.
‘How do you know me?’
‘I built you. Job. I will see you in a bit. I hope you like it here.’ And the concrete, suddenly, smoothed over. Rippled lightly, then when still, dead.
Job looked, long, at that spot of ground. And he tugged at his brain to recall things, but all that was there were distracted wisps, flying vignettes. Old dreams he had, or something from last week. Or him in a car with the sunlight on his arm. Or a long period, where it all flashed blue and white and he saw bloodcells flowing in his eyes, looking like fat twigs or leaves, that he was sure was that time he died.
And his surroundings seemed to solidify. Less faded, colours brighter. The patterns of smudges and tar on the floor, and the curve of the walls as they spread upwards.
‘Hullo Job.’ Job snapped, suddenly, back to his surroundings. He looked to who had spoken to him and saw himself. Faceplate and chromium, black rubber in the joints. But dressed in long dark robes, hood hanging from the back, a reflection of himself as a monk.
‘Always good when another one comes back.’ He held his hand out. Job saw sunlight on its edges, clinging to the curves of his steel fingers. Job saw the same sunlight rolling in similar patterns on his own hand, as he stretched out to accept it. ‘I’m Andy.’ His head tilted. His–mouth, was the only name Job knew for it–shifted, too. It resembled, almost, a smile, in its own right.
‘We’re the same model. Beauty, hey?’
‘Uh. Yeah,’ said Job. He felt the cold turns and the rubbery joints, the crevices and hard edges of his own hand against Andy’s.
Andy’s voice had a pleasant lilt to it. He said things lyrically, words ringing off each other. And he quietly nodded at the occasional passersby.
He was taking Job to, as he said, his quarters. They were not in the tube but, rather, along an outer building, spurting off the side of the factory as it grew larger, seeped further. It was through an archway on the opposite side of the centre square, far behind the garden. And stretched along a far hallway, smudges of oil on the floor, walls. Scratch marks around the frames of the doors that lined the walls, all demarcked with the hanging lamps above. A dull, buzzing, yellowy light, nearly sun coloured but lower, calmer.
‘It’s home,’ he began explaining, when Job asked what the place actually was. ‘For all the kids of the factory. Born or adopted. You remember the old presupposition the factory had?’
Job did not remember any old presupposition at all.
‘We will all be home, one day.’
They turned around a corner, and came, eventually, to a door. A heftier, older one, dents and scratches all adorned with dust and oil smudges.
And mottled sunlight flooded in through smudged windows. Rang down over the walkways, pale but warm. Long shadows laid in that room. Conveyor belts collecting dust. Hanging in shelves along the far walls, parts. Metal arms. Rusty plating. A tread, a set of hanging actuators. A whole body hanging, the same model as Job and Andy, bereft of nothing but an arm. Hollow, eyes cold. Tiny vines skittering in its joints. Tiny flowers blooming. Curving, bright yellow. Glowing from inside as the sunlight fell on them. Somewhere, a bird sung. Job saw a tiny flitting of wings, brown feathers, from above. Litter danced past them on the walkway.
‘We will all be home, one day,’ said Job, and it echoed lightly in the room, bounced in the corners, faded away into their long shadows.
‘A few people like calling it a prophecy. But I dunno about that. Anyway, prophecies are all a bit cheesy, anyway, hey?’ Andy’s eyes glowed with soft blue light. And you could see the dust particles dancing in them. Job realised that his own eyes, too, looked like that.
‘Home, huh,’ Job pondered, gazing around.
‘Home, indeed,’ said Andy, marching ahead.
And so onwards they went. And Andy explained, to Job, the people who lived there.
There were the people such as him and Job, manufactured there, many years ago, when the factory was only a barely sentient godling. They were born suddenly, all baffled and lost. Some wandered off, in confusion, got lost and ended up in strange places, or dead. Or some grew there for years, leaving on their own, in pursuit of their own ambitions. And some stayed, and were still there, to that day. Like Andy.
There were the other sentients. Sapient robots, suddenly self-aware from programming faults, or the esoteric works of strange spirits, arbitrary whims of witches. Sapient lampposts, sign posts, other such beings, split off from their own kind for this reason or that. All were welcome, at the factory.
And, the humans. Almost all of them were soulless.
Soullessness was the central theme. There weren’t enough souls in the building, so Andy claimed, to fit into a moderately sized saucepan.
‘I reckon it’s all hooey, all made up to boost the soul trade, and for gods to get more control over their worshippers. What’s the soul even do, ay?’ Andy turned around, head tilted, arms stretched.
‘I hear it’s pretty tasty,’ Job suggested.
Andy chortled. It was a phlegmy, coughing laugh.
‘But really. It’s like the appendix. Remember that?’
‘Yeah,’ said Job. ‘I hear it’s for helping digest grass.’
‘Exactly,’ said Andy, nodding. ‘That’s exactly what I think about the “soul”. It’s good for digesting grass. And that’s it.’
Job’s quarters were in a building similar to the Residential Tube. It was longer, flatter, and it went down only to one other floor. They stepped along, to a door at the far end of the room. Andy produced a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and flicked it to Job, who stumbled for a few moments trying to catch it.
‘I’ll leave you here for now. You’ve had a day, ay?’
Job could only agree.
The room was small. It smelled unused, untouched, somewhat musty. It was the most comfortable thing he had seen in a long time.
The bed was plain and flat, a single white pillow, stretched white sheets. Next to it, an old cabinet, another item clearly scavenged from the city, the dust and muck scraped from it and repainted, but its edges still bitten, rugged. A tacky lamp squatted on it, taken, presumably, from some abandoned hotel. It had orange flowers on its shade. Through a small rectangular window on the back wall, Job saw the deep oranges of the setting sun, falling between a pair of faraway buildings, black against its rays. And the clouds were turning pink.
Meat Girls Dot Org 