– – – – – – – – – – –
 Factory Platform 8790 
 – – – – – – – – – – –

By Arne, Late December, 2024 

Text to Speech instructions:
Mac: TextEdit has a right click menu (reads selected text).
W11: Ctrl+Win+Enter for Narrator, then CapsLock + r to read from cursor (updated by arrow keys, it's buggy tho).

This story has art associated with it.

/ Chapter 1 /
    
She was having the most horrible dream – the kind one would certainly expect to eventually wake up from with a startle. However, when chased down and squashed by a weirdly inescapable truck, she did not wake up. When a gaunt thing with antlers and ten spindly legs studied her through a multitude of milky eyes, she did not wake up. When herded into the surreal waiting room congested with quivering and shrieking alien multiforms, she did not wake up. When singled out from the crowd by a shivering mass of oily tendrils and snapping claws which tore at her, and cast her into a the froth of a soul choking corrosive liquid, she did not wake up. When an empyrean singularity wrought her being inside out, she did not wake up.

What actually woke her up was the slight discomfort of the lower half of her butt being squeezed. She had fallen asleep on the floor, face down and panties seemingly not at full mast. Not yet quite awake, she flopped an arm back and gave the panties awkwardly bisecting her butt a quick tug. This only resulted in a hard snap as the fabric escaped her grip like a taut bow string. Panties evidently refusing to budge, her arm fell back along her side and she remained still and defeated. Apparently, the only thing rising today was her annoyance, and the hazy feeling that things had been – and still were – deeply wrong. And wasn't it suddenly a bit too hot, too? 

A full three minutes later she gave a morning groan, mustered all of her available power – and slowly contracted like an inch worm until she reached a sitting position. After blinking the night's stale moisture out of her eyes she discovered that she wasn't in her luxury apartment. Rather, she was in a sort of factory or industrial space, or perhaps a maintenance closet aboard something like a container ship. There was a distinct workshop smell reminding her of the sewing classroom back in school, but through pipes and walls caked in olive green paint came strange machine sounds and what might be the humming of enormous fans. Looking around more clearly, she found that the small hot room had no fans and only contained two cabinets, a crate, a bucket and mop, a few strange devices, and a full body mirror.

Shambling up to meet the reflected figure, she immediately noticed three unsettling things.

The first thing was the face. Though partially hidden behind a head of messy shoulder length black hair she could see that it was clearly not hers but that of a rather disheveled woman devoid of any makeup. She had a red mark on the forehead where it had pressed against the floor. Her ethnicity seemed like it could be a complete average of every type on Earth. Pushing a tangled bit of hair aside, she saw the type of face which maybe belonged to a middle aged woman who kept a youthful look. But it was also a bit of the reverse due to what might be lack of care. Certainly a fixer upper.

The second thing she noticed was the bikini panties in thin white fabric. Suddenly she understood why she had failed to pull them up any further – the audacious low-rise design simply made the endeavour impossible and left the upper stretch of her triangular dark bush unconfined. 

The third thing she noticed was the olive green sleeveless top, or rather, the bullet exit hole at the height of the heart and sternum. Upon poking her finger through she was unable to find any wound. That was a relief. Just above the blood stained hole she noticed a serial number printed in black on the green fabric – FW722. It felt intimately familiar. 

Besides this, all she wore was a pair of simple Chinese slip-on shoes, lightly worn and dirtied around the rims. They didn't have any of the fancy ornamental embroidery work she half expected to see, and half didn't. 

Was this one of those classic wuxia or isekai set-ups where she had gotten tossed into a different universe and somehow merged with another person? One moment she had been on a mission, one of those which often fell upon her as The Third Hand of the President of Eurasia. She had been standing idle in a fleshette-proof trench coat, hiding behind a 2072 elections signboard outside of the Central Embassy. Soon her target appeared and she most definitely popped it with her Mark II Gauss Needler, but just then- then the horrible dream had started. Had the truck been real? What about her 90 million ¥uro mission reward for the kill? Maybe she had just gotten drunk after the job, gone to bed, and was still dreaming?

Mind in disarray, she sunk onto the crate and began to massage her temples as if trying to summon a memory genie. It appeared to be working as she suddenly remembered a name – not her own name, but the name of this body. It was FW722... and named so because it was a mass produced bio construct – something akin to a factory robot. While technically human, it didn't really know much beyond being skilled at its assigned tasks.

She was aboard a space platform known as Factory 8790. The slab shaped 125 by 65 by 10 meter hull hosted a textile plant which operated around the clock producing something called Modern Imperial Standard Type U Basic Panties. There were 163 other workers on the platform. One of them had suddenly murdered her – shot her in the back. Stationed on the platform was also a force of 16 guardian robots which kept the workers productive and contained.

It was hard to imagine a motive for the murder as 722 had little in the way of personality, history, or property. All she owned was a pair of green tops, the simple shoes, and the ill-fitting little white panties which the factory made by the thousands each day and millions each year.

Getting back up to pace she noticed that the crate belonged to QC – it had "Quality Control : Rejects" stencilled on it. Huh? Perhaps she did have a beef with someone. 722 was a seamstress and hadn't she gotten an angry red slip from QC recently? This was following a rather peculiar mis-calibration in her designated sewing station.

Upon shifting the lid of the crate to the side she saw that it was haphazardly stuffed full with QC rejects, She fished up one of the skimpy bikini panties and studied it. The design had to 722's best knowledge been considered perfect for over 60 years and was supposedly the result of centuries of optimizations. She now wondered what kind of optimization targets had been in play for something like this to happen.

The fluorescent roof light easily filtered through the thin white fabric. but less so in the crotch overlap and it took a few seconds for her to notice the very slight hidden imperfection which had doomed this particular pair – a frayed edge. That was on the cutting department – it wasn't the type of severe flaw the deceptively subtle needle alignment drift in her machine had caused, with threads sometimes coming completely undone. The more she thought about it the more her paranoid new self suspected sabotage, possibly bullying. A strong urge to sort this out emerged, not just to avenge 722, but for the sake of her own immediate survival. She didn't want to die again too soon.

The murderer was likely now waiting for someone to find her body, which meant that the general population was not yet aware of any wrongdoing. Because the station was a small self-contained world – aside from the periodic visits by strictly controlled and inspected transport-supply shuttles – it would likely be difficult to hide and pretend to be missing. On that basis she decided to act as if nothing had happened and return to 722's normal procedures while closely observing reactions, fully assuming 722's role and name. 

She tossed the panties back into the crate. These QC rejects were good enough for workers but not for shipping out. Really though, imperfections or not, were any of them fit to wear? This was apparently not something the workers here had even thought about. 

Anyways, first her top needed fixing. She didn't have the spare with her serial name on it here, but being a seamstress she could at least close the entry and exit holes up, and wash out the blood stains. There was so little blood that she suspected that this body had gotten fixed by some transmigration magic almost immediately.

Contrasting the bottom, the olive green top was more loose fitting and actually had enough fabric to reach below the belly button. The lack of sleeves was likely to prevent it from being pulled into machinery. She had no bra underneath, just a pair of unremarkable round breasts not quite reaching C-cup. Actually, she was rather surprised there was anything there at all! There certainly wasn't much point in giving engineered factory workers something like her old pair of bazongas. 

One of the cabinets hid a sewing kit and green thread for mending so she got right to it and did a pretty good job closing the holes. The blood she had almost gotten rid of using water from the cleaning bucket and some sort of detergent. The blood hadn't even been left to dry so the incident must have happened recently, probably less than half an hour ago. 

Just as she was about to put the top back on she realised that if she went to her shift with a visible wet spot she might catch odd looks so she almost panicked and looked for a way to quickly dry it, eventually finding a hot pipe to hang the top over. 

While nervously waiting she looked around the room for any sort of evidence or peculiarity. It seemed likely that the culprit had pretty much just shot her in the back and left. Well, so she thought until noticing a pair of lonely panties sprawled on the floor behind the QC crate. They had either fallen out, or been carelessly tossed there in a hurry. While all panties aboard the station were pretty much identical, she still recognised this particular pair at a glance– there was a small hole on the front left side. She had snagged them there on a sharp corner of a work table just this morning. So, if those were hers... then what was she wearing? Had the murderer changed 722's panties? And if so, why? 

She was stumped for a good thirty seconds before a memory from her last life surfaced. She once met an East Korean defector who had hid a hand written list of spies in the seams of a pair of butler gloves. Could something similar be going on here? Was she being used? She should definitely check the seams of the substitute panty she now wore, or at least get rid of it.

Just as she slid the suspicious panty down she could hear the clanking of robotic footsteps advancing towards the room. It was a Guardian on patrol. She silently swore as the panties got momentarily stuck clinging around the slightly wider part of her thighs. Precious seconds passed by as she hurriedly completed the swap back to her original pair, stuffed the other ones into a vacant mini screw driver kit box, and finally pulled on the still lightly damp top. 

When the door slammed open she tried to casually face the Guardian. It was taller than her with an upper torso shaped like a bulbous pill. Otherwise its dark steelium body was mostly humanoid. She was relieved to see that this one had the red and white bands at the top and was fitted with grip arms, so it was a generic type and not the dreaded Grand Supervisor. 

–– "Why could you not be found at your station, 722?", it buzzed in a monotone.

–– "My work station has been acting up again Sir. Needle alignment.", she said, holding up the small cardboard box which according to the label should have contained a screw driver kit, but didn't. 

Fortunately for her circumstances no one ever put the little things back but scattered them all over. But the robot didn't know that.

–– "There is a station inspection. Follow me to the dock.", the robot continued, ignoring her issues.

–– "Oh.", was all she could say, and she trailed the Guardian out as it turned and walked off while still keeping an eye on her.

It would only be slightly wrong to say it had eyes at the back of its head – the thing was headless – but it did have small round wide angle camera ports at the front and back of its pill shaped torso.

She had come to in a room located near the life support dome of the platform, adjacent to the haphazard piping converging towards the three large reactors and radiators located along the central spine. The station's steadily building heat had to go somewhere, but the vacuum of space was of course a particularely poor cooling medium.

The dimly lit corridor outside had a bit of air circulation going, putting temps just below 25 degrees, which was on par with much of the station. The walls here were mostly pipes and peculiar embossed shapes in cast metal. Like almost everywhere on the station, everything was caked in thick coats of protective paint, except for the rattling worn floor grates which were naked metal. The crawlspace underneath acted as a sort of resonance box for the Guardian's heavy footsteps – an effect which had allowed her to get dressed and ready in time. Well, sort of – the hip huggers she had tried to wrestle on sat at a dangerous low tilt like a sinking ship, breaking regulations.

She wasn't too shy about exposure though, at least not when it came to work. When she assassinated an oppositional candidate in Brazil at a private beach party she had worn only a slingshot bikini – one of those which were mostly string. Not her cup of tea but it allowed her to avoid pat-downs and close the distance. The string was actually a garotte so it got at least one job done properly.  

A skimpy bunny suit had gotten her into the Blob Corporation party where she finished off their entire board of directors using only karate chops and the two blades hidden in the bunny ears.

Then there was the time she poisoned Miss Neo-Alabama during the swimsuit segment, right before the model could go on her little rant slandering the President of Eurasia. She had worn an appropriately toxic green swimsuit for that job, and one of her custom facial disguises – her natural face wasn't one which could pass the beauty candidate entry test. She had a pretty nasty scar going across one eye from a job a few months prior. 

Lost in reminiscence she was startled back to the present by the bright light in the open space machine hall. The large fans in the roof were still busily humming extracting dust towards the filter systems, but it was usually a lot noisier out here. The heavy momentum wheels were currently spinning down and the clickety-clack tempo of the free running machines was steadily slowing. The machines were arranged in long rows, divided by type, like threaders, weavers, sheeters, and cutters. Sewing, QC, and packing was done elsewhere. Everyone seemed to have had already left their stations, leaving the hall unusually empty.

She took the opportunity to finish shimmying the panties up towards a perfect straight line across the front and back. If there was an inspection everything needed to be proper or she'd get another red slip and reduced break time. The repair work and damp spot on the top was thankfully hardly visible. 

When they passed by a shelf with miscellaneous items, she covertly slid the box containing the other suspicious panty in behind a tray of rarely touched broken parts. It probably wouldn't matter if the robot had seen her disposing of the "screw driver kit" as she now apparently wasn't heading back to her station anyways. If they had gone to her station then she supposed she could've used the screw driver she kept near there... and, well, hadn't put back in its box.

--o--

Meanwhile, in the quite elsewhere...

-- "It took what, Grezuul'zwar?"

-- "A- a small god sir. The Realm Council is quite upset about the whole thing as now they're... one short. We're trying to get some information on the simpleform now... it seems to have been one of those cases that one of our subsection subcontractors handled... their paperwork is a bit... shoddy."

Beewul-xu'uhvu tapped eight of its 44 fingers rhythmically on the skull of a world eater it kept in its office. Its primary eye momentarily left the desktop omni-orb and scrutinized Grezuul'zwar. Was the guy trying to pull Beewul-xu'uhvu's slitherslonk?

-- "A god? It took a whole god? Just ran off with it? How in the nine nullvoids did a simpleform manage that?"

-- "Well… you know how the small gods are… this one had snuck off to take a bath in the reconstitution void -- apparently the simpleform had just been reforged there, and kind of… assimilated it? We don't know how but believe the god may have become a dormant integration. The simpleform would need to expire for the god to be released back."

-- "And just where did it take it? Why not just have a reaper sort it out?"

-- "Well, the simpleform was sort of headed to a Class H universe, and you know how those are about... intrusions. At most we can send a few specially briefed simpleforms over with miniature retrieval portals, however…"

-- "However what?"

-- "Well, as you know, transplanted simpleforms usually don't last long in Class H universes, especially not in this one. I'm afraid our agents would... probably not make it past an hour I hear."

Beewul-xu'uhvu thought for a moment, then its frown withdrew and signs of relief visibly bloomed in its primary eye.

-- "So? Isn't that good? It means this... god snatcher might also-"

-- "It hasn't expired yet sir."

Beewul-xu'uhvu got up on his four slitherslonks.

-- "But it will, right?"

/ End of Chapter /