– – – – – – – – – – – – 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?" / Chapter 2 / Beutraze tried to look calm as the wing ship docked with the factory platform. She straightened her tightly cut knee length skirt and fluffed the shoulder pads on the matching dress jacket in black. After pushing up her narrow non-corrective glasses she followed up the motion by stroking the rim of her hat for good luck, hoping it would work this time around. Her future at the Security Bjuro hinged on this little operation of hers. She was practically at the bottom of this year's Efficiency Rankings. Getting inspector Naxxel to follow her out here had not been easy but she needed a credible witness from central – someone who appreciated the type of results she was about to produce. Naxxel had been grumpy the whole trip and did not at all seem to enjoy being attached to an infamous security officer about to get bumped out of the organisation. Ultimately he had been forced to because the tracks Beutraze had laid down so far were reasonably believable. Soon they would find that an unknown worker on Factory Platform 8790 was actually a data runner for the Black Conclave. As it happens the worker would be found dead – a case no one would even care to follow up on when it turned out to be a case of covert bullying. Perhaps only the Department of Production might care what worker constructs were up to. Since the Guardian robots weren't easy to manipulate without leaving a log, Beutraze had used the stick and carrot on one of the brown shirt workers for all of the local arrangements. The classified data would turn out to be genuine – a Class A Imperial secret related to High Goblin derelicts. Beutraze had gotten her hands on that whopper via a series of fortunate events and arranged for a copy to be found on the platform. Later today a "Black Conclave extraction ship" would attempt a pickup but suddenly decide to abort and safely escape, never to be seen again. Preventing such a big secret from falling into the wrong hands would lead to a significant rise in the rankings for her, no doubt. With the worker dead and unable to comment, the case could be closed until Beutraze chose to develop it further. Maybe she'd even be ranked as Essential if she kept her wit. She exited the ship once post-docking procedures completed and found that the platform's Guardians had herded all of the workers into the dock area. They now stood grouped and ready for inspection. Most were wearing basic olive green tops but a few sported brown or orange ones. Not all had socks or thigh highs. Beutraze wasn't all that familiar with – or even interested in – their dress code system though. Naxxel seemed to blush a bit seeing the light uniform of the workers, looking hesitant to run the data strip detector over all of the bodies present. However, Beutraze needed him to do it to keep things credible, so she ushered him on while she walked up and down the lines with a note pad, looking serious even though she was only scribbling nonsense and looking over the rim of her glasses. As Naxxel scanning efforts reached the midpoint she drew a breath. –– "Hold on Naxxel...", she voiced, getting Naxxel's attention, "One seem to be missing... there should be 164, and I'm only counting... 163!" Naxxel swordlike eyebrows rose questioningly as Beutraze put on her most dramatic look. –– "Is that right? Let's do a head count. Form up into groups of ten.", he ordered the crowd of workers. Soon there were 16 groups and a smaller one with just four. –– "Hmm, this looks like all to me... You must have lost count somewhere." Beutraze had started to sweat, and not just because of the 25 degree heat. She shot a nervous glance at her useful brown shirt, who just stood there looking befuddled. The brownshirt didn't personally know Beutraze's face as an intermediary contact person had been used, then eliminated. Nor did Beutraze know the serial of the randomly picked target worker – it hadn't at all been important who it was as it would later be self evident. All Beutraze had needed to know was the face and serial of the brown shirt who she'd have to deal with during clean up. Naxxel's mood was definitely deteriorating as now he had to re-scan everyone due to having lost his position following the grouping. 45 minutes later he had gone over everyone, with no results. –– "You're sure the data strip would be hidden in the clothes?" –– "Yes!", Beutraze half shouted, "My mole in the Black Conclave..." –– "Mole Schmole!", Naxxel hissed and waved the detector around wildly, "What am I supposed to do now? Scan the entire factory platform? Why am I even here? What a waste of time!" Beutraze was about to suggest that they should keep the workers here and just search the quarters. She knew that the data strip had been placed hidden in a pair of the type U underpants, so she might be able to find them in one of the quarters and somewhat salvage the situation? But Naxxel was already at his limit. And if she kept the workers here then she wouldn't be able to discreetely talk in private with the brown shirt and get the serial of the target. Once she had that, or at least knew what went wrong… then... then- It suddenly occurred to her that a Class A document was on the loose. Regardless of what Naxxel did she would need to find it, definitely definitely need to find it, even if she had to remain here and scan every square inch. How could this happen? Was someone plotting against her? / Chapter 3 / The godling examined the integrity of its isolation shell, then peeked outside. Wow - they both made it? She thought the human would likely burst, but apparently they were both good. What a pleasant surprise! Hopefully this host wouldn't immediately expire and put a damper on her good mood. Maybe she could do something about that? But then the outside Universe might catch her. She wasn't really supposed to trespass. Well, for now she'd just go dormant and maybe casually observe a bit. The human looked like the type who could wiggle her own way out of trouble. –o– The workers were eventually sent back towards their quarters under escort by the Guardians, giving 722 time to mull over the incident in the dock. She had picked up a few obvious clues – such as the woman's blatant counting error and her querying attention towards one of the bewildered workers in a brown top. Seeing how that woman had apparently just arrived on the station and then immediately expected one worker to be missing, it followed that worker was likely the woman's contact and perhaps 722's assailant. But what could 722 do about it in this situation? She couldn't just make a break for it and run, right? She needed a way to slip out undetected. It wasn't long before the guardians had herded everyone back to the worker quarter section and shut the worker constructs into their respective quarters. 722 had entered a small room with just a few square meters of floor space, flanked on each side by three stacked bunk beds. She habitually climbed into the topmost left bunk as three other workers similarly fell into theirs. At the far end of the aisle there was a small shared storage cabinet doubling as a desk with a flip out seat. She eyed the closed door. Even though 722 strangely hadn't been held for questioning, surely trouble would come knocking soon. Technically the door couldn't easily be knocked as it was both sound proof and air tight – the quarter's air supply could even be sealed off in the case of a station breach. Under such conditions each of the worker quarters could ignite a small oxygen candle which provided up to 5 hours of hope while the Guardians attempted to patch any breaches. Her particular quarters would last a bit longer though as only four out of six bunks were currently occupied by worker constructs due to a reshuffle – 722 hadn't seen the two missing ones since. She had heard gossip about worker constructs being "moved" to the Outside. Had it perhaps happened so long ago that she wouldn't even recognise the workers even if they were still around? It was rather difficult to remember people without much personality. Maybe they had just changed their hair. At any rate, there wasn't much to friendships on the platform. 722 briefly sat tailor up on her bed, but the posture put a dangerous strain on her tight panties so she shifted into a geisha position. Stuck on the adjacent wall she noticed a flip page calendar with her private schedule in an absolutely tiny font. While the current her didn't really care about the two missing workers or when they had been moved, she still began flipping through the pages to refresh her memory of past events. However, her attempt at sherlocking was dashed by illegible high density clutter, and the calendar stretched back over ten thousand days – three decades – without much change. Hold on- decades? How old was she? Thinking about it, her body was a construct and her work environment was incredibly monotonous. The perception of time might indeed appear very different under such conditions. No vacations, news, or much of anything happening, just the same day repeating over and over again. Suddenly a red head popped up from the bunk just below. –– "Hey, Teu!" Oh, that was a coincidence – her friends called her Teu just like in her last life, though her full name was actually Teurana Zlayne then. That said, she had used over a dozen aliases and had as many infamous nicknames. Here 722 was just called Teu, or sometimes Zetutu. Nicknames were technically against regulations but it still happened in private. –– "Hey! Pssht!", the girly looking woman hissed trying to break the spell of Teu's space-out. Right, it was her spunky bunkmate, 505, or Firefly. 722 and the others never had any conflicts, but 505 could evidently be a bit noisy at times. –– "PSHT! Has your momentum wheel gotten stuck or something, Ze-tu-tu?", the girl hissed again, supplementing the query with three finger stabs before fully climbing into Teu's bunk like some monkey. Firefly was the kind of troublemaker who always managed to dodge consequences and instead end up with a privilege boon, like getting the white thigh highs she now wore. She had even managed to get a hair dye kit. Though hairstyles here varied a bit, all workers originally had a black-brown, coarse and vaguely wavy hair type, and for tool compatibility reasons worker construct bodies only varied slightly in height. The administration would hand out special yearly privileges for good conduct and performance, but when Teu thought about the triviality of it now she could only sigh – the original 722 had actually tried hard to get them, but a recent series of red slips had instead cost her her socks. –– "Un?", Teu responded to Firefly, preemptively blocking a "psht" possibly strong enough to draw spittle. –– "What do you think the Outside People want?", Firefly leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. She sat across Teu on the bed with an obliviously wide spread of her legs which immediately derailed Teu's focus on coming up with a plan of action. Supposedly at some time in a distant past five pages of printed images of Outside People had appeared on the platform before getting lost again. The few workers who had seen them formulated a number of competing Outside People theories. According to one theory the Outside People populate a world of colour and strange shapes just outside the hull of the platform. Some are covered by a lot of clothes while others laze around completely naked on yellow dust. They are very beautiful and all have a different type of bush shaped more like a bar than a triangle. Firefly had fully bought into the legend of the Outside People, as evidenced by the neatly trimmed two finger wide landing strip rising out of straining thin panty fabric. Teu grabbed Firefly's knees and slowly closed them with a serious look, afraid the struggling over-taut panty would give out and snap right off. The 722 part of her knew better though, being intimately familiar with the quality and limits of the product. –– "What's up with you?", Firefly grinned, her legs gradually beginning to fall back open again. –– "Aren't you curious about the..." –"Actually I think they're here to kill me.", Teu admitted. –– "Whaaat?", two voices exclaimed almost in unison, 731 having joined in. 731 – also known as Braids because she wore braids – had finally gotten interested. Long hair was of course a huge no-no for workers dealing with spinning machinery, but Braids worked in packing and had gotten special permission for the braids. She was one of those workers with a rather blank character, so the braids were her only outwardly identifiable characteristic. Even the silent and shy 601 looked like she was now paying attention, because her head of short curled hair peeked out from the bottom left bunk where she normally holed up under a blanket with something she was working on. 722 had suspected 601 might be an "eccentric" and at risk of being "moved", but 601's normal operation was apparently stable enough to be unremarkable to the Grand Supervisor. She hadn't even gotten a nickname – there were already a dozen "Curly" among the workers and nicknaming creativity wasn't exactly abundant on the platform. Firefly had scrunched her forehead up in confusion. –– "Kill you? Why would the Outside People want to do that?" Teu figured that since the situation was about to get messy, she might as well warn her bunkmates and get them onboard with her slowly developing plan. But before she could prepare them the door opened without warning. A woman in black entered the room – without knocking. The woman ordered a nearby Guardian to remain outside with a simple "Stay", then she firmly and ominously closed the door. Firefly and the others just gaped at the Outside People person as she reached into her jacket, pulling out an elegant silvery gun with an oddly ridged silencer. Teu had two advantages in this situation. She was in the upper bunk and not directly in line of sight, especially not with Beutraze's rimmed hat blocking the field of view. More importantly though, she was also not 722 in this moment, but Teurana Zlayne – a world class assassin. She simply reached down with an arm and grabbed the base of Beutraze's skull just below the ears, pinching hard and precise, feeling something give. Teu then slid down the bunk without letting go, following Beutraze's body as it slowly sunk onto the floor. She squatted by the body for several more seconds before finally loosing the iron grip. –– "What the heck did you do?", whispered Braids, hanging out from the opposing upper bunk with her two black braids dangling. –– "Hmm, what's this thing?", 601 voiced more to herself as she grabbed the silvery gun and waved it around dangerously. Everything happened all at once. Before Teu could react Firefly had hiked Beutraze's skirt up. It was a reasonable action for an agent who wanted to check for hidden weapons, but that was probably not what was happening here. Teu saw that the woman just wore a pair of normal skin-beige shape briefs underneath. –– "What the hell is this? It's so big and ugly." –– "What's with the strange colour?" –– "I don't even understand what I'm looking at." –– "This is nothing like the stories." –– "Is- is she just going to sleep here?" Teu snatched the gun from 601. –– "Yes, she's going to sleep here, permanently." Teu deftly took off Beutraze's uniform, shoes, hat and glasses. Beutraze body looked slightly taller than 722's, but part of that was her office heels. Thankfully they both had a similar near black hair colour, but Beutraze's was straight and glossy. Teu addressed this with a comb and some machine oil found in the shared desk. The face she would hide under the hat and fake glasses. –– "Now, listen closely,", Teu said in a serious tone looking at her bunkmates in turn, "you can either stay here and probably get in trouble, or you can go...", she paused for dramatic effect, "Outside, on an adventure!" This was the most exciting thing that had happened in ages, so everyone chose the so called "adventure", affirming it with silent obedient little nods which had a certain innocent giddiness to them –– "Good, pack up what you can't do without, then I need you to move with me, looking like you're dutifully following a Guardian. Try to cluster a bit behind me as we exit the room. And make sure to shut the door as you exit." Braids covertly leaned towards Firefly and whispered in a tiny voice. –– "What's an adventure?" –– "I... I don't know!", was the excited reply. Teu actually only needed the extra bodies to use as cover to block line of sight, and if she headed out alone she'd attract a lot more attention if her manner of walking wasn't quite right. Fortunately, walking in heels wasn't any issue for Teurana Zlayne and these heels were quite low and wide, like something worn for daily work. 601 scooped up some private things. Braids grabbed a compact box with 100 spare panties. Priorities... Firefly just snatched up all of the socks. Teu sighed, then ignored their rummaging. Her eyes grew sharp, then she bent over Beutraze's body. PWUPP! PWUPP! She put one shot in the back and one in the head. Then she stood up, straightened the suit, and opened the door. Head down she quickly strode past the Guardian outside. –– "Stay.", she imitated, not looking back. She felt her bunkmates clustering up behind and the Guardian didn't seem to have reacted. Fortunately their quarters had been close to the machine hall, and soon the entourage passed by the miscellaneous shelf and Teu quickly grabbed the small cardboard box not containing any screw drivers, but perhaps a method for screwing someone over. The factory was unusually silent with the only rhythmic clacking being that of her heels. Each step felt like a deafening countdown as they approached the dock hosting the wing ship. It was shaped like a big gray rectangle some 14 by 5 by 2.5 meters, and stood on retractable landing legs. At the top was a small cylindrical gun turret which immediately made Teu nervous. On the short sides were articulated flaps, like that of a box opened on the sides. Coming around to the rear they saw a tubular central engine sticking out three meters, and there were a flanking pair of big vertical flaps, making the whole thing look a bit like a ancient Wright plane with an enclosed space between the wings. It was probably only meant for use in vacuum as it didn't look at all atmospherically streamlined. When they got close a man poked his head out of an open boarding doorway, looking like he was about to curse her. And he did. –– "I'll have you know I have just filed a report on you Beutraze!" Teu just continued walking, keeping her head down. Naxxel frowned and leaned out further. –– "What are you bringing over? More of your nonsense?" At 4 meters distance she reached into her jacket. Just then Naxxel looked a bit startled. PWUPP! PWUPP! She closed the distance and scooped the body up before it even had time to fall out of the doorway. Within seconds the entire group were already inside the ship. She didn't know how to fly it, but also couldn't risk the man shouting and alerting the Guardians which were probably bullet proof against small arms. There were no other people on the ship even though it could likely hold a crew of ten without it getting too crowded. This one seemed like it had been configured for two person VIP travel though, and not troop transport. The air smelled lightly of perfume. Fortunately the technology in this universe was in some ways very primitive and mechanical, at least judging by the factory environment. Here there weren't any finger print scanners, touch screens, miniaturised PDAs or tricky surveillance bugs. Moving into the cockpit area, Teu instead saw levers, pedals, a type writer-like thing, analog gauges and meters, blinking bulbs, valve wheels, and a few cathode ray tubes. She had flown all sort of vehicles in her past life but was temporarily overwhelmed and froze up for a while. Worst case she could hole up here and perhaps learn how to operate the turret, which should be able to deal with the Guardians. She sunk into the pilot seat slowly and stretched. Her hand bumped into what could be an overhead glove compartment. Flipping it open she found a few pilot reports, repair logs, a smelly cardboard pine tree, a moderately naughty magazine, a cooking - celebrity - crossword combo magazine. Then underneath it all was a rather thick yellowed booklet titled Mark 6 Wing Courier - Operators Manual. It was 200 pages. She sighed and engaged her speed reading skills. The magazines she had tossed to her friends to keep them occupied, but immediately regretted it when they became noisy, all busily commenting on the completely alien contents. She had to shut them into one of the cabins – the one which looked like it had belonged to the woman. 15 minutes later a light on the console started flashing and buzzing. Fortunately Teu had already skimmed over the "Basics" section of the manual and saw that the light indicated a local comms request . But who was phoning? She somewhat nervously held down a response button. –– "WC6-901-CU Beutraze.", she replied in a neutral voice, keeping it dry by using the serial number stamped on page one in the manual. There was a seemingly long pause. She was hoping the audio signal carried some distortion helping to mask her voice, so she didn't raise any suspicions. –– "This is GS-8790-4040.", a robotic voice replied, "On behalf of the platform's Overlord Machine, model OMP-80, this unit must request clarifications regarding recent activities, for purposes of log keeping, inventory, and continued action." It sounded like it could be the Grand Supervisor. Inventory? Was that the workers? What was the most natural and advantageous response here? She thought for a while before speaking. –– "Resume normal operations. The inspection is over. Keep quarter 12B sealed and guarded. De-docking request to follow along with a report." Beutraze's corpse would start to smell she supposed, but by that time they would hopefully be long gone. She wasn't sure what to do about Naxxel's corpse as throwing it out into the docking hangar was... probably not a good idea. –– "Requesting communications with Inspector Naxxel at that time.", the Grand Supervisor droned on, making it hard to tell whether it was suspicious or not. Damn. –– "Negative, Naxxel is in a bad mood.", she responded, then added, "Comms out." She fell back into the pilot seat again, breathed out, then resumed speed reading, flipping to the 45 pages detailing de-docking procedures, skipping over the little footnotes which were probably just edge cases. Probably. / Chapter 4 / If the Grand Supervisor had been able to frown, it would have done so when it saw the wing ship put a long scratch into the roof of the docking bay as it teetered out. However, the Grand Supervisor just added the damaged roof to its list of maintenance items and continued to observe as the ship moved beyond sensor range. The two inspectors had left behind a highly inadequate report, and three of the platform's workers had been appropriated for unknown reasons. Worker quarter 12B was to be sealed up along with its air circulation – a forensics team would supposedly arrive later and absolutely nothing could be disturbed. The Grand Supervisor could only hope things would be clarified then. A few hours later a new ship signature appeared on the platform's sensors. Was it the forensics team already? No, the signature was a logged counterfeit, widely known to be used by an unlawful organisation. The mystery ship however seemed to have no business with the platform and soon left, a convenience to the Grand Supervisor who didn't much appreciate disruptions and disorder. But when the Grand Supervisor got the factory back up and running again it noticed that worker FW722 was missing and could not be located by any of the Guardian Units. There was an 89% chance that she was trapped in the sealed quarters and now suffocated, a 7% chance that she was hiding, a 2% chance that she had somehow stowed onto the wing ship, and a 1% chance that she had been deposited into space as the ship de-docked. –o– Teu had vectored the Wing Courier away from the platform at full speed and in no particular direction. She disposed of Naxxel's body immediately after figuring out how to operate the ship's airlock. She also got out of Beutraze's suit and heels as it didn't feel right to strut around with that stuff in the ship and catching side eyes from the other girls. The oil in her hair she had managed to wash out, but it still smelled a little. Now she sat in the cockpit area observing the system info plot on one of the flickering monochrome CRT displays. The barren star system she was now in had apparently been stuck with the name "Temporary Name 51G" for 399 years. The central red dwarf star had no planets and only kept two asteroid belts around. The display listed a few ongoing mining operations with a registered crew of all male worker constructs and the usual Guardians and Overlords. In addition there was of course Factory Platform 8790, which just drifted alone in deep space, slowly going around the small star at 16.2 S U. She guessed an S U was about 15% of an A U, but unfortunately she had no real point of reference. Meters were the same in this universe at least. It even had cubits, but here they were 0.48 meters for the quadodecal cubit and 0.5 meters for the metric cubic. Incidentally, the Type U panties the workers made were calibrated for sub 1/8th quadodecal frontal coverage. While the cutter team used a standard template pattern, QC still insisted on using that flexible quadodecal inspection ruler, and sometimes also wielded it as a whip. Teu hit a button and watched a plot of the local star sector emerge in a phosphorous glow on the display. Temporary Name 51G was located in the outer periphery of imperial space. There were some 1500 stars within the ship's current jump reach of 24 light years. Out of these only 60 had planetary settlements – usually of the smaller variety with a population ranging from thousands up to millions. This didn't mean that the rest of the systems were uninhabited though, it was just that worker constructs and their robotic minders didn't count as population. It was useless to stay in Temporary Name 51G so she would need to locate a well populated system with some prospects. The primitive computer was unfortunately only able display brief text summaries and simple vector plots, so Teu didn't have much to go on when selecting a target system, and with limited fuel she didn't want to take shots in the dark. She took a break after cursoring over a few systems and instead went to check on the three other girls. When she entered Beatraze's private quarters she saw them holding 601's shirt up, tying a black bra on – upside down, then abandoning the endeavour in confusion. They had gone through all of Beutraze's stuff and the room was a mess. Unless it already was before, that is. She didn't clarify the matter about the bra because she noticed something more urgent laying splayed open on the floor – it looked like an edge worn travel catalog or guide. "System Catalog, Sector 56:90D – Special Edition – Explore the mysteries of the periphery! Buy your own island paradise! Find comfortable retirement on Bothlar!" Besides the text, the cover featured a colour illustration of a refined victorian lady. She was comfortably seated and stroking an alien furry thing in her lap. Surrounding her was a group of muscular male butlers in a state of undress. The catalog was 36 years out of date. Already back in the pilot seat and flipping through the catalog Teu soon found a friendly looking system some 7 light years away. The only inhabitable world in the system had a population of half a million living on an arid looking continent. The small planet rather reminded Teu of an all Australia Earth. Like many planets out here it was in the process of being terraformed. Due to significant heavy metal deposits its gravity approached "standard", though this was extraneous to Teu since the wing ship apparently couldn't easily land on planets, and she was not about to leave it unguarded and go down on a shuttle. No, the reason why the world interested her was because it had a fully featured starport in orbit – not a dinky little backwater depot but an actual small moon – one that she could dock with and comfortably resupply at. Well, so she guessed. So, she carefully adhered to the sequence of steps detailed in the Hyperjump section of the manual and set up the jump. After hitting a big red button... nothing happened. Following 15 minutes of double checking every step she eventually noticed some fine print – this model of the Wing Courier unfortunately had a slower onboard computer and would need 82 minutes to calculate the jump, set up all parametric relays, and spin up the drive coils. During this time the ship had to follow a predictable trajectory, which meant that if some boogie came buzzing the wing ship was either a sitting duck or had to abort the jump and start over again. Aborting was however a no-go during the last 6 minutes of the jump sequence as then the fuel for the jump was already being pumped and spent on energisation, and it had to go somewhere lest the ship explode. The only course of action if the ship was threatened during this window would be to trigger a premature misjump. If the crew was lucky a misjump would just move the ship to a random point in nearby space. From there the crew could find a point of reference and attempt a new jump, provided the ship had any fuel left. The Mark 6 Wing Courier used Condensed Hydrogen Fuel which was neither uncommon nor expensive. The Wing Courier had enough fuel for two full length 12 light year jumps or a series of shorter ones. Fuel usage during in-system travel was comparably small. As Teu sat waiting for the jump a little blip appeared on one of the long range sensor displays, spooking her, but then it disappeared again. The minutes ticked by with nothing happening, so she decided to go stretch her legs a bit. The other girls were busying themselves exploring the lateral confines of the wing ship, so she joined them. The ship was nearly 15 meters wide but some of it was of course taken up by bulkheads and normally inaccessible compartments, such as fuel tanks. Still, there was enough space for them to stand upright and walk about. While the left and right side of this particular Wing Courier had been configured to hold luxury cabins, the space could apparently also be used for extra armament, such as dual torpedo + gun modules. Other options included better sensors, hydrogen fuel skimmers, additional cargo space, long range fuel tanks and smaller passenger cabins. The two configurable spaces were about 4.5 by 4.5 meters but a bit of the outer space was always reserved for fuel tanks. This left a 5.5 by 4.5 meter slightly crowded space in the middle. The main engine at the back intruded towards the central pilot cockpit located directly under the top turret and its mechanics. The turret actually doubled as a sort of periscope – the ship had no windows, just a number of optical projection tubes routed to the pilot for "visi-nav" purposes. This central space also hosted life support systems and a compact bathroom sitting against the engine behind the pilot. To the right of the engine at the back was a tiny airlock leading to the external docking door. The inner door of the airlock was rarely used, so due to cost and space saving measures, the inner door was just an airtight fabric. The left side didn't have a door but a garbage chute leading to the outside. This was a hand cranked cylinder with an opening on one side. These two ports flanked the engine and were positioned inside the ship's two rearward vertical fins. The pilot was facing the a diverse arrangement of consoles tapping into the enclosed forward sensors and computing systems. To the sides of these were two mixed purpose utility closets. Contrasting Beutraze's cabin, Naxxel's cabin seemed barely used. He had perhaps been an incredibly dry man. Upon searching his cabin they found a locked drawer, which they promptly pried open with a tool. Inside was a little logbook with just two entries, both critiquing "that dumb bitch". There was also a pictorial magazine which possibly showed alien sex, but it was hard to tell as the creatures weren't even remotely humanoid. Beutraze's cabin was apparently a bit more interesting to rummage through. Despite Teurana Zlayne and FW722 both being somewhat asexual in nature, Teu still felt a bit odd seeing the other girls bending over hither and thither with the thin white panties sitting far too low on their butts. Wherever her mind was heading it was suddenly derailed by a series of exclamations. –– "What are these?" –– "They're so shiny!" –– "And super heavy!" The girls had found a whole bunch of peculiar shiny metal discs. Only Teu was able to tell what they were – they very much looked like old Chinese coins with the square holes in their middles. Thinking about it, credit cards and digital payment systems might not be viable in a universe where interstellar travel away from local banking databases was a thing. Also, computers here seemed a bit more primitive. Which raised the question of how robotics was achieved. Maybe... the Guardians were not really- Teu moved away from the thought. Anyways, having coins were a good thing – with a credit card she'd likely need an ID and pin code. Aside from the coins they also found a set of small silvery bars. Roughly counting the embossed numbers all together they had a total of some 10000 monetary units. The inventory search continued. They apparently had not found a bottom matching the black bra. The effort instead just yielded more of the rather large beige underpants. After seeing Naxxel's body being "spaced" earlier, the girls came up with the idea of also spacing these "abominations". Teu supposed they had a point -- they might need to eventually dump a bunch of stuff. The ship's manual hinted at a more convenient way though -- there was actually a dedicated garbage chute. A warning label however discouraged its use due to regulatory codes in fine print. After definitely having made even more of a mess they set to cleaning up, changing bed sheets and settling in. They would need to sleep at some point after the jump. While time supposedly froze on the ship during hyperjumps, the exit point usually put the ship quite far out in the target system. The manual claimed that it would generally take days to approach inner planets. As for sustenance, they had completely forgotten to bring it. On the station they kept the sustenance bars in a meal area and didn't run around carrying them, or squirreling them away in their quarters. Thinking about it, Teu realised that she hadn't eaten one yet. FW722 had in the past of course, but now Teu understood how abnormal the food was. The sustenance bars on Factory Platform 8790 were perhaps specifically tailored for worker constructs. One didn't need to eat much of them to feel full and energised. The idea was perhaps to reduce meal and toilet breaks, and the platform's life support systems could also be simplified. The bars somewhat looked like a strip of four white chocolate tabs, though sadly they bore no similarity in taste and were completely bland. Teu froze. Did FW722 perhaps not have any taste buds? Then she remembered having tasted metal, machine oil and sweat, so maybe she was fine. After going back to the pilot seat she sat there staring for 20 minutes at an unmarked mechanical number display which she suspected was the jump countdown timer. When it got stuck at zero she sat frowning for a while, and then went to forage for food. She found the others sitting in a triangle on the floor in Beutraze's cabin. At its center was a pile of colourful metallic wrappers – many of them empty. The girls were all looking extremely pleased, if not ecstatic. 505 snapped out of her stupor and beamed wide eyed at Teu, then tossed what looked like a half eaten meal bar at her. "These... they, they make the whole mouth happy! Try it!" Looking at the wrapper, Teu saw that it was indeed a meal bar, with "Jollyberry flavour". She nibbled at it. It tasted like a regular meal bar. She sighed, realising that to the others, a sustenance bar with taste was indeed exotic. Figuring that each of these likely contained thousands of kilo calories, she squatted down and spoke up, like an admonishing nanny. –– "I think this might be... Outside People food, so it might not work well for us. Don't eat more than a bar, okay?" At that the girls started to shuffle the already empty wrappers out of sight. Just then however there was a series of beeps coming from the abandoned cockpit, and then the ship lost artificial gravity. Everyone's butts left the floor. Then there was a jostle which stirred the whole cabin into chaos. Dang, didn't the manual say something about securing the crew and any loose objects before making a jump? It was too late now as the four started to float and spin around like rag dolls, bumping and flailing. Teu tried to grab something, but let go upon discovering she was pulling someone's top up over their heads, leaving them blinded and kicking. She bumped into the roof, twirled around, felt a flailing hand grab the back stretch of her panties and tug as if a car door handle. Not thinking clearly she reached down to firmly hold the slipping panties in place by their thin side straps. This was perhaps what doomed her. Set spinning defencelessly on a new trajectory, Teu found that her head was on a slow but inescapable rendezvous with someone spread like a starfish, their panty clad crotch fully spinning into view. As her face pressed right into the soft underside with uncanny precision her mouth let out a literally muffled shout, and time froze. –– "NOo-uumff!" Though contact was brief and her brain reasonably wouldn't have been able to function if time stood still, she had a weird feeling that the embarrassing moment of contact had lasted for hours. Everyone fell into a heap once gravity returned, Braid landing hard on top of Teu, looking just as embarrassed as she scrambled up. She fidgeted with her panties then took little sideways steps out of the cabin like a shy crab. Teurana Zlayne felt that her status as an authority had been greatly damaged by the weirdly unlikely muff diving incident, but fortunately Firefly and 601 seemed oblivious where they still laid sprawling, and of course, 601's top was still stuck pulled over her head. Luckily no one was hurt beyond feeling a few light dings and psychological perturbations. Teu re-entered the cockpit and looked at a display showing a plot of their new system. They seemed to be pretty far out, at 52 S U, in Jovian territory but off the planetary plane. According to the travel guide there was a blue gas giant somewhere out here, but the orbit plot now put it on the other side of the sun. Further in an irregular asteroid belt sat at an angle, making it seem like perhaps a planet got smashed there at some point. Then finally at 9 S U orbits the target planet "Nezolthandar'ozoha" could be found. The guide recommended sticking with "Nez'oh" though, just like all but the most jingoistic of locals, of which there thankfully weren't too many at the time the travel guide was written at least. Pirates were allegedly not a problem then either. She locked the auto pilot onto Nez'oh and hoped that the world would appear in its predicted position. Planets weren't at all likely to go astray of course. Teu spent the evening mostly to herself, reading the ship manual and keeping an eye on sensors. The others were going through the magazines over and over again, and probably secretly nibbling on those meal bars. When Teu fell asleep she dreamed of businessmen. In the dream the old her had been brought to a nondescript building by a very ordinary car, then she was greeted and escorted inside by her handler, a plain looking man in a black suit. He coughed and read from a small piece of paper. –– "Our compliments on surviving the first day.", he said with bored insincerity. –– "As per the Exchange Agreement between the H Group Recipient Universes and us in the Transfer Section, your – The Casualty's – memories of the events which are about to follow have now been made available to you in a translated format suitable for simpleforms such as yourself." She just screamed, but she also saw herself from the outside as a detached viewer, as if watching a replay. –– "I don't actually look like this. Your mind has created this form as it is one which you can understand." The Teurana Zlayne in the dream was still screaming. –– "We intercepted your soul as it was, well, it had been claimed by a rogue < unintelligible >." –– "I suppose that won't translate. Anyways, seeing how it's our responsibility to keep these things in check and we failed to do so, you have a right to compensation according to Realm Council regulation 1005." –– "...unfortunately, due to the recent... events in the multiverse and the loss of the entire Halcyon realm structure we cannot send you off with our standard compensation package. In fact, we are sending you off to a third party mitigator – goodbye!" Huh? He just hurried off just like that? Then she was escorted by two nice looking gentlemen through a series of corridors with pleasant and calming wall paintings of ordinary scenes like idyllic rolling hills, and ...other things. Teurana's eyes were strangely bulging, staring in absolute confusion and horror at the pictures. Soon Teurana entered a waiting room. There were some very ordinary people inside. Kids, smiling old ladies, a man who winked at her, and a pair of adult twins happily bouncing a ball. A woman was dancing and doing pirouettes, her head twisting very normally as she spun and spun and spun. Teurana had huddled up into a shivering ball on the floor. Then the people gave way to an important looking chummy fat fellow in a suit. He walked up to Teurana, bent down, beamed a smile while gently putting a hand on her shoulder. –– "I don't actually look like this. Your mind has created this form as it is one which you can understand." –– "We here at Huhkkstar's Shunting Services are very dedicated to fulfilling the minimum compensation requirements set by our partners, and we are very happy to report that we have found a good fit for... whatever this is,", he said, lightly patting her huddled body before continuing, "You will be shunted to a reconstitution void, and then a Class H universe. While this universe is hostile to disruptions by transfers and unfortunately forces us to put you in a disadvantageous situation with a useless cheat and no information – other than the one now provided to you – your expected lifetime is still nearly 52 minutes according to our medians. May your soul find tranquility in the void." Then she took a nice bath in a tub so vast that its limits were lost in mist. After a bit of splashing around she gradually started to look like 722 and a duck came floating up to greet her. It said "quack quack!", then left. and 722 grew still, pondering the meaning. Had the translation perhaps malfunctioned for this part? Hadn't the duck actually said something kind of important? 722 had frozen and the water became a mirror. Then she was very surprised to discover a fun looking beach ball come floating by. She waded up to it. Unexpectedly it went "Pop!" when she tried to grab it, quite startling her. She woke up to the present feeling that she was missing something crucial, but a pair of panties squeezing her lower butt distracted her and the revelation slipped. –o– At the same time, in the quite elsewhere... Beewul-xu'uhvu's upper hyper-glands were sweating wildly due to worry. It leaned forward in anticipation as Grezuul'zwar entered the office, still studying a report. –– "Well? Has the simpleform expired yet? Has the lost godling returned?" Grezuul'zwar looked up from its plane-sight tablet and signalled a negative with a shiver of its head. –– "We have a whole section of overlord rank observers keeping an eye on the instream sir. The simpleform appears to be an outlier and perhaps unusually crafty." –– "What about our team of simpleform transfers? What are their positions?" Grezuul'zwar grew silent while it manipulated the tablet interface. Then it stayed silent. –– "None? They all died? All 59? That was our entire quota for this period! Bloody hermit universes! –– "We… could... sneak some more in sir." –– "That would drive the Class H mad. You know what happened last time we angered a Class H by breaking contract right?" Grezuul'zwar knew of course. Everybody knew. Grezuul'zwar thought for a while. –– "What if... let's say one of the local simpleforms that's hostile to our target gets a little lucky. A subtle nudge of circumstances is hard to detect if we don't do it anywhere near the target. The subtle roll of a pebble lightyears away could get the job done. Our chaos team could probably set it up." Beewul-xu'uhvu was now nervously tapping fully half of its 44 fingers on its ostean office decoration, then finally gave a short nod. The simpleform needed to expire before the next quartercycle ended or the council would bring out their bong rods – or worse.