Chapter 8

The tree had a face, and it stared down at her, unimpressed by her size.

“This is our boss, Rumble Wor,” Drie said, introducing Enedelia to a tree.

Enedeliea looked up the length of the tree, hoping to spot an animal of some sort controlling the tree. It resembled a pine tree, tall, skinny, wider at the bottom than the top, and the space that enclosed it was softly illuminated. If the tree had any feelings about her, it didn’t show, but then, Enedelia had never really learned to read trees.

“A tree?” Enedelia asked.

They encouraged her to go forward. She imagined the tree coming to life like the ones in the Wizard of Oz, perhaps grabbing at her with its limbs, but she convinced herself that was just fiction. Still, she advanced as if trying to avoid stepping on any exposed root.

“The brothers say you want work?” Rumble Wor said. The voice seemed to come from nowhere, and vibrated through her, the same way she might feel the base if she put her hand on a speaker. The voice didn’t register in her ears per say, but moved through her body via bone conduction. It literally rattled her from foot to skull.

Enedelia wanted to turn and run, but she could see the Grays looking at her from a distance. She bit down on her fear. “Yes, Sir, if the compensation is adequate.”

“May I access your employment history?” Rumble Wor asked.

“I don’t have a history,” Enedelia said.

“This is not a good sign,” Rumble Wor said.

There was a moment of silence, but then she realized that the tree was conversing with the Grays. She discovered Rumble Wor was able to direct his voice to individuals. The Greys, nodded, and started to move off towards an exit.

“You’re dismissed,” was the next statement to rumble up through her body.

“Wait,” Endelia said, deciding to stand her ground. “I’m eager and willing to work, but I want to know that the compensation is fair.”

“It depends on your point of view, I suppose,” Rumble Wor said. “If I were to hire you, I would provide you with room and board, and every additional week after your first week that you prove to be productive, I will add incentives.”

“Room and board?” Enedelia asked.

“It’s standard fair,” Rumble Wor said. “You work for me, I will see that you have a place to sleep, and adequate nutrition to maintain your health and productivity. You will have your first meal after a five hour shift, and a place to sleep after completing ten hours of work. I will give you forty credits after you have completed one week, and one day of work. After the completion of your second week, I will pay you a total of sixty credits a week, in addition to your room and board. And five additional credits for every unit produced above quota.”

“Oh, room and board,” Enedelia said, now understanding that room and board meant a bed and food. Maybe her translation program was faulty. At either rate, she needed a place to sleep. The idea of having her own apartment, on a space station, was very appealing. She began to wonder if she had a grand view of the stars, or maybe a ringed planet, but then she remembered there wasn’t a ring planet nearby. Still, a room was a room. No time to be picky. “This seems fair. I accept the offer.”

“I said if I were to hire you. I do not remember offering you an opportunity,” Rumble said.

“Please, Sir, I just need to chance to demonstrate I am capable,” Enedelia said. “I promise, I won’t disappoint you.”

The tree considered. “This is not some fluff job. There is danger involved.”

“Can’t be more dangerous than the neighborhood or family I was born into,” Enedelia persisted.

Rumble Wor took her hand in his. Her hand literally disappeared in his grip, like a palm of pine needles gripping her. With his other hand, he touched an object to her arm and injected something into her, which startled her more than hurt her. “We have a work contract then, with your genetic signature and voice conformation. Jeden, Drie? Get over here.”

The two Grays scurried over to Rumble Wor. “Show her the ropes. And if she

doesn’t survive the first four hours, I’m taking it out of your pay.

“Survive?” Enedelia asked.

“This way,” Jeden said. “Come with us.”

“Survive?” she asked again, pulled on by their little hands.

They passed through a small door, one so small that Rumble Wor would have to duck to enter, but even then she didn’t think he would pass through, and emerged into a cylindrical room, with a spiral stair case leading down four stories. Looking down over the edge she saw what awaited her. At the bottom level there was a monster size praying mantis type creature, with a huge, bulbous end section which was dropping an egg with a great deal of fuss. It looked up at them as they began to descend and screeched, loud enough to hurt her ears. Enedelia turned to go back the other way, but the Grays stopped her.

“It’s safe,” Jeden said. “Just as long as you stay on this side of that circle painted around Moa. Our job is to feed her and collect her eggs. Come, it is easy work.”

“I’m not going near that thing,” Enedelia said.

“Not thing. Moa. Its name is Moa,” Drie said. “And it is very good to stay away from her, because she will eat you. Very dangerous, but only if you get in arm’s length of her.”

“Surely they can get a machine to feed her,” Enedelia said.

“No, Moa not like machines. Stop laying eggs around mechanical devices. She can only be fed by live servants. Hive mentality and all. Don’t worry. She can’t leave that circle. We attend to her needs,” Jeden said.

They reached the bottom level and Jeden reached into a cubby hold and pulled out ear plugs. He handed a pair to Endelia. “Put these on, or your head will ache. Moa makes quite a fuss, especially when she’s hungry.”

“And she’s always hungry,” Drie pointed out, putting in his ear plugs.

“We pick up food from the conveyor belt, carry it to Moa, slide it into the circle with these sticks, walk around to her rear, collect egg, and place it on the out going conveyor belt. Very easy. We show you. Come,” they said, pulling her down the stairs.

There was another two creature already performing the task described by the Gray. When Jeden and Drie were in speaking distance to the other employees, one started complaining: “Your break extra long. We take extra long break.”

“No, we recruited a new worker,” Jeden said.

Enedelia stared up at the monster named Moa, its mandible tearing apart the food just pushed into its circles. She couldn’t tell if it was looking at her or through her. The exoskeleton on its arms looked abrasive, with sharp tiny points growing along the ridges where the sections came together. Other parts of her body seemed smooth, and even wet. Saliva fell from her jaws as she chewed.

“Worker?! Looks like Moa food to me,” the other said.

Rumble Wor’s voice came over the intercom, “I’m not paying you creeps to chat, now get to work.”

“Come,” Jeden said. “We get Moa’s food over here. Just remember, don’t cross that circle, or you will be Moa food.”

As if Jeden’s words had cued an incident, there was a scream by one of the workers she hadn’t met yet. Moa had grabbed the worker, pulled him in to her mouth, and bit into him, head first. She consumed the person in seven bites, clothes and all. Blood was everywhere. Enedelia’s knees gave and she fell to the floor in shock and total fear. She could hear the crunching of bones, and there was so much more blood than Holly Wood had ever displayed in any of its horror movies. Moa spit out something, which landed on the floor near Enedelia. It proved to be a piece of cloth with a zipper on it.

“Poor Mason,” Drie said, shaking his head, and then together with Jeden and the remaining workers they both said a thing that sounded like a little prayer, “Mason is now one with the mother of all.”

“Poor Mason!?” said one of the workers, rich with sarcasm. “Poor me! It’s my turn to clean up the inner circle. Mince meat! He had a lot of blood.”

Jeden and Drie pulled Enedelia back to her feet. “You must never sit down. Go collect that egg and put it on that belt. And mind you, walk around the circle.”

Enedelia just nodded. She put in the ear plugs to deafen the sound of bones being crunched, and proceeded around the egg, as far from the circle as the room would permit. Her ability to think was gone. She simply worked on automatic. She managed to push through her entire day of work thinking very little, which was very dangerous since she had to be alert to her danger at all times. Twice Drie and Jeden reminded her of the circle. The other distraction was the weight of the food and the eggs she carried. They were heavy. By the end of her shift, she could barely pick things up. It was a struggle just to move the eggs to the conveyor belt without dropping them. As for the food, she did drop it. She couldn’t set it down softly. She simply dropped each one right on the line, requiring her to push it into the circle which defined Moa’s reach. And each time Moa reached for her before reaching for the food supplement. She really did prefer fresh, live food, to the supplements, and would screech in frustration each time Enedelia refused to comply with a sacrifice of self. She had been thinking of giving up until she over heard the strange looking employee talking to her Gray friends.

“She won’t last the day,” he said. “You not get a bonus for recruiting that, except maybe a bonus for bringing Moa fresh food.”

“She’ll make it,” Drie argued.

“What she lacks in strength, she makes up for in determination,” Jeden agreed. “She is stronger than she appears.”

“Wager?”

“She’ll make it a week,” Drie said.

“She’ll make it a month,” Jeden said.

“I’ll pay on both of those if she makes it a day,” he said.

“Back to work!” Rumble Wor announced over the intercom.

And they all trudged on. Enedelia made it through the day and was never so happy to be escorted to her new “home.” All the way there she fantasized about a spacious apartment, getting a shower and kicking back on a couch. Her dreams of a nice little apartment were quickly snuffed, however. Oh, it was a little apartment, but she had never considered how little it might be. Her new home was maybe twice as big as a coffin. The private living spaces were little cubicles, stacked one on top of the other and stretching as far as the eye could see, only because it was obviously part of the ring of the space station, as far as the eye could see curbed around so that she could only imagine that the cubicles continued all the way around till it met itself. Looking down over the balcony rail gave her a bit of vertigo, seeing the floor wind around. She imagined it was like looking out the middle floor window of a large building, like the Sears Tower in Chicago, only to see the floors below you curving out and away, and the floors above you doing the same, and somewhere they connected together on the other side.

As for the cubicle itself, Endelia remembered seeing something similar to this in National Geographic. If her memory served her right, it was a hotel concept at a Japanese airport, where space was a premium, and lots of people needed a place to sleep. There was a public shower and toilet on every third floor, but since her private “space” was on the shower floor, she hadn’t far to go after cleaning up. Jeden loaned her a large towel which she figured if she were brave enough to use the public shower, she could wrap herself in it after drying. What to do about cleaning her clothes was still a mystery.

As she was about to climb in her coffin, Drie and Jeden came to see if she had any needs. She slipped out of her back pack and examined the small, enclosed space that would be her space. When she finished worrying about being claustrophobic, she discovered Drie going through her bag. He pulled out an item, sniffed, and put it back. He stopped at the disposable camera.

“What is?” Drie asked.

“It’s a camera. It captures images. Memories,” Enedelia said.

“Ah,” Drie said. “You bring to work and I take your memory with Moa. That would make a good memory, yes?”

She smiled. “That would make a dreadful picture,” she said. “But one I would like to have.”

“Can we help you further?” Jeden asked.

“I am fine, thanks,” she said. She tossed her pack in to the space, grabbed the hand rail, and hoisted her self up, throwing her self in feet first. There was a television monitor that helped ease some of her feelings of claustrophobia. The bed floor was comfortable, but she would have liked a pillow. She closed the door on the two Grays and immediately started to weep. Every muscle in her body ached.

“Even Dorothy had it better than this,” Enedelia thought, reflecting over Dorothy’s adventures when she had run away from home. Even sobbing revealed aches she didn’t know she had. She cried herself to sleep.