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Author's Chapter Notes:

 

check out the pdf version of this story, which includes amazing art by the one and only Angel! <3

http://binary-prophet.deviantart.com/art/Sacrifices-On-The-Greater-Altar-Of-Human-Need-663859205

(shout-out to my girl tabby b for her formatting wizardry ~v~)

 

 


 

 

It was almost quitting time. Bill was determined to make it. Less because he was gripped by any kind of industrious spirit, and more by his want to sleep in a real bed that evening, instead of drooling all over his desk again.

He sipped at his cup of hot coffee in spite of the late hour, and watched the monitors in front of him. They tracked the agonizingly slow progress of the various assembly lines. The plant had six chemical-heavy streams still active that Bill needed to complete before he could shut it all down.

Three processes involved the usual output of synthetic materials that the factory was one of the biggest producers for, globally.

Two were regular big batch orders for Dubois Unlimited Formula S. That was the official name for the "miracle miniaturizer," employed by everyone, everywhere: tidy homemakers who wanted their closets and pantries to store an excess well beyond their traditional capacities; prison wardens who found the convicted easier to control and contain when they were the size of bugs—just that morning Bill had read how budget-minded airlines experimented with micronizing passengers who traveled at the back of the bus, so to speak, to pack more of them in.

Even Bill used Formula S to reduce the volume of his garbage and recycling, just like everyone else. And to miniaturize his summer and winter wardrobes whenever the seasons flipped, and to control his overflowing tool shed, and. . .

If you could imagine it, there was probably a good reason to shrink it.

"It's a small world after all," a string of printed words on every bottle declared.

The last production stream was a special rush request for Valentine's Day chocolates, of all things. The company that sold them expected a greater demand than it had previously anticipated. A buzz had developed that the chocolates were the most adorable shapes that anyone had ever seen.

They were cute character designs or some shit—Bill did not know; Bill did not care. As far as he was concerned, it was a dumb holiday for dumb people.

Romantics? Please!

Romance was not something that you penciled in on the same day every year; that you bought the same old trite cards for, and gifted sterile branded products that were a mockery of any real emotion. You could not shrink wrap true love, for fuck's sake!

Where was the spontaneous impetus, and actual thought? The individual, intimate consideration? If you really loved someone, was it unreasonable to think that every day would contain qualities of Valentine's Day? That when this energy peaked, any day of the year might quietly become its own Valentine's Day, in spirit? To Bill's mind, the fourteenth of February was truly a boon for the laziest among Erato's flock. To label and commercialize the event spoiled the whole thing—an ultimatum which held love at gunpoint, and demanded a ransom of romance.

(Don't listen to Bill, lovebirds—and do not get him started on destination weddings, bananas that come individually wrapped in plastic, or how "kids these days" traded ownership of tangible goods for digital rentals. Christ.)

"V Day." It was only one week away.

Ha; Bill wanted to spit, but stopped himself—the cleaning staff had already come and gone, which meant he would be the one who had to wipe it up. In fact, he was pretty sure he was the last person still at the plant.

So he sat there and glared at the monitors instead.

The way the factory hummed—he heard that endless sound even when he was away from work, and in his dreams. It was not produced by a single source, Bill knew, but rather was a melded cacophony of machinery and disparate mechanisms, which all joined together to create a flat choral drone.

Bill's eyelids drooped. . .

A section of the production line for the chocolates turned red and roused Bill before he fully drifted away; the man cursed.

It was a simple blockage. In the next few moments, the factory's automated systems corrected the anomaly detected in the process, and signalled to Bill that it was good to restart.

Bill yawned and pawed in the command for the chocolate assembly to resume. All of a sudden, streams five and six were combined, which put Formula S and the Valentine's Day sweets in the same production queue.

"Oops."

Bill halted both lines. His fingers pecked his keyboard with more care, and in short order he had both processes up and running—separately.

Only a hundred batches or so of the chocolates were contaminated.

Bill picked up his phone and dialed the warehouse.

No answer.

Bill grumbled.

The man flagged the affected units in the system. He would go down and personally remove the boxes before he left for the evening, so that they would not go out in the shipment the next morning.

Whew, almost there, Bill thought.

Almost there; almost there.

The factory whirred on and on, softly—a mother who sang her most effective lullaby.

Bill's eyelids drooped. . .

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