The Last Tears in Tartarus

The orcish hovercraft was gigantic up close. Its dense green hull stretched for hundreds of feet, occupying the greater lengths of the Paimon Company landing pad where it had moored along the western platform of New Sheol. Dozens of slaves had gathered around the starboard side. They clamored over the cargo hold like festering insects, unloading crate after crate of heavily armored power batteries into a mobile array of steam-operated cranes and metal carts.

The servants of the orcish crew were a heterogeneous gang of goblins, gremlins, imps, and a few limber trolls. Each individual was very richly provided for—as was common with the slaves of trade vessels. The complex prosthetics, burning jet packs, and segmented wings of their augmented bodies put the grimy limbs of the Paimon slaves to shame. These workers darted back and forth in the freezing air, attaching metal couplings to the rectangular stacks of power batteries while the Sheol inhabitants carried them away in fives and tens from the slowly emptying hovercraft.

It was a very monotonous task, one that spawned conversation from the laboring groups. Paimon slaves asked the hovering visitors about the rest of Tartarus beyond New Sheol. The vessel's crew spoke of such dazzling yet horrific sights as the black bluffs of Archeron City, the pale bone towers of Hinnomvale, and—naturally—the dreaded bastions of Mount Samael.

“There is simply no words to describe it,” murmured a gremlin with goggled eyes and pale, rancid flesh. He was in the middle of loading yet another power battery into the grip of a Paimon Company lifting crane. “I am lucky to have seen the new capital of Tartarus with my own eyes. I still hear the glorious shrieks of the weak and foolish as they power the spirit lamps that line the calcified walls. The brimstone there is immaculate. The fire burns brighter than the moon and without stop. There is nothing left to be seen of the Sun Goddess' feeble bowers of yesteryear. Our Grand Lord Babellyon, the Morning Star, has blackened everything with his most gorgeous power. I have heard him speak, and I wept with joy as the years were siphoned from my body. When I die, I shall die for him in blissful cold. I'm telling each and every one of you runts: you must make the pilgrimage to the black fortress as soon as you're emancipated. There is no suffering like righteous suffering.”

“To each their own, ya slimy maggot huffer,” chuckled Twenty-Seven. He fumbled with the controls of the crane down below, weathering the weight of more and more power batteries as they were stacked onto the apparatus. “Once I'm emancipated, I'm joining an orcish speeder!”

Several slaves chuckled all around him.

“No, I mean it!” The goblin growled. His mechanical eye whirred as he spoke, “Not one of those boring transport schooners, but a weapon of war! I want to join the hunt of the black frontier! I want to be there when the orcs catch up with the last of the stubborn griffons and rip their beaks out of their screaming maws. You can have your righteous suffering. I won't be happy until I can wear a totem of dead talons about my neck!”

“You can do that here in New Sheol!” The gremlin replied with a smirk. “Your platform has a rather horrific supply of... pigeons from what I've seen!”

“Hah hah! There you go, Twenty-Seven!” A Paimon operator shouted from the side, sweating from a cart full of supplies he was pushing. “Sounds like a worthy hunt for you! You'll be riding with the hellions of war soon enough!”

“Oh shut your burn hole!” Twenty-Seven snarled. The other servants laughed all the more. He sighed and jerked at the controls. “For Styxx's sake, what's taking so long up there?!”

“The last two containers are refusing to connect to one another,” the visiting gremlin replied, struggling with the fasteners. “This is going to take some extra work.” He turned and called over his shoulder. “One Eleven!”

A flare of rocket thrusters sounded overhead. It was at this moment—and not during any of the varied conversations preceding it—that Eighty-Three finally looked up from his busy task of attaching several metal carts together. He watched with a nervous shudder as a familiar, bright figure levitated down to the top of the hovercraft's supply door right next to the gremlin.

“Yes, Five Sixty?” The pegasus replied, retracting his metal wings. “What do you need?”

“These fasteners won't bend right. I think there's grout in the joints. Got the tools to take care of it?”

“Step aside.” One Eleven stretched a hoof forward. He crawled over to the pair of battery containers and narrowed his red eye at the problematic couplings between them. Then, with a motorized noise, he stretched a serpentine tale of bendable metal towards his front. The end of it produced two prongs that swiftly became a blow torch. Crouching low atop the stack of metal compartments, he applied the burning tip of his prosthetic tail to the grimy fasteners, surgically loosening them one after another. In the midst of his work, he somehow found the time to cast a natural, green eye towards Eighty-Three.

Eighty-Three immediately turned back to his task with the metal carts. He felt his breath quickening beneath his scarred chest. The part of his throat that constantly made contact with his collar felt more sore than normal. He tried distracting himself, meditating, concentrating on the gusts of red steam that billowed in the background. No matter how hard he tried, he could only make out the sound of One Eleven's blowtorch, as well as the voice that followed the silencing of the searing tool's roar.

“Done. That should do it.” One Eleven squinted down at the crane operator. “But if you ask me, I think you've stacked up too much weight.”

“Nobody asked you, horse filth!” Twenty-Seven growled from his station. “If you're so concerned about weight, how about you get your rusted flanks off the damn thing so I can lower it already!”

One Eleven sighed, cast Five Sixty a tired look, and took off with a burst of orange thrusters. In the meantime, the heavy crane whirred and exhaled bursts of red steam as it began lowering the stack of power batteries towards the metal carts in waiting.

“Easy! Easy, Twenty-Seven,” another Paimon slave said.

“I know what I'm doing!” Twenty-Seven smirked and pulled at the controls. “Stop barking at me like I'm some stray head of Cerberus! I'm earning my damn strips and a good meal for... once...” His face tensed as the instrument panel before him sparked with errant flashes of electrical discharge. “Wuh oh...”

“Lilith burn me!” Another servant gasped and ran up to the machine. “Apply the reserve thrusters! It's buckling—”

“I said I got it!” Twenty-Seven shouted, though he was sweating visibly. A disgusting groan came from the heart of the crane apparatus. Red steam screamed out of the hydraulic joints. Slowly, the huge stack of crates buckled and leaned to the side. Several servants ran away from the scene, shouting. Eighty-Three was not ashamed to be one of them. “Nnnngh—Bollocks!” Twenty-Seven shrieked as the instrument panel finally flew away from his grasp, collapsing along with the entirety of the crane.

The thunder that followed sent reverberations all throughout the hangars of New Sheol. Several hidden gargoyles shrieked and flew out of the grimy alcoves of the place. Red hot shrapnel and bits of crane mechanisms flew randomly across the black bulkheads. Finally, a few of the battery compartments broke open. Breathless, Eighty-Three spun about for a look. He was able to catch the sight of two or three power rods falling loose and disappearing beyond the metal grates below. But that was not all he saw. Eighty-Three could make out the shapes of thrashing, moaning bodies inside the ruptured containers. Red steam burst out of the quivering compartments, laced with muffled groans of agony in the freezing air.

The combined crowd of Paimon and hovercraft slaves converged on the mess. But they barely had a chance to clean up the debacle when the loud, angry voice of the docked hovercraft's orcish captain lit the air.

“By Babellyon's black blood!” The orc shouted. He happened to be marching up with his clique of wide-eyed cretins that very second. “What is the meaning of this pathetic incompetence?!”

Eighty-Three instantly shied away from the sight of him. He stood inconspicuously behind the metal carts, as far away from the center of the hideous scene. He could make out the trembling sight of Twenty-Seven as the frail goblin stood, beside himself with panic.

“I-I don't know what happened, sir! I swear the equipment has handled this sort of a load before! I can't imagine how or why it would have failed—”

“I've traveled thousands of leagues over dead ash and bone to get those priceless, living batteries!” The orc captain sneered down at the wincing slave. “And as soon as I turn my back, some pathetic mongrel child is ruining hours of expensive labor! I swear by the unholy lights, New Sheol is nothing but defecation and dunces!” A loud metal ringing sound filled the air, replaced by a hum as he aimed his electrified eviscerater in the gasping goblin's face. “I'll make sure there's enough room inside your putrid chest for a hell hound to hibernate in by the time I'm done with you!”

Just then, Overseer Globflint marched up, along with several other menacing supervisors of Paimon Company. “What in Leviathan's name is all this racket?” He glared down at the goblin. “Number Twenty-Seven! Report! Now!”

“I... I...” The goblin gulped and stood up straight on his frail limbs. “I was operating the crane, sir. We loaded the next round of power batteries onto the clamps, but as I attempted to lower it, the machinery broke from the inside. It buckled, and—”

“You overloaded the apparatus, is what you mean to say!” Globflint growled. He marched his rotund body towards Twenty-Seven, leaning his bulbous weight on a rusted peg. “Look at that pitiful stack of excess, you miserable runt! Haven't you been taught better?”

Twenty-Seven gulped. He knelt down in the round shadow of the towering ogre. “Please, Overseer. I beg for your mercy. My strips should make up for the loss! Just check my file! I will take responsibility for what's happened!”

“Hmmm... Strips, you say?” Globflint snapped two metal fingers. One of his fellow supervisors produced a bone-bound book of leather. He flipped towards a stretch of carved flesh and pointed at a series of numbers. Globflint's pale eyes examined it closely. His gnarled face twisted. “Seventy strips. That's hardly enough to pay for your mistakes here today, Twenty-Seven.”

“S-seventy?!” The goblin's mechanical eye sparked. His mouth hung open, twitching. “But... But how can that be?! I thought I had earned another two hundred!”

“Perhaps that would be the case...” Globlint narrowed his eyes on the tiny figure. He slapped the leather book shut and handed it blindly to one of his cohorts. “... if it was two or three moons from now.” He reached to his side and pulled out a grimy remote. “Number Twenty-Seven of Paimon Company Alpha, as a result of an inexcusable lack of strips to pay for your error...”

“No...”

“... I hereby discharge you from service, and strip you of Company protection.” Globflint's finger pressed onto the red button.

“No no no no no!” Twenty-Seven whimpered. His fingers scrambled over his collar, powerless to keep the light turning from red to green to nothing. A vomit of sparks fell from the neckpiece. At the same time, his mechanical eye went limp. He hissed and clutched his skull as the communicator in his lateral lobes shorted out. Soon enough, his metal fingers hung limp and useless from his fleshy wrists. “Nnnnngh...” He opened his eyes, tearing, seething with pain and panic.

In the meantime, Globflint twirled around on his peg leg and sighed the orc captain's way. “Paimon Company will pay the normal price for the batteries, seeing as they were damaged by... a former member of the work force.” He shuffled towards the side of the loading platform.

In the meantime, the orc captain smiled wide. He licked his teeth and twisted the handle of his eviscerater, extending the sparkling blade by a few more inches. “Riff raff,” he hissed, his red eyes locked on Twenty-Seven.

“Please... No, don't—!” The goblin shuffled away from him, waving a numb forearm in desperation.

The orc marched over. Without breaking his stride, he shoved the blade deep into the former-slave's belly. A bolt of electricity shot down the length of the penetrating metal, and when the orc yanked back, the eviscerater had forked into four perpendicular blades. Twenty-Seven was disemboweled instantly. He thrashed on the ground, howling, his entrails spouting steam from the heat of his exposed body to the cold air. The orc marched away from him while his buddies laughed and kicked around the leaking organs of the goblin while he was still alive. The captain looked across the hangar... and caught sight of Eighty-Three. Upon a shared glance, he smirked and retracted the eviscerater blades before licking the metal clean with a wet tongue.

Eighty-Three gulped and said nothing. As the captain marched threateningly past him, he glanced up and saw One Eleven perched on the edge of the hovercraft. The pegasus was staring down at him the entire time. The two estranged ponies held their mutual gaze, weathering the last lingering howls of Twenty-Seven, until the round sight of Globflint stood in the way.

“Pony,” the Overseer spoke down at him. “Ninety-Two says that three rods fell loose from the ruptured power batteries when the rigging collapsed. Is this true?”

Eighty-Three needed a few seconds to find his voice. He swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, Overseer. I saw them myself. They fell through the grating between the loading platform and the moored hovercraft.”

“Then they must have fallen as far deep as the upper pits,” Globflint said. “Go fetch them. We might have to put these ruptured batteries into defective status, but we may be able to at least salvage the power rods for Paimon Company's backup generators.”

Eighty-Three's muzzle twitched. He knew the nature of the task ahead of him. Not a single part of him looked forward to it. Nevertheless, he bowed his rusted mane of needles and said, “As you wish, Overseer. I shall go down there immediately.”

“See that you do.” The fat ogre marched off.

As Eighty-Three trudged on metal hooves towards a descending metal shaft, a slave or two snickered his way.

“Have fun in the pits, cutie flanks.”

“That was Twenty-Seven's detail, after all. Heh...”

Eighty-Three didn't respond. His nostrils merely flared. He reached the ladder and turned his hooves into metal prongs to properly grab a hold of them. As he started to lower, he paused. He glanced up once more. One Eleven was nowhere to be seen.

With a sigh, Eighty-Three descended. It was a lengthy trip, traversing no less than ten platforms into the progressively darker bowels of New Sheol. Gusts of red steam billowed around him, fogging sickly condensation against his metal joints. The stench intensified as well, to the point that Eighty-Three spat up tiny globlets of bile with each platform he passed. The smells of Tartarus spoke of more than death. Tiny, skittering things moved out of Eighty-Three's shadow as he came upon the brink of his destination. His only consolation was that the deeper he went, the hotter it was, so that the frigid smog of the surface streets were but a horrible dream by the time he chanced upon an even worse nightmare.

At the base of the upper platforms was a sea of cesspools, rows upon rows of congealed waste, refuse, and sludge that had collected in the metal vacuoles beneath the city's gigantic support struts. The loud roar of furnaces and red steam filtration units echoed all around Eighty-Three as he climbed off the ladder and faced the steamy currents of slime and excrement. Not wasting any time, he scanned the westernmost edges of the pits, looking for where the power rods would have fallen. He found one of them instantly, and just as swiftly made the next step of his humble journey.

Eighty-Three waded chest-deep into the sludge. He brushed past bloated carcasses and decaying entrails of unfortunate creatures who had fallen from the upper struts long ago. His nostrils filled with every horrible smell imaginable by the time he reached the power rod and gripped onto it with his bare mouth. He hung off the west edge of the pits, just inches away from where howling winds churned the cold black reaches of Tatarus into dust and oblivion beyond New Sheol. Fishing around with his lower hooves, he found the second rod and pulled it to the slimy surface. Shaking curds of fecal matter off the still-warm cylinder, he reached his metal limbs once more into the festering depths. For a brief moment he hoped that both he and Globflint had been incorrect in their count, but he knew better. Sure enough, he felt the tell-tale shape of a third rod, but it was stuck to a leathery mass clinging to the bottom of the cesspool. Groaning, Eighty-Three rested the first two rods against the side of the pits, took a deep breath, and did the unthinkable.

Half-an-hour later, he was navigating the misty corridor that led to Paimon Company's power generator facility. His metal limbs left dribbling puddles behind him. Bright furnaces full of dancing red steam billowed on either side of Eighty-Three as he entered a large compartment. The entire wall was comprised of power batteries stacked on top of one another. The muffled sounds of anguished moans and sobs filled his slime-covered ears.

There were two slaves on duty, a pair of leprotic trolls. They paused in the middle of minding the valve controls that channeled red steam from the multiple batteries. Making ugly faces, they turned and clamped their noses shut upon Eighty-Three's entrance.

“For Styxx's sake, horse filth! Did all ponies smell as bad as you!”

“You should know,” Eighty-Three grunted. He was not in the mood. “You're around them the most.”

“Ugh! Morning Star, bleed me!” One troll almost gagged. “Just tell us what you want us to do with those power rods and get the blazes out of here!”

“They may not look like much...” Eighty-Three loosened the three rods from a leather strap on his side. “But they're fresher than what we have in inventory. Overseer Globflint personally sent me to fetch them so they can be put to use here. Which batteries need upgrading the most?”

“Ugh...” The other troll waved the steamy air before his face and pointed towards the second column. “Those three, the ones with the low output rating. They've been giving us problems for the last twelve moons at least. I'm sure they've still got plenty of red steam to give off.”

“Very well.” Eighty-Three offered the rods. “They're yours.”

“Hah! Like I'm going anywhere near those dirty things, horse filth! Especially after where they've been!” The taller of the two trolls smirked at him. “Globflint himself sent you, yes? Why don't you finish the job?”

Eighty-Three's brow furrowed. He stared at the trolls, then at the rows of power batteries. Once again, he heard the deep resonating sound of muffled moans. If a part of him still could be horrified by anything, he might have protested. Instead he sighed, shifted the rods in his metallic grip, and approached the wall of compartments.

“Very well. But I have to make it quick. I have more steam welding to do.”

“Heh. Whatever you say, pony,” one troll chuckled as he wandered over to a lever.

“This, I gotta see,” the other said, folding his arms.

“Just open them already,” Eighty-Three grunted.

The slaves complied. One lever was yanked, then another. With a loud hiss, every battery compartment along the second row opened up. The crimson room filled with wretched cries and moans.

Inside each battery compartment was the legless torso of an equine figure. Their faces were obscured by rusted clamps that covered their eyes and encased their muzzles. Several glowing tools lined with hellish runes were fastened to their necks, spines, and flanks. Sparks of otherworldly magic lit the runes up periodically, eliciting a torturous groan from the living bodies bound to them. Upon each wave of pain, a crimson glow circulated through the ponies' bodies, illuminating a sparkling series of cables that were funneled hotly into a dense supply of brimstone. The heat melted the dark matter and produced red steam, which was then cycled into the pipelines that wormed their way upwards into the heart of New Sheol.

Without wasting a breath, Eighty-Three marched towards the three closest battery compartments. He stuck his neck deep into the compartment, briefly nuzzling past the hairless pony writhing within. He snapped the burnt-out power rod and tossed it to the floor before replacing it with the fresh one that had fallen from the loading platform above. He repeated this grim process twice with the next adjacent batteries. During the last installation, the pony inside thrashed violently upon contact, exhaling unintelligible words of anguish into his muzzle-brace. Holding his breath, Eighty-Three dutifully finished the task, pulled out from the compartment, and signaled the other slaves.

With brief chuckles, the trolls responded on their end. They yanked at the levers, shutting the battery compartments and sealing the suffering energy sources once more within. Eighty-Three swiftly looked away, not so much to erase the sight from his mind, but because he wanted to avoid seeing the rusted tags labeling each battery, for fear that he might recognize the numbers stamped upon them.

“Just like clock-work, pony. We should be able to take it from here.”

“Yeah, now if you don't mind taking your horrible stink elsewhere. We've got jobs to do as well, y'know. We're no good to the Overseers if we vomit all over ourselves.”

“From the stench of things, I'm surprised those caged creeps haven't done so already!”

“Hah hah hah!”

Eighty-Three had departed before he could let the trolls indulge in their laughter. He heard the muffled cries of the batteries beyond them, and it carried him faster on metal legs towards his next destination. Even hours later, on a completely different platform hundreds of feet away, he couldn't stop hearing the cries. He gazed up at every vent of New Sheol that spat out red steam and knew there was no way he could outrun them.

All he could do was work and work harder. He welded pipes to one another, focusing discreetly on his task, hoping that the meticulousness of his labor would somehow blot out the comprehension of just what he was building the cylinders to funnel. He lost track of the years that had gone by just as easily as he missed the blurring passage of moon cycles. All he knew was that Tartarus had consumed everything, and yet he had become just another imp in the grand machine of suffering. As much as he hated himself, he couldn't stop working, he couldn't stop earning bits, he couldn't stop animating the wheels and spokes of hate. There was too much at stake, too much he had to work for, and all of it paved in leather strips.

He was, in fact, so focused on his task that it was One Eleven's voice—and not the sound of his wing thrusters—that startled him. “You've been here a long time, have you?”

Eighty-Three jolted. The welding tool on his left limb almost shorted out. Sparks danced painfully across his metal mane. Grimacing, he glared over his shoulder at the pegasus... but said nothing.

One Eleven remained staring at him calmly. He was perched on the edge of an open elevator shaft. The two of them were at least four hundred feet deep into the struts of New Sheol. One Eleven was far away from his masters' hovercraft. The fact that he was there, so much as speaking with another company's imp outside of laboring, was a very dangerous thing to be doing. And yet, as Eighty-Three resumed his work and pretended that the pegasus wasn't there, One Eleven took a few brave steps closer. His metal wings folded by his side as his shiny, serpentine tail flicked back and forth.

“Long enough to have earned yourself emancipation, I'd imagine,” One Eleven further murmured. His green eye narrowed curiously while the metal half of his face flickered crimson. “We both know where the red steam comes from. I was told long ago what the larger cities of Tartarus use to power their spires. I didn't believe it at first, until I saw some of our shipments with my own eye. I can't imagine being enslaved to work around it all so much... not without losing my mind, at least.”

Eighty-Three's nostrils flared. He continued applying the torch to the pipes. He pretended that One Eleven wasn't there.

The pegasus shifted where he stood. He stared at the forest of rusted needles that formed Eighty-Three's mane, at his shaved spine fused with electrodes, and finally at his scarred flanks.

“I see they took your cutie marks too,” One Eleven murmured. “I've only met four ponies since the Breach happened. We've all been scarred in the same place. Who knew orcish warlords could be so meticulous?”

The blowtorch began shorting out. Eighty-Three flicked his left limb. His mane sparked, and the torch flared with renewed energy as he put on the finishing touches. He secretly wished there were more miles of tubes to attend to that day, if it only meant an excuse for ignoring this visitor even longer.

One Eleven just couldn't stop talking. “Tell me. Have you ever chanced upon a cutie mark in passing?” He bit his lip as he practically whimpered the next part out, “On th-the leather strips they force us to accept as currency, I mean...”

The blow-torch shut off like a dying breath. “You will be punished severely by your overseers if you continue pestering me.”

One Eleven's good ear drooped. “Huh?”

“Leave,” Eighty-Three grunted, still staring point blank at the pipes. “Do the smart thing and fly away. We shouldn't be talking.”

“Why shouldn't we?” One Eleven softly inquired.

Eighty-Three sighed.

“I mean... Don't lie to me. I know it's been ages for you; it has been for me! Just when was the last time you had an opportunity to—”

“To what?!” Eighty-Three flashed him an angry glare. “The past is dead. Equestria is dead. Now leave!” He turned once more towards the pipes, fuming. “There is nothing good to come of this.”

One Eleven's jaw dropped as he wilted from Eighty-Three's anger. “How could you say that? We are not dead, are we? You and I...” He gulped. “We aren't as alone as you think! I know there are other ponies out there! Working on transport vessels, locked in the bellies of dark cities, hiding in secret clusters throughout the bonelands... We aren't all dead! As soon as I'm emancipated, I'm going out to find them! I must believe that there's still hope! But I don't have to go there alone...”

“There is no hope...”

“How many strips do you have to your number? How close are you to emancipation—?”

“Just go!” Eighty-Three roared this time, his face redder than the steam billowing around them. He glared daggers at One Eleven and shrieked, “There is no hope! All you can earn is the chance to live another day without suffering! You think nearly as many ponies have it as lucky as you and I? I'm not about to waste this chance! And neither should you! At least you still have your legs intact, you ungrateful featherbrain!” Upon the last utterance, he slumped down in a weak breath, panting slightly.

One Eleven blinked. He gazed at Eighty-Three's metallic joints, at how horribly grimy and in disrepair they were. He swallowed and eventually murmured, “They have you imprisoned in your own body. They taunt you day in and day out. And yet you're still here. If your credits don't go towards emancipation, then where do they go?”

Eighty-Three stared into a grimy corner of the place, shivering. His ears twitched, as if bearing the brunt of a wave of anguished screams.

One Eleven's one good eye glossed over. “Blessed Celestia...” He glanced at the vents of red steam, then at Eighty-Three once again. “Do you... do you know the ponies inside?”

Eighty-Three's teeth gnashed. He jumped up viciously. For a second, he looked ready to do something violent, when a huge burst of red mist exploded from behind him. In the time that he had allowed himself to get distracted, a huge plume of pressurized steam had gathered in the pipes, forcing them to rupture. Now he was desperately stumbling to redirect the flow of heated vapors. The temperature of the room raised by ten degrees in less than a minute. As he fought and struggled to shut off the valves below, he saw the limbs of One Eleven working alongside him.

“Leave already!” Eighty-Three shouted above the noise of venting steam. “Haven't you done enough?!”

“I saw what happened to that goblin up above! I'm not leaving you alone to deal with this! Not if there's a chance to fix—”

“Nnngh!” Eighty-Three viciously bucked One-Eleven aside. He shouted down at the pegasus' collapsed form. “Let me fix what needs to be fixed!”

“But—”

“If worse comes to worst, I don't want the both of us being eviscerated!” Eighty-Three said. “Do you?!”

One Eleven gazed up at him. For once he was speechless, helpless to do anything.

“Now go!” Eighty-Three shouted, pointing with a metal limb. “For the last time!” As One Eleven breathlessly scurried away, Eighty-Three rushed up to the valves and twisted them with all his might. He heard the firing of wing thrusters. He gnashed at his teeth and redirected as much of the spilling steam as he could. Still, he wasn't capable of containing it all. The damage had obviously been done, for he could already see the lamps and heat sources of the upper struts flickering dimly around him.

Sooner than he had hoped, he felt a hissing sensation through his skull. He cried out in pain as several sparks shot through his mane, followed by the growling voice of Overseer Globflint in his ears. “Number Eighty-Three! Report! What in blazes is going on down there?!”

“I've had a containment leak! I'm venting red steam! The lights are starting to dim along these struts!”

“How in Lilith's name did that happen?! Was there a rupture?!”

Eighty-Three should have answered that. He should have responded immediately like an obedient slave. However, he was suddenly assaulted by two memories. One was Twenty-Seven's howling screams. The second was the sight of two rusted tags in his leather pouch.

“I need help down here!” he eventually said. “Please send a backup team immediately! I can't contain this leak on my own!”

All he got was a sound of Globflint's cursing breath. His mane sparked again, and the airwaves went silent. He struggled with the valves for the space of five minutes, and was relieved to finally hear the hissing noise of elevator hydraulics to his flank. The platform lowered with a groan, and several collared goblins and trolls scampered over to join him. However, Overseer Globflint was also there. He watched, his meaty arms folded as he glared at the catastrophe, ominously waiting for the grunts to patch up the problem that Eighty-Three had started.

It took the better portion of an hour, but the leak was finally contained. One of the goblins had brought a gauge with him, and once the pipes were all patched up, he held the device in his grasp and bore a forlorn expression as he read it.

“Two batteries had to have been burnt out from that breach alone,” the slave said. “It's amazing we still have light down here.”

“Nnngh!” Another worker spun and frowned at Eighty-Three, shaking a gnarled fist. “Stupid horse filth! You realize how far back this puts us?!”

“We haven't even finished with the new landing pad!”

“I thought I had earned all my slips this moon cycle, you manure sucking piece of—”

“Silence, curs!” Overseer Globflint's massive lungs bellowed.

The servants became as quiet as stone. They stood back and formed a line as Globflint limped his hulking way towards the wilted sight of Eighty-Three.

“Worker, how did this happen?” The Overseer's eyes were like twin stars at the top of an infernal well. “How did you allow this rupture to take place on your watch?”

Eighty-Three barely lifted his face. He gazed into the depths of the pits. He saw the red glow of steam, the black surface of obsidian metal, the brown shades of brimstone and cesspools stretching on forever. Still, all he could think of was the verdant green of One Eleven's good eye, like the last glimpse into a living world before it was swallowed by putrid death.

“I... was distracted, Overseer.”

“Distracted?! Explain yourself!”

“I... have no excuse, Overseer,” Eighty-Three muttered. He felt a soreness beneath his collar as he trembled below the ogre's girth. “I was... negligent in my duties, and I allowed myself to ignore the key details that could have prevented this malfunction.”

The misty chamber was silent for a few moments, until a few snickering breaths broke the stillness.

“Heheheh... Egads... 'distracted.'”

“That sure didn't work for Twenty-Seven, did it?”

“Guess we're all eating horse meat tonight.”

“Heheheh—”

Globflint's metal leg stomped emphatically before the line of laborers. “Twenty-Seven...” The ogre sneered down at them. “... was a rancid piece of mucuous filth. He only pretended to work, like the most of you do. He would never think of taking responsibility for his mistakes, and that is why I left him to the whims of a merciless orc who would gladly eat each and every one of your for breakfast. So think hard about whose grace allows you to continue breathing before me, you worthless pigs!”

The slaves all bowed low with a mutual chorus of “Yes, Overseer” and “Thank you, Overseer.”

Eighty-Three was tactfully joining the gesture, when he suddenly felt a grubby hand yanking him harshly by the ear. He heard cartilage snapping from his skull as he was tossed like a bag of meat into the elevator car. As soon as his body slammed into the wall of the shaft, he felt his metal legs going limp. Overseer Globflint was marching stormily towards him, his hand on his remote's red button.

“Clean up this mess, you maggots!” The ogre shouted before punching the elevator controls. As the rattling platform ascended, he roared with finality, “Or I'll be making holes in each of you that no company of slaves could ever hope to fix!”

In the meantime, Eighty-Three was wincing, shivering. His torso twitched from the weight of his dead legs. Blood was trickling down from what was left of his ear as he gazed at the platforms flying down past them. Waves of crimson light bathed him as he heard the moans of battery sources ebbing and flowing like a tortured seashore.

“I've kept you in my employ this long for a reason, pony,” Globflint spoke in a muttering breath of disappointment. “No matter how many times the other slaves may have ridiculed or threatened you, I knew that you were better than them. Your diligent perseverance has always been a secret source of inspiration for the rest of the crew... until now.”

They reached the top floor of the hangars. The doors flew wide open. Globflint grabbed one of Eighty-Three's limbs with a meaty fist and dragged the paralyzed pony through the grimy corridors of the half-constructed landing pad.

“Is it enough that I deal with incompetent meatbags day in, day out, every moon cycle, that you have to disappoint me as well?!” The limping ogre seethed. Several curious orcs and trolls glanced over from their jobs to see the humiliating sight of Eighty-Three's dead weight scraping along the bulkheads. “If I had known you could be so foolish, I would have considered paying you in cyanide instead of strips—then that might make you of greater use to me than you are today!”

He came to a stop at the grimy door to a large trash receptacle. He slammed a fist over a button, opening the two-meter wide door.

“'Distracted?!'” Globflint growled, staring angrily into Eighty-Three's trembling face. Two pale eyes flickered like thunderclouds. “'Distracted?!' I'll give you something to be distracted about, you thankless, mindless sack of dung!”

With furious strength, he popped each of Eighty-Three's legs out of their sockets, one by one. He cast the metal limbs to the floor... before tossing Eighty-Three's spasming torso deep into the dark pit of refuse. Eighty-Three coughed and sputtered, rolling up against a slimy ball of leather scraps and organic waste.

“Lie there and rot, you incompetent slug!” Globflint's bellowing voice echoed through the black enclosure. “Think about what it'd be like to have spent all this time inside a battery compartment instead, along with all of ponydom's other failures, and then maybe... just maybe you'll come to understand whose mercy you've exhausted today!”

With that, the Overseer slammed the door to the garbage chute, and Eighty-Three's broken body was suspended in darkness.