The Unbroken Chain

06:52 - 22/04/1001 - Ursagrad, Chiropterra

As gently as he could, Abdaz slipped a heavy bag onto the neat stack atop the pallet. He couldn’t just slam it down, that’d risk it bursting open. Each of them was twenty or twenty five kilograms. Once the bag was on, he adjusted it ever so slightly so it lined up with every other bag. He stepped back, checked that the stack was all lined up straight, and blew out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

He rubbed his snout, repressing a cough. All day, every day, he could taste that acrid chemical tang in his mouth. The air in the factory floor was always thick with dust, clinging to his coat and clogging his throat. So much precursor powder going in and so much product coming out of those huge mixers and into waiting bags, held in wheeled sack holders. And as a packer, Abdaz faced the brunt of it. His only PPE was a pair of safety goggles that kept the dust out of his eyes. Most of the dust, anyways.

Where all the product went in the end, Abdaz didn’t really know. He didn’t give it much thought, he struggled to think over the ever-present din of heavy machinery. After he was taken, they’d just sent him here, to a company called Perigee Chemical Additives. Word around said that the end product got added to the rubber used to make the tires on army trucks.

Yet only had one end in mind, however, and that was keeping this job. They were finally paying him to do this, with real money. Decent money, by the standards of native workers. If he wanted to keep it he’d need to keep pace with the machines, and the bag under the dispenser already looked full.

With a swift motion, Abdaz switched the bag under the dispenser for an empty bag before more product flowed through. The stuff came out on its own timetable, not his, and he had to time it right to not end up with a load spilling onto the floor. He set the filled bag aside. Now the hard part was getting it out of the sack holder and onto the scales, when-

“Abdaz!”

His manager, Iceberg, called him. The voice punched through the air like a cannon. If Abdaz had been carrying a bag when he heard it, he would’ve surely dropped it.

“Yes, sir?” Abdaz turned around and stood to attention.

Iceberg marched with haste into the production area, followed by a zebra Abdaz had never seen before.

Even after emancipation, Iceberg’s management style hadn’t changed a bit. The stocky stallion had a cold blue coat, and even colder eyes. Despite being a pegasus, he had the build of an earth pony. His scalp was bare of a mane, while a stubbly white beard covered his snout. A worn out dust mask hung around his neck, but he never wore it. He wore yellow coveralls, stained with spots of orange and green carrying a chemical stench that burned the nostrils. His presence demanded attention, his voice commanded authority, and his attitude tolerated no insubordination.

“Daz, we've got a new hire.” Iceberg thrusted a hoof towards the zebra. “This is Merzaal.”

The zebra in Iceberg’s shadow, Merzaal, was a lithe stallion with wrinkles under his wide eyes and scars across his body. Reddish-brown stripes zig-zagged across his coat, the colour beneath closer to a light red than they were to white. A pair of safety goggles were strapped to his forehead above his eyes, his stringy jet-black mane pulled back into a ponytail. He was stiff and tense, and aside from his firm chin his features were soft and vulnerable.

“You’re gonna show him the ropes.” Iceberg lightly jabbed Abdaz on the chest. “I expect to see you both hard at it when I come back.” And Iceberg trotted off.

Abdaz checked the bag under the dispenser. It wasn’t too full yet. He could wait a moment. He turned to Merzaal, giving him a welcoming smile. “Merzaal, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Merzaal nodded, though it might have been more of a jitter.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Abdaz. First thing, Merzaal.” Abdaz pointed to Merzaal’s goggles. “Don’t keep the goggles on your forehead when you’re not using them. You build up a sweat in here fast and it all condenses on the lenses.”

Merzaal looked up at his goggles and blinked. He reached up and brought them over his eyes. “Got it.”

“Okay Merzaal, listen closely.” Abdaz stepped back. “Product gets mixed up there, and it comes out here,” he said, pointing first to the mixer and then the dispenser and its awaiting bag. “Fills up the bag here. When it weighs enough, we swap it out for an empty bag. Then we put it on the scale, add or remove product until it’s at the right weight, sew it shut, then put it on the pallet. Got it?”

“Yeah, got it.”

“Tell you what, to start off, I’ll sew the bags shut and get them on the pallet, you swap them and get them at the right weight. Weight you want is twenty-five kilograms for this run.”

“Sure, sounds good.”

And so off they went to work. Abdaz sewing and moving them to the pallets, Merzaal swapping and weighing. Fortunately for Abdaz, the bags didn’t need to be hoof stitched, they had a machine for that. Just hit the trigger and feed the top of the bag through the sewer. Bit of a pain to operate, not something to task a new hire with immediately. Uncomplicated, but by no means easy. And hey, with Merzaal here, Abdaz’s workload was more or less cut in half.

While they worked, Abdaz watched Merzaal carefully. Merzaal could swap the bags and lift them without much trouble, but lagged behind when it came to adding and removing product to get the right weight. That was normal, he was still getting a feel for the precise weights. There wasn’t too big of a backlog just yet, but should the need arise Abdaz could step in.

After about fifteen minutes of smooth working, Abdaz thought to break the ice. “So, what brings you here, Merzaal?”

Merzaal glared like Abdaz had just spat on him. “I was kidnapped.”

“Join the club! We all were!” Abdaz laughed. “I mean what brings you here. To this factory. You’re a new hire.”

“Oh,” Merzaal grunted, looking a little flustered. “Just trying to make my way in the world. And food and shelter aren’t free. This was the first place that took me.”

“Didn’t stay at your last place?” Abdaz asked.

“Nope. I was out the gate the first chance I got,” said Merzaal. “They had me working in a mine. Hauling iron ore. Probably the same iron they used to make the shackles and muzzle they strapped to us. All day every day.”

“Oof,” Abdaz grunted. “How are you finding this so far?”

“Well. Air’s full of dust-” Merzaal switched the filled bag under the dispenser with an empty one. “-and there’s plenty of heavy lifting. Seems like the same old.”

“Eh, it’s not the worst. Just be glad you’re not on the mixer!” Abdaz pointed to the zebra on the platform above working with the mixer. The lid was open, and the zebra up top was practically climbing into the mixer to manually push the mixed product through the dispenser with his bare hooves.

Merzaal looked up at the mixer, grimaced, then returned to his work. Little else was said for a short while as the pair worked, both slipping back into a mechanical cycle that strained their muscles and filled their coats with sweat.

“What did you used to do?” Merzaal asked, turning to Abdaz.

Abdaz didn’t take his eyes off his work. “Oh, I didn’t move after emancipation. I’ve been here for the last six years.”

“No, no. Before they took you. What were you doing?” Merzaal clarified.

For a moment, Abdaz paused. He briefly sunk into thought. “Not much of anything, really. A peasant, I guess.”

“Whereabouts were you from?”

“Somewhere along the upper Menuch,” Abdaz answered. In all honesty, his place of origin was just an earlier part of his life. He didn’t have much sentimentality for it. “How about yourself?” He turned to face Merzaal.

“I’m from Manerba. I was a lorry driver. One night our convoy took a wrong turn, and, well…” Merzaal shrugged. “Here I am.”

“Here we are indeed.” Abdaz resumed working.

Merzaal dropped a filled bag onto the scales. “You ever think about your old life, Abdaz?”

Abdaz shrugged imperceptibly, working without interruption as he spoke. “All I did was work the fields in a small village. As my parents did, as their parents did, and as their parents did. Not a lot to it.”

“Don’t miss working outdoors?” Merzaal added.

“Working out there? The sun was a menace,” Abdaz chuckled. “I can see where the Lunarists get it all from. And, hey, my room’s got this thing called ‘ay-see’. It keeps it nice and cool.”

Merzaal’s ears flicked up. “Your room?”

“Yeah, they gave me my own room, it’s in the big tower block on site,” said Abdaz, gesturing over his shoulder. “It’s just one room, but it’s got an actual bed, space to put stuff, a sofa, even my own radio. Not just that, but they’re building all these new homes, where you get kitchens, bathrooms, and a separate bedroom all to yourself. I’m saving up for one of those.”

“Hm, well. I’m sleeping in a tent city they set up for former labourers. If you can call that living…” He groaned, leaning against a table. “Hell, taking the first job I was given was a condition for me being allowed to stay there. Nobody’s said anything about giving me a room.”

“Merzaal, the bag.” Abdaz pointed to the dispenser.

“The bag?” Merzaal spun around. The bag under the dispenser was nearly overflowing. He gasped, dashing to swap it, only to find that all the sack holders were empty of a sack. “Ah, crap.”

Abdaz put the sewing machine to one side. “Hold on, I’ll help.”

Abdaz, moving swiftly but not rushing, loaded an empty bag into an awaiting sack holder with practised automaticity. It was a precise, rather fiddly action, and not something to task a new hire with under pressure. Merzaal was already in position under the dispenser. In a synchronised motion, Merzaal took the filled sack aside as Abdaz slipped the empty one into place, just before another load of product flowed out the dispenser. Merzaal rolled the filled bag by the scale, both blowing out a breath as they did.

“Thanks, Abdaz.” Merzaal wiped his forehead, blowing out a breath. “That’s definitely more than twenty-five.”

“You said you didn’t have a room?” Abdaz asked.

“No, I’m sleeping in a tent.” Merzaal scooped some product out of the heavy bag and shook it into the bag on the scale. “I share it with five others, it’s freezing, and there’s a non-zero chance someone previously pissed in my sleeping bag.”

“Well, why don’t you sleep on my sofa? Hell, I might talk to Iceberg about getting a bunk bed in there.”

Merzaal nearly dropped the scoop. “Wha- Really?” He turned to look at Abdaz, eyes wide with amazement and gratitude.

“Of course! But be warned, I snore.” Abdaz gave a laugh and a grin.

Merzaal laughed, a broad grin on his face. “That’s- That’s so nice of you. Thank you, Abdaz.” The words came out like he’d forgotten how to say them.

“Yeah, we can talk about the details at the end of the day. Just-” Abdaz trotted back to the sewing machine. “-focus on work for now.” He pointed to the bag on the filling machine.

“Oh, right.”