The Unbroken Chain

08:35 - 19/02/1005 - Ursagrad, Chiropterra

“Warriors of the Starborn Legion have successfully fought off an airship raid by the Storm King’s forces against Moonspeaker’s Hollow.”

The newsreader's voice was warbled and distorted as it came through the break room’s radio. It was a nice addition to their break space, even if the quality could’ve been better.

“Late last night, Moonspeaker’s Hollow population was targeted by the invading airships, going after the civilians below.”

Four workers were gathered around listening to that morning’s news. There was Merzaal and Abdaz, who rarely spent their breaks apart, Their supervisor, Zakob, a middle-aged native born into the life of a labourer, and a coworker in their department named Spichka, a Severyanian who’d been deported to Chiropterra for his political activities in Equestria.

The radio continued. “Great praise has been levied on General Stone Palisade for his effective and stalwart defence of the city.”

A cigarette held in his lips, Zakob gently stroked his small goatee as smoke swirled around his head. On the whole he had a good build, sturdy up and down the legs and lean around the waist. A smile never left his lips, even on the worst nights. He was probably the hardest worker out of all of them, and absolutely the heaviest smoker.

Just off to the side, Spichka sat alone with his head in a book, but with an ear pointed to the radio. He was the sort of lean that made him agile, and because of that he was often the one who had the tasks of crawling into tight spaces for various jobs. While his coat was the dull colour of cardboard, his jet black mane accented with fiery oranges stood out. His hazel eyes were locked on the pages of his book; it was rare for him ever to make eye contact with anyone even during conversation.

Their PPE had gotten another upgrade a few months back, on Zalid’s initiative. Yellow polyethylene coveralls, which they were all still wearing. Break was too short to bother stepping out of them.

“In a stroke of sheer bararity, bombs targeted and damaged an orphanage,” the radio added. “Victims are still being counted, but the death toll is believed to be in the hundreds. Thousands more are injured or are missing. We will keep you updated as recovery efforts continue.”

Abdaz put his hoof to his mouth. “Oh, Za’al. Sounds like hell.”

“And that’s where I’m headed!” Zakob flashed a grin, showing off all his bright white teeth.

Abdaz blinked, nonplussed. “You’re enlisting?”

“That’s right! Auxiliaries!” Zakob laughed. “All I gotta do is dig trenches for a year, and bam, I’m a citizen! Put my notice in already, so two weeks from now I’m out of here!”

“Really?” Spichka glanced up from his book, giving a pitying look, laced with a tinge of genuine concern. “Bro, they’re going to use you as cannon fodder.”

“Nah, nah, they never send natives into combat!” Zakob dismissed Spichka with a wave of his hoof. “They never even give us rifles!”

“Then you’ll be really easy cannon fodder,” Spichka added.

“Ahh, that’s not gonna happen. They’re crazy, not stupid!” A braying laugh burst from Zakob.

“Whatever you say.” And with a roll of his eyes Spichka returned to his book.

All the while Merzaal had been half listening to the radio and half listening to the conversation, the former hard to hear due to the distortion and the general noise of the latter.

The ongoing war with the Storm King had been raging for months. One of the first actions of the Chiropterran forces was to occupy Manerba, the island which Merzaal once called home. Ostensibly it was to protect it from the Storm King’s rampage, but you’d have to be on the propaganda department’s payroll to believe that.

When Merzaal first heard the news, it didn’t sting as much as he thought it should have. His home, the place that he’d once dreamed of escaping to, had fallen under the boot of those that enslaved him, and all he could give was a sigh and a shrug. There was more on his mind these days, the life and the home he had in Ursagrad. At least the island had been spared from significant fighting or war damage, so far anyways.

“Well, best of luck to you, Zakob,” said Merzaal.

Zakob laughed again. “I won’t need it, I’ve seen-”

“Zakob?” Zalid popped their head into the break room, getting everyone’s attention. “Do a favour for me real quick, would you?”

On that, Zakob hopped from his seat and made his way out without a word. Spichka looked up from his book when Zakob left, then returned to reading. Merzaal and Abdaz quietly settled down next to each other.

After a few silent moments, Abdaz spoke. “So, at the end of this week, we get paid, and it’ll be the first week that the wage increase kicks in!”

“Oh yeah,” said Merzaal.

“Extra thirty bits a week.” Abdaz grinned. “Not bad, yeah?”

Spichka scoffed, the sound slicing through the air.

Both Abdaz and Merzaal went quiet, turning to Spichka. “Spich?” said Merzaal.

Spichka looked up, but not at either zebra. “Oh it’s nothing, this book is just really fucking funny,” he said in a monotone voice, waving the book around in the air. “Has absolutely to do with you, honest. Keep talking about how fucking generous the company is.”

Abdaz raised an eyebrow. Both him and Merzaal were catching on to Spichka’s scepticism.

“We’re being rewarded, aren’t we?” Abdaz smiled. “The more product we ship, the more money the factory takes in, the more wage increases! This increase, that’s our hard work talking!”

A mocking, stifled laugh burst from Spichka. “Are you being paid to say that shit or are you actually just fucking stupid?”

Abdaz flinched. “What?”

“There’s literally no correlation between productivity and compensation, like, you know that, right?” Spichka set his book down and sat up.

Abdaz stood still for a moment before speaking. “Then, why are they raising-”

“Because they want to retain you. You’re an exploitable resource to them, and a damn valuable one if you can be satiated with a few extra trinkets and beads here and there.” Spichka wasn’t looking at the pair while he spoke. “They’re not a fucking charity, they’re a business. They only make profit by exploiting you for more than you make for them.”

“Well…” Abdaz rubbed the back of his head. “Zalid’s been a good manager, I’m sure he-”

“He’s the one holding your chain!” Spichka shot to his hooves. “It’s his job to extract as much surplus value out of you as physically possible. And that nice guy act is just to put an equine face on the inequine machine of capitalist exploitation. The baton of enforcing labour discipline was passed from literal actual armed slave drivers to middle managers because the proletarianisation of the workforce is more sustainable than having a loaded gun to every back. Just because they’re not keeping a literal noose over your head doesn’t mean there’s no coercion. If you don’t work here, you’d face poverty and starvation. The appearance of progress is there to hide the fact that you’re still being exploited.” Spichka stopped to heave in a heavy breath, the first time since he started ranting. “Zalid has literally the exact same social function as the ponies who were whipping and prodding you just over five years ago. He’s not your mate and will never be your mate!”

Merzaal blinked, mouth hanging open. “Did Zalid hurt you, or something?”

“He would never do anything like that,” Abdaz retorted, with conviction.

“It’s his job,” Spichka insisted, punctuating each word with a stomp of a hoof. He grunted. “Do you people read anything that isn’t bourgeois propaganda? You guys were literal slaves, do you have zero class consciousness? I can’t believe what I’m hearing, I’m leaving, I’m fucking leaving.” And Spichka stormed out of the break room.

After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Merzaal was the first to speak. “The hell’s gotten into him? Did someone take a crap in his breakfast?”

“He’s never satisfied,” Abdaz sighed. “I think he was reading illegal communist literature, it’s where he gets all those crazy ideas from. Should we report it?”

“What? No.” Merzaal shook his head, grimacing. “He doesn’t deserve to lose his job just for being an asshole.”

Mouth open, Abdaz raised a hoof. He then brought it down and shrugged. “If you say so.”

The rest of their break slipped by quietly, the minutes punctuated only by brief snippets of chatter that faded almost as soon as they began. Soon, however, the factory bell finally clanged and summoned them back to the grind.

They made their way through the corridors to their part of the factory passing Zalid’s office on the way. The office stood as an unavoidable waypoint on the most direct route.

“Do you remember where we left off?” Merzaal asked, his voice casual.

Abdaz replied, “Pallet’s nearly ready, so-”

“Daz!” Zalid called, cutting Abdaz off. His head emerged from the office doorway, his eyes locked onto Abdaz.

Both Abdaz and Merzaal halted mid-step, their heads swivelling toward Zalid.

“Daz, I need to talk to you!” Zalid repeated, waving over to Abdaz.

Merzaal glanced at Abdaz, his expression curious but unreadable. Abdaz returned the look with a shrug. Without a word, he turned and veered toward Zalid’s office, stepping inside and leaving Merzaal behind.

Merzaal hesitated for a moment before continuing down the corridor alone.

All the machines were ready to run once Merzaal returned. Nothing would flow out of the dispenser until Merzaal was good and ready at his station, since Zalid added a lever to the bottom of the dispenser giving Merzaal control over when it dispensed. Off in the corner Spichka had already returned to his job for the night, filling smaller bags with the chemical powder and packing those away into boxes.

But before Zalid or Abdaz could return, Merzaal knew he had something to settle. Rather than return right to his station, he trotted over to Spichka’s workstation.

“Hey,” Merzaal called, catching Spichka’s attention. “What the hell was that about, Spich?”

Spichka stopped what he was doing. “What was what?” he replied, his voice muffled by his dust mask.

“You snapped at Daz, called him stupid.” Merzaal trotted up close to Spichka. “What’s the matter?”

Spichka was certifiably unmoved as he continued unabated. “I’m literally right.”

Merzaal huffed, furrowing his eyebrows in disgust, an anger slowly brewing. “Are you now?”

Spichka took off his mask. “The company publishes all its revenues and expenditures, they boast openly about how much profit they’re making,” he said, breathlessly. “And guess what. Our wage increases? They’re not growing at the same rate as profit. Our wages are barely growing above inflation. It’s just data, it’s the facts. They’re only going up now because there’s a big fuck off bloodbath, oh I’m sorry, ‘war’, going on and they don’t want to lose able bodied workers to the army, like what literally just happened with Zakob.”

Merzaal blinked. “You finished?”

“You know I’m right,” Spichka insisted.

Merzaal fastened a dust mask over his mouth before sucking in a deep breath. “Sure. I guess.” He returned to his station and got to work.

It was the same work as every other day before. He’d worked alone before when Abdaz was needed elsewhere or called in sick, so it wasn’t much trouble to carry on. He kept his eyes and mind focused on the work, moving with extra speed so Abdaz wouldn’t have to deal with too much of a backlog when he got back.

A few times he glanced at the clock, noticing how much time was going by without Abdaz. First five minutes. Then nine. Then sixteen. Then twenty-two minutes working on his own. By that time, Merzaal had finished stacking a pallet with filled bags and wrapped it tight in stretch film. He hoisted it up with a pallet jack, and hitched the pallet jack’s harness onto his back.

This was probably the easiest part of the job. It still took physical exertion, but all he had to do was pull the pallet through the warehouse and into dispatch. As long as his legs stayed the course, his mind could wander. And whenever it did, he thought of how familiar it felt. Quite literally, it was the same action he was doing every day in the mines. Strange, wasn’t it? No matter how much things seemed to change, some things stayed the same.

Merzaal nearly stumbled to a stop. Hadn’t Spichka said something to that effect?

Looking past Spichka’s attitude and whatever other weird thoughts he had going on in his head, he was getting at something that Merzaal intuitively understood. Despite everything, he was still working for the benefit of the ponies who’d enslaved him. So was Abdaz. And Zalid. And until then, Zakob. All of them worked at this very same factory as slaves while all the same ponies who owned the place continued to do so. It was hard to imagine that they simply had a change of heart.

Soon Merzaal arrived at dispatch and he set the pallet down. The shutter doors leading outside reached all the way to the ceiling, easily the height of six or seven zebras. It led out into the yard where lorries and vans came and went, dropping off and picking up cargo. And if he so wished, he could just go outside.

No physical barrier stood between him and the yard. If he so wished he could stand in the warmth of the day (sans actual daylight) for a minute, or just leave. No armed guards would order him back inside. No barbed wire fences stood to separate him from the outside world. No locked exits. Yeah, he’d be reprimanded or fired for leaving on the job. And he didn’t want to risk disappointing Zalid. But he could just do it.

Which… was just as Spichka had mentioned. Those hard methods of keeping him inside were gone. Not out of the kindness of their hearts, but because they’d given him a reason to choose to stay. They’d found a way to keep him coming back here every day of his own volition, to make him keep working for them without the threat of physical reprisal. He cared about keeping his job, he cared about continuing to work for those that had once enslaved him. And you know, it was probably cheaper to pay him a wage than it was to pay for the salaries and equipment of multiple armed guards.

Maybe it was worth having a chat with Spichka, hopefully on a day where he wasn’t in such a sour mood. Too bad it felt like every day was a sour day for him, so far.

When Merzaal returned to the production department, Abdaz was back. Kitted out in his goggles and dust mask, but almost entirely motionless. Just standing at the workstation, his whole body locked up.

Merzaal approached Abdaz. “Hey, Daz.”

The finer details of Abdaz’s eyes were hidden behind the safety goggles, but Merzaal could see he was blinking, a lot. He made a sound muffled by his dust mask. It might have been a laugh, might have been a sob, might have been an indistinct grunt.

Merzaal felt his brow furrow and his chest pang. “What did Zalid say, Daz?” he asked. He’d never seen Abdaz so still. Worst case scenarios rushed through his head like rapids. Reassignment, layoffs, the incoming threat of legal discipline, flogging. Even if that last one had been outlawed, his mind raced.

Abdaz’s hoof reached up to his mask, undoing the straps. The mask slipped, showing a broad smile on his face. “Zalid’s making me supervisor when Zakob leaves. I’ve been promoted!”

Merzaal blinked. The rapids calmed to a brook in an instant. He couldn’t sense a ‘but’ coming, or any strings attached. And even if there was, it didn’t cross his mind. All Merzaal cared about at that moment was that his friend had gotten a promotion, and had gotten ahead. He could do nothing but smile.

“Oh, Daz. That’s fantastic!” Merzaal’s smile grew into a broad grin.

The two zebras embraced each other in a hug.