Fortunately, there were no more mogwai other than the body of the one she’d killed. It looked pathetic as it floated on top of the brown river.

“I don’t know why anyone would want a pet that looked like this.” She jabbed the corpse with her staff. It rolled slowly, pathetically even.

“No one did. These are the by-products of different pets breeding, or certain pets being affected by the toxic waste down in other tunnels.”

“What toxic waste?”

“People dump stuff.” He shrugged as they started walking again, “And sometimes older tunnels carrying toxic waste to the sumps in the negative levels break. And unfortunately, people also dump pets that they can’t afford, or can’t train, or which don’t look as good as they want them to. Sometimes I really hate people.”

“How do I recognise toxic waste?” She started stirring the muck in front of her. It all looked the same to her. Shit. Piss. More shit. Tons and tons of shit.

“You start dissolving. Or one of your friends does.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “And that’s it?”

“Usually the toxic waste glows. Radioactive you see. Don’t worry. Your suit will give you at least a minute to get away. Sometimes though you’ll see gas rising. That’s a good sign that you’re in bad shit. That and your friends start dissolving.”

Mai felt like screaming. She’d incurred a debt to society which was looking more and more like a death sentence.

All conversation ended when they took another curve in the tunnel.

“Wow,” there were no other words for it. The fat berg was massive, utterly dwarfing the work crew that was carving chunks from it and passing it into some sort of machine. It was the colour of maggots, glistening, utterly revolting. Stick, bones, and a myriad of other pieces of trash jutted from it at all angles. Her stomach flipped at the sight of it. She hadn’t seen anything quite so disgusting in her life, and this after both wading in and subsequently fighting in literal shit.

“Yeah, she’s a beauty. A baby really, but a good example,” sighed Andries. She gave him a side-eye, yet again confused as to whether he was being serious or leading her on. It seemed that he was being serious.

Andries led her up to the crew and introduced her to them. It was unnecessary in a time where everyone’s name and job role could be seen hanging above their heads, but it was still deemed polite to introduce yourself before you started using someone else’s name.

The leader, indicated by an upward chevron with a star in the middle, was a chap called Fat John. She wasn’t about to ask why he was called that, just shook his rubber-gloved hand, and tried not to wipe her hands on the legs of her trousers. He smiled, eyes crinkling as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

The introductions didn’t take long. Most of the workers just gave her a brief nod before returning to their task, carving chunks out of the berg as quickly as they could.

“Right. All you need to do is get hold of a fat cutter. Cut a piece you think is big enough for you to carry and drop it into the machine over there.” Fat John pointed to a track-mounted machine. From the front it looked like a huge trumpet horn. If trumpets had rows and rows of grinding teeth.

“What’s that machine do?” She knew it was probably a stupid question, and that was confirmed when Andries sniggered beside her. Still, if she didn’t ask, then she couldn’t learn. And the more she knew about what she was doing, the quicker she could get back to Lin.

“Breaks the fat down into molecules which can then be released back into the sewer. Just make sure you don’t fall in, eh? I hear it’s quite a painful death,” Fat John said with a strangely wistful look on his face.

Gritting her teeth, Mai picked up a fat cutter a good three paces long. Now that she had the template for her staff, she was able to absorb the staff rather than having to worry about it falling over into the morass surrounding them. She accepted the five credit charge for the new fat cutter with a snarl and walked over to the fat berg. “What happens if the berg moves and releases the build up?” she asked a woman next to her. She had been introduced to her as Jin and had been one of the workers keener to work than to actually get to know her, barely even grunting when they’d been introduced, whereas others had been far more willing to greet her, and even take the time to have a quick chat. Having seen how hard the work was, Mai couldn’t blame her.

“You swim.”

***

By the second hour of work, Mai’s arms felt as though they were going to fall off. Only a couple of the other workers were of a high enough level to be able to use nanite tools, and so she and the rest of the workers struggled along with the unwieldy fat cutters.

Earlier she’d been forced to put her tool down and looked up Fat Cutter on her Tools Menu. It showed that she had to hit level 1 before she could unlock it. Which surprised her as out of the twenty or so workers around her, the majority were using cutters.

So many people failing in life, she thought as she looked around at the sweat drenched faces around her, workers sucking hard for air as they tried to cut as fast as they could.

Sucking hard on her suit’s internal water bladder, she worked the liquid around her mouth. As she drank she tried to work out the knots in her shoulders.

“You should keep working. Break isn’t for another hour and you need all the time you have to meet quota,” warned Jin, she’d gradually warmed to Mai as they worked. She had nanite tools and was an absolute demon at cutting. Not only that but she was able to carry a far heavier load than Mai would have thought possible for someone so small. Each shift was precisely eight hours long. Workers got one break at mid-shift for thirty minutes where they would eat. That gave them seven and a half hours of back-breaking work.

Her daily quota was one thousand units of fat per hour of work, with thirty minutes for lunch after the first three and a half hours. Given that she hadn’t worked in any other area of the sewer she didn’t know how that compared, only that hitting seven thousand five hundred for this task would earn her ten credits. Considering the amount of work they were doing, that was an utterly paltry amount. Yet another way of ensuring indentured workers struggled to free themselves of their debts.

Calling up her progress bar she sighed as she saw that she’d only managed to carve seven hundred units in her first hour, and five hundred in her second, she closed it before she saw the stats for the present time slot.

“I’m not going to make quota,” she groaned.

“No one ever does on their first day. Hells, not even in their first month usually. You need to build up the skills first, and that takes a long time,” Jin said without breaking stride, nanite tool parting the fat like a hot knife through butter.

“How long have you been here if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all. This is my thirteenth year.”

Mai was glad her helmet stopped her jaw from hitting the floor. By her reckoning, it should take her around twelve years to get free if she hit her ten per cent quota target. She’d thought that would have been easy after a few months of working to get the skills and tools required. Possibly even hitting higher bonuses some months.

“You’ve got to accept one hard fact. You’re never leaving unless you hit gold with an artefact, or you die.” The woman turned back to carving fat. “I suggest you talk less and work faster.”

Mai took the advice, tears streaming down her face as she started to carve at the noisome mess in front of her.

***

Mai groaned in pleasure as the hot jets of the shower pummelled her sore shoulders, although all workers had showers in their rooms, she’d been told it was expected they would use the showers by the exit to the sewers so that they didn't tramp filth through the company’s quarters. If she was honest, her entire body was sore. Carving the fat and walking through the waste was a full-body workout. She dreaded to think what she was going to feel like the next day.

“Good job today. You managed to get four thousand units,” Andries congratulated her as he stepped into the stall. He was as naked as the day he was born.

“What?” he asked as Mai shrieked and tried to cover herself whilst desperately trying to look anywhere but at him. “Didn’t Sun tell you that the showers were communal?”

He laughed as he sudded up. He was amazingly well-toned, and her eyes were drawn to his ..

“No,” gulped Mai, desperately trying to look anywhere but at her friend. “I thought this was the women’s showers.”

“Well, get used to it. The others will be here in a couple of minutes.”

Washing as quickly as possible, she snatched at her towel and left just as the others from the shift were entering.

“Is that a blush I see?” one joked, and the rest burst out into laughter and jokes at her expense.

Face burning she ran to her room.