The Maintenance Division of Amigara Fault

It’s a nice day, except for the stacks of bodies. You never really get used to the smell, although they say you do, or the way they don’t exactly stack so neatly as you might desire. Not after they’ve reached our end.

“Almost there -- yeah, little bit more, just push a little bit, almost got it --” my foreman tells his high-side counterpart on the radio, and a moment later another client slides out of the complex wiggly hole in the mountain face and falls with a nasty slurping noise to the carryall waiting below. We’re nearly full. “How many more you think you can get in your side before we knock off for the night?” he inquires, and makes a face. “Great. Got it. Keep em comin, this hole is their hole, we aim to please.” Sounds like we’re a popular attraction the other side of the hill.

“Don’t they ever get tired of it,” I say, like I say every afternoon near quitting time. “You know. We tell them the truth and they don’t believe it and a week later we’re shoveling silly putty with their name on it out the other side.”

“Anyone ever tried pumping concrete in there?” says the foreman, coming over to lean on the side of the carryall with me, offering his pack of smokes. “Or, like. That expansion foam shit they use to insulate crawlspaces?”

“If they did I never heard about it,” I say, taking one. “Maybe it came out the other end with eyes, going DRR DRR DRR, and they had to break that shit up with jackhammers before something bad happened.”

“Fuck, man,” he says. “That’s creepy even for this place. I’m impressed.”

“I aim to please,” I tell him, and then lean over to yell “Move that lift over to the left, Twelve, the fuck do I pay you for?”

Distantly Twelve yells back “You don’t pay me shit, the company does,” and then the fucking forklift tips over with a half-load of thoroughly ripe bodies and nobody, but nobody, is getting out of here on time.