Freezer 42

Freezer 42 Chapter 1: Mister Meats

"Mister Meats! I need see you at the dock office." The voice of supervisor Rittula Staint boomed over the intercom. The crackly audio echoed throughout the racks of hoag ribs, hoag steaks, and hoag intestines, until finally reaching the ears of Arnold Meats. Meats, being the maintenance man extraordinaire that he was, ignored the announcement and continued replacing the cross bar he was working on. 

Another announcement, the same words, this time marinated with frustration, echoed throughout the walls of Rutledge Foods warehouse 12, freezer 42. Meats ignored this as well. He knew what she wanted. He also knew he couldn't do anything about it. 

Meats finished tightening the last bolt on the cross bar and sighed as he stared out across the freezing expanse. He imagined the racks as a city made of metal and meat. He loved the serenity of the freezer on a Sunday. Even when the automated systems were pulling pallets and adjusting counts they were always close to the front end. Far away from his little slice of perfect isolation. He could have fallen asleep up here if he closed his eyes, except they would freeze shut. 

The repeating of the announcement continued, as did Meats decided ignorance of it. After nearly half an hour Meats felt rhythmic vibrations begin to work their way up the rack he was hooked on to. His spirits lifted as he looked down. It was Siobhan, tapping a wrench against the lowest bay. 

"I'm not coming down! Not until she comes out here to ask me herself!" Meats yelled defiantly, a devious grin spreading across his face. Siobhan was his favorite person on the entirety of Liberum. 

He would have specified that she was his favorite Tar-Khali person on Liberum, but that wouldn't quite do it justice. He certainly liked her more than any humans he knew. Arnold watched as she shook her head, the scaled curtains of her traditional Tar-Khali headdress shifting back and forth.

"She's not going to walk three miles out just to talk to you. You'd better head her way before she writes you up." Siobhan bellowed up at him. It didn't take much effort for her to bellow. Her bass registered voice tended to carry easily. 

"She knows it's not my fault." Meats grumbled, beginning the process of unhooking himself from the rack. He pulled his safety gear and his toolbox onto the cherry picker and began descending. This took a little while as he'd been nearly a hundred feet in the air. 

When he'd finally reached the bottom he looked up at Siobhan. She was big, even for a Tar-Khali woman. He'd heard that the Tar-Khal lived far longer than humans and didn't stop growing until the day they died. If that were true Siobhan must have been nearly as old as the city itself. Why she was working in this warehouse that, according to her was farther from her home than he could fathom, was a mystery to him.  

"Same shit?" Meats asked, strapping his toolbox to the side of the cherry picker. 

"Indeed." Siobhan answered, adjusting her headdress. She'd nearly exposed her eyes and as far as Meats knew that was some kind of sin in the ancient Tar-Khali religion. She'd said the eyes were like wells of memory and you only exposed them when you confessed your sins to Mohk. 

Mohk was a god. Not the god. A god. Siobhan had been very specific about that part. She'd also been very specific that Mohk was a god of unfathomable inter-dimensional knowledge. It was all the same as far as Meats was concerned. He'd never really believed in much of anything himself.  

"She knows I'm not IT. This shit's been going on for weeks. I'm not going to magically know how to fix it today." Meats complained, shrugging as he secured his harness to his machine. He glanced around. Something was missing. 

"Where's yours?" Meats asked, gesturing towards the cherry picker he was standing on. 

"In the shop." Siobhan answered, jabbing a thumb towards the South end of the warehouse.