u/kabhes

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Transcription Subject: Maarten de Groot, Human Refugee/Meat producer

Date [standardised human time]: April 5, 2137

I looked up at the grand building in the middle of the city centre. It wasn’t really a skyscraper, I think there were only like 4 in the entire city, but it was still a grand building. Very much the opposite of what I have been dealing with in the past few months; most places I went to where either run down, beat up or simply overcrowded. And while it was busy here, it was different, people weren’t loitering, instead they were all rushing off towards something. Most of them on feet, but weirdly enough a good amount were on hooves. This bank must be run by a fissan.

[Fast-forwarding transcript by 60 minutes]

“Did you really have to call horns predatory?”I said as I kept my eye on the road despite Gilt being the one who was driving.

“It’s a weapon on your forehead meant for stabbing people and animals, how is that not predatory?” Gilt said casually as he floored the car, trying to get through their equivalent of an orange light.

“Sure, but you didn’t need to say it to the guy from the bank. You could have fucked us over by pissing him off. You clearly insulted him.”

“I don’t shy away from the truth.”

“There’s a difference between the truth and just being a dick!” At that point Gilt took a hard turn and nearly drove over a gojid who instantly rolled up to a ball.

“He started! It was obvious that he thought of us as lesser because we’re predators,” Gilt said before slamming his hand onto the whistle in the hopes to getting the gojid to unroll and walk out of the road, which just resulted in him tightening the ball and spiking out his quills.

“You’re right, he was much more of a dick than you, and a racist...or speciest I guess, but he is still the person who gives out loans, and we were relying on him to do so!” I yelled back towards the car as I got out with faux leather construction gloves, not wanting to wait until the gojid got over his fear and walked away on his own.

“What did you want me to do, accept that I’m being treated as a second-class citizen?”

I groaned as I began pushing the surprisingly heavy gojid who only tensed up more after hearing me approach him. “Yes, I know it’s shit, but your pride is a little less important than that loan, and we’re lucky we got it! Come on, you fat bastard, roll onto the pavement or walk!” I really didn’t like how a few people were carefully watching the situation happening from a safe distance.

“I have to grovel for enough people, exterminators, Liiry, Poronze and now the bank too.”

With a final push I managed to get the gojid onto the pavement, with him now fully rolled over meant that I could just see his face as they can’t fully roll up to a ball. “Next time please just walk out of the way. Also, sorry for my friend.” I turned back to Gilt and yelled, “Yes, that’s life! Speaking of Liiry, I want to get this delivery over with!”

[1 quarter-hour and 1 near car crash later.]

I got out of the car after Gilt drove it into Liiry’s warehouse, in the normal way, not through a wall to be precise. “I’m driving after this, being your passenger is costing me years of my life.”

“It’s my car, I’m driving.” He instantly turned his attention away from me when he noticed that Liiry was already out of her office and standing ready to make the deal.

“It’s good to see you gentlemen.” It was hard to read if she was being genuine, even after learning how to read venlil and general Federation emotions, those were at least pretty universal overall thanks to the kolshians hammering that in during uplift. But I assumed that she was serious with her statement for the sole reason that she wants our goods.

“Good to see you too. How is your cat doing?”

“Oh Ripley is doing great, she has been bringing in birds and rodents nearly every paw, I hardly need to feed her anything lab grown with how much she hunts. They’re not really up for my taste though, despite her generous offerings. She even keeps some alive so she can play with them at home before finishing them off.” This time it wasn’t hard to read her emotions, she clearly loved that cat more than anyone.

“That is good to hear,” I lied, worried about the local dossur population.

Her expression suddenly turned like the flick of a switch to something much more sinister. “Yes, now let’s go to business. Do you have the goods?”

“We wouldn’t come here without it.” I pulled open the side door revealing a large amount of coolers filled with meat. “Do you have what I had requested?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t dare to not pay you for your delicious and gruesome goods.” Without a word, a takkan goon drove up with a forklift, and on it was a secondhand arcade machine. “I tried it out myself. It’s not something for me, but I do wonder why you would want such a device?”

“I don’t ask about your business for good reasons. The more we know about each other, the more danger we’re both in.”

“Yes, you’re right, it’s best if I don’t know what business you’re running that requires an arcade machine. There must be dozens if not hundreds of businesses in this town that need such devices.” Despite her speaking a completely foreign language and the translator simply making me understand what she was saying and not how, I was still very clearly able to hear how terribly sarcasticly she was speaking.

I could just feel a hole burning in the side of my head from Gilt’s angry stare when he realised what I had done. In hindsight this was indeed not a very good idea, but to my defence, it was also the cheapest option. Every other intergalactic trader would have charged actual money for the trade, and not just the dirty black money we had piles of, but actual laundered money, something that was far more valuable to us. Instead, Liiry just asked for raw meat, something I don’t even think I would have been able to find a trader on Earth who would take that as payment.

I turned my head and found to be right seeing Gilt angrily staring at me. “Why did you buy this behind my back? What even is it?”

“Behind your back? It’s my bloody task to do the business side of things, just like you keep check on the quality of the meat with your test tubes and microscopes without me knowing about it. And it’s an investment. This thing is going to make us so much money.”

“That is because I do my job correctly, we’re supposed to earn money from the exchange, not this. We’re not running an actual company, it’s just for laundering. How much did you spend?”

“A little bit more than 6000 quid worth of meat…” Gilt slowly dragged his hands over his head, flattening his ears as he tried to calm down.

Liiry took a step forward, trying to get our attention. “Watching this conversation is very entertaining and all, but I have another meeting after this, so if you 2 could load in your weird game and get going, that would be great.”

Transcription Subject: Maarten de Groot, Human Refugee/Meat producer

Date [standardised human time]: April 8, 2137

It wasn’t all too difficult to convince Trod to fix up the place with a bunch of his workers in exchange for black money, something we had plenty of anyway. His sivkit secretary/bookkeeper wasn’t happy about this at all, especially because it meant seeing me more, but I guess she didn’t have enough say in the matter, because he took the job in the end.

A large van not unlike Gilt’s rolled up, just with fewer dents and rust, and behind it was a half trailer with a half-rotten flatbed filled with tools, equipment and materials. The van reminded me of a clown car with how many yotul and other species construction workers stepped out, with a few more arriving by foot after probably having been dropped off nearby via the public transport.

Most of the workers were yotul, and most of them looked very much similar to Trod, one even had his beyond wall-eyed look. Beyond that, was also a single somehow-rugged looking venlil, a scared-looking krakotl, a gojid with a notable amount of snapped quills covering his back and a very much not happy-looking sivkit secretary that he had dragged along, most likely due to shortage of personnel for such a big job. Which was even more clear when I saw his smallest and obviously the youngest employee, a yotul joey of about 7 or 8 years donning an oversized construction helmet that forced his ears sideways through the ear-holes, making him the second to only person to actually wear a helmet on this entire construction crew. He also wore slightly too big leather-like gloves and a toolbelt with a large pocket in the middle that reminded me of a pouch. Right, no child labour laws...

“Hey Trod, how is it going?” I asked, curious to know if there had been any hiccups already.

“Ah, me right arm keeps aching and me knees and back have been hurting since before little Tonso was born, but I keep on chugging. How are ya?”

“I honestly feel like I can’t complain after hearing you. But I was actually asking about the job.”

“Oh! I got most materials this morning, but I had trouble getting all the men I needed for the job.” I looked to his work crew and most looked like the part, they were strong and had callused hands, others however did not look like they did this type of job often. “I got a few of me family and some others to join in.” That explains the child…

[A few close calls later]

Being the tallest and strongest meant that I was the one carrying or moving the heavier stuff, like the new walls of the toilet stall that I really want to be installed into that wall-less abomination that the Federation calls a unisex toilet. I stopped dead in my path, nearly stepping onto a large lump moving around under the carpet. Throwing the parts onto the ground and lifting that square of the carpet resulted in the sound of velcro tape being pulled when the carpet let go of the floor and revealed the little joey busy at work with a paint knife, slowly hacking away between the concrete floor and the carpet. He looked up with big pupils. “Wow, ya’re big!”

“Uhm, hi lad. What are you doing?”

“Hi! I’m removing the carpet.” He stabbed the between the carpet and concrete again with his gloved hand, pushing the knife further to demonstrate.

I looked over at the pallet filled with a good amount of squares of carpet. “I see you’re doing a good job. But I thought that these things weren’t glued to the floor.” Looking underneath the carpet I spotted that the so-called glue wasn’t evenly spread or all over the carpet either. Lifting the carpet closer to my face revealed a disgustingly sick and rotting smell, causing me to recoil back. “Ugh. Well thanks for the help.” I was about to place the carpet back over the child before realising how stupid that is and instead ripped the last part off the ground with one fell swoop before throwing it onto the stack.

“Wow!” The child exclaimed.

“Say, I haven’t seen a single kid that isn’t scared of me. Why aren’t you?”

He waved his tail in a way that I didn’t recognise. “I don’t know. Ya just look weird. No fur, weird eyes. Other children at me school say I should and teacher too, she says I’m lucky. Because exterminators don’t take weird children no more. I don’t care, best friend is human. He is only human in school. I am only yotul. So we are friends.”

“Wait you go to school? But isn’t this a school day?”

He stood up and readjusted his helmet that was partly blocking his eyes due to the size. “Yes, but dad brought me with him to work with grandpa! He sometimes does that. Says that’s edu-cation-al. I like it, but not too much. I get tired and don’t see me friend. Dad and grandpa always say that sometimes is good, but not always. Specially grandpa. He always says I’m lucky, he never go to school.”

[Three times the recomended dose or radon later]

As I was about to place yet another bunch of heavy parts, I noticed that a young adult yotul was very familiar. He was the same yotul that had stood in front of me at the ‘Re-herding’ aka the weird place with the sulean fighting and orgy. When he stood up from his work and faced me I realised why he had looked so familiar that night, I had seen him earlier at ‘Trod’s Shack’ working on a machine and I had simply greeted him before moving on. But he also now knew that I was the one who had hired them all and knows that I am a criminal who at the very least sells meat.

I placed down the stuff, but before I could say anything he already started. “Don’t tell them anything, or I will tell them what I know about ya.”

A few seconds passed while I thought what I know about him that would even work as blackmail. “Because I know you went to that Re-herding thing?”

His ears changed from slight frustration to confusion, to relief. “Wait, ya don’t know? Well that is reassuring. I thought I was hanging by a thread with ya knowing about...never mind.”

A bolt of joy shot through me as I remembered something that instantly turned into disgust. “Wait, you were that guy I saw a fat Takkan sit down on…I now remember why I repressed that…” I shivered from the thought when the image fully re-emerged again from the deepest pits of my mind where I had buried it.

“Shhh, don’t tell the others, or I will tell them how you got all that money, and I sure know it isn’t from making human cheese like grandpa said.” It did make sense that they were family, they both sound and look roughly the same. I just had assumed that it was just a yotul thing, but in hindsight that does sound rather speciest.

“Yeah, humans don’t really make milk, only right after pregnancy. It was a joke from Gilt that I ran with.”

He looked up at me a little disappointed. “Huh, that’s weird you would think humans would produce a ton with how big of pair of mammalian glands humans have,” he says while cupping the air in front of his chest.

“Why, is it so weird?” I asked with curiosity getting the better of me.

“I mean why else would they be so big? And a few species just start producing it when you tug at it enough.” He looked up at me with a suspicious expression. “You’re not one of those weirdos that are into pouches are you?”

“No...? Also, I get the feeling you’re into that.”

“Yes, and that does not make me a weirdo because it’s my species.” By this point he had completely stopped doing what he was working on and was standing in front of me.

“And being sat on by a fat takkan doesn’t either?”

He remained silent for a few seconds trying to come up with something. “No it does,” he said a little defeated. “But! It does feel great, just having that full weight on you and having to breathe through her…” We talked about various weird topics, flowing from the one to the other for half an hour, something I really hope no one had listened in on, until we finally exchanged contact information and went back to work.

Transcription Subject: Tonso, Yotul child labourer

Date [standardised human time]: April 6, 2137

With dwindling patience I waited to do something while grandpa and the big human talked about work. My vision quickly wandered, and I began to stare at the weird-looking venlil next to me, he was pretty small for a venlil and had a grumpy look about him, but most importantly he had scars all over his body, but mostly his neck. My mother had told me not to look at strangers too long, especially if they had scars, but she wasn’t here, and I found it hard not to look.

“What are you staring at?” he said with an angry tone.

“Your scars.” The scarred man looked confused as what to say back for a couple of seconds.

“Well, don’t,” he hissed.

“Why?” I continued to stare at the many different scars, some were short and thin while others were thick and branched out like a tree.

“Because I don’t like it.”

“But I like them! They look cool!” I said remembering the word Louis taught me.

The oldish man struggled to say anything back when both of our attentions was pulled away by the sounds of yelling. “Stop, stop, you idiots!” A dossur cried out. “You can’t put these machines on their sides, they’ll break!”

“No need to lose yar voice, we only have to move it a little further than we will put it up right,” nephew Onder said, annoyed. “We know what we’re doing.”

The dossur angrily hopped onto machine and continued to yell. “No you don’t you stupid primitive!”

Onder and that venlil that I forgot his name of, pushed the machine back upright before Onder walked right up to the dossur. I noticed from my sides that a few more people came closer to watch the fight. “I’m not a primitive, I am a mechanic!”

“Oh sure I can see that, and I have to watch my head when I walk through a door.”

A yotul that I had never seen before walked up behind the dossur. “Uhm, sorry sir...s,” he added after looking around at the crowd. “Torpet, my friend here, can get a little miffed when someone doesn’t treat her machines well.”

“Not now mount, I can handle this,” she said in a slightly annoyed tone, causing him to take a step back.

“Is that how you talk to your friends? Is he nothing more than a beast of burden to you?” Onder snarled at the dossur that now began to look around the room. I did as well and noticed that a lot of my family were looking very angry at the greasy dossur.

All of a sudden the scarred man walked towards the dossur, mumbling something about someone on a toilet. “Stop yelling at each other!”

“That hairy fleshlight started it, she calls yotul primitives.”

“No, I called you a primitive, you and that thick-skulled venlil that were tipping over the arcade machine!” The scarred man looked over at-that-venlil-that-I-forgot-his-name-of, he didn’t seem to to care about the insult and was just slowly chewing on something.

“Go sit on a q-tip!” yelled Onder.

“I don’t care!” The man turned to Onder pointing with his tail. “You stop insulting and move this thing with its wheels. They’re unlocked on the back.” Torpet looked very pleased by that and jumped of the machine onto Mount’s shoulder. “And you.” He began now to the dossur. “Stop using slurs, or I will fire you.”

“W-wait, you can’t,” she began stuttering. “You will never find someone who could replace me!”

The scarred man had already began walking away, annoyed. “We would find someone new. Maarten will have a long conversation with you when he’s back!”

Transcription Subject: Maarten de Groot, Human Refugee/Meat producer

Date [standardised human time]: April 6, 2137

I watched the dossur jump up towards the door, pull the handle down with her hands, and use her feet to kick against the wall, forcing the door open, only to quickly spin around and jump dexterously onto the handle on the other side of the door, causing it slam shut again. It was impressive that she manages to get around like that, and I couldn’t help but made me wonder how my life would be if I was that small. After a moment, I gave up, being too tired from the day’s manual labour and the mental load of having to suddenly act as HR and have an argument with an employee for being a racist. I sighed and leaned back into Rellin’s chair, as I didn’t have my own office yet and he was downstairs anyway, before grabbing my holopad and quickly found my way to Cuko’s contact.

<How is your paw, Maarten?>

[Not really good, but we are making progress]

[You?]

<Great, we found someone high up in the chain and are now trying to find evidence on him>

This was serious. I knew that she was still trying to find the source of the meat production, how far up could she be?

[That’s great!]

[What is his name? Maybe I can help]

<I can’t say. You know how angry Vuccen got last time I told you a name. Besides it’s against code too.>

[I know I just want to help]

<Don’t worry about my work. I will find them.>

<By the way, don’t get yourself too tired, we still have that restaurant booked.>

<:happy_tailwag:>

A/N:

As always I really appreciate comments, it gives a lot more satisfaction than a few up arrows.

A special thanks to JupiterRun for proofreading. Check out his fic: Arxur Hospitality.

If you want to read more NoP fics of mine: a one-shot about a Farsul desperate for survival years after the Keslar dome had locked of Talsk

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