Rat’s fitful rest was disturbed by an insufferable sound, a dull knocking on the door of her hovel. Her bloodshot eyes were greeted with darkness as they flashed open. The knocking sounded again.

She cursed. If someone was trying to kill her, they were doing a shit job of it, announcing their presence like that. But the alternative was even less appealing; that she was being intentionally woken up at some ungodly hour for a chore or task. At least she could go back to sleep after fending off assailants.

The knocking came again and she growled low in her throat before climbing out of bed, resigned to being awake. She fumbled through the hidden, makeshift pockets of her shapeless smock before her fingers landed on a reasonably sharp shank. She stalked past rows of empty bunks caked in dust. When she reached the door, she wrenched it open, startling the well-dressed man behind it, his hand raised to knock again.

She glanced him over once. He was already not worth her time, but she kept the knife in hand where he could see it. "What in the ever-loving fuck is worth waking me this early?"

The man, to his credit, looked appropriately terrified. Sweat dotted his perfect skin, despite the winter air. With a shaky breath and a pronounced whimper, he began to speak.  "Slave X-"

She held up a hand and his voice died in his throat. "When you wake someone up… at the ass crack of dawn,” she grit her teeth, “you use her fucking name."

The man swallowed hard. "Y-yes, right. Uh. Rat. We’ve received word that an ultraviolet class authority is inbound to the complex and a memo has been put out that all-"

“I promise, my patience is shorter than this sentence.” Rat's fingers started twitching, and as though connected to strings, the man flinched. 

"There's a VIP coming. They want to see you."

"Yeah yeah, I got it." Rat grabbed the man's face and pushed him out of the way, covering his clean skin in more grime than it had probably seen in a year. The last time a VIP visited, it had been the North American supervisor, overseeing productivity. This had resulted in a few meaningless staff changes and Rat officially being given her own bunkroom, citing disruption among the slaves living with her.

It was rarely a good thing to be requested by a VIP.

But for most slaves a VIP meant pretty much only one thing. Early breakfast and a whole lot of hungry mouths fighting over it. The crowds surged fast after the speakers across the complex announced the arrival. Soon the air was choked with the dust kicked up under their heels.

Despite living in the bunkhouse furthest from the mess hall, Rat was among the first to get her food. She never had to try too hard to clear a path between her and her meal. Sometimes it was good, having a reputation and looking like a freak. After just a few minutes, she was on her way back to her bunkhouse, to eat her food alone. More slaves continued swarming down the hill past her.  She bit her lip as one group nearly trampled a girl in their rush.

"Fucking animals…" Rat muttered. She stood in front of the girl, between her and the throng. None of them seemed to give a fuck about trampling a kid but they sure carved a wide berth around the ragged young woman with grey, marred skin and red eyes. "Hey, kid, can you stand?" She reached out to help the child up. The girl looked up at her, green eyes meeting Rat’s scarlet eyes. Rat fought down a grin, seeing more anger than fear. 

"I'm fine!" The girl grabbed Rat’s arm to pull herself to her feet, only stumbling twice. Rat fought a smile. It was bad luck.  Still this girl, maybe eight or nine, still had some fire in her.

"Good. You have a unit?”

The girl rolled her eyes and wiped some dirt off her face, sniffing.

“Sucks. Well, those assholes knock you down again, make them bleed for it, you hear?"

The girl looked at Rat. The flames were still there, but softer, rage tempered by curiosity. "Yeah… yeah, I'll do that." She skittered off, reminding Rat briefly of her own namesake.

Rat continued to trudge uphill.  She passed by the other other shacks, watching the clusters of slaves avoid eye contact with her as they scarfed down their food.  She sighed, reaching her bunkhouse, and settled down with her bowl among the ash and charcoal that surrounded the hovel. She could practically see the invisible circle around her home, keeping everyone else away. She leaned back against the charred remains of the wooden stake and let it color her matted white hair. She closed her eyes, taking a slurp of her nutrient paste soup.

Then the sound of rockets and the whine of engines snapped her eyes open. She was barely in time to see something jet across the sky, disappearing into the ever present cloud ceiling that never broke. A plane? A ship?

Damn. So the VIP had been flown in? Her stomach churned up some of her soup and she pressed a hand over her mouth. There really was no reason to believe it was a Deathless or even a God. The vehicle might not have even come from off-world. Plenty of mortal officials, human or otherwise, traveled by plane around the Earth, to save time. She went back to her paste, but it didn’t really want to stay down. The stuff was usually repugnant, but as the first meal she’d had in two days, well… it was still repugnant. At least it sated her hunger a little.

The slowly diminishing sound of dishes clanking and muted slurping was the first indication that something was wrong. The slaves didn’t typically stop eating for anything. Rat looked up from her bowl and saw, down the hill a bit, the head overseer, backed by eight guards, escorting someone in one hell of a suit of power armor.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

That was the VIP, huh? Coming to her house instead of requesting her at the head office. So they were on her turf and she had the high ground? They were either incredibly stupid or had no intent to hurt her. Her stomach released some of the knots they’d picked up that morning.

"Billy boy!" she shouted as he grew closer. “I hear you’ve got a visitor for me.”

The head overseer winced. He gave a sharp look to any of the slaves close enough to watch the exchange. The vigilant ones watched carefully and the stupid ones just continued eating, but none were getting involved. Satisfied, the overseer looked up at the person in the armor. They kept moving.

Dissatisfied by the lack of information, Rat tried again. "What is it this time? Let me guess, disturbing the peace? Threat of revolt?” She kept her voice loud and her posture relaxed. One against nine? She’d done worse. “I wondered when you’d try your hand at getting rid of me. You might wanna ask your last eight predecessors how good of an idea that was. Or is that what the vip’s for?” The overseer’s face flushed but he continued, crossing the perimeter of ash that surrounded her. Rat growled low in her throat, annoyed now at the lack of a response. “No… you’re gonna finally invite me into your harem, aren’t you? Heard you have a thing for girls with burns." 

This finally cracked him and his face puckered. "No, Rat, I-"

"No? Not you then. Maybe faceless guard number three wants a piece of this?" She shoots one of the guards a smirk with the burned side of her face, causing him to shudder. "Or maybe the idiot in the suit wants some?"

The overseer couldn’t have looked more horrified.  Even the guards behind lost their stoic faces in place of fear. They backed away from the figure in armor. Rat's smile dropped as she looked around. Any slaves close enough to watch were now scrambling away.

Then, someone started to laugh. It was hard to tell at first, but the man in the suit’s shoulders were shaking, so Rat turned her attention to him. His laugh was deep and rich. "My my, it has been a very long time since someone has spoken to me like that."

Rat grimaced, trying to hide her quickened pulse. "Sorry to disappoint you, but you're not even the first fuck that I’ve met who gets off to slaves insulting him."

"So mouthy, with such a sharp tongue. Tell me, what do they call you?"

"They call me Rat.” She tilted her head. “Cause I'm ugly like one."

The man chuckled. "Quite a consummate liar too, I see. That's not why they call you Rat, is it?"

Rat's smile faltered for half a second before finding her tongue.  "You want the whole story? You’ve got eight guards and a power suit to defend you from a single slave. Your constitution’s too delicate for the gory details."

"Absolutely delightful. Now, I must ask, do you know who I am, Rat?"

"Not a fucking clue. Do you think the shiny suit of armor is gonna set you apart from every other spoiled brat out there?"

"Ah." He sounded disappointed. "Let me rectify that." Suddenly a circle of darkness spread from his feet and all it touched fell to their knees. It hit Rat and it was like gravity had increased a hundredfold. She tried to stay standing, but she was crushed. She was alone in the dark and it was so, so cold. "I am a Deathless, child." It was the man's voice and it was sunlight and warmth and a long-forgotten moment of contact. "I am the Butcher King. I own this mine. I own all the slaves here. I own you."

Rat felt like a shard of ice had speared her lungs, the air was too thin, she couldn't breathe. She craned her head up, shaking with the effort to maintain eye contact with the Deathless. The silver metal of his amor now stood out, somehow blacker than the darkness.  In the inky lack of light, she could now see damage to the armor.  What had seemed immaculate was now full of dents, scratches, knicks and scrapes and a huge tear across the chest.  More than the darkness and the cold this tear touched her heart with terror.

"Where is your sharp tongue now, Rat? Where is the disrespect?"

Rat's heart raced, or maybe it had stopped. She wasn’t even sure she could feel it anymore. "Th-thought...y-you’d be b-b-bigger…".

"...what?"

Rat pushed herself up to her elbows. Some primal part of herself was screaming to stay down or she would be crushed. But she kept pushing until she was on her hands one knees, then on her feet. Her legs shook, but she was standing. "I said I thought you'd be taller. Being some kind of god thing and… and stuff." The words felt pathetic in her mouth but she didn’t drop her gaze even as tears betrayed her fear. 

The darkness receded.

The Butcher King looked to the head overseer.  With the armor on, it was impossible to know what he was thinking, but his voice sounded almost hungry. "Oh, make my day, Overseer. Make my day, right now."

"Y-your divinity, sir.” The overseer bowed and gestured at Rat.  “Yes. This is the slave that I was telling you about."

His face was covered by his helmet, but Rat could almost see the smile radiating off him. "Excellent. Rat, you are exactly what I need!"

Rat blinked, words coming more naturally now that the darkness was gone. "I hate to disappoint you, because you seem like you’re probably not used to it, but I've catastrophically fucked up every single job I've been given. Ever."

The Butcher King just laughed and shook his head. "Well then, it sounds like you are good at something."

“Fucking things up? I promise, it’s easier than it looks.”

“A catastrophic,” he laughed, “fuck up in a mine is a dangerous thing. But still, you stand here. There’s something about you, something nature and man alike has failed to destroy.”

Rat looked at the ashes at her feet, kicking up a mote of soot, remnants of a fire that had engulfed half the complex. She had survived it.

She looked back up at him.  “You're going to try to kill me, aren’t you." Her voice was more tired than anything and she felt the scars on her left forearm ache.

"Of course not. That would be a waste of your talents. I'm just sending you somewhere no one has returned from."

---

The Butcher King called the task ‘simple’. A crashed ship embedded in the Earth with an errant security system. Rat had to turn it off.

Rat grit her teeth. No one ever called simple things simple. They only said ‘simple’ when they were hiding something and this was no exception. The Butcher King had only offered a shrug and a vague description of horrifically mutilated corpses. Then she had asked if she’d be expected to fight or kill anything.

She hadn’t expected his laugh, nor the explanation that all the mutilations had been self inflicted.

“For your sake, I hope you will do no killing. I think you’re made of sterner stuff. Oh, and Rat? If you do this… anything you want”

Rat spent the rest of the flight staring out the window of the plane, at the faceless grey clouds, shrouding it.

Whatever she wanted? What did that even look like? A week off from work? Squirrel every night for dinner? A soft sheet for her bed? Maybe protection from the other slaves?

This last one made her laugh out loud, trying to picture the big, armored Deathless acting as her bodyguard.

Well, she’d worry about that later, if she survived the death ship.