Kala yelped and grabbed onto Ella for support, and Calvin did the same, his balance suddenly thrown off by the falling sensation.

Y’Kuingi’s legs splayed out and touched either side of the wall, her pincers grabbing the corrugated steel.

Learner just stood there, frowning at them curiously.

A few lightweight seconds later, the elevator began slowing drastically, ramping up their weight over the course of a couple seconds.

Having prepared for it, the sudden increase in weight wasn’t quite so bad. Calvin, Kala and Ella had all had practice in an elevator before so they knew what to expect, regaining their balance despite the sudden heaviness they felt.

Y’kuingi, on the other hand, was panicking hard. “A water demon’s got my soul!” she said, scratching at the walls of the elevator. “It’s dragging me to the Abyss!”

Thankfully, none of them were directly in the way of the giant insects legs, but the flailing was worrisome.

Learner gave her a hug.

Calvin wasn’t sure if it was the hug or the simple fact that the elevator came to a stop, but Y’kuingi slowly calmed down, her fingerlike mouthpieces slowly relaxing as Learner patted her head.

SHHH! An entire side of the ten foot box slid aside to reveal a large, open hallway.

It was similarly decorated with a small potted plant spaced exactly five point three meters apart from each other, and an image of a large-eyed fuzzy animal every three meters.

Calvin only knew this because the M*necraft Debug Menu told him the distances with a fraction of a second of concentration.

“Greetings, Meatbag.” A pleasant woman’s voice whose intonation was just a bit off said. “Your appointment is at the end of the hall. Should you feel the urge to defecate, breed, sleep or expire during your stay here, please use the facilities behind the doors.”

Lining the hall were dozens of doors, each of them seemingly identical.

Curious, Calvin  opened one of the doors.

The light flickered on in a fraction of a second, revealing a bed, flanked by a toilet on one side, and a gigantic meatgrinder set into the floor on the other.

Calvin closed the door with a frown and opened another one.

Same thing. Bed, toilet, human-sized meatgrinder, presumably for people to die in.

They checked a few more doors as they walked down the hall, but they were all identical.

“Why do you need so many rooms for this?” Calvin asked aloud. “Your foot traffic couldn’t possibly justify this many rooms.”

“Meatbags, through no fault of their own, are prone to suddenly and without warning, dropping their pants and then shitting on things, breeding or dying. Sometimes a combination of the three. We felt it was worth the effort to make sure they did so in designated, easy-to-clean areas that they could reach within five seconds.”

“You do know no one’s going to direct their dying body into a meatgrinder, right?” Calvin asked.

“That remains to be seen.” The voice in the walls said.

Calvin shrugged and closed the door, heading for the office at the end of the hall.

They filed into a space that was much bigger than the elevator, and Y’kuingi stretched out her limbs in a sigh of relief. There were four steel chairs of subtly differing size and shape.

After a moment of experimentation, they discovered that each of the chairs was made with one of them in mind, fitting their body perfectly.

Over the last few minutes? Calvin thought, astonished.

Once they were all seated, save Y’kuingi, a side wall opened, and a Knick-knack strolled out of it with an almost arrogant geit. His body was polished and shiny, easily twice as tall as a normal Knick-knack, and Calvin could see signs in its design that led him to believe the creature was powered by a Bent Engine, possibly even the very same engines the knick-knacks had scrapped from the hunter-killers all that time ago.

“Good afternoon,” The tiny metal man said, sitting at a desk that rose out of the floor in front of them, interlacing his metal fingers as he surveyed their party. “I am Diplomat. I am programmed to appear enthusiastic about conversing with meatbags. How may I be of assistance!?”

Diplomat glanced over at Y’kuingi while they were processing the backhanded statement.

“Mucus creature. Does your species have furniture?”

“Yes, a bench to rest on would be just –“

One of the walls slid open and sparks flew as a metal bench shaped to conform to the bottom of Y’kuingi’s shell flew in from outside, sliding up to Y’kuingi with a tooth-rattling Screeech!

“-fine.”

“You understand Ooze-weaver?” Calvin asked.

“We’ve seen enough of your movement through the city that we were able to decode yes and no.”

“Now that that’s taken care of, let’s get to the purpose of your appointment, you wish to trade plastic for Lanthanides. Which Lanthanides, specifically?” Diplomat asked, cocking it’s head in an unnatural gesture.

I think you might want to handle this, Calvin thought to Elliot.

Gotcha, just repeat after me.

Elliot then led Calvin through a long-winded explanation of what they were looking for and how they wanted Cerium, erbium and homium, and they wanted them in specific chemical combinations that weren’t immediately toxic upon ingestion.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

At least, that’s what Calvin thought he just said.

Diplomat stared at them silently.

“How unusual, a meatbag that knows exactly what it’s looking for. Show me the plastic.” The knick-knack said, seemingly more at ease than before.

Ella reached over and snagged the chunk of white plastic out of the satchels on Y’kuingi’s shell. She passed it to Calvin, and he passed it to Diplomat.

“Hmmm.” Diplomat said, poking a finger into the plastic and gouging out a bit with the tip of it’s finger. “It’s a bit soft. What wavelength are you using on your emitter?”

Calvin had no idea what a wavelength was, so he simply pulled out the emitter and handed it to Diplomat.

“We’ve been using these.”

Diplomat turned the emitter over in it’s hands.

“Yes. I can see how meatbags would find it difficult to sustain a uniform wavelength with this kind of emitter.”

Diplomat held up a hand.

The wall slammed open again, and a steel bowl came hurtling toward Diplomat’s head. The Knick-knack snatched it out of the air just before it caved in the creature’s skull.

If you could call that a skull.

It set the plastic in the bowl and held the emitter over it. There was an inaudible whine in the back of Calvin’s eyeballs, then the plastic turned into a goop, filling the bowl with slime moments before it turned hard again.

Did that robot just used Bent? Elliot asked.

Is that unusual?

You could say that.

Diplomat once again gouged at the plastic, seemingly expending a great deal more effort to do so.

“Yes, this will do nicely.” Diplomat said.

“We are willing to offer two grams of the lanthanides you requested for each kilogram of this salvaged plastic. It is of sufficient purity to be useful to us. You have made a great find, or did you perhaps overthrow the Juntai meatbags and strip the plastic from their ship? They have long resisted selling it to us.”

“It’s not a find. We’re producing it.” Calvin said. “We want a long-term trade arrangement.”

“Reprioritizing. Calvin Gadsint, Marquis meatbag of Calvin’s March?”

“Yeah?”

“Construction has begun. You may expect an embassy to appear in your city in the next thirty-six hours.”

“…What?”

“With our current production of rare earth metals above what is necessary to make repairs and create new Laborers, we would be willing to trade no more than two kilograms of the Lanthanides in question per month, in exchange for a metric ton of your produced plastic.

“Before we get carried away,” Calvin said, raising a hand. “Our side needs to verify that we can make use of the materials. Let’s start with a few grams of lanthanides and make projections based on that.”

“Ah yes, the uncertainty inherent in all organic life.” Diplomat said, studying them. “If the lanthanides are not valuable to you, please inform us, as there are likely other ways we can purchase your plastic.”

“What other ways?” Calvin asked.

“We are adept at construction and mining, obviously, as well as industrial chemistry. We would be willing to trade a certain amount of steel, weapons, labor, or advanced technology in exchange for large quantities of plastic.”

“What kind of advanced technology?” Calvin asked.

“Thing like computers, Bent generators, batteries, tractors, emitters, solar panels, global positioning satellites, lasers, optical measuring devices and the like. You understand that certain technologies would cost you much more than others.”

“Of course,” Calvin said, nodding, but he had no idea which ones were more valuable than others.

I’ll give you the run-down later. Elliot said.

“Is there any other business you wish to discuss?” The knick-knack asked.

“Are you going to be mining under my city?” Calvin asked.

“If your plastic production meets our demand, we are going to build a city under your city.”

“Wouldn’t that cause the city to collapse?” Calvin asked.

“Poor meatbag. Your use of three dimensional space has always been lackluster.” Diplomat said, shaking its head. “You can rest easy knowing that the Laborers design their cities properly, and the bedrock is actually stronger and more stable with their presence than without it.”

“Show me.” Calvin said.

Diplomat paused, looking Calvin up and down.

“My reading show that while you might technically fit through our tunnels, you would most likely suffer from meatbag claustrophobia and oxygen deprivation.”

Heart of the Swarm

Atom ant

Chimera

46/54 Bent remaining

Calvin assumed his ‘battle form’, albeit only two feet tall. A swarm of one.

“I don’t need to breathe,” Calvin said. “So how about now?”

“…Why do you insist?”

“I’m curious about what exactly is going to be going on under my city.” Calvin said.

“I see. Yes, I can show our the city, if you promise not to sleep or excrete on anything.”

“This body needs none of that,” Calvin said, patting his chest.

“Very good. This way.” Diplomat motioned to the side. The door on the side of the wall slammed open again, this time staying open, revealing a pit of darkness beyond.

“I’ll be back in a few,” Calvin said, waving up at his friends who had become gigantic.

“You’re welcome to use the provided rooms to rest, defecate, or die while we’re gone,” Diplomat said.

“We’ll be sure to…do that.” Kala said, shaking her head.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotta take a shit.” Ella shrugged.

“I personally feel like I might die sometime in the next day or two. Could be any minute now,” Learner said with a sly smirk. “I’ll hang out next to the grinder just in case.”

“Thank you for your consideration, meatbag.  Shall we?” Diplomat said, seemingly unaware of Learner’s sarcasm. It motioned for Calvin to join him.

Kala hid her smile behind her hand, trying her best to maintain her princess-y bearings while in her hometown. Ella just guffawed and slapped Learner on the back.

Her humor is getting better. Her human brain’s humor anyway.

Y’kuingi just seemed vaguely confused, as a large portion of the discussion was likely unintelligible for her.

Calvin followed Diplomat into the darkness, where he saw a bunch of strange insectoid arms with various tools recessed into the walls.

Robot arms. Although I know you know them as knick-knacks and not robots, I would like to take the time to point out that since the word ‘robot’ is derived from the word ‘Slave’ in another language, calling them robots might be ill-advised. Just a heads-up.

Calvin stepped through a strange door, which closed and locked behind him.

The heat and pressure in the room rapidly spiked, pressing against Calvin’s ear-drums, but it was nothing his body couldn’t handle. With this body’s Physical attributes multiplied by forty-five, he was fairly sure he was more durable than the metal men themselves.

Throughout this process, Diplomat stared at him curiously, as if waiting for something.

Eventually the tiny amounts of water on his shoes began to sizzle against the stone, but it wasn’t enough to bother his skin.

“Well, okay then,” Diplomat said, sounding impressed for the first time since Calvin had begun speaking with him.

The second door opened, revealing a sight beyond belief.

The ‘city’ as they called it, was a strange mix of fractal shapes cut out of the burning hot stone, tunnels, and clumps of knick-knacks clinging to each other like army ants, either resting or working on something. Calvin wasn’t sure.

The heat was oppressive, and if he were here in his real body, he’d likely be burning alive, but the Knick-knacks seemed to like it.

“Most of our energy is geothermal,” Diplomat said, pointing toward an area off to the side where plumes of steam seemed to be spinning enormous metal turbines. They were reminiscent of the steel flywheel in Juntai, and Calvin bet they were used for the same purpose.

“The heat and depth makes an effective natural defense against incursion by organics, as they don’t tend to last very long down here. If you were lying about needing to breathe, you would have lost consciousness already.”

“Good to know,” Calvin said.

“Over there is our mining operation. Behind that pillar is the nursery, where we make new Laborers, over there is the transport tunnel we are currently digging toward your city.”

Calvin walked over the boiling hot stone and glanced into the tunnel, where he spotted a swarm of knick-knacks slowly receding from them, leaving a tunnel about three feet wide behind them.

“I suppose you’ll want your payment in units of no larger than three feet wide.”

“If you are going to make a business arrangement with us,” Diplomat said, peering at Calvin. “You’re going to have to use the Metric System.”

Calvin sighed. At least his Drafting Skill made it a bit easier.