[A/N: Thank you again to the now 50+ readers who appear to be devouring each chapter as I publish it. I'm trying to keep a regular upload schedule so you don't go into withdrawal... about a chapter a week. But this one just poured out and I couldn't stop myself. And as always I absolutely love getting feedback from you whether it be a review or a private message. Even a "good chapter" or "I liked the part where" means a lot to me. And I don't have a problem with criticism either. Thank you all.]

Chapter 33 - Cutting One's Losses

Mister Filth was learning a whole new set of human experiences.

When it and the others had first gained bodies, it had thought they would be prepared for the experience. Had they not spent weeks observing the Auditor inside Lady Myria LeJean? Until they finally reached the conclusion that she was flawed. Faulty. Broken in some fashion because of there being only one?

All that is required, they said, is to corporate a group of us at once. We can ensure the clock is completed. And then we can dispense with all of this physical body distraction and get on with the auditing.

And they had. It had worked perfectly. The clock had been finished. Time had stopped.

But then… there had been things to observe. Things that seemed very different when observed via a set of liquid-filled electromagnetic sensing spheres. Through vibrating hairs and tiny bones in the upper jaw. Through pressure and thermal sensors spread throughout the body's surface.

And, more horrifically, through molecular composition sensing pores in the mouth and sinus cavities in the face, which seemed to conspire together to murder their owners.

He had thought he knew things, but that was when he was a we without a body.

Then the bodies had interacted with each other. First there had been confusion. Why must we breathe? Why do we not command the body and it obey? Why does that odor cause the mouth to fill with liquid?

Why did that Auditor just explode into dust after eating a small brown substance wrapped in thin colored foil?

That had led to the horror. The horror of watching Mister White wielding an axe, learning about violence and power. Mister White had abandoned the we, had sought to be an I that was above the rest. And then the Lady LeJean with her human companions had defeated them, thrown deadly sweets among the crowd of bodied Auditors, and Mister White and countless others had died in a sugar-induced frenzy.

That was terror. Watching your own companions tear each other apart for something that they knew would kill them. It was enough to drive one mad.

It had been a very short drive.

Then weeks alone, living in dark corners. Afraid to sleep because of the things that came out of the darkness of the mind. Things with teeth. Things with chocolate. Things that looked like Lady LeJean. That laughed as they tore you apart.

He had survived, but it wasn't pretty. He had forced the body to accept that it didn't need… that food thing. Nutrients, trace molecules, all the requirements for a functioning body were all around you. In the filthy alley surfaces. In the rubbish bins. In the night soil buckets. All one had to do is transfer them from outside to inside the body. Contact with the skin seemed to help make it easier.

The first time he had seen Lady LeJean after the disaster, he had been transfixed. She was… perfect. As perfect as when they had first created her.

She was sitting at a table with humans. And she was eating! She was putting food in her mouth. And she was chewing it. And she was swallowing. And she did not die.

He was not sure what the feeling this caused him was. It felt hot. And it made his muscles bunch. And his teeth grind together. In his mind, he imagined shoving a chocolate in that perfect mouth. He imagined smearing chocolate into those perfect teeth, and smiling as he watched her gag and writhe on the ground.

Mister Filth had discovered hate and envy, and it turned out it was a two-for-one package deal.

But hate and envy combined with a wretched insanity didn't provide much in the way of focus. He had fantasized about murdering LeJean for days, until he couldn't tell the fantasy from the reality. And all it had done was make him crazier than before.

Then the Auditors, his lost siblings, had offered him a way out.

Help us end the LeJean, they said, and we will bring you back into the we.

He didn't have the wit to ask how they intended to do it.

Then he had been introduced to the human Flasher. Flasher made him afraid, but not as afraid as Mister White had with his very sharp axe. Not as afraid as the LeJean had made him, with her murderous sweets.

And he had met the human Jolly.

Jolly was… calm. And friendly. He was not scary. He didn't seem to mind that Mister Filth stank. He asked questions, but not in a way that made Mister Filth feel he was being questioned. While Flasher had quietly threatened Mister Filth, and called him trasman, and worse names, Jolly had been all smiles and companionship. Mister Filth had found that it made the world seem a little more stable. He had even been able, with some coaxing, to explain what they needed to make to kill the LeJean.

Together, he and Jolly had created a masterpiece. Small deadly morsels that looked completely harmless on the outside, but if they contacted the least moisture, they dissolved instantly into a substance so sweet that it defied description. It had taken days for Mister Filth to explain what he was looking for to Jolly, and days more for Jolly to find the right ingredients. At the end, Jolly had patted him on the back and said "good work" and even Flasher had grunted and nodded his head.

Now, Flasher was not nodding his head. Nor did he appear pleased at all. From what Mister Filth could tell, he was still very angry. It was difficult to tell, because when one has been hanging upside down for three hours listening to a human screaming, it all tended to blend together into a strange background noise as he stomped back and forth through the room, periodically kicking over furniture until he worked his way to quiet muttering.

Also, Mister Filth's rather ratty beard was hanging over his face. The smell was quite exceptional, and also made it difficult to see.[1]

When Jolly had arrived, Flasher had ramped back up to full fury.

"Flasher… why is Filth hanging from the rafters by his ankles?"

Flasher rounded on Jolly, knife appearing in his hand. "Trashman is hangin' there because I'm tryin' to decide what way of killing him will hurt the most the longest because it DIDN'T WORK!"

Jolly put up two flabby looking hands and waved them back and forth. "Easy there Flasher. Yeah it didn't work. So-"

Flasher spun back on his heel, stalking over to Mister Filth. Suddenly the beard was parted like two waves and Flasher's face appeared clearly before him. It was odd, Filth thought, why should looking at someone upside down make them look so strange? Perhaps it is being able to see up their nose that does it. Then there was a knifepoint in very close proximity to the surface of Filth's left eye.[2]

"You said it would work! Why is she still alive?"

Mister filth tried to swallow, and found that gravity was not cooperating and almost threw up instead. Again. The floor underneath him was not looking pleasant.

"It should have. It should have worked. Something must have gone wrong."

Jolly coughed behind them. "Flasher, no need to take it out on Filth there. It wasn't his fault."

The knife didn't move, but Flasher's head turned over his shoulder. It is amazing, thought Mister Filth, how his body can turn its head away and the knife doesn't drift and cut out my eye.

"I had a couple of eyes on them when the package was delivered. It was going perfect. What happened was, that shyster of hers was there when the package arrived, and he tried it first and it tipped her off."

Mister Filth felt a weight lifted. It was not our fault. It was not our fault. We did it correctly. Yes. Correctly. It was a human that did wrong. It was not our fault. "It was not our fault," he breathed.

Flasher's head jerked around. "Whazzat? Not our fault? Not our fault. Yer makin' me nuts with that talk, Trashman. You mean it's not yer fault!" The knife rose from his eye level, past his throat, and hovered over his stomach. "I should gut ya right now." Then he paused. "No. Even better."

The beard fell back over his eyes and he heard him stomping off and then back.

"Flasher this ain't doing any-"

"Shut up Jolly."

The beard parted again, and there was Flasher with a huge wooden spoon full of a white paste. "Even better. I'd like to see just what this was gonna do to LeJean. Maybe you could give us a little demonstration."

Nerves sang and muscles spasmed with the thought of it. And his mouth. His mouth started drooling. Rivers of saliva dripping off his upper lip, running up his nose and forehead. Dripping onto the floor. Yes, the mouth said.

Are you insane? The brain responded. "No. Please no. We did what you asked."

"Flasher, really. Don't torture the poor slob, just be done with it."

"But it didn't work, did it. Now we'll never get near her, and they may be onto us." The spoon moved closer. "And now you're no use to us at all."

Neurons, supercharged with fear and chemicals, grabbed hold of the vocal organs "We can get close to her!"

The spoon stopped. Moved back a fraction of a hair.

"I'm listenin'."

"You sure you still wanna do this, Flasher?"

"You getting cold feet, now?"

Jolly shook his head, and several sets of chins, and smiled his cherubic grin. "You know me. I'm always up for a challenge. But this, it seems like it's gone personal. I'm just sayin."

"It's just business. I told you why we can't let this go."

"Yeah. I get it." Jolly sighed. "So, see you tomorrow night to nail down the details?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow night."

Jolly wandered down the hall to a small closet and opened the door. The odor that wafted out had substance.

"How you doin' Filth?"

Mister Filth looked up through matted hair and giggled. "We are still breathing. Is that not a wonder?"

"Yeah. A real gift."

"We wish to thank you."

"For what?"

"Trying to convince Flasher to kill us quickly. It was kind of you."

"Aw hell Filth, yer gonna make me blubber." Jolly laughed. "Don't think I give a fig about ya Filth. I just don't see like seeing needless suffering."[3] With difficulty, he bent down and patted Mister Filth on a greasy shoulder. "You watch yerself, you hear?" Then he straightened up and in that rolling gait that was deceptively fast for a man his size, exited the hall and the building.

Watch ourselves. Yes.

How do we do that?

It should come as no surprise that, come the next evening, Jolly was otherwise engaged and unable to make their meeting.

In fact, he was otherwise engaged in sitting his ample buttocks on the seat of a coach, privately hired with a small portion of years of ill-gotten wealth, and was well on his way to Quirm via Sto Lat. It would possibly not surprise anyone that the driver of the coach would have been of keen interest to the Ankh Morpork City Watch as well, and smelled faintly of peppermint oil.[4]

Jolly was not a nice man. He was in fact a very very bad man who had done some very bad things.

Jolly was not a nice man, but he wasn't stupid either.

[1] And the newt kept trying to curl up on his chin.

[2] Which, for some reason, did wonders for the concentration.

[3] Now needful suffering, Jolly had no problem with at all.

[4] Screws up werewolves something horrid, does peppermint oil. Big headache, long lie-down. Sergeant Angua was seriously getting tired of the smell of peppermint.