RFQC 3: Clean Up and Go Home.

Wally grabbed a few snacks out of the vending machines in the cafeteria, then went to the nearest door and opened it to the upstairs hall just outside of his office. This shortcut thing was amazing. He had just had the equivalent of a full nights sleep and didn't feel like returning home just yet. He told Frank that he could start as soon as he liked, and the sour Puppet responded that he would be in bright and early the following morning. Which meant that Wally had a lot of work to do to prepare for the arrival of the newest HR Manager. He had to contact IT and have an account set up, permissions to be given, records to be accessed, and of course a to-do list to arrange. And that was just to start. There was still the matter of the complaint letter he intended to send to the head of Living Island Farms about the Doozy and subsequent damage it had done to the Factory. Although Wally had a strange feeling that even with the path of destruction the Doozy had left, the Rainbow Factory itself could never be harmed, not in any large capacity anyway. He felt that knowledge in the same way he had known where to find the HR packet for Frank.

And thus armed with a cup of coffee and a good nights sleep, he sat down at his computer and got to work. After roughly three hours of typing and searching through his notes, he finally had a detailed list of all the positions he needed filled, with varying levels of priority included. He doubted that Frank would have computer access just yet and had a copy printed out using the large copier in the break room. Wally stood up from his desk and stretched. He had to keep his arms bent because they hit the lower ceiling. Maybe one day when he had a better grasp on the comings and goings he could move to a larger office with a higher ceiling. Wally grabbed his empty mug and headed for the break room then set his mug in the sink to be washed. He turned the water on and out of the corner of his eye saw an old over-sized pleather couch to one side of the break room near the windows. Wally crossed the gap in two strides and sat down. He felt his weight sink into the ripped seats, then turned his long legs around and lay down fully, resting his hands behind his head. His back was given the chance to properly stretch and Wally sighed. The couch was just long enough to fit his entire length and he took a moment to close his eyes and relax.

He wondered what it would be like to have all the offices outside of his door full, along with the bustle of people at work, the smell of fresh coffee and snacks drifting through the air. What kind of workplace was he trying to create?

"Disrespectful brat!"

Wally was yanked out of his thoughts by a heavy weight dropping onto his midsection.

"Seriously! Could you have found a worse place to take a nap than the top Managers break room?"

Wally opened his red eyes and saw an angry green Puppet with heavy eyebrows and a permanent scowl. The thought that it and Frank might be related crossed his mind.

"Kids these days, all they want to do is sleep, eat, and play videotube! Get up! If you want to keep your job then get to work!"

The weight that had been dropped onto Wallys lap was a bucket of rags and various spray bottles. "The hell?"

"I think you mean 'I'm sorry Mr Clayburn, it will never happen again Mr Clayburn, because I'm a new hire and need this job Mr Clayburn' Get up and get started, that floor isn't going to mop itself!"

Wally looked down at the bucket and noted that he was still wearing the clean janitors uniform that QC had given him. "I'm-"

Clayburn put his hands on his hips. "I don't care what your name is! You are Newbie, everyone is Newbie until I decide otherwise. Mop and bucket are in the hall, don't forget to sweep and don't leave streaks."

Wally swung his legs off the couch and set the bucket on the floor. He thought for a moment, then decided to play along. He could use a bit of a break from the computer screen for a while and there was no better way to get to know a place than cleaning. "Yes sir Mr Clayburn."

"Thats more like it. Lordy you are tall. Good, you can start by dusting the ceilings," Clayburn practically chased Wally out of the break room and closed the door behind him. "And stay out of the new Managers office. Idiot got attacked by a Doozy last night and I think he had to go to the hospital."

"Poor guy, do you think he'll make it?" Wally asked, barely containing his sarcasm.

"I don't care if he does. Just another moron looking for a check that doesn't understand this job. Huh, it takes real Puppets to do this kind of work. Bet he never mopped a floor in his life. You can't just walk into the Rainbow Factory and expect everything to go your way. You wanna work here you gotta wear the damn boots!"

Wally looked down at the new ones on his feet. Check.

"Shit, even that one bitch had steel toed heels," Clayburn continued to grumble. "Wouldn't mind having her back hehe! The new guy though, what kind of moron goes walking around the Factory in the dark?"

"I suppose the kind that has never touched a broom," Wally grabbed a broom from the cart and looked for the dust pan on a stick. Clayburn wasn't wrong, the whole office floor needed a good scrub. He remembered with some nostalgia all of the random kitchen and retail jobs he had over the years. Most of which involved that nightly dance with a wet mop and wet floor signs. Of all the things he never thought he would do again. "Still though, if he makes it back safe, you should give him a chance."

"I ain't impressed by what I've seen so far," Clayburn grabbed a scrub bucket and headed for the bathrooms. "My reflection newbie! I want to see my face in that floor!"

Wally shrugged it off and went to work. At this point in his life, the clean up process was dedicated to muscle memory. He dusted cobwebs from the corners in the hall, cleaned windows, polished the fixtures that could be polished, then dusted and swept the empty offices. It all gave him time to think and organize his thoughts. One small task led to another. The whole Factory was a mess, everything seemingly running on autopilot just like it had been for years before he arrived. On one hand that was fine, it meant it worked. On the other, that was bad. Everyone was so set in their routines and ways they lost the ability to adapt to new challenges. Also if everything was running just fine, then why was he here? Did they even need him? He had just set up the mop bucket when QC came around the corner.

"Mr Walden, what are you doing?"

"Cleaning the floor."

"It wasn't a demotion when I gave you the shirt!" QC huffed. She had to admit that a button-up did suit him though.

"Its nothing. Mr Clayburn thinks I'm his new hire, and its nice to get my mind off of other things for moment."

QC's gaze went to the bandages on his chest. "How are you feeling?"

"Pretty good actually. I think there might had been some kind of painkiller in the poison. With all the abuse I took last night my back should at least be sore."

QC nodded. "Yeah, that is how they work, render the prey docile and compliant, then feed."

Wally snorted. The processing lines in the Factory used the same tactic.

"If you're happy I'll leave you be Mr Walden," QC went to a closed door and pushed it open to reveal a cozy laboratory. Inside were tables with many flasks, test tubes and beakers filled with brightly glowing liquids. She left Wally alone to mop the hallway and greeted a small mole-like man with glasses seated at one of the lab benches. He was the Rainbow Factory's master color mixer, and one of the few people she could consider a friend. "Good afternoon Oric."

"Afternoon to you too QC," the mole, Oric, looked up from a book he had been reading. "Who is that in the hall?"

"Mr Walden our new Factory Manager, Mr Clayburn thinks he is a new housekeeping employee. I'm waiting for the payoff."

"I see why you left the door open now. In the meantime, how are you today? Feeling alright after the incident last night?" he reached to his side and pulled a test tube half full of Yellow Pure from a rack at his side."I would know this color anywhere."

QC grinned sheepishly. "I didn't get the full brunt of the Device though."

"Let me see," Oric held his small paw out and QC stepped forward to allow Oric to examine her. He studied her hands, then touched her cheek and turned her head from side to side. "Just a surface hit. Good." he adjusted his glasses. "This Factory wouldn't run without you."

"Is this all you called me here for?" QC looked over the different test tubes filled with various shades and hues of Pure. Outside in the hall, Wally began drawing the mop across the floor in long smooth strokes.

"No. I have a question. Who was it you pulled out of the Device last night?"

QC pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "That guy, but it wasn't just me, Bronson was there too. No way I could have lifted Mr Walden on my own. Why?"

Oric's features seemed to wrinkle in thought, he then slid from his stool and stood on the ground. QC was a small woman, and Oric was just a bit shorter than her. "I want to show you something," he led her to the back wall of the lab then removed a larger test tube of Pure from another rack. He placed his palm over the open top and shook it up, then held it up for QC to study. QC recognized the brilliant purple of Wally's Essence. Oric pointed at the tube. "Watch."

QC watched as the color seemed to deepen, then become a gradient of two colors. "Its separating." Pure colors didn't separate easily. They would often blend into their different gradients if left alone long enough but never a clear divided separation. Within moments QC saw a clean line between Red Pure and Blue Pure within the tube. "So strange!"

"Unfortunately it means I can't use this in any mix. That is why I was able to isolate it from the larger batch. Its an oddity for now. And the divide is absolute. Even when I put it on a slide and watched the colors separate, they don't share anything with each other. Almost as if they're repealing each other. Such a shame. The device can harvest the other six base Pure colors just fine, but we have been having problems with getting a proper violet color. I had hopes that perhaps a new source had been found. I can still generate a good enough purple for pigments, but not the richness of true violet."

QC looked over her shoulder at Wally in the hall. He seemed lost in thought, focused only on the floor. "Still, this came from Mr Walden?"

Oric followed her gaze and studied Wally through his own monocle. To him, Wally's Essence appeared solid rich purple with none of that multicolored haze that often rode the edges. It was also still strong, not at all like someone that had taken a blast from the Device like he had. The small mole-man wore an expression of concern. "If you want my theory QC, and its only a theory...I don't think he's just one person. I'll bet tomorrows lunch that there are two people inhabiting the same body. And they don't like each other very much."

QC's happy expression faltered for a moment. She didn't sense any of that from Wally, and she had worked with her fair share of psychopaths. "Maybe he's just different?"

Oric lowered his monocle. "The Rainbow Factory has a long history of mentally unstable and unhinged Factory Managers, either they come in that way or they commit retirement that way. But this Puppet...I don't want to be around him when this place finally breaks him."

For a moment QC watched Wally clean the floor, then lift the mop and place it back in the bucket and move further down. She thought about bringing this oddity to his attention and maybe get some clarification but decided against it. When Mr Walden was ready to talk, he would talk. She set the tube back and went back to the doorway and peeked into the hall. Mr Clayburn had come back from cleaning the washrooms and stood nodding his head while studying the floor. "Not bad Newbie. Not bad at all."

Wally finished with the last bit of the floor and stood still for a moment to look back over his work. I've been here a few weeks already and the biggest impact I've made is a clean floor, he thought dejectedly. He shook his head and returned the mop to the bucket for the last time. "Hey QC, I'm heading home a bit early. I need to clean up and get some new clothes."

QC leaned out of the doorway. "Uh, okay? Are you done with your work?"

"Yeah, I'm done for now," Wally looked down as Clayburn appeared in front of him.

"You ain't done yet kid, you still have twelve more floors and fifty more offices to go! You're a long way from done!"

Wally had humored him for long enough and he felt his temper begin to rise. QC quickly stepped between them, Orics words already setting in. "Mr Clayburn, I think you're mistaken. This is Mr Walden our new facility manager, I know the two of you haven't met yet. His shirt got ripped last night so I gave him one of the spare uniforms from your office. It was the only one big enough to fit him. Mr Walden this is Clayburn, head of Housekeeping."

Clayburns heavy brows lifted revealing two very surprised black eyes. The brows lowered and Clayburn began nodding enthusiastically. "Well I'm impressed. A Manager that knows how to handle a mop, pleased to meet your acquaintance Mr Walden."

Wally folded his arms. "How many people do you manage?"

"Just myself, used to be two of us until the last guy got careless on the production floor."

"I'll make a note for HR to look for more staff for you."

"That would be very kind...oh and uh...nice boots."

Wally chuckled darkly, then made his way to the break room to retrieve the list for Frank off the printer, added a hand written note at the bottom for more housekeeping staff and then used the door to shortcut to the HR office. He left the list on Franks new desk and made haste for the front entry. Through the windows on either side of the doorway he could see outside to the parking lot and where his car sat waiting in the sunlight. He was looking forward to a shower and a good meal. His hand rested on the handle and he pulled the door open…

...to the hallway just outside of his office.

"No," Wally said as if to correct himself. He shut the door and opened it again. Same hall different door. This made no sense. He could see his car through the windows. It was right there. Okay, he was willing to admit there was a lot on his mind that was probably messing with the shortcut, but he needed rest and to do that he needed to get away from this damned place. He opened and shut the door several more times, each time took him to a different door outside of his office. Fine, this door didn't want to work for him, how else could he get out of the damn Factory? He stared out the window trying to find a way to reason with the door or find some other way out. Wally saw a truck carrying cages rumble by the guard shack. The Factory was a confusing place, but he reasoned that if the trucks were here to drop off material, then at least two points were on the same "plane."

He touched the handle again. "Receiving Shed." This time the door opened to where he wanted it to. He stepped through and started walking. The Factory was not going to keep him here.

The Receiving Shed opened onto the Yard where the trucks that came and went were parked. Sure he would have to take the long way around, but he could still reach the employee lot and guard shack from here. He started walking briskly past the trucks that were coming in, past a few groups of various races wearing bright yellow sanitation suits, and piles of trash made by the Doozys rampage through the plant. The sky looked strange and overcast, much different from the sunny sky he had seen before. He glanced up and while there was light he couldn't find the sun itself. No matter, it was nice weather for a walk anyway.

He followed the road around the side of the Factory, and looked across a field at the employee parking lot. He saw no reason he couldn't take a short cut through the tall grass. Wally turned his boots from the pavement and across the sandy stony ground. Small insects jumped out of his path and from one clump of grass to another. Some of the insects were dull in color, some were bright and colorful as of they had gotten into the pigment. He looked up to orient himself and stopped. The parking lot was no longer in front of him, it was to the right. Maybe he had his head down for too long and overshot? He corrected himself and started walking again. He went maybe twenty feet when a brightly colored grass hopper flew in front of him and Wally swatted at it by reflex, taking his eye momentarily off the parking lot.

When he looked up again he was pointing at the Factory and the parking lot was behind him.

"What is this shit?" he spat. He turned himself and this time set his gaze firmly on the lot and started running. His heavy foot falls kicked up clouds of pollen and grass seed along with all manner of insects. The lot and the car drew slowly nearer, but before Wally could close the distance, he heard then felt the ground give way under his feet. His hands reached out and grabbed at clumps of grass to hold onto as he fell, but they could not hold his weight. The rest of the ground gave way and he entered a free fall into the dark. Dust and loose grass fell around him and his arms pinwheeled as he fell. He saw a faint glimmer of light down below and bent his knees to prepare for impact.

He hit some kind of hard gravel-like surface that gave under his weight. His knees buckled and he went ass over teakettle down the gravel slope. He rolled for a good twenty feet before finally coming to rest on his back, arms and legs akimbo looking up at the hole he fell through high above. For a long moment he remained still and unmoving. Dust from above fell in a gentle shower then stopped. Wally took in a deep breath and began to check and see how much of him, if any, was damaged. His legs and hips were sore, he was sure one ankle had been twisted, but his back and arms were fine. He slowly sat up and studied his surroundings.

He had fallen into a large smooth sided cylindrical container about a third full of some kind of red gemstone-looking substance. Halfway up the side of the cylinder he could see a ladder, but it was far out of reach. Wally picked up a handful of the red stones and studied them. They resembled crystals with a strange holographic texture contained within them. Stars, perfect little five point stars...that looked a lot like red versions of the little yellow star that had been in QCs lantern the other night. Were these those Star Sprinkle things she had been talking about? She did say they still used them now and then. He tossed the crystal away and looked back up at the hole. Could he get out through there, or was there a door down here? Fuck, who the hell even saw him fall? He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. It sounded loud inside the cylinder but he couldn't be sure if anyone had heard him. Okay, there was more then one way to call for help.

Wally reached for his phone then felt his heart drop. "No…" he patted all of his other pockets. His phone was gone. He let loose a string of curses that he was sure any passerby could have heard if they looked hard enough. When he was spent he lay back on the Star Sprinkles and covered his eyes with his palms. He was going to be down here for a while unless he thought of something. His gaze went to the ladder and he had an idea. He couldn't quite reach it, but if he had some thing to stand on. Perhaps just a few more feet, he could just make it. A moment later he had his shirt off and was using it to haul Star Sprinkles to pile against the wall.

After what he thought must have been an hours worth of work, he was sweaty and exhausted. His ankle had started to swell and whatever painkilling dregs the poison had leftover was gone now. He had never taken such a beating over such a short amount of time before. Wally sat back down and decided to rest and think. Some Factory Manager he was turning out to be. All he wanted to do was go home and get a shower and a meal, then maybe sleep in a real bed. The Rainbow Factory seemed to churn on with or without him. The pace was grinding him down just as sure as the material that came in on the trucks was ground down into glitter after they passed through the Device. He felt like less of a leader and just another component in this ridiculous machine.

The Rainbow Factory was a strange place. It made no sense. The world around him made no sense. Time didn't exist, no march of the hours, no consistent layout of the facility, no maps, nothing that would allow him to make a concrete decision based in reality. And when he tried to leave, well the Factory wasn't going to let him do that either it seemed. How could he manage the Factory if he couldn't even manage his own life?

And maybe that was the crux of it.

"Render them docile, then make the killing blow," he mumbled, his hand going to the bandages on his chest. They had started to come loose. This. This was real. And he doubted that it would fade easily either. His current predicament was a viable enough metaphor for his life at the moment. He had literally fallen onto a pile of riches and had no way to make them work for him and his efforts so far seemed in vain. Wally took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and waited for night to come.

QC had finished her checks and monitoring in the Factory after Sanitation had finished cleaning. The tumbler room had taken the worst hit with pigment splattered all over the place. Maintenance was repairing the damaged chutes that delivered the Pure from the color room to the mixing floor, and she would have to inspect that room before releasing the Factory for production. Once the sun went down she would be able to write up a few reports and put them on Mr Walden's desk. It was nice to have a desk to put her reports on again. The Rainbow Factory was tough on its employees but so far he was turning out to be fairly resilient. She doubted that he would "break" in the way Oris was wary of. Even if he did have a dual nature, he seemed to have a good grip on it.

Before QC could begin her plant inspection, she wanted to pop into the cafeteria to grab a snack. One shortcut through a door later and she stood across from HR and the cafeteria. Through the formerly darkened windows of HR office she saw the new hire unpacking a few things at his desk from a box. She watched him for a moment, amused at how his head spun at times looking for items he misplaced. She had seen a lot of strange races come and go in this Factory, but the Puppets were a new one on her. They came in so many sizes and colors, and types and designs, and were a fairly passionate people. The Ponies had been loud and opinionated and were free and loose with their usage of magic. The Puppets were more humble creatures, with the exception of Walden Darling. He was a Puppet, but different. The only exaggerated feature on him was his hair...and height. She had to give him that.

QC stopped by the vending machines and selected a snack and a drink, then went to find another door to take her to her office. The cafeteria was one of the few rooms that had windows, and from it she could see the employee parking lot. By habit she scanned the lot and saw that Mr Walden's car was still there. He had left hours ago and she didn't think he would be back so soon. Good, she could give her report in person then and skip the computer work. She opened the door to the hall outside his office and stepped through. "Mr Walden? Is everything okay?" she knocked lightly on his door and stepped into the office. It was still dark inside and as he had left it. "Maybe he's on the floor…" she moved to close the door when something caught her eye.

His cell phone was still on his desk. He would never leave without his phone.

QC picked the phone up and set it back down. Something was wrong. She could feel it. She quickly shut the door, then opened it into the security room. This was one of the only rooms where time meant something. The Factory didn't have a security team anymore, but the room with the cameras and equipment was still there. She sat down and started to go over the recordings of the past few hours. She found a clip of Wally attempting to leave but unable to get the front door to open to the parking lot. He then opened the door to Receiving and went through then. "Why did you…?" She marked the time stamp and then went to the cameras in Receiving. She watched him walk past a few trucks and forklifts, then out into an open field and vanish. Where the heck could he have gone? A thought then came to her. "The abandoned Color Crystal hoppers!" QC quickly shut the door and reopened it onto her office, put her snacks on her desk, then opened the closet. In here she had all the extra things that didn't fit into her clipboard. She reached up on a shelf and pulled a bag of rope and two climbing harnesses from overhead. She closed both her office door and closet door, then shortcut later she was in Receiving and running for the field.

Wally opened his eyes when he felt dirt lightly falling on his face. He watched as a square high above opened and QC's worried features peered down at him. "Mr Walden?"

And here she comes to bail my ass out again. Wally thought bitterly. "I'm here," he called up, then pulled himself to stand.

"Looks like the Factory put you in Time Out. Are you hurt?"

"Just twisted my ankle and wore myself out trying to reach the ladder. What do you mean 'Time Out?' How did you find me?"

QC opened the top hatch fully then clipped a rope to a bar hanging on the inside and began climbing down the ladder. She wore a climbing harness around her pelvis and back, a series of carabiner clips jingled at her waist and another slightly larger harness was clipped to her side. "You left your phone on your desk. I checked the security cameras and saw where you went."

He watched her slowly descend the ladder. "This place wouldn't let me get to my car. I couldn't leave."

"Thats because your work isn't done yet Mr Walden. None of of us can leave until the work is done."

Wally frowned. "The nature of my job means that the work is never done."

QC looked over her shoulder at him as if he had just answered his own question. Wally looked away and cursed under his breath. "Fucking wonderful."

QC reached the halfway point on the ladder then clipped another line to the bottom rungs and dropped her bag of rope the rest of the way. She then repealed down and came to rest on the small pile of Color Crystals that Wally had managed to construct. She then took a few steps and sat down next to Wally. "I'm going to have to catch my breath for the climb back up. I ran out here and wasn't sure if you had actually fallen or which hopper you ended up in."

"Theres more than this one?" Wally sat down next to her.

"Six in total. They've been abandoned for years."

"And they're just left out here with no markings on them? No warnings?"

"We haven't had a safety department in decades Mr Walden. The Ponies thought it was a joke," she picked up one of the pieces of crystal and studied it. Her tired features seemed a bit more sad. She tossed the crystal away. "You really should stop going off on your own until you learn more about the Factory Mr Walden."

"I'm getting quite tired of being rescued all the time myself," he looked up at the now two holes in the roof. "But at least I found a quiet spot to get stuck in this time. I just want to get a shower, and some food, and some rest. I can't do that in the Factory."

QC sighed heavily at his side then said softly, "Do you really need those things? Or are you just falling into the habit of needing those things? Really search yourself Wally. Are you actually tired? Are you actually hungry? Because I'm sure that if you really dig deep, you will find that you aren't."

Wally thought on it for a moment, and was a bit dismayed to discover that he really wasn't either tired or hungry. Sure he could do with some rest, or some food, but his eyelids weren't drooping and he didn't have that persistent gnawing in his stomach. Aside from his beat up ankle he felt fine.

QC picked up another crystal and threw it. "That's one of the first and hardest things to unlearn in this place. We all have little schedules in our heads of tasks that we use to mark our days. We eat at a certain time because that's how we have always done it. We sleep at a certain time just because. Those patterns make us comfortable. But here there is simply no need for them. We leave when the work is done. And the work is never done. There is always another truck coming in, some other disaster in the making, another check to be done, another email to be sent. Its all waiting, waiting, waiting, for the world to happen. I want to go home too, but for all of the shortcuts I take and places I've explored, and things I've learned about this place, I'm no closer than I was when I started," she picked up another crystal and turned it in the light to watch the star shapes within flicker in and out. "These crystals are all I have left of the world I knew as my home. There's only one way out of here, and I'm too stubborn to commit retirement."

Wally let her words sink in. They were like every other component in the Factory, here to endlessly run on that metaphorical wheel until they couldn't any longer. "So if I got in my car and drove out of the gate, then what?"

"The car wouldn't start and a road help crew will never get here. Even if you started walking, the road leads right back to the gate."

"Went running through the woods?"

"Either end back where you started or fall through a hole into some part of the Facility."

"Burn the place down?"

"A lot of drama, but no real lasting damage," QC said bluntly.

"Shit, this place really can't be hurt." Wally had hoped his little hunch about the Rainbow Factory as some immortal construct was just his tired mind at play.

"I'm afraid not," QC stood up and stretched. "But that doesn't mean we can't make the best of it while we're here. We can order delivery for a decent meal, and there's showers in the locker room on the management floor if you feel you need one. As for the rest….I guess we can move one of the bigger couches into your office. I just nap at my desk when I feel I need to."

"Shit," Wally was feeling more exasperated with every sentence the QC spoke.

"Welcome Home Mr Walden."

Wally remained seated for another moment. "How long have you been here?"

QC shrugged. "I don't know, but I've been through several Managers," she began to unhook the spare harness from her waist.

Wall watched her fingers work with practiced ease, then voiced a thought. "You were bait."

"Pardon?"

"Last night, with the Doozy. You were acting as bait to lure it away from me and toward the catch crews. You didn't need me to come help."

QC freed the harness and held it out. "I was the bait, yes. But it was moving a lot faster than I had thought it would. So you really did help me out."

"Really? All I've accomplished today is a cleaned floor."

"Maybe you really are tired Mr Walden. Besides, a clean floor is still a clean floor." QC eventually helped Wally with figuring out the climbing harness and instructing him on how to use the pulley system to climb the rope and reach the bottom rung of the ladder. From there the climb was much easier but was still quite a workout to get to the top. Once the broke the surface into the twilight, both of them rested on the ground for a moment before pulling the rope up. QC coiled the rope and returned it to the bag along with the harnesses.

Wally remembered that he kept an overnight bag in his car for the odd times he was caught away from home base in the past. Between the two of them they were able to navigate their way to the parking lot and Wally set eyes on his car for the first time in what felt like weeks. He sighed deeply when he noted that it had a flat tire and the jack to put on the spare was missing...just as she had said it would be. QC helped him grab and carry a few essentials from his car into the plant just as it became dark out and more trucks carrying material rumbled down the road, past the guard shack toward the Receiving Shed. Once inside the building, Wally and QC passed the cafeteria with its usual occupants sitting wraith-like in the darker corners, then past HR where Frank had been busy decorating the office. The windows and walls were covered in cartoonish images of butterflies and other insects. Letters that had been cut out of construction paper spelled out "Welcome to the Rainbow Factory!" on the glass.

QC hesitated a moment. "He really has no idea what goes on here does he?"

Wally grinned evilly. "Not a clue. And I want it to stay that way."

"He must be doing something right though, there's actually applicants waiting in the training room."

Wally opened a door into the upstairs managers hall then dropped off his things in his office. QC showed him the management locker room and other facilities, explaining that they made pigments and accidents happened at times, so a shower room was installed for the more messy days. She then helped him move a couch from another room into his office and set it along the back wall. It wasn't as large as the one in the break room, but it was enough for him to lay back and put his feet up. While Wally took advantage of the shower, she put the climbing equipment away and ordered delivery. When the food arrived she set the boxes and bags in the break room and opened a door to her own office to wait. When Wally returned he did look a bit better, his hair had been styled up again and he wore clean clothes. QC normally ate her meals at her desk while she checked emails, but Wally called her into the break room to enjoy their meal together. It had been a while since either of them had eaten with someone else that the first few bites were awkward, but they eventually warmed to each others company and went after the many containers with interest.

It was the first time in a long time that QC had a good conversation with someone else. Wally wanted to know more about the Factory and how it worked, or didn't work, and QC was happy to share information, even at times running back to her office to grab various books or binders with procedures outlined. Through the window and down below on the production floor, the Device churned steadily along, processing the lines of shackled puppets into Pure. Conversation eventually turned from work as the containers were cleared or stored in the break room fridge.

"Whats your home like Ms Yellow?" Wally asked as he brewed a fresh pot of coffee.

QC smiled sadly. "Its beautiful. Lush green meadows filled with flowers of all colors, forests full of animals and streams of clear clean water. Most of us live in a large colorful castle surrounded by a Sprite village. I do really miss it. What about your home Mr Walden?"

Wally poured himself a fresh cup and added the sugar. "Truth be told, I don't have one. My Home burned down a few years ago. I've been staying with my friend ever since."

"Oh! I'm very sorry to hear that."

"Don't be. It was an old house filled with memories I'd rather forget. To be honest it was a relief to not have it taking up so much of my life anymore. I felt suffocated after a while. Hey, uh don't tell any—"

"Your secret is safe with me Mr Walden. I'm sure you're far from the only one in this Factory that is renting a room from someone else. In any case, its not like any of us are going anywhere any time soon."

Wally declined to comment. He finally collected his cup and retreated to his office. "Have a good night Ms Yellow. Call me if you need anything."

QC also returned to her office and shut the door. Wally sat down at his new larger desk and turned on the computer monitor. He still had that complaint letter to write to Living Island Farms, and a whole slew of new tasks set before him. Frank had discovered how to use email and had already lined up a few interviews for Wally the following day, as well as a list of people he had hired on the spot including a new cafeteria crew, housekeeping, and grounds maintenance. Maybe he had been too hasty in thinking he wasn't making a difference, maybe he just had to give the process time to work.

Wally had just rested his fingers on the keyboard when a door in the hall creaked open and then slammed shut. For a moment he glanced up at his own closed door, wondering if QC was coming back or…

Two more opened and shut in quick succession. Wally tried to ignore it. He wasn't the only person who could shortcut around the plant. It was probably Maintenance, he did just brew a fresh pot of coffee after all. He turned his attention back to the computer monitor, and began typing while pushing a nagging thought to the back of his mind. He would no be bothered by such a trivial matter.

Home was long dead. He had lit the match himself.