Chapter 23Forge
It was the afternoon after work of the second day since the quota reduction and the six women were well rested from a long sleep last night. So naturally that meant almost every woman's favourite pastime was in order: SHOPPING!
The commercitorium building stood across the other side of the hab cavern "town square" from the immense fertilisation unit building on the other side of the square, and the commercitorium building was even larger than the fertilisation unit, designed to cater to the shopping obsession of literally thousands of Menial women with (modest) disposable incomes.
The commercitorium was built out of bolted together demountable modules the same as all the other buildings, (so that it could move to follow the iron ore as the rest of the buildings and entire settlement routinely moved to stay close to the dig sites), but it was very different in that the entire exterior was plastered with brightly illuminated advertisements for brands and products that paid for the privilege.
The airlocks were huge and multi chambered to let a lot of people, (mostly women), enter and exit very quickly in huge groups, and the interior walkways were extremely clean and well lit and even air conditioned for customer comfort. Like everything else the commercitorium was sex segregated into a relatively small men's only section and a massive massive MASSIVE women's only section, lest amorous menial couples use the commercitorium to engage in unauthorised breeding.
The six roommates Pi, Sine, Cosine, Tangent, Integer and Exponent strolled through the commercitorium interior in a group, chatting to each other the way groups of women were want to do. They were all fresh from the shower after work and dressed in clean clothes of a nicer variety than their usual work underwear, the exact style of clothing depending upon the woman in question and what she owned. Cosine habitually dressed the least modestly in clothes that were little more than underwear, while Tangent habitually dressed the most modestly due to her anxiety, currently wearing dark blue denim long pants and a white and black striped long sleeve synth cotton top. The other four women dressed somewhere between these two extremes, Pi wearing a short skirt dress in a pale turquoise shade with thin shoulder straps and a tasteful amount of cleavage.
The women owned no shoes, having to wear their booted rad suits everywhere outside, they wore clean socks as they strolled around the commercitorium interior.
The women's only section of the commercitorium was very crowded with other women and was exceedingly well equipped with different shops and stores selling all the (sanctioned) things women liked to buy. All the biggest makeup and clothing brands from Freundschaftsbeziehungen were present, the businesses greedily eager for the digital currency that these Menials were paid wages in. Ferrous Prime digital currency was a highly sought after reserve currency in the Pax Sector because of its extremely high liquidity in purchasing forge world products, and selling clothing and makeup to Adeptus Mechanicus Menial women was a great way to get this currency.
Staffing the various shops and businesses were emaciated looking women from Freundschaftsbeziehungen, all of them frantic to sell anything and everything to the Menial women for their sales commissions. Sleeping bags and folded saleswoman uniforms behind the counters suggested that the saleswomen slept in their stores, the occasional plastic wrapped package of something gross looking called "mould cakes" seemed to hint at what these women ate, as well as cans of "corpse starch" and satchels of "synth gruel" and jars of "vitamin supplements", all of these food products present in only sparing quantities and obviously imported.
The women were employees of the retail mega companies back on Freundschaftsbeziehungen and had immigrated to Ferrous Prime at the company's expense, the companies obviously expected a lot of sales to compensate them for these expenses and the saleswomen seemed to be under enormous pressure to meet sales quotas. Their desperation was understandable but it made it a bit annoying when you just wanted to browse without necessarily buying anything.
"Ladies! Ladies! Spice up your next fertilisation day with this gorgeous lingerie! Keep him faithful the rest of the month, he won't look twice at peddlitutes!" An underwear saleswoman called enthusiastically to the six roommates as they strolled past her shop.
Cosine started at this but Sine stopped her before she could cause a scene, this sales pitch struck Cosine a little too personally.
The group entered a completely different nearby lingerie shop just to spite the saleswoman who had triggered Cosine, the saleswoman of this new shop frantically went to attend to the six women, annoying them.
Pi picked out a pair of G string backed crotchless panties on a hanger and held them up to Tangent's pelvis playfully just to get a rise out of her. Tangent squealed with embarrassment and batted it away with a hand, making the other roommates laugh.
"Hypotenuse would love you to wear these." Sine piled on in teasing Tangent. (Hypotenuse was Tangent's long term boyfriend).
"Stop it!" Tangent squealed, hiding her face behind her hands in embarrassment.
While the others were playfully stirring up the embarrassed squealing Tangent with outrageous underwear suggestions, Cosine was very seriously looking through lingerie options, wanting some fertilisation unit play wear that she hadn't already worn for her ex boyfriend, wanting it to be special for Binomial.
Pi was currently trying to get Tangent to buy a pair of panties with an intimidatingly large bright purple veiny patterned strap on dildo sticking out of the front of it, saying "Hypotenuse might enjoy a change" as Tangent squealed with protest and laughter. Cosine ignored them and held up silk ribbon play harnesses against her body in front of a floor length mirror, then experimentally trying a dark purple corset with floral print.
Cosine couldn't rush her decision, this imported lingerie was expensive for a Menial like her and she could only afford a very finite amount of it with her current money. She wanted something fun and sexy, something novel and new that didn't remind her of her ex.
"Strap on?" Sine helpfully suggested to Cosine facetiously, holding up the item being used to tease Tangent.
"I don't want something THAT novel." Cosine laughed.
Cosine continued to indecisively consider her options, she needed it to be perfect.
Pi bought a new bra as Cosine continued to be indecisive, the others browsed but didn't buy anything.
"You girls go ahead, I will be a while." Cosine eventually said, shooing them out of the store as she tried to decide between play harnesses and see through negligees.
The other 5 women left, strolling aimlessly around the commercitorium browsing at shop window displays with no clear intention of actually buying anything. Shopping was something they mostly did on a whim, they rarely went shopping with any sort of plan.
"I want to look at makeup." Pi decided.
"No you don't! You don't need it! Stop it!" Tangent complained adorably.
Pi wasn't dissuaded and the five women entered a grossly overpriced cosmetic shop, seeing a selection of the top brands from Freundschaftsbeziehungen in dazzlingly brightly lit aisles. Pi went to the eyeliner section and bought a stick of eyeliner mostly just to annoy Tangent, who had to one up Pi with better eyeliner and lipstick, much to the delight of the shop saleswoman.
The five women randomly did several complete laps of the entire commercitorium, randomly buying little odds and ends as whim and fancy took them. Cosine was still in the lingerie shop trying to piece together the perfect ensemble of wildly provocative undergarments.
The commercitorium didn't have any food stores at the moment. In the past it had been possible to eat (wildly overpriced) imported foods in a food court area, but with the sector wide famine this wasn't possible anymore. It had been mostly incredibly small servings and far too expensive to subsist on, but by cog it had been yummy! Pi especially missed the incredibly overpriced tiny brown slivers of something called "chocolate" that was formerly imported from some jungle planet, it had been the most delicious thing in the entire world!
The 5 women sat in the food court anyway, chatting animatedly and just living their best life. After all the horrors of the hellish overtime they really needed this relaxing interlude to just feel like people again.
Cosine joined them in the food court, actually wearing her new fertilisation play outfit ensemble boldly with a confident smile.
The women looked her up and down.
"Why don't you just be naked in public, you basically are already." Integer remarked to Cosine.
"Do I look gorgeous?" Cosine asked with a grin.
"You look naked." Pi corrected facetiously.
"How can you walk around the commercitorium wearing that lack of clothing!" Tangent fretted in embarrassment.
"Too much?" Cosine asked.
"Too little." Several women replied in near unison.
"That just means that Binomial will love it." Cosine chuckled naughtily.
"You know that nudity is free right?" Sine remarked wryly.
"You are just a boring woman who doesn't even wear a bra and panties to the fertilisation unit Sine." Cosine accused.
"That's kinda the point of the fertilisation unit. My boyfriend certainly doesn't complain when he unzips my rad suit and I'm just wearing nothing underneath." Sine snorted incredulously.
"That's so gross! Those rad suit interiors only get washed once a week and you want to put your bare vagina all over it!" Tangent squealed in disgust.
"I just borrow yours…"
Tangent erupted loudly with squealing protests as the others laughed.
After a lot LOT more time spent mostly browsing and occasionally buying, the group of six women reluctantly left the commercitorium in their rad suits and gas masks. They carried their new items in airtight clear plastic pollution resistant bags, (Cosine simply wore her new items under her rad suit, borrowing one of the bags for her original skimpy clothes).
The group didn't go straight home, well they did but only to drop off their shopping bags, heading out again for an evening "on the town".
They were restricted in where they could go by the mandatory sex segregation, half of the "town" of demountable metal buildings was male only and the other half female only, with a mixed "grey area" in the "town square" area in the middle where important buildings were accessible to both sexes. The female only sex segregated areas were pretty utilitarian in function, mostly just habitation units, but the male section was more interesting with outdoor gymnasiums and makeshift sports areas.
The roommates naturally wanted to go visit the boys but with Tangent present that would be difficult as she would get anxious breaking the rules. The group went to the town square right up to the edge of the non segregated area, the fun boys area beyond them with yellow warning signs on poles demarcating the beginning of the sex restricted area.
Beyond them could be seen clusters of demountable hab units stacked three units high just like the female section, but in the open spaces between the hab unit clusters could be seen outdoor weight lifting gymnasiums with men in rad suits lifting huge iron weights. It was very impressive seeing the boys bench pressing over 100 kilograms, others doing sit ups whilst holding iron weights, others lifting themselves up on raised horizontal bars in pull up exercises.
The boys noticed from the small size of their rad suits that the six were women, men waved to them and began showing off doing one arm pull ups and other impressive feats of strength, muscles visibly swelling and bulging through the fabric of their rad suits.
"Show offs!" Cosine called cheekily.
"Posers more like." A genderless mechanical voice chuckled behind them.
The six women turned to see a huge 7 foot tall metal limbed Skitarii, with slightly feminine chest swellings under its armour suggesting breasts. The roommates backed away from the gigantic cyborg fearfully.
The huge Skitarii woman walked past the women into the restricted male only section, she entered the gymnasium and set up a bar with 100 kilograms of weight attached. The cyborg woman then stood up and easily lifted the bar up above her head with one hand, gently tossing the bar up and catching it again repeatedly as though it weighed nothing at all.
"The flesh is weak you posers." The huge Skitarii woman mocked the muscle men.
"Anyone could do that with Skitarii grade bionic servo muscles. It's much more impressive when weak flesh does it." One of the boys playfully defended.
"It's impressive when weak flesh achieves anything at all." The Skitarii woman amended.
"We should go somewhere else, I don't want to get in trouble." Tangent quietly begged the others fretfully.
"We are not doing anything wrong so long as we stand on this side of the signs." Sine reassured Tangent.
The huge Skitarii woman dropped the heavy bar to the ground with a clang and returned to the group of women, who slowly backed away fearfully. The huge Skitarii woman towered over them, her intimidating servo muscles making soft mechanical whining noises very quietly with every slight movement of her immense metal body.
"Are you weak flesh breeders enjoying a lovely girls night are you?" The Skitarii asked condescendingly in her genderless mechanical voice.
"That's correct ma'am." Pi said apprehensively.
"Such a frivolous waste of time. But I suppose that the factories just can't process iron ore any faster. I personally think that it's frivolous enough that we let you weak flesh creatures sleep every single night for so many wasted hours." The Skitarii woman criticised.
"We have fulfilled our quota obligations." Sine pointed out.
"I have been on duty for 72 hours straight without any sleep or food or rest, and it will be 24 hours more before my two hour sleep break when I recharge my power cells. Oh to work so little as you Menials." The Skitarii said haughtily.
"Hey aren't you one of the ones who wasted 5 minutes watching Tangent work just to bully her?! Hard work my ass, you and your squad just skylark about and cause trouble instead of patrolling you massive hypocrite!" Sine suddenly exclaimed with recognition.
"Such insolence!" The huge Skitarii snarled, holding the barrel of her laser rifle to Sine's gas masked head threateningly!
"Whose side do you think the Lexmechanic will be on if you shoot me? Don't think she won't court-martial you for murdering her menials. You could end up a servitor really fast, think this through." Sine said hatefully with admittedly more than a little fear.
"You are not worth the ammunition breeder rat." The Skitarii said coldly, lowering the rifle from Sine's face.
"Yeah yeah, I'm not worth the ammunition." Sine agreed sarcastically.
"It's a simple fact." The Skitarii woman said haughtily.
"Shouldn't you be back with your squad, working oh so hard instead of frivolously wasting time here with us?" Sine asked sarcastically.
"We are spread singly throughout this settlement cavern on guard duty keeping the peace." The massive Skitarii defended herself.
"Messing with the toilet paper servitors again more like." Sine jeered.
"Pure insolence! Weak flesh creature…" The Skitarii woman grumbled, walking away crossly.
"That wasn't wise Sine, you know they hold grudges!" Tangent fretted anxiously.
"She was going to be a massive bitch either way no matter what we said to her. She approached us looking for a fight, she would have found a way to get one regardless of our manners to her." Sine opined.
"Let's go home and eat some food before we do anything else, I'm rattled after that encounter." Pi begged the group.
The group agreed and anxiously headed home, looking over their shoulders for any signs of massive angry cyborgs. They didn't feel safe until they were back in their hab unit and sitting on the edges of the two bottom bunks eating bowls of nutrient paste.
They calmed down slowly as they ate, they started looking through their shopping bags.
Pi held up her eyeliner stick playfully for Tangent to see.
The inner and outer airlock doors suddenly both opened at the same time!
The roommates all covered their mouths and noses with items of clothing desperately as vile smelling pollution entered the room!
"Surprise inspection for heresy or criminality!" The mechanical voice of the female Skitarii said gleefully, the huge cyborg entering the completely open airlock, obviously having used a security override to open up both doors at once!
The dismayed roommates coughed into their improvised clothing gas masks as the huge cyborg gleefully went through all their personal stuff to "inspect for heresy or criminality", the big metal bitch spitefully pulling out all their clean clothes and chucking them on the floor, then trampling all over the clean items with her filthy boots!
The bitch even lifted off all their bunk bed mattresses and chucked them on the floor, she "accidentally" spilled caffeine water all over their clothes and bedding and mattresses during her "inspection", the roommates all coughing heavily into their cloth face coverings in the heavy smog of the tunnels that now filled their home!
"No evidence of heresy or criminality, very good citizens. Enjoy the rest of your night and continue being model citizens." The big metal bitch finally said smugly after she had trashed literally everything they owned!
The Skitarii woman left, restoring the air locks to both close after her, leaving the roommates coughing and weeping in the aftermath. Pi pressed a button to engage an emergency rad scrubbing of the entire room, filtered air blasting into the room as extraction fans sucked out all the smog and pollution.
The roommates then had a rotten time cleaning up all the mess, having to wash virtually everything they owned in the washing machine.
The lesson of today was well learned: Skitarii were power tripping massive shits with thin skins and massive egos who would flagrantly abuse their power to get back at anyone who crossed them.
The roommates considered filing an official complaint to the Lexmechanic about this, but they were afraid of how this might escalate further. Even if the metal bitch went down, the rest of her squad mates would still be around to avenge her. It was far safer to just take this humiliation on the chin and let the bitch take the "win" her massive ego so obviously craved. Having had her petty "revenge" the narcissist would hopefully be satisfied to bother the roommates no further.
This wasn't the end to the fun night that the roommates had planned (or wanted), but it was the end that they got. They remade their trashed beds and went to sleep feeling demoralised.
At least they had enjoyed a fun evening of shopping…
…