Issue 1 Downtime

Sam would find herself landing on the central factory floor. Lined with conveyor belts and automated machinery of all kinds, workers ran by her as they tried to keep up with the rapidly speeding conveyors, dumping ingredients into large vats and working comically over-sized and over-complicated control panels. Smaller versions of the ever-present pneumatic tubes ran all over the large space, apparently being the way various departments communicated.

"...well then, bit of a wrong turn," she said as she touched down.

She spread the flock out a bit, not aiming to disturb the process, but trying to feel out its function in the immediate area.

Zooming out, as it were, Sam could see patterns that would simply be impossible to see from the floor of the factory. The fact that it didn't seem to follow any sort of geometry that she was aware of would complicate things, but each of the many, many systems seemed to correspond to a different 'function' in Will -- as was to be expected. After all, that's how these sort of symbolic metaphorical things work, after all. This room MUST have something do with the actual physical process of shifting.

Each machine here was working on a different baked good of some kind -- some, the type you'd see in your local confectionery, and others...well, let's just say if Sam never found a place selling broccoli ripple, it would probably be a good thing. Each recipe, from what she could tell, seemed to have something to do with a different form or pattern Will could take. Just what the different flavors had to do with it seemed a little vague and hard to put a finger on, for now, and they seemed to be added somewhat willy-nilly.

An interesting fact would be the feeling that there was way more machinery and workers in this room than it was originally designed for.

She looked about to see if any of the workers seemed to be in a supervisory capacity, or perhaps if they were receiving their production instructions from the tubes.

The tubes certainly WERE where messages were coming from -- little rolled up notes in orange PVC tubes.

No one on the floor seemed to be GENERALLY in charge. There seemed to be people in charge of each station -- in fact, there seemed to be SEVERAL people in charge of each station, which occasionally led to arguments.

"Bit counterproductive," she murmured, trying to get a glimpse of the instructions being relayed.

She could find she could walk right up and take one; there were a number of Sams and close-to-Sams around, anyway. Not that she'd be too out of the ordinary.

The instruction? "More flower!" Not flour. Flower.

A second one was imploring someone to "increase benevolence factor."

A third one said, simply, "Less flower!"

"Seems what's coming from the central office is getting a mite confused, aye?" She said, passing the note along to someone who was actually supposed to be there.

"Central office? Oh, I think they got rid of that. Bloody health and safety gone mad, if you ask me."

"All the various subdepartments. Records, recipes, R&D..."

"Everytime some bloke has a great new idea."

"Tell me about it, aye? Now, if you excuse me, I need to find the big box of ball bearings some bloke buggered off with."

She shook her head, and looked to see if there was any centralization as to the origin of the tubes.

There certainly were knots of tubes in various places, but if she was looking for a bridge or main office, there didn't seem to be one active.

She broke up into the flock, and started tracing out the network as best she could.

The tubes -- and, again, there were alarming level of redundancies -- snaked off for miles in all directions, joining and breaking off of main feeder pipes. You'd think somewhere there'd be a sorting system, but no -- with no obvious direction, the messages seemed to know where they should end up.

It was a bit like a spool of fabric after twenty minutes with a cat -- a tangled mess of tubes and pathways. If it was laid out in a logical system, that logic was provided by a madman.

She refocused her efforts, trying to determine if there was a particular route most of them seemed to originate from.

There was certainly a central area where they all went through -- a very large central tube -- but as for number? There were tubes that went directly from R&D to the 'shop floor', as it were, and others originating in the Records department, or Recipes, or Security, or Waste Management, or Recreation, or any number of other departments -- they all seemed to be directly connected to one another.

Now, the Recipe department seemed to have the greatest VOLUME of traffic, at least.

Which was why the flock made a turn in that direction, next.

The Recipe Room was bustling. People ran back and forth, mixing and trying things. Unlike the main room, however, everything HERE was being done by hand, and there was more of a sense of organization -- people working together, trying out new things.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

"Yes," she said as her avatar reformed. "Trying to track down who keeps sending rubbish to production. These recipes based on songs are no good."

"Oh, come on! They're great! Have you tried some of them? Some of the most innovative work we've ever done here!"

"Mine! We finally decided to allow some music down here, and it's been amazing. There are things we've NEVER managed to do before! It's incredible.

It's helped that we've got the extra staff, too, but I mean -- wow. It's been like a burst of inspiration! You know how sometimes, wham! Ideas come right to your head? A new idea, out of the blue? It's been like that 24/7 around here. It's amazing.

"They can still have creampuffs! But we've already COME UP with the creampuff-type recipes. We have so many variations on that -- it's boring. These are BETTER. They're a level up! It's fine cuisine."

"Pah! The organization around here is shoddy, at best. I am an artist! We're going to take this to new heights!"

"Pfft. Another bureaucrat. Another accountant. Another pencil-pusher. They have no soul."

"All we do is come up with these brilliant ideas. If the floor can't use them properly, that's not our fault, then, is it? You don't blame the waiters for someone ordering the worst items on the menus."

"That's probably because they've got too many damn cooks down there spoiling the broth."

"Look, we're sick and tired of being limited. You would be too!"