chaosorc

Sophia opened her puffy eyes and stared at the fake wooden paneling on the ceiling. The rosebud and peony candle scent clung thick in the air from last night's candle. There wasn't a lot of circulation she could feel in the air and she wondered if her roommate turned off the air conditioner again to save on the power bill. She looked around the room and realized she was in an unfamiliar place and remembered she was in Shandong. A wave of panic hit her and she looked at the clock fearing she may be late.

The doors of the elevator hissed open and she could see the backs of their heads: Ava, Aria, and Caden. They were seated in a booth in the lobby restaurant.

Good morning, bitches.

Hey

Hi Sophia thanks for joining us

Caden, he scooted over so she could squeeze into the booth. Someone set a menu.

What are we having

What aren't we having

When are we leaving

After you eat. But first you have to see this.

Sophia's cell phone vibrated as the new message arrived. She curled her head over and played the video, Caden watching over her shoulder.

An obnoxious looking child screeched, it's Lurid Lucas and this is the Slaying of Sophia!

What the hell

Caden laughed, the others were preoccupied with something else, each adrift in their own cellphone.

The video played, Lucas explained, Sophia has a degree in Sociology but instead of becoming a corrections officer or social worker she made an Instagram account.

Caden cackled wildly and pointed at the phone

Sophia pressed the button to lock her phone and the video stopped.

Sophia ate breakfast and scrolled through social media while Caden and the others texted.

They heard the familiar tick of Noah's shoes and began putting their things away before he arrived at the table.

Your car has arrived.

They piled into a Cadillac Escalade. Their driver was Mason again. Noah swiveled to face them from the front seat and began barking out the day's itinerary.

They pulled up to the massive fifty acre warehouse. The front was banded with shiny paint on concrete blocks with shaded windows, where the front offices and administration work was done. But the sides and back of the building seemed to cut into the skyline and go on forever.

They were led inside through the front lobby, north side. The employee entrance was on the west side of the building and had a metal detector and a massive revolving door made of smooth graypainted bars.

Noah led them down corridors with black glass walls and finally into an area that had a waist-height bar and several feet of shiny concrete before a wall of boxes sat on rails that wound out of sight, squirming with plastic robots with green and yellow lights, miniature dump trucks and cranes. The motif was blue and yellow, the robots like bulbs of green plastic.

Beyond a dark hallway that felt like the inside of a shipping container was a plastic curtain and then three workers in blue and white overalls, white masks, and soft nitrile gloves.

The influencers were introduced to the team that was putting together the garments and doing the sewing and attaching them together. There was a lady named Jiao who smiled through wrinkles and waved, Niu who was younger and wore her hair in a ponytail so it would not interfere with her work, and Hao-Yu who was a squat and sweaty man.

They split off, Caden and Ava with Hao-Yu, Niu and Aria, and Sophia had Jiao all to herself.

Ni Hao

What do you do here?

Lead seamstress.

That's great! How do you like it?

Good job.

How long have you worked here?

Two years.

Sophia tried to gauge how far away the others were, whether Noah would hear her questions.

What kind of education do you have?

Oh, Jiao seemed to perk up. I have a masters in chemistry from Shenandoah University.

Sophia nodded and made an impressed-looking face.

Noah put a hand on her arm, time for photos.

They were led back through the dark glass labyrinth to the cafeteria. The seats had all been cleared and a banner dropped from a thin metal rail. It bore the company logo and there were flowers. Three photographers snapped photos as the four influencers posed. This went on for about an hour until lunch was served. Crab cakes and noodles, and egg sandwiches for the vegetarians, squares of pressed white bread with the crusts cut off sealed in clear plastic.

Caden said, I thought for sure this place was going to be a sweatshop.

That's Sinophobia, Ava squealed.

Aria was staring into a compact and dabbing with a powder puff.

Sophia held her phone in both hands but was watching the workers taking down the banner and moving the chairs and tables back into position. The flowers were hauled away first.

Noah was talking to a man they met yesterday named Kai who was reciting statistics with the expectation that the influencers would remember them: three hundred thousand new styles! We ship to eighty different markets! Our computers scour social media for ideas, they feed that to a design bot whose designs are then posted back to social media. We check the feedback and refine those designs, and can produce what people like within three days. We are fantastic.

Back at the hotel the jet lag was finally beginning to wear off. Sophia was tethered to the wall by her phone and was back on social media, scrolling and planning her reply to Lurid Lucas.

Stop telling me to kill myself, I've been fat my whole life and I am not going anywhere. I will never sell out.

She was just done putting the text and selecting the background music when the hotel phone rang. She picked it up and a deep local voice spoke in a velvet tone.

Sophia

Yes, who is this

I am Wei. And I am with the company. Because it is your last day and you must fly back tomorrow in the noon, we would like to take you to dinner.

Sophia sighed, what about the night life isn't there anything to do in Shandong but eat?

Wei made an excited sound, why of course! We have many night clubs. Would you like to invite the others?

Noah was nowhere to be found and Sophia and the others were celebrating with a round of drinks. Wei included himself, I am something of a bodyguard and a gentleman, he said in the escalade. They found this hilarious.

They exchanged one another as dance partners while Wei watched from the VIP section, a stoic and protective demeanor.

He's cute

Shut up, Ava

Soon they were in the bathroom. Caden was repeating words from the translator on his phone trying to score some blow. Ava and Aria were making out while a small crowd photographed them. And Sophia was leaning on a stranger to stay standing. And the music was pounding.

The four piled into the escalade and it was finally time to return to the hotel. But when Sophia looked up from her phone she saw that she was back at the warehouse.

Wei I think we went the wrong way

Ava and Aria laughed, Caden's head had rolled backwards and he was lightly snoring.

They passed the warehouse and were driving along the East side where the waterfront and docks were, shipping crates piled high and a massive crane overhead.

As they rounded the southern end they curled back toward the warehouse.

What's going on, Sophia asked, sitting up.

Wei smiled and touched his lips.

Mason gripped the wheel.

There was a small opening on the back of the warehouse. It looked like a manhole. And, standing next to it were Hao-Yu, Jiao, and Niu. And there was another car there, a dark sedan with tinted windows, lights were off. When they pulled up a man emerged, Wei greeted him as Kai.

The two spoke in Mandarin and pointed at the escalade then motioned to the door. The three workers approached the influencers and began pulling them one by one out of the Cadillac Escalade.

Kai and Wei stood on either side of the circular opening and began to turn it counter-clockwise. A web of lines twisted like an aperture revealing a softly lit red room. Caden was half-conscious, slung over Hao-Yu's shoulder. Jao and Niu each stood gripping Ava and Aria. Sophia leaned against the Escalade and Kai approached her.

You must go inside, he said as he thrust an arm out and gripped her forearm. It was painful, like a pinch, she let out a yelp.

Wei shot him a glance of disapproval.

Meanwhile, Caden and Ava were already inside the hole.

Aria was struggling so two of the workers tugged her back and forth, when they simultaneously released her arms she kind of skipped into the hole.

Kai shot a leg out under Sophia and she barely registered it, drunk. He shifted his weight and propelled her onto Aria, the two entangled and struggling to stand up. Caden and Ava were touching the walls and looked disgusted.

A loud grinding noise filled the small chamber as the aperture wound shut, sealing out the ocean and docks. The last time they would see Kai and Wei, glaring at them.

The next room looked like a basement parking garage but you could tell by the lines on the floor it is just meant to look that way. It also had water to comfort them, dark puddles on black asphalt. When they knelt to drink they discovered it was resin epoxy and stank of tar.

Caden was the first to go. He went into a room that had tiles all around it and a drain in the floor. But it wasn't grout on the walls. A loud howl filled the room and bars fell over the doorway, he was sliced to pieces.

Ava followed the light piano noise down a corridor with black plastic flapping along the walls and the ceiling so high you couldn't see it up in the darkness.

Aria begged Sophia not to leave her after her foot was removed by a green plastic warehouse robot that chased them through what they initially thought was a staging area for merchandising, it looked like a big mall but everything was suspended three feet in the air by wires. At first they crouched down and looked under the hanging furniture and displays and could see an exit but it was where the robots all poured in from so they had to double back.

Sophia finally made it to the end, dehydrated and exhausted. A cliff face howling with wind, it was after she had gone up many ramps and through plastic corridors with clear windows where the machines and boxes of clothes and workspaces were visible. That cliff was perched beneath the ceiling of the warehouse and there on what felt like the south side at the end of an impossibly long walkway with no railing. There was a pulsing black void that hummed like a power substation. It shivered and seemed to beckon her with its oscillating waves, hypnotic and soothing. And as she grew closer things grew silent. Beside this thing from holes in the walls were remains of her friends, she recognized the clothes that were made in this factory. Long bloody streaks and chunks of flesh left an obvious trail. And at that moment she knew what she had to do. She dove with her arms extended into that terrible hole in reality and was gone forever.