It shouldn’t annoy him that the tiny bot got more attention than he did.
“Anything dead in here?”
She gave a ladylike snort and continued to work on the bot. “Nope. The Ozevroc eat anything organic, even their own comrades. They believe the spirit of their dead belongs with the living. Believe me, they never get rid of anything they could consume.”
Well, wasn’t that just disgusting? Freaking buzzards. He examined the outside of the full dumpster barrel and located a panel on its side. He was about to push one of them to see what it’d do when Morgan spoke up.
“That’s the controls to make it hover, so it’s easy to move around. The bottom button makes it lift off the ground, the left button guides it to the right and the right button makes it go to the left. When you want it on the ground, punch the top button.”
“So, everything is the opposite of what common sense says it should be? Got it,” he muttered, activating the contraption to move it to the other side of the room. You’d think an advanced civilization would at least have a way to put their discarded parts inside the incinerator instead of throwing things around so someone else had to go and pick it up. But, no…
Ari halted in front of the incinerator and squinted at it. The thing was a rectangular beast made of thick steel walls that absorbed the dim light. He brushed his fingers against the rough, gritty texture of the surface that was coated with years old grime and oil. One side had an embedded narrow control panel with flashing red and orange lights glowing in an erratic pattern. His hand hovered over the symbols he couldn’t read.
“Remember, the idiots make everything opposite,” he mumbled to himself and pressed a prominent blinking red button. With a low mechanical groan, the front panel slid open with a hiss. A puff of hot air made him step back.
Inside was a small, rectangular chamber lined with scorched, blackened metal grates. Residue of countless burnings with charred bits of unrecognizable materials clung to the walls. A conveyor belt ran through the chamber, littered with twisted scraps of metal, burned fabric, and ash.
The smell hit him. A pungent mix of tainted ozone and something acidic, almost chemical. He grimaced. The scent triggered a vague, unsettling memory he couldn’t quite grasp.
“Everything okay over there?”
Thank the goddess Morgan’s voice pulled him out of his musings. He didn’t want to stand here any longer than he had to. “Yep. Having the best time of my life, right here,” he replied without looking at her. Grabbing the stuff on top of the pile, he threw everything into the hot opening of the incinerator as quick as he could. The sooner he finished this, the better.
When it was full, he pushed the steady orange light.
The doors slid close with a grinding noise.
Satisfied it was working like it was supposed to, he hovered the empty barrel back to the junk pile and started over.
Things were going along in a mundane fashion when his fingers brushed against something different. Fur. Fur? He poked it. Didn’t Morgan just tell him the Ozevroc ate anything organic? This one might be squishy as all get out, but it still had some meat on it. He grabbed the surrounding metal parts and panels to expose whatever it hid.
Sure enough, it was an Ozevroc. A really dead one.
“Um, Morgan?” he raised his voice without taking his eyes from the carcass. “Can you come here, please?”
“What? Why?”
Ari flicked a glance in her direction. “I thought you told me the Ozevroc eat anything organic, even one of them.”
Her sigh echoed in the large room. “Of course they do. They save more credits that way.”
“Well, no one told this guy he belonged in his friends’ gullet.”
The sound of her footsteps stopped when she stood next to him. “What are you talking about?”
Damn woman crossed her arms again, causing her plump breasts to lift up. It almost made him forget what he had to show her.
Almost.
The decomposing body of the Ozevroc drew his attention again. The nauseating sweet-sour smell of rotting flesh mingled with the corroded odor of the surrounding iron and rusty steel.
Morgan gasped, with her hand covering her mouth. “Oh my god, that’s Xalgrim!”
Ari covered his nose and mouth with the palm of his hand. Not that it helped to keep the stink out. “Who?”
“He’s in charge of security,” she responded. “Or at least he was.”
“Looks like he sucked at his job, since someone killed him.” Ari pointed to the side of the dead Ozevroc’s head. It looked like it was bashed in with something heavy.
