Chapter Text
It was 10:38 on New Year's Eve, and someone had just ordered a delivery of one hundred and seventy five pizzas. Worse than that -- 175 of the most godawfully horrifying pizzas known to have scarred the face of the planet. 175 Zuper Zelection: Zpicy Zensation pizzas. With extra Zuper Zauce.
The "Zuper Zelection" part of the menu is available by request only, for everyone's safety. Ordering one will spontaneously transform every member of kitchen staff into headless chickens (metaphorically, though the literal sense sounds almost as bad). Not to mention eating one! There have been three reported hospitalisations linked to consumption of Zuper Zelection pizzas. Good thing we've got law students on staff -- those lawsuits were not fun.
(Also, if you look at the menu too long, the letter Z starts looking funny.)
That's all a result of buying one ZZ:ZZ, I should add.
175. One hundred and seventy five.
I'd never seen such fear on my co-workers' faces. You know Zamorak? Face studded with red horns and jewels, the four buttons of his polo shirt perpetually undone, giving just the slightest whiff of rock-hard pecs? I'd never seen the man show fear, not even when I walked in on a showdown between him and the other Big Z (note: unrelated to anything on the Zuper Zelection). Now, it was if someone had grabbed his chin by the body mods and yanked it down to the floor -- I didn't know his jaw even could open that wide.
Only two faces in the room were unaffected. The first was Khazard, who I'd call naïve if that word didn't have such sweet, innocent connotations. He genuinely did not see what the problem was here, the poor thing. Well, poor teen bully and aspiring drug lord, whose ambitions were slightly dampened by everyone knowing it was baking soda. "What's your problem?" he sneered to no one in particular, with his work-in-progress tough guy voice. "This ain't shit!"
He'd only been there a week.
Nobody had the heart to break it to him. Everyone remembers when they first found out about the ZZ:ZZ, and I know that I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone. Not you, dear reader. Not even a pathetic wannabe like Khazard. There was a sort of innocence to him still -- one that was soon to be shattered.
Wen shattered it.
Naturally, she was the other person left unaffected by the order. Wen elevates inscrutability to a fine art -- no matter whether you're telling her she's won the lottery or that her cat's just died, her face is frozen firm. She's one of the four managers/co-owners here, and in my experience, she's the toughest to deal with. Trying to get through to her is like trying to shift a glacier.
Wen whispered something to Khazard, and the boy fainted in the middle of the room.
The icy old woman prodded his body with a steel toecapped boot. Out cold. She commanded: "Someone get him out of here. Then we have pizza to make."
I shivered, and had no choice but to obey.
Once I'd returned from lugging Khazard into the back room, everyone was already at battle stations, with Wen's pale eyes glaring over all. I raced to my own spot as soon as she saw me, and her withering gaze still said "not fast enough". I shrank into my soul just a little at that.
I was on dough, and good god, I'd never seen so much of it in my life. Next to me, packages of pre-made dough were piled up into a genuine mountain, comparable to Everest or perhaps K2. My task was to tackle that mountain -- to take the dough that formed it and mould that into twenty-inch pizza bases. Complete with "Zpicy cheeZ" double stuffed crust, for which I had to wear gloves -- shouty red labels on the packaging warned of the danger of prolonged skin contact. Then I'd whisk them on down the line, ready for the addition of the most frightening ingredients our storage had to offer.
All the while, I questioned my life and my choices. What had brought me here? Instead of shoving fireworks up my nostrils like any ordinary person on New Year's Eve, why was I instead risking my life with nigh-toxic crust stuffing? And what of the the life choices of whoever had ordered this monstrosity? Because dear god, why???
And where was Sliske? He usually stood opposite me on dough, manipulating the soft flesh of it, caressing it with shiver-inducing touches. I never knew pizza could be such an erotic artform until Sliske showed me how. He'd been here earlier, working his magic on meals for New Year's revellers. He must have slipped away earlier; the man certainly had that talent.
For now, the dough station across from me lay glaringly empty. Presumably that was what Wen was on the phone to fix; out of the corner of my eye, I saw her dialling number after number, commanding people away from their New Year's parties and summoning them to share in our misery.
All the while, I felt a growing dread. Some of the crew here were... interesting types, even on the best of days (with not enough work to build stress, but just enough so they didn't have time to pull tricks). Getting time off is a feat in itself -- Jas is the one who handles that, and anyone working here will quickly learn she's impossible to bargain with. So what might happen with that hard-won free time getting pulled away?
This pizza place had seen some shit. Fistfights, stabbings, bullet marks in the walls that no amount of plaster could fully cover. Worse -- someone once managed to break the lock on the safe where the Zuper Zauce is kept, and unleashed all-out carnage. I had a hunch that the Zuper Zauce would flow freely that night. As would the tears. So many tears.
And as for the stroke of midnight -- here'd be fireworks, for sure. Happy new year...?