Chapter Text
She'd spotted it sitting upon the horizon like a bead spinning on a string, singular, square and… White.
"... It… Looks like… A sugar cube." Hero said from her perch; a pair of reliable shoulders on an otherwise unreliable man. Slotting a hand against her brow to shade, she winked an eye closed only because she'd seen it done in films. Parallax abolished, she was pleasantly surprised when her view changed at all.
"An astute observation, though only so accurate in aesthetics." Said RGB, long since resigned to packhorse duty. As changed as Hero may have become over the course of their journey, the possibility of fatigue in "short, tiny, small, little legs", as she called them, remained a staggering statistic.
That was utterly redundant, he remembered thinking as she'd decidedly climbed him like a playground piece. "Tiny" and "little" would have sufficed.
"Cubic and pale, yes." A matter-of-fact finger drew Hero's eye. "Sugary sweet, hardly. Though many, I'm sure, wished it would dissolve in a downpour, like any good confection would…"
"Then what is it?" She asked plainly, resting her head atop his set. This close, he could feel question marks brush his vents.
"At the moment, empty, hence our approach." A yellow-green grin. Wait for it…
"...Okay…" Rumination, as if two hands struggled between strings to tie a knot of thought, bunny ears, following one another, under and over and-
"Then what was it?" There we are.
He could have swelled with pride. In himself. What an excellent choice he'd made this go-round.
"A fine question." He commended, passing his cane up to her as he adjusted his cuffs. She could entertain herself with a twirl or two, why not.
"It was a place in which all-a-manner of thing could be made, new and improved, before the Black Market and its bartering came to be. 'Broken a sweat? Cracked a smile? Split a side? Get a new one, better than the last!'" He pitched, spreading his hands as if framing the words a'glow. "It was a proverbial palace of perpetual progress… Before "progress" was laid off, and "perpetual" became the brand."
"It was a palace?"
"Better." He said. "It was a Factory."
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"Whoah-!" She exclaimed over her breath, and RGB- Anticipation in fine form- wisely set her down and stepped back, evading the blast zone as she rushed ahead, taking his cane with him. Happy accident, she could be back at his side in a snap. Nothing to worry about. Surely.
…Ah, why not. He'll worry anyway. Just for fun.
Before them stretched a massive sinkhole, miles and miles wide, endlessly deep, its belly surely a stranger to sunlight. The edges of the near perfectly circular pit spread outwards with a paleness, like sick skin, before cutting down through the earth at a sharp, perfect angle. Hardly man-made, but made.
A bridge connected across the diameter of the chasm, thin and tailored like a watch strap, coated in white, ceramic-like tile. Whatever grout held it all together matched perfectly, rendering a seamless quality. RGB's antenna dipped and his bars levelled, gait pausing just short of the walkway.
For a Factory out of order, it had kept remarkably well. He glanced down into the abyss quite literally a hop, skip and a jump away, yawning wide and pitch black as if punched through the page. Remarkably well, indeed.
It was a very good thing RGB was not afraid of heights. Not even a little.
"Watch your step, Hero- Ah." Already out of earshot, quick on her feet nowadays. He braced like a pinstripe and followed, passing the point of no-return. "I say- Wait for me!"
"Whhhooooaahhh-!!!" The "whoah"s continued, tumbling off the bridge and into the bellowing gloom below like the ideal spelunk. She'd paused at the railing, crouching to stick her head in a gap for a better view, and RGB appeared at her side near instantly to extricate, yellow gushing.
"'Whoa' yourself, please be careful-"
"How deep does it go?" She piped. He paused, stared into the doom, then made a show of stroking his chin- rather- where it would have been.
"...How deep do you imagine?" He asked, at last, grin a'flash.
Now she paused, stared into the doom, and made a show of stroking her chin- which was exactly where all chins ought be.
"...Forever!" The revelation came, and arms shot up, sweater sleeves whipping and bouncing back.
"Forever. A good answer, and entirely possible to boot." He measured, turning to move forward. "Come along, in and out before sleep finds us, we mustn't risk filling the place with dreams."
"What would a factory do with dreams?" Hero asked, catching up.
"What wouldn't it do with dreams…" He mused, a bitter smile fighting for its life.
"Madras would've liked that, a dream factory, wouldn't she?"
"She would have yes- She did." The sham smile fell, then regrew anew. "She liked you, after all. Quite the factory of dreams you have there!"
A gloved hand came down to ruffle the Hero's newly white hair. She laughed, flapping her sleeves to chase him away, until their destination stole her attention once again. They'd arrived.
Both cubed and coloured appropriately to Hero's initial findings, the "Sugar Cube" Factory's resemblance was sufficiently canny, though addendums could be made on the approach, most prominently; size.
RGB and Hero- side by side, frozen in their tracks- stared up at the structure in both apprehension and astonishment. They leaned back slightly, trying to find the top.
"Whoah…" In unison, "whoah"s all around.
It towered, leering atop the two like a bleached tooth, whittled flat on all sides. Its facets, coated in the same tile and similarly flawless in application, caught daylight all too easily, glowing with a "doctor's-penlight" aggression. Hero shielded her eyes until they could adjust, and RGB took in the surrounding view. The bridge stretching across the pit accommodated a small circular platform at the center; the Factory's foundation. This meant, of course, that at that very moment, they were all free-floating above an abyss "forever" deep, at the mercy of their destination's integrity, structural and/or otherwise.
RGB's worry graduated from set dressing to active prop, and he took back his cane if only for something to twirl in unease.
It had no windows, no vents, no openings (nor escapes) besides the entryway; a pair of door sized, door shaped double doors, white and straight-edged to match the home. They may have been hard to spot, camouflaged in the surrounding white tile, save for small deviations in depth and frame, were they not halfway- and disturbingly- open.
"Look- The doors are open. Are they supposed to be?" Hero pointed out, tilting her head up towards her guide for… guidance.
"... I don't… Know…" RGB guided, gesturing for the sake of gesturing. Hero seemed unconvinced. He doubled down. "I don't know, but-! That is one less obstacle, I should say, come along, Hero!"
Hero did no such thing, watching the Factory with as much wariness as her frame could fit, her large eyes tilting from one end of the exterior to the other. Eventually, after glancing over her shoulder, perhaps considering the option, her companion broached from the threshold, half-in, half-out (As he so often was).
"What is it?" He asked.
"The wind's gone."
"... It is. I hadn't noticed."
"It's really quiet."
"In more ways than one, yes."
"I don't like it here."
"I gathered." He sighed. She fidgeted.
"It just feels… it's too…" He could practically see her searching, words flicking above her head like flashcards. He waited for one to stick, and prepared his counter accordingly.
To his surprise, however- which was no surprise at all, really- she settled instead on snapping her arms to her sides, straightening up into a caricature of perfect posture so suddenly, one could overlay the ruttering of a plucked plastic ruler and it would roar appropriate.
"...I see your point." He acknowledged, unmoving. "However, the facts remain: T.G. took my key, and we are in need of a new one. I understand your concerns, but we must press on, no matter how-"
He mimicked, jumping to attention like a soldier suddenly atrophied, before returning to animation.
"-This place may be."
She smiled, just a little, and green eased his troubles a moment. In truth, RGB felt the same. He did not like it here either, but the problem persisted, and he didn't imagine bothering T.G. would gather much ground. Moreover, he really didn't feel like being beaten up by a Stonehenge.
"If your apprehensions are manifesting, you need not come with, Hero." He offered. Her head tilted the one way, then the other. RGB wondered if it screwed into her shoulders like one of those Japanese Wooden Dolls (Koshi? Koteki? He couldn't recall…), and whether he'd need give it a quarter turn. "...This is more of a shop-pop, really, you can stay-"
He felt a tug on his cane, and found she'd reached out to grab hold before he could give her the out. A small stream of green, yellow, cyan stained his smile.
"In and out, quick as you please, promise." Reassurance of course, but her determined gaze held no fear. She was a brave, mighty Hero, this much he knew. Why then such hesitation? Perhaps she was beginning to understand the scale of their overalls task, the stakes at hand, or the overwhelming weight of Destiny that-
"I just don't want you to do anything stupid, okay, RGB?"
Ah. Yes. That… That made sense. Magenta dripped.
"As a certified "idiot box", I can make no promises." He joked. "But if it would steal your lion's heart, I could try, certainly."
Connected by the cane nestled in the crook of an elbow, the man attached to a TV attached to a man attached to nothing else (surely) and the Hero, currently, comfortably occupying a sixth draft, bucked up, breathed, and crossed over.