"Wake up, yeh lazy Workers!" the overseer barked, no doubt fingering his whip, deciding which unsuspecting back to lash it across. "Yeh've got work teh do!"

"C'mon Ryff, let's go," Forn yawned and tried to encourage his friend as he climbed from his battered matress. "It's back to the grindstone."

"If he wants me out of this bed, he'll have to come down here and make me," Ryff growled. "No overseer's ever changed my mind about anything before, and this one damn well isn't going to start now."

"Yeh there!" the overseer bellowed, no doubt meaning Ryff. "What're yeh doing, layin' 'round like a baby? Get up and get to work!" The whip cracked but only as a threat. Ryff lay still.

"I said get up!" the overseer ordered again, this time the whip made contact with Ryff's bared back. It didn't hurt so much as it opened up old welts and Ryff couldn't help but flinch.

The whip came again, but this time Ryff rolled over and, snaking his hand out faster than they eye could follow, snagged the whip in middair and wrenched it from the overseer's grasp. There were few gasps from Ryff's dormmates; this was nothing new. But it took the overseer by suprise.

"What d'you think yeh're doin, worker?" the overseer bellowed. "Buckin' t'get yourself kil't, that's what! I'm in a good mood, so I won't report you. Jest gimme my whip back and go to work."

Ryff shrugged and tossed the whip back at the overseer. It snapped open in mid air, striking the overseer square across the chest. He let loose a string of words which Ryff had never heard even an overseer used and stormed off with a last threat to Ryff to get to work.

"You're going to get it someday," Tuck warned. "You're gonna piss one of them off just a little too much and then you're getting the shot."

Ryff grinned. "And until then, I'll keep right on as I'm doing. They've got me pegged anyway, so why not enjoy my time by making the overseers' lives miserable?"

Despite his performance in the dorms, Ryff trudged off to work with the other Workers. The factory he worked in was huge, but he always managed to see Lena on her way to wherever she had been assigned for the day. This morning she was in the line of women headed for the Breeding Rooms.

"What're you doing?" Ryff demanded, stepping out of his line and grabbing Lena out of hers. "You're not going to help create more Workers, are you?"

Lena slipped her arm from his grasp. "It's not like I have much of a choice. I'm eighteen, I was bound to have a turn sooner or later. Besides, they won't get too many out of me. I'm only barely eighteen, so at the most three or four."

It made Ryff angry to hear Lena talk like this. He knew it was how she, and he, had been raised, but it was still frustrating. Lena, and all the other Breeders, deserved better than to have their children in test tubes, not knowing parents. "We leave today," he decided.

"Are you crazy? We're not ready to start the revolt? It'll take at least a week to set into action!" Lena scoffed. "Four more won't make a difference, Ryff, and neither of us will be able to begin a revolt if we're punished for talking to the opposite sex."

Lena calmly reentered her line and Ryff, shooting a deadly glance her way, stepped back into his. They were headed towards the upper class offices which meant a Selection. During these, weak, unfit, or rebellious workers were taken away and, everyone assumed, given the shot. Ryff had made it through a suprising amount of these, and he had no worries going into this one either.

The Selection room as the same as always. Bare, white walls with a desk for the officer in charge of selections at one end. There were only two entrances and exits: the one leading in through which the surviving Workers were once again led out of, and the one leading to where Selected Workers would be killed.

Ryff's group filed in quietly, everyone but Ryff casting nervous glances at the officer. The officer, dressed handsomely, as were most upper class people, lounged in his chair, looking almost bored despite the fact that he would decide the fates of living beings.

"Stand at attention!" the officer barked. Hands snapped to legs, chins and eyes were tilted up, muscles were flexed as inconspiciously as possible. Usually, Ryff did his best to look normal. Today, he didn't even try. He refused to stand at attention, merely crossed his arms and regarded the officer with an expression as bored as his own.

"6238706-8!" the officer barked. "Stand at attention!"

"It's Ryff, actually," Ryff replied, "and I don't feel particulatily like standing at attention. It's boring, this is boring, and you, my dear sir, are standing much to close for my comfort."

"I will stand as close as I want, 6238706-8!" the officer barked. "And I suggest you stand at attention if you do not want to be Selected."

Ryff chuckled. "Wouldn't it be much easier to call me by name, officer? I already told you I can stand at attention, and I am quite strong, believe me, I just don't feel like it."

"Well how should I know if you're strong if you slouch like a broken down old man?" the officer barked.

Ryff's reply was to drive his fist into the man's stomach. The officer gasped for breath and sank to his knees. "Am I strong enough for you, officer?"

Ryff's hands were immediatly held together behind his back and a knee was ready to knock him down and pin him to the floor. "I think this one needs to be disposed of, sir."

The officer climbed to his feet, evidently unharmed, Ryff noticed with a pang of regret. "What's that I felt? Someone's lips on my ass, Tomon?" he growled. "I'm not wasting a prime specimen like this fellow, no sir, I can get lots more if he fights. He looks strong enough to bring in a good sum before he croaks."

"No, thank you, officer, but I'd rather be dead than fight like an animal for my keep," Ryff spat. "Would you get your clammy hands off of me?" he demanded, wrenching his hands from the guard's grip.

The officer held up a hand at Tomon's complaints. "Let me tell you something, boy, you are an animal. You're a dirty, low down worker. You will die, or you will fight and I, not you, will make the decision. You should be used to the way things are by now."

"If I'm an animal, what the hell are you?" Ryff snarled. "I haven't murdered anyone this week, how about you, officer? How many men have you Selected and sent to their deaths? You ever think if you'd been born a worker, huh? You could be marching down that hallway sometime, hell, you might even have been dead!"

"6238706-8!" the officer barked in reply. "You will be fighting as soon as they can make a place in the pens for you. But, until then, you will be living downstairs."

There were a few stifled gasps from the rest of the Workers, to be sentenced to live downstairs was as sure of death. It was sweltering hot in the day, being just below the power source for the entire factory, and bone chilling cold at night. And all the time it was dark. Nothing but darkness. Brave men had gone in and come out little more than halfwits, babbling of unspeakable horrors. Ryff smirked.

"Alright," he replied with a shrug. The officer looked so suprised that the look on his face was almost worth the sentence of living downstairs. "What? Did you think I'd break down and beg for forgiveness, officer? Sorry, I don't do that."

"Tomon, take 6238706-8 downstairs. Keep him there until further notice," the officer instructed the wary guard and then, as if Ryff were already gone, moved on to the next Worker.

Tomon nodded and produced a binding. It was wicked looking, a block of seething metal that seemed to be alive. Ryff's arms were pinned to his back and then the binding was slipped on. It was icy cold as it went over his clenched fists to settle at his wrists. Within a few moments, it hardened and could never be broken except for a certain chemical which was kept under close watch.

He was marched across the factory, into parts of it he'd never seen in person before, though he'd studied enough of the blueprints to know what they looked like and where he was. He was freed from the binding as they reached the elevator. The elevator that led downstairs was more of a cage than anything else. Ryff was shoved into it and then it descended into the complete darkness of downstairs.

He climbed out of the cage and it was pulled up. There was the sound of a door hissing shut and then the last light dissapeared from his sight. The darkness was so complete and absolute that Ryff couldn't see his own hands if he held them just in front of his face. He could feel his feet on the ground, but otherwise he might have been standing on anything at all. Gradually, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness and he was able to see the ground at his feet enough to sit down.

He thought he could make out the dim outline of something moving in front of him. His hands instinctively balled into fists as the outline moved closer. Suddenly, a light flared in the darkness, illuminating the form of a gaunt yet powerful looking woman. She was undoubtedly old, but she did not look it. She was not stooped, as old Worker women were, she stood tall and proud. Her eyes were as hard as steel and of much the same color as her gray hair. The light came from a long black stick which she held in one bony hand.

"So, they've sent another to be broken," she remarked as she looked Ryff over, and her voice was as hard as her eyes.

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