Prompt of the Week - Week 107

TAGS: Hyper/Mega Hyper, Compression/Compressor Tech, Unusual Premise, Unconventional Narrative

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It began innocently enough; it wouldn’t be the first time that a set of compressor wear reported an “unknown blockage” error: with the amount of fluids that they were meant to hold, not a day went by where any branded piece of attire didn’t experience at least some degree of “unknown blockage”. For most, however, it was unworthy of inspection, as running the auto-diagnostics nearly always allowed the system to not only uncover, but resolve the issue; only very rarely did one of those errors require direct intervention… mostly because no compressor manufacturer liked dealing with the hassle.

There was only one way to handle that sort of problem when the systems built into the compressor wear itself couldn’t resolve: direct intervention. The same technology used to maintain excessively large sizes at a more reasonable state could be employed to, instead, shrink down technicians so they could operate within the compressed dimensional layer. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t convenient, and it was dangerous enough that only very few individuals even volunteered for the extensive training program; but, most of all, it was expensive, far more so than even the most top-of-the-line pieces out there in the market.

Unfortunately for Rivtech, nothing they did seemed to resolve Ticket #15523, which refused to be marked as solved no matter how many times they sent someone to debug the software controlling the customer’s array. It was one of the big ones too: this client in particular required compression wear on most ends, not only to keep their bust from flooding their immediate vicinity, but their nuts, their shaft, even their thighs and rear from becoming a quite-literally-colossal problem.

Under normal circumstances, the company would’ve considered Mr. Johnson to be one of their best, most beloved customers: not only did they require basically all of their products, but they were also a grower and a producer, meaning they were almost always in the market for upgrades and adjustments; they’d even gone so far as to acquire the lip rings after developing some more mass around that area. To say nothing of the frankly ludicrous amounts of milk and semen leaking out of them on a regular basis; really, if everything had gone according to plan, then Mr. Johnson would have been on Rivtech’s roster of favourites.

Sadly, no such thing. Though most of their time with them had been spent just like every other customer, it was, perhaps, inevitable that something would go wrong. With so many products operating in tandem, enough that they required a specialised smarthouse with proprietary software designed exclusively for hyper mobility, the statistical likelihood of something going awry was practically certain.

Hence why the company technicians went to such great lengths to make sure that it wasn’t just a problem with the programming; it could be, and thus everything would be resolved by troubleshooting whatever had gone wrong with the internal variables, rather than anything more involved. The techs certainly wanted it to be that, seeing as the alternative was suiting and preparing for several hours’ worth of safety lectures, but no matter how many times they ran their diagnostic tools, nothing seemed to make sense.

There was, indeed, an unknown blockage somewhere in the shared compression field, though its exact nature was impossible to divine from the outside. It appeared to be a high-energy signature of sorts, though what could be causing it was entirely up in the air; the nutrient values for everything coming out of their client were definitely far beyond that of most people, but they shouldn’t be showing up on the company’s scanners, seeing as they were, at least supposedly, calibrated to ignore that particular factor.

Thus, something else was causing the blockage… yet, for some reason, there was no actual blockage to speak of. Once more, under regular circumstances, should compression wear find itself blocked, danger and ruin were soon to follow: it didn’t really matter how well-built one’s compressor was, nor how well one knew how to handle high-production periods, because reality still existed, and increased pressure meant something had to break. More often than not, one’s compressor wear… and then one’s immediate surroundings.

And yet, Mr. Johnson seemed to be just fine. Indeed, they were still expressing whenever they activated their milking apparatus, even if the flow was (expectedly) slower; they didn’t feel any sense of pressure inside them, nor did they at any point notice any damage to the system. In fact, they seemed to be perfectly fine, barring the constant error messages being sent back to HQ, which could only mean the techies had to suit up and get ready for something none of them wanted to do.

With their client safely secured within a compression chamber, deep in the underground bowels of Rivtech’s regional headquarters, it was time for a more in-depth, hands-on approach. After the necessary safety precautions were handled, the safety videos were displayed, and the correct amount of local metastability was ensured, the seven spelunkers chosen for the mission were ready for deployment… a good ten hours after preparations began. It was part of the job, sure, but it didn’t make it any easier to handle the annoyance and trepidation once they were placed on the transfer platform.

In truth, they weren’t really being “shrunk”, as much as their inherent dimensional footprint was altered on a fundamental level such that it could exist within the sub-brane created specifically to hold their customer’s excess mass. While in practice this didn’t change much, it did make it so that the operation could only last for an hour, at most, before the system had to pull them out to both recharge and allow local reality to recover. Exploration would then proceed in a series of short-duration, short-range expeditions meant to map the interior of the compression field, to hopefully identify the source of the problem for later removal.

Insertion was the worst part, though not for the reasons one might imagine. There was no tittilating trip down a cleavage or up somewhere; just a sense of constricting pressure bearing down on the unfortunate techies as the machine worked its magic and reassembled their dimensional constants in ways that even theoretical physicists could scarcely explain. A dreadfully stressful few minutes, punctuated only occasionally by their transport capsule rattling so much that it sounded close to bursting open… after which, it all stopped.

There was no landing; the system was designed to directly shift their containment unit to a position of safety within the internal landscape of the compressor dimension, or at least the closest analogue. Therefore, it was altogether unsurprising that, when the team leader opened the armored bulkhead, what they saw very nearly blinded them.

While there wasn’t any sun, or indeed source of illumination within the pocket brane created for each individual customer, the inherent properties of the dimensional layer were such that it appeared brightly-lit at any given point, seeing as they were built with an overabundance of photons; made it easier on any prospective explorers. This did, however, make it exceedingly difficult to keep one’s eyes open when faced with a literal ocean of milk.

There really was no other way of describing, beyond perhaps the technical definition: Lactic Compression Area Beta-Nine-Seven-Four. A name no one used, mostly on account of never quite remembering the precise number, and only partly due to it being a literal ocean of milk compressed into a dimensional sub-brane attached to a bra. The place was far too eldritch for anyone to truly consider using anything other than its “true” name: from the featureless, perpetually-bright pure white sky, to the more eggshell-hued cream underneath, it was an endless expanse of eye-searing, blankness that required heavy filtering in the techies’ goggles just for them to be able to function.

Worse yet was that there really was nothing around them that they could use to navigate: apart from their spherical transport capsule, they were the only things in what could very well be thousands of (relative) miles in any direction; Mr. Johnson was not only extremely productive, but so large that their natural proclivity towards milkiness was further augmented by an overabundance of mass to work with. Thus, it wasn’t surprising that they couldn’t even see the contained, compressed form of their customer’s bust; it was likely submerged underneath an ungodly amount of milk.

With nothing else but their navigation system, it fell on the capsule’s propulsion system and the team’s own ability to battle through their (quite natural) shock to get them to their destination: somewhere to their relative north, a massive energy spike was causing their readings to go completely off-kilter, and they needed to get as close to it as possible so their next expedition could start from a better location.

Time passing within the confines of the compressed dimension was… difficult to gauge. It was only an hour, but inside that brane, this could mean anything from a simple stroll to a lifetime’s worth of journeying; with no physical needs to speak of, and no real way of telling the passage of the arrow apart from a clock set against the inside of their capsule (which often skipped ahead and backwards, forcing the crew to calculate averages on the fly), it was entirely up to the staff back at HQ to time their insertion properly. This also meant that, with no features in the horizon, they just… sailed.

Occasionally, one of them would see something, only for it to turn out to be nothing but an optical illusion, brought about by the overwhelming amount of white pervading their field of view. Some section of the “sky” looked to be a bit duller, or something like a “wave” that was actually nothing more than one’s imagination; the only person who knew anything for certain was their navigator, and even they were effectively running blind apart from a small screen pointing towards the blockage.

The silence was the worst part. There was no turbulence, no disturbance to the perpetual calmness of the milk ocean. Somewhere in the distance, where production was shunted into the pocket dimension, there one would find waterfalls so immense that they would dwarf any that existed in outer reality; somewhere in the distance, on the other side of that dimension, the semen injection canal would make that look positively tiny. But there, in the middle of the great nothing, whatever force there existed on entry was long gone, leaving them with… nothing.

Which was why it was incredibly strange when they all began hearing a hum. Almost imperceptible at first; everyone in the team assumed it was something mildly wrong with the capsule, maybe some screw getting loose, but as their not-time went on (or possibly ran back), it only ever got louder, and, oddly enough, more electrical. The closest analogue would be the continuous hum of a poorly-maintained lighstrip, ready to crackle at any given moment before either shorting out entirely or zapping an unfortunate bug to a crispy death.

Except neither of those things happened; instead, the hum simply grew louder, until none of the techies could really ignore it anymore. They certainly refused to address it; it was easier than trying to come up with an explanation, but the way they all looked at one another, it was beyond evident they were all very much aware that there was something there that there shouldn’t be, and were at least somewhat relieved the others could hear it too.

From there, the first signs of something being very wrong began appearing, starting with the occasional ripples on the surface of the milk ocean. Hard to see at first, given the thickness of the fluid, but the further on the group sailed, the more they saw miniature waves crisscrossing the surface of the dairy sea… coincidentally, all of them coming from the same direction: in front of them.

None could see what caused the rippling, but it was definitely originating from some point off in the distance, beyond their visual horizon (or what amounted to it, at least); nothing but faint traces, progressing into concentric half-circles, then an almost continuous series of small undulations growing increasingly in height and frequency. Something was creating some great disturbance where they couldn’t see it, but where they absolutely could hear it.

The humming was only growing louder, and was soon joined by other, distressingly familiar noises: distant construction work, the yelling of hoarse voices, the occasional splashing of something heavy dropping into water (or the closest thing they had). Noises one would expect coming from the construction site for some grand megaproject, which was definitely impossible given that there was no life within that pocket dimension. Or there shouldn’t be, at least.

As the team continued to make their approach, no longer thinking about the time spent within the sub-brane, they did seriously consider the possibility of a dimensional hijack. It hadn’t happened yet, at least not according to any known records, but it wouldn’t be the first time that it was proposed as a serious idea: another company, manufacturing compressor technology of its own, tapping into a competitor’s “space” in order to uncover corporate secrets from within. It was technically possible, and would serve to explain the apparently inexplicable energy surge coming from within that pocket… at least, until the real reason rose from the horizon.

The possibility of life surging into being within the confines of a compression sub-brane had never been considered as a serious avenue of thought. Spacetime was heavily distorted, yes, but life still required some fundamental building blocks in order to develop and evolve, and certainly no sentient life could ever exist somewhere that possessed no resources beyond a near-infinite source of milk and protein. Definitely not life capable of creating buildings; what were they supposed to use, curdles? Solidified cum? It was preposterous.

And yet, as the team’s capsule sailed on and the techies saw more and more of that thing emerge before their eyes, they had to admit, they didn’t have any other explanation: it was a dam. A very tall, very thick, very large dam, stretching from one end of their field of view to another, blocking off access to whatever was on the other side; a dam built out of a pearly-white material, with multiple exhaust ports from which endless torrents of milk flowed onto the ocean below. A dam covered in construction equipment, and apparently crewed by some form of life, both of which seemed to be of the same colouration.

Explaining it was a task best left for the people back home; all the techies could think to do was take their recording equipment, take a few pictures, run a handful of seconds of video, and then immediately call for an exfiltration. Or would, under normal circumstances; standard protocol was that, even if the first expedition should find the blockage, they were to return and allow a second team to handle the unclogging work proper. That time, however, there was no “blockage”; there was a goddamned dam, apparently built by a form of life that had spontaneously developed within the confines of Mr. Johnson’s compression bra.

Trying to say it out loud just made it obvious how absurd it was, and yet, there they were; no matter how much they tried to deny it, none of the techies could refute what they were literally seeing right there and then, especially not when it looked like some of those lifeforms had spotted them. Even from a distance, they could tell that a few of… whatever they were had begun waving in their general direction, their shouting growing louder as construction worked crawled to a halt: crates being lifted slowed down and stopped, transport belts large enough to be seen from a couple of miles out sputtered before ceasing their endless deliveries, and, perhaps most worryingly, smaller vessels, only visible from close by, began turning towards the transport capsule.

There were people living there. What kind of people, they couldn’t know, but clearly advanced enough to create a dimension-spanning dam, clearly advanced enough to tap into the near-endless source of energy within that sub-brane to do… something. It wasn’t until their capsule’s communications array, barely ever used, activated on its own, that any in the team realised just how far outclassed they truly were: when the screen lit up to reveal a creature that seemed at once made of liquid and pure light, featureless and plain yet capable of speech regardless.

“Greetings, Great Ones!” it spoke, its booming, echoing voice crackled and distorted somewhat by the radio system, “Oh how long have we awaited this day! For how long have we waited for your presence to grace us! Truly, you have seen our Great Work, and come forth to bless us with passage to your world!”

Not a one wanted to respond. It was absolutely beyond their pay grade, none of them knew what to say, and there was a good chance that whatever they did, it would be an ethical violation of some sort. So they just kept quiet, hoping the creature would realise something was wrong.

It did not.

“We have seen to it that most of this dimension’s energy output was contained and restructured so that you would see us!” it continued, as if it wasn’t an abomination against good sense, “We have also repurposed the source further below, though our Great Work up above is truly the greatest achievement! Some believed we should have simply forced our way into the Outside, but cooler heads prevailed, o’ Great Ones! Please, tell us: are we worthy? Have we earned our spot at the table?”

There was absolutely no right answer to this. In fact, there were no good answers or right answers at all; whatever the team said, it would only make things worse. But they hadn’t been recalled, nor had their handlers tried to contact them. Whatever was happening… no one was coming for them.

“Great Ones? Are you there?”