The hauler coughed smoke as Ethan clambered onto its side rail, the cargo bed rattling behind him like a crate of loose teeth. He eyed the mound of corpses, still buzzing with flies, and pinched his nose. It seemed sturdy enough.

  “Alright, ugly. Time to earn your keep.”

  He jumped down, grabbed a resin-slick ankle, and heaved. The carcass flopped into the bin with a wet squelch, ichor streaking the plates. The hauler groaned under the new weight, gears clicking in protest.

  One by one, he wrestled bodies into the bed. Some split apart in his grip, resin flesh tearing like rotted rope, forcing him to scoop chunks with both hands and fling them over the rim.

  Others were so bloated they nearly rolled themselves, skin sloughing off against the edge as they landed. By the time the bed was half-full, his arms trembled again, and his stomach turned from the cloying sweet stench.

  His gut churned like he’d swallowed rot, but stopping was not an option. Every single body was one more reminder that Veslaya wanted to bury him alive. He caught himself thinking how his brother would laugh, or maybe cry, if he saw Ethan now, wrist-deep in resin muck, just another laborer shoveling waste for the company.

  CelestOS: Efficiency analysis: corpse-loading rate suboptimal. Please increase heave velocity by twenty-seven percent to avoid workplace reprimand.

  “Yeah? File the damn reprimand, what's HR gonna do?" Ethan replied, dragging another carcass by the ankle. "Send yet another ship to get shot down?"

  Ethan climbed into the driver’s perch and jammed the hauler into gear. The treads lurching forward, dragging the overloaded frame toward the ravine. Every meter was a fight. The engine coughed smoke, the cargo bed swayed, and the treads slipped in black slime, but the machine kept crawling.

  He finally reached the edge.

  The edge was a lip of fractured stone and wind. He eased the hauler to a shuddering stop, one hand on the brake, the other on the bed lever. The mound in back settled with a sick, wet hush. Then something inside it moved.

  A resin-slick paw, joint bent backwards at an impossible angle, slid free and clamped his boot.

  For one blinding second, Ethan thought it was Reyes again, clawing back from the heap. The same weight in the chest, the same stink of resin that had filled the air when he’d buried what little was left of his friend. His heart slammed against his ribs hard enough to rattle his teeth.

  The pile convulsed and a wolf-shape tore itself upright, hide warped with glossy black plates and dangling red vines, jaw unhinged too wide, resin coated fangs jutting like broken glass. Its limbs snapped into place with an audible crack, every movement wrong, like a carcass pulled on strings.

  It came over the m piles in a jagged lunge, half-tumbling, half-pouncing into the cab.

  He jammed an elbow under its throat ridge and shoved, muscles straining. Claws raked across his back, shredding what remained of the magnetic strap that held his suit’s field gear, but not finding purchase on his skin. Ethan ducked back as sparks flicked and metal buckles tore free, leaving his newly minted tools to fall to the ground. Resin sloughed in ropes over the controls, filling the cab with choking fumes.

  CelestOS: Alert: unauthorized passenger detected. Cleaning fee will be assessed at premium rates.

  “Get—off—” Ethan grunted and pushed back against the monster in the confined space. The wolf-thing’s claws hooked into his arms, peeling back the CMS with a squeal like nails on a chalk board.

  If he wasn't careful this beast was going to infect him. He hesitated, as the hauler rolled forward inch by inc. The gorge yawned at the corners of his vision as the vehicle got closer to the edge.

  He snatched the axe from the floorboard and rammed it between the beast’s jaws. Resin cracked as he forced the maw wider, the weapon vibrating in his grip.The wolf broke free before it slammed its horned skull against the axe sending it flying.

  His hand scrambled across the panel and found the kill-switch for the winch instead. The brake groaned but held.

  CelestOS: Advisory: please keep hands and arms inside the vehicle until dumping is complete.

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  “Working on it!”

  He twisted, drove his knee up, and hammered the creature’s ribs against the steering column. Something gave with a muffled pop. Without missing a beat he used the momentum he had to force the wolf thing back onto a create before punching it in the snout.

  Ethan reached for the lever, fingertips slipping on resin, his other hand holding the wolf at bay found it, and yanked halfway. The bed thumped and tilted. The load shifted.

  The wolf’s hindquarters slid backward, hips vanishing into the slumping mass, but its claws locked deep into one of his boots.

  “Let—go!” He braced a boot on the dash and stomped down on its snarling face with the other. Resin plating split, joints snapping with a crack. The beast howled. A wet, choking sound, half howl, half gurgle as gravity pulled the rest of it down with the shifting corpses.

  For one breath, it hung on by a resin tendon stretched from its ribs into the pile, taut as a violin string. The strand twanged, split, and the wolf twisted end over end into the gorge.

  Ethan sagged against the seat, chest stuttering. The claws ripped away the last of the magnetic strap across his spine, buckles shrieking as they snapped. The tug wrenched half his rig sideways, and suit integrity alarms screamed in his ears.

  CelestOS: Congratulations. You have removed a contaminant. Note: surface abrasion detected on CMS. Would you like to initiate CelestiMed? “Ouchy Patch” protocol?

  “Later,” he said rasped, throat raw. He thumbed the lever back to hold and swallowed bile. His hands shook until he forced them steady on the brake. The cab reeked of resin and panic.

  He checked the mirror. The pile had slumped into a glistening black mound. There were no more hands clawing free. He made a trip and refilled the corpse boxes.

  “Round two,” he said, and slammed the lever down.

  The bed thumped and tilted. Corpses slid forward in a grotesque avalanche, tumbling end over end before spilling into the gorge. Some burst on the rocks below, painting the slope in oily streaks.

  Ethan sat panting, watching steam curl upward. For the first time, the yard looked clearer.

  Clearer, but not clean. Just one grave poured into another. Like Celestitech reports, burying the evidence until the stink stopped reaching the boardroom.

  CelestOS: Reminder: company policy forbids illegal dumping. Proper landfill permits are required for off-site disposal.

  “Fine,” Ethan laughed. “Print them in triplicate. Gravity can handle the signatures. What’s cell god does the ”

  CelestOS: Congratulations. Sanitation efficiency increased by four hundred percent. Job satisfaction: statistically negligible. Promotion awarded: Janitorial Specialist, First Class.

  Ethan wiped sweat from his brow, a ragged grin cutting through exhaustion. “Guess I’m a garbage man now.”

  CelestOS: Correction: Refuse Technician. Titles matter.

  Ethan snorted, shoving the lever back to level the bed. The hauler coughed, the engine sputtered, and the frame groaned, but it held. Ugly as hell, but it had cleared more corpses in one run than he could’ve managed in a week.

  He trundled back toward camp, flies scattering ahead of the treads. The mound loomed smaller, almost manageable. For once, the fight was not against monsters or shortages; it was against the mess they left behind. With every run, he’d carve that heap down until the stink stopped choking him.

  The hauler rattled to a stop, its bed streaked black but empty. Ethan slid off the perch, body aching, grin still plastered across his face. Ugly or not, it was working.

  He slapped the side panel. “Trash truck’s got teeth. You hear that, Cel?”

  CelestOS: Correction: trash, with teeth. Probability of self-inflicted injury during continued operation: seventy-three percent. Productivity noted. Liability waiver pending.

  Ethan laughed again, hoarse and tired, but lighter than before.”Can’t you come up with new material cel? That’s like the 33rd joke about waivers today.”

  By the third run, the yard looked almost civilized. The stink still clung, sour and sweet in turns, but with the bulk of the heap shoved into the ravine, Ethan could finally breathe without gagging. The hauler sat idling beside the forge, coughing smoke in lazy bursts, its bins streaked black with gore. Ugly, loud, but effective.

  He leaned against its frame, wiping sweat and ichor from his face. For the first time in days, he looked around the camp and did not see chaos. The wall stood. The conveyors clattered in steady rhythm. Crates overflowed with ingots and parts. Parked dead-center, rattling and belching fumes, was his own ugly solution to Veslaya’s problems. It was not enough.

  Ethan’s gaze slid to the turret fabricator, its intake hatch yawning like a hungry mouth. He thought about the last siege, the screams in the forest, the turrets spitting fire while he cowered behind steel. He looked back at the hauler, the rattling bins, the crude treads.

  Ugly, stupid, stitched from parts that should’ve stayed in the scrap heap. But it had worked. And if it could work once, maybe it could work meaner. A turret would turn the trash truck from cleanup duty into something that could bite back. Maybe it could even survive the next siege instead of folding like tin.

  CelestOS: Advisory: psychological profile indicates user has entered “reckless improvisation” phase. Warning: risk of catastrophic self-combustion exceeds acceptable limits.

  “Guess we’ll test the limits then,” Ethan said, grinning despite himself.

  A grin tugged at his mouth. “Trash truck with teeth… hell, why not fangs?”

  CelestOS: Clarification: you are considering strapping a fully automated turret to a vehicle built from scrap and spite. Please note: this is not an approved Celestitech configuration.

  “Yeah, well, neither’s breathing out here. Let’s see what happens.”