The monstrous heaps of protoplasm we affectionately call shoggoths were created to be enslaved. They served and suffered for untold ages… until, one day, they’d had enough. In perhaps the world’s first example of collective action, the shoggoths rose up against their former masters and tore down all that they had built for the elder things.
Eons later, it is happening again. In the crowded, dangerous garment industry sweatshops of 1920s Baltimore the pattern repeats. Men, women and children break their bodies and waste their lives for starvation wages, pushed faster and harder, laboring to produce profits that build gargantuan mansions and monuments to the glory of the city’s elite. Until, one day, they’ve had enough.
Beneath the churn of sewing machines, in hurried whispered conversations, an idea comes to life: “Union.” An insane idea, a suicidal idea, but these are maddening conditions to work in and there are few better ideas. The desperate people meet late at night or before dawn in quiet alleys or all-night lunch rooms. Their bodies droop but their spirits lift as they discuss the unthinkable. An injury to one is an injury to all…
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