“Christ on a cracker, is that hot!”

The entire Furnace Command was advised to work fully clothed in the simmering summer heat, and were supplied only slightly-used leather overalls to wear as a uniform. Although they were veiled from the sun by a giant canvas tarp, it was ultimately futile to not simply bear the extreme climate and swelter. The third crew had lost their second pair of tongs only hours after melting their first, and were blithely scrutinized by their comrades for such carelessness — but to throw the rest of it into the melting fire and grab another pair quickly.

A blinding gradient of red and yellow glowed eminently from the wide mouth of the crucible. Three layers of brick deep, and the massive flaming contrivance of a furnace still gutted the air of breath and made it shiver, and boiled exposed flesh in minutes. According to Chairman Ron’s Exposition, if you were clever, it’d boil any kind of metal scrap even faster. The Caratunk Commune had built four of these contrivances in just three weeks, and had already been manning them for five days. The output of these machines were impressive — with hardly any protest from the crucible, thousands of pounds of hot metal could be transformed into steel in mere hours. The Cadre made predictions that two-hundred comrades could employ the Furnace Command, day and night, with ease, and make production around twofold of what it would be in an average smeltery, with the right work ethic. The Caratunk Commune, honored and enthusiastic to meet the quota of the Cadre, worked four rotating shifts to operate the furnaces for a full twenty-four hours, only slowing on weekends, when fewer men were inclined to work by virtue of CMLA regulation.

Postcards from Caribou made Caratunk look like four chimneys in a field. Sprawling complexes of hundreds of massive brick towers, each spitting inky black billows of smoke while hundreds of laborers rush everywhere. It seemed like utter chaos, but they were told that the numbers exceeded expectations — how wonderful!

[Converting several Food provs to IG for 1.2 bil]