Imagine you’re a fluffy pony.
You are alive, there’s no doubt about it, at least not among biologists.
The real question humans have is “Is it concious?”
Plenty of neuroscientists, biologists, psychiatrists and other experts are debating this.
Are fluffies self-aware? or just biological Chinese Rooms?
Fluffy ponies were rushed into the market and for that sin of their fathers they will pay for all eternity until the last fluffy dies and the entire pseudospecies goes extinct.
You are called a pony yet there’s nothing about horses in you. You’re a chimera, a sort of living skeuomorph of mythical animals yet your genes have nothing in common with those of your living namesake.
Just like there’s no turf in astroturf there is no horse in fluffy ponies.
Vanilla-flavoured products have no real vanilla but an artificial flavouring that sort of tastes like real vanilla, but not quite.
The thing is real vanilla is expensive.
Artificial flavouring is not.
Horse-looking biotoy products have no real horse but an artificial genome made up from mostly rodents so it sort of looks like an imaginary horse, but not quite.
The thing is splicing horse genes is expensive.
Splicing hamsters, rabbits and the like is not.
After the Great GMO Plague fluffies caused things changed.
Hasbio had made fluffies resistant to diseases from domestic animals, but they could still carry them.
As such the domestic animal population became decimated, from cows and pigs to cats and dogs.
These days you had to be a rich guy to afford beef. Even synthetic beef grown in vats was quite expensive despite the unpleasant slimy texture. People too poor to afford either had to eat fluffy steaks, or as some clever supermarkets named it “artificial horse meat”, though soon they had to drop the name because fluffies had no actual horse genes at all. Despite these fluffies coming from reputable certified farms like Savory Hills people still hated the fact they were eating biotoys, or as some called these farm products: ‘fancy shitrat’. Still fluffies were by far the cheapest protein of any kind, even cheaper than soybeans or insect flour. As such if you were on a budget you were going to eat foal nuggets with a side of mushed kelp.
Just like farm animals had become ridiculously expensive so did ‘real’ pets. These days a dog or a cat were precious items, some breeds went outright extinct after fluffies gave them every virus and bacteria in the book.
And so fluffies were also the only pet the average family could afford. They were banned for a while for obvious reasons but the ban was lifted when new fluffy breeders lobbied to be able to sell fluffies again. However there were many restrictions in place, every foal had to be fixed before sale, only licensed breeders could have fertile fluffies. People couldn’t take fluffies outside anymore either and every foal was chipped so that if discarded on the streets the authorities could find out who did it, sentence being up to 5 years in jail and $100,000 in fines.
Needless to say there were no stray fluffies anymore, just some ferals that rarely waddled into cities, and when they did they were exterminated immediately.
This brings us to a house with two fluffies: Dana and Tody. Dana was a pink pegasus mare and Tody an orange micro-fluffy earthie stallion. They were bought as a pack. Because fluffies tend to feel lonely the best solution used to be to buy two so they could be with each other but that was before the plague. Now fluffy ownership is limited to one household. However the law says nothing about one fluffy and one micro-fluffy.
Retailers saw that so companies like Foal Ltd. began selling packs of one regular side fluffy with one micro to keep it company.
That’s how these two ended as pets for Maria Swinton, the daughter of another office drone in an era when everything is getting automated, specially paperwork. Still they were still able to afford such luxuries like artificial beef instead of fluffy burgers.
Maria was in the garden with her two pets, she plucked a red rose and showed it to Dana who has Tody ridding in its back.
“Isn’t it nice?” -she said.
Dana looked up at her and grinned.
Dana wuvs pwetty flowa mummah!
Tody tu! - a smaller voice said
She had tried to love them.
“Guys is time to go back inside”
The fluffies went with her without protest into the house, their soft fake-hooves barely making any sound on the synthetic wood deck. Both were two months old, trained so they would behave properly. In the new breeding centers foals of all types and sizes were put inside machines for quality control where they had to pass a number of tests. If they disobeyed the voices from the speakers, if they failed to use the litterbox, or went smarty they were immediately discarded and grinded into kibble. Despite the end of the ban fluffies were still a very low-cost commodity and as such it was pointless to waste money trying to “fix” a “broken” unit.
Maria Swinton, thirteen, went and sat in the living room. She began by sitting and checking her phone for notifications; soon she was just sitting. Time waited on her shoulder with the maniac slowth it reserves for children, the insane, and trophy wives whose husbands are away working to pay for them. Almost by reflex she reached out and checked her phone again. She remained alone. An overconnected world is the ideal place in which to be lonely.
Dana sat by the long window of its safe-room, wrestling with crayons and paper. Finally it stopped drawing and began to roll the pencil up and down the crumpled page.
Tody! - it said
Tody lay on the nestie-bed against the wall, under a ratty blanket and next to an old red ball. The speech-pattern of another fluffy wake it up and it began waddling out.
Tody, Dana nu can fin’ wut tu paint fo’ mummah!
Climbing off the nestie-bed, the micro stallion waddled as fast at it could to hug the mare’s. Dana lifted it with its hooves and set the tiny stallion on its back as if it were a foal.
Wut hav Dana paint’d su far?
I hav paint’d - it picked up the piece of paper and stared hard at it.
A housie in da fowest wit mummah, Tody and mummah’s daddeh! - said the mare.
It wasn’t a sign of intelligence, it just drawed a generic house, two stick humans and two simple fluffies. Every line had already been coded in its memory by Hasbio engineers decades ago. In fact some fluffies “remembered” the drawings better, Dana had drawed its mummah with three eyes…
But it couldn’t understand the mistake because it didn’t even understand what it was drawing, it was simply doing what it was supposed to do.
There was a long silence, until the micro said - Dam am wook pwetty. Gu an’ giv it tu mummah.
Another long silence.
Nu wuk pwetty nuff, mummah nuh wike dis.
Inside the micro fluffy a small brain the size of a bean recalled its genetic programming for what to say next.
Whu if Dana paint picshur wit hoofsies?
When Dana did not answer, the micro just repeated its suggestion.
Whu if Dana paint picshur wit hoofsies?
Dana was staring out of the window.
Tody, u kno whu Dana am thinkies? How fwuffy tewws wha am weal thingies fwom nu-weal thingies?
The micro shuffled its alternatives.
Weal thingies am gud!
Fwuffy nu kno if fwuffy am gud
Fwuffy nu kno if mummah wikes fwuffies. Many fowebas agu mummah sed tu mummah’s daddeh dat she was “bowed” of fwuffies. Am fwuffies bowing, Tody?
Fwuffies wike tu pway. Pwayin’ am fun. Mummah hav fwuffies su mummah must wike fwuffies. Fwuffies am fun.
Dana started to draw another pre-programmed shape on the piece of paper.
Am fwuffies weal Tody?
The micro’s eyes regarded the mare unflinchingly.
Tody an’ Dana am weal!
The micro had been packed-in to keep the mare calm so it was trained to specialize in comfort.
Maria walked slowly about the house. It had been “a while” (actually less than half an hour) so she checked her phone yet again…but nothing came through. A few minutes more.
She could watch something on netflix. Or she could check instagram. Or she could wait until her dad came home. Or she could go and play with Dana and Tody…
She walked out into the safe room.
“Dana! Tody!”
No answer. She called again and a third time.
“Tody!” she called, in sharper tones.
Yus mummah! - After a moment’s pause, Tody’s tiny orange head with a green mane appeared next to some blockies.
“Is Dana in the safe-room, Tody?”
Dana am in gawden mummah!
“Come here Tody!” - said Maria as she grabbed the micro stallion and carried it with her into the living room. It lay unmoving in her hand, staring up at her. She could feel just the slightest beat from its tiny heart.
She went into the garden…Dana wasn’t there. So Maria went back inside.
“I want to talk to you Tody” She set him down on a tabletop, and he stood as she requested, in a huggies pose with arms set forward and open in the programmed gesture of embrace.
“Tody, did Dana tell you to tell me it had gone into the garden?”
The bean-sized brain of the micro was too simple for artifice.
Yus mummah!
“So you lied to me.”
Nu mummah!
“Stop! Why is Dana avoiding me? It’s not afraid of me, is it?”
Nu mummah Dana wuvs u!
“So where is it?”
Dana am in metal munstah woom!
“The garage?”
The answer stopped her dead. Why waste time talking to this dumb micro? Why not simply go to the garage and scoop Dana into her arms and talk to it, as any owner would to a fluffy? She heard the sheer weight of silence in the house, with a different quality of silence pouring out of every room. On the garage, something was moving very silently - Dana, trying to hide away from her…
Dana crept round the side of the house. It climbed on to the ornamental seat under the living-room window and peeped cautiously in.
Maria stood in the middle of the room. Her face was blank; its lack of expression scared the mare. It watched and did not move; she did not move. Time might have stopped, as it had stopped in the garden.
At last she turned and left the room. After waiting a moment, Dana tapped with its hoof on the window. Tody which was sitting on a carpet looked round, saw it and waddled over to the window.
They looked at each other.
Mummah nu wike Dana nu mowe Tody, nee weave housie!
Ou am gud fwuffy Dana, mummah wuvs u!
Slowly the mare shook its head.
If mummah wuvs Dana den y mummah awways wookin’ at black boxie an nu pway wit fwuffy?
Nu be dummeh fwuffy! Mummah am wonely. Dat y mummah has fwuffies!
Mummah has a daddeh. Dana have nuffin 'cept u, an Dana am wonely.
Tody gave the mare some huggies on its left weggie as best as it could.
After all huggies fix everything…
Maria was back in the safe-room. She called to Dana once and then stood there, undecided. All was silent.
Crayons lay on the floor. She saw the crumpled nearly broken piece of paper. The drawings were bad even for fluffy standards, she had clearly gotten a bad one but the warranty probably didn’t cover small defects like these,
Maria dropped the piece of paper into a trash bin. She hated that she was stuck with a fluffy instead of a real pet. She wished her mother hadn’t taken so much money in the divorce that her dad couldn’t afford to buy her the new iphone 41 let alone a pet she could actually brag about online.
Instead she got two toys, bio-toys.
Maria’s dad Harry Swinton caught an uber home in high spirits, he had a box with him.
The Swinton’s used to live at a nice gated community but after the divorce they moved into a regular house without a pool, something Maria hated since now her “friends” wouldn’t come to her parties anymore.
The autonomous car stopped near the house and Harry opened the door and called to Maria.
She slowly walked out of the safe-room expecting nothing.
“Look what dad got you!”
Harry opened the slightly stained cardboard box: inside was a dog.
A real pet.
The dog was literally a mutt nobody would’ve paid a dime for back in the day but now it was valuable for the mere fact it was still alive and healthy.
“NO WAY! Thanks dad!”
Maria let out a yell of joy. She danced around the room holding the small dog of uncertain breed or origin. Her dad had been saving for a while to buy it for her, prices being insane due to the lack of actual dogs or other pets after the plague decimated them.
Maria stood in the middle of the room taking pics of her new dog to post them on instagram…and Dana and Tody were staring through the window at them.
Seeing their faces, Harry grew serious.
“What do we do about them?” Harry asked.
“Dunno dad I’m busy…”
“Is Dana being a smarty or something?”
“What? no just same 'ol boring fluffy, who cares”
“Okay. So should we wait and see how they do with the dog?. If its too much problem we can always discard them both.”
“Like whatevs just dump them already” - said Maria, ecstatic at already getting messages and likes on her dog photos after an entire day of zero notifications.
“Alright, well at least we don’t have to pay for fluffy kibble anymore” said Harry.
He saw the mare and the micro outside next to the roses.
Tody…Dana finks bawkie-munstah am weal wight?
Tody said - You am been siwwy, fwuffies am weal, am awive tu!. Wets gu pway on safe-woom!
Otay but fwuffy am take pwetty fwowah befo! - the mare said plucking a small flower, it carried it in its mouth into the house, the micro stallion on its back.
Bad upsies! -said Dana as Harry suddenly picked it up.
He didn’t say a word just took his phone and used the NFC reader to scan both fluffie’s chips.
BLIP!
The phone automatically went into the Fluffy Registry app, there Harry tapped on a button labeled
FLUFFY OWNERSHIP TERMINATION
Then when another dialog prompt showed up with reasons for the termination he choose
OBSOLESCENCE
BLIP!
An hourglass rolled on the screen as the Fluffy Registry servers processed the request.
PROCESS COMPLETE, DISPOSE OF BIOTOY IN BIN N-5094 WITHIN THE NEXT 2 HOURS
“Maria could you give me a hand with…”
“UGH! not now dad!”
Sigh - Harry just throwed both fluffies in the same box the dog came in.
OWIES! y daddeh huwt Dana?
Huuuuu! weggie hav wowest owies! nee huggies mummah!
“SHUTUP SHITRAT!” - yelled Maria without even bothering to move her face away from her phone.
Harry lifted the box then opened the door and went outside.
Wewe am daddeh goin wit fwuffies?
Yay! Tody nevah see outies!
The man simply walked a block and a half to the designated red biobin the app said. It was important to dispose of biotoys correctly since the bodies would be checked by sanitation and any dead biotoys in the wrong place would mean a hefty ticket to whoever was the owner.
Harry’s finances were bad as it is.
When he arrived there he got the box near the bin. There a scanner detected the chips on the fluffies, a green light flashed and the door on top opened. As it did the faint voices of other discarded agonizing fluffies could be heard from inside.
*kaf!*Huuuu…wewe am…wewe daddeh?
wheeze…fwuffy…wheeze…nu wan…foweba…sweepies
Nu feew weggies! huuuhuuuuu!
HOOMIN PWEASE HEWP! FWUFFY AM GUD! FWUFFY AM STIWW GUD! NU AM TWASHIES!
Harry just tipped the box over throwing Dana and Tody inside then pressing a button closing the door again.
UUUF! wewe am? Tody? wewe am…SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE! NUUUUU!
Tody had landed straight on top of the horn of a dead unicorn which impaled it.
BLERGH! - was the last thing it said after pucking blood and dying. At least it didn’t suffer…much.
HUUUUUU! AM SOWWY MUMMAH! DANA BE WEAL FO’ MUMMAH! PWASE COM BAK FO’ DANA!
But it was useless, Maria didn’t care anymore and even if she did the fluffy was now legally trash, no returns.
Dana would stay on the bin on top of dead rotting fluffies agonizing for a week until the automated biohazard disposal truck finally arrived to take all the biotoys to the local incinerator.