*Chapter 1*
Slow day
On a cold and misty day in Maine, you and five other men are entering a large black stone building. It’s no larger than a two story house, no windows and designed as if it had merely sprung from the ground undisturbed. Perfectly square and obelisk esk with shiny black walls. The ominous nature of the building had long since worn off you, you pay it no mind as you clock in. The perfectly flat walls pull back to reveal a door and you walk In along with your colleagues. Inside the building is a small lounge, a vending machine and a pair of offices alongside a sectioned off corner for the forman. Upstairs is a team of scientists working on breed colors and the like, they’ve clocked in long before you arrived. You and one other man go down some stairs near the formans office and enter the factory portion of the building. It only takes two men to operate the factory, overlooked is a better term. Your station subsists of a keyboard and five other buttons, each with distinct designs with a strong glow emitting from inside them, in case you were an idiot each if they are further labeled with their purpose. You look over at your coworker, his station is a little more simplistic considering he doesn’t even have the keyboard. You look at his face, he’s rather young to be working here after all it’s more of a retirement position. He wears the same yellow jumpsuit that you were but he doesn’t say director on it, his hair is a bright blonde like yours once was. His cheekbones are well defined, you’d go as far as to call him handsome. You remember when you were handsome, before the world had spat you out. But now you’re here and there’s work to do, you press the large “start operation” button and watch as the machines begin to work. A large metallic arm shutters to life and begins dispensing food to the fluffies, each of them is bottle fed with a high nutrition paste. It’s supposed to taste like strawberries, but when you tried it it was as close to strawberries as a bird is to an iguana. Once the feeding was done a test was performed on each pregnant mare, to see if they were ready to give birth. You were already bored, you called the young man working with you and said you were going to get a drink. You do this every day so he hardly gave a response, on your way back from the vending machine a soft tone played over the loudspeaker calling your attention. “Attention attention, mares 19 through 48 are ready to deliver attention ‘’ ’ the speaker clicks and falls silent. You hurry back to your station and press a light blue “delivery” button several arms whir and begin comforting the mares. You never got used to their whales, the words they used (if they could be counted as words) always annoyed you. But you tried to temper that feeling, you didn’t hate these creatures no matter how much they got on your nerves you felt bad for them as a matter of fact. You felt a kinship with them in a sense, after all they were stuck here too.
The young man called over to you and said “so what does your keyboard do?” The two of you do this dance every day but at least it’s something to do. In an exaggerated motion of the arm you present to him your station, and with a flourish explain “this here my good man is a very important device, why with this device I can do a great many things!” You smirk and continue in your best announcers voice " this my friend is the GHTY model-759 it can do anything! As long as it’s inputting commands, you can predict one of these mass produced buttons and with special permission even USE-THE-KEYBOARD!" He claps politely putting his nose in the air saying “bravo bravo, tell me more good sire” with a flourish you continue with “this keyboard can do a whole eight functions with a 350 motor thats only 300 times slower them what was available in 1994! You can, drumroll please” he complies vigorously “you can feed, punish, reward, talk to, play music for, inseminate and even turn the lights on and off. Can you believe it!” He puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles clapping as you bow. You both get a chuckle out if it, but then it’s back to work. “So” the young man starts “how do you punish them” this was new, you usually just sat in silence for the rest of your shift. “Well, you click the option reprimand” he looks at you with full attention “and the you just type in what you want to punish them for”. “Like how?” he asked, "what do you mean?"you returned. “How do you punish them?” The young man looked on in waiting, you both paused as you heard a mare poop (it was 45, she liked to announce it for some reason) she had dedicated all over the floor of her pen right next to the litter box. "Oh God dammit, you pressed a button and talked directly to 45. “The litterbox is right next to you 45” 45 five looks over In horror and apologizes profusely. “I’m so sick of cleaning up shit, can one of these machines do it?” “They can’t, the forman doesn’t want them getting dirt.” You returned. “Dammit’’ the young man mumbled “nothing on that keyboard can make them?” You answered with a sigh “technically you could but it would be a pain in the ass to program right, and the foreman would fire you. I’ll get the mop.” You walk back up the stairs to retrieve the mop that sat against the wall next to some cleaning supplies and a drain closet. From below you here the screams of fluffies, normal around here you thought. You grab the mop and walk down the stairs, only to be stopped by your panicking coworker screaming about the arms.