Wednesday: 16:12pm
As an apology for dealing with the stallions yesterday, Jackson gave Lewis command of Bay 30 for most of the day with Katherine there to assist him, Bay 30 was regarded as the easy shift, it was where Nurse-Mares fed the foals and taught them the lessons of The Farm, namely don’t hurt poopie or monster babies.
Since all the nurses were well-trained and since all Lewis had to do was keep them fed, clean up litterboxes and very occasionally give a sorry-stick to any potential smartie, it made for a nice calming shift after yesterday’s Sperm-A-Thon.
It was also the furthest you could get from Bay 4 which Lewis was happy about right now, his mind still thinking of 07-34 and his mate.
Lewis looked into one of the enclosures, 30-19 had three foals around her, a dark green earthie colt, a pink unicorn filly with yellow diamonds on her fur – she was sure to be very popular with Management – and a red alicorn colt. The green Earthie was asleep, curled up by 30-19’s right leg, while the Unicorn and the Alicorn were both feeding from her teats.
“Dwink up babbehs, need miwkies tug wow big an stwong.” 30-19 gently cooed at the foals, she stroked the Unicorn on her left teat with her left arm, then with some minor difficulty, reached over and stroked the Alicorn with the same left arm.
30-19 had lost her right arm as punishment back in her training days as a Nurse-Mare, since it was harder to find Fluffies without the ingrained ‘kill poopie and monsters’ coding Management opted to avoid the Zero Tolerance protocol that other Bay’s had, instead choosing a three-strike system. 30-19 had one strike and learned quickly what to do to keep her other limbs safe.
Other Fluffies were not so quick to learn.
The Alicorn lifted his mouth to loudly burp and looked up at 30-19 with utter devotion in his eyes, cuddling into her thick black fur. “Fank yu fow miwkies. Fwuffy wub yu nyu mummah.”
As seasoned as he was, Lewis couldn’t help but feel a little saddened by the look on 30-19’s face, she was smiling but the tears in her eyes said otherwise. Gently she hugged the Alicorn back.
“Wun Nine am nu nyu mummah, am onwy fow miwkies. Bu Wun Nine stiww wub aww babbehs she feed.”
“Eben munstah babbehs?” The Alicorn seemed self-aware of his own discrimation.
“Der am nu munstah babbehs, aww babbehs desewve wub an huggies. Any Fwuffy who fink uddawise is a meanie an nu be twusted. Yu wub aww Fwuffy’s wike own bruddas and sistahs.”
The Unicorn smiled at 30-19. “Fwuffy wub aww udda Fwuffies Wun Nine Mummah, Fwuffy wiww wub aww babbehs same wen owda.”
“Yu good pointy babbeh, Wun Nine hab biggesh heawt happies tu heaw.”
At that point, Lewis decided to intervene. “Hello One-Nine, hello children, have you all had a good time.”
The Earthie slowly woke up at the sound of his fellow foals dancing and chirping, the Alicorn starting speaking so fast he almost tripped over his own tongue. “Woo-ish, Wun Nine mummah teach babbehs to wub aww Fwuffies, su Fwuffy wisten an, an, an…”
“It’s ok bud, I got you. And I’m very happy to hear that, but now it’s time for you and your friends to go back to bed, say good bye to One-Nine.”
The three foals all waved goodbye, with the Unicorn going so far as to hug One-Nine. “Bye-bye Wun-Nine, Fwuffy miss yu.”
“Wun-Nune miss pointy babbeh tuu.”
Lewis took all three foals out of the pen and placed them onto a small portable bed where all three promptly went to sleep, he then handed the bed to another worker who took it out and back to the foals bay. Lewis turned to One-Nine, seeing her wipe tears from her face.
“How you doing One-Nine?”
“One-Nine gud, jus hab heawt huwties tu see babbehs gu. Awways hawd pawt, wemind Wun-Nine of own babbehs.”
“Well you’re a very good Nurse-Mare, in fact you should get a treat for being so good.”
Lewis pulled out a small Fluffy treat from his pocket and handed it to One-Nine, mostly it was because she deserved it for being a good Fluffy, but also partly so Lewis could avoid questions about her foals. He didn’t have an answer and given the state of The Farm he didn’t want to find one.
He heard a slight giggle and looked over to see Katherine watching him, she’d been with The Farm a little longer than he had and specialised in working with the foals thanks to her soothing voice and caring nature.
“You’re good with the mares, you should consider applying for more shifts round here, God know I could use an extra pair of hands most days.”
Lewis smiled and shook his head. “Nah, I prefer being a jack of all trades type, keeps the day from growing dull.”
“Your loss.”
Katherine moved onto her next pen, 30-58, an orange unicorn missing both her back legs, clearly it took her a little longer to learn the rules than 30-19. In her enclosure were another three foals, a red Pegasus filly and a black earthie filly both asleep on the floor, and an orange Pegasus colt that was still suckling on her teat.
Lewis could already tell there was going to be issues, he readied himself to help Katherine if needed.
Katherine looked into the pen, a big smile on her face. “Hello Five-Eight, did you have a good time with the foals?”
“Fibe Ehet hab vewy gud time Katawine, babbehs am aww fuww of miwkies. An wook, Fibe Ehet find hew wingie babbeh, hab biggesh heawt happies.”
“Now now Five-Eight, you know that’s not your foal, he belongs to another mare. Your babies are somewhere else.”
“Bu, wingie babbeh wook jus wike Fibe Ehet, hab tu be babbeh.”
“Well I’m sorry to say that he’s not, and beside we need to take him now anyway.”
Katherine reached in and took the two fillies with no problem, both happily went to their new bed, Five-Eight had wrapped her front legs protectively around the colt, a worried look on her face that her ‘babbeh’ was about to be taken away from her.
“Can Fibe Ehet pwease hab wingie babbeh jus a wittew wonga, is onwy wittew babbeh, need mowe wub an huggies.”
“Come on now Five-Eight, that’s not fair on the other Nurse-Mares, they care about the babies they feed as well. Now give him here.”
Katherine went to pull the colt from Five-Eight’s arms but the Nurse wasn’t ready to say goodbye, she grabbed on tight and refused to let go as Katherine tried to take the colt out, Five-Eight’s legless bottom spun on the floor of the pen but still she held on.
“AHHH, bad upsies, nu wike.” The colt was scared stiff but the sudden pulling pain in his stomach.
“NU! Dummeh Katawine nu take wast babbeh, Fibe Ehet miss habin babbehs, nu wan wose dem gain.”
“Dammit Five-Eight, let him go.”
“NU!”
“Shit, LEWIS, LEWIS get over here.”
Lewis rushed over, thinking about how he could help. “What do you need?”
“Take your switchblade, cut the foal.”
He wasn’t expecting that answer. “Excuse me, what?”
“Cut the foal, teach her what happens when she plays favourites.”
“Kath, that seems a bit excessive, I mean the kid’s done nothing wrong.”
“All the better for Five Eight to learn from. You know the drill, complete separation to prevent issues arising in the future. This is how Management decreed it.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense, it’s a waste of a foal and just stresses the mare out.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.”
Before Lewis could stop her, Katharine grabbed his switchblade and used it to slice into the colt’s middle, with both women still pulling the colt quickly ripped in half, sending blood and guts all over the pen, and all over Five-Eight.
“NUUU! Babbeh gune foweba sweepies, am wowstesh mummah eba. Wan die, wan die.”
The room erupted into tears, foals scared at the sight of blood, Nurses scared they would lose their foals if they tried to do the same, it was loud and it was messy.
Katherine paid no mind to them, she dropped her half of the foal into a bio-waste bin and handed Lewis back his knife.
“Maybe I was wrong, maybe you don’t have what it takes to work here.”
At that moment Lewis’ radio went off, and sadly it wasn’t Jackson on the other end.
“Mr Carter, please proceed to Recreation Room 3 for a disciplinary hearing on your action in Bay 30. You have ten minutes.”
Lewis took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to explain himself that wouldn’t get him fired. Without a word he turned and left Katharine to deal with a room filled with wailing Fluffies.
Lewis had been sitting in the rec room for about ten minutes by this point, staring at the ugly peach coloured walls and remembering why nobody used this place for their breaks anymore. He had tried to get a coffee out of the vending machine earlier but it was busted, probably for some time judging by the dust.
He had a good idea why he was waiting so long, and who was doing it, and when the door finally opened he was disappointed to discover he was right.
“Michaels, I should’ve known.”
Gareth Michaels was exactly the type of brown-nosed, pencil-pusher that made for great middle-management, too weak for blue-collar work, too forgettable for white-collar, but he had a subtle mean streak in him that made it easy for him to boss people around even when he had no authority over them.
Lewis had had a few meetings with him over the years and had made it very clear that he didn’t like the weaseley little shit. Of course Michaels made it clear he didn’t like Lewis either, which is probably why he deliberately took his time to let Lewis stew for a bit.
Michaels pushed his glasses up his nose and sorted out his documents. “That’s MR Michaels to you Mr Carter, I wouldn’t be so informal about a registered hearing.”
“But this isn’t a registered hearing.”
“Oh, and what makes you think that?”
“Because a registered hearing requires between one and two weeks’ notice to allow the party or parties in question to provide evidence, witnesses or other similar products to their assumed innocence in the matter.”
Michael’s smirked as Lewis quoted the Management handbook word for word. “You’ve clearly done some reading, trying to ease a guilty conscience are we?”
“Trying not to get bullied by some uptight prick who thinks if he kisses enough asses eventually he’ll kiss the right ass and stop having to deal with smarmy fuckers like me.”
The smirk on Michaels face vanished, and he sat down in front of Lewis, placing his documents on the table between them. “You’re right Mr Carter, this isn’t a formal hearing, this is me trying to ascertain from your mouth, what you believed happened today in Bay 30.”
“You’re asking why I didn’t kill a baby animal?”
“I’m asking why you disobeyed a direct order from a superior.”
“No offence to Katherine but she’s not my superior, she’s an equal if anything.”
“When you’re in Bay 30 she is your superior, that is her territory and you’d do well to listen to her. Now again, why did you disobey the direct order to expire the problem child?”
Lewis had been thinking of a reason ever since he was called into this meeting, he had to come up with a convincing lie because he wasn’t certain himself why he didn’t want to kill the foal, just in his gut it felt wrong in that moment.
“The colt was a good colour, a bright orange; I thought he’d be worth more to the company alive to be bred later.”
“But you know the rules Mr Carter, once the foal has been shown favouritism the chances of Smartie Syndrome increases dramatically, we cannot afford to take those chances.”
“Only if the foal is shown favouritism by a parent, 30-58 and the colt looked the same but they were not related.”
Michael began flipping through his documents. “Actually, we’ve had some research done and it turns out that 30-58 and the colt WERE related, he was in fact her son.”
“What? No that’s impossible.”
“See for yourself.”
Michale handed Lewis his notes, sure enough 30-58 and the dead foal shared a genetic make-up, they were related.
Lewis was still confused. “No, we have procedures to make sure that parent and child Fluffies never meet each other, there are three levels of testing done to make sure that THIS never happens.”
“What can I say Mr Carter, sometimes these things fall through the cracks.”
“Fall through the cracks? You’re telling me that out of thousands of foals and hundreds of Nurse-Mares, the one mistake we make just happens to be putting a parent and child into the same enclosure. If that’s a mistake then we’re too ignorant and need to shape ourselves up, if it’s not a mistake then somewhere in this company there is malice that needs to be excised and soon.”
“I’d be careful who you say that to Mr Carter, after all this isn’t your first issue when dealing with problems.”
“”What the hell are you on about?”
“I’m talking about your little event with 27-50 on Monday, you were to punish her for a Code 13 violation but you paused for 3.8 seconds before expiring her favourite foal.”
Lewis had to laugh, of course Management were keeping tabs on him for trivial bullshit like that. “Oh I’m so sorry that I grew a fraction of a conscience before gutting a baby animal in front of its mother.”
“You might think these events unimportant Mr Carter, but I’m seeing a pattern emerging, and patterns can lead to bad habits. For example, that’s twice in this conversation you’ve referred to the Fluffies as ‘Animals’, they are not animals, Mr Carter, they are Bio-Toys and it’s important to remember that.”
“Yeah cause the little Furby my baby sister had also ate, shit and fucked other Furbies, come on Michaels you know that’s just legal bullshit to keep Hasbio from having to pay reperations.”
“That ‘legal bullshit’ is what keeps us operational, it what gives you a job, try to remember that next time you find yourself pausing to think about the emotional distress of a children’s toy.”
Before Lewis could answer back his radio went off. “Lou, it’s Alan, we got an issue that needs your help.”
“Sorry Alan, but I’m currently getting my ass reamed by Management at the moment, I’ll call you when I’m finished.”
“We can’t wait that long, it’s 27-50, she’s… it’s a Code 3.”
Lewis didn’t wait for Michaels to dismiss him, he bolted for the door toward Bay 27, Michael’s following close behind. The Farm had a series of Codes that were used to explain a situation in as little time as possible, with lower numbers meaning more serious incidents. These ranged from something as minor as a Code 32 – Pee stains on the floor, to a major issue like Code 1 – Mass escape.
Code 3 was foal murder.
Lewis and Michaels arrives just as Alan was trying to pull 27-50 out of her pen and into a travel cage, Lewis could already see the blood on her hoofs.
“WET FIBE OH GU, NEED GIB POOPIE BABBEHS FOWEBA SWEEPIES, POOPIE BABBEHS AM MUNSTAHS!”
Lewis darted in and grabbed the cage, opening it so Alan was able to throw Five-O inside with little issues. They managed to lock the cage just as Five-O slammed into it, still desperate to kill her own foals.
“NU! NU WET POOPIE BABBEHS WIVE, DEY GIB FIBE OH WOWSTESH HEAWT HUWTIES, NEED FOWEBA SWEEPIE!”
Lewis looked inside the pen, it was a mess, the red unicorn and the orange earthie had their arms wrapped around their green Pegasus sister, her front left leg shattered from their mother’s attack. None of them understanding why she had turned so violent towards them,
In front, their brown earthie brother lay dead, his head smashed to bits.
Alan was trying to catch his breath from the sudden excursion. “I thought you said you dealt with her?”
“I did, clearly it didn’t stick. I’ll take the foals to the nursery, you take her to Bay 4, she’d past redemption now.”
Suddenly Michael’s spoke up. “No, no let’s not take her to Bay 4.”
Lewis rolled his eyes. “What, you got a better idea on how to deal with her?”
“In fact I do Mr Carter, and it’s one I believe you’ll find very educational. We’re gonna call in The Doctor.”
Alan had a visceral reaction to the news. “Fuck man, I hate that guy, gives me the fucking creeps.
Lewis was less obvious about his reaction but he also wasn’t happy with the news, he didn’t like The Doctor and always had a bad day when he was called in. “I’m with Alan, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Your good idea is what led to this incident in the first place. You need to learn that these creatures are nothing more than advanced programming, they are laboratory experiments, nothing more. We are going to call The Doctor, or more specifically, YOU are.”
Lewis looked down at the phone Michaels was handing him, not even seeing where he’d pull it out from.
“Tell him we need him for a Gold Service on a bad mother, and we don’t need him to bring his assistant this time. He’ll cover the rest.
Reluctantly Lewis took the phone and found Doctor in the phonebook, he clicked ring and side-eyed Michaels.
“For the record, you’re a prick.”
Michael’s just smiled as on the other end, the phone was answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Dr Mongola?”
“Speaking.”
“Hi, this is Lewis Carter from, uh… from Frederick’s Farm, we need you to um, to come in, preferably tomorrow.”
“May I ask why?”
“We… we need you to for a Gold Service on a bad mother, I was told you would know what that means. Oh, and we won’t be needing your assistant this time. Past that I’m not sure what to say.”
There was a moment of silence that passed over the phone-line, but still Lewis felt the air chill as he heard The Doctor’s breathing on the other end. Finally he answered.
“I’ll be in tomorrow afternoon.”
