Living and Things
“I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
HASBRO TOY BECOMES HOLIDAY HIT, DESPITE CONTROVERSY
by Hannah Jolie
November 29, 2012
PAWTUCKET, RI (AP) – US toy manufacturer Hasbro has released this holiday season’s must-have toy to high demand over the Black Friday weekend. Capitalizing on both the success of their interactive Furby toy as well as the resurgence of popularity in their My Little Pony line, Hasbro (under their new subsidiary company Hasbio) introduced the Fluffy Pony, which they are referring to as the world’s very first BioToy. Fluffy Ponies, or Fluffies as they are also called, use a unique combination of genetic engineering and technological programming, resulting in a level of interactivity and emotional responsiveness never before seen in a mass produced toy line. All Fluffies come off the shelf with pre-programmed dialogues and behaviors. These toys are able to walk, talk, interact with people and objects around the home, and each comes with a unique color combination and personality. They can also learn as a child teaches them, and appear to bond with their human owner as well as other Fluffy toys in the home. These features have put them in high demand with children and adults alike, and retailers had difficulty keeping the lifelike toys in stock.
While popular with children across the US, the line is heavily criticized by some animal welfare and rights groups who claim that the level of biological material in a Fluffy Pony makes it an animal, and that both their sale and their very production are inhumane and unethical. These accusations have dogged the production of the toys for years, including a now infamous raid on the Hasbio Development Facility by members of PETA in 2010, who released many early prototypes into the wild and delayed the release of the toy line by two years. The released prototypes have led to a number of feral populations across the Northeastern US and spreading, where they are considered a pest and specialist extermination services have been developed. However, rather than sabotage the product completely, the release of these early Fluffies had the unintended side effect of serving as advertising. Those who were not annoyed by the presence of the pseudo-creatures in fact found them charming, and demand for an official release increased.
PETA continues to lobby for the termination of the Fluffy Pony line and the destruction of all existing products, while organizations such as the ASPCA campaign to have the toys recognized as animals protected under animal welfare laws. In the meantime, their nebulous legal status has made them popular not only with children and families, but also with certain individuals as a stress toy and anger management tool. This use case will likely continue for some time, as neither PETA’s nor the ASPCA’s cases seem near a conclusion anytime soon.
If you are planning on getting a Fluffy Pony for your child or other loved one this holiday season and want to keep the surprise for the day of, Hasbio representative Katherine Metz offered the following advice: “The Fluffy Pony line is designed to be as lifelike as possible and as such has certain requirements to maintain functionality and extend the lifetime of the product. Make sure your Fluffy is provided with water and food. Hasbio Brand Fluffy Kibble is recommended for their daily intake of grains, but any plant based pellet food will do in a pinch. If you are feeling generous, Fluffies are programmed to view spaghetti as a desirable food reward. A Fluffy also requires a litter box for the disposal of waste products, and may need to be taught how to use it. If your Fluffy is noisy and might spoil the surprise, try a muzzle. Hopefully these factors will help ensure a Happy Holiday for you, your family, and your new Fluffy. Unfortunately, Hasbio is not able to offer warranty exchanges on visibly neglected or damaged products.”
Chapter 1
April 17, 2010
They had probably expected the facility to be vacant on a Friday night. For the most part, it was, save for a few maintenance staff. The maintenance staff and Nina Petrenko, that is. It wasn’t that Nina needed the overtime, per se. She had a modest apartment and no family or partner to speak of. That was just it, though. She didn’t have a life the way some of the others did. Even Kat, who poured over gene sequences during the week like she was curing cancer and not genetically engineering a talking toy, went out with the other girls from bioengineering for drinks on Friday nights. Nina had a standing invitation, but she hated the noise, the crowds, she didn’t drink and she didn’t dance.
Maybe that’s why she and Kat hadn’t worked out.
That, or maybe Nina was just too married to her work.
“Okay, E-017, let’s try it again,” she said to the little creature sitting on her workbench.
The dark brown Fluffy stared up at her, his little ears folded back flat against his head. “Ee-Oh-Sebenteen am sowwy, mummah.”
Nina sighed. “You don’t need to be sorry. And I’m not your mummah, pal. I’m Miss Nina.” At least they’d gotten the attachment instincts right. These things would imprint on anyone they saw. P-22 was so bad about it that he was up to, at last count, twelve mummahs and seven daddehs. They’d have to work on that.
“Otay mu– Miss Nina. Ee-Oh-Sebenteen twy again.” He popped up onto all fours and puffed his chest out, determined.
He was a charming little thing, honestly. In her notes she called him “Oreo”, and she’d wanted to use it out loud because E-017 was a mouthful. Kat, however, had discouraged her from nicknaming the Fluffies. It made their attachment stronger, and if they got too attached to the researchers, it might skew test results because they would be too eager to please the person who named them specifically. Nina didn’t think it made a difference, as the Fluffies clearly did not differentiate between names and numbers, and were just as pleased to be numbered as named. She wondered if it was more that Kat didn’t want to be attached. Maybe she was just stubborn about uniformity, though.
E-017 in particular was a vital specimen; he had the ideal demeanor they were aiming for in the Fluffy Pony line. He was polite, friendly, and affectionate, rarely obstinate, and she had never known him to throw a tantrum. Neither did he present with any of the signs of what some of the researchers were calling “smarty syndrome,” a personality disorder they had noted in some of the subjects that they were hoping to breed out. He also lacked the tendency towards favoritism and prejudice that had marred many of their other subjects. This made him the ideal candidate to mate with A-009, their first successful Alicorn. Nina called her “Iris” in secret for her beautiful multicolor mane. She was, as her code number would indicate, the ninth Alicorn to be born. But she was the first one the researchers successfully separated from the mother before she could stomp her to death. For some reason, many of the Fluffies saw Alicornism as being as much an irreparable birth defect as the horrific cleft palette that had affected and indeed killed many of the first Unicorns.
Nina held up a flash card. “What is this?”
“Bawky munstah!” E-017 said cheerfully, wagging his little tail. Ironically, an artifact of the bulldog genes in him. They contributed to his stature and his sense of loyalty. They also made the specimens a bit bowlegged and brachycephalic. Nina had suggested they might want to breed this out but the other researchers thought the short snout and waddle contributed to their cuteness. Nina worried a bit about future generations developing breathing problems and fragile legs when combined with the hollow bones from the pigeon and parrot genomes, but said nothing.
“No, E-017. This is a ‘dog’. Can you say ‘dog’?” She was hoping he could pass a trust of common household pets down to his offspring. It struck her as important to the success of the product line. He’d already reared four successful litters with Iris, and they were expecting a fifth.
Oreo–no, E-017–frowned a bit, then tried it. “Dug?”
Close enough. Nina switched the flash card. “How about this one?”
“Meowy munstah!”
Nina sighed. She was about to correct him when a blaring alarm stole her words. Startled, she glanced up at the flashing light on the ceiling.
E-017 yelped and huddled on the table. “Huuhuu! Scawy!” He folded his legs over his head to protect his ears from the noise, and piddled a bit on the table in his fear.
With absolutely no care for the possibility of soiling her lab coat, Nina seized E-017 up into her arms and cradled him close to her chest. Fire. “I’ve got you,” she assured him, taking off running. “Come on, we’re going to get your foals.”
“Mummah! Pwease sabe babbehs! Sabe babbehs an’ Ay-Oh-Oh-Nine!” He buried his face against her chest, dampening the fabric with his tears and snot.
She did not, this time, correct him.
Part of her was grateful for once she had no life. Between her and the janitorial staff, maybe they could save most or all of the specimens before the fire spread. They could fit at least half the current specimens in her hatchback, she thought. Her only prayer was that the fire had not started in the kennel itself.
In a way, her prayers were answered, because there was no fire in the kennel.
There was no fire at all.
Instead, one of the alarm switches had been thrown by one of several complete strangers who were currently going through the Fluffy pens. One woman threw the last of E-017’s current litter full force at the concrete floor. The filly’s shriek was cut off by the impact and a horrid crunch. Her brothers and sisters lay around her like so many burst water balloons.
“Hurry up,” one of the intruders hissed to her, completely ignoring a pair of adults who were frantically escaping through an open door with their foals. “We gotta put all these abominations down before anyone catches us.”
The woman threw open the next pen and grabbed a foal by the neck. “It’s fine. There’s like a couple people here, and by the time they’ve finished evacuating and realized there’s no fire, we should be done here.” She snapped the wriggling foal’s neck and cast it over her shoulder. “Poor thing. They don’t even know they shouldn’t exist.”
Nina clasped a hand to her mouth in horror. Indecision trapped her between shouting at them or retreating to call 911.
E-017 made the decision for her. “NUUU! BABBEHS! HUUHUUHUU!” He had finally seen what was happening, and reached out with his stubby little forelegs as though he could still save them. The Fluffies did have that sweet and unfortunate superstition that they could fix any ailment with hugs. A behavior that was, admittedly, Nina’s fault. She thought it would appeal to the target demographic.
A half dozen ecoterrorists turned to stare at Nina as the other three foals in the pen jumped for their lives. Two survived the fall.
Nina opened up her mouth to ask them what the hell they thought they were doing, but only stood like a deer caught in headlights.
In her arms, E-017 was still sobbing and thrashing against her grip.
One of the intruders pointed a gun.
That got Nina moving.
She and E-017 screamed in tandem as a bullet ricocheted off the wall just behind her head. At least they were a bad aim. It would occur to her later that they had probably either meant it as a warning shot or simply didn’t want to have to use it at all. In that moment, she wasn’t taking any chances. She made for the fire escape with dashes as fast as her legs would take. Never once did it occur to her to put E-017 down. When she heard him still sobbing against her, she gently stroked his mane without a second thought.
That was her last night at Hasbio. She sped away in her hatchback before calling the police to report the break-in. By that time, most of the specimens were either dead or fled. Honestly, she’d thought that was the end of the program entirely, and as such hadn’t even bothered to phone in her resignation.
Thus it came as somewhat of a shock when Kat called her about a month later, asking if she wanted to come back.
“Why?” Nina asked, her laptop open on her chest to browse for jobs in bioengineering. There were some promising openings in the medical sector.
“To work on the Fluffy Pony project?” Kat replied, as though the question were stupid. “Come on, I thought you loved working on this project. You were weirdly obsessed with the little rats.”
“Are you starting from scratch?” Nina asked, her brow furrowed.
“Nah we saved a couple. Got them churning out new foals like a t-shirt cannon.” Kat barked out a laugh. “Come on, it’ll be fun. You’re probably nervous or whatever but we upped security. Plus, we won the lawsuit against PETA so we’ve got a bunch more funding. We gotta make up for lost time and product. Bossman wants these out for Christmas 2012. I could use you for behavioral shit.”
They could. Nina was well aware that she cared more about the subjects’ temperament and wellbeing than the rest of the department, and was better about getting results than most.
Then her gaze drifted to Oreo, happily munching on a bowl of spaghetti in the kitchenette. She tried to imagine reintroducing him to the laboratory life, especially given a time crunch. His genes might mean a better future for his descendants. It also might mean putting him, personally, through hell.
“No thanks,” she said.
“Oh come on,” Kat said incredulously. “What, is this because Cookie or whatever you called him got out? This is why I told you not to name the things. They’re not pets. They’re lab rats.”
“Have a nice day, Kat,” Nina said, and hung up the phone.
Oreo trotted over and curled up happily on the dog bed beside the couch. “Fank ‘ou, mummah. Wub ‘ou.”
She smiled and scratched him behind the ear. Well, rats could be pets too. “Love you too, Oreo.”
For an additional stand-alone story featuring these characters, check out Living & Things: Brunch With Oreo (internetdoashouting)
