You are another former bug tester, now working for one of HasBio’s subsidiaries and one of three team leads assigned to Project Fluff-Ultra. Despite what the name implies, you’re fairly certain it references the CIA’s mind control program. After all, the whole team is using drugs, brain-washing, and electrical shocks to turn a fistful of terminally ill-behaved fluffy ponies into obedient little pets.
The guy across the hall seems way ahead, but it wasn’t exactly your fault. When you plugged the first feral into the shock harness, some joker had turned it up to a voltage better suited to frying a chicken, and all hell broke loose after the cages were splattered with sizzling vitreous. It always amuses you how a smarty friend can be giving orders and turn into a screaming ball of fear on a dime.
Today, however, is going to be different. One of the tech guys took a good look at your equipment, and tinkered the voltage dials so the lowest setting wouldn’t fry the babbling little shits. With a smile, you approach the cages, even as the smarties demand their liberty. B-1, a pink and green unicorn, spurts a few little sparks at you from his horn, “Wet Wandy go o’ get buwnie huwties!” he threatens, but gasping from the strain. Part of you finds this display adorable; so proud of his little display, even when a defective sparkler could put out more.
Unlike the Ludovico group, you don’t have to bother with word games, telling them they’re bad or good. Your grin widens as you reach into his cage, and he changes his tune immediately. Already starting the waterworks, he whines “Nu mean! Nu huwt Wandy! Fwuffy wan gib huggies an’ wuv!” You stop, holding him in front of your face; it would seem watching that other unicorn’s eyes pop and fry left an impression. The pink fluffy spreads his legs wide, trying to indicate his willingness to hug, but you have to time for this.
Your lab’s set up is pretty spartan. The wall cages for the fluffies, an exam table, and numerous trash cans for the different kinds of waste are standard in the fluffy testing labs. The tools, on the other hand are pretty different: a specially made harness that immobilizes the fluffy, with a pair of copper electrodes that press into their scalp, mouth guards, a jet injector, and numerous pharmaceuticals. B-1 is scared shitless… metaphorically. A thick stream of brown terror explodes out his his rear end, filling a black garbage bag with prize winning manure as he thrashes against the hardened leather frame.
“Nuu! NUUU! Wandy nu wan see-pwace popsies! Be gud fwuff! Huu-hurk” he cries, and you’re inwardly amazed that he remembers as you muzzle him with a marinara-soaked mouth guard. You flick the switch, and a small electrical current begins causing a mild seizure, forcing a hum out of the restrained smarty friend. Selfish little shits, the only thing you hear from the peanut gallery is ‘dummeh fwuffy get nummies! Gib nummies NAO o’ get [insert fluffy threat]’ or merely shitting themselves.
Fiddling with the voltage, you keep upping it until his pupils dilate, indicating that you’ve crossed the reset threshold. Current is relatively low, and B-1 seems aware of his surroundings enough to follow your finger as you glide it through his limited range of vision. You dial back, and the fluffy slowly returns to normal, albeit with the stink of burning hair from the electrodes. As you pull out the guard, he blurts out “Pwease nu huwties!”
“Do you remember any pain? Err… ‘hurties?’” You examine the flesh around the contact points; red and irritated, but not dangerously so.
“Nu…," he gasps, "Wandy tas’ skettis! Gib sketties or Wandy gib big buwnie owwies!” He apparently has no recollection of the experience but the taste of the mouth guard. You give him a treat from the box and unstrap him to continue the test with another fluffy. This time the resistance is much less, now that not only has a fluffy survived it, but he got a treat for it.
Slowly you go about putting four more through this exact same procedure. This will be a control group for the reprogramming portion of the Fugue Group. After B-5 has been fed his treat and accounted for in your notes and time tables, the next stage begins.
You reach into the cage of B-6, a black unicorn with a blue mane. Picked up by the scruff, he bleats “Bad uppsies! Wet smawty go o’ get sowwy poopies!” as he rains shit and piss onto the floor. Strapped in, he looks over to the small red and brown treats you use to reward compliance. Of course, the entitled little shit’s third statment is “Smawty wan nummies o’ gi-uuuuUUUUH!” The demand is quickly interrupted as you creep it up to the noted ‘fugue point.’
You check his eyes for dilation, and smile as you out the list of commands. “Good smarty friends do what humans say. Good smarty friends…” you read ahead, and can’t help but giggle in sadistic glee. This programming will unconsciously turn B-6 into the spawn John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer! You continue listing commands, “Good smarty friends have special hugs with foals. Good smarty friends have bad special huggies with poopie places. Good smarty friends… eat the fluffies he has special hugs with.”
Short but sweet, you finish up the commands. Switching off the harness, B-6 continues his tirade, “-f bigges OWWIES!” He’s summarily freed and given another treat (practically shoved into the thing’s stupid gob), and you mark his cage. This process is repeated four times, hopefully turning five smarty friends into the fluffy equivalent of child-raping, cannibalistic serial killers. If nothing else, releasing a few of these as sleeper agents will damage feral populations and their ability to trust new fluffies. May give fluffy owners a reason to fluffy-proof their fences, as well.
Next, you pull out the other ‘reprogramming’ sheet, and this one is more or less the same, but lacking the commands to violence. You open B-11’s cage, and he stomps the floor, puffy his cheeks out and trying to growl. “Nu! Smawty fwien wan’ downsies! Dummeh mista gif back smawty’s hewd!” You only reach in, pulling out the overconfident little turd hard enough that he yelps, his bravado left in the cage with a streak of urine.
He cries as he’s forced into a harness that’s a little too tight; how whiny little bitches like these lead feral herds is a mystery, but in a land of pussies, a one-balled man is king. Once again, the voltage rises at a steady pace, opening B-11’s mind to suggestion. Once again, you state the commands, and it seems to list other decidedly good behaviors: using the litter box, being nice to other fluffies… but there’s an odd little note at the end. “Bad fluffies can’t breath, huh?”
This merits immediate testing. Once B-11 is done, you set him on the floor. As his daze fades, he continues crying, “-uuu huuu huuuu… nu hewt fwuffy?” You confirm that yes, no hurt fluffy. Sure enough the second an immediate threat is passed, B-11 looks up at you, “Wan nummies! Dummeh fwuffs get nummies, but bestest smawty nu get nun!” The threat alone is breaking the rules, and you look closely to observe.
So far, he remains breathing, albeit growing increasingly irate, “SMAWTY WAN NUMMIES! GIB NUMMIES O’ GET POOPIES!” he screams, growing increasingly winded. Wobbling, B-11 turns and stumbles on his side, wheezing and depositing his ‘sorry poopies’ all over his own tail before passing out. Once he passed into unconsciousness, you check his vitals. Guess fugue reprogramming has some obedience applications after all.
You finish up remaining four fluffies’ shock sessions, and finish up your notes. The slow increase of electricity seems to open the fluffy up to suggestion without loss of long term memory such as name and social status. This is all well and good, but you’ll need to see how this stands the test of time.