Sleeper Fluffies
“I swear to God, Higgers” Agent Sue cringes. “There’s no goddamn ‘inbetween’ for these little fuckers”
Higgers idly shuffles some papers on his desk before shifting to face the agent. “How do you mean?
“How I mean? It’s like they’re built with shit switches stuck in either Rugrats theme song mode or Finnish black metal, there’s no middle ground”
“I think I see what you’re getting at” The skinny man with an immaculate lab coat cracks a grin at the agent before swiveling back to face the window of a testing chamber. “In a lot of ways, they are”
The agent raises an eyebrow, allowing Higgers to continue.
“These creatures are not animals. They’re bio toys designed to entertain little girls. Every molecule of their genome was coded by hand by those Hasbio freaks” The skinny man pauses to pat several pockets adorning his coat. He resumes, “While we’ve all witnessed their ability to act autonomously, even some able to survive in harsh, wild environments, they are still bound to their programming. A fluffy was never supposed to make the decisions we animals do. But life finds a way, wires get crossed.”
He produces a small apparatus from one of his many pockets and places it on the desk before continuing his speech, “suddenly, it’s the damn Congo. Infanticide, racism, superstition, roving, raping enfie squads. This is what separates a fluffy from a robot. They’re able to act autonomously with some degree of questionable intelligence. They’re designed to trust humans. Natural born suckers, and that’s what makes them valuable to the Agency. We’ve made promising results in decoding their genetic sequence. If we can understand what makes them tick, there are a variety of applications they can serve for our purposes.
Agent Sue crosses his arms and cocks his head at the researcher, “A fluffy as a spy? Those retards talk to clouds asking them to stop raining, jump off barstools thinking they can fly! You’re joking with me, doc”
“Certainly not” Higgers states coldly. “Let me ask you this, agent, have you noticed the fluffy in the corner of the room?”
Agent Sue’s head darts to the corner of the room. There, sitting on a dog bed in the corner, was a jet black fluffy stallion with a red mane and red stripe of fluff running from the base of his neck to his chest, almost resembling a tie. The fluffy was babbling something to himself
“That’s G-Man, he’s currently busy reciting a list of every country and it’s capital city. In alphabetical order.”
“Icewand, Wey-kjaw-wik, In-dee-ya, Nyu Delfee, In-dow-neesha-”
The agent’s eyes widened “That’s impossible! Those fuckers can barely count to three! How is this possible? I didn’t even notice him!”
“That’s the point, agent. You’re a sharp guy, with many field ops and confirmed kills under your belt. But we as humans have learned to tune out the incessant babbling of fluffies over the years. Now, imagine you’re a cartel boss and you just bought a fluffy just like G-Man for your wife or daughter. He could feed us valuable info while being deep undercover,”
“That still doesn’t explain the… them being idiots thing.”
Higgers smirk turns into a grin. “We have our ways, agent”. Sue glances back at the fluffy, watching him continuing to list off names as he stares forward deadpan.
“Jah-paan, Toy-kee-yo, Jowdan-”
The man feels a chill before his focus returns to Dr. Higgers. Tears fall onto the dog bed.
“That’s above your paygrade anyway, agent.” The doctor rises from the chair and grabs the apparatus from the desk. “Come, let me show you some of the progress we have made in mapping the fluffy genome.
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The two march down a hallway with several rooms. They stop at a door labeled “Sleepers”
Sue perks up. “Don’t tell me you eggheads turned one of these things into a voice-activated bomb”
“No! No!” The doctor chuckles.”Nothing like that, now, lead the way. He hastily ushers the agent into the testing chamber before quickly scribbling something into a notepad and cramming it in a pocket.
Inside the two find themselves in a fluffy’s safe room. It is overwhelmingly obvious that the room was designed by a pencil pushing bureaucrat. White, sterile padded walls and carpet gave the room a clinical vibe. Standing out from the drab color scheme were typical furnishings of a safe room. Litterbox, blankets, kibble and water system, and a few wooden toys.
The middle of the room featured a polychromatic fluff pile. The sound of the two men entering the room caused a singular ear to perk up among the pile. The mound quickly disintegrated as a fluffy family clambered out of their comfort. A stallion, mare, and 5 foals of various colors formed a line in front of the men in black. Their expressions looked worried and uncomfortable.
The stallion looks up at the researcher and gives a nervous smile. “Hewwo, dowktuh Heegahs”
“Hello, Desert Storm” He returns the greeting dully. “I trust we’ve hadn’t had any more issues with “bad poopies”
The stallion mournfully glances at the shaved and welted back of Clover, one of his shivering babbehs. The doctor never named his foals, but he and his special friend decided on the name due to the colt’s vibrant green coat.
“Yesh, Cwovah am gud babbeh nao! Aw Fwuffies make gud poopies in wittwe box!”
“That’s good to hear!” The doctor relaxes his posture. He scans the distressed, chubby faces avoiding eye contact. “Relax, guys! I came here to give you all something very special!”
The mare snaps out of her malaise. “Weewy, daddeh?! Daddeh gon gib skettis!?” She squeals as she bobs her head up and down
Her special friend cringes before looking down at the ground. The doctor stares daggers at her.
“What did I say about calling me daddy?” He shakes his head. “And you’ve ruined the surprise! Yes. I intend to treat all of you to sketti-”
“SKETTIS!” The group bleats in unison. Across the line the fluffies shift and dance in place, fantasizing about the delicious ambrosia coming their way. Ignoring the celebration, the doctor turns to Agent Sue.
“Isn’t it wild they can be so excited for something they’ve never had?”
“Yes… wild” The agent sarcastically repeats
“Now for the interesting part.” He checks the group. There is no way they’re listening, too preoccupied with the thought of precious skettis coming their way.
“While meticulously recording the genetic code of fluffies, we’ve made some shocking discoveries. Incredibly, the scientists at Hasbio seemed to have programmed several unauthorized “easter eggs” deep within the code” The doctor can barely contain his excitement. “At first glance, these secret sequences seemed to have no observable effect. That is, until we reverse engineered them and found out they were code for a complete nervous system override, designed to activate upon specific auditory stimuli!”
The doctor catches his breath before composing himself. “Let me remind you everything you’re about to witness is classified.”
“I get it, Doc, let’s move this along. Those things give me the creeps”
“Observe”
Doctor Higgers swivels to face the fluffies and snaps to attention.
“Banana. Zulu. Niner Niner. Reaper. Orwell. Match stick. Centipede” Higgers barks with perfect articulation.
Suddenly, the room is silent. The two men stare at the line of fluffy ponies. They are completely frozen in place, as if time itself halted around them.
A few moments later, animation begins to return to their bodies as they collectively twitch and creak back into a resting neutral position. From this position, the eyes shoot behind the head and the jaws stretch slowly open.
“The hell did you do to them?” The agent sounds uneasy
“Have you ever seen the film ‘Get Out’? Nevermind, just watch”
Agent Sue watches as the jaws creak back closed with the finesse of a rusty bunker door. The eyes descend in their skulls until they’re back facing forward. Then it happens.
All at once, the fluffies and fowls jump to a standing position. Hideous, forced smiles adorn their faces as words begin pouring from their unmoving lips.
“HAPPY HAPPY BOUWF DAY! HAPPY HAPPY ASHWEE! HAPPY HAPPY BOUWF DAY! WE WUB ‘OU! HAPPY HAP-”
The fluffies repeat the tune while their body’s jerked them around into various shapes and positions to simulate dancing. Only the dead could match their stiffness. The doctor found it especially amusing watching the fowls spin on one leg and stop to touch their toes. After what seems like minutes, the torturous performance ends with every fluffy collapsing on the spot.
Every single one of them was a sobbing mess. Two of the foals were pawing at their eyes and shrieking. One was foaming at the mouth and appeared to be having a seizure. A filly was ripping chunks of fluff out of her front legs and rocking back and forth. Clover had the most unusual reaction. The colt didn’t move from a neutral standing position. Its face still frozen in the shape of a pained, artificial smile. A steady stream of tears and snot leaked from his new face as he suddenly recovered feeling in his weggies.
“M-muuum… muum-aaaaah…” The colt croaked as he rocked and lurched his little body towards his mummah, seeking any kind of comfort. “Muh-m… s-sabe”
His mother, who had her face buried in her hooves, sobbed uncontrollably. Scaredy poopies covered her ass as well as her babbehs beside her, leaving them mewing and squirming in a river of shit and vomit. Despite her distress, she couldn’t ignore the faint calls of one of her babbehs. She peeks out from over her hooves just enough to see in front of her.
“Muuumaaah… Muuum” Clover moaned as he managed to collapse in front of his mother, his paralyzed face locking with hers, looking for any comfort from the agony he felt.
“M-muh! Mu-mu-MUNSTAH BABBEH!!!” The mare exploded. A hideous monster was attacking her family! Clover couldn’t believe what he heard. He begged for his lips to move. “Mummah! No am munstah! Hab worstest hurties! Nee huggies an wub!” He screamed in his head, only to produce a moan and a torrent of drool.
“MUNSTAH! MUNSTAH BABBEH! HATCHU! GIB SOWWY HOOFSIES”
It took everything the little colt had to shake his head. “Mummah no wub babbeh? Babbeh am munstah babbeh?! Pwease wub babbeh” It was no use. The mare only saw a scary monster shaking its head, ready to gnash at her with jagged teeth. She rises up and descends on her little foal. Clover died looking at the face of his mother, the one who was supposed to love him always and forever. His face still smiling as his mother smashed apart his organs in a panicked rage.
Clover’s daddy was too busy vomiting to notice the death of his fowl. He fell on his side, wheezing inbetween bouts of sickie wawas.
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Agent Sue rubbed his eyes in disbelief. “What… was that?”
“That, agent, was an honest dad’s present to his daughter, Ashley. A sequence secretly coded in fluffy DNA, ready to give daddy’s little angel a birthday celebration on command. This wasn’t the work of an amateur, it took a team of world-class geneticists to crack that one.” Without looking away from the spasming family, his body language swells with pride. “We’re still in the process of cracking several more”, he says, gesturing to the agent.
“Watch this one, I can make… uh, at least the dad recite the ten commandments”
“Let me stop ya, there, Doctor. I think I’ve seen enough.” The agent fixes his tie. “What’s with the meltdown? I can’t imagine a little girl would appreciate the freak show”
“Fine.” Higgers seems to ground himself. “Yes. It seems the nervous system has trouble coping with the stress brought on by the override. We have several theories for this. One of them being a fluffy’s chimeric nature causing excessive mutations over the years.” The doctor holds his arms up in front of him as if gripping a stick. “Too many new parts aaaand… Snap!” The doctor breaks the invisible stick. “The body has no idea how to process the highjacking from such a deep genetic memory.” He continues, “another theory is due to the clandestine nature of secretly altering the parts of a flagship product for a billion dollar biotech company, there simply wasn’t enough time to iron out all the glitches. Maybe little Ashley did indeed witness what we have today”. He turns his back to the fluffies and faces the agent. “Poor girl…”
“Interesting theories, Dr. Higgers, but how does this serve the agency?”
“You’re not seeing the significance, agent. Some sneaky geneticists at Hasbio have managed to condition organisms into sleeper agents before they’re even born. Creating a sleeper agent from a blank slate usually requires months of intensive conditioning and resources. If we manage to slip in our own little easter eggs into unknowing subjects. Just imagine the applications!”
“A code phrase whispered into a mic, now the fluffy laced with radioactive isotopes is looking for the nearest drinking well to throw itself into. Your cover about to be blown? Speak Latin to your DiversionPal and watch him squeal and light up the shit fireworks, creating an effective distraction for you to escape. Are you about to be captured with a head full of Agency secrets? Activate your SecretPal, crack the fowl’s back like a glow stick and record your last memoirs. Hide the little thing and the built in tracker will lead a rescue team to your last known location.”
Higgers wipes a bead of sweat off his brow. “And the best part. Plausible deniability. No one is going to believe a secret government organization would stoop so low as to use fluffies for their operations.”
The Agent blushes. “Jesus H. Christ, cheese, crackers, and brimstone. And I thought I was a monster. Nice work, Doc. I’m beginning to see the value of these things”
The doctor gives an earnest smile. “I’m glad to hear it, Agent Sue. Come, I have more to show you in the Censorship Ward”
As the two men in black begin to make their way out of the room, a faint voice brings their attention back to the line of devastated fluffies.
All surviving members of the family were in a catatonic state, save for the stallion. He was now lying on his back, spread-eagle. His mouth hinges open with a creak.
“‘OU SHOW HAB NU ODDA SKY DADDEHS BEFOW ME… ‘OU SHOW MAKIES NU FOUSE IDOHS…”
The agent makes a cross on his chest as Dr. Higgers howls with laughter. “It seems you accidentally said a sleeper activation phrase! Well done, agent, haha!” He leans his arm into Sue’s back.
“Why don’t you take five and meet me in the breakroom. I’ll be a moment”
The agent nods and speed walks out the door.
Doctor Higgers waits for the door to close before releasing a long sigh.
Terrified eyes in a paralyzed body follow his hands as they reach for something inside his coat.
“Those meathead agents. Now the data is all screwy. Alright, big boy, smile for the camera.”
“-DOW SHOW NU GIB FOWEBAH SWEEPIES”
The stallion’s eyes meet the barrel of a silenced pistol.
TICK
Thanks for reading!