Cow
By DX
Copyrighted 12/06, 10/2024, all rights reserved.
And that was it.
My personal files were deleted. My clothes, what I couldn't sell and what I wasn't wearing, was dumped into the Degrader, to be broken down into molecular dust and re-fabricated into something new for someone else's use.
Much like I was soon to be. I would not be broken down into dust, however. I would be hacked up into steaks for someone's consumption.
Waste not, want not.
I repressed a shudder at the thought . I took a moment and glanced out the window. The sun was rising, and lit up the white cliffs of Dover as the waves crashed endlessly against its craggy shore.
I turned off the window, and the room plunged into darkness like a felling blade.
A fake view for an apartment that didn't have a view, or a window for that matter. I could never have afforded a real view and now I couldn't even afford a fake one.
My couch folded up into the wall as I rose. This left a clear three meter by four meter space which was my apartment, my life. It was now empty. Clean and clear, ready for the next guy.
I grabbed my jacket and headed out, shrugging the memories like cob webs. I always hated that apartment, never realizing it was my anchor in this world until I was cast adrift. It would be sanitized, reprogrammed and re-issued to someone else within the hour. All traces of my existence, memory, scents, bills, signatures, every bit of my history would be gone.
I was less than homeless.
I was nothing.
I made my way to the street and ducked under an awning to escape the freezing rain. As I waited for the bus, I watched people brush by, their faces down, lost in their own world. I was one of them just yesterday. A real person. It was time for the mid morning snack and I would be taking orders for a run to the cafeteria.
My stomach growled in the memory.
In my jacket pocket I found a snack bar, Soy Blue. I put it back for later. I had a long day ahead of me.
On the bus, I watched the Ad-vid screen with a professional interest. A woman just won the grand prize lottery, fifteen minutes of pure, filtered sun light. Terrorists blew something up, the government knocked something down, and a very pretty woman suggested I could look very pretty too with a new face graft.
Usually I looked at them with a blank, disinterested stare, just to have something else to look at than the blank, grey buildings that passed by. It was stuff I could never afford anyway. Today, a charming young woman was demonstrating the Jessica 3000. I had seen her advertise things before. She had a slim body, slinky and svelte. She caressed the machine like a lover as she talked about its features. Then with her smiling dimples, stretched herself across it, and wriggled like an imp to take her place. With a smile she signals her partner who steps forward and straps her down. As she is secured, she bids us farewell.
“A great end to a great ride!” She said, but her smile doesn’t completely hide her nervousness.
She winked, and blew us a kiss, then set her head in the cradle. Her partner secures her, puts a rubber ball in her teeth to stifle her screams, then throws the switch on the Jessica 3000.
We don’t see it, but we all know she is eviscerated, cleaned, stuffed and stitched back up in seconds. She's good at controlling her agony, focusing beyond the pain. I imagine for the commercial she was hopped up on stimulants. Nothing to ebb the pain, but she'll stay conscious.
She regains enough composure and her gag is removed. She gives a play by play and describes what it feels like as the motorized spit is slowly inserted into her, through her cervix. She gasps as it punches through her diaphragm, then gives some quick cooking techniques and how she would like to be served. She finally shuts up as the spit worms its way through her esophagus; but not without a final plug: "See ya at the barbecue!" She blows another kiss just moments before the spit slowly appears, rising up out of her mouth.
Fully spitted, she gave a thumbs up as they lifted her off the machine and carried her away to be cooked.
Now I'm hungry.
I fish my lunch bar out of my pocket. Soy Blue, now made with 20% more people. Mmmm.
When I arrived at the center, I was surprised to see a line that snaked its way out the front door. I'd forgotten it was graduation day and all the women who didn't make the mark were here for processing. They were still, and somber. Most of them would soon be meat. A few might go as cattle or breeders, and a very select few would go to the brothels. I've heard of some going as living dolls and furniture, a horrible existence.
It was all a horrible existence: A non-future for young women.
I joined the end of the line.
Someone came by and checked my ID-chip to confirm I was in the right place and that I was on time. Gosh forbid I would be late.
But I wasn’t. I was where I was supposed to be, standing tall at the end of the line to be processed.
The line moved steadily, but turned even longer once inside. As we passed a bin, each girl stripped and dumped her clothes into it, then donned paper slippers. There was no talking now, enforced by a massive brute of a woman wielding a shock stick. Eyes front, keep moving. A woman with a scanner module walked the line, stopping at each girl and reading the chip embedded under the skin on the inside of the wrist. Then with an extractor the chip was removed and the girl was given a new ID which was written in big blue numbers on her right butt cheek. Her final task is to take a digital image of our faces to go with the new file.
She looked up at me when it was my turn. She checked her scanner. "You're not a student?"
"No, ma'am." I whispered.
"No talking." She said, looking at her machine. "Tax deferment." She looked at me. "Couldn't pay your taxes?"
“I was laid off." I answered.
"Stop talking." She hissed, then glanced at where the guard was.
"Stop asking me questions." I mumbled.
"I'm talking to myself." She said tartly. "They've been a lot of you lately. You held out." She murmured, slightly impressed.
I had savings. I also did some odd jobs when I could, but as the economy got worse, the jobs got fewer. Most of my former coworkers had already gone to the slaughter house. I fell back on my savings, before sliding into the red.
I still had to pay rent and taxes. Never ending, rent and taxes.
In my darkest, bleakest moment, scored a new job, a decent job. My first check went entirely to put minimum payments on each of my debts. I had breathing room! The incessant calls and texts and messages stopped and I finally had a good night’s sleep.
Precious.
I worked my ass off. I made bonuses. I lived entirely on tasteless soy, wore the same dress every day because I had nothing else. Zero entertainment, zero frills, zero life, just work, pay, work, pay, work, pay, and I paid and paid and paid.
I was going to claw my way out of debt.
Then, just as a tiny, faint, happy light appeared on my horizon, some bureaucratic wage slave with a hornet lodged in their asshole, pushed a button to make a very expensive super-computer do some big brain-brain think math and calculated my wage earning potential, and tabulated that even with wage raises, promotions, and sucking my boss’s dick, I would never be able to pay off the accumulating interest on my debt.
That was when I got the message to report.
When my chip was removed I felt truly naked standing there in the buff with only paper slippers on my feet. It was a bit of a comfort when my new number was printed on my butt. I strained to look back at it. My new name was 8659.
We shuffled forward to another girl with electric clippers. She grabbed a fist full of my hair, bent me over a bin and shaved my head quickly and efficiently. My scalp tingled from the peach fuzz that was left behind.
Another girl walked by with a box of gags. It had an inner ball that sat deep in my mouth. It's face shield wrapped tightly across my lips, hiding my face in a swath of black rubber. To further hide my identity, a black hood was draped over my head. I could look down and follow a line on the floor. It was important to hide us now, so that begging, pleading and tears would not influence the Magistrate. The woman who would decide our fate.
She didn’t actually decide anything. She had a monitor in front of her which told her what to say. It was based on the needs of society: if they were low on protein, we went to slaughter, low on baby production, to breeding, low on entertainment, the brothels.
I plodded along, listening to one woman reading out a number, and a second saying where she was going. The first would then instruct the girl to follow a different color line on the floor. Any girl that freaked and didn't do as told was shocked repeatedly and dragged off, being shocked all the way. Her screams made a very chilling deterrent to resistance.
They called out my number.
"Last one your honor." The first said. Rough hands gripped my breasts, hefting their weight. "She's a nice one."
"Prime cut." The magistrate said quickly. "Meat line. Next!"
Although it was no surprise, her voice stings and I tremble at the thought, but I can only think of the chirpy girl in the ad selling automatic spitting machines; her smile, and “See y’all at the barbeque!” I almost shout it out, but I have no voice, that and my mouth is packed full of the gag. As I bit of self inspiration, I congratulate myself for being prime cut. I would not be ground up and mixed with soy to make tasteless nutrition bars, but cut up, grilled up, and served with a side of soy potatoes and soy cauliflower.
See y’all at the barbecue.
I find the strength to move my feet, but the first woman is still holding my breasts.
"She the last." The first complained. "Your honor, look at these!" She hefted my boobs again, presenting them, then patted my ass. “Mmmm, this is nice. And look at her picture. I think she'd do well in the brothels."
The idea used to revolt me; to be a on call whore to munch bush for fat elderly magistrates and politicians, I would rather die. Now faced with death, I'd kill for the chance.
"She's too old." Magistrate said sharply. "Meat line. Prime cut.”
"She's quite a fine little thing." The first said, still holding my breast.
"She's twenty-three and too old. They'd only send her right back here and our quota for whole roasts are full. She's steaks. Green line, please."
The last was directed at me because she was too tired to argue with her subordinate any further and hoped I could do what her lackey couldn’t, follow orders. I looked to my feet and found the green line and shuffled along it. I was to be loaded on a truck and driven to a slaughter house where an air hammer would knock me senseless and a laser would slice me into neat cuts before I was dead.
Despite my best efforts, I sank into despair.
Then, unexpectedly, my luck had changed.
It did not improve, it just changed.
My knees buckled, but I walked. I moved along, head down, until I bumped into the girl at the end of the green line. We shuffled forward into the truck, but when I went to step up, a hand stopped me. "We're loaded." The voice said.
"She's the last." Another said.
"I'm loaded and I can't risk another fine for over-loading."
"Well, you'll have to come back."
"Do you know what time it is? I'm not coming back here for one cow." Again a hand cupped my breast. "Look at these, she should be a milker. Fuck, with these she should be in the brothels."
"I think she's too old."
Light flared as someone peeked under my hood to see my face. "Oh, she's not old at all. I'd like that face between my legs."
"She's too old."
That line was getting old.
"Well, with these udders, she'll pump milk like a champ." She then spoke to me. "You're a milker now. Follow the blue line." She took my arm and turned me around, then pushed me forward. "Follow the green back to where is branches off to blue and follow the blue line."
I hesitated. Under what authority would a truck driver, with demerits on their record I might mention, have the ability to over turn a Magistrate’s decision?
“Go wan! Git!” A hand slapped my ass.
Here’s something really funny: I was mortified. Who the heck do you think you are, slapping my ass?
Naked, ordered to be cold cuts, gagged and wearing a hood and how dare someone slap my ass as if I was a piece of meat?
Oh, wait. I was a piece of meat.
I turned and started walking.
I found the blue line. There where other colors, and I wondered where they went. I couldn't tell if anyone cared, but I trembled at the thought of shock sticks if I was found in the wrong line, so I followed the blue line.
I would live, sort of. A Rad Gun would fire a pulse of radiation into my frontal lobe. It would pass harmlessly through skin and bone, but in the center of my brain the beam would focus and my brain would be cooked. I'd be alive, but higher brain functions, thought, creativity, speech, would all be gone. I'd have the I.Q. of a real cow, as if there were any real cows left on the planet.
I would then be chemically altered to produce milk. My breasts would swell to the size of zeppelins! My arms and legs would be harvested, chopped off. I wouldn't need them. Not like I'd know or care with my deep fried brain. I'd know nothing of what was happening. I would be put in a stall. Pumps would be attached to my teats and a food tube shoved down my throat. I would then spend my days being milked. In time, seven years if I was lucky, my production would dry up and I’d be sent to slaughter.
I wasn’t quite sure about this new luck of mine.
I found myself in a room and I waited where the line ended for further instructions.
"Where have you been?" Someone shouted. "I was told sixteen milkers, not seventeen! I was only given enough battery charge for sixteen! And look at the time! I can't apply for another battery." A heavy sigh. "Alright. We'll have to make do. I'll just have to red line the battery. I'll have to re-do all my paper work! Thanks a lot!" She grabbed my arm and pulled me along. "Sit!"
I felt guilty as I sat there on the bench.
The stench of piss and shit was overwhelming and I gagged. I tried to maintain some decorum as I consoled myself that it would painless, and I would be blissfully unaware of my fate.
It would all be over in just a few minutes.
As I peered down, I could see the feet of a woman making her way along the benches, locking leg shackles to some of the women. The shackles were neo-ceramic, indestructible. They were connected by a short, flexible cable which would allow the cow to hobble along, but running or kicking was impossible. I flinched as she locked them around my legs. There was no key. Once locked on, they were on for life.
This made no sense. Our legs would be harvested. Why waste prime meat?
We shifted nervously when the harsh grinding buzz of the Rad Gun sounded as a girl had her brain burned. It was common for a girl to loose all bowel control after the radioactive lobotomy, and as the stench refreshed, burning my nostrils, I hoped I wouldn't be one of them. I didn't want to start my first day as a cow covered in my own manure.
More zaps. I shivered as the gun came down the line, closer. I wanted them to hurry. To walk over and stir fry my brain and get it over with and end this miserable day, my miserable existence. I didn't deserve this indignity!
I started to cry. I didn’t want to be ‘that girl’, bawling like a child, but I wasn't the only one. We all were that girl.
Thrashing.
Arms and legs flailing. A girl went into seizure as the Rad Gun burned her brain. From beneath my hood I could see her spazing on the floor as piss spewed like a sprinkler. The attendant stepped over the girl, put the gun to her forehead, and pulled the trigger to fry her a second time.
The girl moaned and fell silent and calm. She panted as if she'd just run a hundred meter dash. The attendant only shook her head and cursed and muttered to herself that she used another precious charge. She then stepped over to the next woman in line.
I closed my eyes and waited. Soon.
The woman beside me slumped and fell against me as if she'd just nodded off on the bus and not had her brain destroyed. I cradled her, happy for something to hold onto. I tried not to whimper as the gun rested against my temple.
I tried to be brave.
And the sun exploded in my head.
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Copyright, 10/2024, all rights reserved.
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