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Bowen’s Select
Wales, Blue League
Aaron watched as the pokeballs were loaded one by one into the healing machine until the six ball tray was full. The Catgirl pushed a button and the tray sank into the machine. She checked the display and finally looked up. “Sir, they’re all good. None of them test as more than half feral so none of them should need conditioned. I’ll proceed with the healing and cleaning cycle.”
“Thank you, Mel.” Aaron turned to the courier from the Ministry of Defense. “I’ll authorize acceptance now.”
The man held out a tablet. While Aaron was verifying his thumbprint and DNA scan, he regarded Aaron with annoyance. “Why didn’t you do that an hour ago?”
Aaron smiled thinly. “That’s right; you’re new on this route. Let me just say that I’ve had some surprises when we unpacked our delivery and dealing with any irregularities is much easier while the potential troublemakers are still in their balls.” He held out the tablet. “I’ve received all two hundred and fifty two pokegirls and you can verify that the ministry has received payment for them.” He frowned. “I’d heard that Roland retired. Are you going to be our new regular deliveryman?”
“No, I’m not. I’m just covering while she’s on leave. Her name is Beverly Hawkins and she’ll start delivering next Monday.”
Aaron nodded. “Well, then, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned slightly. “Melanie?” The Catgirl’s ears rotated to orient on him. “Show this nice gentleman out when you’re done. On the way, point out the break room to him so he can wait there next time. This isn’t really so exciting he’ll want to see it every visit.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir.”
‘Thank you. If you need me, I’ll be in the observation room watching Elaine process the new arrivals.” Aaron stopped off for a cruller and a bottle of orange juice before tracing out the path to the observation room. Once he arrived he pulled a chair up to the one way mirror and settled back to watch.
Elaine was an Alaka-Wham and the only psychic pokegirl in the entire alpha facility. She was checking the pokeballs which had just been delivered and turned to wave in the direction of the mirror. “Good morning, Aaron. I didn’t know you were on site today.”
There was a microphone and earpiece on the shelf in front of the window but Aaron knew he didn’t need to use them for Elaine. He spoke in a normal tone that was completely inaudible in the processing room where she stood. “I got called in from beta because of a sticking pin in one of the beds. Leslie knew I was going to be here and so she asked me to sign for today’s delivery. She wanted the day off to rest.”
Elaine’s antenna twitched. “Without trying to sound insulting, sir, her pregnancy isn’t that far along yet. She’s just using it as an excuse to blow off work.”
“I know, but she’s my sister and father won’t say anything unless her laziness affects production. I’m here to make sure it doesn’t and he will remember it.”
Elaine nodded. Aaron’s father doted on Leslie, his only human daughter, and everyone was aware of it. “Once again, without intending insult, her behavior shames me. I don’t suppose I could transfer to being your pokegirl, sir?”
He frowned. “You know I’m the maintenance engineer for both sites. I’m usually pretty busy at beta and work really long hours.”
“Yes, sir, but I will always know that you’re busy even without checking. Your work ethic is much more like mine than Leslie’s is.” She flashed a smile. “I’d see you after work and could even come by and help with the maintenance after I get off the job.”
Aaron considered her words before shrugging. “If you’re serious come to my bedroom tonight. I’ll work it out with father afterward.”
Elaine gave a satisfied smile to the mirror and turned back to the pokeballs. I’ll be there, she whispered into Aaron’s mind. It was perfectly all right for Leslie to be lazy, but Olivia, the alpha, was starting to show signs of similar behavior and the other girls would follow her lead. Mark Bowen would put up with many things in his daughter that he would never tolerate in any employee in his company and the Alaka-Wham wanted out before any hint that Leslie’s laziness was infecting the rest of her harem reached him.
Using her telekinesis, she toggled twenty five pokeballs simultaneously. The girls who materialized were a mix of breeds, but all were inexpensive common or uncommon breeds like Catgirls, Ingenue, Eva, Dog Girls, Ponytaur and Ladyba. There were no psychic or dark pokegirls and no pokegirls with any sort of precognition. Also absent were any pokegirls made of rock or steel. All were league confiscations from storage or taken from people who had been convicted of crimes in which the sentence involved revocation of any license to own pokegirls.
She reached out with her mind to touch theirs. Good morning. I am Elaine and I want to welcome you to your new employment in Bowen Industries. Bad luck has recently been in your life and you have lost your tamer for one reason or another, but that luck has changed to good with your selection as prospective employees here at Bowen.
Confident that she had everyone’s attention, she continued aloud. “Today you will go through orientation and be assigned to your dorm room. Tomorrow you’ll begin your apprenticeship in the Bowen production lines. You’re all under a thirty day probationary period and after that term is over you’ll become full employees here and be given your permanent assignments.” She motioned towards a wall where some tables were set up. On them were neatly stacked white garments. “You are all in Group One and get to wear white robes. If any of you don’t want to wear clothes, that’s fine, but you will need to put on a white bracelet or scarf.” She eyed them sternly. “Failure to wear your group color will get you a demerit each time you’re caught violating the rule. If you get ten demerits during your probationary period you will be immediately returned to the league for disposal.” She waited for the murmuring to die down before giving the group a warm smile. “But you’re all good girls and none of you want that. I’m sure there won’t be any problems with you. You will go through orientation, eat and be assigned sleeping quarters as a group.” She looked around and clapped her hands. At the signal, a door opened and a Hound appeared. “Girls, this is Natalie and she will be your guide today.”
Natalie gave them a cheerful wave. “Girls, please form a line at the clothing table. Let’s keep it orderly and no pushing. You’ll all get a chance to choose a robe, wristband or scarf.” She smiled, carefully not showing her teeth. “If anyone wants a robe, a scarf and a wristband they’re more than welcome to them. Now, as soon as we’re done here, I’ll take you to the cafeteria where you will be fed a rich, nourishing soup. It’s been tested and is perfectly fine for all metabolisms.” The line formed almost instantly.
As soon as they were gone, Melanie appeared through another door. She and Elaine put away the unused clothes and laid out identical outfits in a soft red. Then the Catgirl left. She’d be the guide for the last group. Elaine rehearsed her speech as she readied the next batch of pokeballs. She had to do this nine more times before she was done for the day. Her antenna twitched, checking to see if Aaron was still observing, and noted with satisfaction that he’d already left. He was always so busy. She knew he’d be back that evening with the two girls in his tradesman harem and would probably sleep here at the alpha facility so as to be on hand in case there were any more difficulties with the beds. She reached out with her mind to Olivia and informed the Tigress that she was going to spend the night at the alpha facility to deal with a potential problem. The Tigress was lounging with their mistress in the sun by the pool and responded with an indifferent mental grunt of permission before turning her attention back to the bowl of Bowen’s Select pokechow she was nibbling on.
***
After eating, Natalie led her group of charges to an AV room and motioned for them to enter. “Take a seat, girls. There are more chairs than there are you and so I do not expect any sort of squabbles over them. Fighting will get the instigators three demerits and everyone else involved one demerit.”
“Excuse me,” a Ladyba wearing a scarf wrapped around her waist asked curiously. “Why would the people defending themselves get a demerit?”
“What is your name?”
The Ladyba visibly flinched and a couple of the pokegirls nearby backed away from her. “Jessica.”
Natalie carefully kept her ears up and a partial smile on her face. “It’s a good question, Jessica. We have it as policy here in order to keep people from jumping in to break up a fight. That just gets more people involved and dramatically increases the chances that someone will get seriously hurt.” She lifted her lip in a silent snarl that showed her teeth. “If there is a fight I will break it up.” Then she smiled again. “But I know you aren’t going to fight over something as paltry as a chair. Please sit.” She waited until everyone had found a seat. “For the next half hour you’ll watch a video. After that I’ll let you have a chance to pee and get something to drink. Then we’ll do it again. After two hours we’ll go outside to the exercise yard and walk for a little while before coming back and doing it all again.” She watched a couple of them visibly droop. “Today’s orientation videos will last for four hours, so we’ll only be doing it twice. You’ve all been run through a healing cycle, so if you fall asleep it’ll be out of boredom. I’d recommend you stand up if you feel sleepy. If you don’t and you do fall asleep, I’ll dump you on the floor and everyone else will laugh at you.” Natalie wriggled her ears. “I can hear the faintest snore, girls, so don’t test me.” A couple of the pokegirls immediately stood. “Smart, girls.”
She pulled a remote from the pouch on her belt and pressed a button on it. The lights dimmed slightly and the screen at the front of the room activated. An attractive woman smiled at them. “Welcome to your new employment at Bowen Industries.” As the woman continued speaking, Natalie took up station near the door and ignored the video to watch for girls falling asleep.
***
Jessica looked around her room and resisted hugging herself for a moment before giving in and clasping all four arms around her body. “I have my own room,” she whispered. Granted, it was a tiny room, just big enough for a narrow bunk along one wall. Drawers were built into the wall at the head of the bed and a door opened into a cramped closet with a handful of battered hangers dangling from the clothes rod. But to her, feral born, captured into a tamer’s harem, salvaged through three other harems before being put into long term storage and forgotten and finally confiscated by the league only to be sent here, it was paradise. “I have my own room.” She giggled loudly and clasped hands over her mouth until the giggles had passed.
She carefully unwrapped her scarf from her waist and hung it up, running her hands over it and appreciating the smoothness. Then she yawned and climbed into bed. The only thing that would have made this room better was if it had come with her own tamer, but everyone had been assured at dinner that men and women would be available when the time came. She rolled over, listening to her full stomach gurgle. Dinner had been as much of the delicious soup as anyone could eat and she’d eaten until she was stuffed. She stretched out luxuriously before pushing the button that turned off the lights and curling up to sleep.
***
In the primary control room of the alpha facility, an Umbrea watched the infrared camera in Jessica’s room and checked the monitor showing her vitals. Satisfied that the Ladyba was asleep, she switched to another room, running one by one through the members of Group One. In each room the occupant was asleep, lulled by the boring videos as well as the mild sedatives in the soup. She touched a button and an automated program began running. A timer appeared and began running backwards from ten minutes.
She pressed a button on the intercom. “Group One is hot. Ten minutes.”
The intercom clicked and an anonymous voice replied. “We’re ready.” The Umbrea knew they were echoing the countdown in the waiting room.
She glanced behind her where Aaron Bowen was faintly illuminated by the display lights. “The pin problem was on bed six.”
He nodded and plugged his handheld computer into a slot. “Yeah, the vent valve was sticking and so the pin wouldn’t go back to the ready position.” He pulled up some schematics. “The maintenance girls fixed it pretty quickly and the retest went perfectly. I also tweaked the software in order to improve performance by a few percent.” He glanced up. “Is anyone sleeping with their feet on the pillow, Beatrice?”
The Umbrea shook her head. “Not tonight, sir. Everything should proceed on automatic.” She grinned, showing her needle sharp teeth. “I do like a manual once in a while, but not tonight.” She started the timer on Group Two and notified the waiting room.
The first timer spun down to zero. Underneath the mattress at the head of each bed was an indexing table and during the countdown, each table had incrementally shifted into position. At zero, fifteen thousand psi air drove a steel pin through the pillow into the side of Jessica’s skull, driving deep into the brain and killing her instantly. Five seconds later a three way valve activated and air went from the bottom of the piston to the top, pulling the pin back out into the ready position as a vent opened to let air hiss off the bottom of the driver piston. The tiny bit of blood from the whole in her skull was absorbed by the pillow.
In the control room, Aaron watched his display with satisfaction. All the pins had deployed and retracted as designed.
The door to Jessica’s room opened and two pokegirls pushed a cart into the room. It was quickly maneuvered alongside the bed and the mattress and pillow, along with the dead Ladyba, were dumped into the cart. One of them opened the closet and dropped the scarf on top of the body while the other checked the drawers. As they left, one of the pokegirls pulled the door shut and pressed a button next to it.
Inside the control room, the Umbrea noted that room six was locked and ready as other teams of pokegirls emptied all twenty rooms of Group One. As soon as they were clear she touched a button and the door accessing the hall to Group One’s bunkrooms locked. The hall and all of the rooms beyond it quickly filled with 200C steam as the pins extended again. Everything was sterilized in a bath lasting half an hour.
She looked up when Aaron unplugged his computer and stood. “Are you going to watch the processing of the other groups?”
He shook his head. “I’m headed down to the loading bay. I’ll catch a ride with the transport back to the beta site.”
“Yes sir.”
***
Elaine yawned and got up to follow him off of the transport. Aaron had known that Leslie was falling down on the job, but if things had gotten so bad that Elaine had overcome her loyalty to his sister enough to ask him to bond her, he hadn’t realized just how far things had gotten. He frowned and she smiled. “Why?”
“Are you going to always be in my head?”
The smile vanished. “Not if you don’t want me to, sir. It’s just an easy way to anticipate your wants. Leslie forbade me a long time ago and being able to do so once more proved too much of a temptation. I won’t do it again.”
He looked back at her. “If you were in my head, you know that it surprised me. It didn’t anger me. You have permission to keep tabs on my thoughts as long as you are loyal to me.”
“Why would I be disloyal to you, sir?”
“You did betray my sister’s loyalty to come to me.”
Elaine nodded. “That I did, but it was because I suspect that the lives of Leslie’s harem are in danger from her refusal to do her duties to the family. Eventually, sir, your father’s patience will run out and he can punish her by taking away her pokegirls, one by one, until she decides she wants to behave again like a Bowen. I would likely be the first to end up here.” She gestured at the full carts rolling off of the hover transport.
“It may not come to that,” Aaron said softly. “Father and I have discussed the situation and he feels that if Leslie cannot hold up her responsibilities then she should leave the family business and just raise his grandchild.” He read the surprise in her gaze. “You could still be with her then and not have to worry about this place.”
The Alaka-Wham took a deep breath. “I want to work here, sir. We do good work here and help protect the league more than any individual tamer could.”
“If that’s your choice, Elaine, then come with me.”
***
Behind them the carts were pushed by the collection teams into the beta facility. They traveled until they stopped at a deep opening and the pokegirls dumped the contents into the mouth of the grinder. One of the team, a powerful looking Amachop, leaned forward slightly. “Why don’t they clean the bodies first? I’ve never understood that.”
The Dragonqueen leading the teams spat into the grinder. “It’s simple. The cleaning cycle they get when they arrive removes all of the contents of their bowels and stomach. They only get soup to make sure they’re nice and hydrated before going into the grinder. That and the drugs make certain they sleep well before they get chopped. It’s all about making sure they’re not stressed in the least before they die.”
“What happens after this, Regina?”
The Dragonqueen sighed. “You’ve never watched the whole process?” She glanced at her deputy. “Take the others back and get something to eat. Make sure they’re not up too late.” She looked at the Amachop. “Come along, Denise.” The dragon pokegirl led her to a cramped looking lift. “Now we go down.”
At the bottom, she nodded towards the grinder stretching above them. “As you know, that reduces the bodies and everything else we dump in there into slurry.” She pointed at a massive piston pump. “From here the slurry is pumped into those holding tanks. Company policy dictates that it be stored there no more than half an hour in order to keep its freshness.”
She led Denise along the pipes, stopping when they entered a control room. A Ria looked up from where she was taking logs. “What do you want, Regina?”
“I’m giving Denise the ten credit tour. Tell her what you do here.”
The Ria glared for a heartbeat. “When I’m not answering stupid questions I’m mixing.” She pointed out the window of the control room. “Bowen Industries maintains several farms and Milktit dairies in the area. A lot of that is sold for consumption, but the spoiled fruit and vegetables get ground up elsewhere and then gets sent here along with a good amount of milk to be mixed with the meat you guys bring in. For the record, the recipe is a closely guarded secret that I don’t know and don’t want to know. Rumor has it that anyone who learns it gets a ride through the grinder.” She pointed at another large pipe. “That’s where the mix goes to the pressing room. There the mix gets forced into molding presses to make the trademark star shaped pellet. The pellets go to the ovens where they get roasted.” She picked up a small paper bag and tossed it to the Amachop. “You’re holding the final product. The roasted pellets are bagged as Bowen’s Select Pokegirl Chow and shipped all over the place.” She grinned toothily. “We make a profit by helping out the league.”
Denise popped some of the pellets into her mouth. “How are we helping?”
Regina shook her head. “We process two hundred and fifty two unwanted pokegirls every day into seven tons of meat. That’s over ninety thousand pokegirls a year that become chow before they can reproduce or go feral.” She looked at the Ria. “Pamela, how much pokechow do we ship?”
“Bowen’s Select is fifty percent pure meat protein and so we ship fourteen tons of the blended pokegirl chow a day.” The Ria counted on her claw tips. “So we move a little more than five thousand tons of it a year. It goes all over Blue and all over the rest of the world. Loaded with protein and milk fat and with no preservatives or additives, Bowen’s Select is one of the premium chows you can get anywhere in the world and has been for more than a century.”
Regina scowled. “Now you sound like a commercial.”
“Hey, if you don’t like it, don’t eat it.” The Ria grinned. “That just leaves more for me.”
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