Routine was good, as it gave me a basis to springboard the whole day from. Waking up, freshening myself, cooking breakfast and drinking the fresh milk offered... I licked the creamy treat off my lips, shuddering slightly with my eyes closed at the taste. It was so good, akin to a liquid ambrosia, or at least how it would taste if it was real. This was the highlight of my mornings if I was being honest. Especially since I drank it before it was time to clean everything, including the house office I was stationed in.
That was another perk of the job, which I was glad about, since I didn't really want to stay at home any longer. Things were becoming unbearable there, the constant derision, the talk and talk and scolding—I let loose an explosive sigh, wanting another drink of the milk to stave off the gloom that started to cloud over me. The full-bodied taste of a full cream milk, with a drop of sweetness that was there even without a mix of sugar... That was a heady mix that made me giggle sometimes.
In the end, I forced myself to bring the plate and bottle to the sink and washed them all. There was a comfort to be taken here, one I didn't expect to happen. I never enjoyed doing chores when I was at home, but it was somehow alright here. The rhythm of washing the sauce off the ceramic, soaping them all up and even rinsing the suds away were a rhythm that lowered the spike of cortisol in my head.
By the time I was done, I was calm once more, ready for a new day of work. First, I would have to clean the house for whenever Mis—Boss might come around, my mind neatly skipping how I almost called her something else. I hummed softly as I went to the back, where all the cleaning implements were placed. My schedules were forming neatly in the back of my head. First I needed to take the rags, the one for cleaning tables—
The alarm
rang
. No, it was better to call it akin to a siren, the voice sharp and spiking me straight through my skull. My heart rate jumped immediately, panic rising sharply. I knew the feeling existed, and yet they somehow didn't seem real, pressing so tightly against my thoughts, clouding them. No, they were hidden, unable to get towards my body... But even so, I found my own breathing became ragged, everything else forgotten as I outright ran towards the ranch part of the house.
My short skirt flared as I loped through the corridors, both in a hurry and brain running on various possible worse case scenarios on what it might mean. Wait no, I could somehow feel my brain understanding the pitch, the way the alarm rang to narrow down what it meant.
It was a spiking stress level, a jump from relaxation to high stress. As if
they were attacked
.
Are the cows okay?
I wanted to scream that, but it didn't matter.
Whatever kept my panic from me broke, and all the stress I had been bottling slammed onto me all at once. A soft keen escaped my mouth as my run slowed to a trot before finally stopping, my heart beating a mile an hour as I hyperventilated right there in front of the door connecting to the barn. Panic curled in my chest, squeezing my lungs and heart as I scrabbled at the round knob. Wondering, thinking, why it wasn't the handle type where I didn't need to grasp it properly in my palm.
Finishing the work come first though. The way to calm the cows down already slotting themselves in my thoughts. I knew the buttons to press, the words to say to make the cows stop their mooing. I shouldn't be panicking, I knew. But at the same time, the alarm was still ringing, still telling me I had to
hurry
. I managed to open the door, my palm clammy against the cool steel.
The barn was clean, much cleaner than what it should be considering the amount of cows... I stopped, despite the still ringing alarm. I looked at the outright almost futuristic feel of the place, the sterile white that dominated the colors within the barn. And what was within each pen wasn't cows, no, none of them were cows.
Warnings flashed in my mind, but they were muted as I walked deeper into the ranch, the door closing behind me. It wouldn't be locked, but I found myself moving automatically, checking each pen as the co—no, women, with headset placed around their ears, and those milk pumps placed on their
huge
breasts... They were calm. Those headsets might be the reason they were placid, a small moo coming from each of them as I passed through them. As if they were greeting me, and a shiver passed through my spine again.
I continued moving, towards the back. None of the others were having problems, and the further I went, the more I realized that the problem came to the one that was told to me would be the calmest. She was the first one the Mist—the Boss bought. I tried to not think on that any deeper, knowing what I now knew. I ran towards the console in front of the pen, the woman inside being pressed by the many robot hands coming from the ceiling. One was holding a syringe with some sort of mixture inside, and the others were just padding, trying to push her inside and make her stop moving with those pads holding her down. So she could be injected. She actually didn't seem to be panicking. But the machines were saying she was, so it had to be true.
I didn't think much further than that, just placing myself in front of the console and pressed the buttons needed for manual override. Wait. Wasn't a panicking co—human—my head hurt, trying to reconcile the two conflicting information. But that didn't matter right now, the way to calm her down should be to do something else. Let her be restrained, injected. After all, the mixture would leave her mind open for the headset—
My hands let go of the buttons in a rush as if they were burned, the realization hot like fire against my chest. I should be scared, I should be running off right now. But I couldn't leave her alone, and so I continued the override commands. I ensured that the robot hands were retracting back to the ceiling, leaving the two of us alone, the fence between us. Opening it was easy, more information floating up to my brain with just a stray thought.
