The Olsen 'family' Dairy farm had begun as a smallholding some two hundred years in the distant past. As time ground on most of the other local farms sold up to the ever growing big farming companies or vanished into housing development. The Olsen farm struggled on defiantly, slowly lagging further and further behind its competitors until the farm was only kept afloat by locals who trusted in the quality of their produce.
Then some five years ago, the fickle hand of fate touched the small ailing farmstead. John Olsen the young farmer who had only recently taken over from his aging father won the lottery, he surprised his neighbours by staying on his land and investing his new found fortune into cutting edge modern technology rather than indulging in luxuries. His investment turned his dilapidated farm into a high tech modern business and began to spread the local fame of its produce into the start of a nationally known brand.
His daughter, Cindy thought it was the stupidest idea in the world.
"But daddy I have things I need to be doing this week. I was going to go shopping," she whined pouting at her father's exasperated expression.
"You can waste your allowance another time Cindy. I'm three men down with this damn flu and if I don't make the show I'll lose customers. The whole farm is automated, you just have to keep an eye on things and call me if we get any more glitches," Her father replied glaring at her, "It will do you some good to actually do some chores around here instead of wasting your time flirting at boys."
Cindy knew when she could get past her father and from the sound of it this wasn't going to be one of those times. He was a big man, his receding hairline just starting to show a touch of grey at the temples with the deep tan and rough skin of a man who had worked outside almost every day in his life.
At eighteen Cindy looked the very opposite of the typical farmers daughter, she was just over 5'5" tall, slim and tanned, with long manicured nails, cascading waves of blonde highlighted hair and pert C cup breasts outlined clearly under a near scandalously tight designer summer dress.
"But daddy you're going to be gone three weeks," she began to protest again stretching out his name in a pleading tone that usually melted her father's resolve.
"But nothing sweetheart, all the big buyers go to the stock shows. I'm going to be shorthanded as it is - even your younger brother is coming and heaven knows I'd take you instead if you had ever showed the slightest interest in the family business in your entire life."
"Why can't you just hire on more men?" she protested snappily, "Grandpa said the farm used to need five times the workers it does now."
"This is the Olsen family farm Cindy and damn it all you are family, so for once in your life you will do as your told. The farm doesn't need more men it just needs the ones it's got to get over this flu bug that's been going around. We are a family business honey we don't need outside help," Her father replied snappily.
"Yeah well we're supposed to be entirely organic too but that doesn't stop you pumping the cows full of that crap you get delivered each month," Cindy retorted nastily, from the look that flashed across her father's face she knew immediately that she had gone too far.
"You are doing it and that's final!" her father snapped angrily, "And if you don't do it you will lose your allowance for the next six months - and don't think I won't find out, I'll check the security logs when I get home to make sure you did a good job."
With that final ultimatum delivered her father stormed off outside, the sounds of one of the livestock transports starting up and rumbling away signalling his departure from the farm with the rest of the family leaving her on her own.
Normally Cindy avoided home as much as possible, she had recently flunked out of college showing little desire for study and no desire at all to find a job to the despair of her family. She spent most of her time hanging out with her friends or off spending her allowance and seldom if ever did any chores about the place, so instead of beginning the list of chores her father had given her she settled herself down in her room to sulk over her unfair families unrealistic demands on her time.
Eventually however the threat of losing her substantial allowance outweighed her desire to sulk so she went outside and walked the short distance to the grey steel dairy buildings.
Signing in at the entrance she looped an ID necklace around her neck and walked along the long observation gantry that led to the control room, below her whole herds of cattle were being cared for by the automated system - inspected, milked, cleaned and fed by machines that carefully monitored each individual cow. The farm had twelve huge barns just like this one with another set up as an automated slaughterhouse all controlled by a sophisticated computer system that meant the farm could handle many more times its original stock with only a fraction of the manpower.
Oblivious to the great mass of mooing cattle beneath her she opened the door leading to the control room and threw herself into a chair, she checked the screens and the long panel of numbered green lights, the entire system was set up to flag any anomalies it couldn't fix itself, so as long as none of the lights went red the entire place ran itself, with the workers on hand only to oversee things and top up the vast tanks of feed and other supplies.
She sat listening to her IPod until the system announced it was entering its 'sleep' phase to allow the vast amount of cattle to rest until morning and then logged herself out of the system and headed for bed.
***
The beeping of an alarm woke Cindy in the early hours of the morning. Unlike the rest of her relatives, Cindy usually slept in till noon but the steady beeping noise was not coming from her alarm.
Sitting up sleepily she realised that the noise was coming from her father's room down the hall, the computer system was programmed to wake her father in case of a problem and from the sound of the shrill beeping there was definitely something wrong.
Swearing under her breath she got up rubbing sleep out of her eyes and threw on her red dressing gown and slippers. Heading outside she noticed with disgust that it was still dark, the cold night wind whipping around her bare legs and cutting through her dressing gown and the flimsy negligee she had on underneath it making her shiver and hurry towards the farm sheds.
Ignoring the log in desk she opened the door and dashed inside, the giant barn was heated to keep the stock comfortable and despite the strong smell of a large amount of livestock crammed into a limited space it was a welcome relief from the biting cold.
Hurrying to the control room she saw a single
blinking red light labelled 'intake pen' on the board and taking a seat she tried to bring up a view of the problem.
"Bertha, identify the problem in the intake pen," she commanded.
