Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
The place was a morgue.
Rows of silver tables filled all available space except the far left corner, which was taken up with some kind of large, bulky machine. On every table was a body—naked and cold and—
“Oh, Mother Toone!” Penny gasped, as her eyes fell on the table closest to the door.
On it, lying stiff and cold, was the corpse of the NeverBreeder attendant. She was naked, which showed that she had nothing between her legs, like all the NeverBreeders. But even missing her silver jumpsuit, Penny still recognized her.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she whispered, taking a step towards the table. “I’m so sorry. I just…”
And then her eyes fell on the table beside her old attendant and her breath caught in her throat. The corpse on that cold silver table was human…a female.
It was Claudette.
Penny’s heart began hammering in her chest.
“No,” she whispered, as her eyes traced her friend’s cold, lifeless face. “Oh, no…oh, no!”
But there was no doubt about it—the corpse was Claudette. She was laid out like an accident victim on a slab, though there were no marks anywhere on her skin.
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Penny walked forward to stand beside her friend’s body.
“Claudette,” she whispered. “Oh God. Oh please, no…”
Her eyes blurred with tears as she looked down at her friend’s cold, still face. At least she didn’t look like she’d died in any kind of pain. Maybe they just gave a lethal injection to the people who were recycled.
But that was irrelevant as far as Penny was concerned. Her only friend in the Compound besides V’rex had been killed. Murdered because after years and years of producing fetus after fetus for the Glorious Leader, her body couldn’t produce any more. And so she was deemed no longer useful and had been “recycled.”
“It’s not recycling, it’s murder!” Penny whispered, feeling a mixture of rage and sorrow. “This place is sick—it’s sick!”
Reaching out, she stroked Claudette’s soft, black hair.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her friend. “So sorry we couldn’t get out of here together. I…I’ll never forget you.”
Just then a door opened right beside the huge machine that took up the far left corner of the room.
“Got a big job today,” one voice said and Penny saw that it belonged to a NeverBreeder worker, dressed in one of the ubiquitous silver jumpsuits.
“’Fraid so. They recycled an extra-large lot yesterday,” another NeverBreeder answered him.
“Yep—plenty of meat for the butcher shop. We’ll all be eating well tonight!” his coworker said and laughed.
Their conversation made Penny’s stomach clench. But she knew she had to act quickly. Moving by instinct, she crouched low, hoping to hide among the silver tables filled with bodies.
She was glad it was dim in the room, but what if the NeverBreeders had especially good eyesight? How could she explain being in here if they caught her? She was absolutely sure what she had seen wasn’t meant for her eyes—for the eyes of any breeder for that matter. If they caught her, she was going to be in so much trouble!
As she crept slowly backwards, through the maze of tables, she heard the workers continue their conversation.
“You want to roll the first one up here?” one worker was saying to another. “I’ll get the piecer turned on and warmed up.”
As he spoke, he flipped a switch on the side of the huge machine, which had a long silver chute at one end and a conveyer belt assembly at the other. In between, from the large metal body of the machine, protruded several clear tubes that ran down to a drain in the floor.
As soon as the first worker flipped the switch, the machine he had called “the piecer” started humming. As Penny watched, horrified, the other NeverBreeder worker rolled a table with a dead humanoid male up to the chute at the far end of the machine.
I knew him, Penny thought, looking at the corpse. He worked in the garment shop in the Marketplace, right across from me!
He was a nice looking, older gentleman who had always given her a kind nod when their eyes met as they both did their jobs. Penny had even bought a spare toga from him the day before last and though she didn’t know his name, he had struck her as a kind and courteous man, unlike a lot of the aggressive, younger male breeders.
Well apparently being kind and courteous isn’t enough to keep you alive around here, whispered a little voice in her head as she watched in fascinated horror.
Working together, the two workers lifted the male by his heels and shoulders and dumped him down the silver chute.
The humming of the machine turned into a grinding roar and the clear tubes began spouting crimson down the floor drain at once. A coppery, metallic scent drifted towards her and Penny’s eyes went wide as her nose wrinkled.