Black Skull 16
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66.10.04 04:20
From: The Board
To: You
Dear valued BLOOM employee,
Hey friends,
We hope you enjoyed the little gift last week. We know how hard you guys and gals are working, and we'll always be the first to celebrate our valued employees. Your cooperation with the ongoing investigation hasn't gone unnoticed, believe us. The dataset has been unbelievably rewarding, full of insightful delights.
You truly are a wonderful workforce. We couldn't be happier with your output. That's not to say there's no room for improvement or opportunities to optimise. Trim the fat, as they say.
We hope you're excited to see just how lean we can get, and we're thrilled to be able to extend the Deli Shares program for yet another week. Any ration pack, 75% off. For a limited time only, so order yours today!
Peace and love,
The Board.
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66.10.04 22:30
From: You
To: The Board
Dear masters,
I felt like I was dreaming as I drove up to the facility in the middle of vast, sculpted, ornamented grounds, a walled-in oasis in a forest of towering redwoods. Dusty light cast the low white buildings in a kind of aura and as I drove up the track the white gravel crunched under the tires. A big old tree leaned over a patch of grass in front of the main house and I parked in front of the entrance – a grand set of stone steps with carved stone handrails and spindles.
Before I could get out, two black-shirted marketing folks popped up out of nowhere making me shit my pants. Their etched-on smiles were disconcerting as they welcomed me to the Nutrition Department.
I felt they were like a pair of guards as they marched me down the echoing corridor and into the heart of the facility. A low hum reverberated everywhere and there was a faint sweet smell of ice cream and popcorn in the air.
We didn't come across anyone else but I felt like there were plenty of people just behind the many doors we passed. We came to a single windowless door and my guides stood either side like guards, flashing fake smiles.
The room was no more than a cell. Daylight attempted to penetrate a little dirty window high up in one wall. There was a stainless-steel toilet in one corner and a bench built into one wall. There was a pile of dirty rags on the bench and for a second I wondered why they were imprisoning me. Then the rags moved and I saw five long thin fingers, the back of a hand and a wrist. Then two big eyes in sockets so hollow it looked like a skeleton sat up on the bench, a living skeleton who took a shallow rattling breath and coughed a couple times, making pathetic attempts to cover itself with the rags.
If it weren't for the wrinkled breasts hanging off her chest like two parasitical fish, I wouldn’t have been able to tell if it was a man or a woman. All her hair had fallen out and her scalp was scabbed and peeling. I felt horrible, standing there in front of this burnt-out human, so close to death that the very stench of her made me want to turn and start beating on the door. But I knew I couldn't leave until I got the bloody job done, so I took out the halo and got my questionnaire ready.
I had to ask her to raise her voice a few times but when I could hear her, my mouth dropped open at what she told me. Farms of young women hidden away like caged animals and forced to provide for the company.
Milk? You got it. Eggs? You got it. Hair, collagen, uteruses, whatever they want. They chop, suck, pull, steal, take whatever they like. She was lucky. As a dam, all she had to do was sit plugged in at the parlour 6 times a day.
It wrecks your body. Overproducing milk leads to iron deficiency and she had alopecia and psoriasis. Then when you dry up, they ship you off to a mine if you can still work or a camp if you can't. I'm going to a copper mine up north, she said. I won't make it through the winter.
She spoke matter of factly and after I scanned her, she said, Can you believe it’s my twenty-third birthday?
Your miserable servant,
Employee 531.448
