Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Six Points

The chair used to be scary, like a cross between one of those old-fashioned hair dryers from beauty salons in old videos and something from the Spanish Inquisition, but after three months Amanda sat down without any qualms. The needles snaking their way into her skull were scary, too, at first, but it was amazing to Amanda how quickly she could get used to being injected with microscopic amounts of a potent (and highly targeted, the company doctor assured her) bio-toxin. Ignoring the sensation, Amanda passed the time by starting into a small pile of fashion magazines. One of the ads captured her image and superimposed six different hairstyles over her own. Amanda flipped between them, wondering if she could convince the tech to make her hair grow out red after she got off shift.

Fifteen minutes later, Amanda stood and shook her head from side to side like they had shown her in the training session her first day. Her hair fell all at once, trying and failing to stay rooted in follicles that were no longer alive. A jet of compressed air blew down from a vent above her, automatically sweeping stray strands from her face and clothing as a hemispherical cleaning bug slid out of a recess in the far wall to gobble up what had been left on the floor.

Amanda made her way to her station, and sat down in front of the same technician she had sat down in front of for the last three months. She didn't know his name, and didn't really care to. She wasn't even entirely sure the techs were human behind their surgical masks. The techs never really fraternized with the subjects, except maybe for one or two trivial warnings about the procedure.

"You done antlers before, right?"

"Yeah, I already know about the neck brace."

The worst part about it was she couldn't move her head to read her magazine. She had to hold her arms out straight at shoulder level, like a zombie who was really interested in Cosmo, and that made it difficult to pass the four hours of her shift. It didn't hurt, though, when it came time to cut the antlers off. They usually slipped an anesthetic in with the genetically recombined follicle transplants and accelerated growth factors and all that. Besides, how else would some hick in Iowa or wherever get a nice set of antlers for his den? Kill some poor defenseless animal? No thank you!

It could be worse. She could have been assigned to steaks.

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