Awoken
Chapter 1
~
I stared at the lever in front of me. To this day, I wasn't sure how I got a job in the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation. It started when I completed my schooling in Cloudsdale and sent a few applications for a job. A few came back; one of them was from the CWC. My degree in engineering could have gotten my a good job far away, but there was a reason I could not go far away and leave my home behind. In my mind, a beautiful face stared back at me. I saw the world in her green eyes. Even my life. That was all gone now.
A chorus of screams and other animal-like sounds jolted me out of my thoughts. The colt was caught in a series of thin chains that binded his wings and legs. He struggled, but the chains only tightened, a result of the mechanism that ensured the victim would not escape. A line of chained foals (unfortunate flight school failures) by the wall stared wide-eyed at their companion dangling by the mouth of the machine. They knew the end was coming; fear was written all over their faces. Sighing, I pull the lever down, a small blade quickly slices across a small spot just besides his throat. A needle jams into the wound and the colt's screams abruptly end with a gurgle. The bloodless body was then transported into the dark inside of the Super Filly Squeezy 8000, never to be seen again. The process was repeated 12 more times, and then I proceed into the control room for a reading on the spectra levels with the screams and wails still ringing in my ears.
I hated the ghastly way spectra was gathered. Spectra was magic that ran inside all living things and provided it with colour. The only known way to extract spectra , We were told, was to take the blood of the living. But this was not made know to us right away. Not even the lower factory workers knew; in fact, you were told once you were promoted and it was made pretty clear there was no turning back. 4 years ago, I didn't think this was much of an issue. Working in the lower factory was not as bad. The pegasi tended to snow, cloud and various other weather makings. There were also pools of spectrum, used for making rainbows. Workers milled around sturring pools of the most beautiful colours I had ever seen: red, orange yellow, and so forth. What puzzled me was that the colours were all within one pool, yet they did not mix into a unreconizable dark mush. But the dark secret of the ingredients tainted the beauty, and now all I could see was pools of deep red.
From the printer I grabbed the piece of paper with fresh ink drying on it. Glancing at it I noticed the high levels of violet spectrum in the drums. A powder blue pegasus with an odd cutiemark consisting of 6 stars and a comet that was sitting in front of the control panel turned to look at me.
"Oh, Seeder. They have high levels of purple spectrum today," Nova says, "It's probably a good thing, with the previous batch running low and all."
"Did you know if they were done with the wires in section 52 yet? Last I heard they were installing a update on the system and wanted me to check it out."
She shakes her heads slightly. "No word yet, since we're not allowed down the lower floors we just have to wait for Dr. Atmosphere to pass the news". She turns back to the panel and stares at the rows of endless buttons and switches and studies then intently before tapping a few and glancing at the screens located above her head. "I'll send a message to them." I give her my thanks and left.
The Upper Factory was dark, the interiors were slightly foggy with dark cloud walls and strips of weak lighting. The main theater room was still closed off, it had only been a few years since an incident caused Rainbow Dash to shut it down and stopped production for 2 weeks. Many more walkways were suspended above the machine and pipelines. Old caution signs covered in years of grime and muck. Walking past dangling wires, I made my way back to the panel that controlled the SFS 8000.
It was soon to be replaced by a newer, faster and more advanced version. I mentally shuddered at the thought of how many more foals would go through the machine in its lifetime, which was about 20 years of heavy use. Flight school failures were coming by more and more often- I briefly wondered how no one seemed to miss the ponies who had gone missing. I quickly slipped the sheet of paper into the machine and waited for the processing to be completed. Above, the sound of hooves echoed. Looking up, a ghostly pair of blue-ish purple eyes bored into mine. The Manager, ranking below Atmosphere but above most of us.
I whipped my head back to face the SFS 8000. No one is idle when he watches.