Leaving the station, the Girl made her way to the Building. Technically, it was named SATAFST, but she couldn’t recall what the letters stood for, even though it was really easy to remember. She shielded her eyes from the clouded grey light glaring from the perpetually cloudy sky, trying in vain to gauge the height of the Building, which remained maddingly out of sight. In the dense fog, it was impossible to see an outline of The Building, and even when you were up close, you couldn’t see the top. From first appearances, it was a lot higher than it looked, and the interiors were easy to get lost in. She got off at the 33rd floor where she was expected to do her business as one of the valuable members of the Baby-Making Machines.
“You’re late!”
For some reason, no matter how fast she ran to the workplace, she was always exactly five minutes slow. She could’ve saved herself some time if she skipped her bathing ritual, but wanted to keep herself as smell-free as possible. Besides, even when she did skip cleaning herself, she wound up being late anyways, so might as well do the washing up and bathroom duties where she felt moderately comfortable.
“I got here as fast as I could.” This perfunctory excuse was just the usual morning ritual she was expected to go through. Once her tardiness was asserted, the remainder of the working schedule could continue as usual.
“Wait there until you’re needed.”
One of the most annoying things about her job was that she never knew with absolute certainty if she was going to be called up or not. She would be in a mad rush to get up, make it on time (five minutes late), only to find out that she wouldn’t be needed until later. On the one hand, this was something of a relief, since it meant she didn’t have to work, but it also made her a nervous wreck not to be needed until later. It could be as long as five minutes to five hours, and no one would let her know earlier. And the intervals when she was needed and not kept getting longer and longer.
She enjoyed those days when she didn’t have to work, but wished she would get news of a cancellation earlier. She never thought she’d feel nostalgic for the days when she worked at the Factory. The conditions were terrible there, but at least they were consistent in their terribleness.
At first, she was only given two weeks to recuperate from her pregnancy before starting work. There was promise that there’d be plenty for her to do. But as the days went by, the demand for her services soon dried up. Despite meeting the qualifications, once they had her, they didn’t seem to know how to make use of her. What most annoyed the Girl about her job was how cheated she felt about it. She accepted the position not fully understanding what it entailed.
The trouble had all started as soon as she’d signed those papers after giving birth, essentially giving away her baby for nothing, under the promise that she’d deliver another for the Government. The Man with the Mustache said she’d be part of a group of women involved with baby-making. With that kind of wording, she was expecting to be part of his harem, being forced to breed new babies at an alarming rate. She thought she’d be joining the likes of the Young Woman, the Numb Woman and the Swollen Women. At least this time she’d finally get to engage in actual sex and get paid for it.
When the Man with the Mustache left the hospital room, a woman she’d never seen before came in and said, “I’ve never seen him laugh so much.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m one of the members of the Baby-Making Machines, a team consisting solely of women. Welcome to the team!”
“I’m still recovering.”
“That hardly matters, you’re one of us now! We’re all mothers.”
“Is that all it takes to get in? Getting pregnant?”
“The main requirement for getting a job in this field is having given birth. Women are natural Baby-Making Machines, our main purpose for living.”
From the title description, she’d thought that she’d be engaging in constant sexy funtimes with multiple species and their sperm in a continuous effort to try to get pregnant - a procedure she’d sorely missed out the first time around. Given the chance, she’d willingly undergo whatever perversions it took to stimulate their interior glands and be ravished in bestial ways she never knew existed. But this job was as far removed from her fantasy role as possible. Instead, they were doing experiments to see if it was possible to combine human DNA with foreign DNA. That alone wouldn’t have been a problem, but they were doing it in the most boring way possible.
Instead, they were doing extensive research mixing cells into controlled environments, and seeing if a match was possible. It was very dry and very often, they wound up in inconclusive dead ends.
If it was just doing constant experiments with no results, she wouldn’t have been so miserable. The problem was that in their spare time, all these women wanted to talk about was their children. And she had no desire to engage in a subject she had no interest in.
She managed to get out of it the first time around when asked,
“What’s your child like?”
“Really stinky.”
“All babies are naturally smelly.”
“You don’t understand - this kid was REALLY STINKY. He stank of rank! He smelled of rotten fish while I was carrying him to term. None of the usual soaps or disinfectants worked. Everything I ate tasted like seafood. ”
“Those little faults become adorable once you get used to them! Surely you must’ve embraced him when he popped out?”
“No, I... lost him.”
“Oh. OH. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
This was technically true, since she gave the baby away the first chance she got. She received all kinds of sympathetic condolences from her female co-workers, until the truth came out, and she got the cold brushoff from their inner circle which accumulated rumours at an astounding rate. Facts shouldn’t have mattered much in the City of Lies, but gossip still managed to squirm in no matter how small.
The truth was, she was secretly relieved that she didn’t have to deal with the baby anymore. Let whoever it was handle the smelly brat from now on. It was their problem now.
Not that she’d openly admit it to these child-loving women. Not even at the expense of her sanity. She had nothing in common with them, but didn’t want to be further ostracized than she already was.
“My kid’s lost his tooth!”
“My kid’s lost his hair!”
“My kid’s lost his head!”
“My kid’s lost his lunch!”
“My kid’s lost his pants!”
“My kid’s lost his senses!”
“My kid’s lost his rights!”
“Can’t we talk about something other than children losing their stuff?!”
“If you had a child, you’d understand,” was the usual icy overtone.
When the Girl heard these women’s stories, she wondered why anyone would willingly choose to become pregnant in the first place. Especially considering the amount of pain and pressure involved. And then, to go through that whole process again?!
One of the women tried to explain it to her in terms she might understand:
“It’s like completing a really difficult puzzle or game. You struggle constantly, and it takes you multiple tries getting it right until you finally win. After you collapse in relief from finishing the thing, a little later, you get the itch to do it over, now that you know what you’re in for. It’s just as hard the second time, but at least this time, you know what to expect. Know what I mean?”
“No I don’t!” As far as she was concerned, winning was the whole point. Once you won, what was the point of rehashing it all over again? Just to prove you could? To see if you still had what it takes? It was hard enough the first time around.
“I wouldn’t bother going through all that again. Once was quite enough.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I already know, and I’m not missing much.”
Things still hadn’t improved much since then. The majority of the Baby-Making Team shut the Girl out on the basis that she simply wasn’t qualified. The hypocrisy was palpable since she was hardly the only one. Another woman in another department came with high recommendations and honors in fertility production until it turned out she faked her credentials. Which prompted the following question from her recommendator:
“Wait... what else have you faked?”
So the Girl’s list of responsibilities which started out strong started dwindling away until she was left with perfunctory duties. There was nothing to do but sit next to a see-thru cannister that held a humanoid creature held aloft in a bubbly liquid. And the interior creature changed every day. By all rights, she should’ve been satisfied. Compared to the hardships she’d endured, she should’ve been rejoicing at the ease of her current position. But the lack of activity was driving her to distraction.
In between her tasks of picking up supplies for the women in charge - labour that was considered too menial for their higher faculties - she was constantly reprimanded for indulging in daily tiffs consisting of pointless arguments such as:
“Stop scowling!”
“I’m not scowling!”
“You are scowling!”
“Well, I stopped scowling.”
“You’re still scowling!”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m calling you a scowler.”
And so on. The constant usage of a word loses power the more it’s used. The word ‘scowl’ had been used so much it’d lost all meaning. If she had just complied, she could’ve gotten along much easier, but she always had to fight, whether it was worthwhile or not.
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