With no clock in at all in this room either, not even one counting down to a shift-change, Kennedy found herself measuring time by the claxons and the hissing of the doors. She felt envious of the Animals in the lines. They were at least moving forward and could see exactly how many people were ahead of them while she and Logan were left dangling with no information at all, nor any clue how long they were expected to wait before anything else happened. After five cycles of the lines moving forward, during which time two more batches had come through from the inspection room, a third group emerged with most of its members working out quickly that they were supposed to join the relevant line, a mix of greens and yellows again, but one, a pretty, olive-skinned girl with thick, dark hair and striking green-grey eyes was left looking confused, constantly looking between the options in front of her and the white band on her wrist.

“Over here!” Kennedy called, waving at the girl and assuming that the officials would not resent her saving them a job. The girl looked over in confusion and Kennedy held up her own wrist, tapping the paper band. Logan did likewise. “White band club in this corner, apparently!” Kennedy smiled. Still looking confused but also somewhat relieved, the girl joined them in the corner. “Sorry,” Kennedy smiled apologetically, “neither of us have any idea what these mean either. We’ve just been told to come wait over here so that’s what we’re doing. I’m Kennedy, this is Logan.” The boy gave a half smile and a friendly little wave.

“Esmeralda.” the girl introduced herself. Kennedy was just about to ask a follow-up question when an official, a different from the one she had spoken to, came striding over purposefully. For a moment, Kennedy thought she was in trouble for taking it upon herself to call the girl over but, as far as she could tell, the generally emotionless official actually seemed pleased, which was a relief.

“Good,” he nodded curtly, “you’re all together. Come with me, please.” Kennedy opened her mouth to ask where they were going but quickly thought better of it. They would find out soon enough. Practically having jog to keep up with the official’s brisk pace, the three young teens followed him to the far end of the room where he held open a small white door that they had not noticed before since it blended against the tiles from the other end. This door led onto a metal gantry, like a viewing platform, from which they could see the real killing floor.

The first thing that struck Kennedy was that the room they were now in was far deeper than the one they had come from. She remembered the two doors at the end of the waiting room and realised that there must be two inspection and decontamination rooms and two of the rooms where Animals queued in their respective lines but with both ultimately opening into this same factory-like chamber where all the workers, make and female, seemed to be dressed like the ones that had done the inspections – transparent plastic hooded overalls over otherwise naked bodies. Many had shaved heads but not all and those who did not wore bright blue hair-nets under their hoods. All also wore masks and blue gloves. The gantry crossed the middle of the room and went back the other side, presumably to an equivalent door in the mirror-image room the other side of the wall. Two officials were stationed on either corner and Kennedy spotted a few more around the edges of the room.

In the middle of the bridge-like cross-walk, however, were two other naked Animals the same age as her and her companions. A beautiful black girl whose toned, athletic body glowed like a statue and a brown-haired boy who also seemed to match the ideal beauty standard for his age. It was only looking at these last two, then quickly back at Logan and Esmeralda, that Kennedy connected the dots. She knew that she was in good shape, definitely not ugly and sometimes got friendly compliments on her figures, usually from other girls or mums at the naturist resort but, looking at the company she had been placed with, it suddenly struck her that white bands must denote some kind of elite tier, above green. She still had no idea what it meant in practical terms and would far rather be able to leave this stupid place and go back to her regular life but if she had to be converted to food, as The System in its infinite wisdom certainly seemed to think, that it was kind of nice to be considered the cream of the crop!

Encouraged by the official, the trio went and joined the others two who had presumably been sent from the other side. They all smiled at each other and exchanged confused shrugs, quickly establishing that none of them knew any more than the others.

“Wait here.” The official told them. “Mr Lomax will be along to collect you shortly.”

Okay, so at least now they had a name. Not that Kennedy had any idea who Mr Lomax might be but it felt like a lot more information than she had known a minute ago. Was Mr Lomax the man in the suit, she wondered, or someone else? The five introduced themselves to each other, Kennedy leaning that the girl’s name was Naomi and the boy’s Stuart, or Stu, as he apparently preferred to be known by.

“Wonder if someone’s making Stu stew later today?” Kennedy asked with a chuckle before realising what a corny line it was and chastising herself inwardly for being so cringe. “Sorry.” she sighed apologetically, “bet you’ve been hearing that joke a lot this week?”

“Nah,” she smiled at her reassuringly, “no more than twenty or thity times… Per day!” he added with a wink. “But honestly it’s fine. If it bothered me, I could have told you literally any other name and you’d have been none the wiser!”

“True!” Kennedy chuckled, grateful for his good humour and forgiving nature. Not wanting to get stuck in another pointless, circular conversation about what might be about to happen to them, she decided to take the opportunity to get a good look at the processing floor. Each of the small chambers that the Animals had been queuing up for, the backs of all six of which were now visible from where they currently stood, seemed to have two potential exists – a door leading to a black metal spiral staircase, the rails of which along with a strip along the front of each step were painted with the respective colour. The other seemed to be a conveyor belt which reminded Kennedy of the ones used at theme parks and fun fairs to raise a log flume boat to the top of the drop, except these were moving in the opposite direction. Judging by the colours on the stairs and the edges of the conveyors too, she could see that the other room where Animals had been sent to queue was a mirror image of the one she had been sent to wait in with the two red doors closest to each other, then the yellow and finally the green on each outer edge, the conveyors of each crossing over each other and joining part way down so at the bottom where the butchers worked with frames, prep tables and other equipment, there was only one outlet.

The body of a man, thin an wiry, his skin marred in various places with dry, flaky, pink and white patches was coming down the red conveyor, his throat cut and limbs at various angles as if he had simply been tossed on. Another followed him, a woman this time, significantly overweight and visibly in poor condition, again with her throat cut roughly. Somewhat uncharitably, she knew, Kennedy found herself wondering just how bad a state an Animal would have to be in to be deemed unfit for consumption and put to some other use or simply disposed of.

By contrast, the bodies coming down the yellow ramps were laid out respectfully, as if in an open casket, peaceful expressions on their faces, no visible wounds other than two small red marks on their necks, lines about half an inch long and less than an eighth wide, their legs together and arms either by their sides or folded across their chests. The same went for the green, with the exception of the red marks which Kennedy could not spot on any of them, except not all of the Animals given this rating seemed to emerge dead. Roughly one in three, Kennedy estimated, walked down the spiral staircase and presented themselves to the waiting butchers.

“So, the better your meat,” Naomi observed, “the gentler they kill you?”

They all watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as the red bodies were hung up to drain and to be gutted and the ones whose place they had taken were tossed onto the prep tables and cut to pieces with small chainsaws. The butchers then used knife to roughly cut away anything they considered vaguely usable meat and dropped it into a large mincer which churned out a constant stream of pink and white strands. Anything that could be used for pet food went in another hopper along with the offal and finally the bones and scraps into a third for recycling.

“Wow!” Logan gave a little shudder as the mince was scraped into a container with the branding of a well-known fast-food outlet on the side and a lid sealed on. “Glad I’ve had my last burger from there!”

“There has to be some reward for maintaining a high grade, I suppose?” Esmeralda suggested. “After all, everyone ends up dead with way.” The others nodded. There was a macabre logic to this, although it did seem a little unfair, punishing those deemed red-grade for failing to keep their bodies up to standard, above and beyond ending their lives. The haphazard way in which the bodies were sprawled on the conveyor and the rough, careless way they were treated by the butchers upon reaching the prep area spoke of a clear destain among the workers for Animals who did not even meet standard grade.

Although still hung up for gutting and draining, the yellow bodies were treated with a little more respect. The vulva or penis and testicles of the Animal removed while they hung then the body cleaved in two with each half then being worked on separately with butchers carefully parting out the two halves of the carcass and reducing it to the kinds of cuts that would be recognisable to anyone shopping for meat, clearly taking pride in their work. The cuts were then put onto a separate, level conveyor which took them to the packing area where more workers saw to it they they were shrink-wrapped and packed into insulated containers for distribution. Once the meat had been harvested, the offal and scraps went into the same hoppers as the red.

The bodies that came down the green chute were not hung up like the others, instead they were draped over a triangular frame on the prep tables and painstakingly gutted through the anus. They were then cleaned out inside with high-pressure hoses before their edible organs were vacuum-packed and placed back inside them. These complete carcasses were then sent to packing where they were packaged up whole. Those who had walked down on their own were tagged through ear and branded with an official Government stamp on their right buttock and left upper arm. These chosen few, who ranged in age from pre-teen up to twenty at the absolute most, would be sold at a very high price to be cooked alive.

The five white-banded youngsters were so engrossed in what was going on beneath them that they did not notice the man in the suit join them on the gantry and stand behind them until he spoke.

“Good morning.” They all jumped out of their skin and turned to look at him. “My name is Mr Lomax and you have all been chosen for a very special purpose. The System thanks you. Now please,” he instructed in a friendlier tone than the officials but with enough steel to make it clear that it was an order rather than a request, “follow me.”


To be continued...