Snippet #1863150

Cows? They stank. Pigs? They stank. Chickens? They were fine, but once you took a whiff of the chicken coop…that stank most of all. But even though all these animals stank to no end, Sienna always felt bad after shooting them. She knew that it was for the greater good, and that all this meat was going to get shipped to the other five sectors. No one would starve. She was practically saving lives! But on this day, Sunday, Sienna felt a pang in her chest as she lifted the goggles off her eyes and placed the gun on the ground. She sank to her knees and stared helplessly at the cow she had just shot. There hadn’t been anything wrong with the cow – in fact it was absolutely perfect! Perfect meat.

Sienna pouted her lips, rubbing a hand across her face and getting a smear of dirt on her forehead. This cow had been named Abigail. Sienna had raised her since she was a little calf. It wasn’t the first cow that Sienna had raised all by herself, but she felt a special connection to Abigail. Oh yes, a special connection to a cow. It even sounded silly to Sienna when she thought about it long enough. Now, she looked away from the deceased Abigail, grabbed the gun, and let her legs carry her back to her small house.

“Daddy?” She called out when she swung open the front door, “Daddy…Abigail is ready.”

Her Daddy knew just what that meant, and he stomped down the hallway in his big work boots and silently went past Sienna. While Sienna was definitely old enough and mature enough to skin and prepare the meat, she hated to do it. Normally Jason Lekowski would if he was hanging around, but today he had promised to help his own parents on their animal farm. Sienna sighed and went to the kitchen, washing her hands even though there was no blood or impurities on them.

She casually glanced at the small clock on the wall and gave a shriek when she realized it was ten of nine in the morning. The Collection Center was almost open! Sienna quickly dried her hands and ran to her room, changing out of her work clothes – which consisted of a plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves and shorts – and dressed in a simple green frock. She grabbed her wallet, which really only had about twenty dollars in it, and skipped down the hallway in excitement. She wouldn’t be at the Collection Center right when the door opened at nine in the morning like usual, but she would still have time to look around at the vegetables from the Waterbugs and the clothing items from the Prichetts.

“Mama?” Sienna shouted, and she heard her mother sneeze from a bedroom further down the hall. Sienna sashayed over to it, opened the door and held up her leather wallet, “I’m goin’ to the Collection Center. You want anythin’?” She asked her Mama in her long southern drawl.

“No thank you darlin’,” her Mama answered and sneezed again. Mama was coming down with a cold and so Sienna figured she would try to get some medicine at the Collection Center if she remembered.

She said her goodbyes to her Mama, waved to her Daddy as she walked past him, and traveled down to the shuttle dock. The shuttles ran from the Genie sector to the Collection Center every thirty minutes on Sundays from nine to eleven, and when she glanced at her watch she hoped she hadn’t missed the first one. When Sienna arrived at the shuttle dock, the doors of a shuttle were just beginning to shut. She raced forward and pounded with all her might on the previously open doors. There was no driver of the shuttles, since they ran automatically, but she still hoped it might sense her and open the doors. It took a second, but her pounding triggered the sensors and the doors opened. She smiled and silently thanked the Minks for their technology.

Sienna grabbed a seat right at the front of the bus, sitting by herself. Sienna didn’t mind sitting by her lonesome, sometimes she relished the time to just think by herself. It was only a ten minute travel to the Collection Center, and when the shuttle arrived the doors were already open. There was a throng of people walking into the center, all of them dressed differently. It was easy to pick out the Minks from the Waterbugs, who’s frayed and colorful clothing really differentiated from the hardcore black leather of the Fidgets. Sienna felt confident in her simple green frock, knowing that it made her look like a Genie. She didn’t know how she felt about looking exactly like a Genie would, but it wasn’t a socially unacceptable clothing item.

When she was able to make it through the mass of people and enter the building, her eyes popped out of her head as she took in her entire surroundings. She had been traveling here every Sunday since she was a little girl, but the high ceilings and wide expanse of the ten floor levels still shocked her. She didn’t know where to start, and she looked pitifully at her twenty dollars in her leather wallet. She kept getting shoved from side to side as children raced past and rude people pushed her out of their way. Sienna scowled and decided to just wander around, relishing the thoughts of being here at the Collection Center, her favorite place ever.