The day’s labors ended, she returned home to sink on the sofa, consume something, and catch up with the teevee. She flipped aimlessly through the channels and was about to turn to streaming when a handsome man in some talk show panel caught her eye. She paused to admire his good looks and passionate demeanor, until she started listening to his words and scrunched up her face, disgusted.
“…it is immoral, it is dreadful, it is outright evil. We are profiting off of addiction, people! These poor guys cannot help themselves, they literally cannot stop, and for us to do that willingly, to do that intentionally to them, so that we can save a few bucks…”
She sighed. Pretty, but little brains behind that nice face, and sanctimonious and self-righteous to boot. Possibly a PR ploy from the anti-energex movement, sending their best-looking members to debate, hoping to distract from their terrible arguments.
A much more reasonable panelist intervened, but he wasn’t nearly as attractive. “We’re not talking about a few bucks here, we’re talking about a near twenty percent reduction in energy costs, planetwide. And you’re wrong, you’re just projecting your human feelings and emotions on something that isn’t human.”
The handsome man rebutted: “There are plenty of studies showing that their behavior and metabolism parallels in many ways how we process addiction, and other studies that show that without our intervention, their lifespan would be at least double…”
“You wanna talk studies?” the other panelist interrupted him. “Well, no study has ever concluded that they feel pain, or that they can even feel pain. In fact, as far as we can tell, it’s pure joy for them. Nothing but ecstasy. They may live less, but it’s a good, happy life, and everyone benefits. Face it, you…”
Something tripped, and the whole house went dark for a few seconds until the emergency generator kicked in. She sighed and roused herself to go change the energex.
The dim light of the backup power unit failed to properly illuminate the cubicle behind the kitchen, but she could still see the carcass of the little alien by its outline. Worse, she could still smell it. She prodded the body and dislodged it from the harness, gagging all the while, eventually managing to direct it towards the chute and freeing the machine for the next specimen. She reached for the cabinet and took out an egg the size of a football, the last one; she made a mental note to order some more.
She cracked it, and a furry little guy emerged from the egg. It let itself be picked up, docile, curiously smelling the world with its stubby proboscis and sending each of its five eyes in a different direction. When it got close enough to the machine and started sensing the apparatus, it began fidgeting and squirming, eager squeals escaping its mouth. She set it carefully in the harness and watched as it grabbed onto the wires with a high-pitched sound. Within moments, the energex was vibrating with the device, its frequency increasing exponentially until it burst into light, the machine kicked in, and the power was restored.
She lingered for a moment longer, looking at the little shining alien as it ignored her, the world around and everything else to feed from and into the apparatus. Its eyes were dilated and fixed ahead, its mouth drooling a little, a low coo of rolling euphoria synchronizing with the hum of the device. “Don’t get yourself too worked up,” she said, “you gotta last me until the next batch comes.”
The energex gave no response. She left the room and returned to the teevee.
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