The heavy locks are withdrawn from the door, and it falls open with a creak. The calves scuttle back to the dark corners of the room. They have seldom been exposed to light. They are walking skeletons, and the skin stretched over their small, stunted frames is thin and white like parchment. A fat man in a suit enters the room, followed by a lanky youth in a boiler suit. The fat man is obviously in charge. His left eye is missing, in its place is a patch. He has a beard, and his head is shaved. The suit is expensive and pinstriped, contrasting sharply with the human shit smeared all over The Stable. He wears a long expensive dress coat, and he leans on an ebony cane. Archibald Felbrig is his name. He owns The Stable, and all the other ones also. He is the sole proprietor of Superb Liberi Meals Co. That is to say, the largest Liberi manufacturer in the world.

Let me explain the etymology of the word Liberi. It is Latin for children, and is exactly what it sounds like. In the 2100's, children from the lower castes are seen as disposable, and it is fashionable to dine on their flesh; the meat being called Liberi. On expensive restaurants' menus all over the world, Liberi is sold as an apetizer. Liberi is in high demand, and the children are raised by the thousands in establishments called Stables. They are taken from their parents at the Breedery, straight to The Stables. Fights, murder, disease, rape, and injury from the heavy machinery the children are made to work to keep themselves busy are common. The children stay in The Stables until the age of 15, where most go to the Stockhouse to be slaughtered. A small number of the strongest children are sent back to the Breedery to continue the cycle. Only the children of the lower castes are made into Liberi; the caste in general are called Expendables.

Archibald points at a locked plexiglass box on the concrete wall containing a large red button. The youth, Mack, unlocks the box and hits the large red button. Lights the size of mini-vans began to turn on in rows along the cieling, each one illuminating with a clank. The calves scream. Archibald siezes the nearest one by the chin. Her pupils are dilated because of the sudden light. She can't be more than six. She is totally naked, and pockmarks from disease cover her small quivering form. her hair is greasy, lank and falling out. She shakes in Archibald's iron grip. Though he looks old and flounders about on short legs, his many-ringed fingers are strong and harsh. The child tries to comunicate. She pleads with him in a gravelly tongue. This is Stablespeak, the gutteral language invented by The Expendables. He turns her face back and forth, examining her thin cheekbones, and peers into her mouth like somebody about to purchase a horse. The other calves peer curiously from their hiding places around the warehouse. They are in the Hiveroom, where the children sleep. It resembles a large honeycomb.

He sighs, and then throws the small girl to the ground. "Destroy her. She is sick, and too bony to make a decent cut of meat." He turns his back and leaves the room. Mack picks the girl up roughly by the back of neck and takes a peculiar device that looks similar to a long, thin, metal skewer attatched to a pistol grip. It looks vaguely like a strange handgun. He looks at the tip, determines that it is sharp enough to use, and shoves it roughly through the calf's ear. She screams. It leaves the other side of her head and she falls to the ground. He drags the body out of the room, not before shutting the lights, and dumps it into a large plastic cart. The calves creep out from their hideaways. Another one leaves the herd.