Luxurious Living
"They're damn robots, they're machines; they can't feel pain!"
Dirty Beaches stood at the door. He precariously looked down at a paper he held in his hooves and looked back up. The building had the stench of heavy methamphetamine use. He knew that what he was about to walk in to was not going to be the best place. He tapped a hoof at the large, iron door, the rain trickling down the door knob. A mare opened the door.
"What do you need?" Her beautiful voice filled Dirty's head.
"S-Snow! You don't remember me?" He said, grabbing her shoulder blades with both hooves.
"Agh, get off of me you fucking creep!" She said, jerking her entire body back.
"S-Snow...!" He desperately said, trying to grab her again.
The door nearly slammed his right hoof in. He rested his hoof against the wet metal and turned to the concrete pathway.
"I'm not a creep." He murmured to himself.
The sounds of busy city movement levitated in the air. The electric humming of neon signs combined with the aroma of narcotics and rotten food was characteristically unique to the Automated Zone.
Dirty Beaches, being cybernetically enhanced in his left hoof after a mining accident pre-full automation, had only limited access to the Pure Zone, so he spent most of his time here, on the crowded streets of prejudiced citizens. He had never ventured further from the residential sector so his mind often dwindled around the occurrences in industrial sectors.
Dirty Beaches had no friends, why would he? He was stuck in between the pure and the mechanized, there was no definite place for him. Friends in either levels would ruin his access and reputation in either zones. He lit his cigarette menacingly and flicked the lighter close. His horn glowed and released the paper cylinder from his lips whenever he needed a puff. The smoke fizzed up into the air and disappeared.
He eyed several foals jumping in nearby puddles with a depressing glare. His eyes filled with sadness, his heart filled with loneliness. Too elderly to enjoy foal-like activities, too young to enjoy death. His brown mane grew darker as it got damper. There was truly no meaning to his life.
But then, a sudden urge to explore the life of other less fortunate than him covered his brain. He threw his cigarette on the ground and stomped on with his right hoof. His muzzle twitched as he turned to his right. The dark, wet streets led to a giant gate labeled Industrial Sector A-4. He lifted his head, the urge, quite possibly a positive one, is a chance to turn around his feelings and life.
He set off, hooves clattering against various puddles of different sizes, mesmerized by the neon-red gate. He knew that he would probably put himself in much danger of robbery if he ventured any closer. Dirty Beaches didn't care, the opportunity he might get from this was priceless.
At the gate, he stopped at the most depressing scene of his life. Parts of elderly mechanized ponies were being buzz sawed off and thrown into furnaces for scrap. There were no burials for the less fortunate, only monetization for the pure. This gave Dirty Beaches a sense of pride he had never felt before, knowing he actually got a burial, putting him above somepony (although not flesh and bone) else.
Was this wrong? He thought. Was it bad to be thinking the way of the pure? He moved further past the scene and reached the factories. This is where everything he has ever been exposed to post-automation was made. He was astonished at the sheer efficiency of which the robots worked at. Smoke stacks stuck up as far as his eye could see, big puffy clouds of smoke rising up into the atmosphere.
Words escaped him when he saw the living conditions for those not wealthy enough to live in the residential sector. Giant sheet-metal shacks dotted the poorly-paved streets. The shacks, probably made of metal from their "fallen comrades", was already heavily rusted from the constant rain put on the entire Automated Zone. This made his bricked apartment look like a five-star hotel.
After passing several factories that all served the same purpose of building the robots in the first place, he reached the packaging factories. Terribly processed food was canned or boxed and moved along onto trucks to be shipped. This made Dirty Beaches near vomit with the knowledge of mostly everything he had eaten had come from this place.
Not to mention the chemicals put on the food before packaging, every factory was terribly unsanitary. This, obviously, is not for the pure, but for everypony else, the less fortunate ones or the middle-factors like himself. He flicked open his lighter in one simple motion and lit a cigarette, trying to rid himself of the thoughts of the food he has been eating for the past 20 years.
Pure guards were placed around the streets, and every time Dirty Beaches passed them, they were either in groups laughing or beating corrupted mechanized individuals. The sick matter of this is how commonplace Dirty Beaches found all of this. He got used to it in mere hours.
He passed many more factories with the purpose of producing regular household (or shack-hold) items. None of this particularly surprised Dirty, as it was an industrial sector, it was pretty obvious that this stuff was being made here.
He exited the sector with a sense of self-pride opposite to what he had felt when he entered. He didn't feel pity for them, no, more like a disgust to what he had been consuming made there. He mushed his cigarette against the moist pavement outside the industrial sector and made his way back home.
He near ignored the foals playing in the streets, the mechanical couples brought together by false emotions, and the increasing smell of drugs in his apartment block. He only thought of one thing, the benefits he has as a half-pure, a thing he had never thought about before. After all, they're damn robots, they're machines, they can't feel pain!
