Mark woke the next morning, and like every other morning was herded into the milking area, milked, and sent back out to graze. Her mind was content and comfortable, though she held on to the string of humanity that she had left.
Very little of it made sense anymore, but she knew that this wasn't supposed to be her life. For some reason, she thought she was supposed to be a bull, and a bull of one of the machine operators at that!
She avoided the bull, much as it pained her, for the next few days. The routine became, well, routine. It was normal, comfortable.
One evening, just after the sun set, a strangely familiar car drove up to the fence. She recognized it, but wasn't sure from where. A human bull got out and started looking around. "Mark!" he called out, "Where are you?"
Another bull got out and looked confused. "This is the right night, isn't it?" he asked.
"Yeah, he should have turned back by now. Maybe we're just a little early."
The cow looked curiously at the pair, but felt her interest waning in favor of going to sleep.
The two human bulls jumped the fence and started looking around in the dark. "Mark, where the hell are you?" he asked into the night. "I hope that you're not just playing a trick, or so help me I'll turn you into a toad for the next month!"
The pair looked around, but didn't find what they were looking for. The walked right past Mark, but she wasn't sure what to do about these intruders.
One of them held a device up to his ear and started talking. "Eric, it's Jeff. Can you look at the computer and see if something is wrong? I can't find Mark." He listed, and his face blanched. "What? You're kidding! Look, can you get the thing down here, we'll see if we can find him."
He put away the phone and looked at the other human bull. "The machine has an error message, it just popped up a few minutes ago when Mark should have turned back."
"What happened? Did he get screwed?"
"No, not exactly. The message says that he mentally degraded past the auto-return point, whatever that means. We need the Chronovac here, in person, to make the change back. That's assuming that we can find him in this mess of cows!"
"What happens if we can't find him?" asked the other.
"I guess he makes milk and calves until he's beef," said the other.
Mark heard most of this from a distance, but what they were talking about made very little sense. Somehow, she had a familiarity with these two, but the thoughts of sleep and dreams of the bull were more powerful.