Covington, WA -- While employees at the special new "Borg-Themed" Wal-Mart store are preparing for a April 26 grand opening and ribbon cutting, the new $19 million store is drawing mixed reviews.

The new Borg cube is nearly 134,000 square feet. That's roughly the size of two and a half NFL football fields. It is also chock full of half-human / half-machine employees, connected by some unfathomable technology into a sinister collective whole.

City officials, facing tight budgets in recent years, are anticipating the city's first big-box store will mean about $400,000 annually in new sales tax revenue.

Mike Matthias of Maple Valley, another QFC shopper, grimaced at the mere mention of Wal-Mart.

``They don't treat their people right,'' said Matthias, a member of the plumbers union and a staunch supporter of organized labor.

Matthias said neither he nor his wife will shop at Wal-Mart because employees are "turned into half-mutated, human robots devoid of any semblance of individual consciousness".

In Covington, Wal-Mart has been at the center of wrangling over development issues for more than three years.

Homeowners launched what would turn out to be a losing campaign against Wal-mart after the giant retailer first announced it planned to 'assimilate' a 16-acre site north of the downtown area, on property flanked on three sides by single-family homes.

The chain expects to draw customers into it's evil, all-absorbing mechanized presence from Kent's East Hill, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and other areas.

A spokesperson for Wal-mart stated that the new Borg-design is an attempt to get away from the traditional 'big white box' design of years past and attain a more '21st Century' design.

Some of his neighbors say they'll shop at Wal-Mart and others say they won't.

Jordan and Elizabeth Valcroux said he and his wife probably will shop there.

``I guess progress comes everywhere and Covington seems to be experiencing progress at a rapid pace now,'' said Jacob Valcroux.

"Sure," another neighbor said, "Why not? I guess we will be assimilated into an inhuman, mechanical fate-worse-than- death, but hey, at least I can buy a hair dryer for $9 less than anywhere else!"