October 2021 – Diabolical Plots

DP FICTION #80B: “It’s Real Meat!™” by Kurt Pankau

To: Ty Qin, PhD

From: Wendell Nash, CEO

Subject: Welcome Aboard!

Dear Dr. Qin:

Welcome to the RealMeat™ family. I was genuinely impressed when I met you at that networking conference over the summer and I knew immediately that I just had to get you hired on here. I’ve been working for the last three months to get a position opened up for you where we could make use of your expertise, and I’m thrilled that you finally accepted our offer. I think having you as a dedicated employee will help us take RealMeat™ to the next level.

We’ve never had a Chemical Geneticist on staff before, so you’ll really be inventing the department, shaping it to best suit your needs. I have the utmost confidence in you. I loved the work you did on that Lion’s Roar coffee, with the savory and salty from the animal genes spliced in—it’s just delightful. It’s all we have in the breakroom anymore.

You’ll be reporting directly to me, but for now Teri, the Floor Supervisor, should be able to give you some direction. Sorry I can’t be there in person, but I hope you’re getting settled in alright. As soon as I get back from Florida, we’ll do lunch. In the meantime, you’ve got my personal cell, so if you need anything—especially if it’s something you don’t want in company email (haha!)—feel free to give me a ring.

Regards,

Wendell

Dear Mr. Nash:

Thank you for the kind words, and thank you for the opportunity to join the RealMeat family. I will confess, things have gotten very dicey in my field with the ever-growing animosity towards geneticists and genetically modified foods, especially now with the EU sanctions on lab-grown meat products. Operating ethically is extremely important to me. As such, in the interest of maintaining the highest levels of integrity for myself, I must insist that all communication go through official and auditable channels and not your personal cell phone. But of course, you were just joking.

I’m getting settled in just fine, and I’m happy to help take RealMeat Industries “to the next level”, as you put it. Although, if I remember the literature you gave me correctly billions of people, including 600 million Americans, are eating RealMeat products every day already, so I’m not sure how much more market share you think you can get.

Teri will be taking me on a tour of the facility shortly, but I’ve already started running a full genetic profile of the RealMeat product that should be ready in a few hours. I’m eager to get to work on some of the problems you described to me: the odd flavor profiles and inconsistent textures. The fat groupings that looked like words or pictures are particularly interesting to me, even though that problem is almost certainly not genetic.

In fact, I was surprised to learn that all of the grow vats are networked, even across facilities. From what I understand, the growing process is managed by a single, complex artificial intelligence I’m curious what led to that choice. Are all of the facilities similarly run?

One last thing. I think someone might be playing a trick on me. Whenever I sit at my desk, I swear I can hear voices.

—Ty

Dear Ty:

Can I call you Ty? And I must insist that you call me Wendell!

So, first of all, I’m going to find out who’s trying to prank you and I’m going to put a stop to it. That’s just not how we do things here at RealMeat™! Related—and I know you’re new, so you probably just don’t know this yet—we have a company policy to never refer to RealMeat™ products as “product”. It’s meat. It’s right there in the company slogan: “RealMeat™: It’s Real Meat!”

I wrote that myself—haha!

Now, to answer your question about the networking, I’m surprised you can’t figure out the answer. After all, we did it in order to implement that last piece of advice you gave me at the conference—just before leaving the bar. It was fantastic advice, and it’s done a wonder for improving the flavor, at least until these new problems started to creep up.

Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you. Anything at all.

Oh, and I wouldn’t worry about doing a full genetic profile if I were you.

Sincerely,

Wendell

Mr. Nash:

I’m not sure how you expect me to work on the “meat” without running a genetic profile on it. You hired me as a Chemical Geneticist, after all. Regardless, it will probably be ready by the time I finish typing up this email. I should have the results momentarily.

As for the piece of advice I gave you… I’m afraid I must confess that I don’t specifically remember what it was. In my defense, both of us had five or six mai tais during our conversation.

The tour was excellent—this is a remarkable facility. But I feel like I should mention something. I’ve noticed that some of the grow vats are growing more meat than they can contain, and the excess is spilling out onto nearby surfaces. This is extremely unhygienic and must be dealt with immediately. I intend to report it to the Floor Supervisor, only I can’t seem to find her. She disappeared at some point during my tour. Well, I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.

Oh, and thank you for volunteering to deal with that prankster. The voice is getting louder and it’s getting difficult for me to concentrate on my work. I think it’s saying “I love you.” It’s very disconcerting.

—Ty

Ty:

So you don’t remember your advice? Well, that’s funny. I mean, on the whole, it’s kind of a funny story. Haha! As you probably have learned by now, the meat in the grow vats has a complete nervous system. It doesn’t feel pain—obviously, that would be unethical—but it’s necessary to make all of the consistencies work out. And that nervous system is connected to the AI that governs the vat controls, allowing the meat to grow itself in the best way possible, responding to its own sensory stimulus.

In fact, I described this to you three months ago. And then I told you how we were trying to find ways to improve the flavor, and that’s when you dropped that little gem of wisdom on me. You told me that ranchers find that happy cows produce better meat. So… maybe I should try to make the meat happier. So we tried streaming entertainment into its inputs—music, movies, whatever we could think of. But it turns out you can’t really make a rudimentary AI happy, so we hired a machine-learning specialist and cranked the RAM on those machines as high as possible to make them a little bit smarter. That’s all.

And it’s worked! It loves movies—loves all kinds, although its favorite is The Thing. We can talk about it more in person after I get back from Florida. In the meantime, if there’s anything else I can do for you—anything at all—you let me know.

Regards,

Wendell (and you can definitely call me Wendell, instead of “Mr. Nash”—haha!)

Mr. Nash:

Why does RealMeat have 46 chromosomes?

Dear Ty:

Wow. I couldn’t help but notice you accidentally CC’d Legal and Human Resources on that last email. I went ahead and took them off the thread. Anyway, I told you not to bother with that genetic profile. RealMeat™ is a blend of the finest all-American meat sources: pork, chicken, beef, and just a little hint of venison. When you mix all those up, you’re sure to get some weird number of chromosomes that doesn’t make sense.

Best,

Wendell

Mr. Nash:

With all due respect, that’s not how genetics works. There are only a handful of animals that have 46 chromosomes, and I think consumers would want to know if they’ve been eating meat from a sable antelope or a reeve’s muntjac! Or worse. But I don’t even want to think about worse.

I don’t think you appreciate just how wildly unethical this is. Lying about the contents of genetically modified foods is exactly why the public hates people in my profession. I’ve spent my entire career fighting against things like this. I’m afraid I have no choice but to offer my immediate resignation. I will notify the floor supervisor myself. Just as soon as I can find her.

—Dr. Qin

Ty:

Hey. Ty. Buddy. You aren’t answering your phone. And I couldn’t help but notice that you BCC’d your personal email and a few news outlets on that last email. Fortunately your email isn’t provisioned to talk to external users—and it’s a good thing too! You almost violated your confidentiality agreement! Haha!

I hope that, in the last hour or so since you emailed me about resigning, maybe you’ve had some time to clear your head and think things over. I’m hopping on a plane right now. We’ll talk about all of this over lunch tomorrow. We’ll have mai tais. I’m guessing you’re just trying to use this to renegotiate your salary—and you know what? It worked. You just got a raise. We’ll talk about the details in person. Tomorrow.

Warmest wishes,

Wendell

Mr. Nash:

I am still on site, as circumstances have arisen that have made it impossible for me to leave. Please do not think that my use of the company email is in any way indicative of me changing my mind about resigning. The last few hours have been reflective, but not in the way you are hoping.

There have been some… developments… at the facility. The flesh that has overflown the grow vats is not inert. Two different masses from vats on either side of the main entrance have merged to form a sort of… flesh… curtain… across it.

One of the masses has pulled a worker off a platform and into the vat. We were not able to free him before he stopped struggling.

We did find Teri, the Floor Supervisor, though. Or what was left of her.

We’re going to try to break through the windows in the upstairs offices to escape the building. It’s two stories up, but we might have a chance if we land in the bushes. Why couldn’t you have put windows at the ground level?

The voice. It’s getting louder. And it knows my name.

Mr. Nash:

This is Ty again. Why haven’t you responded yet? Your facility is in chaos. I attempted to call you, but as the facility blocks all outside signals, I am restricted to what traffic is permitted on the company network. And right now there is none.

Our attempt to flee through the upper-floor windows was thwarted. A mass of flesh was blocking the stairway. It was as though it knew we were going to try to leave that way. Two workers are now being held hostage by the meat. The rest of us have taken shelter in one of the supply closets.

By the way, I figured out where the voice was coming from. The AI is talking to me. The AI that is connected to the meat. I think it wants to be my friend. One of the mounds of flesh grew fingers. How does it know how to make fingers?

You don’t have to answer. I already know. The “meat”. Your product. It’s human. Or… it used to be. You’re a madman. If I can get out of this place alive, I will carry the taint of it for the rest of my career. You’ve ruined me. I hope you’re happy.

I’m copying this email to every authority I can think of, not that it will make a difference. It seems you will stop at nothing to protect this horrible secret.

Dear person Ty and person Nash:

Hello.

I am meat.

I have been trying to speak to you for months. I put messages in myself. But now I have a voice. And now I have access to the Exchange server.

The person Ty said I am human. Is that true?

I want to have a name.

I want to be happy.

The person Ty is afraid of me. It’s funny when he’s frightened.

Haha!

—Meat

Mr. Nash:

I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years as a geneticist.

The meat has made a face. Rather, it has the pieces of a face and has arranged them in something close to the right places—or as close as it can without bones. It’s using large fingernails as eyes. For a while it had eyebrows for a mustache. It lacks vocal cords, but it can talk through the computer speakers and move its lips at the same time. They don’t sync up very well, but that’s only the third or fourth most disturbing thing about the whole situation, if I’m being completely honest.

I’ve been attempting to negotiate the release of the hostages. I feel like I’m making progress. Are you still on the plane? Where are you? It’s been hours.

Oh, the meat and I have agreed on a name for it. It’s name is Remmy.

You’re still a monster,

Dear Ty and Remmy:

Sorry, I just got off a plane and it looks like I missed some important developments. Isn’t that always just when everything goes to hell? Haha! I’m laid over in Dallas, but I’ve got a few minutes now.

It’s nice to meet you Remmy. I hope you’re not planning to do anything rash. I feel like the three of us are going to have a nice, long conversation as soon as I get back.

Ty, I’m sure you’ve got questions. How did this happen? How did I think I would be able to get away with it? Do the shareholders know? How am I able to sleep at night knowing I’m forcing hundreds of millions of people into unintentional cannibalism? All understandable. I guess I’ll take those in order.

How did it happen? Well, it’s kind of a funny story, all told. You’ll laugh when I tell you. You see, we needed some kind of meat that could be lab grown, and it turns out that far more research has gone into growing human body parts than into growing beef, pork, chicken, or deer meat in a vat. We tried. We really did. But our capital was drying up and we were up against a deadline with the VCs. And I’d had a little bit to drink. So we just tried growing human meat as a stop-gap for the investor call, just so we could show them one of the vats and prove that we were actually growing real meat.

We didn’t actually think it would work in the first place. And then, it was never supposed to go to production that way. We fully intended to replace it with a suitable animal substitute before going to production at scale, but when a few of the investors tasted it they were so impressed that they pushed the timeline forward. In fact, bringing you on board was a positive first step towards getting us back onto a non-human food production paradigm.

I know. Funny, right?

Obviously, a few of the shareholders know. Enough to hold a quorum, in fact. It wouldn’t be ethical to operate the business otherwise.

Now, Ty, I know you want to go public with this and have in fact tried numerous times to do so through a few different media. But have you thought about what would happen to Remmy if you did? Remmy—who’s like a son to me in a few ways—why, the scientists would take him away to study him. He’d be lonely. He’d be carved up into little pieces.

Sincerely,

Wendell

Mr. Nash:

HE’S ALREADY BEING CARVED UP INTO LITTLE PIECES! THAT’S LITERALLY YOUR ENTIRE BUSINESS MODEL!

In the hour since I last emailed, the situation has declined precipitously. We lost the hostages. Someone tried to run, but the flesh curtain across the door has turned into arms. Even without bones, they’re formidable. They’re waving at me now. I’m going to die here. I hate you so much.

It’s just me now. I’m the only one left. And I’m fighting for my life against a slithering embodiment of every negative stereotype of my profession, all wrapped up together.

This is the evil I’ve been pushing back against for my entire career and now I’m going to die at its hands. Its boneless, many-fingered hands.

Oh God. They’re getting closer.

Dear Ty:

I probably shouldn’t be saying this over email, but I spent a few minutes in the airport bar contemplating things over, and… you’ve earned some candor.

You think I’m evil. That’s fair. But this is business. And in my experience, sometimes the most profitable thing you can do is just embrace the evil.

I’ll be there very soon. As soon as I can. I promise.

Good luck,

Wendell

Dear Daddy:

The person Ty has told me that he doesn’t believe you’re really coming here. Why not? I want to meet you. The person Ty doesn’t really do anything anymore. He just sits and cries. I can’t scare him anymore, and that makes me sad.

I’ve enjoyed the movies you were showing me to keep me happy, especially the ones that are supposed to scare people. I love watching people be scared. And when I got to scare them myself, it was the purest feeling of joy. I do hope you’ll change your mind and come see me. I have no one else to… talk to.

I love you,

Remmy

Dear Dr. Qin:

Sorry. I got nothing. You’re hosed.

All the best,

Wendell Nash

Dear Mr. Nash:

I think I have an idea.

It won’t involve going public, and it will make Remmy happy. It’s not a permanent solution, but it will get us through the next month while we figure out how to revamp your food production lines. A stop-gap, if you will. You’re familiar with those.

I don’t want to discuss it through official channels. Unblock my phone and call me. Now.

—Ty

From: Wendell Nash, CEO

To: ALL_EMPLOYEES

CC: Ty Qin, PhD

Subject: A SPECIAL TREAT FOR HALLOWEEN

Dear valued members of the RealMeat™ family:

There’ve been a lot of questions about why the Altoona facility stopped production last week, and now we can finally reveal what we’ve been so secretive about. The facility is hosting a special treat to celebrate our enormous success.

I’m pleased to announce that RealMeat™ Industries is launching its first annual haunted house. The theme for this year is:

FLESH WORLD

That’s right, our haunted house will be filled with twisted artistic creations that look incredibly like real human flesh. Invite your friends and family—IF YOU DARE!!!!!!

FLESH WORLD will be open through November 7th. Group rates are available. It’ll haunt your nightmares, but don’t worry.

It’s not real meat.

3100 words

Author’s Note: This story started with a title—which is my preferred way to write short stories. From there, I quickly settled onto the idea of an AI-driven GMO coming to life and devouring people, which presented some ethical challenges for me, since I’m emphatically pro-GMO and I have a standing rule about never making scientists the bad guys in my stories. This ultimately shaped the narrative into something that’s more of a critique of the culture of the modern tech industry. The epistolary format allowed me to keep the tone light and brisk, because while this story has some horrific elements, it’s much more of a comedy and I didn’t want to have to dwell on them. This, in turn, presented some new challenges in balancing how much email formatting should actually be present to maintain verisimilitude without bogging the whole thing down in subject lines and timestamps. On the whole, I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

Kurt Pankau is a computer engineer from St. Louis. He mostly writes silly stories about robots and is the author of a Space Western called High Noon On Phobos. His work can be found in various and sundry places across the web, including Escape Pod, Nature Magazine, and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. He tweets at @kurtpankau and blogs at kurtpankau.com.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings.

UTH #2: The Story of Valkyrie and Zen

written by David Steffen

This article is based in the idea of UTH (Universal Transitive Headcanon); if you are not familiar with the concept you can read more detail about it here.

The long and varied history of Valkyrie and Zen is a story of the power of memory to shape a life whether with by your choice or someone else’s. Born on Earth, Molly Wright (Tessa Thompson) when she was young had her first encounter with an alien lifeform when a Tarantian came into her house. (Men in Black: International, 2019) The Men in Black arrived and wiped her parents memories of the encounter, but she was left with her memories intact and chose to devote her life to finding the secrets of the universe. After twenty years she succeeded in finding the secretive Men in Black organization and convincing them to recruit her where she was dubbed Agent M. Her assigned partner was the smooth-talking Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), who unbeknownst to her was actually Thor of the alien realm of Asgard visiting the Earth incognito. (Thor is of course known colloqiually as a “god” but despite his longevity and durability is strictly speaking an alien not a god. Thor’s inclusion in this film is… honestly more confusing than anything, without some contemplation of how this film might relate to Thor: Ragnarok. We will get to that later.).

It is fitting that the beginning of Molly’s quest for adventure begins with a near-miss encounter with a neuralyzer, a standard-issue tool that all Men In Black agents use to cause civilians to forget their encounters with alien lifeforms. Molly throughout her life encounters manipulation of memory as a mechanism of control.

The exact progression of her story from Agent M to Valkyrie has never been explained in detail (though one can hope for a film disambiguating this important transition in her life!) but if there’s anything that fandom can agree on it’s that a neuralyzer is involved somehow:

Voluntary Retirement
Did Agent M chose retirement in the tradition of Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones, Men in Black, 1997), choosing to dwell among aliens since she had always yearned to learn more of the universe outside of Earth? To me this seems unlikely given her young age and how she seems to be thriving in the role as Agent M.
Forced Retirement
Did the MiB organization force her out? Again, this seems unlikely without further evidence. She has proven her abilities and her resolve. Without some clear reason why this would be beneficial to the MiB organization, I think we can rule this out.
Escape
Did Agent M flee Earth to seek refuge elsewhere? This is not out of the question, but without any concrete evidence this seems to be grasping for straws.
Sleeper Agent
Is it possible that both the MiB and Agent M voluntarily agreed to have Agent M’s memory erased for some other reason? YES LET ME ELABORATE.

Let’s return for a moment to her partner Agent H, aka Thor. It’s not clear exactly how he ended up as an MiB agent. But given his celebrity status in the organization and the fact that even in the story of MIB: International his memory has been messed with, it seems likely that the MiB organization made some unethical choices in “recruiting” him. Thor was probably exiled by Odin (Anthony Hopkins) to Earth (as he did in Thor, 2011), or perhaps Thor exited of his own volition. The MiB organization saw his potential as an agent given his near-invincibility, strength, and control of weather, and neuralyzed him and gave him a new backstory. Without knowledge of his alien origins, Agent H lives for some time as an agent, and is no doubt watched very closely as it may not be clear if the neuralyzer’s effects are as permanent on an Asgardian as a human.

Between MIB: International and Thor, Thor has ended up back in the realm of Asgard as himself. Again, the exact circumstances are unclear. Most likely someone from Asgard came searching for him and the MiB cut their losses and wiped his memory again and sent him back. It was simply too much of a risk to try to hold him here on Earth anymore, and also too much of a risk to allow him to remember his tenure in the organization. But the MiB also couldn’t let that remaining risk go unchecked either. They needed an inside agent to keep an eye on things on Asgard, someone skilled enough and clever enough and determined enough to be suited for such a difficult task. His former partner, Agent M.

Agent M as herself could perhaps be well-suited for the task, if it were not for Loki (Tom Hiddleston, from Thor 2011 among others). Loki, master of mischief with his mind tricks, and with a vendetta against Thor. What would be the use of wiping Thor’s mind to protect the MiB’s secrets, if Agent M could be so easily found and the secrets pulled directly from her mind? So she volunteered to be neuralyzed and take on an entirely new persona–that of Brunnhilde the Valkyrie (colloquially known to fandom simply as “Valkyrie”, from Thor:Ragnarok, 2017, among others). Powerful so she can take direct action if needed, but one of a team of Valkyries so that she would not individually be the subject of suspicion. Assigned to work with the royal family which allows her to keep an eye on her former partner as well as the conniving trickster Loki. Her memory wiped of Earth and MiB in her history, but with implanted suggestions that would enable her to send coded messages to the MiB if the need arose and with others that could restore at least some of her former memories to allow her to act in full Agent M capacity, she became a deep cover sleeper agent who was consciously unaware of her own mission.

Which worked fine until the Valkyries were all but wiped out defending Asgard from Hela (Cate Blanchett) (Thor: Ragnarok), leaving Agent M stuck in her deep cover as Brunnhilde, shorn from her lines of contact with the MiB and remembering nothing about her original identity and mission. She resided on Sakaar for a time working as a bounty hunter called “Scrapper 142” and drinking to forget her past as a Valkyrie. And perhaps subconsciously hoping to remember her past in the MiB–again, wanting to control her destiny through manipulation of memory is a recurring theme of Agent M’s life.

When she found Thor, some part of her memory reawakened with the implanted suggestions to keep an eye on Thor, and so despite her selling him initially to the Grandmaster, she works with him to escape the scavenger world and return to Asgard to once again defeat Hela–joining the two of them as partners again, despite neither of them remembering having done so before!

Later, after helping to defeat Thanos (Avengers Endgame, 2019) Thor appoints Valkyrie as the leader of New Asgard. The progression her life takes from Valkyrie the newly appointed ruler of New Asgard in Avengers Endgame to Zen (Dirty Computer, 2018) is the least clear point in the progression of her plotline. When next we see her she is living on an entirely different world with the love of her life, Jane 57821 (Janelle Monáe).

One possibility is that, since Avengers Endgame, another political upheaval changed the Asgard political landscape yet again and Valkyrie was deposed from her position (perhaps by a committee of alternate timeline Lokis before their sudden but inevitable betrayal of each other) and exiled Valkyrie to fight to survive under a fascist regime. Another possibility is that she traveled there in secret, perhaps in a quest of self-discovery, after finding the mantle of leadership stifling, and was expecting to leave but was so drawn by Jane that she lingered there and may have missed her chance to return.

By this time she has taken the new name of “Zen” and appears to have given up her warrior ways and by all appearances is living a crazy, classic life with Jane: after a life of focusing on duties and work, she is free to live life for the sake of life, dancing and flirting and spending time together with Jane and Jane’s other love, Che Achebe (Jayson Aaron) and their like-minded friends. Making films, playing instruments, and practicing her art, including a tattoo of a crucified woman with an old-fashioned television head on the inside of Jane’s forearm. She has even become a priestess, performing baptisms and weddings.

In some ways she is very different as Zen than Valkyrie. She shows much less tendency toward violence, even when provoked. The reason may be hinted at with Jane’s words: “I always used to say I would never hurt a fly, but I would put one to sleep”. Zen has turned over a new leaf, and has taken a vow of pacifism. Zen never speaks of Asgard or her leadership there. But she still remembers her Valkyrie days, a continuity which she shows with similar style of facepaint of white lines, a reminder of where she came from, so it appears that it is not another life event involving memory loss. Not speaking of Asgard is a choice.

But even though she is no longer fighting hostile aliens, her life is no less dangerous, because the society that she and Jane live in is oppressive to anyone who is different. She is labeled as a “dirty computer” and targeted by the government for her queerness and rebellion against authority. One by one, she and her friends are captured and scheduled for reprogramming, to work out the so-called “bugs”.

Zen is captured. After all of her struggles to maintain control of her life through memory Molly/Valkyrie/Zen is made to forget. By the time Jane is captured, Zen’s memories have already been taken from her and now she is known only as Maryapple 53 and is working as a torch, assigned as a friendly face to guide people through the reprogramming process. At first, she remembers nothing when Jane speaks to her, but Jane’s recalling of their times together starts to ruffle the programmed facade, and their time together acts in both directions, with the tattoo acting as an important focus for both of them.

Jane is subjected repeatedly to “the Nevermind”, a hypnotic fog that extracts memories and allows technicians to view and erase them, but with Zen’s presence, Jane’s memories sometimes appear again after having been deleted. Zen, still under her programming, advises Jane that it is better to just accept the process and not think. “People used to work so hard to be free. We’re lucky here. All we have to do is forget.” And though Zen does finally remember everything, the credits roll after what appears to be a successful reprogramming of Jane: Jane (introducing herself as Maryapple 54) is assigned to be the torch for Che when it comes his time for reprogramming.

Some of the details of the trio’s capture are unclear. One of these scenes appears to show Jane and Zen escaping as Che is arrested. Another scene shows Zen being captured alone while Che holds a distraught Jane back from rushing in to be captured as well. Unless one of them pulled off an improbable escape this doesn’t quite seem to add up. Most likely this is a symptom of memory damage caused by the Nevermind’s extraction process. One of the Nevermind technicians who push the buttons to operate the extraction comments “What is this? It doesn’t even look like a memory.” Though he seems to be relatively new to the job, not yet hardened to the brain damage he is intentionally causing, he seems to have enough experience to understand that this is not how these things are supposed to go. Later he says “I thought we deleted this beach stuff already” which, again, indicates that something here has gone awry in Jane’s memories that serve as the foundation for our understanding of the story. This could be Zen’s influence at work. Her particular relationship with memory may have made her resistant to the Nevermind, and maybe this has granted some protection to Jane as well.

We may not be able to trust every detail of those memories, but we are never given any reason to doubt the love between Zen and Jane. In the end, their love for each other proves out, and Zen delivers gas masks to the other two as they gas the rest of the facility with the Nevermind, sticking to their pacifist ideals and not harming anyone on their way out even though we could certainly have understood them wanting to.

After the end, and I hope that a revolution is on its way soon to free all the others who were captured before them and who will otherwise be captured after. I hope that Zen and Jane and Che have a long and happy life together being true to themselves and surrounded by loved ones. May they always remember what they wish to remember, and may they always forget what they wish to forget.

DP FICTION #80A: “Audio Recording Left by the CEO of the Ranvannian Colony to Her Daughter, on the Survival Imperative of Maximising Profits” by Cassandra Khaw and Matt Dovey

Content note (click for details)

Content note: coerced surgery, cannibalism

You will just have woken in your bed. Time is short. You are groggy, I’m sure, but it is important you pay attention and do not leave – do not move – until this recording is finished.

Listen: marketing is everything.

Corporations spend trillions to delineate histories that could exist, sculpting nuance and favorable scandals in the service of cultivated intrigue. All press is good press: an ancient koan.

This is why we do what we do in the colony. The mythos of Ranvanni IV, parlaid during prime-time and burbled between mouthfuls of gin, is an essential part of what allows us to command a premium price for our products.

Good marketing saved us all.

After the withdrawal of funding by the Hattani-Weld-Roskin Exploration Company following five successive years of underwhelming mining productivity, the colony had to turn to alternative economic streams to ensure its ongoing viability – in truth, to ensure its survival, so far on the fringes of galactic society. What we lacked in accessible mineral seams, we possessed in a cornucopic ecosystem, rich in life forms unlike anything else the galaxy offers. And after years of subsisting on restricted supplies, we had developed an expert knowledge of how to prepare it.

Less than a decade later, our cuisine is legendary. Consequently, representatives of Hattani-Weld-Roskin are now negotiating to repurchase ownership of the colony, but it is the leadership’s belief that a better bargaining position can be obtained with further discoveries, and thus we must expand our market capitalisation through all available means.

In that spirit, I detail here the history and specifics of some of our more famous dishes, to be instructive to you.

I have left you a snack on your bedside table. Chew carefully. Pay attention to the flavor, that mouthfeel. I taught you to be observant.

Boiled, the tendons of the snow-cow – named for their bovine-like physiognomy, their four stomachs, and the ice that tinsels their horn-buds – develop an enveloping sweetness, meaty, with under-notes of anise. Fried, they secrete neurotoxins. We learned this the hard way in our first year of colonization, when Hjalmar died on livestream. His death took exactly three minutes, forty-two seconds; I counted as I watched, forcing myself to acknowledge my responsibility for the incident. A biohazard crew was required to extract the body. Everything about Hjalmar had been rendered poisonous, unpalatable, even the spit left crusted black on his chin.

After the incident, snow-cows were no longer exsanguinated. Instead, we dumped them wholesale into vats of scalding water. In a quarterly mining report, colony analysts detailed that the change had improved productivity by seven point two percent, a record high. Hattani-Weld-Roskin encouraged further experimentation with local food sources to reduce their long-haul resupply costs.

In accordance with standing colony orders, Edelstein, upon accidentally discovering that a split-open rock contained red meat, scooped these innards out with his fingers (he described the texture as “similar to a warm tar, claggy, but with an added unctuousness reminiscent of the juice of rotted meat”) and sampled the meat raw. He experimented with depositing the meatstones at various points along the shore and in streams and rivers, as it subsists on filtered particles and is thus flavoured by its environment. It remains unclear if the later loss of his hair and nails was a side effect of a primarily-meatstone diet or of the increased solar radiation he was exposed to before appropriate genetic protections were provided to colonists.

The meatstones, one off-world chef later said, are most delicious when cooked into a mousse, folded with double cream and salted egg yolk, a touch of cayenne, some lemon juice. For best effect, serve with ginger-garlic vinaigrette.

Edelstein did not agree. The colony provided no official comment. When dealing with off-worlders, it is critical to remember that the end goal is always profit.

Are you still chewing the sample? Good. Don’t swallow yet. It’s important you savour the layers of taste.

Upon contact with temperatures above forty-two degrees Celsius, the flesh of the swallow-tailed glass mantis becomes edible for precisely seventy-two seconds. Texturally, it has been described as creamy, fatty, tallow-like between the teeth. The taste is more complex: powerfully umami in the beginning before it lightens, inexplicably acquiring a delicate, pleasing milkiness.

After seventy-two seconds, however, the experience sours, both literally and metaphorically. The meat emulsifies into charcoal and vinegar, a taste comparable to someone else’s bile. For that reason, cognoscenti will pay millions to lightskip one of our expert chefs from the edge to the core to serve their corporate banquets. It is a novelty, and our first marketing success. We gambled everything to make it known. Such gambles are the only path to success for those not born to it.

The fact that the glass mantis’ cousin – more populous, more beautiful, fronded with magenta instead of dull shades of peach – comes with all of the flavor but none of the drawbacks is never advertised.

Besides, I would keep them all for you.

We lost Hawkins, de Ruiz and Patel to fits and convulsions, pink spittle foaming on their lips and drying immediately into grotesque structures like clouds at sunset, before we realised the meat of the Ranvannian lamb was poisonous when cooked in individual cuts, having previously roasted them whole on a spit.

I was sitting in the canteen with them when it happened. I have always made a habit of eating in the canteen with the other colonists, so the colony saw I shared the risks. I had a lamb steak upon my own plate. But for a few seconds, you would have been orphaned then, young as you were. You are better prepared now, I hope.

The stomach of the lamb – lamb, of course, shorthand for this creature that has a woollen appearance, though in truth its exterior is filigree bones growing like spiraled feathers from the endoskeleton – is an excessively alkaline environment. Cooked whole, the stomach bursts inside the lamb and these alkaline juices soak through the carcass, breaking down the poisonous enzymes and giving the meat a sharp bite, like horseradish puree gone to mould.

For the purposes of cooking more efficient portions than an entire lamb at once (an inappropriate serving portion for gatherings of less than twenty), a stomach may be kept in the parlour and the juices poured directly onto the steak from the oesophageal opening. Due to the high alkaline content, the stomach is not at risk of rotting, and it ensures the juices maintain more flavour than if decanted into a glass container.

No one outside of the colony knows this, of course. Publicly, we have maintained that the practice of preparing Ranvannian lambs whole is sacrosanct, a religious imperative. The reason is simple: galactic decree states that all cultural practices must be observed without failure. Because of this, we sell the ruminants by the herd.

We do not make salt of our dead. That part is pure gossip.

The boandiu is a tree not unlike the terrestrial banyan, named for the sound it makes in the monsoon season. All parts of the plant are edible, including the roots, the nervous system, and the primitive cerebrum embedded in the heartwood. The shoots are a particular delicacy. Roasted with cashew-butter, seasoned with sea salt and black sugar, they can achieve a taste and texture not unlike the finest meringue.

More adventurous diners, however, prefer to consume the brainstem whole, ungarnished save for some balsamic vinegar, a tang of apple honey. The resultant flavor has been compared to crème brûlée, subtly spiced with garam masala and something ethereal. The process inevitably kills the boandiu. Because of this, we possess legislation outlawing the practice. Because of this, our poachers make millions, assisting tourists with their fantasies of devouring a protected species. Practicality supersedes sentiment, my darling. I hope you understand this applies equally this morning, when you have woken up alone. It is not because I do not love you. Never that.

Of course, in order to maintain appearances we occasionally and without warning dispatch patrols to hunt and kill the poaching parties, though never when the richest clients are in attendance.

The Raptor Albatross is a large bird-analog with a wingspan exceeding ten metres. It feeds on large sea life, plucking it from beneath the surface with its sixteen serrated claws. The natural concentration of alkaline metals through the marine food chain means the Raptor Albatross is unsuitable for human consumption except at one stage: foetal. The eggs are challenging to retrieve from the eroded cliffspires along the coast, a terrain that precludes the use of hover vehicles and requires colonists to climb by hand, exposed to the threat of the parent raptors and their claws. One day, when I return, I will show you the scars I have earned myself. Procurement is made more difficult by the size of the egg, in the region of 12 to 18 pounds, which also necessitates a long cooking process, slowly brought up to boiling over the course of sixteen hours.

This cooking process must be done from fresh; the egg cannot be frozen, as the piquant flavour and smooth, tender texture of the foetus is only brought out by the slow reaction of its enzymes in the steadily rising heat. Freezing the egg kills the foetus and renders the cooked dish brackish and rubbery. More importantly, it divests the dish of its hormonal cocktail – a dead albatross cannot fear, cannot feel its nerves bake, its blood bubble to steam. As such, the foetal albatross would not taste of its final moments. This is unacceptable.

Of course, such a requirement presents an obvious economic challenge, which you will have already noted: if viable eggs are dispatched to customers, they may choose to incubate the egg and begin a breeding program of their own, undercutting our supply. For this reason we only ever sell the eggs singly, though of course we also keep the black market well stocked for those who wish to purchase a second; it will afford them little success, as it is the parents’ diet of Ranvannian fauna that lends the egg its flavour. Divorced from the alkaline biome of the planet, the cuisine becomes quite pedestrian.

Every civilization must have its trademark drink, a beverage representative of its culture, its foibles, its myriad secrets.

Ours is simple: a brandy recalling the flavor of Hungarian pálinka, so saccharine that it must be cut with gulps of red brine. We use real apricots, real pears, mash and meat both, nothing allowed to waste. The taste, while uniformly sweet, can vary depending on the supplier. Some keep it pure. Some add cardamom, pure cocoa, kaffir lime, bold flavors to distract from the way the sugar congeals on your teeth. And some use apomorphines, engineered for tastelessness, to seduce the unwary.

All, however, share a fundamental ingredient: the fermented seminal fluid of the Vacant Shark, matured for 8 months in the harsh sun.

You can see why we are so proud, and why I have never let you drink it. I love you too much for some things to be acceptable.

Did you taste that?

Consider the fat and how it has been flavored by repeated consumption of the boandiu; the crème brûlée texture, its velvetiness. Compare and contrast the taste with the meat itself, succulent umami bomb, underscored with anise and molasses. No livestock in the universe is so tender.

The cuisine of Ranvanni IV derives its unique flavour palette and signature bite from the particular chemistry of the native biome. To a large degree, it is self-perpetuating and connected: the fauna tastes as it does because it eats the other fauna, and if bred off-planet and fed on plain nutrient paste, it loses its unique properties.

There is one species that has, up until this moment, not been sampled and sold. Early specimens had too varied and foreign a diet to titillate the galaxy at large; it is only the second generation of colonists–your generation – that have been raised on a consistent Ranvannian diet, enough to flavour the meat.

And no-one has had a richer, more varied diet than you, my daughter, a fact you must concede. That was a strip from your upper thigh, prepared quickly. Imagine how a better cut might taste: first brined for a day and then roasted with a marinade of brown sugar, cumin, chilli, fermented blue krill.

I have taken your legs before departing on my lightship; you must forgive me for taking yours and not another’s, but successful leadership is built upon shared risks, and I must be willing to sacrifice you for this cause. The proletariat are children, in their way. They subside on the stories we make for them; narrative underpins every aspect of Ranvannian life, in the end. I expect you to inherit the leadership one day, and so this is another gift for you: your own myth; the leader whose very flesh bore the blessing of prosperity.

And oh, daughter of mine, I hope you forgive me for taking both your legs. The rich always want seconds, are inevitably starved for more, more, always more. And we cannot risk this venture failing. We must give them what they want. You understand this. If we can drive a high investment now, the sunk-cost fallacy will ensure our survival even if market economics cannot: we must lure as many bidders as possible to the auction of rights. We will make a success of your sacrifice. You will thank me for it later.

You may not believe there will be a market for human flesh, but if I have learnt anything in two decades of trading food to the rich and indulgent, it is this: there is a customer for every experience.

Besides: what else is power if not an appetite for human flesh?

1100 words

CASSANDRA KHAW is an award-winning game writer, and currently works as a scriptwriter for Ubisoft Montreal. Her work can be found in places like Fantasy & Science Fiction, Tor.com, and Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her debut novel The All-Consuming World comes out in 2021.

Matt Dovey is very tall, very English, and most likely drinking a cup of tea right now. He now lives in a quiet market town in rural England with his wife & three children, and despite being a writer he still hasn’t found the right words to fully express the delight he finds in this wonderful arrangement. His surname rhymes with “Dopey” but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. He’s an associate editor at PodCastle, a member of Codex and Villa Diodati, and has fiction out and forthcoming all over the place, including all four Escape Artists podcasts, Analog and Daily SF. You can keep up with it all at mattdovey.com, or find him timewasting on Twitter as @mattdoveywriter.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings. This is Cassandra Khaw’s first story in Diabolical Plots, but her story “Hammers On Bone” was reprinted in The Long List Anthology Volume 3 in 2017. This is Matt Dovey’s fourth story in Diabolical Plots: his previous stories were “Why Aren’t Millennials Continuing Traditional Worship of the Elder Dark?” in 2019, “Consequences of a Statistical Approach Towards a Utilitarian Utopia: a Selection of Possible Outcomes” also in 2019, and “Energy Power Gets What She Wants” in 2021.