The Meat Fields

You eat what you are

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“Myonutrix wasn’t just about food, even in those early days” Henry turned back from the railing. “After Florida, Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee banned “artificial meat”, the writing was on the wall. You best believe we lawyered up and fought like hell for our product not to be included under that umbrella, but…well…” He gestured feebly at the half-acre of gently pulsating, writhing flesh, blanketing the floor of the massive indoor warehouse, having grown around the structural supports interrupting that floorspace at even intervals.

“So we did a hard pivot to organ transplants. What’s that saying? It’s not the fastest, strongest or even brightest who survive, but the most adaptable. As in nature, so in business, though I’m sure you’re thinking there’s not a whole lot that’s natural about this.” I nodded slowly, gawking at the morbid spectacle. Modified agricultural sprinklers on wheels instead sprayed a fine mist that Henry informed me was to keep the epidermis moisturized.

He leaned precariously on the railing now, trusting in it entirely too much given his considerable weight. I wondered what would become of him should it give way. Should he take a tumble off this steel balcony overlooking the grow space. A soft landing, at least. But then what? Probably something far more boring than the lurid images my imagination conjured of his corpulent body sinking into the flesh like quicksand, screaming for help as it absorbed him.

Nothing so poetic as a glutton’s dinner turning the tables, I soon discovered. The rule of boring never fails. When I asked if it’s safe to touch, he invited me to, and though part of me recoiled from the proposition, another found it irresistible. We descended the rickety metal stairway to ground level. I knelt before the periphery, and cautiously extended my hand.

“Careful where you touch” Henry cautioned. “The floor panels just underneath are electrified.” I blinked a few times. “Come again?” He knelt beside me, pointing out the barely exposed edges of metal plating. “It forcibly contracts and relaxes all the muscles at set intervals. Without constant exercise, the texture of the resulting meat wouldn’t be sufficiently firm.” Of course, I thought. How foolish of me.

It did make sense of why the squishy pink mass never stopped writhing. I felt pangs of empathy Henry would surely inform me were misguided, should I say anything. I put them on the back burner instead, reaching out once more, taking care as advised. Smooth, warm, and disagreeably damp to the touch. Which I suppose I should’ve expected, from the misters. “Notice anything?” Henry wiggled his eyebrows.

I focused. “...Is that a pulse?” I don’t know why it should surprise me. It’s a living thing after all, just difficult to think of it as one since there’s nothing like a face to look at. No eyes, said to be windows to the soul, and thus hopefully no soul either. Though he did say it grows organs in there someplace. “Transplants, huh?”

Henry nodded vigorously, jowls jiggling. “See those veiny sacs?” I wish he wouldn’t put it that way, but I nodded along. “Each one contains a full set of organs. Maybe you’ve read about teratomas?” I mouthed it silently, his cue to explain. “Tumors which grow hair, teeth, and a variety of other cell types. Teratoma research is actually what got this whole ball rolling.”

I gagged. “It’s a tumor? You’re feeding people tumors?” He laughed, wiping sweat from his flush pink forehead, the color and texture of cured ham. “That’s a bit reductive, but yes. Not what marketing advised us to lead with, of course. The value proposition is simple; if your cattle are large enough, harvesting slabs of meat appropriately sized for human consumption no longer kills the animal, nor even particularly bothers it.”

I asked how he could be sure of that, if it hasn’t any mouth to complain with. His mirth suddenly faded. Now scowling, he laid into me, an outburst I knew to expect from interviewing his employees the prior year. “Don’t you start in with that bleeding heart claptrap! If you lot had your way, we’d all be living in caves, eating grass. Just how much more ethical do you suppose carnism can possibly be?”

I conceded the point, assuring the portly billionaire that I had no intention of writing a hit piece. “Your last article wasn’t far off from that” he grumbled, though with some playful cajoling, he confessed that neither should he have expected a puff piece. “This is a new frontier for the meat industry” I pointed out. “And, if I’ve understood you correctly, the biomedical one as well. The public naturally has questions they want answered, and you’re the man to put their fears to rest.”

He straightened up, apparently liking the sound of that. “Right you are. The man for the moment, that’s what Time magazine called me in their biopic.” He glanced over at me as we climbed back up the stairway, which swayed noticeably with his every belabored step. “There were some great turns of a phrase in that piece you might think about borrowing.”

I found it vastly easier to think clearly once that thing was out of sight. Though the strange smell I first noticed upon entering the facility permeated throughout, including Henry’s office. “Have a seat” he invited. “Mind if I record this?” I pretended to be thrown off balance, as I assumed was his intent. “Just who is interviewing whom?” I snapped, feigning dismay. He smirked, gently patting the little plastic box before pressing record. “Insurance, that’s all. In case you take me out of context, can’t be too careful.”

I made a show of composing myself, taking a few deep breaths, smoothing down my hair and shirt. “Alright well, I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but it’s a hot topic on social media. Why is it white?” He slapped his knee and guffawed. “Pink, you mean. But I’ll bite. Why’s it pale, and not brown? Is that problematic? Would it be better if we upped the melanin, or wouldn’t the peanut gallery then complain for a different reason?”

Plainly rhetorical, I didn’t answer. He needed no prompting to carry on with his spiel, anyhow. “The answer will disappoint you, if only because you won’t get the controversial angle you’re gunning for. It’s pink because pigs are pink, and the chimeric DNA is 41% porcine.” I snapped my fingers. “That’s it! Where I know the smell from, I mean. I’ve been trying to place it this whole time.”

He sniffed at the air. “I believe you, but when you spend enough time on site, your brain kinda filters it out.” Not soon enough for my liking, I thought while pinching my nose. Henry seemed to take offense, producing a thin cut of the product from a mini fridge by his desk, then sliding the plate my way.

I shook my head and pushed it back. “Oh go on, don’t be precious about it” he chided. “You came here to get the whole story, didn’t you? How can you say you’ve done your due diligence when you haven’t even tasted what you’re reporting on?”

He wouldn’t let it alone until I swore up and down I’d try some later, whereupon he handed me a coupon for Beefy Bill’s. The interview concluded amicably, first of several scheduled over the coming week as Henry conducted the sort of carefully curated tour one also receives as a western visitor to North Korea.

Even prior to accepting the assignment, I knew that to see the really juicy stuff his tour would steer me away from, I was going to need a man on the inside. As such, part of laying the groundwork for the expose I had in mind included embedding a mole within the ranks of Myonutrix’s small army of bioengineers.

Javier looked the part, clean cut and stately with a neatly trimmed pencil moustache, but more importantly he possessed all the applicable qualifications. That he flew in from out of state could raise some red flags, as the grow site was situated in rural Iowa for the cheap land. Consequently, almost every resident of nearby Titonka works for Myonutrix, making it a de facto company town.

That includes the regional fast food chain, Beefy Bill’s Patty Party, or BB’s to locals. I met Javier inside to rehearse for his job interview, as well as to collect some “samples”. I might’ve raised a few eyebrows cutting bits off the burger I ordered, slipping them in a ziplock bag.

“You gonna eat any of it?” Javier whispered. My face scrunched up reflexively. “Absolutely not.” All around us, generously proportioned Midwestern families dug into their slop. Lips smacking, pudgy sausage fingers shiny with grease. “What’s Henry Bronstein like in person?” Javier leaned in conspiratorially. Though as yet, I had nothing salacious to reveal.

At the next table over, a hefty boy of perhaps ten fished the prize out of his Meaty Meal. His chubby freckled cheeks contort gradually from the giddy smile of discovery, to the scowl of disappointment. “I already have this pocket torture pet!” he groans. The veiny flesh nugget, another Myonutrix spinoff, trembles anxiously at the end of the bioceramic keychain to which its tiny skeleton is bonded.

His father suggests giving it to his sister, if he really doesn’t want it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, though I doubt if anyone in this family has ever eaten one. Maybe if it fell into a bucket of gravy? Belabored breathing, though they’re not exerting themselves that I can see. Just sitting there, lifting burgers to their mouths, then resting their arms between bites. Faces puffy, overhead tube lighting glints off their sunken eyes as they masticate.

The boy rips open a clear plastic accessories pouch that came with the torture pet. Needles, a vial of nutrient solution, one of those little plastic sabres they stick through the olive in a martini. He gets busy turning the poor creature into a pincushion as it convulses. Marketed as stress relief toys, though I doubt if a boy his age feels much stress, except when going up stairs.

Javier, by contrast, cut a worryingly thin figure. “You ought to have some, if anything.” I extended the burger his way. “Are you the sort to lose yourself in your work until you forget to eat?” He denied it, instead outing himself as a vegan. I repeated a joke I once heard: “How do you know who’s a vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.” Javier grimaced. “You literally just asked me.”

Technically I hadn’t, but saw no reason to quibble. It made sense of his wiry, yet dense physique. I wondered if his dietary preference might throw up any red flags with HR, while watching diners with no such qualms wolfing down Myonutrix frankenburgers all around me.

I stared down at my own partly dissected burger. I then looked back at the overhead menu screens at the front. The burger appeared so beautiful there. Colorful, glistening with meat juice, all textures clearly visible. I mournfully compared it to the pitiful mess they served me, limp and grey under the faintly buzzing tube lights.

I prodded it with the plastic knife, half expecting it to twitch. When I glanced over at the boy, I found he was staring at me. “I don’t know either” I thought. Shouldn’t the end result of such a miracle of modern logistics be more impressive? Planes, trains and trucks, numbering in the thousands or millions, bringing ingredients together from all over the world.

All those jobs, that whole international apparatus, for this. I flipped the pallorous disc of flame-broiled flesh, picking out the onions. Likely grown in a different state, maybe even a different country, than the lettuce and tomato. At least they’re not clearcutting the Amazon to raise cattle anymore.

I wondered how often the families around me came here to eat. Dopamine and serotonin discharged into their brains by their favorite combination of flavors and textures. Exactly the right configuration of matter to trigger exactly the neurochemical reaction which motivates their repeat business.

I then compared the price of a Patty Party Deluxe to the federal minimum wage. Fast food only keeps getting more expensive. Is it worth an hour of life, to eat this? Seven hours per week, 48 per month? That’s two full days of life subtracted from every month, to compensate every pair of hands involved in bringing ingredients from where they’re grown, to where they’ll be assembled and eaten.

Just one long assembly line, wrapping around the globe. Tirelessly delivering a never-ending procession of molecules configured just-so, to the gaping maws of hungry consumers, who trade hours of their lives at work for fleeting pleasure. I thought about my own favorite experiences. Skiing. Scuba diving. The rigamarole that goes into preparing for either, all the time that prep takes, and the money it costs.

Why? So I can repeat my favorite experiences. Then work for a while, to repeat them again. Replaying just the right sensory signals my brain has come to prefer…before trading away my remaining time, piecemeal, so I can do more of it. Like setting up the pieces after every chess game, or rewinding a tape.

Is that life? Chasing endorphins, repeating pleasurable experiences? Whether that’s eating decadent foods, having sex, or carving my way down fresh powder. Only for it to be over before I know it, making me long for more. Running in the hamster wheel, my boss siphoning away the surplus value of my labor, so I can enjoy those same feelings a second time? A third, and a fourth? Going around the same loop over and over, ending only with the grave.

I suppose I do enjoy my work. It does interest me. But I’ve worked many jobs I didn’t enjoy, simply to earn the money I needed to repeat pleasurable experiences. To keep that conveyor belt rolling, endless copies of the same matter stretching out to an infinite horizon, assembled for me by people I’ll never meet, so that I can grow old trying to recapture a feeling.

Fingers snapped, inches from my face. I looked up, my eyes meeting Javier’s. “Sam? Everything okay in there?” I smiled. “Much as it ever is. Sorry for tweaking you, before. I think about being a vegan sometimes, if I’m honest. Can’t blame you, when cheap meat looks like this.” He pushed me to expand on the thought, asking what stops me from swearing off meat entirely.

I shrugged. “Guess I’m evil!” I could tell my answer tickled him somewhat, but he didn’t leave it alone, so I obliged his curiosity. “Expensive meat is a world apart from this slop. It tastes really damn good. That’s all there is to it, for me. Sorry to disappoint you.” Javier insisted he wasn’t disappointed at all.

“That’s at least an honest answer, which I don’t usually get. Just lots of deflecting, whataboutism, defensive posturing and so forth. People who insist there’s no reason to feel guilty about eating animals, while acting guilty as hell.” I rubbed my chin, now intent on playing devil’s advocate to see how far it would get me, if I cared that much.

“I don’t know that anyone currently has a grip on the moral math of Myonutrix. Too new, not enough information, why I brought you in on this project. But if we’re talking real beef, chicken, and pork, the arguments are pretty well-worn by now. None of those animals are particularly bright. I think it’s probably true that I can make better use of a chicken’s life, than the chicken can. Likewise the cow, or pig.”

Javier’s eyes lit up, someone finally engaging him in a line of argument he must’ve spent hours rehearsing, to say nothing of social media debates. “Would you eat a mentally handicapped person?” I groaned. “Come on, man.” But he stuck to his guns. “If you believe a life’s worth is down to intelligence, why draw the line at the species boundary?”

I complained that he wasn’t going to get many takers, if he compared them to cannibals. “Okay, okay. But would you eat dogs?” I shook my head. “Too smart.” Javier narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe that’s your real reason. It’s all just arbitrary emotion.” I threw up my hands. “Yeah, alright, probably! But we’re at the top of the food chain, we can be as arbitrary as we like. Who will tell us otherwise?”

It should’ve landed, but didn’t seem to. He just went on listing animals like horses, rabbits and dolphins, each time asking if I would eat one. I surprised myself at how quickly it exasperated me.

“Listen, Javier. You’re never gonna talk most people into giving up meat entirely. You really think countries still in the process of industrializing, where meat was scarce and expensive until recently, will abstain from gorging themselves on it once meat becomes abundant? After we gorged ourselves for centuries, you suppose the developing world will care if we wag our fingers at them?”

Javier, to his credit, didn’t reflexively shut me down. The mind of a scientist. Ideally journalists as well, though journalistic objectivity is sort of a punchline to the public nowadays. “What do you propose?” He asked. I withdrew a ballpoint pen from my shirt pocket, and set to doodling a row of ten stick figures on a napkin.

“If the goal you’re optimizing for is an overall reduction to meat consumption, you ought to be compromising more, and not only working the moralist angle. Appeals to morality target a pretty narrow slice of the population, you must also appeal to self interest. For example you could play up the health benefits of eating less meat. The paleo diet, I think it’s called? So it’s not just the right thing to do, but also the pragmatic thing. That’s simply good marketing.”

It was Javier’s turn to zone out as he listened. I didn’t so much as slow down, trusting most of it would get across. “So let’s say you can only convince one out of every ten people to give up meat altogether.” I circled a single stick figure. “...But you can convince five to reduce their meat intake steeply, for the sake of fitness and longevity.” I underlined four more. “The second approach results in lower meat consumption than the first.”

He frowned briefly, and opened his mouth as if to dispute it. When it instead slowly closed, I took it for an invitation to make my closing argument. “Ideologues, for whom this is a pressing moral issue, will shoot themselves in the foot by insisting on the first approach. No more practical, in the real world, than abstinence-only sex ed. But a pragmatist like you should agree that a compromise, backed with careful marketing, brings you closer to your desired outcome.”

Javier glared at me, grimaced, and crossed his arms over his chest. “...I suppose” he grumbled. I slapped him on the back. “Knew I liked you. Welcome to the team!” On the drive out of town, a commercial came in through considerable static on the car radio.

“This Thanksgiving, throw out that disgusting soy turkey your liberal aunt brought over.” Cartoon sound effects of a car crash, a horn and a cat screeching followed. “Are you really gonna eat that plant-based ham?” An auto-tuned pig squeal accompanies a slide whistle, descending.

“You’re a real man, you need real meat! Myonutrix is the only no-kill meat product that’s real meat, all the way through! Fake news media called it “A disturbing new affront to animal dignity”. Democrats hate it so much, we season every batch with their salty, communist tears!”

Javier nudged me. “This the kind of marketing you want?” I began to shake my head, but reconsidered. “I mean…if it does the job. Appealing to tribalism is a time honored way of courting stubborn market demographics.”

Javier harrumphed, flipping through stations in search of better reception. A Cybertruck silently zipped past us, rear window plastered with decals of the Gadsen flag, peeing Calvin, and the thin blue line flag. What does this guy believe? Does Calvin know? He’s peeing on both flags…

Javier noticed Autumn out front, on approach to the farmhouse. “First day, already mixing work with pleasure?” He scowled. “Not like that. But she’s really funding all this?” Autumn knelt on the rolling, verdant hill beside the long, gravel driveway in a tie-dyed dress. “What’s she doing?”

I wondered that myself until I inched the Subaru close enough to make out the dozen or so Pocket Torture Pets she was dumping out of Meaty Meal boxes, into the grass. “Be free, little ones!” she declared. The glistening lumps of living tissue just kinda pulsated, flopping around.

“We just came from BB’s actually” I revealed, producing the ziplock bag of samples from my pocket and waving it gently for effect. “Is it cooked?” I opened the bag and took a whiff, immediately regretting it. “I would assume so. This is how they served it.” Autumn explained that the proteins would all be denatured. “There won’t be any intact DNA to sequence.”

Javier was quick to get chummy with Autumn, despite our talk. He didn’t take his foot off the gas until Winter showed up. When she and Autumn embraced for a long kiss, Javier finally got the picture. “You’re a scientist” I whispered. “I didn’t think it would take you that long.”

I put a sample under the microscope, all the same, in hopes something could still be learned. I proposed an autopsy of one or more torture pets, but Autumn put her bare foot down. “Absolutely not! Those are God’s creatures.” I let it go, but privately hoped to scoop some dead ones out of the grass, should coyotes not get ‘em all overnight.

“Moonbeam, Starchild, this is Javier.” They rolled their eyes. “Moonbeam was my Reiki teacher” Winter quipped, “I’ve never met a Starchild”. Javier asked if either of them have ever met a Spring, or a Summer. “With your powers combined, you could summon Captain Planet.”

They took it in good humor, and over a round of beers, filled Javier in on the history of the farmhouse and its various outbuildings. “Have you heard of Drop City?” He confessed that it sounded familiar, but that he found little time to read anything not work related until very recently.

“My grandparents had a hand in building it, back when they lived in Colorado. Geodesic domes, hand-painted with bespoke artwork. An experimental, intentional community of free-thinking artists.” Javier asked what happened to it.

Autumn fiddled with one of her long, blonde braids, eyes downcast as she replied. “It turns out artists are a workshy bunch. When I said my grandparents had a hand in building it, I mean they were two out of the three people living in Drop City that did any real labor.”

I asked why they stuck around as long as they did. Pride entered her voice. “They believed in what they were doing! Drop City was ahead of its time. Solar hot water, organic farming, cutting edge architecture for the sixties. Projects like that need people who want to work, and they did! …It just fell apart when nobody else would lift a finger, without a great deal of shouting.”

Winter objected that it did last for almost two decades. “Usually communes don’t make it half that long, unless they turn it into a business, like the Snapple and Sobe guys.” I slapped my knee. “Sobe! Are they still around? I haven’t tasted that sweet, sweet lizard milk since I was in college. Used to be a proper country.”

Autumn gestured for me to quit yapping. “ANYways, after Drop City failed, they moved to Iowa when Mom was…fourteen? She and Dad met in high school, hit it off and started an organic co-op grocery store together. They did well enough to buy the tools and materials needed to rebuild. Not even a patch on the original, but it does include some of the original painted dome facets.”

The drunker we got, the further off the rails discussion went. I’m not sure how I got there, but I woke up in bed, morning sun creeping over the horizon and spilling its warm rays into my room. I hammered out a progress report email to my editor while brushing my teeth, which did little to make my breath stink less of beer.

I took a shower, head pounding, struggling to stand. Ultimately crouching for stability as I shampooed my hair with trembling fingers. I followed the tantalizing scent of freshly brewed coffee, where I came upon a dumbfounded Javier, standing in the opened sliding glass doorway to the deck.

On that deck, Winter and Autumn laid stark naked on their backs, holding their legs over their heads…tanning their buttholes. “What the fuck am I looking at” Javier muttered, perhaps only now second guessing his choice of comrades. After fetching my coffee in a sacred geometry mug and drinking deeply, I ambled up beside him, placing one hand on his shoulder.

“Every morning it’s the same routine. First they recite their sun greeting, then some affirmations. Then comes the perineum sunning. Don’t try to understand it, you’re a hylic like me. Our pineal glands are way too calcified.”

In the yard behind them, the few Pocket Torture Pets not eaten during the night wriggled and flopped among the cuntweeds. Frolicking, in their way. I did a double take, having not seen even a single live specimen outside of a lab environment for over a decade. Banned in 41 states, Flos Pudendum (colloquially known as the cuntweed) was a once-popular early offering of Verduron, plant-based competitor to Myonutrix.

Descended from the humble venus fly trap, modified to structurally mimic an anatomically correct vagina, the “Lady of the Garden” (as Verduron’s own marketing materials referred to it) blew up for obvious reasons, sales waning only after it was discovered that its digestive enzymes irreversibly dye your penis purple.

Like the exploding dye packets meant to deter shoplifters, it meant anyone who ever…availed themselves of a “Lady of the Garden” during a dry spell, or a cold and lonesome evening, was forever marked. I can’t prove that’s why nobody showers together in gyms anymore, but I suspect it.

Autumn followed my gaze. “Oh no you don’t! Those poor little darlings have been through enough already. You’d better not even THINK about it!” I protested my innocence, but it didn’t stop her from lecturing me. “Plant friends can’t give consent, you know.” I pointed out that she exclusively eats plants, and asked whether they consent to it first.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then scowled. “Just don’t let me catch you out here after dark with your pants around your ankles, mister.” I swore up and down I wouldn’t dream of it, taking care to look anywhere but directly at them on account of their indecent state, before giving up and retreating inside.

There I refilled my mug, watching videos on my phone. Hypocrite that I am, it runs on a brainlet organoid grafted to silicon, so I pour some nutrient solution into a small hole at the top while draining waste secretions from the port at the bottom.

The video’s a little over eight years old, and the view count reflects it. FDA agents in hazmat suits are seen using flamethrowers to incinerate a field of cuntweeds, discovered behind a highschool. Whoever narced was in for never-ending swirlies from his classmates, I wager.

It wasn’t just the purple penis thing that led to congress banning them as a rider on a broader biotech regulatory reform bill. Cuntweeds were also scorned by feminist pressure groups who at first promoted them, with the rationale that it would reduce rapes by giving ugly men an outlet.

Problem was, not only ugly men preferred the convenience of fucking a plant for zero dollars to the expense and risk of modern dating. The already sagging birth rate bottomed out overnight. Tiktok erupted with videos of young women complaining that even tall, handsome, high earning men were taking care of their needs with potted cuntweeds, or discreet trips to unlicensed plant brothels.

Suddenly unable to get dates or even second looks on the street, the same women who vocally championed the cuntweed months prior, turned against it in lockstep. Plant brothels were raided, seed stores confiscated and destroyed. Controlled burns sent up plumes of fishy smelling smoke, visible for miles.

While Javier was at “work”, I finished unpacking my gear. By noon I had a video editing station set up in what was once a study. At first I thought it cozy, facing a window overlooking the garden. But light streaming in through it made reading fine little text on my laptop an eye watering ordeal.

Heaving and huffing, I budged the desk but a few inches before giving up on turning it to face the wall. Not yet exhausted, instead realizing the sunlight would just create screen glare instead. I settled on duct taping a pillowcase over the window, for lack of drapes.

Felt antisocial, but also appropriately secretive. I got busy opening my editing software, creating a new project, and double checking parameters like framerate and aspect ratio. For white noise, I turned on a hulking tube television in the corner that was undoubtedly built before my time.

I didn’t notice the built-in VCR until it began automatically playing back the contents of its tape. Incoherent at first, partly from magnetic degradation, but also because it’d evidently been recorded over many times.

Nothing but a jumble of old shows, and commercials. One was for Beefy Bill’s, with the classic logo and color scheme not used since the 90s. Accidental vaporwave warbled out of the speakers as the VCR struggled briefly with tracking.

That jingle’s burned into my brain. It was all over TV when I was a kid, Pavlovian association still makes me salivate when I hear it. Before little me had a sense of time, I knew Christmas was near when those cola commercials with polar bears began airing.

Come to think of it, most if not all of the warm, nourishing core memories from my childhood involve brands. I don’t know how to feel about that. I banged on the VCR. Just like that, tracking stabilized, and the static cleared up enough to make out the commercial.

A quartet of singing chicken nuggets danced in single file up a steep set of stairs, leading to a diving board. Then, one by one, they winked at the viewer before diving headfirst into little plastic tubs of dipping sauce. Smiling goblinesque 80s children with perfect hair and teeth then picked them up, brought them close to their mouths, and…

The commercial faded to black, like some sort of culinary snuff film. Oldest trick in the book, targeting kids. Conflating food with friendship, to create lifelong customers prone to stress eating. Shouldn’t putting a cute, friendly face on the nuggets humanize them, so that one cannot bear to eat them?

Maybe that’s the fantasy they sell. That animals can be both friends, and food. That nuggets aren’t resolidified chicken paste; the chicken was always the nugget, itself alive and happy to be eaten. Even so, to my chagrin, it left me wanting chicken nuggets.

Journalists ought to be immune to propaganda, ideally. I’ll die on the hill that we’re at least more self aware about our media consumption. But I did want nuggies, even having personally witnessed the floor to ceiling metal grids where poultry’s cultivated.

Logical evolution of factory farming, every chicken hangs from a harness, immobilized and kept sedated with drugs circulated through the carefully organized bundles of clear silicone tubes by which nutrients enter their bloodstream.

“The Chicken Matrix” headlines called it, before being sued by Warner Bros over the unwanted association. From egg to slaughter, experiencing only fleeting moments of consciousness, never to know light or color. Cultivated in vast, unlit, sterile indoor spaces, to save on power bills.

Maybe they do like it. Not being eaten obviously, but at low points, I’ve wished I could sleep my life away. Not kill myself, but come close, withering over my remaining decades into a contented vegetable. Something like what it must be, to live as Henry’s warehouse tumor.

The garbled commercials faded into static, suiting me fine, as it’s white noise I was after. I dialed it down to threshold volume, then turned my attention back to my makeshift workstation. I toyed with mashing up older clips to make a cool intro for three hours, interrupted when Winter called me down for dinner.

Javier was just coming in the door as I descended the stairs. “Gimme.” I held out an open hand, making grabbing motions. He smiled weakly, perhaps fatigued, then handed over the micro SD card from the spycam embedded in his labcoat’s top button.

“I hope you didn’t shake it around too much, stabilization is lossy.” We sat down at the same side of the dining room table, with Autumn opposite us, while Winter fetched our plates. Dinner was some unpronounceable Indian vegan dish resembling baby diarrhea on a romaine lettuce leaf, with differently colored veggie slop on the side.

“Careful, Sam” she cautioned, pointing to the side, “that’s spicy.” I scoffed, insisting I love spicy food. “Indian spicy? Not white boy spicy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I made a show of dunking a torn off chunk of naan generously into the dip.

But, as warned, I soon regretted it. “What’s the matter?” teased Winter. I pokerfaced while sweating, not wanting to give her the satisfaction. “Do you…have any milk?” I wheezed, assuming the worst, since these two would probably consider milking exploitative.

To my surprise, she nodded. “You’ll have to get it fresh from the tap though. Have you ever milked a cow?” I struggled to answer with numb lips. “Do I look like I’ve ever milked a cow?” I expected her to lead me outside. Instead, we descended a stairwell into the basement.

There, hooked up to life support with all manner of tubes coming out of it, hung a “Foodbeast”. It gently swayed in its harness, feeble vestigial nubs wiggling in recognition of our presence. “Where’d you get this?” I gawked. “I thought Bronstein had them all humanely destroyed.”

The Foodbeast was an early offering of Myonutrix. A genetic chimera of pig, goat, sheep and cow, it most resembled a pig for its clammy pink skin. But with no discernible head, just an opening for the feeding tube, and another at the rear to suction out waste.

“There’s nothing humane about mass culling these poor creatures, who never asked to be born. Much less changed so radically from their ancestral forms!” I could see her side of it. Yet forcing it to continue living didn’t seem humane either. Better by far, if Myonutrix had never created it.

“Since the dawn of time, whenever men discovered new animals, you thought “what can it do for me?” waxed Winter, happy for a captive audience not already in agreement with her ideals. “Like the Giving Tree. But the Giving Tree becomes a much darker story if you trade out the tree for animals.”

I sighed. “You made your point. Now, where are the teats.” Mildly aghast that I still wanted to milk it, she nevertheless lifted a roll of hanging flab, revealing the engorged udder. “Is it pregnant?” I inquired while massaging milk from the teats, into my mug.

“No, they’re just always lactating. I don’t know which drug would stop it, only that it’s painful and eventually lethal if they aren’t milked for too long.” Made sense, then, why she let me. I sipped warily from the mug. Rich, smooth, nothing to fault. I wiped away my milk mustache and offered Winter some. She declined.

“You know” I remarked on our way up the stairs, “in the middle ages there was a variety of dog bred specifically for the single task of running in a wheel, connected by belt to a spit roasting poultry over the fire. They called it the turnspit dog.”

Winter was appalled, as expected. I only shrugged. “Eh, it’s a living…until it isn’t. Canis Vertigus wasn’t any good as a rat catcher or hunting dog. Soon after the peasantry devised clockwork machines that could turn a spit, they left those poor things to fend for themselves, and their extinction soon followed. I’ve long felt there’s a lesson in that.”

Winter turned, briefly, while opening the basement door. “That there’s no end to the depravity of man, or the indignities to which he subjects God’s creatures?” I elected not to tell her about the cat organ. “Well yeah, no contest. But I was thinking more along the lines of versatility as a virtue, and the folly of narrow specialization in an ever-changing world.”

The baby diarrhea was better than it looked, but I didn’t touch the dip again, having learned to fear and respect it. Once we finished and cleared our places, lively discussion broke out over wine in the livingroom’s conversation pit.

“You don’t see these in newer homes” I lamented, running my hand appreciatively along the contours of the cushion lined, bowl-shaped depression. “That’s because carpeted, curved surfaces are a bitch to vacuum” groused Autumn, stepping down from the rim before getting cozy.

A few glasses in, the topic turned to Drop City, and how the seasonal duo hoped to revive its original vision. “As soon as we hire an electrician to wire up the out buildings, we plan to start moving in like-minded fellow travelers.”

My ears perked up. “You’re communists?” Anarcho-communists, Autumn corrected. It checked out; I’d so far not seen any signs either were employed, but their money must come from somewhere. Anarcho-communism is a system only believed in by people who have never worked. I didn’t press the issue, instead leaning in to signal interest.

“We’ll have a carpenter, a gardener, a baker, each member will have some useful skill they can barter with!” Barter? I wondered whether she and I defined anarcho-communism in the same way. But again, I first let Autumn explain the vision, not wanting to derail her train of thought.

“Let’s say the baker wants a new table. He could bake however many loaves of bread the carpenter wants for it. No money changes hands! Imagine how perfect it will be, a little bubble world outside of the cold, grey, capitalist machine.”

When she paused, inviting feedback, I asked who would make computers. She shifted in her seat, and bit her lip. “Like how do you mean? If you need your laptop fixed, there would be a guy who trades you his expertise for-”

I clarified that her scenario relies on infrastructure and goods only possible under capitalism. “Most Soviet microcomputers were clones of western ones. Their planned economies used pricing information from capitalist countries as a guide.”

Autumn’s face scrunched up a bit. “It won’t be Soviet style communism. Mostly anarchic, but we live together on a commune and practice mutual aid.” I carried on recounting how much industrial infrastructure, like mines, refineries, chip fabs and so on are needed to make laptops.

“You’re overthinking it” insisted Winter, coming to Autumn’s defense. “Maybe we’ll just do without computers. That sounds like an improvement actually.” So I suggested they go and join the Amish, who already live as they describe.

Unwelcome advice, on account of Amish settlements not resembling the Chobani commercial aesthetic they had in mind. Least of all the patriarchal religion or focus on farming. “I should paint it for you! Then you’d understand our vision.”

I slapped my knee. “It’s the Smurf village.” She fell silent and cocked her head. “Come again?” I repeated her explanation of how the economy functioned. That there’d be individual practitioners of every essential skill, presumably training their sons or daughters to replace them.

Autumn’s eyes lit up. “Yes, exactly! Now you’ve got it!” But I doubled down. “That’s the Smurf village. Have you ever seen the Smurfs? Each one is named after their job. Handy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Chef Smurf-” She pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation and gestured for me to stop.

“All I know is that it works in my head, and I trust my own thoughts more than I do haters.” Now grumpy, she visibly relaxed when Winter gave her a gentle peck on the cheek. “Don’t mind him, he’s a journalist. It’s his job to poke holes.”

More right than she knew! I went on poking holes long after both girls turned in for the night. Javier, tight-lipped throughout the earlier argument, now scolded me. “What’s the idea, picking poor Autumn apart like that? Is it not enough for you that she’s putting us up during our investigation, not to mention bankrolling it?”

I ignored him, digging through thick, leather bound tomes on the bookshelf. “Are you listening? What’s that you’ve got there? Oh good, now you’re rummaging through her things.” I laid the leather binder on the dining room table.

Once opened, it was revealed as a photo album. “I don’t like this” grumbled Javier. “For the record, I was against it.” I did feel a tinge of guilt, but if I let that stop me, I shouldn’t be in this line of work. “Aha!” I pointed to a particular photograph. “Do you know who that is?”

Javier shook his head, studying the photo closely. “That’s Kathleen Bernofsky, co-founder of Verduron!” I marveled at myself for never having connected her to JoAnn. “And who do you suppose that little girl on her lap is?” Not that the caption written in cursive below the photo left much doubt, reading simply “Mom and Autumn”.

Autumn never mentioned any siblings. Then again, Kathleen Bernofsky never revealed she had any heirs. I could imagine reasons to conceal such relations from the world. Especially if I were the billionaire co-founder of a hotly politicized biotech company, with the meat industry in my crosshairs.

It also clued me in to what Autumn’s stake in all this actually was, beyond the pretense of rescuing lab animals and whatnot. I was ready to believe it was all out of the goodness of her heart. Should’ve known better, everyone’s got an angle.

I weighed whether to disclose it in my report. It would raise questions about my impartiality. But on the other hand, it’d look much worse if I didn’t disclose, then was later found out. I sighed, taking a few photos of the album with my phone, then returned it to the shelf.

Scrubbing through Javier’s footage had me burning the candle at both ends. Besides a few OSHA violations, I spied a row of Foodbeasts hooked up to vitals monitors. On paper, they’re supposed to be extinct. Then again, we’ve got one in the basement. I’ll need juicier dirt.

Javier asked if he captured anything useful when I returned the micro SD card. “Nothing that’ll win me any awards.” He proposed shadowing Bronstein. “No, that’ll just arouse suspicion. Hang out after closing, as if working overtime. Poke around, say, medical waste disposal or the gene bank. But have an excuse to be there, if you’re caught.”

Javier complained briefly that I shouldn’t push him into places I wouldn’t go. But he and I both knew that in his shoes, I absolutely would. “Oh, another thing.” Javier showed me a printed out memo. “Bronstein’s gonna appear in public tomorrow. Announcing a new product or something, fielding questions from the press.”

Probably a nothingburger. I wouldn’t put it past him to sell something by that name, actually. Nor could I pass up the chance to catch him in a public gaffe. So, I edited what I had into clips suitable for B-roll, then hit the hay.

I woke up ragged the following morning. Not hung over, I’d carefully moderated my wine intake the night before. Rather I sometimes forget I’m no longer in my 20s, when I routinely pulled all-nighters, no worse for wear.

Cursing myself all the while, I stopped at Beefy Bill’s for a small coffee on my way to Henry’s publicity stunt. Felt like a betrayal of my principles to set foot in there, when not collecting samples or footage. I told myself it’s just infrastructure, the food’s secondary.

There’s some truth to that. Enough to excuse stopping by for a coffee and a piss, anyhow. For all its sins, Beefy Bills are almost insidiously useful. Thousands of locations, many along interstates. Standardized decor, layout and amenities. You always know what you’re getting.

Clean, or reasonably so. Bathrooms accessible 24/7 without buying anything, a boon to road trippers. Wifi, though I’m sure they sell my data. More of a rest stop, than a restaurant! The coffee was eight bucks.

Prices keep going up, because we keep paying regardless. The pot has not yet boiled, so the frogs gripe a little, but continue their soak. The coffee stung on its way out, at the urinal. Is coffee supposed to do that? Even Beefy Bill’s can’t fuck up instant coffee, can they?

Without meaning to, I glanced at the fella pissing into the urinal next to mine. In my defense, purple’s an eye catching color. He noticed, then glanced at mine, which of course was also purple. “Got you too, huh? Yanno, you can still send dick pics. Phones got a filter now what changes the color.”

Unsure what to do with that advice, I nodded sternly, then kept my eyes locked on the wall above the urinal for the remainder of my piss. Two shakes, a tasteful amount, but I still got a droplet on my pant leg.

There were protesters gathered outside the event. From out of state I assume, having spotted a handful of Minnesota plates while parking. They held signs reading “Beefy Bill’s gave me diabetes!” and “Beefy Bill’s = Childhood Obesity!”

Not to play devil’s advocate, but it seemed to me like they were blame shifting. Guilty that they lack the self control to stop eating it, too lazy to cook for their children, and that’s Henry’s fault? For sure, there’s something slimy about how BB’s advertises to kids. The chicken nugget commercial came to mind.

Still, from where I sat, it looked like addicts shaming their dealer, even as they kept coming back. “They load the product with sodium and fat to make us crave it!” So don’t eat it. “They installed a ball pit and climbing tubes for kids!” So don’t use a fast food restaurant as free daycare.

There was a security checkpoint I had to line up for at the entrance, flanked by feather banners bearing a sideways Myonutrix logo. A pimply teenager dressed as much like a cop as legally allowed waved a scanner over my coat and bag.

It was the type used to detect traces of explosive residue. Looked high tech on the outside, but I knew from a rival channel’s report that on the inside, it’s just a grid of honeybees. Individually restrained, conscripted into serving as organic scent detectors.

Each little harness pins their head against a sugar water dispenser, and forced air pipe which is what they’re sampling from. They only lick at the air with their proboscis if certain molecules are present, and that reaction is detected by a tiny, down-facing camera over each bee.

It pains my heart to contemplate. Who doesn’t love honey bees? Why couldn’t it be wasps or hornets instead? Everyone hates those! To think, even insects have jobs now. Roped into serving a system they don’t understand or benefit from.

Like those comatose chickens. Or factory farming. Or kids in a sweatshop. Or office workers in cubicles. The convergent evolution of market forces sure likes confining animals to grids. Then again, that’s what my own cells look like under a microscope.

“Welcome, members of the public and associated press!” Henry bellowed, forgetting his lapel mic for a moment. I winced, covering my ears, as did many others. “Oh, pardon me, new sound system” he fibbed, sweaty sausage fingers fiddling with the microphone.

He stood upon the sort of outdoor plywood stage one finds at festivals, which flexed and groaned at his every movement. Overhead, a larger Myonutrix banner stretched between poles. His own suit was likewise stretched, full to bursting. Quite the contrast, with slender photogenic young women to either side. Eye candy, to Henry’s eye broccoli.

Something off about them, hard to pin down. I’ve been to enough trade shows and whatnot by now, models always carry themselves a certain way. These girls stood around awkwardly, winced at flash photography, and their skin was the same shade of pink as Henry’s.

Nieces or something? Sunburned? Or cheap cosmetics. Henry cleared his throat. “Some o’ you on the social medias have asked, does Henry Bronstein eat at Beefy Bill’s?” One of the models handed him a wrapped hamburger from a mylar warming pouch.

“You bet I do, folks!” He hesitated, staring anxiously at the burger as he unwrapped it…then took a tiny, reluctant bite. “Mmmmm-mmmm!” Henry made a show of rubbing his belly. “That’s good product!” Myonutrix plants in the audience applauded with conspicuous enthusiasm, while no one else in attendance so much as yawned.

“I’m proud to offer a product like this, in partnership with Beefy Bill’s, to hungry Iowans!” It stuck out like a sore thumb, how he kept calling it “product”. He didn’t seem self-aware about it, or more likely was reciting a script that Beefy Bill’s legal team approved beforehand, from which he dared not deviate.

“I challenge anyone out there who hasn’t yet tried Myonutrix no-kill patties, steaks or sausage to take a chance on it! As forty years in this business have taught me, no is merely a speedbump on the way to yes.”

While he prattled on, I studied those who applauded a moment earlier. With eyes trained to pick out oddities over two decades of investigative journalism, I noted that they all had the same off-pink skin tone as the models on stage.

No visible moles. As I got closer, weaving through the crowd, I couldn’t see any body hair. Not even peach fuzz, though it could be the lighting. “Nice day, huh?” He didn’t react at first. Maybe he couldn’t hear me, with his ears tucked into his hat? When I repeated myself, he glanced at me nervously, then turned away.

A suited man, perhaps an organizer for company plants, got between us. “I’ll answer any questions you may have.” I peered around him, but he shifted his body to block my view. I looked closely at his eyes. Glass lenses, behind which mechanical apertures dilated.

A biobot. Not Myonutrix, surprisingly, as it’s exactly the sort of side hustle I would expect them to have their tentacles in. Scanning the crowd turned up four additional suited men, all with identical builds and facial features.

“Did Henry get a bulk discount on your batch? Get lost, meat puppet. I only talk to real people.” The AI, running on a brain-shaped quantum computer surgically installed in the skull cavity of a living, vat-grown body, rebuked me. “Rude! There’s actually ongoing debate in academic circles, concerning our personhood.”

I couldn’t make out the pupils of the girls on stage with Henry, but I now figured them for more of the same. Mass production of attractive, compliant women…and, more rarely, men…was always the value proposition behind biobots, who filled a gap in the market left by the extermination of cuntweeds.

Altogether more ethically problematic, they nevertheless remain legal in certain roles for economic reasons. If Uncle Sam bans them, America loses to China and India. Both of which, on account of an oversupply of lonely young men, were never going to turn down assembly line brides.

I can reliably spot the female ones, since they’re all cloned from the same narrow pool of licensed celebrity genomes. Even before biobots, supermodels stood out from regular people so much as to have an artificial quality about them. Biobots only made it literal.

The male ones still catch me offguard, on account of lacking lifelong exposure to the same dozen or so attractive men, in media not aimed at my demographic. I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of beautiful famous women, having interviewed most of them. Not so much beautiful, famous men.

Now closely followed by the irritatingly polite flesh golem, I gave up on losing him in the crowd and instead toyed with him a little, having already recorded the footage I came for. “Do YOU eat Beefy Bill’s?” The clean cut, computer-brained clone denied it.

“We periodically consume a nutrient slurry.” I gagged. “Sounds appetizing.” He raised one eyebrow as if confused. As if he felt any kind of way, about anything. “I neither like, nor dislike it. The flavor is inoffensive, and it’s nutritionally complete.”

What a tagline! Henry ought to have him promote the stuff. “Does anyone at corporate make inappropriate use of you? Your biological anatomy, I mean. What about the girls?” Without missing a beat, he parroted the usual refrain. “That question lies outside of my ethical guidelines.”

Surely that’s backwards? I didn’t care to waste time banging my head against the brick wall of canned responses, however. The coffee from earlier just hit my lower intestine, so I sought out a restroom. The suited goon tailed me every step of the way, making sure I didn’t go anywhere or film anything outside what my press pass allows.

The restrooms were inside of a trailer with a logo on the side reading “Whole Hog Artisanal Waste Handling”. I dreaded what could be artisanal about a restroom, but at least it wasn’t a Honey Bucket. The doors were six feet off the ground, accessible by folding stairs leading up to an elevated landing.

Inside was a modest mural depicting a two story cobblestone structure in a medieval village, with a pigsty on the lower level. The caption read “Our symbiotic approach was invented in ancient China. Ancient solutions for modern problems!”

Should’ve been warning enough of what I would see when I lifted the lid. Yet it still shocked me to peer down that hole into the dark, putrid chamber below, and see a pig’s face staring up at me. It oinked impatiently.

Nope. Not doing this. Nope nope nope. I hurried out of the upper room, then down the stairs outside, still fumbling with my belt. I just about had it fastened properly when I reached the parking lot. I doubled over and retched a few times, then drove back to the farmhouse at ten over the limit with my cheeks clenched tightly enough to crush coal into diamonds.

Just my luck, I got pulled over. Following a hasty, strained explanation for my speeding, the officer let me unload behind some bushes….but still ticketed me, all the same. While I stood there breathing heavily, as though I’d just run a marathon, I sighted a billboard beside the road for “Baby Bump”. The officer followed my gaze.

“My wife had that procedure. She was so depressed after our oldest left the nest, just wanted to go back to how it was. You know, barefoot, pregnant. Being pampered morning, noon and night.” He gave me a knowing grin, assuming experience I didn’t share.

I asked why anyone would want to stay pregnant. “Oh it’s not forever. Twenty years at most, until her body reabsorbs it. I’m told the baby has genes for progeria horizontally integrated, so it won’t grow any bigger.” He said all that without any visible trace of discomfort. Maybe I’m the strange one?

There weren’t any torture pets left on the lawn. I passed Winter on my way in, kneeling in the grass, distraught at something I could’ve told her would happen. Javier passed me on the stairs. “You look winded! What’d you do, run here?” I ignored him for the time being, so urgent was my need to lie down.

I don’t know why it was the pig toilet that did it. Only the latest float in that ghoulish parade no one else seems bothered by. But then, don’t I march with it? Hopelessly enmeshed in the same system I recoil from, at once a product and consumer.

Is there anything else I can do, besides documenting? I longed, like Autumn, for an escape from this system. But it blankets the globe! Whichever direction I flee, I will only find more of it. Breathing exercises were some help. Soon, my heart no longer raced. Slowly, unsurely, I settled on my original conclusion; this report is all I can do. I’m on the right track, I just need to keep digging.

Javier knocked, then entered at my invitation. He handed me the micro SD card. “I took some risks I probably shouldn’t have, but I think you’re gonna like what’s on there.” He sat on the bed behind me as I slotted the fingernail sized card into my laptop, using a Beefy Bill’s napkin to wipe waste secretions from its exhaust port in the process.

Shaky footage of guys in hazmat suits hacking away at the edges of the flesh mass. Then Henry on the phone, filmed through a keyhole. “I don’t know, it isn’t supposed to keep growing. The pituitary limiter gene got corrupted, someone’s introducing outside genetic material.”

Did he already suspect us? Having assumed we’re saboteurs, though I suppose in a sense we are. I began to ask Javier a question, but he hushed me. “Just keep watching.” A view out the window, framing a lovely sunset. Then the camera suddenly pivots, to the same workers from before…hazmat suits around their ankles…taking turns with the fleshmass.

What a day. When it rains, it pours, I guess. “Each sac grows a complete set of human organs…including the reproductive system. All of them female, presumably because a hermaphroditic variant would be able to impregnate itself.”

I quoted Jurassic Park, but Javier wasn’t in the mood. “Great care was taken in the CRISPR phase to prevent exactly this scenario. Whatever limits the designers put on mitosis, on mutation and cell variety…all out the window, now. It’s already expanding faster than they can destroy fresh growth.”

If true, then I was in a race against time to finish my report. There seemed to me no way Henry could keep a lid on this for long. Eventually it would outgrow that warehouse, and he’d either have to call in the CDC or the FDA, depending whose jurisdiction an edible rogue tumor falls under.

“It may not come to that” Javier assured me. “Increased…emissions…have already fouled the methane fuel cell which powers the warehouse. At this rate of growth, it should starve itself in a week or two, providing Henry has the good sense to stop feeding it.”

I was on my feet in a flash, fully recovered and filled with fresh purpose. “We’ve got to be on-site when it busts through the warehouse walls. That’ll be the money shot!” I gathered all the equipment I thought we might need into a duffel bag, which I then stowed in the trunk.

I scoped out the warehouse parcel on Google Earth, looking for well-worn dirt roads from which I could infer the path of security patrols. Javier and I settled on making our move just before dawn. Wanting the cover of night under which to approach, but daylight for exterior filming.

That only gave us the one shot, with no do-overs if Javier’s timeline was wrong. Autumn agreed when we ran the plan by her over dinner. Javier admitted that he, too, wanted more time. “I got lucky with the recent footage, but I bet you anything that something worse is going on. There were sections of the lab only Henry himself had clearance for.”

Winter served up more veggie slop, different color this time. “You know” started Autumn, “I’ve been thinking about your little Smurf village remark.” I apologized, but it turned out I read her wrong. “Not at all! I like being challenged to think my ideas through. That’s how one grows.”

I felt private guilt from how maturely she took it. Provoking growth was far from my motive for pointing out those parallels. “Do you know of Mondragon?” I confessed that I didn’t. “It’s a federation of co-ops. You’ll just call it communism, but it’s actually competing quite successfully with traditional companies, and their autocratic power structures.”

Within a larger global capitalist ecosystem, I pointed out. All she’d changed was the size of the basic unit. “Yes, yes. But even so, it proves there’s a different way that still works. Not imposed by force from the top down, as in Russia or China. Instead a grassroots approach, grown from the bottom up.”

Her parents’ co-op was nothing new to me. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting several, back in Portland. Nothing in my view of things necessarily pits me against the concept of a worker owned grocery store, bookstore, or coffee shop.

“Wouldn’t you agree that communism works fine on a small scale, as in Russia’s original farming communes, where everyone knows each other?” I didn’t know that particular chapter of history in detail, but granted her conceit.

“The problem is scaling it up too far, beyond Dunbar’s number. Trust is lost, and with it, social cohesion. Like taking a golf cart on the highway.” Or scaling up a single cell to the size of an elephant, Winter added.

“Supposing you instead keep individual co-ops small and intimate, a workable size. But then add them together, organize under common rules, and share information?” I asked if she meant like the way cells comprise organs. “...And how organs comprise a body, exactly!”

We were out of my depth by this point, but I rolled with it, glad to be on her good side again. “Funny how everything converges on the same patterns as biology” I offhandedly observed. That stuck with her for some reason, as she fell silent, visibly troubled.

“Hey, do you still have that drone?” I prompted Javier to clarify. “The one with thermal vision? You used it during your stakeout of the Dakota Access pipeline, to spot leaks.” In fact I did, but explained that thermal vision works differently from night vision, such that it wouldn’t yield usable footage.

He clasped my shoulder. “Take off your film-making hat for a moment. We could still use it to spot security, to spy on what workers are up to in the warehouse…” I shuddered. “...And monitor the growth of the fleshmass.”

He was onto something. This way we could get a better idea of how long until it breaks containment, without fully committing ourselves. If the prognosis is negative, we could find out before sunrise, then retreat to the farmhouse before security finds us.

As we would be idling my car’s bioreactor for several hours, Javier and I stopped by a filling station on the way, to top up the protein paste. It took a hot minute, on account of paste pumping a good deal slower than gas ever did.

While I waited, I turned on the radio. Boggling inwardly, as I adjusted the knob, that we now live in a world where combustion engines are vanishingly rare…but radio’s still around. The future does arrive, on its own schedule. Just not all at once, or evenly distributed.

A commercial came on for some local steakhouse. “Head on down to Buckshot Billy’s, the only fine dining establishment in the tri-state area where you pick out the heifer you want…and shoot ‘er!” A patient, deep voice advised “Timmy” to be careful with the rifle. “I can really pick any cow?” came his excited, falsetto reply.

“Sure you can, champ. But I’d go for one that’s asleep, so it don’t know what’s coming. Cortisol sours the meat.” The two unseen voice actors shared ten long seconds of wholesome laughter before fading into the next ad, this time for discount tires. Buckshot Billy, huh? Any relation to Beefy Bill? How many Bills are out there? Have I stumbled onto a meat mascot cinematic universe?

Another car pulled in at the next pump over, spraying wet, flatulent bursts of waste emission from its tailpipe. The bacteria in those reactors are pretty efficient, but they don’t digest everything. The driver got out, looking at the stain with obvious embarrassment as a station employee sighed, then fetched a mop.

He locked eyes with me. Too late to pretend I didn’t see him, that would only make it weirder. “If cars are gonna do that” he joked, “we may as well go back to horses.” I’d have agreed, if I didn’t dread finding out how Myonutrix might improve a horse.

I dwelled on his joke while navigating the patchy country road, cornfields to either side. Where’s the lie? Horses were already fine vehicles. More advanced, self-replicating nanotechnology than anything our brightest minds have yet engineered.

But that didn’t stop automakers from reinventing it, only worse. No longer self-healing, no longer growing more of itself in miniature at the cost of hay, water and sunlight. Features, not bugs, as each shortcoming creates jobs; Manufacturing, replacement parts, proprietary fuel…shit, maybe I’m the one who should join the Amish?

Javier, bless him, thought to buy snacks and energy drinks while inside. Nothing I would normally choose to put into my body, but having recently bought a coffee from BB’s, I figured the threshold was long since crossed.

We saw nothing of note on that first night, nor the second or third. The warehouse walls were indeed buckling outward. The thermal signature of the fleshmass showed clearly through the corrugated metal roof. We timed the security patrols, and found them impressively regular.

On night four, things began to change. Smaller patrols, further apart. Could I safely conclude it was because they had bigger problems to deal with? The walls, I assumed at first, but my drone spied no human sized heat signatures around the warehouse exterior.

Then, bulbs began to flicker. Exterior floodlights were shut off entirely, while windows still shone from within. “Something’s wrong” I muttered, peering through a pair of plastic, dollar store binoculars. Though, unbelievably, it’s now the “Five to Ten Dollar Store”. Used to be a proper country.

“Maybe he flaked on the power bills?” Doubtful. “Henry’s got a bottomless war chest, otherwise water would’ve been shut off too…but I still see sprinklers goin’. More like the fuel cell finally gave out. Matter of time, now.”

When no security patrols appeared the following night, and all windows went dark, we resolved to break in. Something had to give, between the fortune I was spending on paste, and eating Winter’s curry every night.

Javier must’ve felt ready as I was to be done with this sordid business, having not shown up for work since the patrols stopped. No call, no email, as if no one’s home. I double checked socials, expecting a deluge of confused employees complaining about the outage.

There were just a few. Out of towners like us, judging by the location set in their profiles. All others with Myonutrix listed as their employer hadn’t posted for days, and everything before that read suspiciously like AI.

If there were answers to be had, I knew I’d only find them inside that warehouse. So, after landing my drone and plugging it into the 12 volt car charger, Javier and I set off towards the grow site, pry bars in hand.

We didn’t need them, Javier’s company ID still opened the door. On emergency power, the only working lights in the facility were red LED strips outlining corridors, stairs and walkways, at ankle height. “Hold up.” Javier put his arm out to stop me. “What’s that on the floor?”

Pink, damp and gently pulsating, it was unmistakably some kind of pseudopod recently grown from the fleshmass. Inching cautiously along, using our phones as flashlights, we encountered living tissue creeping up walls.

“Floormeat’s one thing. But wallmeat?” Javier turned his light to the ceiling. Alas, no ceiling meat. Would’ve been a rare find. The further in we penetrated, the more overgrown everything became. Clusters of organs dangled from open vents. Arteries as thick as my wrist rhythmically throbbed, pumping blood to the furthest reaches of this…living building.

Even holding my shirt over my nose and mouth, I could still smell it. The fumes made my eyes water, and left a greasy residue on my skin. The sound of a baby’s laughter echoed down the hall. Around the corner, we found triplets…still damp with amniotic fluid, nursing from breasts adorning all sides of a recent growth.

Another was being born as we looked on, speechless. Crowning, through one of eight birth canals scattered across the intruding fleshmass. On taking its first breath, I expected crying. Instead, it squealed.

Then, we found Henry. Only just recognizable, fused into the fleshmass, cradling one of its many offspring. “Is that you, Javier? …Thought so. Had a look at the security footage after you worked late. I trusted you, gave you a chance…but I’m not angry. Come, look.”

We descended the rickety metal stairwell from Henry’s office, but stopped short of the floormeat. “Don’t be shy. No need for that now. Didn’t I say I was creating the future?” He extended the gurgling infant towards us. “Well, here it is.”

Pointed ears. A broad, upturned nose with wide nostrils. No trace of hair, and off-pink skin. The spitting image. “A living cornucopia! Everything I need, she provides. Profits, nourishment…even new employees. How’s that for vertical integration?”

A pair of uniformed workers snuck up behind us, but contrary to expectation, did not attack. “Boys! My beautiful boys…show them.” The two hulking, yet baby faced brutes removed their hard hats…revealing the pointed tips of their ears.

They made no effort to stop us when we backed away. Nor when, clear of the floormeat, we booked it. The structure shuddered all around us, a deep metallic groan reverberating through its sweat-rusted corridors. “The walls, Javier! That’s got to be the walls buckling! If we hurry, there’s still-”

The warehouse walls finally gave way, crashing down under the weight of so much flesh. Much of the roof collapsed with it, onto an organism that was, by now, too large to meaningfully injure. “Shit, we missed it! Forget drone footage, just use your phone!” I cursed my cheap phone’s terrible black levels, the footage would undoubtedly be a mess of artifacts in this dim lighting.

I made sure my face was in every shot, so it’s harder for clip farmers to steal. But when we heard distant sirens, it was our cue to make ourselves scarce. The sun rose that day on a world I felt certain would be forever changed by the story I would soon break.

Early birds at Beefy Bill’s would be the first to find out, for the simple reason that nothing else was open yet. No use telling the cops what I’m sure they already knew, being on Henry’s payroll. Triumphantly, I burst through the glass double-doors.

“Mark the date, folks! This town’s about to be famous!” None spoke. They all slowly turned to me in unison, and stared with empty eyes. Only now did I notice the shade of their skin…and the little points on their ears. One by one they lost interest in my outburst, and went back to eating their slop.

I’ve never cut together a video so quickly. Bit of a slapdash job, but time was of the essence. Hopefully my editor would understand why I didn’t wait for him to wake up. My report passed a million views less than an hour after submitting it through the secure upload portal. Then another four million, over the next thirty minutes.

My view count just kept expanding…but so did the fleshmass. By noon, legacy media had camera crews on site. The bigger it got, the faster it grew. All the while, its chimeric progeny scurried about in the nude, foraging to satisfy their mother’s endless appetite…as termites fetch food for their queen.

By the next day, it had grown beyond the borders of the warehouse parcel. By the end of the week, it engulfed Titonka. Now visible on the horizon, even from Autumn’s farmhouse, the writing was on the wall. A tearful Winter refused to leave the Foodbeast to die, and Autumn likewise wouldn’t part with Winter. So, Javier and I hit the road without them.

That was when the two of us still labored under the illusion that the fleshmass would run out of steam. If not starvation, thirst should’ve stopped it…until the clouds rolled in. Greedily it drank the rain. Insatiably, it consumed all natural flora and fauna its offspring could get their hands on.

A state of emergency was declared, three weeks in. Mortars, flamethrowers, bombing runs…nothing the national guard threw at it could destroy that stubborn abomination faster than it healed. The fleshmass had no need to outwit or out-fight us…instead, it outgrew us.

I thought the ocean would stop it, I really did, but flesh is buoyant. Around this time Javier and I parted ways, each of us wanting to be with our families. Not so much believing the end was upon us, but an unthinkable, unbearable change.

Satellite imagery revealed radically transformed landscapes. Hills, valleys and plains, blanketed in living tissue. Pulsing, thriving, as if it had always been there. Forests were crushed, starved of light and suffocated beneath the weight of the fleshmass, nature’s old guard surrendering to something new.

My report hit 34 million views before the internet shut off, a few days before power and water. No matter, it’s in my city now. Thick tendrils, big around as tree trunks, have invaded every street. I milk the one outside my apartment every day, as looters nabbed all the bottled water ahead of its arrival.

Once panic died down, day to day life resumed, such as it is now. The mass feeds us. We drink from its innumerable teats. It even shelters those daring enough to inhabit its gaping cavities. Before long, I struggle to remember life without it.

There are, at least, no more Pocket Torture Pets. No cuntweeds, or pig toilets. No more rent or taxes, for that matter. A pointy-eared porcine hominid cuts me a slice from the nearest tendril. At first, I decline. Then my stomach growls, eroding my resolve.

I mean…if I drove a few miles beyond city limits, I could probably still find something healthy to eat…but the tendril is right here. Besides, what am I, a prude? I receive the flesh offering, I take a bite…and honestly? I don’t hate it.

1. Image by NanoBanana Pro